"The Sierra club. They've since come on board but they had an unfortunate sound bite.Cuisinarts of the Sky [wind-works.org]"
Guilt by association.
Not so, as it was a Sierra employee. They can regret an employee's actions, but they are responsible for them, as they themselves admit. For what it's worth, I admitted they regretted the quote, and never implied it was a corporate position.
"Also, I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes up names for groups of people like "Environmental-Deniers." You seem to suffer from delusion."
Ad Hominem.
That's true. But ironically, yours was too, by stating that anyone who attributes "bird killer" quotes is an "Environmental-Denier." And I still think that's a bit paranoid. In any case, there was no refutable statement made (I can't literally prove such a conspiracy doesn't exist - similar to "white crow").
"Because 1) many people, well-informed or not, do believe it, even if they're not spokespeople for major organizations."
Straw Man.
Not true. I contended that self-labelled environmentalists believe that wind power kills birds. My analysis above supports that theory. You countered by saying that intelligent people don't believe "birdkiller" theories - which is a borderline strawman itself. Address the question - do any people believe wind power kills birds? If so, it refutes your ad hominem/conspiracy theory. A straw man would be my refuting something you didn't say, but which is easier to refute. I'm not - you claimed that all instances of claimed "birdkiller" beliefs are fraudulent, and I refute that.
"2) The Sierra club put its foot in its mouth with that "Cuisinart" quote. It was catchy, and it caught on."
Begging the Question
Not even close - you'd only be correct if a representative of Sierra didn't say that. One did. And the Sierra club admits it, as was in the link I posted.
I think you just evidinced a new class of meta-logical-fallacy - using a random and misattributed string of logical-fallacy terms in a misguided attempt to refute an argument, without using any actual analysis.
I really don't see any reason to assume that. Methinks you have your stereotypes confused - you're thinking Japanese. No one ever accused the French of working too hard.
I barely get 30 out of some my employees and they bill out 40. That lost time is paid by my clients or my boss, who may have to write it off. It makes projects go over budget and impacts my salary and bonuses. And then they complain when they haven't had a raise in while.
That's life dealing with employees, and if you have the occasion to deal with foreign workers, I doubt you'll notice a productivity difference. Hey, people are lazy. If they weren't, they wouldn't need a manager. Be glad, because that's you.;)
try similar logic at an airport and see how far you get. (You moron). Re-read my post and maybe you'll see what I'm really asking.
Hint: If an answer seems too obvious, you're an idiot who couldnt even find the question.
I reread your post, I still understand it, and it's based on a flawed logical premise. I was being nice until you decided to start being a shit, but you're a fucking idiot. You failed logic 101. More like 001, the remedial version.
As far as airports, basic logic doesn't work with those employees, and is irrelevant to this situation.
The answer *is* obvious. If I couldn't find the question - perhaps because it was stupid to begin with?
You have full access to every document, and that makes you less likely to steal something? Can you explain the logic in that?
I'll do it for him. It means that, since he could already steal anything he wants and the company evidently trusts him not to exercise this ability, having a cellphone, even a camera phone like they're worried about, won't increase his ability to thieve company IP.
Basically, why would a camera phone make this more likely when he's allowed to copy the documents anyway?
I have found that most of my fellow countrymen think they are doing their employers a favor by working for them when it in reality they are doing you a favor by employing you. Everybody wants a great place to work but when employers let the rules slide, the majority of people take advantage of the employer and when the employer cracks down he's an asshole. When I am at work I try to limit the amount of BS time I have. Every hour not billed to the client costs the company money or the client which is worse than jipping the company. I don't smoke and I don't chit chat on the phone or with other co-workers all day long. I am here to do a job and I want to get it done and go home.
Don't know what you're comparing this "American" attitude to, because the sense of employee entitlement is generally higher in Europe. They're more pro-labor by far - including France's 35-hour work week.
windows users shouldn't be surprised at new viruses; it's not like they're getting worse, or like users are getting any smarter. generally speaking, if you're not an idiot, you won't get a virus. if you're not an idiot and you do, you can get rid of it easily--they really only seem to hurt people who are already pretty ignorant.
Do you administer a windows machine that isn't behind a company firewall and has an always-on internet connection? Because it isn't easy to keep viruses out. Hell, even NAV only updates signatures once a week, generally, so there's ample opportunity to get a virus.
Yes, you can generally get rid of them easily, thanks to Symantec's auto-remove tools, but 1) you have to know to do so, and the virus generally doesn't email you to tell you this, and in the lag time between infection and NAV update it's generally done something to disable NAV (as this very worm does, if you RTFA). So we're getting to the point where removal isn't trivial.
As a mostly linux/mac user, it's tempting to agree, but keeping a windows box locked down is a full time job. Just because you're not an idiot doesn't mean you have time to do all the shit you need to do to keep windows secure.
Why would you say this? Which "conservation camp" believes this bunk? Reasonably informed people DO NOT BELIEVE this. It is untrue, constantly parroted by Environmental-Deniers in order to discredit Environmentalism.
The Sierra club. They've since come on board but they had an unfortunate sound bite.Cuisinarts of the Sky
Also, I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes up names for groups of people like "Environmental-Deniers." You seem to suffer from delusion.
I can see through this convenient "discredit-propaganda", why dont you?
Because 1) many people, well-informed or not, do believe it, even if they're not spokespeople for major organizations. 2) The Sierra club put its foot in its mouth with that "Cuisinart" quote. It was catchy, and it caught on.
I dunno if you should have so many mod points for that one... it was just too damn easy... Its like trying to hit the ground with a dart... you'll never miss.
But if you do aim at the ground and miss, you just learned how to fly. Or, I guess the dart did. Whatever.
The whole article seems a bit phony. Especially the use of the word "anti" by Mr. Soto. There is one group of people who are fond of using the word "anti" to describe those who dislike spam. I get a strong feeling that this is not just some innocent guy that likes to buy from spam, and his admission of spamming once before leaves me even more suspicious.
While he probably is an active spammer, I definitely consider myself anti-spam. And I don't need anyone to attach that label for me.
In fact, if I weren't so damned lazy, I'd track this moron down and kill him. And his children. And the "proud" 45-year-old grandfather's grandchildren as well.
Those old styrofoam containers were also much easier to recycle than the corrogated paper that they use now. A good example of the destructive power of clueless tree huggers and the PR obsessed corps that listen to them.
I don't mean to be pedantic, but your point does expose a rift between different sorts of environmentalists. A true "tree hugger" would far prefer the use of styrofoam to that of paper which comes from - dare I say - trees!
Another great battle is over wind power. You'd think all the environmentalists would be on top of that one. Not so - it disrupts migratory patterns and splatters a lot of birds, so many conservationists are against it. Same with things like tidal power (similar effect on fish).
Again, pedanticism aside, the environmental "faction" is far more fractured than you might think. Frequently the anti-global-warming, conservation, and wilderness camps take diametrically opposing views.
As for 'too soon'. The current prediction for the peak is 2004. However, I believe oil production has been dropping slightly each year since 2000, but that might just be random crap.
We'll soon know if the peak's 2004, and I'd bet a lot of money it's not. The predictions I've seen of that are based on fitting data to rather arbitrary models. I don't believe it for a second. As for decline since 2000, I would say two things. 1) there have been greater declines than that (after 1973) followed by long-time rises, and 2) oil production tracks the economy, which has declined since 2000. Oil production will increase.
Anyway, if the price of oil rises it feeds into every item in the economy. Its as if the interest rates were being continually jacked up. A sure fire way to slow an economy.
That's certainly true, and the result would be bad, but I fall on my previous analysis that oil becoming gradually harder to get will gradually drive up the price to the point that something else will be more attractive. I don't think it will be a jarring process. We just need to get the ball rolling.
kind of hoped that with all the advances in solar cells etc we would be soon moving to some kind of manufacturing of artificial fuels or replacements such as oil from coal, but really I must have been deluding myself. How long does it take to retool the world economy for this.
Two problems: 1) oil lobbyists who don't want alternatives, and 2) as you say, retooling. Possibly a third: can't use nuclear because of NIMBY ("not in my back yard").
. Guess what I'm really saying is you haven't calmed my worries.:(
I wasn't trying to alltogether - I just don't think it's going to be one of those things where some worker turns on the oil drill one day, and we find the world is all out of oil. I think the gradualness of it and the economics will largely take care of themselves. Not that there won't be some growing pains in the process, though.
Of course, the real problem is going to be weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels before the third world industrializes too far, because there's a nightmare in that too.
It wouldn't matter who made the call or when, as long as the money came from Microsoft. If it came directly from BillG himself, then it still wouldn't matter would it? He's the head cheese of Microsoft, and his money comes from Microsoft too, doesn't it?
And Microsoft gets its money from grease, so what's the problem?
eah yeah theres heaps of oil in the ground but if its 5 times more expensive then its no good cause the economies of the world will collapse. Here's the scary bit: according to predictions (by geologists) in the next few years (or by 2010)
No way it's that soon. It's still coming up too fast for that - it's not going to be like hitting a wall, as individual wells will go dry at different times, we'll gradually start tapping the stuff that's kind of hard to drill, before moving on to the stuff that's really hard to drill.
There are also other options - someone mentioned bio-fuels. In addition, coal, of which we have absolutely assloads, can be treated chemically to yield gasoline and such. This program was started after the 70's embargo and actually got pretty far, but it cost about $2/gallon (can't remember what year those dollar estimates were pegged to), which wasn't competitive then. By the late 80's, we got complacent because oil was cheap again, and funding was cut for such programs.
Ultimately, if we had to, I bet a coal-based fuel wouldn't cost more than $2.50-$3 a gallon today if it were scaled up. Not pleasureable, no - but we're nearly paying that now in LA, and I believe the cost is currently higher than that in Europe now.
So no, I don't think the "doom and gloom" scenario will come to pass that easily.
In this case, "they" are the french people, and the freedom they have is a collective freedom of buying blank CDs. The problem is that only the ones that really steal the music are the ones who have the advantage over everyone else. So the idea is that they are all trapped under everyone else yet together they are free. That's how modern socialist systems work and they work pretty well in some places but that doesn't make them fair.
That makes absolutely no sense. What are they, together, free *from*? Piracy? That's like saying people in 1984 had freedom in that they were free of independent thought. Bottom line, that isn't freedom.
As an example a french artist who records his own music will pay the extra tax to cover for the music that will be in the end stolen from him.
As an aside, how many French musicians are having their music ripped off anyway?
Maybe I'm blind, but I just don't see the benefit to Pixar here. Unless they got some sweetheart deal from Jobs, they now must buy all new hardware and pay for software updates. I noticed there was a comment about challenging Apple to come up with a way to view HD media in smaller file sizes, but that's just software compression, right? Except for the Cocoa interface, how hard would it be to have Pixlet running on their existing systems, especially since Pixar helped develop it in the first place? Please help me out here.
From Jobs' point of view, it's shuffling $$ from one company of which he's CEO to another. Also, I imagine the greatest part of Pixar's budget is labor and other non-b0xen based costs. I'm also sure they have a somewhat fixed upgrade cycle, and the pegged this cycle to be the switch.
As far as software, well, it shouldn't be hard to port whatever they need of their stuff to mac since GCC works reasonably well on the mac, and most of their stuff is either open-source or in house.
As far as Pixlet, I doubt that was the motivation to move for the reasons you cite. I think this was a move Jobs wanted to make, and they're trying to spin Pixlet as the "killer app" that motivated it, but I don't believe that.
Question: before you said this, did you actually review the reactions in other countries?!?
Because in my opinion, at least in France, these taxes have been controversial, especially among computer users in who use CDs for backing up their data. Also the tax was proposed at some point to be extended to hard drives and there was of course much debate against that.
Yes, that's not the point. I'm talking about international response. Rights restricting laws in Washington are pasted on international newspapers around the globe. The same is not true for other, supposedly more "liberal" countries (for example, France or Canada). I'm not sure whether it's because these countries fail to interest the international community, or whether they get a free pass because they're supposedly more liberal and enlightened.
The only reason you expect to get less sold out by liberals is because you've fallen for the propaganda. If you do any kind of research into the facts, you'll find that it's the liberals in these governments all over the world that are completely in bed with business.
That's my point exactly. When I said "we," that was to avoid getting modded "-23243, Troll." I've realized that for some time.
The one thing I will give liberals. They're very good at propaganda.
Not hard when you own the journalists. When 90+% of journalists vote Democrat in the US, you won't get fair election coverage, whether you back Green, Libertarian, Republican, or whatever.
They have a consistant loosing record in wars and require other nations help in getting their country back after loosing battles and being occupied. I think this stems back to WW I.
Nah, it all started at Waterloo. They haven't won a war since the early 1800's under Napoleon. And they started getting their asses handed to them by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war in the mid-late 1800's. Basically, as soon as Germany united their fractious territory, they started kicking French ass.
The French would run away fromm a group of German pre-schoolers.
Must have been nice. While your grandfather was laughing at the french, my grandfather was in Beligum fighting to free them (and the rest of Europe).
You guess wrong. Actually, my grandfather was in France fighting to liberate them. He was in the battle of the bulge. He had terrible nightmares and would wake up screaming - but he wouldn't talk about what happened there.
Yes, this is why France is annoying. You save their ass and De Gaulle gives you shit for your trouble.
So I still laugh at them, as they've never done a thing to atone for their cowardice that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives - plus innumerable British, Soviet, and Eastern European that I don't have numbers for.
This TAX has generated huge controversy in our contry (Spain) and was only passed due the UltraLiberal party now in government and its connections with the Society that manages this TAX (Kind of an Authors Guild bute quite unrelated to real the authors, btw)
And that shows how the definition of "liberal" has been changing for some time now. I imagine, as you imply, that the authors' "guild" is a front for your recording industry. Another example of a liberal government in bed with big business. Don't get me wrong - the conservatives always are - but here on slashdot, we expect to get less sold out by "liberals." Unfortunately, it's not happening.
So there are also "Kneejerks" and "Open-minded, rights protecting" people out here, the problems is that the relationship with the Bush Adm. is way stronger than i would like to! (do you remeber Azores treaty?)
There is that, to be sure - and I'm sure the reasoning comes back to economics and trade, with the hope that Bush would look favorably on Spain.
I'm sure there is great debate in your country about such matters, but the Iraq bit aside, no one really criticizes any country *except* the US for rights erosion, or so it seems to me. As such, I don't believe that blank CD tax would ever have a chance here (though I wait anxiously for the Washington morons to prove me wrong).
If anything, I would say that many of the European governments are selling out their people just as much as the US gov, but the worldwide scrutiny on our government keeps things somewhat in check.
Slashdot Mirror
Guilt by association.
Not so, as it was a Sierra employee. They can regret an employee's actions, but they are responsible for them, as they themselves admit. For what it's worth, I admitted they regretted the quote, and never implied it was a corporate position.
"Also, I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes up names for groups of people like "Environmental-Deniers." You seem to suffer from delusion."
Ad Hominem.
That's true. But ironically, yours was too, by stating that anyone who attributes "bird killer" quotes is an "Environmental-Denier." And I still think that's a bit paranoid. In any case, there was no refutable statement made (I can't literally prove such a conspiracy doesn't exist - similar to "white crow").
"Because 1) many people, well-informed or not, do believe it, even if they're not spokespeople for major organizations."
Straw Man.
Not true. I contended that self-labelled environmentalists believe that wind power kills birds. My analysis above supports that theory. You countered by saying that intelligent people don't believe "birdkiller" theories - which is a borderline strawman itself. Address the question - do any people believe wind power kills birds? If so, it refutes your ad hominem/conspiracy theory. A straw man would be my refuting something you didn't say, but which is easier to refute. I'm not - you claimed that all instances of claimed "birdkiller" beliefs are fraudulent, and I refute that.
"2) The Sierra club put its foot in its mouth with that "Cuisinart" quote. It was catchy, and it caught on."
Begging the Question
Not even close - you'd only be correct if a representative of Sierra didn't say that. One did. And the Sierra club admits it, as was in the link I posted.
I think you just evidinced a new class of meta-logical-fallacy - using a random and misattributed string of logical-fallacy terms in a misguided attempt to refute an argument, without using any actual analysis.
I really don't see any reason to assume that. Methinks you have your stereotypes confused - you're thinking Japanese. No one ever accused the French of working too hard.
I barely get 30 out of some my employees and they bill out 40. That lost time is paid by my clients or my boss, who may have to write it off. It makes projects go over budget and impacts my salary and bonuses. And then they complain when they haven't had a raise in while.
That's life dealing with employees, and if you have the occasion to deal with foreign workers, I doubt you'll notice a productivity difference. Hey, people are lazy. If they weren't, they wouldn't need a manager. Be glad, because that's you. ;)
I reread your post, I still understand it, and it's based on a flawed logical premise. I was being nice until you decided to start being a shit, but you're a fucking idiot. You failed logic 101. More like 001, the remedial version.
As far as airports, basic logic doesn't work with those employees, and is irrelevant to this situation.
The answer *is* obvious. If I couldn't find the question - perhaps because it was stupid to begin with?
I'll do it for him. It means that, since he could already steal anything he wants and the company evidently trusts him not to exercise this ability, having a cellphone, even a camera phone like they're worried about, won't increase his ability to thieve company IP.
Basically, why would a camera phone make this more likely when he's allowed to copy the documents anyway?
Don't know what you're comparing this "American" attitude to, because the sense of employee entitlement is generally higher in Europe. They're more pro-labor by far - including France's 35-hour work week.
Do you administer a windows machine that isn't behind a company firewall and has an always-on internet connection? Because it isn't easy to keep viruses out. Hell, even NAV only updates signatures once a week, generally, so there's ample opportunity to get a virus.
Yes, you can generally get rid of them easily, thanks to Symantec's auto-remove tools, but 1) you have to know to do so, and the virus generally doesn't email you to tell you this, and in the lag time between infection and NAV update it's generally done something to disable NAV (as this very worm does, if you RTFA). So we're getting to the point where removal isn't trivial.
As a mostly linux/mac user, it's tempting to agree, but keeping a windows box locked down is a full time job. Just because you're not an idiot doesn't mean you have time to do all the shit you need to do to keep windows secure.
The Sierra club. They've since come on board but they had an unfortunate sound bite.Cuisinarts of the Sky
Also, I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes up names for groups of people like "Environmental-Deniers." You seem to suffer from delusion.
I can see through this convenient "discredit-propaganda", why dont you?
Because 1) many people, well-informed or not, do believe it, even if they're not spokespeople for major organizations. 2) The Sierra club put its foot in its mouth with that "Cuisinart" quote. It was catchy, and it caught on.
But if you do aim at the ground and miss, you just learned how to fly. Or, I guess the dart did. Whatever.
I guess I omitted the word "supposedly" unintentionally. ;) But the conservation camp does believe it, and that was, indeed, the point.
While he probably is an active spammer, I definitely consider myself anti-spam. And I don't need anyone to attach that label for me.
In fact, if I weren't so damned lazy, I'd track this moron down and kill him. And his children. And the "proud" 45-year-old grandfather's grandchildren as well.
I don't mean to be pedantic, but your point does expose a rift between different sorts of environmentalists. A true "tree hugger" would far prefer the use of styrofoam to that of paper which comes from - dare I say - trees!
Another great battle is over wind power. You'd think all the environmentalists would be on top of that one. Not so - it disrupts migratory patterns and splatters a lot of birds, so many conservationists are against it. Same with things like tidal power (similar effect on fish).
Again, pedanticism aside, the environmental "faction" is far more fractured than you might think. Frequently the anti-global-warming, conservation, and wilderness camps take diametrically opposing views.
That's easy. Blowjob.
We'll soon know if the peak's 2004, and I'd bet a lot of money it's not. The predictions I've seen of that are based on fitting data to rather arbitrary models. I don't believe it for a second. As for decline since 2000, I would say two things. 1) there have been greater declines than that (after 1973) followed by long-time rises, and 2) oil production tracks the economy, which has declined since 2000. Oil production will increase.
Anyway, if the price of oil rises it feeds into every item in the economy. Its as if the interest rates were being continually jacked up. A sure fire way to slow an economy.
That's certainly true, and the result would be bad, but I fall on my previous analysis that oil becoming gradually harder to get will gradually drive up the price to the point that something else will be more attractive. I don't think it will be a jarring process. We just need to get the ball rolling.
kind of hoped that with all the advances in solar cells etc we would be soon moving to some kind of manufacturing of artificial fuels or replacements such as oil from coal, but really I must have been deluding myself. How long does it take to retool the world economy for this.
Two problems: 1) oil lobbyists who don't want alternatives, and 2) as you say, retooling. Possibly a third: can't use nuclear because of NIMBY ("not in my back yard").
. :(
Guess what I'm really saying is you haven't calmed my worries.
I wasn't trying to alltogether - I just don't think it's going to be one of those things where some worker turns on the oil drill one day, and we find the world is all out of oil. I think the gradualness of it and the economics will largely take care of themselves. Not that there won't be some growing pains in the process, though.
Of course, the real problem is going to be weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels before the third world industrializes too far, because there's a nightmare in that too.
And Microsoft gets its money from grease, so what's the problem?
Uh huh. And the Soviet people didn't lack freedom of speech, they were just free of having to be sent to gulag. Somebody warped the hell out of you.
No way it's that soon. It's still coming up too fast for that - it's not going to be like hitting a wall, as individual wells will go dry at different times, we'll gradually start tapping the stuff that's kind of hard to drill, before moving on to the stuff that's really hard to drill.
There are also other options - someone mentioned bio-fuels. In addition, coal, of which we have absolutely assloads, can be treated chemically to yield gasoline and such. This program was started after the 70's embargo and actually got pretty far, but it cost about $2/gallon (can't remember what year those dollar estimates were pegged to), which wasn't competitive then. By the late 80's, we got complacent because oil was cheap again, and funding was cut for such programs.
Ultimately, if we had to, I bet a coal-based fuel wouldn't cost more than $2.50-$3 a gallon today if it were scaled up. Not pleasureable, no - but we're nearly paying that now in LA, and I believe the cost is currently higher than that in Europe now.
So no, I don't think the "doom and gloom" scenario will come to pass that easily.
That makes absolutely no sense. What are they, together, free *from*? Piracy? That's like saying people in 1984 had freedom in that they were free of independent thought. Bottom line, that isn't freedom.
As an example a french artist who records his own music will pay the extra tax to cover for the music that will be in the end stolen from him.
As an aside, how many French musicians are having their music ripped off anyway?
From Jobs' point of view, it's shuffling $$ from one company of which he's CEO to another. Also, I imagine the greatest part of Pixar's budget is labor and other non-b0xen based costs. I'm also sure they have a somewhat fixed upgrade cycle, and the pegged this cycle to be the switch.
As far as software, well, it shouldn't be hard to port whatever they need of their stuff to mac since GCC works reasonably well on the mac, and most of their stuff is either open-source or in house.
As far as Pixlet, I doubt that was the motivation to move for the reasons you cite. I think this was a move Jobs wanted to make, and they're trying to spin Pixlet as the "killer app" that motivated it, but I don't believe that.
Because in my opinion, at least in France, these taxes have been controversial, especially among computer users in who use CDs for backing up their data. Also the tax was proposed at some point to be extended to hard drives and there was of course much debate against that.
Yes, that's not the point. I'm talking about international response. Rights restricting laws in Washington are pasted on international newspapers around the globe. The same is not true for other, supposedly more "liberal" countries (for example, France or Canada). I'm not sure whether it's because these countries fail to interest the international community, or whether they get a free pass because they're supposedly more liberal and enlightened.
So who is this "they," who has the "freedom," and what are "they" "free" to do?
Seems to me a society that doesn't allow individual freedom sure as shit isn't free.
That's my point exactly. When I said "we," that was to avoid getting modded "-23243, Troll." I've realized that for some time.
The one thing I will give liberals. They're very good at propaganda.
Not hard when you own the journalists. When 90+% of journalists vote Democrat in the US, you won't get fair election coverage, whether you back Green, Libertarian, Republican, or whatever.
Oh, by all means, the ungrateful French owe the Russians far more than they owe us. And a good bit to the British as well.
As I recall, more Russians died at Stalingrad than did Americans during the entire war.
Nah, it all started at Waterloo. They haven't won a war since the early 1800's under Napoleon. And they started getting their asses handed to them by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war in the mid-late 1800's. Basically, as soon as Germany united their fractious territory, they started kicking French ass.
The French would run away fromm a group of German pre-schoolers.
You guess wrong. Actually, my grandfather was in France fighting to liberate them. He was in the battle of the bulge. He had terrible nightmares and would wake up screaming - but he wouldn't talk about what happened there.
Yes, this is why France is annoying. You save their ass and De Gaulle gives you shit for your trouble.
So I still laugh at them, as they've never done a thing to atone for their cowardice that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives - plus innumerable British, Soviet, and Eastern European that I don't have numbers for.
And that shows how the definition of "liberal" has been changing for some time now. I imagine, as you imply, that the authors' "guild" is a front for your recording industry. Another example of a liberal government in bed with big business. Don't get me wrong - the conservatives always are - but here on slashdot, we expect to get less sold out by "liberals." Unfortunately, it's not happening.
So there are also "Kneejerks" and "Open-minded, rights protecting" people out here, the problems is that the relationship with the Bush Adm. is way stronger than i would like to! (do you remeber Azores treaty?)
There is that, to be sure - and I'm sure the reasoning comes back to economics and trade, with the hope that Bush would look favorably on Spain.
I'm sure there is great debate in your country about such matters, but the Iraq bit aside, no one really criticizes any country *except* the US for rights erosion, or so it seems to me. As such, I don't believe that blank CD tax would ever have a chance here (though I wait anxiously for the Washington morons to prove me wrong).
If anything, I would say that many of the European governments are selling out their people just as much as the US gov, but the worldwide scrutiny on our government keeps things somewhat in check.