In the tradition of the Internet, ...
on
ICANN Meetings
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· Score: 4
If there's a problem, we should fix it ourselves. And once the problem has been fixed in an actual implementation, then it will become a standard of its own right.
So what's this solution? Alternate root servers. Such a scheme might work like this:
I set up an alternate root server at foobazco.org. This root server functions as a "gateway" root server in that it's a root server in the alternate network but also has a name in the old network.
I make and distribute freely a cache file appropriate for my new root server(s).
I/the users of the new network set policies for name registration that actually make sense (reasonable people can disagree, but I'm sure it'll be better than what ICANN has done).
Users of the alternate network switch to the new root servers and register names in the new TLDs.
The new root servers allow access to the old network by adding a.x extension. So for example, what's now known as mycompany.com would be accessible as mycompany.com.x.
Conversely, users of the old network could reach the new network by appending.foobazco.org - or simply adding foobazco.org to their search path.
Everyone gets tired of typing the extra stuff and the old network goes away.
Somebody writes an RFC on the new network to make it official.
So, what do you think? Is this viable? It doesn't require any significant amount of work on the part of sysadmins or users, and in fact it'd be pretty easy to implement here. The only problem I see is getting people to use it, especially the corporations that are abusing the current system to their advantage. The solution to this, I think, is to make sure that the new ruleset offers something for everyone. I would suggest one set of TLDs, one per broad trademark area (media, retail, food, networking, hardware, software, etc.), in which you must hold a trademark in the relevant area to register it, and one set of TLDs in which registration is strictly FCFS. Registration in the trademark-protected TLDs would be expensive, say a one-time $500 fee for legal costs of verifying the trademark. This would be worthwhile, however, because the registrants would know that their property is being protected by us, saving them legal fees down the road trying to take away names from non-trademark holders. At the same time, registering in the non-trademark TLDs would mean that nobody could ever force you to give up your name, and would be much less expensive since no legal research would ever be needed. Registration in this part of the namespace would also be quite inexpensive, maybe just a few dollars a year.
The way I see it, this would offer something for everyone. Trademark holders will have access to a set of TLDs in which both they and the consumers will know they're getting the real thing, breeding confidence in one another and thereby encouraging people to do business. The traditional non-commercial Internet will be equally well-represented in the borderline-anarchy of the non-trademark TLDs. Registrants in this area will be permitted to register any names they like, and consumers should be discouraged from doing business with them. The point of this system would be that there is a place for everyone and no reason for protection of trademarks to be in conflict with the spirit of the Internet. While more TLDs in the current system might help, I think it's unlikely that corporation-run ICANN would ever really accept the idea of no trademark protection for registrants in any TLD.
I'd say this is an RFC, but I haven't implemented it. So instead please consider this a Request for Discussion.:-)
On the other hand most of Europe is now ruled by Social democrats, and in case Gore will get elected, US will experience continuation of
very good political relations with Europe region.
My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that most of the world wishes the US would go away and shut the hell up. Certainly I wish we would. That's why I didn't vote for either of the candidates you mentioned. Both would, in my mind, continue to infringe on other nations' sovereignty, in Europe and elsewhere. Instead I voted for Harry Browne, who has vowed to end our meddling in other nations' affairs. Note that this differs from Mr. Buchanan's isolationist policies in that diplomacy and trade relations would be considered beneficial and continued as freely as is possible.
All that aside, quite frankly I don't care what Europeans think about our President. Lord knows I don't care who you elect either. I certainly wouldn't want to live under socialism, but if you do, you have every right to choose whatever parties and politicians you like regardless of what I think. We retain the same rights. That's why there are independent, sovereign nations, so that we don't have to put up with your idiotic policies, nor you with ours. It's my sincere hope that the latter will be a reality in the near future.
And there are more than two candidates in the race (at least, there were 7 in my state). And more than one runs Free software. Harry Browne is one of them. IIRC he's running Apache 1.3.9 or some such.
The federal government of the US is permitted to provide certain services to its citizens. Primarily, these are the courts, the national defense, the post roads and postal service, the USPTO, and the foreign affairs offices. With the exception of the "post roads" (one can only assume this now refers to the massive and horrendously expensive Interstate system), it's easy to see that everyone benefits equally from these services. One can argue that national defense preferentially serves those with the most money. I disagree, because I interpret the purpose of the national defense to be the protection of citizens' lives from foreign invasion, and all lives are equally valuable. The protection of one's property is the responsibility of either the owner or the police, depending on the laws of the state in which the property-holder lives.
This is a solid argument for a true flat tax. The cost of government services which benefit all citizens equally should be divided by the number of citizens, and each one should be required to pay that amount. If one considers only the legitimate constitutional tasks of the federal government, I would estimate that amount at about $1200 a year (about 240 billion divided by 200 million Americans 16 or older), which is less than or equal to what any working citizen currently pays in federal taxes (consider: the (unconstitutional) minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, which is about 10,000 a year. Social security + medicare cost 7.45% - times 2 because the "employer contribution" really comes out of employee pay - which is $1490. 15% tax on 10,000-745-7,200=$203. The total tax is thus approximately $1693. So even a minimum wage worker would find himself paying less in taxes than he already does.) Of course, this type of plan only works if the federal government is restricted to its constitutional roles, and does not engage in income redistribution as it currently does (illegally).
What about services that do not benefit everyone equally? Use taxes are clearly the answer. Project the amount of expected use and the expected cost of maintaining or providing the service, divide (2) by (1), and charge users that amount per use of the service. The obvious example is toll roads. If it costs (warning: complete fabrication) $10,000 per lane-mile to maintain a freeway for 1 year, and you have 100,000 miles of 4-lane freeway, the total cost of maintenance will probably be about $4 billion. If you expect that Americans will drive 100 billion freeway miles a year, then clearly you should charge about $.04 per mile. Setting up silent full-speed electronic toll-booths every exit or two with prepaid untraceable toll markers would allow for privacy, excellent cost analysis and data collection, and of course, recovery of costs in proportion to use. In this way, you also avoid unfairly charging non-drivers directly for freeway use. Of course, they will still pay indirectly for their use of goods and services transported by road. This type of system provides maximum fairness by allowing consumers to decide for themselves how best to use government services, and at the same time gives government officials a good indication of what level of services are needed - if relatively less revenue is collected, the demand for that service is low. If more revenue is collected, that signals a need for expansion - and, conveniently enough, also provides the necessary funding for that expansion. The free market works, if we let it.
All of the same arguments apply at the state level. In this vision of government, most services are provided (or not) by the states. This gives citizens in different geographical areas with different needs the ability to choose and pay for as much or as little government as they need, as well as to decide who should pay for it. For example, citizens of Nevada might prefer a small, weak government providing few services and collecting few taxes, with the tax load placed mainly on visiting tourists. Citizens of Oregon, however, might prefer a larger, Nader-style government, monitoring and taxing a wide array of activites, and actively seeking to redistribute income. These two styles of government are very different, but there is no reason both groups of citizens ought not be permitted to enjoy their desired forms of government. This is why the federal system was devised in the first place, so that each state might have great freedom to compete for the finest citizens. That system is a joke today. States have virtually no rights to levy taxes nor to choose the size and scope of their governments, because the federal tax burden is so great that states cannot tax their citizens adequately to provide services, and states whose citizens do not want large governments are nevertheless compelled to pay for them. The system is broken, and I doubt it will be fixed without violence. One can only hope that the many men and women who buy the freedom of the next generations with their lives will be better remembered by their decendents than we remember those who created the system we abuse today.
Ahem,... it's [not] usual for hardware companies to patent their instruction-sets. Intel, AMD, MIPs, et al - they all do it as a matter of
course in their business operations.
Yes and no. The distinction has to be made between patenting the instructions themselves and patenting the implementation of the instructions. Not everyone is so terribly protective of their instruction sets. For example, for USD 99, you can obtain an unlimited license to produce SPARC processors, and to use the name SPARC in association with them. At the same time, it would probably cost you 99 BILLION dollars to get the chip masks for the UltraSPARC-IIIs. The instruction set is "out there," but the implementation is not.
The question I have to ask here, though, is - Does anyone really care about ia64? It's not a good architecture, and it's not a good instruction set. Like everything else Intel does, it'll be a technical dud that earns commercial success through heavy marketing and lots of exclusive contracts. That is, assuming they ever actually mass-produce the things, which seems in doubt as they're already 2 years late and counting.
AMD's
better Hammer architecture
This isn't a comparison I'd like to have to make. On the one side, you have Intel finally trying to cast off the shackles of 30 years' worth of backwards-compatibility - a good thing - and still managing to botch things horribly. On the other side, you have AMD trying to extend an ISA that has been extended far, far too many times already, an ISA that wasn't very good to begin with. If you ask me, both comapnies have the wrong idea. I for one will be sticking with MIPS and SPARC until they finally die. Here's to hoping that will never happen.
While I don't like MS, the courts will punish them for their monopoly
No. It is your job to punish them for their monopoly. The courts have no authority to do so. It's this kind of attitude - expanding and extending the reach of government - that allows Microsoft and others to file spurious and anticompetitive lawsuits against (theoretically) any Free Software project because of this incident. You can't have it both ways.
Hmmm...a rational debate. Ok, I think I can manage just a bit of that. Simply put: your arguments are correct, and have maximum negative spin. Many of the problems you address (except one, see below) do in fact exist and are very likely slowing the development and release of 2.4 as well as contributing to needless acrimony. I'm not even going to contest that, as a longtime lkml lurker and sometimes kernel port developer. You take round one.
In round two, everyone realises that these problems have been going on for some time now and aren't new. Like, almost the whole 9 years. The only way in which they're any worse is that there are more developers fighting for their ideas, more ideas (more of which are bad, simply by proportion), and more lines of (largely useless) code. The process, bizarre and apparently disorganised though it is, has worked thus far, and there is every reason that it will continue to do so. Cooler heads concede your argument, but recognise that it's mostly spin, and take round two.
In round three, we spar over posix compliance. It's no contest; without posix we're all sunk. Posix is an uneasy compromise attempt to reunify unix after 20 years of fragmentation and dirty infighting. It's the only thing that offers you any real assurance of compatibility, the only real standard out there. If we don't follow posix, then porting to and from Linux becomes tens of times more work, and thus requires tens of times more benefit (or sales, in the commercial world) to make it happen. That's a lose; it restricts us to linux-only unportable, unmaintainable garbage software like util-linux -- any porter's or distribution maintainer's nemesis -- instead of clean, fairly uniform software like the GNU set and for that matter 90% of everything that's out there. You can't bitch at microsoft or sun for ignoring or subverting standards and then do it yourself. Posix is the standard, and we're team players. Being big doesn't mean you should ignore the standards. Posix takes round 3 and comes close to a tko.
Finally, just a light jab against a bit of unnecessary propaganda:
I'll get back to switching over to FreeBSD
Me, too...oops, no, it only runs on i386, an inferior architecture with no future, and for that matter, no present. Call me when you can support my SMP Sun Ultra 2 as well as Linux does. In the meantime I expect we'll release 2.4, steal your admittedly much superior VM, drop the completely useless and divisive NTFS altogether, and in short make everything right with the world. A bit of positive spin concedes round 4 and proposes a draw.
Really, there are flesh and blood babes out there, not just
pron bithes...
Yeah, but:
The babes don't want anything to do with us, and
It's THE FUCKING SIMPSONS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! This isn't the Jetsons or She-Ra or even Transformers. It's THE SIMPSONS, at a completely separate level of importance.
Nuff said.
Re:Libertarianism the new Republicism bur more evi
on
Should You Vote?
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I love this strict almost fundamentalist Constitution talk, ever hear of amendments? Or those part of the evil empire also?
Not at all, the amendments are a part of the Constitution. In fact, many of our current government's greatest trespasses have been against the amendments - the 10th in particular. The amendment process is a good idea; it allows for necessary changes from time to time. Amendments would be necessary, for example, to do virtually anything Mr. Nader advocates, and they are the proper method for doing so. Executive orders and ordinary legislation are not. The especially good thing about amendments is that 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify them before they take effect - much less likely to happen then, say, 268 power-hungry fools isolated in Washington and accountable to nobody deciding on their own that something is a good idea even though the Supreme Law of the Land specifically prohibits it.
Re:Libertarianism the new Republicism bur more evi
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Should You Vote?
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Pyramid scheme and Ponzi scheme are essentially the same thing, the way I understand it. One's just named in dishonor of the guy who started it.
Re:Libertarianism the new Republicism bur more evi
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Should You Vote?
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will
not defend women's reproductive rights and will cut federal funding to hospitals and abortion clinics.
Have you actually read his stance on this issue? I don't think you have. Mr. Browne acknowledges that the federal government has no say in what you may do with your body. The Constitution doesn't mention abortion, therefore it is a state or local issue, to be decided by individuals much more accessible to you than himself or anyone else in Washington. Likewise, the federal government is not authorized to fund any non-military medical facility. So, yes, he would fight for elimination of such funding, regardless of whether the facility provides abortions.
He is also planning on cutting social security calling it a big mess
Thank God. It's nothing but a pyramid scheme anyway.
when in reality the administration costs of running it are a fraction of private insurance
companies pay.
Then I suppose that, with lower overhead, the social security scheme must be paying out a lot more than a private investment account would for the same investment. Oops, wrong. By about an order of magnitude. 500 bucks a month isn't enough for even a poor person to live on. It's half the poverty level. It's chicken feed. And for this, we bankrupt our nation's productive citizens? Yeesh.
He is competely against universal healthcare, which most wealthy nations are handing out like flyers
The Constitution doesn't authorize a scheme like this. If that doesn't interest you, just look at the waiting lists for medical care in such nations, and how many of their wealthier citizens end up just going to the US for health care.
I hope no one
voting for Browne is getting federal grants and loans for college, cause it ain't going to be there much longer.
I'm sure some reasonable plan will be put in place for the existing loans to be repaid under the same terms they were made. Don't think the feds will just call in the entire amount. And, although I'm sounding like a broken record, the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to make such loans.
I'm going for Nader because he want's the federal government to work especially with publically funding elections
Not in the Constitution.
establishing a living wage
Not in the Constitution.
providing universal healthcare to 80-100 mil uninsured Americans
Not in the Constitution. And so, I suppose, those who have worked to get themselves into a position where they do have insurance will just have to eat that $10k a year, huh? "Too bad for you, you're successful. Not only will you have to pay for your own insurance, but you'll also have to pay for those who couldn't be bothered to provide it for themselves. Ain't America great?"
He also plans to establish a 'none of the above' options in elections so people like Katz and company don't sit out but voice their protest and force another
election if no one gets a decent majority.
This is a state issue. My state already has such an option. Why doesn't Mr. Nader's?
Browne is great if you're already wealthy or on your way there
Well, that's not me by a long shot. I would change that a little: "Browne is great if you'd like a chance to be wealthy at some point in your life."
Its like Forbes and his flat tax, a scam to keep rich people from paying taxes.
Yes, I can clearly see on Mr. Browne's web site that he is in favor of maintaining the income tax on the poor and abolishing it for the rich. Oh wait, that's wrong; he actually argues for abolishing it for everyone. Sorry, it looks like you're wrong. Sure, the rich wouldn't pay any federal income or sales taxes, but neither would anyone else. A scam? Hardly. That honor goes to social security, the most successful scam in recorded history.
If Mr. Browne's plans were implemented, you could still be 100% satisfied with government. Any or all of the following could happen:
You persuade your state to increase taxes by a factor of 10 and provide all those services and handouts and regulations that Mr. Nader proposes. The only difference you would notice is that instead of "United States Treasury," the checks you get - and send, and send, and send, would say "State of Fuckistan." I hope there's plenty of room for your state capital to expand.
You fail to persuade your state to do the above, but some state - Oregon and Hawaii come to mind - is bound to do it, and you move there.
You move (through our 100% open borders) to a nation such as Canada or Sweden that provides the type of government you favor.
You realize that Mr. Nader's form of government is intrusive, hopelessly expensive, and outrageously unconstitutional, and that your newfound political and economic freedom is better than you had expected. You vote Libertarian for the rest of your life.
Regardless, you can still have what you want. The key is that I can too. Nice how that works out, isn't it?
You're missing something - Browne has as much support as Buchanan, and by some polls, more. I predict that Browne will receive more popular votes than Buchanan this year. The Reform Party is a cooked goose, and Buchanan is a racist and a religious fanatic, and everyone knows it.
Nevertheless, regardless of what specific counting algorithm is used, any election will depend on a great many factors, from regional weather to different employers' work schedules to what people eat for breakfast. Trying to forecast the results is tough under the best of circumstances (Dewey defeats Truman!). The only predictions I'm willing to make are these:
Under the current system we have, Gore will win the electoral and popular vote.
No candidate will receive a majority of the popular vote.
The non-Republicrat parties will receive a combined 10%+ of the popular vote but, as usual, no electoral votes.
Under an instant-runoff of the type discussed above, Gore would ultimately win by a landslide (the scenario tunesmith describes sounds dead-on to me), and the third parties combined would take 40% of the first ballot.
Under a scheme of the type I described above, Bush would win on the second ballot, receiving the vast majority of the Browne, Buchanan, and Hagelin vote. Gore will receive the vast majority of the Nader vote, but the size of the Nader vote isn't nearly as great as his supporters think it will be.
But the structure of the EC--winner take all in each state
How the electors are selected and divided is a state-by-state issue. Campaign to get a ballot question in your state that would, if approved, divide electors in proportion to popular vote. That would solve the whole problem right there.
No. In the event that no candidate receives the necessary electoral votes, members of the electoral college don't just get to continue voting any old way they like until somebody wins (though, in fact, they could vote any way they like, but they only get to do it once). Instead, the House delegations get to vote until somebody wins. HoR != EC.
Getting rid of the electoral college is of mimimal importance. I believe it has happened only once - over 100 years ago - that a candidate won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote. That's not to say it mightn't happen again this year, but historically it appears that the possibility is overhyped. It just doesn't happen.
Even if the process were changed to direct popular vote, there is still the problem of people voting for the candidates they think can win (lesser of evils) rather than the candidates they actually believe would do the best job. The solution, which has been presented numerous times, is an "instant runoff," in which every voter ranks the candidates by preference. The first-preference votes are counted, and if no candidate has a majority, the second-preference votes are added in. This process continues until one candidate has a majority, which, while not mathematically guaranteed, will almost certainly happen. This process would encourage voting for third party candidates - or not, if voters actually prefer the Republicrats. Either way, it gives voters greater voice and freedom - by essentially giving them 3 or 4 or 8 votes instead of merely 1.
This, of course, will never happen. The Republicrats have far too much control over the electoral process to ever allow it. But we can dream, eh?
I just don't relish the idea of
all our national lands being sold of to big corporations who will exploit them to their own advantage.
I would argue that "their own advantage" includes protecting the long-term resale value of their land. Doing so would require that it be reasonably well-preserved. You can read a great deal of detailed rebuttal to your (implied) argument that those big evil corporation would destroy the land or that the government would protect it here. I, too, believe that preservation of our natural resources is important. And I don't believe the government will do so. Please bear in mind also that land would be sold to the highest bidder. That highest bidder might be the Sierra Club or some other protection group. You must ask yourself: is this land worth more to me than to $BIG_EVIL_CORPORATION? If so, you needn't fear anything, regardless of what others might do if they own it.
The Constitution (and the Declaration of Independance) was written solely in the best interests of the landed gentry.
Interesting. Your knowledge of history seems lacking. 18th-century America didn't have much of a "landed gentry," at least not in the northern colonies. The country was comprised mainly of small family-owned subsistence farms. This was a good 40 years prior to industrialization, and serfdom in the northern colonies was rare. Typically it took the form of indentured servitude, which at least provided value for work. Many indentured servants went on to enjoy land ownership as well. Only in the southern colonies, with their propensity for slavery, was serfdom common. And even there, away from the coastal regions and cotton-producing areas of the deep south, subsistence farming was the predominant means of living.
So, if you examine history closely, the "landed gentry" comprised over half of the nation's citizens. Setting up a form of government geared toward what was then the majority of citizens seems like a good idea to me.
It was not until industrialization and the rise of large cities that Americans became predominantly non-landowning. It's interesting to note that as fewer and fewer citizens owned land, the strength of the central government grew. So perhaps you're onto something here, but I suspect your choice of enemy is incorrect.
a Bill of Rights (still vaporware, as far as I can tell)
Of course the BoR is widely ignored, violated, or marginalized. It's part of the Constitution. Why should your freedom of speech be respected by the government any more than limits on taxation or the constitutional illegitimacy of the Drug War? Once you allow the government to ignore part of its charter, it's fair game to ignore the whole thing. So if you want your monthly handouts, you'll have to give up your right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. That's the way government works; give an inch and it takes a mile.
If you're anti-censorship, you are obligated by your own conscience to vote for Harry Browne. No other candidate - and very obviously neither of the two "main" candidates, supports a complete absence of all censorship. Mr. Browne believes that personal - and parental - responsibility is the proper solution, not government-enforced censorship. Furthermore, he recognizes that the federal government has no authority to censor anything, regardless of whether he or anyone else feels it's a good idea. Vote Browne. Vote Freedom.
This is the crucial question that Brin ignores in his quest for "social equity." The fact is that the government did a great deal to promote the economic patterns that we see in the US today - a great deal of nothing. One can debate whether promoting social equity through taxation is a legitimate function of an abstract arbitrary government. But one cannot debate whether it is a proper function of the United States federal government because that government has an exact specification. That's right, just like the RFCs. And that exact specification (the Constitution, for the slow) does not give the United States federal government the authority, responsibility, or duty to so much as address social equity. That government is not even permitted to discuss such matters, much less to tailor a tax code toward a particular set of values, whatever they may be.
While it may be profitable to discuss, for example, what an ideal electronic mail tranfer protocol might be, it would not be acceptable to implement something claiming to be SMTP that in fact is not SMTP but instead some particular person's idea of what SMTP ought to be. We follow the standards, and should chide those who do not. If the standard is in need of improvement, then discussions should be opened on the subject of improving the standard. Disregarding it is not an option. So if you really think that it's in the best interests of the United States that government forcibly redistribute money from those with more to those with less (let's not sugar-coat it - that's what Gore and Brin are advocating - transfer of wealth, earned or not, by force of law), then you should advocate not a vote for a candidate who ignores the standard (hint: both Bush and Gore do so) but instead a new Constitutional Convention.
But then, I suppose when passions get aroused, the temptation to ignore the standard may become great. Funny how that works. We roast Microsoft for ignoring standards when their passion for money gets involved, but it's somehow considered acceptable or even noble to disregard the Constitution when a noted individual's passion for "social equity" is involved.
I will avoid advocating any candidate or platform in this post, because I believe it's too important that it stand on its own to give readers the opportunity to disregard it as partisan rhetoric. But I would suggest that the reader reconsider his or her choices with an eye on the Standard in question.
Good idea, but without support of Congress it's nothing more than mental masturbation. In reality, it'll mean nothing because it won't
happen.
In many if not all states, there are like-minded candidates for congressional seats as well. Even a dozen libertarians in Congress, and a libertarian president, could easily make something good happen. At minimum it would virtually guarantee no further reductions in freedom.
This saying harkens back to my family's Native American roots, before the
Europeans came in & decided everything had to be owned and possessed by someone.
What can I say? I wasn't around then. The problem with not having property rights is exactly that - someone can come in and take by force what you share. I would gladly grant you (or rather, the proper original occupants) the return of the entire state of Nevada, but unfortunately I, a lifelong citizen of this great state, don't own it either. The feds do. Nice, huh? It seems to me like your interests might be served by a much smaller, less intrusive government (read about Browne's idea of getting rid of public lands - that's a tremendous amount of land that could be bought cheaply and used in whatever fashion you like). It won't make up for 400 years of death, destruction, and theft, but it might give you a chance to do better yourself. Property rights aren't going away, at least not for a very long time. But as the saying about corruption goes, we either need less of it, or more chance to participate in it. I think that could be applied to property as well.
Try, as a child, sitting in history class in school and seeing everyone taught lies about your people.
Sure. It doesn't even matter whose people we're talking about. Most of what's taught in public schools today isn't chosen for its truth or its value, but instead to serve political agendas.
Freedom of speech is just one of many lies taught in history/civics classes around the nation.
Blame the Supreme Court for most of this. The problems in schools are of a different nature, that being the idea that children are mindless drones to be protected from everything, taught nothing, and ignored at all costs.
Please walk us through the main points of your platform, constitutionally justifying each one. Feel free to quote at length from the Constitution itself to support your arguments. Please note that Supreme Court decisions are not part of the Constitution.
I don't think the Libertarians are going to win a damn thing until they change their name. The most conservative political party in
existance has a liberal image
The reality is that the LP is neither "conservative" nor "liberal" in the sense used by the two large parties to qualify their (or their opponent's) positions. The LP is libertarian in the classical sense, and the name is apt. Not that Freedom Party, Liberty Party, or Down With The Income Tax and Drug War Party would be bad names either. I actually think we should rejuvenate the old Know-Nothing Party; the name was just too cool to ignore. Trouble is, the Republicrats have a lock on knowing nothing, so it might be tough to justify.
I wouldn't have any problem letting both sides go at it full force, if that's what they want to do. -BUT- unfortunately we've already gotten our damn paws in there and stirred everyone up, sold or given weapons to only one side, etc. We need to get the hell out of there, both in terms of weapons sales, intelligence support, and "peacekeeping" forces, as well as in terms of diplomacy. Why is Clinton there, for example? The only part the US has played in the whole mess is making it worse. Clinton and the US aren't involved in the fighting, and we shouldn't be involved at all. Come home, Billy - you won't get your legacy from this.
They [Arabs] contribute nothing to the world except oil.
What you contribute shouldn't affect your right to live in a military sense. If I said that [US] Americans don't contribute much besides strife, I wouldn't be far off. Does that mean we should all be killed by the Chinese? Of course not. Nobody should be killing anyone else. But if others want to kill each other - and it certainly looks like the Israelis and Arabs are itchin to have a go at it - then the US should stand aside and let it play out. We should not take sides, nor should we try to moderate discussions unless asked to do so by both sides.
That aside, I would suggest that if, for some insane reason, we feel compelled to take sides, we should support whoever ships us more oil. Let's be a little more pragmatic here; that oil is damned important. Why is it exactly that we support Israel anyway? What have they ever done for us? Where are the benefits of supporting Israel?
Slashdot Mirror
So what's this solution? Alternate root servers. Such a scheme might work like this:
So, what do you think? Is this viable? It doesn't require any significant amount of work on the part of sysadmins or users, and in fact it'd be pretty easy to implement here. The only problem I see is getting people to use it, especially the corporations that are abusing the current system to their advantage. The solution to this, I think, is to make sure that the new ruleset offers something for everyone. I would suggest one set of TLDs, one per broad trademark area (media, retail, food, networking, hardware, software, etc.), in which you must hold a trademark in the relevant area to register it, and one set of TLDs in which registration is strictly FCFS. Registration in the trademark-protected TLDs would be expensive, say a one-time $500 fee for legal costs of verifying the trademark. This would be worthwhile, however, because the registrants would know that their property is being protected by us, saving them legal fees down the road trying to take away names from non-trademark holders. At the same time, registering in the non-trademark TLDs would mean that nobody could ever force you to give up your name, and would be much less expensive since no legal research would ever be needed. Registration in this part of the namespace would also be quite inexpensive, maybe just a few dollars a year.
The way I see it, this would offer something for everyone. Trademark holders will have access to a set of TLDs in which both they and the consumers will know they're getting the real thing, breeding confidence in one another and thereby encouraging people to do business. The traditional non-commercial Internet will be equally well-represented in the borderline-anarchy of the non-trademark TLDs. Registrants in this area will be permitted to register any names they like, and consumers should be discouraged from doing business with them. The point of this system would be that there is a place for everyone and no reason for protection of trademarks to be in conflict with the spirit of the Internet. While more TLDs in the current system might help, I think it's unlikely that corporation-run ICANN would ever really accept the idea of no trademark protection for registrants in any TLD.
I'd say this is an RFC, but I haven't implemented it. So instead please consider this a Request for Discussion. :-)
Every American citizen, who will have to put up with one of these indistinguishable bozos for at least four years© As with every election in this country, unless you agree with ideas of big government, censorship, and the right of the government to redistribute income, you lost before the first ballot was voted©
My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that most of the world wishes the US would go away and shut the hell up. Certainly I wish we would. That's why I didn't vote for either of the candidates you mentioned. Both would, in my mind, continue to infringe on other nations' sovereignty, in Europe and elsewhere. Instead I voted for Harry Browne, who has vowed to end our meddling in other nations' affairs. Note that this differs from Mr. Buchanan's isolationist policies in that diplomacy and trade relations would be considered beneficial and continued as freely as is possible.
All that aside, quite frankly I don't care what Europeans think about our President. Lord knows I don't care who you elect either. I certainly wouldn't want to live under socialism, but if you do, you have every right to choose whatever parties and politicians you like regardless of what I think. We retain the same rights. That's why there are independent, sovereign nations, so that we don't have to put up with your idiotic policies, nor you with ours. It's my sincere hope that the latter will be a reality in the near future.
And there are more than two candidates in the race (at least, there were 7 in my state). And more than one runs Free software. Harry Browne is one of them. IIRC he's running Apache 1.3.9 or some such.
This is a solid argument for a true flat tax. The cost of government services which benefit all citizens equally should be divided by the number of citizens, and each one should be required to pay that amount. If one considers only the legitimate constitutional tasks of the federal government, I would estimate that amount at about $1200 a year (about 240 billion divided by 200 million Americans 16 or older), which is less than or equal to what any working citizen currently pays in federal taxes (consider: the (unconstitutional) minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, which is about 10,000 a year. Social security + medicare cost 7.45% - times 2 because the "employer contribution" really comes out of employee pay - which is $1490. 15% tax on 10,000-745-7,200=$203. The total tax is thus approximately $1693. So even a minimum wage worker would find himself paying less in taxes than he already does.) Of course, this type of plan only works if the federal government is restricted to its constitutional roles, and does not engage in income redistribution as it currently does (illegally).
What about services that do not benefit everyone equally? Use taxes are clearly the answer. Project the amount of expected use and the expected cost of maintaining or providing the service, divide (2) by (1), and charge users that amount per use of the service. The obvious example is toll roads. If it costs (warning: complete fabrication) $10,000 per lane-mile to maintain a freeway for 1 year, and you have 100,000 miles of 4-lane freeway, the total cost of maintenance will probably be about $4 billion. If you expect that Americans will drive 100 billion freeway miles a year, then clearly you should charge about $.04 per mile. Setting up silent full-speed electronic toll-booths every exit or two with prepaid untraceable toll markers would allow for privacy, excellent cost analysis and data collection, and of course, recovery of costs in proportion to use. In this way, you also avoid unfairly charging non-drivers directly for freeway use. Of course, they will still pay indirectly for their use of goods and services transported by road. This type of system provides maximum fairness by allowing consumers to decide for themselves how best to use government services, and at the same time gives government officials a good indication of what level of services are needed - if relatively less revenue is collected, the demand for that service is low. If more revenue is collected, that signals a need for expansion - and, conveniently enough, also provides the necessary funding for that expansion. The free market works, if we let it.
All of the same arguments apply at the state level. In this vision of government, most services are provided (or not) by the states. This gives citizens in different geographical areas with different needs the ability to choose and pay for as much or as little government as they need, as well as to decide who should pay for it. For example, citizens of Nevada might prefer a small, weak government providing few services and collecting few taxes, with the tax load placed mainly on visiting tourists. Citizens of Oregon, however, might prefer a larger, Nader-style government, monitoring and taxing a wide array of activites, and actively seeking to redistribute income. These two styles of government are very different, but there is no reason both groups of citizens ought not be permitted to enjoy their desired forms of government. This is why the federal system was devised in the first place, so that each state might have great freedom to compete for the finest citizens. That system is a joke today. States have virtually no rights to levy taxes nor to choose the size and scope of their governments, because the federal tax burden is so great that states cannot tax their citizens adequately to provide services, and states whose citizens do not want large governments are nevertheless compelled to pay for them. The system is broken, and I doubt it will be fixed without violence. One can only hope that the many men and women who buy the freedom of the next generations with their lives will be better remembered by their decendents than we remember those who created the system we abuse today.
Yes and no. The distinction has to be made between patenting the instructions themselves and patenting the implementation of the instructions. Not everyone is so terribly protective of their instruction sets. For example, for USD 99, you can obtain an unlimited license to produce SPARC processors, and to use the name SPARC in association with them. At the same time, it would probably cost you 99 BILLION dollars to get the chip masks for the UltraSPARC-IIIs. The instruction set is "out there," but the implementation is not.
The question I have to ask here, though, is - Does anyone really care about ia64? It's not a good architecture, and it's not a good instruction set. Like everything else Intel does, it'll be a technical dud that earns commercial success through heavy marketing and lots of exclusive contracts. That is, assuming they ever actually mass-produce the things, which seems in doubt as they're already 2 years late and counting.
AMD's better Hammer architecture
This isn't a comparison I'd like to have to make. On the one side, you have Intel finally trying to cast off the shackles of 30 years' worth of backwards-compatibility - a good thing - and still managing to botch things horribly. On the other side, you have AMD trying to extend an ISA that has been extended far, far too many times already, an ISA that wasn't very good to begin with. If you ask me, both comapnies have the wrong idea. I for one will be sticking with MIPS and SPARC until they finally die. Here's to hoping that will never happen.
No. It is your job to punish them for their monopoly. The courts have no authority to do so. It's this kind of attitude - expanding and extending the reach of government - that allows Microsoft and others to file spurious and anticompetitive lawsuits against (theoretically) any Free Software project because of this incident. You can't have it both ways.
In round two, everyone realises that these problems have been going on for some time now and aren't new. Like, almost the whole 9 years. The only way in which they're any worse is that there are more developers fighting for their ideas, more ideas (more of which are bad, simply by proportion), and more lines of (largely useless) code. The process, bizarre and apparently disorganised though it is, has worked thus far, and there is every reason that it will continue to do so. Cooler heads concede your argument, but recognise that it's mostly spin, and take round two.
In round three, we spar over posix compliance. It's no contest; without posix we're all sunk. Posix is an uneasy compromise attempt to reunify unix after 20 years of fragmentation and dirty infighting. It's the only thing that offers you any real assurance of compatibility, the only real standard out there. If we don't follow posix, then porting to and from Linux becomes tens of times more work, and thus requires tens of times more benefit (or sales, in the commercial world) to make it happen. That's a lose; it restricts us to linux-only unportable, unmaintainable garbage software like util-linux -- any porter's or distribution maintainer's nemesis -- instead of clean, fairly uniform software like the GNU set and for that matter 90% of everything that's out there. You can't bitch at microsoft or sun for ignoring or subverting standards and then do it yourself. Posix is the standard, and we're team players. Being big doesn't mean you should ignore the standards. Posix takes round 3 and comes close to a tko.
Finally, just a light jab against a bit of unnecessary propaganda: I'll get back to switching over to FreeBSD
Me, too...oops, no, it only runs on i386, an inferior architecture with no future, and for that matter, no present. Call me when you can support my SMP Sun Ultra 2 as well as Linux does. In the meantime I expect we'll release 2.4, steal your admittedly much superior VM, drop the completely useless and divisive NTFS altogether, and in short make everything right with the world. A bit of positive spin concedes round 4 and proposes a draw.
Yeah, but:
- The babes don't want anything to do with us, and
- It's THE FUCKING SIMPSONS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! This isn't the Jetsons or She-Ra or even Transformers. It's THE SIMPSONS, at a completely separate level of importance.
Nuff said.Not at all, the amendments are a part of the Constitution. In fact, many of our current government's greatest trespasses have been against the amendments - the 10th in particular. The amendment process is a good idea; it allows for necessary changes from time to time. Amendments would be necessary, for example, to do virtually anything Mr. Nader advocates, and they are the proper method for doing so. Executive orders and ordinary legislation are not. The especially good thing about amendments is that 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify them before they take effect - much less likely to happen then, say, 268 power-hungry fools isolated in Washington and accountable to nobody deciding on their own that something is a good idea even though the Supreme Law of the Land specifically prohibits it.
Pyramid scheme and Ponzi scheme are essentially the same thing, the way I understand it. One's just named in dishonor of the guy who started it.
Have you actually read his stance on this issue? I don't think you have. Mr. Browne acknowledges that the federal government has no say in what you may do with your body. The Constitution doesn't mention abortion, therefore it is a state or local issue, to be decided by individuals much more accessible to you than himself or anyone else in Washington. Likewise, the federal government is not authorized to fund any non-military medical facility. So, yes, he would fight for elimination of such funding, regardless of whether the facility provides abortions.
He is also planning on cutting social security calling it a big mess
Thank God. It's nothing but a pyramid scheme anyway.
when in reality the administration costs of running it are a fraction of private insurance companies pay.
Then I suppose that, with lower overhead, the social security scheme must be paying out a lot more than a private investment account would for the same investment. Oops, wrong. By about an order of magnitude. 500 bucks a month isn't enough for even a poor person to live on. It's half the poverty level. It's chicken feed. And for this, we bankrupt our nation's productive citizens? Yeesh.
He is competely against universal healthcare, which most wealthy nations are handing out like flyers
The Constitution doesn't authorize a scheme like this. If that doesn't interest you, just look at the waiting lists for medical care in such nations, and how many of their wealthier citizens end up just going to the US for health care.
I hope no one voting for Browne is getting federal grants and loans for college, cause it ain't going to be there much longer.
I'm sure some reasonable plan will be put in place for the existing loans to be repaid under the same terms they were made. Don't think the feds will just call in the entire amount. And, although I'm sounding like a broken record, the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to make such loans.
I'm going for Nader because he want's the federal government to work especially with publically funding elections
Not in the Constitution.
establishing a living wage
Not in the Constitution.
providing universal healthcare to 80-100 mil uninsured Americans
Not in the Constitution. And so, I suppose, those who have worked to get themselves into a position where they do have insurance will just have to eat that $10k a year, huh? "Too bad for you, you're successful. Not only will you have to pay for your own insurance, but you'll also have to pay for those who couldn't be bothered to provide it for themselves. Ain't America great?"
He also plans to establish a 'none of the above' options in elections so people like Katz and company don't sit out but voice their protest and force another election if no one gets a decent majority.
This is a state issue. My state already has such an option. Why doesn't Mr. Nader's?
Browne is great if you're already wealthy or on your way there
Well, that's not me by a long shot. I would change that a little: "Browne is great if you'd like a chance to be wealthy at some point in your life."
Its like Forbes and his flat tax, a scam to keep rich people from paying taxes.
Yes, I can clearly see on Mr. Browne's web site that he is in favor of maintaining the income tax on the poor and abolishing it for the rich. Oh wait, that's wrong; he actually argues for abolishing it for everyone. Sorry, it looks like you're wrong. Sure, the rich wouldn't pay any federal income or sales taxes, but neither would anyone else. A scam? Hardly. That honor goes to social security, the most successful scam in recorded history.
If Mr. Browne's plans were implemented, you could still be 100% satisfied with government. Any or all of the following could happen:
Regardless, you can still have what you want. The key is that I can too. Nice how that works out, isn't it?
Nevertheless, regardless of what specific counting algorithm is used, any election will depend on a great many factors, from regional weather to different employers' work schedules to what people eat for breakfast. Trying to forecast the results is tough under the best of circumstances (Dewey defeats Truman!). The only predictions I'm willing to make are these:
We'll see, eh? :)
How the electors are selected and divided is a state-by-state issue. Campaign to get a ballot question in your state that would, if approved, divide electors in proportion to popular vote. That would solve the whole problem right there.
No. In the event that no candidate receives the necessary electoral votes, members of the electoral college don't just get to continue voting any old way they like until somebody wins (though, in fact, they could vote any way they like, but they only get to do it once). Instead, the House delegations get to vote until somebody wins. HoR != EC.
Even if the process were changed to direct popular vote, there is still the problem of people voting for the candidates they think can win (lesser of evils) rather than the candidates they actually believe would do the best job. The solution, which has been presented numerous times, is an "instant runoff," in which every voter ranks the candidates by preference. The first-preference votes are counted, and if no candidate has a majority, the second-preference votes are added in. This process continues until one candidate has a majority, which, while not mathematically guaranteed, will almost certainly happen. This process would encourage voting for third party candidates - or not, if voters actually prefer the Republicrats. Either way, it gives voters greater voice and freedom - by essentially giving them 3 or 4 or 8 votes instead of merely 1.
This, of course, will never happen. The Republicrats have far too much control over the electoral process to ever allow it. But we can dream, eh?
I would argue that "their own advantage" includes protecting the long-term resale value of their land. Doing so would require that it be reasonably well-preserved. You can read a great deal of detailed rebuttal to your (implied) argument that those big evil corporation would destroy the land or that the government would protect it here. I, too, believe that preservation of our natural resources is important. And I don't believe the government will do so. Please bear in mind also that land would be sold to the highest bidder. That highest bidder might be the Sierra Club or some other protection group. You must ask yourself: is this land worth more to me than to $BIG_EVIL_CORPORATION? If so, you needn't fear anything, regardless of what others might do if they own it.
Interesting. Your knowledge of history seems lacking. 18th-century America didn't have much of a "landed gentry," at least not in the northern colonies. The country was comprised mainly of small family-owned subsistence farms. This was a good 40 years prior to industrialization, and serfdom in the northern colonies was rare. Typically it took the form of indentured servitude, which at least provided value for work. Many indentured servants went on to enjoy land ownership as well. Only in the southern colonies, with their propensity for slavery, was serfdom common. And even there, away from the coastal regions and cotton-producing areas of the deep south, subsistence farming was the predominant means of living.
So, if you examine history closely, the "landed gentry" comprised over half of the nation's citizens. Setting up a form of government geared toward what was then the majority of citizens seems like a good idea to me.
It was not until industrialization and the rise of large cities that Americans became predominantly non-landowning. It's interesting to note that as fewer and fewer citizens owned land, the strength of the central government grew. So perhaps you're onto something here, but I suspect your choice of enemy is incorrect.
a Bill of Rights (still vaporware, as far as I can tell)
Of course the BoR is widely ignored, violated, or marginalized. It's part of the Constitution. Why should your freedom of speech be respected by the government any more than limits on taxation or the constitutional illegitimacy of the Drug War? Once you allow the government to ignore part of its charter, it's fair game to ignore the whole thing. So if you want your monthly handouts, you'll have to give up your right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. That's the way government works; give an inch and it takes a mile.
If you're anti-censorship, you are obligated by your own conscience to vote for Harry Browne. No other candidate - and very obviously neither of the two "main" candidates, supports a complete absence of all censorship. Mr. Browne believes that personal - and parental - responsibility is the proper solution, not government-enforced censorship. Furthermore, he recognizes that the federal government has no authority to censor anything, regardless of whether he or anyone else feels it's a good idea. Vote Browne. Vote Freedom.
While it may be profitable to discuss, for example, what an ideal electronic mail tranfer protocol might be, it would not be acceptable to implement something claiming to be SMTP that in fact is not SMTP but instead some particular person's idea of what SMTP ought to be. We follow the standards, and should chide those who do not. If the standard is in need of improvement, then discussions should be opened on the subject of improving the standard. Disregarding it is not an option. So if you really think that it's in the best interests of the United States that government forcibly redistribute money from those with more to those with less (let's not sugar-coat it - that's what Gore and Brin are advocating - transfer of wealth, earned or not, by force of law), then you should advocate not a vote for a candidate who ignores the standard (hint: both Bush and Gore do so) but instead a new Constitutional Convention.
But then, I suppose when passions get aroused, the temptation to ignore the standard may become great. Funny how that works. We roast Microsoft for ignoring standards when their passion for money gets involved, but it's somehow considered acceptable or even noble to disregard the Constitution when a noted individual's passion for "social equity" is involved.
I will avoid advocating any candidate or platform in this post, because I believe it's too important that it stand on its own to give readers the opportunity to disregard it as partisan rhetoric. But I would suggest that the reader reconsider his or her choices with an eye on the Standard in question.
In many if not all states, there are like-minded candidates for congressional seats as well. Even a dozen libertarians in Congress, and a libertarian president, could easily make something good happen. At minimum it would virtually guarantee no further reductions in freedom.
This saying harkens back to my family's Native American roots, before the Europeans came in & decided everything had to be owned and possessed by someone.
What can I say? I wasn't around then. The problem with not having property rights is exactly that - someone can come in and take by force what you share. I would gladly grant you (or rather, the proper original occupants) the return of the entire state of Nevada, but unfortunately I, a lifelong citizen of this great state, don't own it either. The feds do. Nice, huh? It seems to me like your interests might be served by a much smaller, less intrusive government (read about Browne's idea of getting rid of public lands - that's a tremendous amount of land that could be bought cheaply and used in whatever fashion you like). It won't make up for 400 years of death, destruction, and theft, but it might give you a chance to do better yourself. Property rights aren't going away, at least not for a very long time. But as the saying about corruption goes, we either need less of it, or more chance to participate in it. I think that could be applied to property as well.
Try, as a child, sitting in history class in school and seeing everyone taught lies about your people.
Sure. It doesn't even matter whose people we're talking about. Most of what's taught in public schools today isn't chosen for its truth or its value, but instead to serve political agendas.
Freedom of speech is just one of many lies taught in history/civics classes around the nation.
Blame the Supreme Court for most of this. The problems in schools are of a different nature, that being the idea that children are mindless drones to be protected from everything, taught nothing, and ignored at all costs.
Please walk us through the main points of your platform, constitutionally justifying each one. Feel free to quote at length from the Constitution itself to support your arguments. Please note that Supreme Court decisions are not part of the Constitution.
The reality is that the LP is neither "conservative" nor "liberal" in the sense used by the two large parties to qualify their (or their opponent's) positions. The LP is libertarian in the classical sense, and the name is apt. Not that Freedom Party, Liberty Party, or Down With The Income Tax and Drug War Party would be bad names either. I actually think we should rejuvenate the old Know-Nothing Party; the name was just too cool to ignore. Trouble is, the Republicrats have a lock on knowing nothing, so it might be tough to justify.
I wouldn't have any problem letting both sides go at it full force, if that's what they want to do. -BUT- unfortunately we've already gotten our damn paws in there and stirred everyone up, sold or given weapons to only one side, etc. We need to get the hell out of there, both in terms of weapons sales, intelligence support, and "peacekeeping" forces, as well as in terms of diplomacy. Why is Clinton there, for example? The only part the US has played in the whole mess is making it worse. Clinton and the US aren't involved in the fighting, and we shouldn't be involved at all. Come home, Billy - you won't get your legacy from this.
They [Arabs] contribute nothing to the world except oil.
What you contribute shouldn't affect your right to live in a military sense. If I said that [US] Americans don't contribute much besides strife, I wouldn't be far off. Does that mean we should all be killed by the Chinese? Of course not. Nobody should be killing anyone else. But if others want to kill each other - and it certainly looks like the Israelis and Arabs are itchin to have a go at it - then the US should stand aside and let it play out. We should not take sides, nor should we try to moderate discussions unless asked to do so by both sides.
That aside, I would suggest that if, for some insane reason, we feel compelled to take sides, we should support whoever ships us more oil. Let's be a little more pragmatic here; that oil is damned important. Why is it exactly that we support Israel anyway? What have they ever done for us? Where are the benefits of supporting Israel?
That would be Harry Browne, a noninterventionist. Tired of the US antagonizing other nations? Vote Browne.