>>Whether the students in question are guilty or innocent is no longer an issue where the facet of their financial obligation is concerned. The RIAA has determined these kids will pay and pay they will.
I understand the problem. The US legal system is very expensive. The only real recourse is for lawyers to fight pro-bono and hope to turn around and counter-sue for expenses.
If you want to change that, then get out and vote.
>>RIAA on the fact they have the most resources to lobby their interests.
The RIAA represents, what, 1/1000th of the population? If everyone on a campus wrote their representative and demanded they change the laws, the RIAA would be drowned out in the noise. If the reps refused to listen, then vote for someone else who will listen.
Demand that your reps BLOG every contact with lobbyists.
>>Do you cooperate with me? A non-state official, non-law enforcement, and with no warrant for such a search and seizure?
People keep bringing up this "warrant" issue. The RIAA does not need a warrant to *ask* the University for records. The University is under no requirement to provide the records. If they demand a court order, then the RIAA will sue the University for the actions of their users.
The University has decided that they do not want to fight that battle.
There is nothing illegal about one agency asking another agency for information.
>>Sure, you have the right to find out who I am, using everything at your disposal, but you're not the police, and if you want to get evidence from a university to prosecute me, you should need a subpoena.
Where do you get that idea? If I ask you for your phone number, do I need a subpoena? If I ask Alice for Bob's number, do I?
If the university willingly turn over information, then no law has been broken.
Don't be an ass. This country has an "upper", "middle", and "lower" class. There are healthy white people in all of those classes. There are Asians and blacks and Hispanics in those classes also.
Lower class people may have a hard time defending themselves, but, they also have very little to lose.
Middle class people have something to lose, but most live little better than paycheck-2-paycheck. Very few have savings. Most are already heavily in debt.
The upper class have much to lose, but have no real reason to fight. Better to write a check and do away with the whole mess than to pay a lawyer.
>>All these retorts of, you get to do in it court, you then qualify that statemen that the legal system is broken.. So what exactly was your point really
My point is that just because you are too weak to play does not exempt you from the game. Life is really tough. It's best to learn that early on. Most times, it's better to pay someone off than to fight through the legal system. That's just the way it is.
In the workplace, it's usually better to "play the game" than to make a fuss.
Yes, life is shitty. If you want a perfect workplace, start your own company and see how well you do. If you want a perfect legal system, then get people together and vote.
BTW, as long as you play *their* game, they will win. If you want to win, change the rules. When they sue you, get the lawyer's name. Send him a Polaroid of his kids' school or his wife in her SUV.
>>Just because I say something does not give you the right to determine who I am
But it doesn't *not* give me the right to. Right now, at this moment, I have the right to obtain any and all information on any person I want to.
I can't violate laws. But, if I ask your school for your transcripts and they just turn them over, then I haven't violated any laws.
Even if I lie to obtain those transcripts; I still haven't broken any laws. Lying is not against the law unless you are under oath.
>>the UW is giving into the RIAA which is using questionably unlawful means to obtain information
Let's say I run a firewall. Let's also say that I log attacks. Now, if I take those logs and trace the IP addresses back to the ISP, what have I done that is "questionably unlawful"? If I ask the ISP to tell me the customer's name and address, then I still have done nothing wrong.
What is wrong with one agency asking another agency about yet another agencies' identity?
Not anonymous speech. IF you say something, be prepared to stand up and back it up. Just because you *can* say something does not mean you can say something and will never be found. Just as you have a right to say whatever you want about me, I have the right to find out who you are and confront you about it.
>>protect our rights
Like the rights of the copyright holders? Who protects their rights? Oh yeah, the RIAA does. You do not have the right to distribute copyrighted works without permission of the copyright holder. If you are using bittorrent to download copyrighted music, then you are, at the same time, uploading that same music.
>>war protests
I really don't see how that factors in. I guess if you want to link the military-industrial complex and the Illuminati, then maybe it makes sense.
>>Ii [sic] sort of saddens me to see the management, who must have been in those protests
The things they protested were thousands of times worse. Whites openly killed blacks. The government openly forced young men into military service. Women had few, if any, rights. Homosexuals were harshly persecuted.
We have it pretty good today. It'd be better of people voted, but I digress.
>>now lookig [sic] for the easy way out
How is having you fight your own battle the "easy way out"? A third party comes forward and advises that IP 10.10.10.200 was downloading "Hit me baby one more time" from IP 20.20.20.200 at 11:30 GMT on 1 June 2007. They are requesting the user's contact info for that IP lease at that time.
That's all.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were downloading a "real" copy of a copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were also uploading that same copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were the actual owner of that IP at that time, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not someone behind a NAT you run was downloading, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not the evidence was collected properly, then you still get to do it in court.
The point is that you actually have to stand up as a named person and defend your good name. Mom, dad, and the University will not take care of you for the rest of your life. College is the best time to learn that.
Now, if you want to argue that the legal system is broken, then I'll agree. But, within the confines of the game, the RIAA is playing the hand they were dealt. You must do the same. If you want to change the rules of the game, then get out and vote. If that isn't fast enough, then shoot some RIAA lawyers every time they file a suit.
But, do not, under any circumstances, be mad because mommy isn't wiping your ass anymore...
The first $20k of expenses for all families would be exempt from the VAT. Everything else would be taxed at 20%.
If, in any given year, I bought $21k worth of goods, I would pay $1000 * 20% tax.
If you bought $2,000,000 worth of goods, you would pay $1,980,000 * 20% tax.
If I bought a TV and then re-sold it, neither the buyer or seller would have to track the tax. The tax on the TV would have already have been paid at first sale.
Obviously, if you run, for example, an e-bay business, then you would have to deal with taxes. If you can prove that you paid tax on an item you purchased, then your re-sale would be exempt.
>>People do not honestly report income from those sales.
Stop taxing income. It's that simple. Charge a 20% VAT for everything sold in the USA and make sellers responsible for collecting taxes. The VAT would not apply to the first $20k spent and would not apply to items that I bought and re-sold.
Maybe that would finally stop the practice of rich fuckers not paying income taxes. It's pretty hard to loophole a 20% tax on a new yacht.
The President, for all the credit we give him, does not have much influence in the average person's life. He can start or end wars in foreign lands. He can sign bills into law. Most of those bills have zero effect on the average person. He can juggle billions of dollars, but the average person's taxes rarely change. And another few cents of taxes over a 4 year period is hardly noticable.
It just does not matter what the President does for the most part.
If he declared martial law or refused to leave office, then we might have a problem. If he vetoed all the budget bills and shut down the federal government, then we might have a problem.
>>When a corporation buys a politician or a politician buys a voting machine manufacturer, both have an extreme interest in keeping it secret.
But there would be a lot of people in that Corp that know about it. The Board would have to know. The CEO would know. The accountants would see the expenditure. Someone of the other side would have to take the money and deposit it somewhere.
In a "best case" scenario, a CEO would hand a briefcase of cash to the candidate. Or, the other way around. But it's pretty hard to hide money transactions. Especially if you are running for office.
>>Secrets can be kept as long as all parties involved have much more to lose by disclosure than they could possibly gain by it.
Nope. If public school teaches people anything, it should be that someone will rat. Principal finds a cigarette butt in the locker room. He announces that they "know" who did it. Now, you have like 50 people coming forward to confess or turn someone in.
Secrets cannot be kept.
Plus, how much would you stand to gain by disclosing election fraud? You would be the savior of modern democracy. Your name would be in history books around the world for centuries to come. You'd make millions in interviews and more millions in book deals.
>>Would you mind elaborating on this? It's kind of hard to miss planes hitting buildings, whereas a backdoor hidden in a black box by its keepers could slip by.
How many people would it take to steal an election? The candidate would probably be in on it. As would the president of DieBold. Probably they would need programmers to help. There would be written documents passed around to keep anyone from being left holding the bag. You are looking at dozens of people involved in this.
One of them would talk. No amount of money you could pay them would be more than they would get for publishing the plan.
How about 9-11? How many people in the government would have to know about that to pull it off? One of them would talk.
>>Accountability would help ensure that the code would be correct.
They don't care about "correct". They just want something that works for the lowest cost possible. Every day spent testing is one less day they can be selling.
And, again, you can't address the fact that companies re-use code. To open one product would also compromise other products.
>>* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.
Not really. Mark Twain once remarked that two men can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The government can't keep the political firings of US Attorneys' General secret. Why do you think that could keep bribing for election wins secret? HP can't violate the privacy of their own board members without everyone in the world reading about it.
Secrets as big as "9-11" or "buying an election" would be almost impossible to keep under wraps.
They want their code closed because it is designed by total morons and they want to hide the fact that it is so shitty. Access databases and mis-calibrated touch screens just go to show how dumb these designers are. If the code was opened, it would be trashed within seconds.
Plus, they probably re-used code from other projects. Opening one project would automatically open all the other shared source trees.
>>* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.
Nope. MS has been pretty good about keeping their source secure. They know that if 900 people have code, then that's 900 places code can leak. Add to that the fact that the Federal Government wants code. Hell, most people don't trust the Feds with anything. Why should MS trust the Feds with their code?
>>* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.
Well, that's the way it has always been. Look at the Olympics from the early 1900s. All the stars were "rich kids" just playing. Now we spend millions to locate the best runners. Then we spend millions more to make them 1/1000th of a second faster.
Politics is a lot like that. No one wants to spend millions finding the guy with the best ideas. No one wants to host "Who Wants to be a President". We just take the rich kids who can talk pretty good and haven't killed too many hookers. From those, we take the ones that are the best at hiding secrets and elect them.
The Olympics have taken about, what, 2000 years, to get to the point where "the best" are actually allowed to compete.
Politics is making it's way, but it'll be another thousand years or so before we can pick 450 guys to represent a country and really do what's right for that country as opposed to themselves.
Riders are seen as a way for a Democratic Congress to force a Republican president to pass a law that he doesn't want to. Attach anti-war legislation to the 2008 budget, for instance.
You may remember that Bill Clinton closed the federal government several times. It was because of riders like this.
Oh, and riders will never be outlawed. They are seen as a "bird in the hand" for the Legislative Branch. There may come a time when they need riders to get rid of an unpopular President.
I would, however, like to see them limited to 10 riders per year.
The US missiles are fairly well designed. Most had multiple warheads per and each warhead had a fairly small punch. They were not intended to hit cities. They were, instead, aimed at military bases, war factories, missile silos, training grounds. Things like that.
Not to say that civilians wouldn't die, but the blast area would be fairly well contained.
On top of that, using a *very* small fission primary with a smallish fusion secondary meant that a large portion of the material would be used in the blast. There would still be a Gama burst. There would also be a lot of heat and light. But the amount of "fallout" would be pretty small.
The Russian birds, on the other hand, were large "city busters". They did not have the capability to track or attack small military targets. Their strategy was to hit population centers and hope that it would demoralize the fighting men and women.
To boost the effectiveness, their weapons were designed to be "ground burst" nukes. The close proximity of the detonation would end up creating a lot of fallout. Some radioactive, but most not.
There were rumors that both sides had large air-burst weapons with huge amounts of radioactive material. They would detonate these high in the atmosphere, the radiation would rain down for a few weeks and kill everyone. Then, the military could roll in and seize assets.
First off, I think that everyone not convicted of a felony should be able to carry a weapon. I think that there should be few exceptions. Teachers *should* definitely be armed; people in a courtroom should definitely *not* be armed.
I'm not a big fan of CCPs. If you want to carry a weapon concealed, then you should also be carrying one openly. I have walked around carrying a 9mm pistol in a shoulder holster on top of my suit. It freaks people out, but people seem to remember their manners a lot better when they see a gun.
If you want to carry a gun, then just fucking do it openly.
>>"In Florida, for example, a murder rate that was 36% above the national average when carry reform went into effect in 1987, fell by 1991 to 4% below the national average."
The problem with statistics is that they obscure the truth. You need to look at the case of every gun-related death and group them properly. In 1987 and 1991, how many people died from accidental discharge? How many people in 87 and 91 drew on police officers? How many died in drug-related crime?
If there were 1000 deaths last year and 100 this year, then the numbers say that's better. But if last year had 990 criminals shooting other criminals and this year had 90 kids accidentally shooting themselves, then I say it's worse.
I think most Cable was installed by private companies. However, their cables were laid in city-owned conduits or strung from city-owned poles. I'm sure there was a leasing agreement. But they still use limited, public resources to carry their wires.
Sats use radio for the uplink/downlink. I'm sure they had to license that from someone. Or do companies really spend billions to orbit a bird just hoping that no one else will decide to use that freq?
Not that I'm saying they *should* be regulated. But when you have Ted "the tubes" Stevens up there, anything could happen.
>>The difference is that Canada seems to limit how much the political parties can spend rather than how much people can give. So If a party spends a lot of money on one candidate for office then there is less money for other candidates from the same party.
If it wasn't for that pesky First Amendment, we could limit campaign spending too...
Money may not *be* speech, but money is used to buy ad spots and move the candidates around so they can be seen. Any thing you try to do to limit spending will instantly be overturned by the Supreme Court.
What *could* be done is to increase voter registration and turnout. Registration should be automatic for everyone 18 and older. Do it via drivers' license or a separate system; just get it done. 100% registration should be the goal.
Next, force networks to cover issues. The big 3 use public airwaves. During the weeks preceding the elections, they should have to dedicate 50% or more time to covering the candidates in a positive light.
Finally, change the law so that you *have* to have people vote for the election to be valid. If only 20% of registered voters show up, then that election should not be valid. Either keep the current person in office until people show up, or, much better, have the office vacated. No one wants to vote for the President, then maybe the country doesn't need a president. Around Feb or March, have another election and see if people have come around...
The main problem seems to be from people with "popular" email addresses. With my regular account (first.last@company.com), I get a fair amount of SPAM. My support account, support@company.com, gets *tons* of SPAM. However, this is not a problem for me. I am active in my community (RC Helicopters), and I post in the popular forums. The people there know me. Many know my cell number and will call me directly with any problems.
The main problem here seems to be that *huge* companies have problems dealing with doing business online. They can't figure out how to keep that "mom and pop" feel while still servicing millions of hits per second.
Well, tough shit!
First, stop using first.last@company.com. Every org worth shit uses some form of directory services. Internally, your name is hidden. In most cases, your position should be your email. I get so tired of emailing thom.jhonston@company.com for personnel issues. He should be using !QAZ2wsx@company.com aliased via Active Directory to "Personnel Manager". And he should *not* share that with family. If he wants to talk to Aunt Martha, let him fucking start a "martha_s_nephew_thom@gmail.com" address. Hell, after about 20 minutes, anyone can understand the concept of thom+aunt_martha@gmail.com and a little filtering.
So, companies should obfuscate internal email addresses and use AD (or whatever the *nix world uses) to assign positions.
Individuals should use name+whatever and filtering (or, better yet, use whitelisting) to reduce SPAM.
It isn't that hard. A few spots on MSNBC, Fox, CNN, and the major networks could solve the problem. In fact, the Gov could declare SPAM a "terrorist (draining on the economy==terrorist) entity" and demand that EVERY NETWORK show an ANTI-SPAM spot once per commercial break.
Democrat means big government regulating everything and everyone in every way possible. They "take from the rich and give to the poor". Republicans are often seen as friends of big business. The reason for this is that they are against government regulation and oversight. Dems == big government. Repub == small government.
The people who think that are dumb. However, the government has no business telling me to wear a seatbelt. If people want to drive without a seatbelt, that's their problem.
What's amazing is that in every state in the union, I'll get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Yet in most places, there is no law against people who drive while eating, talking on a cell, adjusting the radio, smoking, etc... Which of those things is a real danger?
Places like 20/20 or 60-minutes (or the fucking new york times) can make money by telling you what is good or bad. Or, even better, if you don't know your local butcher, don't trust them.
Of course, you can always rely on mommy to tell you what's good for you...
This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt. It's awesome that The Jungle (awesome book about chicago meatpacking) informs consumers about meatpacking. However, government shouldn't be in the process of regulating transactions between individuals.
Every law that is written means more taxes, more bureaucrats, more waste, and less money that I can spend.
Stop calling for government to take care of you. Start taking care of yourself. If 20% of the population dies because they are too dumb to survive, too bad.
People always complain when new laws are enacted that are already covered by old laws. Why should we pass law x when law y already covers that?
My guess is that "contributing to the delinquency of" or "abuse of" a child carries a pretty hard penalty. You have to cover everything from letting kids see you smoke or swear all the way up to showing kids how to properly cut up and dispose of a human corpse. Hence, 40-years maximum for violation of that law.
The chances of someone being sentenced to the max are very slim. Especially for a first offense. Especially in something as dumb as this.
More likely than not, she'd be sentenced to a year of probation. She probably wouldn't even have to register as a sex offender. Although, she might lose her teaching certificate.
Anyway, screaming "he can get 40 years for peeing in a bush" is no better than the "cell phones give you cancer" crowd.
The reason you deal with decompression sickness is that you breathe in air at 90' and the ascend. As you go up, the compressed air starts decompressing and filling up volume. In your joints, that causes the bends. In your lungs, it will cause a lot of pain.
If, however, you take a normal breath at the surface, descend 90', and then ascend, the air will not expand and cause problems.
I've heard that free divers' lungs will crush to the size of a baseball or smaller at depth.
>>So, when do we start seeing federal agents waiting by McDonald's, ready to arrest anyone who brings his kid in for a Happy Meal?
If you feel it needs to be addressed, then bring it up in City Council meeting. That's how most laws are proposed. If you really want to make an impact, start a parents' group who will become the "enforcers" once the bill passes. Make sure to request funding and such and you can make a good living off of it.
>>Seriously though, how is this bill going to get by the 1st ammendment?
It may be hard. However, do you think parents should be allowed to show their children kiddy porn? How about beastality? How about regular hard core porn? How about pictures of maggot infested corpses?
At some point, there will be a line of what is okay to show a kid and what isn't okay. You have the right to freedom of speech so long as it does not harm another. If your free speech is harming your child, then your child will be removed.
>>According to the bill, all games would have to have enforced ratings. The V-tech game has no rating, therefore all online games would have to be rated, but then, why not the whole internet?
Yeah, they are pretty dumb. It's like saying all movies have to be rated. Does that mean I have to submit my vid of Seaworld to the MPAA?
There will most likely be an "unrated" category of rating. That will, by default, fall into the highest classification. If your kid plays Sudoku on some shitty "allflashgamez4u" site, you are in violation of the law. You have just "abandoned" your kid.
>>Libraries are also online, as are a number of books.
Not sure what you are getting at. If my local library stocks Penthouse, they damn well better not let my kid view it. If they provide access to the internet for minors, then they are responsible for what those minors do. If they want to have a filter room for 17 and under, fine. Maybe the filters will work; maybe they won't. But at least they are trying.
>>Does this mean that the government is in favor of determining what books are ok for children to view? Isn't that government censorship?
I think you don't understand government. You do realize that the government is you, right? 300,000,000 assholes in the US get to come to a consensus for how people behave in public. In some cases, they get to decide how people behave in private. If there are 200,000,000 parents and they don't want their kids playing violent games, then they will write a law for that.
They do have to fall within the bounds of the Bill of Rights. They also have to be aware of the tyranny of the majority. But, in the end, they will pressure their way into getting what they want.
Slashdot Mirror
>>Whether the students in question are guilty or innocent is no longer an issue where the facet of their financial obligation is concerned. The RIAA has determined these kids will pay and pay they will.
I understand the problem. The US legal system is very expensive. The only real recourse is for lawyers to fight pro-bono and hope to turn around and counter-sue for expenses.
If you want to change that, then get out and vote.
>>RIAA on the fact they have the most resources to lobby their interests.
The RIAA represents, what, 1/1000th of the population? If everyone on a campus wrote their representative and demanded they change the laws, the RIAA would be drowned out in the noise. If the reps refused to listen, then vote for someone else who will listen.
Demand that your reps BLOG every contact with lobbyists.
>>Do you cooperate with me? A non-state official, non-law enforcement, and with no warrant for such a search and seizure?
People keep bringing up this "warrant" issue. The RIAA does not need a warrant to *ask* the University for records. The University is under no requirement to provide the records. If they demand a court order, then the RIAA will sue the University for the actions of their users.
The University has decided that they do not want to fight that battle.
There is nothing illegal about one agency asking another agency for information.
>>Sure, you have the right to find out who I am, using everything at your disposal, but you're not the police, and if you want to get evidence from a university to prosecute me, you should need a subpoena.
Where do you get that idea? If I ask you for your phone number, do I need a subpoena? If I ask Alice for Bob's number, do I?
If the university willingly turn over information, then no law has been broken.
>>you mean the healthy white folk
Don't be an ass. This country has an "upper", "middle", and "lower" class. There are healthy white people in all of those classes. There are Asians and blacks and Hispanics in those classes also.
Lower class people may have a hard time defending themselves, but, they also have very little to lose.
Middle class people have something to lose, but most live little better than paycheck-2-paycheck. Very few have savings. Most are already heavily in debt.
The upper class have much to lose, but have no real reason to fight. Better to write a check and do away with the whole mess than to pay a lawyer.
>>All these retorts of, you get to do in it court, you then qualify that statemen that the legal system is broken.. So what exactly was your point really
My point is that just because you are too weak to play does not exempt you from the game. Life is really tough. It's best to learn that early on. Most times, it's better to pay someone off than to fight through the legal system. That's just the way it is.
In the workplace, it's usually better to "play the game" than to make a fuss.
Yes, life is shitty. If you want a perfect workplace, start your own company and see how well you do. If you want a perfect legal system, then get people together and vote.
BTW, as long as you play *their* game, they will win. If you want to win, change the rules. When they sue you, get the lawyer's name. Send him a Polaroid of his kids' school or his wife in her SUV.
>>Just because I say something does not give you the right to determine who I am
But it doesn't *not* give me the right to. Right now, at this moment, I have the right to obtain any and all information on any person I want to.
I can't violate laws. But, if I ask your school for your transcripts and they just turn them over, then I haven't violated any laws.
Even if I lie to obtain those transcripts; I still haven't broken any laws. Lying is not against the law unless you are under oath.
>>the UW is giving into the RIAA which is using questionably unlawful means to obtain information
Let's say I run a firewall. Let's also say that I log attacks. Now, if I take those logs and trace the IP addresses back to the ISP, what have I done that is "questionably unlawful"? If I ask the ISP to tell me the customer's name and address, then I still have done nothing wrong.
What is wrong with one agency asking another agency about yet another agencies' identity?
>>free speech
Not anonymous speech. IF you say something, be prepared to stand up and back it up. Just because you *can* say something does not mean you can say something and will never be found. Just as you have a right to say whatever you want about me, I have the right to find out who you are and confront you about it.
>>protect our rights
Like the rights of the copyright holders? Who protects their rights? Oh yeah, the RIAA does. You do not have the right to distribute copyrighted works without permission of the copyright holder. If you are using bittorrent to download copyrighted music, then you are, at the same time, uploading that same music.
>>war protests
I really don't see how that factors in. I guess if you want to link the military-industrial complex and the Illuminati, then maybe it makes sense.
>>Ii [sic] sort of saddens me to see the management, who must have been in those protests
The things they protested were thousands of times worse. Whites openly killed blacks. The government openly forced young men into military service. Women had few, if any, rights. Homosexuals were harshly persecuted.
We have it pretty good today. It'd be better of people voted, but I digress.
>>now lookig [sic] for the easy way out
How is having you fight your own battle the "easy way out"? A third party comes forward and advises that IP 10.10.10.200 was downloading "Hit me baby one more time" from IP 20.20.20.200 at 11:30 GMT on 1 June 2007. They are requesting the user's contact info for that IP lease at that time.
That's all.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were downloading a "real" copy of a copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were also uploading that same copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not you were the actual owner of that IP at that time, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not someone behind a NAT you run was downloading, then you still get to do it in court.
If you want to argue about whether or not the evidence was collected properly, then you still get to do it in court.
The point is that you actually have to stand up as a named person and defend your good name. Mom, dad, and the University will not take care of you for the rest of your life. College is the best time to learn that.
Now, if you want to argue that the legal system is broken, then I'll agree. But, within the confines of the game, the RIAA is playing the hand they were dealt. You must do the same. If you want to change the rules of the game, then get out and vote. If that isn't fast enough, then shoot some RIAA lawyers every time they file a suit.
But, do not, under any circumstances, be mad because mommy isn't wiping your ass anymore...
Maybe I didn't explain properly.
The first $20k of expenses for all families would be exempt from the VAT. Everything else would be taxed at 20%.
If, in any given year, I bought $21k worth of goods, I would pay $1000 * 20% tax.
If you bought $2,000,000 worth of goods, you would pay $1,980,000 * 20% tax.
If I bought a TV and then re-sold it, neither the buyer or seller would have to track the tax. The tax on the TV would have already have been paid at first sale.
Obviously, if you run, for example, an e-bay business, then you would have to deal with taxes. If you can prove that you paid tax on an item you purchased, then your re-sale would be exempt.
>>People do not honestly report income from those sales.
Stop taxing income. It's that simple. Charge a 20% VAT for everything sold in the USA and make sellers responsible for collecting taxes. The VAT would not apply to the first $20k spent and would not apply to items that I bought and re-sold.
Maybe that would finally stop the practice of rich fuckers not paying income taxes. It's pretty hard to loophole a 20% tax on a new yacht.
The President, for all the credit we give him, does not have much influence in the average person's life. He can start or end wars in foreign lands. He can sign bills into law. Most of those bills have zero effect on the average person. He can juggle billions of dollars, but the average person's taxes rarely change. And another few cents of taxes over a 4 year period is hardly noticable.
It just does not matter what the President does for the most part.
If he declared martial law or refused to leave office, then we might have a problem. If he vetoed all the budget bills and shut down the federal government, then we might have a problem.
>>When a corporation buys a politician or a politician buys a voting machine manufacturer, both have an extreme interest in keeping it secret.
But there would be a lot of people in that Corp that know about it. The Board would have to know. The CEO would know. The accountants would see the expenditure. Someone of the other side would have to take the money and deposit it somewhere.
In a "best case" scenario, a CEO would hand a briefcase of cash to the candidate. Or, the other way around. But it's pretty hard to hide money transactions. Especially if you are running for office.
>>Secrets can be kept as long as all parties involved have much more to lose by disclosure than they could possibly gain by it.
Nope. If public school teaches people anything, it should be that someone will rat. Principal finds a cigarette butt in the locker room. He announces that they "know" who did it. Now, you have like 50 people coming forward to confess or turn someone in.
Secrets cannot be kept.
Plus, how much would you stand to gain by disclosing election fraud? You would be the savior of modern democracy. Your name would be in history books around the world for centuries to come. You'd make millions in interviews and more millions in book deals.
>>Would you mind elaborating on this? It's kind of hard to miss planes hitting buildings, whereas a backdoor hidden in a black box by its keepers could slip by.
How many people would it take to steal an election? The candidate would probably be in on it. As would the president of DieBold. Probably they would need programmers to help. There would be written documents passed around to keep anyone from being left holding the bag. You are looking at dozens of people involved in this.
One of them would talk. No amount of money you could pay them would be more than they would get for publishing the plan.
How about 9-11? How many people in the government would have to know about that to pull it off? One of them would talk.
>>Accountability would help ensure that the code would be correct.
They don't care about "correct". They just want something that works for the lowest cost possible. Every day spent testing is one less day they can be selling.
And, again, you can't address the fact that companies re-use code. To open one product would also compromise other products.
You assume the worst.
>>* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.
Not really. Mark Twain once remarked that two men can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The government can't keep the political firings of US Attorneys' General secret. Why do you think that could keep bribing for election wins secret? HP can't violate the privacy of their own board members without everyone in the world reading about it.
Secrets as big as "9-11" or "buying an election" would be almost impossible to keep under wraps.
They want their code closed because it is designed by total morons and they want to hide the fact that it is so shitty. Access databases and mis-calibrated touch screens just go to show how dumb these designers are. If the code was opened, it would be trashed within seconds.
Plus, they probably re-used code from other projects. Opening one project would automatically open all the other shared source trees.
>>* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.
Nope. MS has been pretty good about keeping their source secure. They know that if 900 people have code, then that's 900 places code can leak. Add to that the fact that the Federal Government wants code. Hell, most people don't trust the Feds with anything. Why should MS trust the Feds with their code?
>>* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.
Well, that's the way it has always been. Look at the Olympics from the early 1900s. All the stars were "rich kids" just playing. Now we spend millions to locate the best runners. Then we spend millions more to make them 1/1000th of a second faster.
Politics is a lot like that. No one wants to spend millions finding the guy with the best ideas. No one wants to host "Who Wants to be a President". We just take the rich kids who can talk pretty good and haven't killed too many hookers. From those, we take the ones that are the best at hiding secrets and elect them.
The Olympics have taken about, what, 2000 years, to get to the point where "the best" are actually allowed to compete.
Politics is making it's way, but it'll be another thousand years or so before we can pick 450 guys to represent a country and really do what's right for that country as opposed to themselves.
Riders are seen as a way for a Democratic Congress to force a Republican president to pass a law that he doesn't want to. Attach anti-war legislation to the 2008 budget, for instance.
You may remember that Bill Clinton closed the federal government several times. It was because of riders like this.
Oh, and riders will never be outlawed. They are seen as a "bird in the hand" for the Legislative Branch. There may come a time when they need riders to get rid of an unpopular President.
I would, however, like to see them limited to 10 riders per year.
The US missiles are fairly well designed. Most had multiple warheads per and each warhead had a fairly small punch. They were not intended to hit cities. They were, instead, aimed at military bases, war factories, missile silos, training grounds. Things like that.
Not to say that civilians wouldn't die, but the blast area would be fairly well contained.
On top of that, using a *very* small fission primary with a smallish fusion secondary meant that a large portion of the material would be used in the blast. There would still be a Gama burst. There would also be a lot of heat and light. But the amount of "fallout" would be pretty small.
The Russian birds, on the other hand, were large "city busters". They did not have the capability to track or attack small military targets. Their strategy was to hit population centers and hope that it would demoralize the fighting men and women.
To boost the effectiveness, their weapons were designed to be "ground burst" nukes. The close proximity of the detonation would end up creating a lot of fallout. Some radioactive, but most not.
There were rumors that both sides had large air-burst weapons with huge amounts of radioactive material. They would detonate these high in the atmosphere, the radiation would rain down for a few weeks and kill everyone. Then, the military could roll in and seize assets.
First off, I think that everyone not convicted of a felony should be able to carry a weapon. I think that there should be few exceptions. Teachers *should* definitely be armed; people in a courtroom should definitely *not* be armed.
I'm not a big fan of CCPs. If you want to carry a weapon concealed, then you should also be carrying one openly. I have walked around carrying a 9mm pistol in a shoulder holster on top of my suit. It freaks people out, but people seem to remember their manners a lot better when they see a gun.
If you want to carry a gun, then just fucking do it openly.
>>"In Florida, for example, a murder rate that was 36% above the national average when carry reform went into effect in 1987, fell by 1991 to 4% below the national average."
The problem with statistics is that they obscure the truth. You need to look at the case of every gun-related death and group them properly. In 1987 and 1991, how many people died from accidental discharge? How many people in 87 and 91 drew on police officers? How many died in drug-related crime?
If there were 1000 deaths last year and 100 this year, then the numbers say that's better. But if last year had 990 criminals shooting other criminals and this year had 90 kids accidentally shooting themselves, then I say it's worse.
I think most Cable was installed by private companies. However, their cables were laid in city-owned conduits or strung from city-owned poles. I'm sure there was a leasing agreement. But they still use limited, public resources to carry their wires.
Sats use radio for the uplink/downlink. I'm sure they had to license that from someone. Or do companies really spend billions to orbit a bird just hoping that no one else will decide to use that freq?
Not that I'm saying they *should* be regulated. But when you have Ted "the tubes" Stevens up there, anything could happen.
Actually, there shouldn't.
If consumers want to buy just one cable channel, then they need to all go to the cable office together and cancel their services at the same time.
If enough consumers want it, it'll happen.
But every time you allow your government to regulate things, you lose a little more control.
Small government == good government.
>>The difference is that Canada seems to limit how much the political parties can spend rather than how much people can give. So If a party spends a lot of money on one candidate for office then there is less money for other candidates from the same party.
If it wasn't for that pesky First Amendment, we could limit campaign spending too...
Money may not *be* speech, but money is used to buy ad spots and move the candidates around so they can be seen. Any thing you try to do to limit spending will instantly be overturned by the Supreme Court.
What *could* be done is to increase voter registration and turnout. Registration should be automatic for everyone 18 and older. Do it via drivers' license or a separate system; just get it done. 100% registration should be the goal.
Next, force networks to cover issues. The big 3 use public airwaves. During the weeks preceding the elections, they should have to dedicate 50% or more time to covering the candidates in a positive light.
Finally, change the law so that you *have* to have people vote for the election to be valid. If only 20% of registered voters show up, then that election should not be valid. Either keep the current person in office until people show up, or, much better, have the office vacated. No one wants to vote for the President, then maybe the country doesn't need a president. Around Feb or March, have another election and see if people have come around...
The main problem seems to be from people with "popular" email addresses. With my regular account (first.last@company.com), I get a fair amount of SPAM. My support account, support@company.com, gets *tons* of SPAM. However, this is not a problem for me. I am active in my community (RC Helicopters), and I post in the popular forums. The people there know me. Many know my cell number and will call me directly with any problems.
The main problem here seems to be that *huge* companies have problems dealing with doing business online. They can't figure out how to keep that "mom and pop" feel while still servicing millions of hits per second.
Well, tough shit!
First, stop using first.last@company.com. Every org worth shit uses some form of directory services. Internally, your name is hidden. In most cases, your position should be your email. I get so tired of emailing thom.jhonston@company.com for personnel issues. He should be using !QAZ2wsx@company.com aliased via Active Directory to "Personnel Manager". And he should *not* share that with family. If he wants to talk to Aunt Martha, let him fucking start a "martha_s_nephew_thom@gmail.com" address. Hell, after about 20 minutes, anyone can understand the concept of thom+aunt_martha@gmail.com and a little filtering.
So, companies should obfuscate internal email addresses and use AD (or whatever the *nix world uses) to assign positions.
Individuals should use name+whatever and filtering (or, better yet, use whitelisting) to reduce SPAM.
It isn't that hard. A few spots on MSNBC, Fox, CNN, and the major networks could solve the problem. In fact, the Gov could declare SPAM a "terrorist (draining on the economy==terrorist) entity" and demand that EVERY NETWORK show an ANTI-SPAM spot once per commercial break.
Democrat means big government regulating everything and everyone in every way possible. They "take from the rich and give to the poor". Republicans are often seen as friends of big business. The reason for this is that they are against government regulation and oversight. Dems == big government. Repub == small government.
The people who think that are dumb. However, the government has no business telling me to wear a seatbelt. If people want to drive without a seatbelt, that's their problem.
What's amazing is that in every state in the union, I'll get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Yet in most places, there is no law against people who drive while eating, talking on a cell, adjusting the radio, smoking, etc... Which of those things is a real danger?
Places like 20/20 or 60-minutes (or the fucking new york times) can make money by telling you what is good or bad. Or, even better, if you don't know your local butcher, don't trust them.
Of course, you can always rely on mommy to tell you what's good for you...
This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt. It's awesome that The Jungle (awesome book about chicago meatpacking) informs consumers about meatpacking. However, government shouldn't be in the process of regulating transactions between individuals.
Every law that is written means more taxes, more bureaucrats, more waste, and less money that I can spend.
Stop calling for government to take care of you. Start taking care of yourself. If 20% of the population dies because they are too dumb to survive, too bad.
People always complain when new laws are enacted that are already covered by old laws. Why should we pass law x when law y already covers that?
My guess is that "contributing to the delinquency of" or "abuse of" a child carries a pretty hard penalty. You have to cover everything from letting kids see you smoke or swear all the way up to showing kids how to properly cut up and dispose of a human corpse. Hence, 40-years maximum for violation of that law.
The chances of someone being sentenced to the max are very slim. Especially for a first offense. Especially in something as dumb as this.
More likely than not, she'd be sentenced to a year of probation. She probably wouldn't even have to register as a sex offender. Although, she might lose her teaching certificate.
Anyway, screaming "he can get 40 years for peeing in a bush" is no better than the "cell phones give you cancer" crowd.
The reason you deal with decompression sickness is that you breathe in air at 90' and the ascend. As you go up, the compressed air starts decompressing and filling up volume. In your joints, that causes the bends. In your lungs, it will cause a lot of pain.
If, however, you take a normal breath at the surface, descend 90', and then ascend, the air will not expand and cause problems.
I've heard that free divers' lungs will crush to the size of a baseball or smaller at depth.
>>So, when do we start seeing federal agents waiting by McDonald's, ready to arrest anyone who brings his kid in for a Happy Meal?
If you feel it needs to be addressed, then bring it up in City Council meeting. That's how most laws are proposed. If you really want to make an impact, start a parents' group who will become the "enforcers" once the bill passes. Make sure to request funding and such and you can make a good living off of it.
>>Seriously though, how is this bill going to get by the 1st ammendment?
It may be hard. However, do you think parents should be allowed to show their children kiddy porn? How about beastality? How about regular hard core porn? How about pictures of maggot infested corpses?
At some point, there will be a line of what is okay to show a kid and what isn't okay. You have the right to freedom of speech so long as it does not harm another. If your free speech is harming your child, then your child will be removed.
>>According to the bill, all games would have to have enforced ratings. The V-tech game has no rating, therefore all online games would have to be rated, but then, why not the whole internet?
Yeah, they are pretty dumb. It's like saying all movies have to be rated. Does that mean I have to submit my vid of Seaworld to the MPAA?
There will most likely be an "unrated" category of rating. That will, by default, fall into the highest classification. If your kid plays Sudoku on some shitty "allflashgamez4u" site, you are in violation of the law. You have just "abandoned" your kid.
>>Libraries are also online, as are a number of books.
Not sure what you are getting at. If my local library stocks Penthouse, they damn well better not let my kid view it. If they provide access to the internet for minors, then they are responsible for what those minors do. If they want to have a filter room for 17 and under, fine. Maybe the filters will work; maybe they won't. But at least they are trying.
>>Does this mean that the government is in favor of determining what books are ok for children to view? Isn't that government censorship?
I think you don't understand government. You do realize that the government is you, right? 300,000,000 assholes in the US get to come to a consensus for how people behave in public. In some cases, they get to decide how people behave in private. If there are 200,000,000 parents and they don't want their kids playing violent games, then they will write a law for that.
They do have to fall within the bounds of the Bill of Rights. They also have to be aware of the tyranny of the majority. But, in the end, they will pressure their way into getting what they want.