Have you heard of primaries and write-in votes, yet? People are permitted to choose their candidates; it's just that a large number feel that it's easier to choose a party affiliation, and many probably vote on the basis of party instead of the competencies and positions of individual candidates.
You haven't noticed the fact that unions practically always endorse Democrats, and that they are a LARGE part of the delegates at party conventions?
Some of the unions were probably a bit pissed off at Clinton and the Democrats over NAFTA, but they're still more likely to get favors from the Democrats.
Personal safety is certainly a 'rights' issue -- you have no rights if you're trivially open to violation.
Take a look around you. Are they identical to each other in capabilities, when it comes to handling themselves with regards to violence? Probably not -- both physically (some people are larger, faster, stronger than others) and mentally (ability to take in a tactical situation, ruthlessness to follow through if need be). Even if you assume a "fair" situation, the playing field of crime is biased towards an attacker...
An attacker can bring partners and choose his victims, within reason -- there's not much point in trying to carjack pedestrians, for instance, so if he really wants a car, that slightly limits things. But say that a man wants sex, and is a sufficient asshole that he'd rather take it than earn it or pay for it. In that case, he can pick where he operates (e.g. areas with cover where he can hide), when (probably when there are minimal witnesses), and on whom (pref. a woman alone, one smaller and likely much weaker physically). Would you say it's a coin-toss, or would you say that the attacker has an edge? I'd say the latter -- while he may not be bright enough to avoid leaving evidence, that's of little consolation to the victim.
Even for a mugging, weapons aren't needed -- say, three-on-one. Two approach from behind, the third punches in the kidneys or chops at the back of the neck, follow up with groin kneestrike from the front. Even if the victim fights back -- without a weapon, as you would seem to prefer -- the attackers might expect at most a bruise or two, given the ratio, plus the victim's money and other valuables. A lethal firearm equalizes things a bit given that many thugs won't be amenable to taking a bullet (instead of a punch that can be recovered from MUCH more readily) just so his partners can split $40.
Incidentally, in Pittsburgh a serial sex offender was recently caught -- after eight or so victims. He wasn't caught by police footwork -- he was only stopped after he attacked the wrong civillian, twice in one day (the first time, she got away... and went home and retrieved her pistol). Tell the final "victim" that she shouldn't have had a gun.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible and with liberty and justice for all." Or something like that.
The italicized portion was added in the... 1950's, if memory serves, with the definite intent of meaning the Judeo-Christian deity. The question is whether or not this pledge violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which among other things prohibits state establishment of religion.
Schools (K-6 at least, don't know about higher) often start with the pledge. However, because of the 1st, schools are not allowed to require such speech; a student must be permitted to maintain silence, IIRC.
Support for this post-50's version of the pledge, unlike what the parent poster stated, is not limited to conservatives. It is, in fact, extremely broad-based -- polls after a certain court ruling suggested that a very, very large majority thought that the words "under God" should stay in, with some making the most transparently ludicrous statements to justify this (e.g. some claimed that people could interpret "God" to mean whatever they chose, which utterly ignores the fact that "God", when capitalized as such, is always interpreted as that particularly deity versus, say, Quetzalcoatl or Loki.)
- The Microsoft anti-trust mess still appears to be continuing. Inability to make a suit goes away is not a sign of power.
- The tobacco companies got hit with a/huge/ lawsuit, and had to surrender an extremely large settlement. And, they're/still/ being nailed with lawsuits from longtime smokers (which will only increase if a certain curious model of asbestos lawsuit succeeds -- some plaintiffs are suing an asbestos firm not for suffering actual ailments, but merely because exposure imposed risk of developing such ailments). Having to pay out billions and billions, and then further being raped by politicians raising cigarette taxes (discouraging your customers) and bans of smoking in bars (ditto) is not a sign of power.
- Ken Lay should probably not be planning any trips out of the country soon, because the heat isn't off. Neither, for that matter, should Bernie Ebbers, who has gotten to see executive after executive cooperate with authorities to save their own skins.
When was the last time a government department went bankrupt and had to fold due to chronic inefficiency? When was the last time a high-ranking civil servant was sacked due to incompetence or malfeasance -- keeping in mind that both Reagan and Clinton served a full eight years despite their questionable records? How many companies could basically ignore the need to have a budget, or survive that long with bozos who care more about popularity than efficacy?
Merely being partisan does not necessarily imply that any factual declarations are, in fact, bogus and slander or libel. It may impose a slant... but they're probably not stupid enough to post a substantially false history and eat a lawsuit.
Play the 4X game "Dominions", from Illwinter. Pick Abysia. Blood magic, human sacrifice, and demon summons will be a natural fit for your heat-lovin' volcano-dwelling troops. Oh, and since your objective is to make the entire world worship you, it also ties into megalomania...;)
With Moore's propensity for fiction -- this is a man who declared that his writing satire overrides means that he need not be responsible for getting the details right, and who has a bad habit of exaggeration and promulgating unchecked accusations, at least according to Spinsanity -- it should indeed be treated as a spoiler.
Yes, you're missing the boat -- or perhaps being deliberately obtuse.
If it's BSD licensed, not only can a company get the code but YOU can get the code with all the rights the company had. Ergo, the company has NOT taken the code away or restricted your rights to the code "you" (more likely, people wealthier than you, paying a larger percentage) paid for. What you AREN'T necessarily getting is exactly what you DID NOT pay for (even if you're in the highest tax bracket...) -- the additional work done by the company.
Now, considering that this incredibly obvious and correct point has been made before, you're either deliberately trolling or not reading any responses in order to maintain your pro-GPL ignorance.
Tell me, when was the last time Bob Herbert or Paul Krugman wrote a column which actually agreed with the policies of the Bush administration? And, in case you don't recognize their names, they both work for a little newspaper you may have heard of -- the _New York Times_, one of the most well-known papers in the world. You must also have missed Dan Rather (again, not exactly buried in some backwater indy news site) suggesting that oil might be a motive in an Iraq war, the heavy criticism all-round about Bush's initial dissing of the "ballistic fingerprinting" scheme, the frequent lacerating of the previous administration during its tenure...
So, tell me, are you ignorant, or were you just trolling?
It wasn't that long ago that a man with a pistol shot some of your Parliamentarians, if memory serves; and likewise, somebody tried to kill Chirac with a rifle (but from a rather close distance, suggesting a curious lack of clue from the wannabe assassin)....and I'd be surprised if France did any better in completely prohibiting Nazi paraphenalia.
If memory serves, most firearms deaths in the United States are/not/ accidental -- they're either suicides (quite a few) or homicides (quite often among acquaintances, incidentally; strangers may have less _reason_ to kill you than a competitor, or somebody who feels you crossed him, or so forth).
"Random citizen blows away another one without intending to do so" is pretty rare compared to your run-of-the-mill deliberate shooting, even during hunting seasons.
WRT Hollywood, a pro-war actor or director is probably a bit of a rara avis given how liberal they tend to be. Reagan and Heston aren't exactly the norm for their field, compared to Streisand, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, Gere, A. Baldwin, et al...
As for the cat... it's probably considered an emotional/human-interest issue, which gathers ratings. *shrug*
However, an intelligent American who wants international news has good access to it -- for instance, the _New York Times_ is pretty good at that sort of thing. Many of us also have access to international sources such as _The Economist_ and the BBC's online coverage. Quite a few newspapers and magazines will give pretty solid study of international issues...
As for ignorance, I've seen plenty from all parts of the world on this site -- including many people who clearly do not know their _own_ region's history, let alone those of others.
(b) They're trained to not fuck up the crime scene, and pretty often they don't, whereas a reporter's primary concern will often be getting grisly photographs to maximize ratings and to hell with maintaining the integrity of the chain of evidence. Many will happily choose ratings over due process, given the treatments given to Jewell and Hatfill (sp?).
No, it just takes a reader who's not willing to seek out disparate sources. The _NYT_, for instance, isn't exactly foaming at the mouth agitating for war.
It was a trial under French law, which facilitates such lawsuits and is interpreted by the French government. It's not like the reporter was kidnapped and sent to a Sharia court.
Either that, or you're illiterate or deliberately ignorant. US media has pundits as diverse as Fareed Zakaria, William Safire, Thomas Friedman, Bill Clinton (who's been known to pen an op-ed column occasionally), the Aryan Nation freaks (who, in the US, _are_ largely allowed to speak ) and the head of B'nai Brith. Or, for that matter, Meir Kahane (before his assassination).
You think they didn't know? I would rather suspect that they did -- as would anybody who gave a few moments thought to the question -- but the economics and politics of the time prohibited doing much about it.
1- Airlines weren't exactly in great financial shape before then. 2- Security in terms of intrusive searches and El Al-style pre-boarding interviews (the 'correct' way to handle it, probably, from a security POV) takes a huge amount of time, training and money. 3- Adding things like bomb detectors increases time delays due to needing to check out false positives, e.g. nylon stockings giving off nitrogen vapors. 4- The customers were already pissed off in terms of delays, pre-boarding waits, and so forth.
Any airline that would have unilaterally boosted security to the point where it were actually meaningful (e.g. that hasn't been achieved yet...) might have been pushed into bankruptcy by customers fleeing to competitors who could field many more flights per day with far less inconvenience. Were the FAA to have tried, it would have been political suicide for the administration.
...or if you're not up to taking on the opposition physically. For instance, if you live in a relatively wild area, you wouldn't want to have to fend off a hungry cougar with, say, a knife... or a fist, which is about what some countries would let you use.
And I doubt that, say, a 110# female with a sedentary lifestyle could spar with a pair of 170# thugs with a habit of violent exercise... and your 70-year-old grandmother is probably too slow to even try to run. When it comes to self-defense, without weapons, the fight would generally be extremely uneven..45 ACP, OTOH, would be quite discouraging to an attacker who lacks a death wish.
The Constitution does not/require/ that anybody own a gun; it merely prohibits the government from banning them or otherwise contriving to render them useless (banning the ownership ammunition, for instance, would likely contradict it, as arguably infringing).
Nor is any business/required/ to sell firearms -- at least, not by the Constitution.
Now, at one point a specific Militia Act did require for heads of households to provide themselves with a firearm and ammunition, but that was... approximately 209 years ago, I think. And local ordinances (search for a town named "Front Sight") may strongly encourage the personal possession of firearms... but in most localities, it is no longer required.
He broke his contracts and betrayed his employer. Not content to be merely dishonorable, he also proved to be mind-bogglingly stupid by posting messages on a forum about that, using the handle "Shay" (which rather strongly suggests his own name... a problem considering that it undoubtably helped narrow the list of suspects rather sharply).
The movie revenue is irrelevant with respect to the morality of the man's actions. Mr. Lucas could have served up two hours of Jar-Jar making pornographic hand-shadow gestures and there still would have been a ridiculous amount of buzz about the movie, and probably profit... but that would have justified harsh criticism and dismal sales, not breach of contract and leaking of material.
Or, maybe, they saw "TPM", asked "what the hell is Lucas is on -- or what were WE on to think he might produce a good SW movie", and avoided AotC. Pre-TPM, all many of the fans would have had is childhood memories of the earlier movies, and children may be far easier to wow with flash... adults have higher standards with regards to, oh, plot and acting, one might suspect.
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Have you heard of primaries and write-in votes, yet? People are permitted to choose their candidates; it's just that a large number feel that it's easier to choose a party affiliation, and many probably vote on the basis of party instead of the competencies and positions of individual candidates.
Er, you do know that there are legal limits to hard money contributions, right?
You haven't noticed the fact that unions practically always endorse Democrats, and that they are a LARGE part of the delegates at party conventions?
Some of the unions were probably a bit pissed off at Clinton and the Democrats over NAFTA, but they're still more likely to get favors from the Democrats.
Personal safety is certainly a 'rights' issue -- you have no rights if you're trivially open to violation.
Take a look around you. Are they identical to each other in capabilities, when it comes to handling themselves with regards to violence? Probably not -- both physically (some people are larger, faster, stronger than others) and mentally (ability to take in a tactical situation, ruthlessness to follow through if need be). Even if you assume a "fair" situation, the playing field of crime is biased towards an attacker...
An attacker can bring partners and choose his victims, within reason -- there's not much point in trying to carjack pedestrians, for instance, so if he really wants a car, that slightly limits things. But say that a man wants sex, and is a sufficient asshole that he'd rather take it than earn it or pay for it. In that case, he can pick where he operates (e.g. areas with cover where he can hide), when (probably when there are minimal witnesses), and on whom (pref. a woman alone, one smaller and likely much weaker physically). Would you say it's a coin-toss, or would you say that the attacker has an edge? I'd say the latter -- while he may not be bright enough to avoid leaving evidence, that's of little consolation to the victim.
Even for a mugging, weapons aren't needed -- say, three-on-one. Two approach from behind, the third punches in the kidneys or chops at the back of the neck, follow up with groin kneestrike from the front. Even if the victim fights back -- without a weapon, as you would seem to prefer -- the attackers might expect at most a bruise or two, given the ratio, plus the victim's money and other valuables. A lethal firearm equalizes things a bit given that many thugs won't be amenable to taking a bullet (instead of a punch that can be recovered from MUCH more readily) just so his partners can split $40.
Incidentally, in Pittsburgh a serial sex offender was recently caught -- after eight or so victims. He wasn't caught by police footwork -- he was only stopped after he attacked the wrong civillian, twice in one day (the first time, she got away... and went home and retrieved her pistol). Tell the final "victim" that she shouldn't have had a gun.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible and with liberty and justice for all." Or something like that.
The italicized portion was added in the... 1950's, if memory serves, with the definite intent of meaning the Judeo-Christian deity. The question is whether or not this pledge violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which among other things prohibits state establishment of religion.
Schools (K-6 at least, don't know about higher) often start with the pledge. However, because of the 1st, schools are not allowed to require such speech; a student must be permitted to maintain silence, IIRC.
Support for this post-50's version of the pledge, unlike what the parent poster stated, is not limited to conservatives. It is, in fact, extremely broad-based -- polls after a certain court ruling suggested that a very, very large majority thought that the words "under God" should stay in, with some making the most transparently ludicrous statements to justify this (e.g. some claimed that people could interpret "God" to mean whatever they chose, which utterly ignores the fact that "God", when capitalized as such, is always interpreted as that particularly deity versus, say, Quetzalcoatl or Loki.)
- The Microsoft anti-trust mess still appears to be continuing. Inability to make a suit goes away is not a sign of power.
/huge/ lawsuit, and had to surrender an extremely large settlement. And, they're /still/ being nailed with lawsuits from longtime smokers (which will only increase if a certain curious model of asbestos lawsuit succeeds -- some plaintiffs are suing an asbestos firm not for suffering actual ailments, but merely because exposure imposed risk of developing such ailments). Having to pay out billions and billions, and then further being raped by politicians raising cigarette taxes (discouraging your customers) and bans of smoking in bars (ditto) is not a sign of power.
- The tobacco companies got hit with a
- Ken Lay should probably not be planning any trips out of the country soon, because the heat isn't off. Neither, for that matter, should Bernie Ebbers, who has gotten to see executive after executive cooperate with authorities to save their own skins.
When was the last time a government department went bankrupt and had to fold due to chronic inefficiency? When was the last time a high-ranking civil servant was sacked due to incompetence or malfeasance -- keeping in mind that both Reagan and Clinton served a full eight years despite their questionable records? How many companies could basically ignore the need to have a budget, or survive that long with bozos who care more about popularity than efficacy?
Merely being partisan does not necessarily imply that any factual declarations are, in fact, bogus and slander or libel. It may impose a slant... but they're probably not stupid enough to post a substantially false history and eat a lawsuit.
Play the 4X game "Dominions", from Illwinter. Pick Abysia. Blood magic, human sacrifice, and demon summons will be a natural fit for your heat-lovin' volcano-dwelling troops. Oh, and since your objective is to make the entire world worship you, it also ties into megalomania... ;)
With Moore's propensity for fiction -- this is a man who declared that his writing satire overrides means that he need not be responsible for getting the details right, and who has a bad habit of exaggeration and promulgating unchecked accusations, at least according to Spinsanity -- it should indeed be treated as a spoiler.
Yes, you're missing the boat -- or perhaps being deliberately obtuse.
If it's BSD licensed, not only can a company get the code but YOU can get the code with all the rights the company had. Ergo, the company has NOT taken the code away or restricted your rights to the code "you" (more likely, people wealthier than you, paying a larger percentage) paid for. What you AREN'T necessarily getting is exactly what you DID NOT pay for (even if you're in the highest tax bracket...) -- the additional work done by the company.
Now, considering that this incredibly obvious and correct point has been made before, you're either deliberately trolling or not reading any responses in order to maintain your pro-GPL ignorance.
How is "Office of the House Majority Leader" vague? There's at most one HML at any given time...
Pro-administration?
Tell me, when was the last time Bob Herbert or Paul Krugman wrote a column which actually agreed with the policies of the Bush administration? And, in case you don't recognize their names, they both work for a little newspaper you may have heard of -- the _New York Times_, one of the most well-known papers in the world. You must also have missed Dan Rather (again, not exactly buried in some backwater indy news site) suggesting that oil might be a motive in an Iraq war, the heavy criticism all-round about Bush's initial dissing of the "ballistic fingerprinting" scheme, the frequent lacerating of the previous administration during its tenure...
So, tell me, are you ignorant, or were you just trolling?
You certainly do have guns in your cities.
...and I'd be surprised if France did any better in completely prohibiting Nazi paraphenalia.
It wasn't that long ago that a man with a pistol shot some of your Parliamentarians, if memory serves; and likewise, somebody tried to kill Chirac with a rifle (but from a rather close distance, suggesting a curious lack of clue from the wannabe assassin).
If memory serves, most firearms deaths in the United States are /not/ accidental -- they're either suicides (quite a few) or homicides (quite often among acquaintances, incidentally; strangers may have less _reason_ to kill you than a competitor, or somebody who feels you crossed him, or so forth).
"Random citizen blows away another one without intending to do so" is pretty rare compared to your run-of-the-mill deliberate shooting, even during hunting seasons.
WRT Hollywood, a pro-war actor or director is probably a bit of a rara avis given how liberal they tend to be. Reagan and Heston aren't exactly the norm for their field, compared to Streisand, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, Gere, A. Baldwin, et al...
As for the cat... it's probably considered an emotional/human-interest issue, which gathers ratings. *shrug*
However, an intelligent American who wants international news has good access to it -- for instance, the _New York Times_ is pretty good at that sort of thing. Many of us also have access to international sources such as _The Economist_ and the BBC's online coverage. Quite a few newspapers and magazines will give pretty solid study of international issues...
As for ignorance, I've seen plenty from all parts of the world on this site -- including many people who clearly do not know their _own_ region's history, let alone those of others.
(a) It's their job.
(b) They're trained to not fuck up the crime scene, and pretty often they don't, whereas a reporter's primary concern will often be getting grisly photographs to maximize ratings and to hell with maintaining the integrity of the chain of evidence. Many will happily choose ratings over due process, given the treatments given to Jewell and Hatfill (sp?).
Here's an interesting fact: officials haven't gotten any more bulletproof than they were 226 years ago.
No, it just takes a reader who's not willing to seek out disparate sources. The _NYT_, for instance, isn't exactly foaming at the mouth agitating for war.
It was a trial under French law, which facilitates such lawsuits and is interpreted by the French government. It's not like the reporter was kidnapped and sent to a Sharia court.
Bullshit.
Either that, or you're illiterate or deliberately ignorant. US media has pundits as diverse as Fareed Zakaria, William Safire, Thomas Friedman, Bill Clinton (who's been known to pen an op-ed column occasionally), the Aryan Nation freaks (who, in the US, _are_ largely allowed to speak ) and the head of B'nai Brith. Or, for that matter, Meir Kahane (before his assassination).
You think they didn't know? I would rather suspect that they did -- as would anybody who gave a few moments thought to the question -- but the economics and politics of the time prohibited doing much about it.
1- Airlines weren't exactly in great financial shape before then.
2- Security in terms of intrusive searches and El Al-style pre-boarding interviews (the 'correct' way to handle it, probably, from a security POV) takes a huge amount of time, training and money.
3- Adding things like bomb detectors increases time delays due to needing to check out false positives, e.g. nylon stockings giving off nitrogen vapors.
4- The customers were already pissed off in terms of delays, pre-boarding waits, and so forth.
Any airline that would have unilaterally boosted security to the point where it were actually meaningful (e.g. that hasn't been achieved yet...) might have been pushed into bankruptcy by customers fleeing to competitors who could field many more flights per day with far less inconvenience. Were the FAA to have tried, it would have been political suicide for the administration.
...or if you're not up to taking on the opposition physically. For instance, if you live in a relatively wild area, you wouldn't want to have to fend off a hungry cougar with, say, a knife... or a fist, which is about what some countries would let you use.
.45 ACP, OTOH, would be quite discouraging to an attacker who lacks a death wish.
And I doubt that, say, a 110# female with a sedentary lifestyle could spar with a pair of 170# thugs with a habit of violent exercise... and your 70-year-old grandmother is probably too slow to even try to run. When it comes to self-defense, without weapons, the fight would generally be extremely uneven.
Put down the crack pipe.
/require/ that anybody own a gun; it merely prohibits the government from banning them or otherwise contriving to render them useless (banning the ownership ammunition, for instance, would likely contradict it, as arguably infringing).
/required/ to sell firearms -- at least, not by the Constitution.
The Constitution does not
Nor is any business
Now, at one point a specific Militia Act did require for heads of households to provide themselves with a firearm and ammunition, but that was... approximately 209 years ago, I think. And local ordinances (search for a town named "Front Sight") may strongly encourage the personal possession of firearms... but in most localities, it is no longer required.
He broke his contracts and betrayed his employer. Not content to be merely dishonorable, he also proved to be mind-bogglingly stupid by posting messages on a forum about that, using the handle "Shay" (which rather strongly suggests his own name... a problem considering that it undoubtably helped narrow the list of suspects rather sharply).
The movie revenue is irrelevant with respect to the morality of the man's actions. Mr. Lucas could have served up two hours of Jar-Jar making pornographic hand-shadow gestures and there still would have been a ridiculous amount of buzz about the movie, and probably profit... but that would have justified harsh criticism and dismal sales, not breach of contract and leaking of material.
Or, maybe, they saw "TPM", asked "what the hell is Lucas is on -- or what were WE on to think he might produce a good SW movie", and avoided AotC. Pre-TPM, all many of the fans would have had is childhood memories of the earlier movies, and children may be far easier to wow with flash... adults have higher standards with regards to, oh, plot and acting, one might suspect.