Is this a real problem? Do potential inciters consider the legal ramifications and thus decide not to incite? Have we successfully prosecuted such incitements? If so, is is a large enough problem to setup a system of government interdiction of free speech to offset the costs?
In order,
It was even if it isn't now, there are laws on the books specificaly to deal with what has happened in the past.
In most cases, yes. Because before the laws, it was common. Your parents are probably a little too young to remember the late 1960's early 1970's but ask them about it. Almost every major city suffered the damage of at least one riot during that time when people were protesting the violence of war by being violent themselves. This isn't even talking of the race riots led by the likes of the black panthers and such before that.
And yes, we have successfully prosecuted people for inciting a riot. In fact, we have done so recently with 4 or 5 out of state "professional protesters" who incited a riot and participated in it around 2001 in Cincinnati Ohio in which a cop shot an unarmed black kid running away. Now don't get confused about the inciting a riot, if someone is injured or killed during that riot, the incitement charge only links you to the broader charge of the assault or death. You can be charged and convicted in most areas of inciting a riot even if the riot was stopped before anything happened. Anyways, inciting a riot is often used as the connector tool just as robbery would be used to link a person to the murder of the robbery victim even if they didn't participate in killing them but because they participated in the crime, it hits them too.
as for the government interdiction, it's already there and has been for quite some time. 18USC 2101 spells it out quite well. It has also run the gambit of going through the courts and stood as a law itself even when the application of it hasn't.
I wish they didn't. It creates a false pretence: that anything you read is true. If slander and libel weren't illegal, people would be much more skeptical of what is told to them, which would be a good thing. Slander is an attempt to convince somebody that something which is not true, is true. That kind of free speech is allowed to go on all the time, and is generally considered a good thing.
I agree but as it is, it's up to the person who knows it isn't true to defend themselves. Think about what the state would have to know in order to enforce a law on libel or slander.
Yes, the whole "we're going to list a very small set of narrow and specific powers for ourselves here, but you guys go ahead and do absolutely whatever you want" argument.:)
Yes, it's a sham/shame and I wish it weren't true. Most people look at you like you are crazy when it gets pointed out.
I'm not sure why we can't implement support for both or even more codecs. Can anyone tell me why this isn't possible?
The way I figure it, if both is supported, and agreement to assist in implementing support for the other can be reached and as long as the spec is documented, adding the functionality to the browsers should be trivial to any group capable of creating and maintaining a modern browser. We could actually implement a plug in scheme that allows functionality to be snapped in on the fly.
What am I missing with this?
Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of video in my HTML. First, most of the player implementations so far seem to lack significant things like volume controls, pause, start and stop buttons. That or you are stuck with a small screen developed for some other resolution and there is no way to resize it even if just enough to read the credits in the video. Do both and do it right.
I can't give you a reference on that but I can tell you I was reprimanded and almost fired from a factory job where I assembled cartons for glass packaging. We had to cut strands of the cardboard away from the boxes to deal with mismatched cartons. Anyways, one day the shavings and cuttings were getting particularly heavy and started to create a hazard where the floor became slippery and presented a tripping hazard. I picked up a broom and swept the cuttings away from my work area and the shop steward started jumping my ass because they paid someone else to sweep the floor and I was taking his job away. I was told I was getting wrote up over it. I went off on the guy and the floor supervisor when he backed him up.
I quit the job before the reprimand could go through. That's my experience with a union and it backs the idea put forth by the GP. Of course every union will be different but I'm not sure if in this area. Unions are about getting money for people at the expense of the business, not saving the business money.
hich is exactly what the US government did; claimed it needed "tools" to fight terrorists, which we were never in any real danger from and immediately harmed our rights.
I'm already convinced that you are a moron trolling but please, tell me why you think this. How is that immediate harm and why do you think we had no danger from terrorist despite no less the 20 terrorist plots on American soil being foiled by the government within the last 8 years and the people being tried and convicted?
I see the details, its not the speech thats the problem, its the results. You punish people for causing harm, not because of the words they said.
So if I tell 10 people to kill your family and they do it, I should be completely innocent of those crimes right? If I tell 5 people to rape you mom while you are forced to watch with your dad dismembered and spread around you, and they do it, I'm innocent because I didn't participate right?
Get a fucking clue bat then proceed to beat yourself half to death with it.
Its brought to all forms of speech because it doesn't explicity say its limited only to political speech. I did read what you said, and it has no bearing here.
Pay attention why don't you. That's what the courts say- that's what the founding fathers said. you recording an image of your girlfriend pissing on my chest was never part of the conversation around the first amendment. It was all about political speech. You have to derive the intent before you can ascertain the meaning.
WTF are you talking about? Buying a movie online or through the mail isn't pushing speech on anyone. Nor does any of the censorship going on here.
Again, pay fucking attention.... Shit are you even trying to communicate or are you just fucking trolling? That statement had nothing to do with sending something through the mail, it nothing more then an acknowledgment that your rights end where they interfere with or deprive me of mine.
With regards to the rest of your post, you start off saying you think the first amendment should be limited.. then decry how its done.
Where? Where did I say the first amendment should be limited. The entire post, both of them, is nothing but an explanation to how it is limited and why it is wrong with a little what needs to be done to fix it. I'm not sure if english is you first language but you need to start reading what you are replying to a little better. You have confused yourself and take specifics as well as the entire post out of context and the only way I can explain that would be either you are trolling or extremely stupid. After reading your other reply, I'm going to guess a little of both.
What if you were in the military, and someone decided to leak secrets that proved the war you are fighting was illegitimate? No... that could never happen....? Could it?
Or worse yet, what is someone leaked false information indicating the war was illegitimate and because other soldiers protested, you ended up getting killed or maimed.
No, of course that would never happen... except you have no way of knowing if whatever was posted is real or not. So which is worse, eating from the hands of the people governing you, or from the hands of the people wanting to lie to defeat them?
If the military truly has leaks, they're doing it wrong! It's not everyone else's job to keep their secrets.
Actually, it is their job. Everyone who has access to secret military information is sworn to secrecy and mandated by penalty of law as long as it remains secret. That the entire reason Wikileaks exists, to allow people who otherwise know full well that they aren't allowed to divulge information, a semmi safe place to do so without retribution or penalty of the law which they a bound to otherwise. If random people were finding the secrets and releasing them, there wouldn't be a need for wikileaks.
The importance of bringing truth to the masses outweighs any straw man argument you can possibly bring up.
That's only true when the so called truth is real and it isn't being used solely to further someone's political aspirations. You can be manipulated just as easily with information as you can be without it.
Exposing things like secret government human rights abuses will always trump anything else.
You mean like the Abu ghraib pictures that was presented as a Bush down systematic pattern which later turned out to be nothing more then poorly trained soldiers and a commanding officer who wasn't paying attention? Yea, those secret government human rights abuses that most likely would have never- ever- made it into public knowledge if it wasn't for someone looking for some political advantage. And then, the truth, just like in the outing of Valaree Plame case, gets withheld while people like you are manipulated into thinking something totally untrue.
Do you have a better idea for an open and transparent and safe way to spread that kind of information to the world?
Show me where that system exists. So far it's more or less pissed off people attempting to gain an advantage of some sort.
You are putting the bar too high for rich, you are going directly from rich to richest as if there is no difference.
Take the CEO of a company, he will probably make between 250 to 500 grand per year, have a wife who makes similar money and gets stock options in the company they oversee. So lets do some math there, we will go on the low side and say both spouses make $250k each, that half a million a year. So they invest $200k per year and those investments make roughly 15% over 15 years. That's roughly 11.2 million in interest and savings alone after 5 years. Then they have their stock options, suppose those were originally valued at 50-100k per year when they purchased them at 40%, lets say now they are worth 3 times as much at the end of 15 years, you are now looking at almost 2.2 million in stock options taken alone.
Now, in case your not following this and letting your class envy and rage do the thinking for you, here is the breakdown on a low end estimate- at the end of 15 years, a husband and wife could amass a collective total of almost 14 million in savings. Now CEOs aren't generally hired right off the street unless they are the owners of the company and build it from small beginnings. None of this takes into consideration any savings from before they became CEO, or from before they were married and none of it takes into consideration that it is more likely they will be making more then 250K a year. You bring up a neurosurgeon who makes roughly 470k a year, imagine if he married a wife making similar money from another honest profession like being a gastro-intestinal surgeon. Now you have a combined income of about 800k-1 million a year. And your going to tell me they couldn't save 2.1 million to blow on a toy?
I'm not sure what your getting at. You were always and still are free to speak out against the war on terror or the war on drugs. What you can't do is cause immediate harm because of baseless accusations or statements.
You can say X, Y, and Z and that you want to start a campaign or a war against the war on drugs. What you can't say is I have $5 grand for whoever brings me the head of the DEA, or that there is a bomb in this auditorium (when there isn't) that will go off in ten minutes and watch people trample and kill each other trying to escape with their lives.
I think maybe you are concept hoping and not seeing the details because of what you want to see.
Funny, because non-offensive speech doesn't need protection.. so it seems to me that "offensive" speech is exactly what the first amendment is trying to protect.
You need to not view everything in your own little world of nothing more then you can conceive. The first amendment was put into the constitution to protect political discourse after many of the founding fathers found themselves wanted dead or alive for speaking against the crown either in person or in their writings.
The first amendment is brought to all forms of speech because all forms of speech to some extent have influence on society, politics, and so on. But you should really read the rest of what I said.
The whole obscentity and community standards crap is just a run around the first amendment, nothing more. Why should my neighbors get to prohibit what I watch in my own home?
Your neighbor shouldn't until such time as you push it onto them, then they have a say in how loud, when and so on.
But you missed the point of the entire post. It wasn't that I supported the limits the Supreme court has placed on speech, it's that they can because instead of being a standing document that is unmovable without a constitutional amendment (*that is also constitutional) they have chosen to treat it as a living document that changes as the society grow and changes. This is the liberal mindset allowing this to happen. If the constitution was a strict document and followed, then half the laws and entitlement programs in place simply wouldn't be there including largely this one.
The interstate commerce clause has been given superiority over the first amendment on the basis of speech being offensive and passes between the states when the constitution clearly states that The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. This means that you aren't limited to the rights protected by the constitution and when facets of the constitution conflict with each other, the side of more rights to the people must prevail. Constitutionally, the interstate commerce clause can't be used to override the first amendment but with the living document, neither has set limits or the power that was originally intended.
In other words, in case you still didn't see my point, we need to go back to a strict interpretation of the constitution to avoid someone or a court justifying the infringement of rights that are clearly protected under the constitution.
Hey, I'm going to do the wikipedia thing here and claim *citation needed
Seriously, in modern professional homes, both parents are working and they both seem to be working at good jobs. Sure, there are going to be some trophy wives out there but for the most part, people who work their ass off don't really like being attached to people who do nothing.
I for one would like to say "yea" for the administration and their sticking it to the man.
Unfortunately, while that sounds good and all, the man in this case will be the poor and needed who won't see the charitable help when needed. But at least they screwed those rich people right? oh wait..
I don't disagree with you even though I wouldn't necessarily agree with the speech. There are limits to free speech in which they start becoming burdens on society or people in specific and not tolerated or have their own consequences. This isn't one of them (at least I can't see how it could be). Surely you wouldn't want someone inciting a riot without some penalties, especially if the information is false and made up. Then there is the entire creating a public panic over a danger that doesn't exist. Slander and libel also carry consequences.
However, I don't think this is about control freaks as much as it is power and money and the continuation of both. The reason it is allowed to happen seems to be a departure from the constitution and it a product of the living document where instead of amending the constitution, you just interpret it however you want according to how society has progressed/regressed.
Perhaps I failed because I didn't draw a freaken picture for you and hire a guy to explain everything as you looked at it. I don't know, it's all there in black and white waiting for you to just fucking read it. Perhaps there is a reading comprehension problem you are dealing with or maybe your just a complete fucking idiot who ignored everything else just so you could make one comment out of context and turn it political.
Wow, that just made me think of something, I'm betting that most of your political ideal are either a result of this type of untrue representation or you need to do it just to keep your political universe from unraveling.
Anyways, the PDF is about energy independence- not just or only reducing carbon emissions. Inside it is steps that reduce carbon emissions and they don't involve pricing the bottom third of the nation out of a market. SO keep reading Skippy and ask you mommy to help if you get stuck. BTW, don't post back with incorrect assumptions based around your complete lack of intelligence or the laziness of yours. If you would have read just a fraction more, you would have not been able to make that comment you did in good faith.
I don't see unprofitability as a problem. Someone isn't going to lose my money with a stratospheric kite. Instead, I only see the various externalities like pollution, air traffic crowding and collisions, the sort of thing that affects other people either in reality or theory. And frankly, the only real way to figure out all the problems of a new technology is to try that technology out in the real world.
Profit was just an example of someone not paying attention to the details. But yea, I can see someone being unprofitable with a stratospheric kite. The tether will have to be so strong, there will be issues with commercial and private air transportation, there will be some extreme liability if it doesn't stay in the air and falls the 6 miles into the middle of a city. I'm sure they are going to let just anyone string 6-7 miles of cable into the air without a bunch of reassurances and liability insurance.
We can rule out the absurd consequences mentioned by the initial poster, namely, drag on the jet stream. Yes, there will be drag and yes, we will slow down the jet stream some. Even if we're running current society off of the jet streams, we probably won't see any change in them. The energy loss is insignificant compared to the energy of the jet streams. I can't be bothered to entertain every lunatic fantasy that comes around.
You should be bothered. I will show a few other lunatic fantasies that weren't bothered with until after the damage was done. How about sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions, levels of mercury in emissions, or how about Co2 which wasn't even thought of as a negetive emision some thirty years ago.
Even if we consider the threat legitimate, it's just another cost, one that grows as we increase the number of kites. Since we're going from zero change at zero kites to a modest change at a lot of kites, we can add some number before problems become significant. Even if a trillion kites cause too much trouble, we can still fly a thousand or a million kites. There's some balance between whatever harm an additional kite can do and the benefit of that kite. Given that the benefits and costs for power generating kites are different from other power generation sources, it means that we have expanded the options available to us even if kites do not prove to be that useful in the long run.
Well, that's the reason discussion is needed. Is the harm or potential harm the same as what we are attempting to avoid in the first place? Can it be mitigated or controlled, who has the authority to do that? Is there better solution without these problems.
Finally, your suggestion reeks of the Precautionary Principle. If it were beholden to itself, we'd never apply the principle simply because it is a far from optimal risk management technique that except under lucky circumstances, cause more harm than it prevents.
There is nothing wrong with being precautions. I mean I certainly wouldn't want you to drill a hole in the bottom of the life raft/boat to let a few inches of water out. dealing with the water in the boat isn't worth it.
Lets say you and I make and sell widgets. We have similar costs, your utility bill is less then mine but my labor is less. Bam, an energy tax comes around and we are both hit proportionately hard by it. I raise my costs expecting you to do the same, we are now both relatively equal on out prices because the tax effected both of us equally. The problem is that profits are now down as a percentage of gross revenue. We both rattle out labor costs, some of that is helped by decreased sales when some consumers can't afford to buy out widgets.
So now I find a way to decrease my liability for this tax, I implement it, patent and copyright it so you can't do it, and I lower my prices slightly to stay in line with yours which is still raised by the tax. So now I have increased my profits, the consumer is not seeing any of the savings. Eventually, you find a way to lessen your burden on the taxes and also patent and copyright it. Instead of lowering your prices, you also take the excess profit because your investors costs have skyrocketed too and they want more of a return.
Now what do we have here? We have two companies that are similar who just passed their costs onto the consumer. We have jobs lost because of the tax in both less people buying the products and attempts at increased labor efficiency. We have savings as far as the tax is concerned which doesn't get passed on to the consumer and isn't shared with other companies. Why doesn't it get passed onto the consumer you might ask? Because the tax and increased costs being passed to the consumer showed that they were willing to pay the higher price and others in the same market are still getting the higher price.
Now where does the consumer get their break? Oh, you naturally assumed that some company would lower their prices after finding that they could charge more and seeing others actually doing it? What's in it for them if they do that? Oh that's right, when we put out thinking cap on, we see a larger and dominant market share that makes more by a larger customer base created from lower prices. But wait, all that will do is get the government's monopoly regulators after you like with Google and Microsoft. So the incentive is to just keep prices high and make more profit from fewer people.
Please, by all means, tell me what you still don't understand and maybe I can draw you a picture. Or perhaps you have another idea of how business works and would like to share it. My observation is just that, observations, Intel and AMD are making more chips for less money then in 1998 but the chips are costing a lot more, MS has increased the costs of it's new products even thought their development costs are almost completely covered within the first year or so. Look at all the other businesses to charge what people will pay instead of what little they can based around costs. Hell, look at the reputations of the cheapest places of business in most cities, the bars with the cheapest drinks are dives that very few people want to patronize.
Here is the thing, If Itunes is offering the song for $1.00, then it's safe to say that their distribution license is under $1.00 a copy. The Itunes comparison is still valid unless it's fair game to have licensing fees specifically higher then your getting in real life just in case you have to take an infringement case to court.
*sigh* I'm sorry, but it is really, really difficult getting the most basic points through to you. Let's go over this one more time:
And I'm not sure why you think I should blindly accept your presumption without questioning it. Especially when they contradict each other.
1) Yes, the purpose of cap and trade -- like ALL laws -- is to manipulate behavior. No duh. The justification being that people don't feel the full cost of their fossil fuel use in market prices, so it's necessary to make that price higher so as to match the private cost with social cost.
and it manipulates only the behavior of the less rich and poor. It creates an entitlement where the people with money can continue doing whatever and those without are forced to follow your little rules. No prebate will fix that, and when it attempts to, it has no effect other then redistributing wealth. And you seen to be just fine with telling those with the least ability to deal with increased costs "well, you are a different type of person and needs to take the blunt end of the policy so the rich can continue to play".
2) So yes, it's going to require individuals paying more for things with more fossil fuel content.
And this is contrary to your entire prebate argument. Just to make sure the smoke and mirrors are gone.
BEFORE cap/trade/prebate, using one additional unit of (fossil) fuel costs P. AFTER cap/trade/prebate, using one additional unit of fuel costs P(1+t) where t is the effective tax rate.
The fact that they got a prebate canceling poverty-level energy spending does not change any of this. Previously, the poor can save $P by cutting out some energy use. Now, they can save $P(1+t) per unit of energy the cut back on. Their incentive to cut back went up.
Then the cap and trade and prebate doesn't work as you mentioned earlier when you claimed it covered the increased costs to the poor. You also have no idea about the poor. They aren't generally poor because they spend their money frivilously. Some might be but the vast majority of the poor are so because the costs of things they need like Gas to goto work, electricity to keep the light on in the house, clothing for themselves or their family, and so on are as much or more then they earn. If you increase the costs, the only cutting back they will be doing is going without because you have some perverted Utopian idea only letting the rich play instead of just mandating changes over a period of time that would allow the wages of the poor to catch up and stay current with costs.
Anyway, this will probably be my last response to you since you seem more interested in incoherent out-of-context rants against things you don't understand than serious discussion.
You can't ignore the very real aspects of what you want to support and then claim they are out of context. You claimed that the costs to the poor could be negated with a prebate, it appears that you are backing down from that and admitting that the cap and trade will only work by increasing hardships on people and making them go without until someone with money creates a cleaner source of energy.
The cap and trade only makes sense when you ignore the poor and the people who will become poor because of it.
So what happens of the consequences are better, but some idiot who can't tell the difference is still angsting in public?
Are they really better or just different? All to often people use egg headed accounting to justify an action without actually looking at the downsides, Take my Ebaying neighbor for instance, made tons of money selling things on Ebay until you realize he was spending more to buy the stuff then he was getting from Ebay, but all he would talk about is his "profit".
Should we not switch? As I see it, that's this current thread with an anonymous troll playing the role of the idiot.
No, we should discuss it and make sure it's understood about what will happen, what can happen, what is likely to happen, how that is different from what we already have and if there is any real improvement. From there, we should make the decision to use or not to use.
Of course you are free to use the crap all you want. Just don't expect to force others onto it without a clear and competent discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually looked it up after I posted. I'm not sure why I didn't just do it without posting.
Thanks anyways.
In order,
It was even if it isn't now, there are laws on the books specificaly to deal with what has happened in the past.
In most cases, yes. Because before the laws, it was common. Your parents are probably a little too young to remember the late 1960's early 1970's but ask them about it. Almost every major city suffered the damage of at least one riot during that time when people were protesting the violence of war by being violent themselves. This isn't even talking of the race riots led by the likes of the black panthers and such before that.
And yes, we have successfully prosecuted people for inciting a riot. In fact, we have done so recently with 4 or 5 out of state "professional protesters" who incited a riot and participated in it around 2001 in Cincinnati Ohio in which a cop shot an unarmed black kid running away. Now don't get confused about the inciting a riot, if someone is injured or killed during that riot, the incitement charge only links you to the broader charge of the assault or death. You can be charged and convicted in most areas of inciting a riot even if the riot was stopped before anything happened. Anyways, inciting a riot is often used as the connector tool just as robbery would be used to link a person to the murder of the robbery victim even if they didn't participate in killing them but because they participated in the crime, it hits them too.
as for the government interdiction, it's already there and has been for quite some time. 18USC 2101 spells it out quite well. It has also run the gambit of going through the courts and stood as a law itself even when the application of it hasn't.
I agree but as it is, it's up to the person who knows it isn't true to defend themselves. Think about what the state would have to know in order to enforce a law on libel or slander.
Yes, it's a sham/shame and I wish it weren't true. Most people look at you like you are crazy when it gets pointed out.
I'm not sure why we can't implement support for both or even more codecs. Can anyone tell me why this isn't possible?
The way I figure it, if both is supported, and agreement to assist in implementing support for the other can be reached and as long as the spec is documented, adding the functionality to the browsers should be trivial to any group capable of creating and maintaining a modern browser. We could actually implement a plug in scheme that allows functionality to be snapped in on the fly.
What am I missing with this?
Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of video in my HTML. First, most of the player implementations so far seem to lack significant things like volume controls, pause, start and stop buttons. That or you are stuck with a small screen developed for some other resolution and there is no way to resize it even if just enough to read the credits in the video. Do both and do it right.
Isn't Costa Rica a US territory? or it that Puerto Rico I'm thinking of?
WOw, then we can cap and trade more demand into it and profit everywhere.
I can't give you a reference on that but I can tell you I was reprimanded and almost fired from a factory job where I assembled cartons for glass packaging. We had to cut strands of the cardboard away from the boxes to deal with mismatched cartons. Anyways, one day the shavings and cuttings were getting particularly heavy and started to create a hazard where the floor became slippery and presented a tripping hazard. I picked up a broom and swept the cuttings away from my work area and the shop steward started jumping my ass because they paid someone else to sweep the floor and I was taking his job away. I was told I was getting wrote up over it. I went off on the guy and the floor supervisor when he backed him up.
I quit the job before the reprimand could go through. That's my experience with a union and it backs the idea put forth by the GP. Of course every union will be different but I'm not sure if in this area. Unions are about getting money for people at the expense of the business, not saving the business money.
I'm already convinced that you are a moron trolling but please, tell me why you think this. How is that immediate harm and why do you think we had no danger from terrorist despite no less the 20 terrorist plots on American soil being foiled by the government within the last 8 years and the people being tried and convicted?
So if I tell 10 people to kill your family and they do it, I should be completely innocent of those crimes right? If I tell 5 people to rape you mom while you are forced to watch with your dad dismembered and spread around you, and they do it, I'm innocent because I didn't participate right?
Get a fucking clue bat then proceed to beat yourself half to death with it.
Pay attention why don't you. That's what the courts say- that's what the founding fathers said. you recording an image of your girlfriend pissing on my chest was never part of the conversation around the first amendment. It was all about political speech. You have to derive the intent before you can ascertain the meaning.
Again, pay fucking attention.... Shit are you even trying to communicate or are you just fucking trolling? That statement had nothing to do with sending something through the mail, it nothing more then an acknowledgment that your rights end where they interfere with or deprive me of mine.
Where? Where did I say the first amendment should be limited. The entire post, both of them, is nothing but an explanation to how it is limited and why it is wrong with a little what needs to be done to fix it. I'm not sure if english is you first language but you need to start reading what you are replying to a little better. You have confused yourself and take specifics as well as the entire post out of context and the only way I can explain that would be either you are trolling or extremely stupid. After reading your other reply, I'm going to guess a little of both.
Or worse yet, what is someone leaked false information indicating the war was illegitimate and because other soldiers protested, you ended up getting killed or maimed.
No, of course that would never happen... except you have no way of knowing if whatever was posted is real or not. So which is worse, eating from the hands of the people governing you, or from the hands of the people wanting to lie to defeat them?
Actually, it is their job. Everyone who has access to secret military information is sworn to secrecy and mandated by penalty of law as long as it remains secret. That the entire reason Wikileaks exists, to allow people who otherwise know full well that they aren't allowed to divulge information, a semmi safe place to do so without retribution or penalty of the law which they a bound to otherwise. If random people were finding the secrets and releasing them, there wouldn't be a need for wikileaks.
That's only true when the so called truth is real and it isn't being used solely to further someone's political aspirations. You can be manipulated just as easily with information as you can be without it.
You mean like the Abu ghraib pictures that was presented as a Bush down systematic pattern which later turned out to be nothing more then poorly trained soldiers and a commanding officer who wasn't paying attention? Yea, those secret government human rights abuses that most likely would have never- ever- made it into public knowledge if it wasn't for someone looking for some political advantage. And then, the truth, just like in the outing of Valaree Plame case, gets withheld while people like you are manipulated into thinking something totally untrue.
Show me where that system exists. So far it's more or less pissed off people attempting to gain an advantage of some sort.
You are putting the bar too high for rich, you are going directly from rich to richest as if there is no difference.
Take the CEO of a company, he will probably make between 250 to 500 grand per year, have a wife who makes similar money and gets stock options in the company they oversee. So lets do some math there, we will go on the low side and say both spouses make $250k each, that half a million a year. So they invest $200k per year and those investments make roughly 15% over 15 years. That's roughly 11.2 million in interest and savings alone after 5 years. Then they have their stock options, suppose those were originally valued at 50-100k per year when they purchased them at 40%, lets say now they are worth 3 times as much at the end of 15 years, you are now looking at almost 2.2 million in stock options taken alone.
Now, in case your not following this and letting your class envy and rage do the thinking for you, here is the breakdown on a low end estimate- at the end of 15 years, a husband and wife could amass a collective total of almost 14 million in savings. Now CEOs aren't generally hired right off the street unless they are the owners of the company and build it from small beginnings. None of this takes into consideration any savings from before they became CEO, or from before they were married and none of it takes into consideration that it is more likely they will be making more then 250K a year. You bring up a neurosurgeon who makes roughly 470k a year, imagine if he married a wife making similar money from another honest profession like being a gastro-intestinal surgeon. Now you have a combined income of about 800k-1 million a year. And your going to tell me they couldn't save 2.1 million to blow on a toy?
I'm not sure what your getting at. You were always and still are free to speak out against the war on terror or the war on drugs. What you can't do is cause immediate harm because of baseless accusations or statements.
You can say X, Y, and Z and that you want to start a campaign or a war against the war on drugs. What you can't say is I have $5 grand for whoever brings me the head of the DEA, or that there is a bomb in this auditorium (when there isn't) that will go off in ten minutes and watch people trample and kill each other trying to escape with their lives.
I think maybe you are concept hoping and not seeing the details because of what you want to see.
You need to not view everything in your own little world of nothing more then you can conceive. The first amendment was put into the constitution to protect political discourse after many of the founding fathers found themselves wanted dead or alive for speaking against the crown either in person or in their writings.
The first amendment is brought to all forms of speech because all forms of speech to some extent have influence on society, politics, and so on. But you should really read the rest of what I said.
Your neighbor shouldn't until such time as you push it onto them, then they have a say in how loud, when and so on.
But you missed the point of the entire post. It wasn't that I supported the limits the Supreme court has placed on speech, it's that they can because instead of being a standing document that is unmovable without a constitutional amendment (*that is also constitutional) they have chosen to treat it as a living document that changes as the society grow and changes. This is the liberal mindset allowing this to happen. If the constitution was a strict document and followed, then half the laws and entitlement programs in place simply wouldn't be there including largely this one.
The interstate commerce clause has been given superiority over the first amendment on the basis of speech being offensive and passes between the states when the constitution clearly states that The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. This means that you aren't limited to the rights protected by the constitution and when facets of the constitution conflict with each other, the side of more rights to the people must prevail. Constitutionally, the interstate commerce clause can't be used to override the first amendment but with the living document, neither has set limits or the power that was originally intended.
In other words, in case you still didn't see my point, we need to go back to a strict interpretation of the constitution to avoid someone or a court justifying the infringement of rights that are clearly protected under the constitution.
Hey, I'm going to do the wikipedia thing here and claim *citation needed
Seriously, in modern professional homes, both parents are working and they both seem to be working at good jobs. Sure, there are going to be some trophy wives out there but for the most part, people who work their ass off don't really like being attached to people who do nothing.
I for one would like to say "yea" for the administration and their sticking it to the man.
Unfortunately, while that sounds good and all, the man in this case will be the poor and needed who won't see the charitable help when needed. But at least they screwed those rich people right? oh wait..
What would be more fruitful then owning the worlds fastest production car?
I don't disagree with you even though I wouldn't necessarily agree with the speech. There are limits to free speech in which they start becoming burdens on society or people in specific and not tolerated or have their own consequences. This isn't one of them (at least I can't see how it could be). Surely you wouldn't want someone inciting a riot without some penalties, especially if the information is false and made up. Then there is the entire creating a public panic over a danger that doesn't exist. Slander and libel also carry consequences.
However, I don't think this is about control freaks as much as it is power and money and the continuation of both. The reason it is allowed to happen seems to be a departure from the constitution and it a product of the living document where instead of amending the constitution, you just interpret it however you want according to how society has progressed/regressed.
lol.. Yea, it will work inside that free market..
Perhaps I failed because I didn't draw a freaken picture for you and hire a guy to explain everything as you looked at it. I don't know, it's all there in black and white waiting for you to just fucking read it. Perhaps there is a reading comprehension problem you are dealing with or maybe your just a complete fucking idiot who ignored everything else just so you could make one comment out of context and turn it political.
Wow, that just made me think of something, I'm betting that most of your political ideal are either a result of this type of untrue representation or you need to do it just to keep your political universe from unraveling.
Anyways, the PDF is about energy independence- not just or only reducing carbon emissions. Inside it is steps that reduce carbon emissions and they don't involve pricing the bottom third of the nation out of a market. SO keep reading Skippy and ask you mommy to help if you get stuck. BTW, don't post back with incorrect assumptions based around your complete lack of intelligence or the laziness of yours. If you would have read just a fraction more, you would have not been able to make that comment you did in good faith.
Profit was just an example of someone not paying attention to the details. But yea, I can see someone being unprofitable with a stratospheric kite. The tether will have to be so strong, there will be issues with commercial and private air transportation, there will be some extreme liability if it doesn't stay in the air and falls the 6 miles into the middle of a city. I'm sure they are going to let just anyone string 6-7 miles of cable into the air without a bunch of reassurances and liability insurance.
You should be bothered. I will show a few other lunatic fantasies that weren't bothered with until after the damage was done. How about sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions, levels of mercury in emissions, or how about Co2 which wasn't even thought of as a negetive emision some thirty years ago.
Well, that's the reason discussion is needed. Is the harm or potential harm the same as what we are attempting to avoid in the first place? Can it be mitigated or controlled, who has the authority to do that? Is there better solution without these problems.
There is nothing wrong with being precautions. I mean I certainly wouldn't want you to drill a hole in the bottom of the life raft/boat to let a few inches of water out. dealing with the water in the boat isn't worth it.
Let me spell it out for you then.
Lets say you and I make and sell widgets. We have similar costs, your utility bill is less then mine but my labor is less. Bam, an energy tax comes around and we are both hit proportionately hard by it. I raise my costs expecting you to do the same, we are now both relatively equal on out prices because the tax effected both of us equally. The problem is that profits are now down as a percentage of gross revenue. We both rattle out labor costs, some of that is helped by decreased sales when some consumers can't afford to buy out widgets.
So now I find a way to decrease my liability for this tax, I implement it, patent and copyright it so you can't do it, and I lower my prices slightly to stay in line with yours which is still raised by the tax. So now I have increased my profits, the consumer is not seeing any of the savings. Eventually, you find a way to lessen your burden on the taxes and also patent and copyright it. Instead of lowering your prices, you also take the excess profit because your investors costs have skyrocketed too and they want more of a return.
Now what do we have here? We have two companies that are similar who just passed their costs onto the consumer. We have jobs lost because of the tax in both less people buying the products and attempts at increased labor efficiency. We have savings as far as the tax is concerned which doesn't get passed on to the consumer and isn't shared with other companies. Why doesn't it get passed onto the consumer you might ask? Because the tax and increased costs being passed to the consumer showed that they were willing to pay the higher price and others in the same market are still getting the higher price.
Now where does the consumer get their break? Oh, you naturally assumed that some company would lower their prices after finding that they could charge more and seeing others actually doing it? What's in it for them if they do that? Oh that's right, when we put out thinking cap on, we see a larger and dominant market share that makes more by a larger customer base created from lower prices. But wait, all that will do is get the government's monopoly regulators after you like with Google and Microsoft. So the incentive is to just keep prices high and make more profit from fewer people.
Please, by all means, tell me what you still don't understand and maybe I can draw you a picture. Or perhaps you have another idea of how business works and would like to share it. My observation is just that, observations, Intel and AMD are making more chips for less money then in 1998 but the chips are costing a lot more, MS has increased the costs of it's new products even thought their development costs are almost completely covered within the first year or so. Look at all the other businesses to charge what people will pay instead of what little they can based around costs. Hell, look at the reputations of the cheapest places of business in most cities, the bars with the cheapest drinks are dives that very few people want to patronize.
I believe she was the one who paid for the Kazza program and originally claimed that the content came with the membership.
In that case, she could admit damages but not admit her own wrong doing because she acted in what appears to be a legal and lawful way.
Here is the thing, If Itunes is offering the song for $1.00, then it's safe to say that their distribution license is under $1.00 a copy. The Itunes comparison is still valid unless it's fair game to have licensing fees specifically higher then your getting in real life just in case you have to take an infringement case to court.
well, yea,
that's the point of their "free market". When only the rich can afford energy, the massive amounts or poor will demand something to be done.
And I'm not sure why you think I should blindly accept your presumption without questioning it. Especially when they contradict each other.
and it manipulates only the behavior of the less rich and poor. It creates an entitlement where the people with money can continue doing whatever and those without are forced to follow your little rules. No prebate will fix that, and when it attempts to, it has no effect other then redistributing wealth. And you seen to be just fine with telling those with the least ability to deal with increased costs "well, you are a different type of person and needs to take the blunt end of the policy so the rich can continue to play".
And this is contrary to your entire prebate argument. Just to make sure the smoke and mirrors are gone.
Then the cap and trade and prebate doesn't work as you mentioned earlier when you claimed it covered the increased costs to the poor. You also have no idea about the poor. They aren't generally poor because they spend their money frivilously. Some might be but the vast majority of the poor are so because the costs of things they need like Gas to goto work, electricity to keep the light on in the house, clothing for themselves or their family, and so on are as much or more then they earn. If you increase the costs, the only cutting back they will be doing is going without because you have some perverted Utopian idea only letting the rich play instead of just mandating changes over a period of time that would allow the wages of the poor to catch up and stay current with costs.
You can't ignore the very real aspects of what you want to support and then claim they are out of context. You claimed that the costs to the poor could be negated with a prebate, it appears that you are backing down from that and admitting that the cap and trade will only work by increasing hardships on people and making them go without until someone with money creates a cleaner source of energy.
The cap and trade only makes sense when you ignore the poor and the people who will become poor because of it.
Are they really better or just different? All to often people use egg headed accounting to justify an action without actually looking at the downsides, Take my Ebaying neighbor for instance, made tons of money selling things on Ebay until you realize he was spending more to buy the stuff then he was getting from Ebay, but all he would talk about is his "profit".
No, we should discuss it and make sure it's understood about what will happen, what can happen, what is likely to happen, how that is different from what we already have and if there is any real improvement. From there, we should make the decision to use or not to use.
Of course you are free to use the crap all you want. Just don't expect to force others onto it without a clear and competent discussion.