The depends on what you consider "proof". In a court of law, nothing is ever "proved", but evidence and witness testimony is presented and you as a juror must decide whether to believe the evidence presented.
The Bible gives the testimony of eye witnesses and other evidence to the most stupendous event that ever happened on this planet. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You, the juror must carefully and impartially consider the evidence, as presented and judge from that alone. You may not take into account any evidence you may have heard from other sources other than what is directly presented. Read the record as presented in the Gospels for yourself.
Arguing about evolution or creation is minor, compared to the issue of death. You WILL die. By returning from death, God demonstrated through Jesus that death is not the end of your existence. God, in love, offers you life through Jesus. You may accept that by believing God's testimony that He raised Jesus back to life. You may reject that and you will get death, which simply means you will will have an existence apart from God forever. Life is light and the absence of life is death and darkness.
....God proves himself without our help, so all we can do is share his word in a loving manner and tell those we care about what He has done in our lives......
Indeed true. The supreme way that God has proved Himself, is the fact that He raised Jesus from the dead, THE central belief of Christians. If the resurrection of Jesus is not true, then what difference does it make whether a person believes in evolution or creation?
It is indisputable that everyone dies. Yet the resurrection provided proof from God that the death of Jesus on the cross does provide forgiveness from God and a hope, not only for beyond the grave, but also the joy here and now that such a hope provides.
Jesus promises life, eternal life, here right now and after physical death, to everyone who is willing to BELIEVE in His death and resurrection. It's that simple.
......we see species change over the course of generations.....
None of the changes we have actually SEEN have evolved one species into another. Innumerable genetic experiments of every sort have been done with one celled organisms which make many generations in a short time. Yet not so much as ONE of these has resulted in a new species. E-coli and other bacteria and moths can respond to environmental stresses, but have and always will remain in their own group.
Countless generations of fruit flies (drosophila) have been subject to all sorts of chemical and radiative mutation inducing experiments. Some rather grotesque aberrations have come from these experiments, but all of them are still fruit flies. No jump from one kind or grouping generally dubbed species, has ever been observed to have actually happened in all this experimentation.
You are correct instating that "Evolution itself isn't science", because it is a system or doctrine based on faith, much like any other religion.
What does evolution predict? How can you test it? True science involves experiments done today. The at first implausible Einstein's theories have been verified by experiment. What experiments have been done to show evolution happening? By this I mean true evolution from one group of creatures to another, not just adaptation to environmental changes. Do an experiment that "evolves" a paramecium into some other, more complex, entirely different, yet still only a "simple" one celled organism. All the genetic experiments on fruit flies (drosophila) have still only made more fruit flies.
How did the complex plumbing of a Giraffe's neck evolve, according to the "rules" of evolution? When it bends down to take a drink, a complex system of valves and reservoirs ensures that the blood pressure in its head remains within survivable limits and that it doesn't black out when it lifts its head up high again. To me that looks more like the work of an engineer that knows a lot about hydraulics and fluid dynamics, rather than some probabilistic, mindless processes.
The human eye-brain system is a technologically sophisticated masterpiece that no human engineer has yet equalled. Evolutionists are asking people to BELIEVE that such complexity came into existence without the activity of mind. I myself cannot muster up enough faith to believe that. I can however believe that a supremely great God designed and built this and all the incredible complexity and variety we see in living things.
Both ID and evolution are philosophical speculation on the subject of origins. Both have to be taken by faith. Neither is open to experimental verification today and neither can make any predictions of the future.
As a matter of fact, I don't know of any EXPERIMENT that was ever done to show how simple parts self assemble into more complex systems. Has anyone even made a structure like a hemoglobin or related chlorophyll molecule by even the application of human intelligence, let alone some mechanistic, probability driven means? We can take such a molecule apart and learn exactly what elements it is composed of. Can anyone now take these elemental parts and build one of these, even though we have an example? Using a living system to make these or using components that were once alive to do this is is not allowed since the experiment must assume that life doesn't exist and needs to be created from the most basic elements. Anyone who manages to do the above, proves evolution's central tenet, namely that simple elements can spontaneously unite to form very complex molecular structures.
It is you that doesn't understand the second law. The principle of entropy has far wider applicability than only thermodynamics.
A quote from the WIKI article: "Unlike most other laws of physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is statistical in nature, and its reliability arises from the huge number of particles present in macroscopic systems. It is not impossible, in principle, for all 10^23 atoms in a gas to spontaneously migrate to one half of container; it is only fantastically unlikely -- so unlikely that no macroscopic violation of the Second Law has ever been observed."
Evolution of simple life forms into complex ones has also never been observed, and although not impossible, it is just as unlikely as the atoms all migrating to only one part of a container.
True science involves repeatable experiments that can be done TODAY, not philosophizing about what may have takes place millions of years ago. Do just ONE repeatable experiment that clearly demonstrates how a collection of parts assembles itself into some kind of functioning device that can make copies of itself.
......What about evidence in court? Isn't this often just anecdotal in the form of the testimony of eye witnesses?.......
How many eye witnesses does it take to convict or set free? How credible are the witnesses? Is there other evidence? The central claim of Christianity is that Jesus rose from the dead. A former atheist has written a book named "Evidence that demands a Verdict" (ISBN= 0785243631) using the rules applied in most courts of law to examine this central doctrine adhered to by Christians. If the story of the resurrection is false, then it is pointless to argue over or discuss any other biblical beliefs and debating over evolution and creation is a foolish waste of time.
....I know how PCs are put together, therefore I don't believe that any PCs just magically became assembled from parts......
Funny, and yet do you believe that a "simple" living cell, which as thousands of times more parts, magically became assembled from the elementary atoms?
........What piece or pieces of evidence will it take to convince you that the Theory of Evolution is, in fact, true......
Come up with a repeatable EXPERIMENT that disproves the second law of thermodynamics. Do an experiment that demonstrates by purely statistical, probabilistic methods or any other means you wish, a progression from simplicity to complexity. Show how a collection of simpler components self organizes into a complex system without the application of THOUGHT.
Even WITH the application of all the smarts of all scientists to help, take a collection of the 92 elements and make a "simple" one celled replicating organism, such as an amoeba. You may use any and all methods your imagination can come up with to assemble atoms into a living cell. If that is too difficult, make a virus from these same 92 kinds of atoms and inject it into an already existing cell and see if your newly created virus replicates.
Evolution's central tenet is that the complex life forms we observe came about by means other than involving the activity of mind or intellect. It preaches that simplicity goes to complexity when all we ever observe experientially and experimentally is exactly the opposite. Complex system, left to themselves, always tend to break down into simpler components.
Anyone who can do such an experiment will certainly deserve a nobel prize.
...If the measure passes the French Senate, Apple may consider closing its music operations in France. They would kind of have to, no?......
I don't believe for a moment why ipod sales nor downloads should suffer if Apple simply dropped all DRM on the ITMS. The RIAA companies couldn't get them for breach of contract, since laws trump business agreements.
Sales of ipods might actually go up because ipods could now access the other legal music services. ITMS purchases may also rise since the owners of other music players could buy files from there also. Once the music companies learn that DRM actually means fewer sales, they may drop it everywhere. If the companies stubbornly cling to DRM, it will die anyway, since anti DRM solutions will be legal. Once there are legal solutions for sale in France, the DMCA in the USA will become meaningless, because everybody who wants to strip DRM out of their legally bought content will just download the software.
The founding fathers of the USA thought so. They said that people are "endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights". They believed that He was the source of human rights, not my neighbor, you or the government. No government as EVER in all of recorded history given any person any rights, whatsoever in any shape or form. Governments nor any other person on Earth can give you more human rights than God has already given to everyone. Governments have only AWLAYS taken away rights, without a single exception. Apart from the God, you have no more rights than a cockroach. Whether you believe in God or not doesn't add or subtract to this. If you believe you came to exist by some mechanistic, impersonal means, where do your rights come from? Why should you as a human life form have higher or better right than an amoeba or chimpanzee?
.....Yes, yes, yes (sigh)... the cells are "human" but that doesn't really mean anything.......
So at what point in time DO these cells become a human whose rights are equal to yours? At conception, 3, 6 or 8 months before birth? 1 day, 3 or 6 months after birth? When does a large group of cells that has lived for say 80 or more years become "non-human" and then may get snuffed because it is inconvenient and expensive to keep them alive?
Stripping a group of person's of their humanity by declaring them to be non-persons is the first step in genocide. The Nazis considered Jews, Gypsies and others as "Untermenschen" --below human -- and thus justified the gas ovens in places like Dachau and Buchenwald. Declaring the unborn as a group or class of non-humans with no rights is no different.
Murder and robbery are immoral, so by your reasoning government shouldn't make either of them illegal. Adultery, gay marriage and lying are also immoral, along with some other things. So who should choose which immoral things to legislate against and which not? Certainly I hope it would not be you.
.......If his think tank gets involved against the DMCA, we might see to chance of progress here......
The French assembly may help kill the DMCA. They just passed a law mandating DRM interoperability of the various DRM schemes and making it legal to make DRM circumventing devices and software. If this finally becomes law in France, (and there is a good chance it will)the cat is out of the bag. There will be a thousand French websites that will allow the purchase of and downloading of DRM killing software. Software vendors in other, especially European countries will lobby for a piece of the action and DRM destroying software will become commonly purchasable on the Internet. The handwriting is on the wall: DRM will be dead in a few years. The CATO article is another step in that direction.
The very nature of binary bits says that DRM is theoretically impossible. Just as the Automobile forced the change of the horse industry, so eventually the content makers will have to realize the fundamental nature of digital technology will force them to change the way they do business.
If Apple were to remove all DRM from their music store, the number of downloads from ITMS would not decrease much, if at all. It might even go up, since DRM haters and owners of other music players would use it because it is very convenient, easy to use and the price is reasonable. Most people are honest and will pay for good products, including entertainment.
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....Or possibly making it IMPOSSIBLE to do certain tasks. But that no good solution......
On OSX there is no need to use the admin password by a standard user or even the terminal. On new Macs we name the first account "boss" or "master" and set the system up so it is the only account that can run the terminal program. All the others get their user name and a standard account. As an admin I never use the boss account for anything other than doing real admin task, using terminal if needed. Other utilities are also disabled for standard users. For ordinary everyday use, standard users can do everything they need to do. The "Timbuktu" program allows remote administration only over the local network, because the firewall blocks most external access. Certain users are assigned a fixed IP which is allowed to bypass firewall and browsing restrictions programmed in the router.
.....You can not show me any crediable evidence that moving away from Oil/Coal will hurt us long term......
I think that we will have to move away from fossil fuels in the future, but NOT because of global warming. Those energy sources are exhaustible and as there are less of them and more demand for energy, these will get more expensive. That will force more efficient use of what's left of them and make renewable sources economically feasible. The Kyoto protocol is a political instrument that will do nothing to stop global warming even if the assumption that this warming is caused by humans were true. Letting market forces determine how and where energy gets created and used will in time foster alternative sources and innovative efficient consumption. A good example of this is the semiconductor and computer industry. Governments have largely kept their interfering ways out of it. As a result, the capabilities of integrated circuits have made things possible which nobody even dreamed of as little as 15 years ago. There may be many reasons why governments have largely kept their distance. I personally think it is because politicians and bureaucrats do not understand the technology and are unwilling to look foolish and show their ignorance. Many other fields are much less arcane and easier to understand and therefore regulate to death.
.....And what is the evidence that reducing greenhouse gases will trash the economy?......
The question is: How much will it cost and will it really make a difference in global warming? There are some equally well qualified and educated scientists who dispute the notion that the warming is human activity related. They point to warmer and colder periods in recorded human history, not only in distant ages before humans were here.
The fact of the matter however is that you're still right that new energy efficiency and renewable sources should be vigorously pursued by the modern technological nations. The major reason for this is not global warming, but depending on politically unstable countries for energy is unsound and there is also the fact that fossil fuels are not inexhaustible.
Fossil fuels represent solar energy stored from long ages ago. Technology to use the energy the sun sends our way each day is the only long term solution. Now largely useless deserts may one day be the planet's energy sources. Sun generated hydrogen should get economically more and more feasible as the oil supply gets more expensive because of both decreased production and increased demand. New advances in bio-diesel technology from vegetable matter may also become a viable alternative having the advantage that the existing infrastructure for fuel distribution exists. Trucks and trains can be made to run on such fuel and since such fuel contains no sulfur, it can be quite clean also.
.....Further studies of the change in ratio of different carbon isotopes in atmospheric carbon dioxide shows that the recent (last 150 years) spike in carbon dioxide is almost entirely caused by humans......
You are talking about the last spike in carbon dioxide. How big is that in relation to other spikes found in the ice record and what were their causes? How does this record correlate with the fact that we find evidence warm climate life forms having flourished in now arctic places? Historical records tell of much warmer periods also.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but water vapor even more so. As the atmosphere warms, it holds more water, especially at higher altitudes. Some of this water rises to levels where there are few particles around which droplets or ice crystals can form to precipitate again.
The author of the article also says that hurricanes have 75 year cycles and adds:
"The last peak was in 1950, the next is in 2025," she adds. "We're only halfway up [the cycle] and we're already 50 percent worse [in terms of storms]. To me, that's a compelling issue that needs to be confronted."
Simple math shows that we are over 75%, rather than "half way up" and so we also should be 75%+ up on the storms.
I don't think that the humans causation of global warming is an open and shut case to the extent that we should trash our economy on uncertain science.
........The fact that anyone (given sufficient time) could produce the contents of the email should make that clear.......
Given sufficient time is theoretical in the case of really strong encryption and might be a very long time. In that case it could be argued that the proceedings may be continued if and when the prosecution has the required evidence, including the decrypted e-mail. In no case can the accused be required to co-operate with the prosecution so he/she can be convicted. This would be especially true if without the e-mail evidence there is no case against the accused. The e-mail in itself may be hard evidence, but it is useless if the witness who is also the accused doesn't give the testimony against him/herself which is the password. The prosecution contends that the e-mail is the key evidence, but doesn't know what it is and tries to force the accused to give such evidence against him/herself. That is precisely what is prevented by the 5th amendment.
.....Guys, like it or not, DRM is here to stay. Get used to it. I have......
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The main reason that there has not been an outcry against DRM loud enough to get Congress to kill it and the DMCA with it, is because it hasn't really affected the millions of consumers in a bad enough way. The huge majority sees the iPod/iTunes DRM as relatively benign, if they notice it at all, since it allows most consumers to do what they want with their music. The article listed only an 8% loss of battery life due to DRM for iPods, which again isn't a big deal for most consumers. The only place there is ever an outcry against DRM is on slashdot and other techie sites.
Most consumers don't even realize that DVDs are encrypted. All they do is pop in a bought or rented DVD into their players and if it plays, that's all they care about. They have no interest in copying the movie to their laptop or Linux computers so they can watch it without having the actual DVD with them.
If the content providers ever make the mistake of instituting really draconian DRM that severely restricts what most users want to do, or like Sony's infamous rootkit does real damage to user equipment, DRM will either be outlawed or become such an impediment to sales that the industry will drop all DRM like a hot potato.
...If a judge issues a subpeona/warrant for the information, you have to give them the keys. This is no different then having to let them in your house when they show up with a warrant or having to produce a key for a lockbox in your garage or your bank opening your safety deposit box for them.......
No, you don't have to give them anything. It isn't quite the same. In all cases you mentioned, they can always get the information or physical evidence by not directly involving you. They can break in and just take it and order the bank to open the safe box. They may also try to brute force the encryption, if they are able. Good encryption is the ONE security that cannot be forcibly breached by the government, at least in a reasonable amount of time. Before computers, information was only truly secret in the mind of the owner or creator of thereof. Even excruciating torture was not always sufficient to extract it from unwilling victims.
.....Seriously, I would not be surprised if a law is passed that makes it illegal NOT to keep X years of emails backed up.....
Apparently they have a law like this in Europe already. However, I believe they don't have to keep the CONTENT of the mail, only the sender and receiver. It's sort of like the billing data the phone companies keep that lets investigators know who called whom and when.
I suspect that getting a law through that would force ISPs to keep the contents of everything on their servers would have a hard time getting passed. If that happens, then, to do any good, they'd also have to outlaw all encryption and that would really screw up electronic commerce and finances.
It seems that ISPs could make it a selling point by advertising that they do NOT back up their server more than say a week or so, to protect users from invasion of privacy through court orders. Any lawyer or govt. official seeking information would have to get a court order to confiscate the suspect's computer and search that. For anybody paranoid about that, there are plenty of ways to make data unavailable on one's own hard drive.
.....Why should the offspring of the wealthy have inordinate advantages in life? Inordinate is the key idea here,.......
The key idea is not the amount of wealth, but who should decide what gets done with the left over portion after all the taxes were fairly paid thereon. After the state has taken their share from the living, the person(s) who paid all the taxes already should be the one who decides what should happen to the leftovers, not the person's neighbors. Many of these super rich people know that it is not a good idea to just hand their wealth over to a son or daughter that have never learned the value of real honest work and initiative. Much wealth therefore gets turned over to worthwhile causes that the rich person believes in, rather than distributing it to "heirs" who may not be worthy. The wealth also doesn't end up in the bottomless pit of government waste, spent for things the wealthy person violently disagrees with. The bottom line is that people should have the power to decide where their money goes after they die.
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.....One must believe with no proof at all,....
The depends on what you consider "proof". In a court of law, nothing is ever "proved", but evidence and witness testimony is presented and you as a juror must decide whether to believe the evidence presented.
The Bible gives the testimony of eye witnesses and other evidence to the most stupendous event that ever happened on this planet. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You, the juror must carefully and impartially consider the evidence, as presented and judge from that alone. You may not take into account any evidence you may have heard from other sources other than what is directly presented. Read the record as presented in the Gospels for yourself.
Arguing about evolution or creation is minor, compared to the issue of death. You WILL die. By returning from death, God demonstrated through Jesus that death is not the end of your existence. God, in love, offers you life through Jesus. You may accept that by believing God's testimony that He raised Jesus back to life. You may reject that and you will get death, which simply means you will will have an existence apart from God forever. Life is light and the absence of life is death and darkness.
....macroevolution occurred is a factual part of evolution.....
Can you give a definition of what you mean by this term and an example of its occurrence that has been experimentally verified?
....God proves himself without our help, so all we can do is share his word in a loving manner and tell those we care about what He has done in our lives......
Indeed true. The supreme way that God has proved Himself, is the fact that He raised Jesus from the dead, THE central belief of Christians. If the resurrection of Jesus is not true, then what difference does it make whether a person believes in evolution or creation?
It is indisputable that everyone dies. Yet the resurrection provided proof from God that the death of Jesus on the cross does provide forgiveness from God and a hope, not only for beyond the grave, but also the joy here and now that such a hope provides.
Jesus promises life, eternal life, here right now and after physical death, to everyone who is willing to BELIEVE in His death and resurrection. It's that simple.
......we see species change over the course of generations.....
None of the changes we have actually SEEN have evolved one species into another. Innumerable genetic experiments of every sort have been done with one celled organisms which make many generations in a short time. Yet not so much as ONE of these has resulted in a new species. E-coli and other bacteria and moths can respond to environmental stresses, but have and always will remain in their own group.
Countless generations of fruit flies (drosophila) have been subject to all sorts of chemical and radiative mutation inducing experiments. Some rather grotesque aberrations have come from these experiments, but all of them are still fruit flies. No jump from one kind or grouping generally dubbed species, has ever been observed to have actually happened in all this experimentation.
You are correct instating that "Evolution itself isn't science", because it is a system or doctrine based on faith, much like any other religion.
......What does Intelligent Design predict?.....
What does evolution predict? How can you test it? True science involves experiments done today. The at first implausible Einstein's theories have been verified by experiment. What experiments have been done to show evolution happening? By this I mean true evolution from one group of creatures to another, not just adaptation to environmental changes. Do an experiment that "evolves" a paramecium into some other, more complex, entirely different, yet still only a "simple" one celled organism. All the genetic experiments on fruit flies (drosophila) have still only made more fruit flies.
How did the complex plumbing of a Giraffe's neck evolve, according to the "rules" of evolution? When it bends down to take a drink, a complex system of valves and reservoirs ensures that the blood pressure in its head remains within survivable limits and that it doesn't black out when it lifts its head up high again. To me that looks more like the work of an engineer that knows a lot about hydraulics and fluid dynamics, rather than some probabilistic, mindless processes.
The human eye-brain system is a technologically sophisticated masterpiece that no human engineer has yet equalled. Evolutionists are asking people to BELIEVE that such complexity came into existence without the activity of mind. I myself cannot muster up enough faith to believe that. I can however believe that a supremely great God designed and built this and all the incredible complexity and variety we see in living things.
Both ID and evolution are philosophical speculation on the subject of origins. Both have to be taken by faith. Neither is open to experimental verification today and neither can make any predictions of the future.
.....Or do you not see evolution happening?......
As a matter of fact, I don't know of any EXPERIMENT that was ever done to show how simple parts self assemble into more complex systems. Has anyone even made a structure like a hemoglobin or related chlorophyll molecule by even the application of human intelligence, let alone some mechanistic, probability driven means? We can take such a molecule apart and learn exactly what elements it is composed of. Can anyone now take these elemental parts and build one of these, even though we have an example? Using a living system to make these or using components that were once alive to do this is is not allowed since the experiment must assume that life doesn't exist and needs to be created from the most basic elements. Anyone who manages to do the above, proves evolution's central tenet, namely that simple elements can spontaneously unite to form very complex molecular structures.
It is you that doesn't understand the second law. The principle of entropy has far wider applicability than only thermodynamics.
A quote from the WIKI article: "Unlike most other laws of physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is statistical in nature, and its reliability arises from the huge number of particles present in macroscopic systems. It is not impossible, in principle, for all 10^23 atoms in a gas to spontaneously migrate to one half of container; it is only fantastically unlikely -- so unlikely that no macroscopic violation of the Second Law has ever been observed."
Evolution of simple life forms into complex ones has also never been observed, and although not impossible, it is just as unlikely as the atoms all migrating to only one part of a container.
True science involves repeatable experiments that can be done TODAY, not philosophizing about what may have takes place millions of years ago. Do just ONE repeatable experiment that clearly demonstrates how a collection of parts assembles itself into some kind of functioning device that can make copies of itself.
......What about evidence in court? Isn't this often just anecdotal in the form of the testimony of eye witnesses?.......
How many eye witnesses does it take to convict or set free? How credible are the witnesses? Is there other evidence? The central claim of Christianity is that Jesus rose from the dead. A former atheist has written a book named "Evidence that demands a Verdict" (ISBN= 0785243631) using the rules applied in most courts of law to examine this central doctrine adhered to by Christians. If the story of the resurrection is false, then it is pointless to argue over or discuss any other biblical beliefs and debating over evolution and creation is a foolish waste of time.
....I know how PCs are put together, therefore I don't believe that any PCs just magically became assembled from parts......
Funny, and yet do you believe that a "simple" living cell, which as thousands of times more parts, magically became assembled from the elementary atoms?
........What piece or pieces of evidence will it take to convince you that the Theory of Evolution is, in fact, true......
Come up with a repeatable EXPERIMENT that disproves the second law of thermodynamics. Do an experiment that demonstrates by purely statistical, probabilistic methods or any other means you wish, a progression from simplicity to complexity. Show how a collection of simpler components self organizes into a complex system without the application of THOUGHT.
Even WITH the application of all the smarts of all scientists to help, take a collection of the 92 elements and make a "simple" one celled replicating organism, such as an amoeba. You may use any and all methods your imagination can come up with to assemble atoms into a living cell. If that is too difficult, make a virus from these same 92 kinds of atoms and inject it into an already existing cell and see if your newly created virus replicates.
Evolution's central tenet is that the complex life forms we observe came about by means other than involving the activity of mind or intellect. It preaches that simplicity goes to complexity when all we ever observe experientially and experimentally is exactly the opposite. Complex system, left to themselves, always tend to break down into simpler components.
Anyone who can do such an experiment will certainly deserve a nobel prize.
...If the measure passes the French Senate, Apple may consider closing its music operations in France.
They would kind of have to, no?......
I don't believe for a moment why ipod sales nor downloads should suffer if Apple simply dropped all DRM on the ITMS. The RIAA companies couldn't get them for breach of contract, since laws trump business agreements.
Sales of ipods might actually go up because ipods could now access the other legal music services. ITMS purchases may also rise since the owners of other music players could buy files from there also. Once the music companies learn that DRM actually means fewer sales, they may drop it everywhere. If the companies stubbornly cling to DRM, it will die anyway, since anti DRM solutions will be legal. Once there are legal solutions for sale in France, the DMCA in the USA will become meaningless, because everybody who wants to strip DRM out of their legally bought content will just download the software.
......As a human do I have certain rights? .....
The founding fathers of the USA thought so. They said that people are "endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights". They believed that He was the source of human rights, not my neighbor, you or the government. No government as EVER in all of recorded history given any person any rights, whatsoever in any shape or form. Governments nor any other person on Earth can give you more human rights than God has already given to everyone. Governments have only AWLAYS taken away rights, without a single exception. Apart from the God, you have no more rights than a cockroach. Whether you believe in God or not doesn't add or subtract to this. If you believe you came to exist by some mechanistic, impersonal means, where do your rights come from? Why should you as a human life form have higher or better right than an amoeba or chimpanzee?
.....Yes, yes, yes (sigh) ... the cells are "human" but that doesn't really mean anything.......
So at what point in time DO these cells become a human whose rights are equal to yours? At conception, 3, 6 or 8 months before birth? 1 day, 3 or 6 months after birth? When does a large group of cells that has lived for say 80 or more years become "non-human" and then may get snuffed because it is inconvenient and expensive to keep them alive?
Stripping a group of person's of their humanity by declaring them to be non-persons is the first step in genocide. The Nazis considered Jews, Gypsies and others as "Untermenschen" --below human -- and thus justified the gas ovens in places like Dachau and Buchenwald. Declaring the unborn as a group or class of non-humans with no rights is no different.
.....Stop trying to legislate morality;.....
Murder and robbery are immoral, so by your reasoning government shouldn't make either of them illegal. Adultery, gay marriage and lying are also immoral, along with some other things. So who should choose which immoral things to legislate against and which not? Certainly I hope it would not be you.
.......If his think tank gets involved against the DMCA, we might see to chance of progress here......
The French assembly may help kill the DMCA. They just passed a law mandating DRM interoperability of the various DRM schemes and making it legal to make DRM circumventing devices and software. If this finally becomes law in France, (and there is a good chance it will)the cat is out of the bag. There will be a thousand French websites that will allow the purchase of and downloading of DRM killing software. Software vendors in other, especially European countries will lobby for a piece of the action and DRM destroying software will become commonly purchasable on the Internet. The handwriting is on the wall: DRM will be dead in a few years. The CATO article is another step in that direction.
The very nature of binary bits says that DRM is theoretically impossible. Just as the Automobile forced the change of the horse industry, so eventually the content makers will have to realize the fundamental nature of digital technology will force them to change the way they do business.
If Apple were to remove all DRM from their music store, the number of downloads from ITMS would not decrease much, if at all. It might even go up, since DRM haters and owners of other music players would use it because it is very convenient, easy to use and the price is reasonable. Most people are honest and will pay for good products, including entertainment.
....Or possibly making it IMPOSSIBLE to do certain tasks. But that no good solution......
On OSX there is no need to use the admin password by a standard user or even the terminal. On new Macs we name the first account "boss" or "master" and set the system up so it is the only account that can run the terminal program. All the others get their user name and a standard account. As an admin I never use the boss account for anything other than doing real admin task, using terminal if needed. Other utilities are also disabled for standard users. For ordinary everyday use, standard users can do everything they need to do. The "Timbuktu" program allows remote administration only over the local network, because the firewall blocks most external access. Certain users are assigned a fixed IP which is allowed to bypass firewall and browsing restrictions programmed in the router.
.....You can not show me any crediable evidence that moving away from Oil/Coal will hurt us long term......
I think that we will have to move away from fossil fuels in the future, but NOT because of global warming. Those energy sources are exhaustible and as there are less of them and more demand for energy, these will get more expensive. That will force more efficient use of what's left of them and make renewable sources economically feasible. The Kyoto protocol is a political instrument that will do nothing to stop global warming even if the assumption that this warming is caused by humans were true. Letting market forces determine how and where energy gets created and used will in time foster alternative sources and innovative efficient consumption. A good example of this is the semiconductor and computer industry. Governments have largely kept their interfering ways out of it. As a result, the capabilities of integrated circuits have made things possible which nobody even dreamed of as little as 15 years ago. There may be many reasons why governments have largely kept their distance. I personally think it is because politicians and bureaucrats do not understand the technology and are unwilling to look foolish and show their ignorance. Many other fields are much less arcane and easier to understand and therefore regulate to death.
.....And what is the evidence that reducing greenhouse gases will trash the economy?......
The question is: How much will it cost and will it really make a difference in global warming? There are some equally well qualified and educated scientists who dispute the notion that the warming is human activity related. They point to warmer and colder periods in recorded human history, not only in distant ages before humans were here.
The fact of the matter however is that you're still right that new energy efficiency and renewable sources should be vigorously pursued by the modern technological nations. The major reason for this is not global warming, but depending on politically unstable countries for energy is unsound and there is also the fact that fossil fuels are not inexhaustible.
Fossil fuels represent solar energy stored from long ages ago. Technology to use the energy the sun sends our way each day is the only long term solution. Now largely useless deserts may one day be the planet's energy sources. Sun generated hydrogen should get economically more and more feasible as the oil supply gets more expensive because of both decreased production and increased demand. New advances in bio-diesel technology from vegetable matter may also become a viable alternative having the advantage that the existing infrastructure for fuel distribution exists. Trucks and trains can be made to run on such fuel and since such fuel contains no sulfur, it can be quite clean also.
.....human caused global warming is close enough to completely proved for me...
So when are yu going to get rid of your car and use a bicycle?
.....Further studies of the change in ratio of different carbon isotopes in atmospheric carbon dioxide shows that the recent (last 150 years) spike in carbon dioxide is almost entirely caused by humans......
You are talking about the last spike in carbon dioxide. How big is that in relation to other spikes found in the ice record and what were their causes? How does this record correlate with the fact that we find evidence warm climate life forms having flourished in now arctic places? Historical records tell of much warmer periods also.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but water vapor even more so. As the atmosphere warms, it holds more water, especially at higher altitudes. Some of this water rises to levels where there are few particles around which droplets or ice crystals can form to precipitate again.
The author of the article also says that hurricanes have 75 year cycles and adds:
"The last peak was in 1950, the next is in 2025," she adds. "We're only halfway up [the cycle] and we're already 50 percent worse [in terms of storms]. To me, that's a compelling issue that needs to be confronted."
Simple math shows that we are over 75%, rather than "half way up" and so we also should be 75%+ up on the storms.
I don't think that the humans causation of global warming is an open and shut case to the extent that we should trash our economy on uncertain science.
........The fact that anyone (given sufficient time) could produce the contents of the email should make that clear.......
Given sufficient time is theoretical in the case of really strong encryption and might be a very long time. In that case it could be argued that the proceedings may be continued if and when the prosecution has the required evidence, including the decrypted e-mail. In no case can the accused be required to co-operate with the prosecution so he/she can be convicted. This would be especially true if without the e-mail evidence there is no case against the accused. The e-mail in itself may be hard evidence, but it is useless if the witness who is also the accused doesn't give the testimony against him/herself which is the password. The prosecution contends that the e-mail is the key evidence, but doesn't know what it is and tries to force the accused to give such evidence against him/herself. That is precisely what is prevented by the 5th amendment.
.....Guys, like it or not, DRM is here to stay. Get used to it. I have......
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The main reason that there has not been an outcry against DRM loud enough to get Congress to kill it and the DMCA with it, is because it hasn't really affected the millions of consumers in a bad enough way. The huge majority sees the iPod/iTunes DRM as relatively benign, if they notice it at all, since it allows most consumers to do what they want with their music. The article listed only an 8% loss of battery life due to DRM for iPods, which again isn't a big deal for most consumers. The only place there is ever an outcry against DRM is on slashdot and other techie sites.
Most consumers don't even realize that DVDs are encrypted. All they do is pop in a bought or rented DVD into their players and if it plays, that's all they care about. They have no interest in copying the movie to their laptop or Linux computers so they can watch it without having the actual DVD with them.
If the content providers ever make the mistake of instituting really draconian DRM that severely restricts what most users want to do, or like Sony's infamous rootkit does real damage to user equipment, DRM will either be outlawed or become such an impediment to sales that the industry will drop all DRM like a hot potato.
...If a judge issues a subpeona/warrant for the information, you have to give them the keys. This is no different then having to let them in your house when they show up with a warrant or having to produce a key for a lockbox in your garage or your bank opening your safety deposit box for them.......
No, you don't have to give them anything. It isn't quite the same. In all cases you mentioned, they can always get the information or physical evidence by not directly involving you. They can break in and just take it and order the bank to open the safe box. They may also try to brute force the encryption, if they are able. Good encryption is the ONE security that cannot be forcibly breached by the government, at least in a reasonable amount of time. Before computers, information was only truly secret in the mind of the owner or creator of thereof. Even excruciating torture was not always sufficient to extract it from unwilling victims.
.....If you encrypt it and send it, you can be subpoena'd to decrypt the file, etc........
Wouldn't the 5th amendment in the US prevent a judge from enforcing an order for a suspect to to divulge the password to undo the encryption?
.....Seriously, I would not be surprised if a law is passed that makes it illegal NOT to keep X years of emails backed up.....
Apparently they have a law like this in Europe already. However, I believe they don't have to keep the CONTENT of the mail, only the sender and receiver. It's sort of like the billing data the phone companies keep that lets investigators know who called whom and when.
I suspect that getting a law through that would force ISPs to keep the contents of everything on their servers would have a hard time getting passed. If that happens, then, to do any good, they'd also have to outlaw all encryption and that would really screw up electronic commerce and finances.
It seems that ISPs could make it a selling point by advertising that they do NOT back up their server more than say a week or so, to protect users from invasion of privacy through court orders. Any lawyer or govt. official seeking information would have to get a court order to confiscate the suspect's computer and search that. For anybody paranoid about that, there are plenty of ways to make data unavailable on one's own hard drive.
.....Why should the offspring of the wealthy have inordinate advantages in life? Inordinate is the key idea here,.......
The key idea is not the amount of wealth, but who should decide what gets done with the left over portion after all the taxes were fairly paid thereon. After the state has taken their share from the living, the person(s) who paid all the taxes already should be the one who decides what should happen to the leftovers, not the person's neighbors. Many of these super rich people know that it is not a good idea to just hand their wealth over to a son or daughter that have never learned the value of real honest work and initiative. Much wealth therefore gets turned over to worthwhile causes that the rich person believes in, rather than distributing it to "heirs" who may not be worthy. The wealth also doesn't end up in the bottomless pit of government waste, spent for things the wealthy person violently disagrees with. The bottom line is that people should have the power to decide where their money goes after they die.