In fact, most probably will be used to protect religious speech, and ban criticism.
Here goes my karma; I know I'll get modded down for saying this.
"Hate speech" laws have already been used in Canada to persecute religious speech. Churches have been threatened to stop preaching that homosexuality is a sin, because "that's hate speech." Basically, anything that the ruling party doesn't like you to say becomes hate speech. A man was fined $1500 CDN (what's that, 35 cents US?) for expressing a similar opinion in a letter to the editor published in a newspaper.
Expanding these laws to cover the internet is a VERY bad mistake.
I'd post as Anonymous Coward, but I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Moderator With An Axe To Grind. Fuck you.
I hope you're trolling; then you're just mean instead of dangerously stupid.
Badnarik is on the ballot in AZ, along with Bush and Kerry. The debate is in AZ, with AZ taxpayer money. Logically, then, it seems like he should be in the debate. But then again, I want Badnarik to embarass the hell out of Bush and Kerry. I'd feel the same way if it was Ralph Nader or any of the other third-party candidates. I want any third-party candidate in there to show the public how nearly indistinguishable the two major parties are these days.
Or gmail? Or yahoo mail? You CAN'T send/read encrypted mail.
That's funny, I just sent a PGP-encrypted e-mail from my gmail account a few days ago. It seemed to work fine, including the encrypted response I got from the recipient (or a man-in-the-middle gov't snoop). Just because there isn't a "Click here to PGP encrypt your e-mail" button in gmail, doesn't mean you can't do it externally and paste the ciphertext into the nice little box.
Now I know you're smoking crack... you realize the majority of people employed in the U.S. are employed by SMALL businesses?
And the small businesses can't afford it, because they don't have the resources. Very true.
But, that's even more reason why the government should be more involved.
Umm, where do you think the federal government is going to get all that money to fund it? Government does not actually produce anything (other than fiscal disasters), so the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes. Taxes on the big corporations, the small companies, and the individuals. So, we will all pay for it one way or another.
Someone once expressed an idea similar to yours. He said, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Sounds nice, huh? It was Karl Marx.
Oh, he had one other thing to say: "Wir sind ruecksichtloss, wir verlangen keinen Ruecksicht von euch. Wenn die Reihe an uns koemmt, wir werden den Terrorismus nicht beschoenigen."
Translated, that is, "We are without mercy, and we seek no mercy from you. When our turn comes, we will not make apologies for the terror."
I want a car that electrocutes the idiot driver yapping on the cel phone instead of paying attention to the road. I've lost count of the number of times I've almost been creamed by some stupid suburban SUV-driving soccer-mom with a cel phone glued to her head. HANG UP AND DRIVE!
Last summer, I saw a guy talking on a cel phone while riding a bike. What call is so bloody important that you can't pull over or take it later?
I think this is the fourth vulnerability related to image decoding I've seen in the past month or so. Methinks somebody is doing a thorough code review of open source image libraries, the stolen NT code (remember the Windows BMP vuln?), and, where source can't be obtained, thinking about where it might be vulnerable. I just wish people with that much determination would concentrate on fixing the bugs, instead of exploiting them... so much wasted talent.
As long as it can be played on a regular audio CD player, I can still rip it. Of course, that would assume that I buy CD's, which I don't. Not because of P2P, but because, almost without exception, all the stuff the RIAA is pushing is crap. Unlistenable crap. I just rely on my existing collection for music, sometimes picking up CD's directly from bands' websites (fuck you, RIAA, no cut for you) or mp3.com back when it existed. I can't even listen to the radio any more it's such shite.
The copy protection will be defeated, just like any safe can be opened, it's just a matter of time and effort. So let's go ahead and crack their safe, and when we get the huge steel door open, we'll find the safe contains a bright and shiny TURD.
What's the point of preventing people from copying shitty music?
Of course I'm going to tell them not to tell anyone their address, phone number, school, where they will be and when, but the sniffing will verify that they are following these very wise instructions. Same thing with pictures - if anyone ever sends you "questionable" pictures, I need to know about it immediately. Again, the sniffer logs with automated scanning will help me verify this.
You talk about audio bugging the kids. Fine, let's talk. Consider the case of a child molester's victims. Surely most of the kids have had the standard "good touch/bad touch" talk with their parents, and yet the kids by and large don't tell because the molester manages to convince them not to. ("You'll get in trouble." "I'll get in trouble." "I'll hurt your family." "People will think you're dirty.") An audio bug in the victim's clothes would circumvent this. Granted, an audio bug isn't very practical, but translate my example back to the real world. If a perv sends my kid a picture, and manages to convince her not to say anything, I'll still find out about it. I'm much more worried about the picture she won't tell me about, than the one she tells me about right away.
You make it sound like I'm going to read every single IM session and e-mail. I won't. grep will do that for me, and I'll read the ones that grep finds interesting.
(And try to explain how porn concerns their safety.)
I only have anecdotal evidence to offer:
I had a friend who was molested as a teenager by an older man. The molester used straight porn (at first) to break down barriers - "see, the women like it. Sometimes men like it that way, too."
I go to church with a guy who works in the XXXXXXXXXX County Sheriff's department, in their "online pedophiles" division. Pervs don't send hardcore material to kids right away; they start out with "borderline" images that are of legal adults, and just very suggestive but not actually pornographic. The progression to hardcore material is made slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to alarm the child. From there, it's a hop, skip, and a jump to "You're so much more mature than all the other kids. We should meet in person. Can I pick you up at school?"
"What teenager is worried his parents are using a packet sniffer to monitor their his/her instant messaging? "
Mine.
Actually, my oldest is 9, so no teenagers yet. The kids' computer is connected to the home network, but blocked COLD at the router from ever touching the internet. No, they can't use mine because they don't know the 18-character password and I can type it in 1-2 seconds, so they won't be shoulder-surfing it either.
Some time in the future, when I allow internet access from that machine, there will be a sniffing process on a separate machine that has tamper indications. The sniffed data will be grepped for our street name, phone number, name of their school, words indicative of pr0n being sent/received, etc. and any match will trigger human review.
Don't flame me and say I'm invading their privacy. This is a duty that I owe to my daughters. Furthermore, I can decide that as their parent and until they are 18, their privacy goes out the window when safety is in question. If you heard a window break in your kid's room, a scream, and an unfamiliar voice, would you knock on the door first and say, "are you dressed? Can I come in?" or would you grab the shotgun and kick the door open immediately?
One of the major, major annoyances for me is inability to open mailto: urls in Firefox using Thunderbird and vise versa (http links in Thunderbird in Firefox).
Your complaint was my dream come true; I got tired of web bugs in spam, links that used javascript to disguise that they were mailto: a harvesting address, etc. I ditched IE and Outlook forever, even at work, and used Netscape. Unfortunately, there is still "too much" integration between the components of NS, and so I settled on Firefox for browsing, and Sylpheed-Claws for mail. I have to copy mail addresses and switch to my mail client, or copy a link and switch to my browser, but now I don't get hit with the latest e-mail virus du jour, web bugs don't work, and I'm quite satisfied with the trade-offs.
Now, rather than arguing that my view is better than yours, I'll say this: isn't is wonderful to have a CHOICE? If you want http and mailto between your mail and browser, choose Mozilla or start hacking away in the FF and Thunderbird code. I don't want such a thing, and so I choose different programs. If Sylpheed-Claws begins supporting http in my e-mail, I'll either find a new client, freeze my version, or even begin a fork of the project. We all have the choice, and that is why Open Source is, IMHO, the best option for all of us.
Finally, I can't let this go without a security bashing on Microsoft. If Outlook couldn't render HTML, how many of these damn don't-need-to-open-attachment-to-spread-virus viruses and worms would have been stopped cold? Given that Outlook and IE's incestuous coupling has helped spread worms and viruses, is that really a feature we should be copying?
I'd rather get rid of taxes for those earning under 10K/yr, those guys are the ones that now need charity to both eat, pay their taxes and their medical bills.
People making less than 10K/yr don't pay ANY federal income tax; check your tax tables with your form 1040. Of course, no matter how little you earn, you are robbed by the government in other ways, including a pyramid scheme the government calls "Social Security." Oh, the irony. Security, indeed.
I would ask Mr. Badnarik how he plans to phase out Social Insecurity. People will riot if you take it away immediately, but we can't keep going like this; the pyramid has to collapse some time. I fear that my generation will be called "The Greatest Generation" like those who fought in WWII, but our sacrifice will be to be the first ones to receive no SS after paying into it for a lifetime. We were robbed our entire working lives, and then left to fend for ourselves so that our children and grandchildren could regain control over their own damn money. The sacrifice is coming; will we make it, or leave it for our children?
If you want to go a little further, use any regulating mechanism you want to make health care affortable.
Tort reform. The single-most important reason that John Edwards is unfit to be the vice-president. He made his money by dubious class-action lawsuits and do you know who eventually pays for that? Yep, you and me through increased premiums and prices brought on by unnecessary care that gets authorized in a "CYA" mode, higher malpractice insurance, and so on.
The Glock 17 is a semi-automatic pistol. I ought to know, since I own one and carry it on my CCW. The Glock 18 is the full-auto version, and has NEVER been available for civilian purchse.
Many of the rifles you name, such as Uzi, AK-47, FN-FAL, are actually available in semi-automatic versions. But you are correct that the expiration of the 1994 law will not make a full-auto Uzi available again. (Sadly. I've shot one and they're not half bad once you unfold the stock.)
The NFA34 tax on machine guns is $200. Additionally, you must live in a state that specifically allows civilian ownership of machine guns. You also need your local chief of police to give you permission, or the ATF won't complete the transfer. Oh yeah, and a Sten submachinee gun that costs literally $5 in parts sells for more than $1500 when you can find one.
.223 is not a "magnum" caliber.
One thing I find particularly funny is when the Brady Bunch talks about "semi automatic imitations of military firearms," and they're think specifically of the AR-15 (semi) and M-16 (military). Funny thing is, the AR-15 was made first and the M-16 was a full-auto adaptation of this existing design. The civie came before the military. It kinda shoots holes in their argument.
-paul
Mr. Moderator, I'm ready to be modded down for having a pro-gun point of view. BTW, Fuck you.
My point is, when you encourage ignorant, apathetic people to vote, you're canceling out the votes of those who actually bothered to research the issues and make an informed decision
I worked the polls in California's gubernatorial recall election last year. Far too many people asked me what "recall" meant on their way to the booth. I explained that it meant to basically fire the current governor. Then they turned around, went to the voting booth, and regardless of how they voted, cancelled out a well-thought vote that was opposite to theirs.
The best part is that our state government spends a considerable amount of money on voter education pamphlets that are mailed out to all registered voters. On the recall question, they had some verbiage, something like, "a yes vote means that you want to remove Governor Gray Davis from office, and allow another person to be elected. A no vote means that want Gray Davis to continue to be the governor." If it's that simple, and you still need help, you shouldn't be voting.
There are some political parties who just can't afford to have an informed or educated electorate (hint: they tend to cut education spending and demonize teachers), and whose children never touch public school anyway.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans care for an educated electorate. Properly educated people would vote these idiots out of office in a heartbeat - the President, Vice President, the entire Senate and House, the lot of them.
Have you considered that some politicians want to cut education spending because they see what poor results it produces? What other business rewards failure with more money?
"whose chlidren never touch public school anyway" - that's a howler. Let's see, the "Education President," Mr. Clinton, sent his daughter to a private school. Al Gore sent his kids to private school, too. So do I. Does that mean I get to be part of the conspiracy now?
I'm not sure whether I like your post or not - so much to agree with, but only seeing the blame on one side of the aisle.
DANTE (to Jay): How many times I gotta tell you not to deal outside the store.
JAY: I'm not dealing.
KID (to Jay): You got anything, man?
JAY: Yeah, what do you want?
As others have pointed out, the case seems to hinge on a contract that the manufacturers signed. I'd like to point out that your reasoning, while correct, is completely ignored in today's litigious America.
I should not be liable for murder selling a knife used to kill someone.
So you haven't seen the lawsuits against the gun industry for selling a perfectly legal product, in a very highly regulated industry and yet they're being sued by victims of crime who decided to go after the deep pockets instead of the guilty party - the person who used the gun in a crime.
P.S. the claim that "teddy bears are more regulated than guns" is bull - when was the last time you needed a license to buy a teddy bear? Teddy bear manufacturers are also not subject to criminal background checks, warrantless searches, and extensive documentation of every teddy bear they produce.
I should not be liable for murder for selling a car that someone used to kill someone.
See gun industry quote above. Or refer to the tobacco industry cases. People choose to smoke (ugh, nasty habit) and then they somehow become helpless "victims." It isn't their fault, it's the tobacco industry's fault!
I should not be liable for copyright infringement for selling a photocopier to someone who uses it to copy books.
Have you been to Kinko's lately? They have signs everywhere about how they will stop you from copying copyrighted materials so that they will not be held liable. I assume that Xerox has to jump through similar hoops. How about anti-counterfeiting technology that is installed in colour copiers, lest the goverment accuse the manufacturer of aiding and abetting counterfeiting?
I was going to point out that the common thread in all of those cases was greedy f*cking lawyers, but then I thought better of it. Lawyers are involved in most of those cases, but common to all is the lack of personal responsibility.
There was a/. article a few weeks ago about spoofing Firefox, which pointed to a demo. Sure enough, the script could turn off your title bar, status bar, etc. and looked quite real. Then the follow-ups pointed out where in the config to change things so that the spoof wouldn't work properly. Examples, proof, showing us instead of just claiming it's so.
Also, a hardware firewall will almost never protect you from a web-based trojan; you *requested* the data from the server to your PC, and any hardware firewall (not an IDS) that blocks that is failing to do its job.
Nothing is 100% fool-proof. You know the line: "if you make it fool-proof, the world will build a better fool."
It all depends on what you mean by "lawful arrest." If you mean "in accordance with natural law and God-given rights," then I have no examples. However, if you mean "[allegedly] permitted under the [unconstitutional] law [until the blessed day it is finally overturned]," then, yes, there are a few examples I can think of right now.
New York City's "Sullivan Laws" were eventually used to confiscate ordinary rifles, and threaten with arrest anyone who didn't hand 'em over.
More recently, in the Peoples' Republic of California, a court case held that the DOJ was wrong to continue accepting "assault weapon" registrations, and that all weapons registered between 1993 and 1999 were illegal. The county sheriffs then proceeded to make house visits.
Only a few months ago, a deputy mis-interpreted the PRC's "assault weapon" laws, saw a perfectly legal rifle for sale at a gun store in Orange County, and went ape-shit. The store's records of purchases were reviewed, and the sheriff made middle-of-the-night visits to the homes of purchasers. The California Rifle and Pistol Association came to the rescue with documents from the CA DOJ - the very people that are supposed to enforce the law - showing that this particular rifle was quite legal. After much wrangling, the rifles were returned to their lawful owners.
I won't even get into how ridiculous the "assault weapons" laws in the PRC are, compared to the federal law; that's a post for another time.
When my former employer was bought by Uselessness in 1999, the word went around that UNISYS stands for "Unemployment Now Imminent; Start Your Search." Sure enough, within 2 years, Uselessness had slowly strangled the company to death.
I do have a point here relevant to the current topic. In the "welcome to Uselessness" speech by the CMO (Chief Masturbatory Officer), he said all kinds of stuff about how the people were the real asset, and if they bought us just for the tech, well, there were easier ways to get our tech than to buy the company.
Then they failed to back that up with any kind of actual action, and people saw how full of shit they were. Fast-forward one year, and a junior-level CMO is out there announcing the slow closure of the division. Allow me to quote Mr. Ch***: "I know it's a bad decision, but we're going to do it anyway." Wow. One year later, it was all over. (At least I picked up a several $K worth of software and hardware that was headed directly for the trash bin. Thank you, ebay.)
So, based on their past double-speak corporate behaviour, of which I have been a direct victim, also remembering the GIF nastiness, I say, with friends like this, who needs enemies?
Point by point, even though we're off-topic by now.
1. I don't like what Bush has done with the deficit either. He should have been publicly flogged for signing the Prescription Drug Benefit, among other things. You are correct that a deficit is essentially another way of taking everybody's money, and that it must be brought under control. The solution, though, is NOT to spend more money on point 2. How about "don't tax and don't spend"?
2. How can you talk about "national health care" right after you've pointed out how dreadful the deficit is? Where will all the monyey come from? Does it grow on trees? And I seem to remember something about Hillarycare that involved what amounted to forcible conscription of doctors - if you didn't work for the government's single payer system, you couldn't practice medicine. All doctors were to become government property.
3. Yes, I'm talking about guns, including an AR-15, and no, not to hunt, either. My pistol is for the defense of my person, and if you'd had three gang members "ask" to "borrow" money, you'd carry one, too. An AR-15 is a fine weapon useful for all sorts of lawful purposes, including the one laid out at the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Wish I could own one, but the communists in charge of the Peoples' Republic of Kalifornia feel too threatened by a law-abiding population owning any sort of useful weapon. The 2nd amendment is what makes the other 9 count; take away the peoples' ability to defend themselves against an oppressive government, and the government will only grow more oppressive.
I didn't cite Russia in the mid 20th century, though that was one implementation of communism with my cited end results. The point is that Hillary and her ilk share too many ideals with the communists, and we're headed towards HER vision of what the US should look like: government controls everything, and the subjects obey.
Remember, the government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away. Which is why the solution to point #1 (the deficit) is for government to do LESS. Stick to what the Constitution delegated to the federal government, and watch wasteful spending vanish nearly overnight.
If you would like lower deficits, national health care, and restriction of guns, may I suggest that you move to Great Britain? You don't even have to learn a new language, other than "please Mr. Mugger, don't shoot me, here have my wallet." Violent crime has skyrocketed since guns were completely banned. A man who shot a violent robber was refused parole because "he continues to pose a danger to burglars."
There is a big difference between taking away tax cuts from the wealthy, and taking away all American's civil liberties
Yeah, one comes before the other.
It's not about money, it's about control. Hillary was talking about money, yes, but it comes from what appears to be her core philosophy that the State knows better than the Individual. First, money. Then, private healthcare. After that, the right of self-defense (and the ability to effectively defend). If she gets her way, we will eventually all report to work in state-owned factories, and receive goods in whatever quantity the state deems appropriate - "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Revenue drops from $8,250,000 to $11,000 and that's a "speed bump"? Talk about cajones! Thankfully I wasn't drinking anything when I read that.
I think the financial world's penchant for integral numbers saved SCO a little face here: if you allow digits to the right of the decimal, it is actually a 99.87% drop in revenue. That's better than Ivory Soap and their "99 and 44/100th's pure" of yesteryear.
I guess SCO is gunning for a new meaning of "five-nines" - a 99.999% drop in revenue.
Slashdot Mirror
Here goes my karma; I know I'll get modded down for saying this.
"Hate speech" laws have already been used in Canada to persecute religious speech. Churches have been threatened to stop preaching that homosexuality is a sin, because "that's hate speech." Basically, anything that the ruling party doesn't like you to say becomes hate speech. A man was fined $1500 CDN (what's that, 35 cents US?) for expressing a similar opinion in a letter to the editor published in a newspaper.
Expanding these laws to cover the internet is a VERY bad mistake.
I'd post as Anonymous Coward, but I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Moderator With An Axe To Grind. Fuck you.
-paul
Badnarik is on the ballot in AZ, along with Bush and Kerry. The debate is in AZ, with AZ taxpayer money. Logically, then, it seems like he should be in the debate. But then again, I want Badnarik to embarass the hell out of Bush and Kerry. I'd feel the same way if it was Ralph Nader or any of the other third-party candidates. I want any third-party candidate in there to show the public how nearly indistinguishable the two major parties are these days.
-paul
That's funny, I just sent a PGP-encrypted e-mail from my gmail account a few days ago. It seemed to work fine, including the encrypted response I got from the recipient (or a man-in-the-middle gov't snoop). Just because there isn't a "Click here to PGP encrypt your e-mail" button in gmail, doesn't mean you can't do it externally and paste the ciphertext into the nice little box.
-paul
NRZ (a communist newspaper) 19 May 1848. It's actually a very famous quote, as I've heard it quoted in many different places.
The government that is big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything from you the moment it suits their fancy.
-paul
Umm, where do you think the federal government is going to get all that money to fund it? Government does not actually produce anything (other than fiscal disasters), so the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes. Taxes on the big corporations, the small companies, and the individuals. So, we will all pay for it one way or another.
Someone once expressed an idea similar to yours. He said, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Sounds nice, huh? It was Karl Marx.
Oh, he had one other thing to say: "Wir sind ruecksichtloss, wir verlangen keinen Ruecksicht von euch. Wenn die Reihe an uns koemmt, wir werden den Terrorismus nicht beschoenigen."
Translated, that is, "We are without mercy, and we seek no mercy from you. When our turn comes, we will not make apologies for the terror."
-paul
Last summer, I saw a guy talking on a cel phone while riding a bike. What call is so bloody important that you can't pull over or take it later?
-paul
sigh Time to tell the idealist in me to STFU.
-paul
The copy protection will be defeated, just like any safe can be opened, it's just a matter of time and effort. So let's go ahead and crack their safe, and when we get the huge steel door open, we'll find the safe contains a bright and shiny TURD.
What's the point of preventing people from copying shitty music?
-paul
Of course I'm going to tell them not to tell anyone their address, phone number, school, where they will be and when, but the sniffing will verify that they are following these very wise instructions. Same thing with pictures - if anyone ever sends you "questionable" pictures, I need to know about it immediately. Again, the sniffer logs with automated scanning will help me verify this.
You talk about audio bugging the kids. Fine, let's talk. Consider the case of a child molester's victims. Surely most of the kids have had the standard "good touch/bad touch" talk with their parents, and yet the kids by and large don't tell because the molester manages to convince them not to. ("You'll get in trouble." "I'll get in trouble." "I'll hurt your family." "People will think you're dirty.") An audio bug in the victim's clothes would circumvent this. Granted, an audio bug isn't very practical, but translate my example back to the real world. If a perv sends my kid a picture, and manages to convince her not to say anything, I'll still find out about it. I'm much more worried about the picture she won't tell me about, than the one she tells me about right away.
You make it sound like I'm going to read every single IM session and e-mail. I won't. grep will do that for me, and I'll read the ones that grep finds interesting.
-paul
I only have anecdotal evidence to offer:
I had a friend who was molested as a teenager by an older man. The molester used straight porn (at first) to break down barriers - "see, the women like it. Sometimes men like it that way, too."
I go to church with a guy who works in the XXXXXXXXXX County Sheriff's department, in their "online pedophiles" division. Pervs don't send hardcore material to kids right away; they start out with "borderline" images that are of legal adults, and just very suggestive but not actually pornographic. The progression to hardcore material is made slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to alarm the child. From there, it's a hop, skip, and a jump to "You're so much more mature than all the other kids. We should meet in person. Can I pick you up at school?"
-paul
Mine.
Actually, my oldest is 9, so no teenagers yet. The kids' computer is connected to the home network, but blocked COLD at the router from ever touching the internet. No, they can't use mine because they don't know the 18-character password and I can type it in 1-2 seconds, so they won't be shoulder-surfing it either.
Some time in the future, when I allow internet access from that machine, there will be a sniffing process on a separate machine that has tamper indications. The sniffed data will be grepped for our street name, phone number, name of their school, words indicative of pr0n being sent/received, etc. and any match will trigger human review.
Don't flame me and say I'm invading their privacy. This is a duty that I owe to my daughters. Furthermore, I can decide that as their parent and until they are 18, their privacy goes out the window when safety is in question. If you heard a window break in your kid's room, a scream, and an unfamiliar voice, would you knock on the door first and say, "are you dressed? Can I come in?" or would you grab the shotgun and kick the door open immediately?
-paul
Your complaint was my dream come true; I got tired of web bugs in spam, links that used javascript to disguise that they were mailto: a harvesting address, etc. I ditched IE and Outlook forever, even at work, and used Netscape. Unfortunately, there is still "too much" integration between the components of NS, and so I settled on Firefox for browsing, and Sylpheed-Claws for mail. I have to copy mail addresses and switch to my mail client, or copy a link and switch to my browser, but now I don't get hit with the latest e-mail virus du jour, web bugs don't work, and I'm quite satisfied with the trade-offs.
Now, rather than arguing that my view is better than yours, I'll say this: isn't is wonderful to have a CHOICE? If you want http and mailto between your mail and browser, choose Mozilla or start hacking away in the FF and Thunderbird code. I don't want such a thing, and so I choose different programs. If Sylpheed-Claws begins supporting http in my e-mail, I'll either find a new client, freeze my version, or even begin a fork of the project. We all have the choice, and that is why Open Source is, IMHO, the best option for all of us.
Finally, I can't let this go without a security bashing on Microsoft. If Outlook couldn't render HTML, how many of these damn don't-need-to-open-attachment-to-spread-virus viruses and worms would have been stopped cold? Given that Outlook and IE's incestuous coupling has helped spread worms and viruses, is that really a feature we should be copying?
-paul
People making less than 10K/yr don't pay ANY federal income tax; check your tax tables with your form 1040. Of course, no matter how little you earn, you are robbed by the government in other ways, including a pyramid scheme the government calls "Social Security." Oh, the irony. Security, indeed.
I would ask Mr. Badnarik how he plans to phase out Social Insecurity. People will riot if you take it away immediately, but we can't keep going like this; the pyramid has to collapse some time. I fear that my generation will be called "The Greatest Generation" like those who fought in WWII, but our sacrifice will be to be the first ones to receive no SS after paying into it for a lifetime. We were robbed our entire working lives, and then left to fend for ourselves so that our children and grandchildren could regain control over their own damn money. The sacrifice is coming; will we make it, or leave it for our children?
Tort reform. The single-most important reason that John Edwards is unfit to be the vice-president. He made his money by dubious class-action lawsuits and do you know who eventually pays for that? Yep, you and me through increased premiums and prices brought on by unnecessary care that gets authorized in a "CYA" mode, higher malpractice insurance, and so on.
-paul
One thing I find particularly funny is when the Brady Bunch talks about "semi automatic imitations of military firearms," and they're think specifically of the AR-15 (semi) and M-16 (military). Funny thing is, the AR-15 was made first and the M-16 was a full-auto adaptation of this existing design. The civie came before the military. It kinda shoots holes in their argument.
-paul
Mr. Moderator, I'm ready to be modded down for having a pro-gun point of view. BTW, Fuck you.
I worked the polls in California's gubernatorial recall election last year. Far too many people asked me what "recall" meant on their way to the booth. I explained that it meant to basically fire the current governor. Then they turned around, went to the voting booth, and regardless of how they voted, cancelled out a well-thought vote that was opposite to theirs.
The best part is that our state government spends a considerable amount of money on voter education pamphlets that are mailed out to all registered voters. On the recall question, they had some verbiage, something like, "a yes vote means that you want to remove Governor Gray Davis from office, and allow another person to be elected. A no vote means that want Gray Davis to continue to be the governor." If it's that simple, and you still need help, you shouldn't be voting.
-paul
I'm not sure whether I like your post or not - so much to agree with, but only seeing the blame on one side of the aisle.
-paul
JAY: I'm not dealing.
KID (to Jay): You got anything, man?
JAY: Yeah, what do you want?
-paul
So you haven't seen the lawsuits against the gun industry for selling a perfectly legal product, in a very highly regulated industry and yet they're being sued by victims of crime who decided to go after the deep pockets instead of the guilty party - the person who used the gun in a crime.
P.S. the claim that "teddy bears are more regulated than guns" is bull - when was the last time you needed a license to buy a teddy bear? Teddy bear manufacturers are also not subject to criminal background checks, warrantless searches, and extensive documentation of every teddy bear they produce.
See gun industry quote above. Or refer to the tobacco industry cases. People choose to smoke (ugh, nasty habit) and then they somehow become helpless "victims." It isn't their fault, it's the tobacco industry's fault!
Have you been to Kinko's lately? They have signs everywhere about how they will stop you from copying copyrighted materials so that they will not be held liable. I assume that Xerox has to jump through similar hoops. How about anti-counterfeiting technology that is installed in colour copiers, lest the goverment accuse the manufacturer of aiding and abetting counterfeiting?I was going to point out that the common thread in all of those cases was greedy f*cking lawyers, but then I thought better of it. Lawyers are involved in most of those cases, but common to all is the lack of personal responsibility.
-paul
There was a /. article a few weeks ago about spoofing Firefox, which pointed to a demo. Sure enough, the script could turn off your title bar, status bar, etc. and looked quite real. Then the follow-ups pointed out where in the config to change things so that the spoof wouldn't work properly. Examples, proof, showing us instead of just claiming it's so.
Also, a hardware firewall will almost never protect you from a web-based trojan; you *requested* the data from the server to your PC, and any hardware firewall (not an IDS) that blocks that is failing to do its job.
Nothing is 100% fool-proof. You know the line: "if you make it fool-proof, the world will build a better fool."
-paul
New York City's "Sullivan Laws" were eventually used to confiscate ordinary rifles, and threaten with arrest anyone who didn't hand 'em over.
More recently, in the Peoples' Republic of California, a court case held that the DOJ was wrong to continue accepting "assault weapon" registrations, and that all weapons registered between 1993 and 1999 were illegal. The county sheriffs then proceeded to make house visits.
Only a few months ago, a deputy mis-interpreted the PRC's "assault weapon" laws, saw a perfectly legal rifle for sale at a gun store in Orange County, and went ape-shit. The store's records of purchases were reviewed, and the sheriff made middle-of-the-night visits to the homes of purchasers. The California Rifle and Pistol Association came to the rescue with documents from the CA DOJ - the very people that are supposed to enforce the law - showing that this particular rifle was quite legal. After much wrangling, the rifles were returned to their lawful owners.
I won't even get into how ridiculous the "assault weapons" laws in the PRC are, compared to the federal law; that's a post for another time.
-paul
I do have a point here relevant to the current topic. In the "welcome to Uselessness" speech by the CMO (Chief Masturbatory Officer), he said all kinds of stuff about how the people were the real asset, and if they bought us just for the tech, well, there were easier ways to get our tech than to buy the company.
Then they failed to back that up with any kind of actual action, and people saw how full of shit they were. Fast-forward one year, and a junior-level CMO is out there announcing the slow closure of the division. Allow me to quote Mr. Ch***: "I know it's a bad decision, but we're going to do it anyway." Wow. One year later, it was all over. (At least I picked up a several $K worth of software and hardware that was headed directly for the trash bin. Thank you, ebay.)
So, based on their past double-speak corporate behaviour, of which I have been a direct victim, also remembering the GIF nastiness, I say, with friends like this, who needs enemies?
-paul
1. I don't like what Bush has done with the deficit either. He should have been publicly flogged for signing the Prescription Drug Benefit, among other things. You are correct that a deficit is essentially another way of taking everybody's money, and that it must be brought under control. The solution, though, is NOT to spend more money on point 2. How about "don't tax and don't spend"?
2. How can you talk about "national health care" right after you've pointed out how dreadful the deficit is? Where will all the monyey come from? Does it grow on trees? And I seem to remember something about Hillarycare that involved what amounted to forcible conscription of doctors - if you didn't work for the government's single payer system, you couldn't practice medicine. All doctors were to become government property.
3. Yes, I'm talking about guns, including an AR-15, and no, not to hunt, either. My pistol is for the defense of my person, and if you'd had three gang members "ask" to "borrow" money, you'd carry one, too. An AR-15 is a fine weapon useful for all sorts of lawful purposes, including the one laid out at the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Wish I could own one, but the communists in charge of the Peoples' Republic of Kalifornia feel too threatened by a law-abiding population owning any sort of useful weapon. The 2nd amendment is what makes the other 9 count; take away the peoples' ability to defend themselves against an oppressive government, and the government will only grow more oppressive.
I didn't cite Russia in the mid 20th century, though that was one implementation of communism with my cited end results. The point is that Hillary and her ilk share too many ideals with the communists, and we're headed towards HER vision of what the US should look like: government controls everything, and the subjects obey.
Remember, the government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away. Which is why the solution to point #1 (the deficit) is for government to do LESS. Stick to what the Constitution delegated to the federal government, and watch wasteful spending vanish nearly overnight.
If you would like lower deficits, national health care, and restriction of guns, may I suggest that you move to Great Britain? You don't even have to learn a new language, other than "please Mr. Mugger, don't shoot me, here have my wallet." Violent crime has skyrocketed since guns were completely banned. A man who shot a violent robber was refused parole because "he continues to pose a danger to burglars."
-paul
Yeah, one comes before the other.
It's not about money, it's about control. Hillary was talking about money, yes, but it comes from what appears to be her core philosophy that the State knows better than the Individual. First, money. Then, private healthcare. After that, the right of self-defense (and the ability to effectively defend). If she gets her way, we will eventually all report to work in state-owned factories, and receive goods in whatever quantity the state deems appropriate - "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
No thanks.
-paul
"We can't be too concerned with protecting the rights of ordinary Americans." - Bill Clinton.
Or how about:
"We're going to take some things away from you, for the common good." - Hillary Clinton, very recently.
The next time a 3rd party candidate says there is hadrly any difference between the Republicrats and the Democans, pay more attention.
-paul
I think the financial world's penchant for integral numbers saved SCO a little face here: if you allow digits to the right of the decimal, it is actually a 99.87% drop in revenue. That's better than Ivory Soap and their "99 and 44/100th's pure" of yesteryear.
I guess SCO is gunning for a new meaning of "five-nines" - a 99.999% drop in revenue.
-paul