My favorite sketch--in retrospect, actually--is the Music From Some Guys In Space sketch.
When I first saw it, it didn't make any sense--Crow playing one, long note on a wall of keyboards, with Joel talking quietly over the "music." Only now, years later, that I've become a Hearts of Space fan (previous called Music from the Hearts of Space) do I get it.
That's the brilliant thing about MST3K. They were always willing to make these obscure jokes that seem completely lame to the majority of people, but those who understood what they're lampooning see it as sheer brilliance.
I only ever saw about two seasons of the show. I really need to find some tapes and watch some more...
I've been a gamer for a long time. Started with the original Atari, and bought every console available up until the N64 (I now have a Wii!). I think video games are an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours blowing off steam and having fun.
However, I have a serious problem with the MMORPGs.
When I was in high school, I was very involved with AOL's Rhydin in the FFGF. This wasn't anything like a BBS or modern MMORPG (though it was one in the strictest sense of the word); it was a game played out in chat rooms with an integrate series of conventions and understandings between the players that governed the game. There were no stats, no way to decide who was a higher level that another. The determining factor, ultimately, was the amount of time and energy one invested in the game. If you played a lot--and I did--you became well known. By becoming well known, you gained influence and were invited in to more and more exclusive guilds, and gained higher standing in those guilds. I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in that game, increasing my standing in the community and ultimately becoming a key member of that community. These few sentences simply do not do justice to the amount of time I spent in that game.
These few sentences also don't do justice to the amount of time and money I wasted in that game. I basically missed my entire high school experience playing. I would come home from school, log on, and not leave the computer until it was time for bed, often staying up well past when I should have just to continue playing. I was part of few clubs, and had few friends. I would do my homework while playing, eat dinner while playing, watch TV while playing. I skipped get-togethers with friends and families, and left early from things I did go to if something was happening online.
I did this for three straight years.
When I went to college, I realized something: all the hard work and energy I put in to that game was for nothing. While it did teach me a little about leadership and responsibility (as I said, I had some significant positions of power in the community), I gained nothing more than that. I missed real experiences, lost friends, and squandered chances to learn and better myself...for what? For some text on a screen; for some logs I had saved of interesting gaming sessions. But all of this was at the expense of my real life. In a sense, my character had consumed me, and I was living more for him than I was for myself.
It was not easy for me to leave the game. As I said, I had serious responsibilities in game. When I decided to leave I tried to make the transition smooth, but there were a number of people very angry at me. But I knew that if I did not leave the game my college experience would have been much like my high school one: real experiences squandered and put off to sit in front of a computer screen and type, type, type.
I realize now that what I had was a serious addiction, and I didn't totally stop playing for years afterward. And that's my problem with these MMORPGs--they hook you, like a drug, and they don't let you go. They set it up so if you want to enjoy yourself at all you need to grind, and when you do grind, you get some sort of reward for it, thus hooking you in to further grinding. It feels wonderful when your character becomes a real contender in the world, but the flip side of that is in order to remain in that position, you need to devote more and more time to it--and less and less time to those things that really matter, like friends, family, and learning. You can be a casual player, but at lower levels the game is repetitive and alienating; it's the higher level characters that have all the fun, and you're reminded of that every time you see a cool new spell or item that you can't use.
Some may disagree with me, and that's cool. I believe in free will and all that jazz. But I know exactly what people who play these games are feeling, and I wish they would realize that there is a real life going on out there that can be infinitely more rewarding than the one on the computer screen in front of them. Because, in the end, by playing MMORPGs you gain nothing; by spending that time in your real life, you can gain a hell of a lot more.
In an ideal world we'd all have OGG-based players with FM tuner, and access to DRM-less music, or at least a universal, compatible format.
With all due respect, what's with this assumption that OGG will be around long after AAC and its ilk? Personally, I think it's much, much more likely that we'll have backwards compatibility with AAC 20 years from now, than it is that OGG or something based on it will be around. Yes, I am fully aware from a geek perspective OGG is better. But Apple has the business and marketing muscle to keep AAC around, and it will be important to making money down the line for Apple to provide backwards compatibility.
But OGG? Once some new interesting open source project comes along, there will be--maybe--three people trying to keep it competitive.
Usually I'm rather anti-capitalist, but in this situation I think it's working right.
I'm considering calling Hil's office and saying that I was going to vote for her, but now will not do so. The only way people like her stop this shit is if we call their offices and tell them we're sick of it, and won't vote for them if they don't stop.
Everyone I know with an iPod (including myself) have admitted that they have "moods." Some days my iPod likes to favor one artist, the next day a different one.
As someone who, after writing this post, is planning on going in to work and write an appellate brief, I would never use a word such as "doodle" in my brief. More than anything, an appellate brief is what the judges will rely upon to make a decision about your case. You want to appear professional and intelligent; you don't want to use colloquies or cute phrases.
I assure you, the Government's brief will not have the word "doodle" in it.
I live in VT, near the VT/NH border. And when reading this article, all I could think is "Why the hell would they put this in New Hampshire?"
Don't get me wrong--I love NH. But, last I checked, NH had about 1 million people in it. And, let me assure you, most of them either: (1) don't care about video games, and/or (2) don't have the disposable income to drop 5 bucks per hour on a glorified arcade.
Perhaps this would work in a Major Metropolitan Area. But New Hampshire?
Hm. If that's the case, then people could have Mouse Wars. Plug in two mice, put the pointer at the center of the screen, and whoever gets the pointer to their opponent's side wins!
I must have an old mouse around here somewhere to try this out...
I don't think this is the answer. The answer is rewriting the EULAs themselves.
I'm involved in law, and I've thought a lot about those millions of EULAs I've agreed to (and no doubt broken) throughout the years. I can not possibly see how these things could be enforceable. If you even try to read through them, they're no more than mumbo-jumbo.
I think we need to have straightforward EULAs stating our rights and responsibilities in clear bullet points. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for legalese. It is important in covering loopholes and every possible contingency. But the average person needs to be able to clearly see what their rights and responsibilities under a contract are.
I worry that the program suggested here will create problems and, perhaps, lawsuits, and take away from the real change needed.
After reading a number of comments here, it seems many people (including myself) agree that the major problem GoogleIM faces is that if all your friends use ServiceX, you are basically forced to use ServiceX as well.
The answer to this situation, IMHO, is for Google to release an IM program which has seamless integration with other IM services. This is offered in many third party IM applications, but a big Google brand on an application which could juggle multiple IM systems might just be enough to get people to use Google's application--which, of course, would require you to sign up for GoogleIM at download.
It would be a slow process of conversion, but if Google starts out with seamless integration, I think they have a chance of converting a significant number of users within a year.
...this is how things often work in the legal world, now-a-days. Legal professionals want to go to court as only a last resort, for the simple and compelling reason that you don't know what could happen. The RIAA doesn't want to go to court, as it's worried that they will set a bad precedent for their legal racket. The defendant doesn't want to go to court because they could lose big time, and be forced in to bankruptcy.
The problem goes much further than this specific case--the legal system is broken and needs fixing. We've created this zero-sum game, forcing people to either settle early and choose their own destiny, or go to court and leave it up to no more than a coin flip.
Thing is, under the current system, I'd advise my clients to do the same thing. Settle and get on with their lives. Yes, we need a test case to set some precedent here, but I would not put any of my clients in that position unless they were adamant about it.
There's just too much risk and money involved with going to court, and, so, settlements are creating a practically private legal system with often confidential terms. What to do, what to do...
I think it depends on the social contract which the internet is based on. The grandparent suggests the old-style social contract; the parent the new-style one.
The internet was built on the share-information-for-free theory. All the technology, once it got in the hands of the universities, was focused on information sharing.
Once the internet became more popular (1999/2000), people started to figure out that they could make money off the net, and so they started advertising. In the last year or so, it's gotten sickening (pop-up/pop-under ads).
I abhor ads, personally, because I operate on a very slow connection. They slow everything down; they make the internet nigh unusable for me. Therefore, I prefer sites that offer some free content and make extra revenue by giving upgraded services to subscribers (e.g., livejournal).
In the end, however, i think a strong argument could be made for an inherent right to free information on the internet. The very technology which these ad companies use to make money was invented for the free public use and exchange of information. Since the attempt to change to social contract has been unilateral (ad companies and sites seeking to gain revenue) it is unacceptable. Therefore, a right exists to remove ads.
Not that I'm "owning" that argument exactly. But it's a thought.
...but does anyone else find this to be creepy? I like having a physical separation between me and my net connection. If we had direct brain interface, could you imagine what the script kiddies would come up with? You'd open an e-mail attachment by mistake, and end up poking yourself in the eye for hours...
I go to a law school in New England which has been overrun by PCs because "almost all law firms use Windows." Over the past two years the IT department has gone from being (relatively) inclusive of all platforms to exclusive of everything except Win 2000 Professional and Win XP.
At least 50% of the student body uses Macs, so I'm not some random geek demanding that my lone mac work on the network. The lack of Mac services is a serious inconvenience to half the school.
To quote their website, the "IT Department does not officially support Macintosh and Linux platform desktops and laptops. Although Internet connectivity (pop/imap/smtp e-mail, web browser) should work fine on these, we can not guarantee access to other network resources such as printing and personal network space."
With all this talk of new and exciting broadband options available to us, I am still on a crappy dialup account (currently connecting at 31200 bps). I live in Vermont, on the side of a mountain, and not a single broadband provider has offered broadband to myself or my neighbors.
It seems silly to me that Verizon and other broadband providers are simply ignoring broad swaths of rural America. Yes, perhaps due to population density it doesn't seem so profitable. But I know quite a few people (including myself) who would jump at anything which is priced lower than satellite.
Much of rural America was simply ignored during the digital revolution. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
When someone accuses you, he's the one who has to bring the evidence.
Not exactly.
Under US law, we have this thing called discovery. It requires each side to bring all the evidence to the table, in the spirit of figuring out the truth. This is how you and me are able to sue big companies: so long as there is a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, discovery may be ordered by a judge and almost everything needs to be turned over.
This is not to say that I agree with the new FCC rule (I can see both sides), but this would be why failure to keep those tapes archived for a reasonable period of time could be seen as destroying potential evidence (kind of like shredding of important incriminating documents).
About a year and a half ago, I was in a major accident involving slipping off a road and flipping down an embankment about six times. Myself and all the other passengers in the car were injured from the accident.
The next day I went back to take pictures and find my iPod. I found it about 10 feet from the car, buried in the snow. I pressed play and it worked; it still works to this day.
Treaties, when signed by the president and ratified by the Senate, take on the force of federal law. They do not have the same legal standing as the Constitution. Treaties, like all laws, are subject to the constraints of the Constitution. A treaty which violates any provision of the Constitution is not valid.
Not exactly.
Article VI of the US Constitution states "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land..."
If we parse that out, we get the statement "This Constitution...and all treaties made...under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land..." Therefore, via this section of the Constitution, any treaties properly ratified according to the provisions of the Constitution are on equal footing with the Constitution itself. Therefore, your statement that "a treaty which violates any provision of the Constitution is not valid" is not correct, because the Constitution has relinquished that power of itself as Supreme Law of the Land to treaties as well.
This, of course, gets in to your philosophy of law discussion. I strongly disagree that "he rules of war do not comprise a body of law. They're legally equivalent to a handshake." As I described above, international treaties properly ratified have the same power as the US Constitution. Therefore it has a much strongly effect than "a handshake." Since these treaties have real force and effect, they can comprise a body of law (the treaties themselves and any interpretative works).
As an aside, we can't just rewrite these rules now. We have a clear Constitution which states that those treaties which have been ratified have the same force as the Constitution itself. Just because these treaties have become inconvenient doesn't mean we can ignore them now. Before we can help others put their house in order, we must put ours in order first. And the most important part of putting out house in order is to follow our Constitution, because that is the founding document of our society. We must respect that our Founding Fathers decided to make treaties be as powerful as the Constitution itself for a reason, and act accordingly.
Not that I have any problem with sucking Fox's coffers dry, but why the hell do these people think that 125 K an episode isn't enough? Hell, if I was the star of one of the most successful TV shows of all time and pulling in more than most people make a year each week, I think I'd just be thankful that my life had worked out so well.
To think that these voice actors would consider destroying a brilliant show which they had benefited so much from because they couldn't live on 125 K a week just makes me sick. The Simpsons could easily be considered a work of art, and I always think the destruction of art for greed is sad. All I know is whatever respect I had for what work they're doing just dropped about 50x.
Slashdot Mirror
When I first saw it, it didn't make any sense--Crow playing one, long note on a wall of keyboards, with Joel talking quietly over the "music." Only now, years later, that I've become a Hearts of Space fan (previous called Music from the Hearts of Space) do I get it.
That's the brilliant thing about MST3K. They were always willing to make these obscure jokes that seem completely lame to the majority of people, but those who understood what they're lampooning see it as sheer brilliance.
I only ever saw about two seasons of the show. I really need to find some tapes and watch some more...
Very good point.
...gold farming's bad, m'kay?
;)
So, to amend my post...
Happy?
I've been a gamer for a long time. Started with the original Atari, and bought every console available up until the N64 (I now have a Wii!). I think video games are an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours blowing off steam and having fun.
However, I have a serious problem with the MMORPGs.
When I was in high school, I was very involved with AOL's Rhydin in the FFGF. This wasn't anything like a BBS or modern MMORPG (though it was one in the strictest sense of the word); it was a game played out in chat rooms with an integrate series of conventions and understandings between the players that governed the game. There were no stats, no way to decide who was a higher level that another. The determining factor, ultimately, was the amount of time and energy one invested in the game. If you played a lot--and I did--you became well known. By becoming well known, you gained influence and were invited in to more and more exclusive guilds, and gained higher standing in those guilds. I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in that game, increasing my standing in the community and ultimately becoming a key member of that community. These few sentences simply do not do justice to the amount of time I spent in that game.
These few sentences also don't do justice to the amount of time and money I wasted in that game. I basically missed my entire high school experience playing. I would come home from school, log on, and not leave the computer until it was time for bed, often staying up well past when I should have just to continue playing. I was part of few clubs, and had few friends. I would do my homework while playing, eat dinner while playing, watch TV while playing. I skipped get-togethers with friends and families, and left early from things I did go to if something was happening online.
I did this for three straight years.
When I went to college, I realized something: all the hard work and energy I put in to that game was for nothing. While it did teach me a little about leadership and responsibility (as I said, I had some significant positions of power in the community), I gained nothing more than that. I missed real experiences, lost friends, and squandered chances to learn and better myself...for what? For some text on a screen; for some logs I had saved of interesting gaming sessions. But all of this was at the expense of my real life. In a sense, my character had consumed me, and I was living more for him than I was for myself.
It was not easy for me to leave the game. As I said, I had serious responsibilities in game. When I decided to leave I tried to make the transition smooth, but there were a number of people very angry at me. But I knew that if I did not leave the game my college experience would have been much like my high school one: real experiences squandered and put off to sit in front of a computer screen and type, type, type.
I realize now that what I had was a serious addiction, and I didn't totally stop playing for years afterward. And that's my problem with these MMORPGs--they hook you, like a drug, and they don't let you go. They set it up so if you want to enjoy yourself at all you need to grind, and when you do grind, you get some sort of reward for it, thus hooking you in to further grinding. It feels wonderful when your character becomes a real contender in the world, but the flip side of that is in order to remain in that position, you need to devote more and more time to it--and less and less time to those things that really matter, like friends, family, and learning. You can be a casual player, but at lower levels the game is repetitive and alienating; it's the higher level characters that have all the fun, and you're reminded of that every time you see a cool new spell or item that you can't use.
Some may disagree with me, and that's cool. I believe in free will and all that jazz. But I know exactly what people who play these games are feeling, and I wish they would realize that there is a real life going on out there that can be infinitely more rewarding than the one on the computer screen in front of them. Because, in the end, by playing MMORPGs you gain nothing; by spending that time in your real life, you can gain a hell of a lot more.
In an ideal world we'd all have OGG-based players with FM tuner, and access to DRM-less music, or at least a universal, compatible format.
With all due respect, what's with this assumption that OGG will be around long after AAC and its ilk? Personally, I think it's much, much more likely that we'll have backwards compatibility with AAC 20 years from now, than it is that OGG or something based on it will be around. Yes, I am fully aware from a geek perspective OGG is better. But Apple has the business and marketing muscle to keep AAC around, and it will be important to making money down the line for Apple to provide backwards compatibility.
But OGG? Once some new interesting open source project comes along, there will be--maybe--three people trying to keep it competitive.
Usually I'm rather anti-capitalist, but in this situation I think it's working right.
Vermont also doesn't require a JD to sit for the bar, but you have to complete a four year apprenticeship with a Vermont attorney...
Now we just need to find the one in the slashcode...
I'm considering calling Hil's office and saying that I was going to vote for her, but now will not do so. The only way people like her stop this shit is if we call their offices and tell them we're sick of it, and won't vote for them if they don't stop.
Everyone I know with an iPod (including myself) have admitted that they have "moods." Some days my iPod likes to favor one artist, the next day a different one.
And that's good enough explanation for me.
Does this make an IRC Spammer a Spric?
from now on, all debates on /. should require input from the characters in SMAC.
As someone who, after writing this post, is planning on going in to work and write an appellate brief, I would never use a word such as "doodle" in my brief. More than anything, an appellate brief is what the judges will rely upon to make a decision about your case. You want to appear professional and intelligent; you don't want to use colloquies or cute phrases.
I assure you, the Government's brief will not have the word "doodle" in it.
I live in VT, near the VT/NH border. And when reading this article, all I could think is "Why the hell would they put this in New Hampshire?"
Don't get me wrong--I love NH. But, last I checked, NH had about 1 million people in it. And, let me assure you, most of them either: (1) don't care about video games, and/or (2) don't have the disposable income to drop 5 bucks per hour on a glorified arcade.
Perhaps this would work in a Major Metropolitan Area. But New Hampshire?
Hm. If that's the case, then people could have Mouse Wars. Plug in two mice, put the pointer at the center of the screen, and whoever gets the pointer to their opponent's side wins!
I must have an old mouse around here somewhere to try this out...
I don't think this is the answer. The answer is rewriting the EULAs themselves.
I'm involved in law, and I've thought a lot about those millions of EULAs I've agreed to (and no doubt broken) throughout the years. I can not possibly see how these things could be enforceable. If you even try to read through them, they're no more than mumbo-jumbo.
I think we need to have straightforward EULAs stating our rights and responsibilities in clear bullet points. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for legalese. It is important in covering loopholes and every possible contingency. But the average person needs to be able to clearly see what their rights and responsibilities under a contract are.
I worry that the program suggested here will create problems and, perhaps, lawsuits, and take away from the real change needed.
After reading a number of comments here, it seems many people (including myself) agree that the major problem GoogleIM faces is that if all your friends use ServiceX, you are basically forced to use ServiceX as well.
The answer to this situation, IMHO, is for Google to release an IM program which has seamless integration with other IM services. This is offered in many third party IM applications, but a big Google brand on an application which could juggle multiple IM systems might just be enough to get people to use Google's application--which, of course, would require you to sign up for GoogleIM at download.
It would be a slow process of conversion, but if Google starts out with seamless integration, I think they have a chance of converting a significant number of users within a year.
...this is how things often work in the legal world, now-a-days. Legal professionals want to go to court as only a last resort, for the simple and compelling reason that you don't know what could happen. The RIAA doesn't want to go to court, as it's worried that they will set a bad precedent for their legal racket. The defendant doesn't want to go to court because they could lose big time, and be forced in to bankruptcy.
The problem goes much further than this specific case--the legal system is broken and needs fixing. We've created this zero-sum game, forcing people to either settle early and choose their own destiny, or go to court and leave it up to no more than a coin flip.
Thing is, under the current system, I'd advise my clients to do the same thing. Settle and get on with their lives. Yes, we need a test case to set some precedent here, but I would not put any of my clients in that position unless they were adamant about it.
There's just too much risk and money involved with going to court, and, so, settlements are creating a practically private legal system with often confidential terms. What to do, what to do...
I think it depends on the social contract which the internet is based on. The grandparent suggests the old-style social contract; the parent the new-style one.
The internet was built on the share-information-for-free theory. All the technology, once it got in the hands of the universities, was focused on information sharing.
Once the internet became more popular (1999/2000), people started to figure out that they could make money off the net, and so they started advertising. In the last year or so, it's gotten sickening (pop-up/pop-under ads).
I abhor ads, personally, because I operate on a very slow connection. They slow everything down; they make the internet nigh unusable for me. Therefore, I prefer sites that offer some free content and make extra revenue by giving upgraded services to subscribers (e.g., livejournal).
In the end, however, i think a strong argument could be made for an inherent right to free information on the internet. The very technology which these ad companies use to make money was invented for the free public use and exchange of information. Since the attempt to change to social contract has been unilateral (ad companies and sites seeking to gain revenue) it is unacceptable. Therefore, a right exists to remove ads.
Not that I'm "owning" that argument exactly. But it's a thought.
...but does anyone else find this to be creepy? I like having a physical separation between me and my net connection. If we had direct brain interface, could you imagine what the script kiddies would come up with? You'd open an e-mail attachment by mistake, and end up poking yourself in the eye for hours...
I go to a law school in New England which has been overrun by PCs because "almost all law firms use Windows." Over the past two years the IT department has gone from being (relatively) inclusive of all platforms to exclusive of everything except Win 2000 Professional and Win XP.
At least 50% of the student body uses Macs, so I'm not some random geek demanding that my lone mac work on the network. The lack of Mac services is a serious inconvenience to half the school.
To quote their website, the "IT Department does not officially support Macintosh and Linux platform desktops and laptops. Although Internet connectivity (pop/imap/smtp e-mail, web browser) should work fine on these, we can not guarantee access to other network resources such as printing and personal network space."
With all this talk of new and exciting broadband options available to us, I am still on a crappy dialup account (currently connecting at 31200 bps). I live in Vermont, on the side of a mountain, and not a single broadband provider has offered broadband to myself or my neighbors.
It seems silly to me that Verizon and other broadband providers are simply ignoring broad swaths of rural America. Yes, perhaps due to population density it doesn't seem so profitable. But I know quite a few people (including myself) who would jump at anything which is priced lower than satellite.
Much of rural America was simply ignored during the digital revolution. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
Bah.
When someone accuses you, he's the one who has to bring the evidence.
Not exactly.
Under US law, we have this thing called discovery. It requires each side to bring all the evidence to the table, in the spirit of figuring out the truth. This is how you and me are able to sue big companies: so long as there is a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, discovery may be ordered by a judge and almost everything needs to be turned over.
This is not to say that I agree with the new FCC rule (I can see both sides), but this would be why failure to keep those tapes archived for a reasonable period of time could be seen as destroying potential evidence (kind of like shredding of important incriminating documents).
...to post a direct link to a video on a /. main story. It lets us crash their server that much faster!
I have a 1st Gen iPod.
About a year and a half ago, I was in a major accident involving slipping off a road and flipping down an embankment about six times. Myself and all the other passengers in the car were injured from the accident.
The next day I went back to take pictures and find my iPod. I found it about 10 feet from the car, buried in the snow. I pressed play and it worked; it still works to this day.
If that isn't rugged, I don't know what is.
Treaties, when signed by the president and ratified by the Senate, take on the force of federal law. They do not have the same legal standing as the Constitution. Treaties, like all laws, are subject to the constraints of the Constitution. A treaty which violates any provision of the Constitution is not valid.
Not exactly.
Article VI of the US Constitution states "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land..."
If we parse that out, we get the statement "This Constitution...and all treaties made...under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land..." Therefore, via this section of the Constitution, any treaties properly ratified according to the provisions of the Constitution are on equal footing with the Constitution itself. Therefore, your statement that "a treaty which violates any provision of the Constitution is not valid" is not correct, because the Constitution has relinquished that power of itself as Supreme Law of the Land to treaties as well.
This, of course, gets in to your philosophy of law discussion. I strongly disagree that "he rules of war do not comprise a body of law. They're legally equivalent to a handshake." As I described above, international treaties properly ratified have the same power as the US Constitution. Therefore it has a much strongly effect than "a handshake." Since these treaties have real force and effect, they can comprise a body of law (the treaties themselves and any interpretative works).
As an aside, we can't just rewrite these rules now. We have a clear Constitution which states that those treaties which have been ratified have the same force as the Constitution itself. Just because these treaties have become inconvenient doesn't mean we can ignore them now. Before we can help others put their house in order, we must put ours in order first. And the most important part of putting out house in order is to follow our Constitution, because that is the founding document of our society. We must respect that our Founding Fathers decided to make treaties be as powerful as the Constitution itself for a reason, and act accordingly.
Not that I have any problem with sucking Fox's coffers dry, but why the hell do these people think that 125 K an episode isn't enough? Hell, if I was the star of one of the most successful TV shows of all time and pulling in more than most people make a year each week, I think I'd just be thankful that my life had worked out so well.
To think that these voice actors would consider destroying a brilliant show which they had benefited so much from because they couldn't live on 125 K a week just makes me sick. The Simpsons could easily be considered a work of art, and I always think the destruction of art for greed is sad. All I know is whatever respect I had for what work they're doing just dropped about 50x.