Most interesting to me is that the comments here on/. are generally supportive so far. What a different thread it would be if this had been Bill Gates and Microsoft instead of Steve Jobs and Apple.
No, see, it's totally different, because...um.....Microsoft is a convicted monopolist! Clippy joke!
'Mothing compulsory' is no excuse, since vendors have a habit of selfishly shifting the rules to suit themselves.
Is there some reason, though, that we can't refrain from hyperventilating and shouting our sci-fi induced Orwellian nightmares while specks of spittle fling themselves from our lips, until this actually happens? You can pick any technology or system that you want and say that it's Bad and Wrong because SOMEDAY SOMEBODY might use it for evil. That's not an argument, though.
Right on! I mean, I only wanted to play Protovision's games. It's not like I was trying to hack into the WOPR! So now the FBI has to abduct me into a van simply because I caused us to go to DEFCON 5 and nearly started a global thermonuclear war?
Previous models failed for two main reasons:
1. Cost. Tablets are still generally more expensive than bargain laptops, but are now obtainable in the $1000-$2000 sweet spot.
2. Software. I have to admit, that Microsoft's Windows Tablet edition really goes a long way to making the technology useful and purposeful. The ink API's also make third-party developers able to extend the functionality easily. Now, if only the Gimp supported it!
It appears you are trying to be funny. Would you like to: o Retire a joke that was obsolete years ago o Download a clue from the interweb o Continue living in the past
You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
And you add them to the two,
and you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.
I suspect that, for many, "activation" is a rationalization for a desire to steal the software, or not have to learn how to use it. Much like many people rationalize never trying Linux because of the "difficult installation." For a few, it might be legitimate, but for many, is an excuse.
So are you saying that the constitution is a lieing down the maxumum rights taht are protected and anything not covered explicietly is up to the law makers?
No, the Constitution lays down minimum rights that must be protected.
The founding fathers were afraid of that view, and some of them did not want to have the Bill of Rights at all for fear that people would think like that (that is why they are ammendments and not art of the main body of the document).
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I would imagine that a reasonable person could legitamatly interpret the liberty and the persuit of happiness to mean being able to wed the way our heart takes you.
Well isn't that special. Please locate the phrase "pursuit of happiness" in the US Constitution.
I personaly think that legaly marriage should be degraded to a civil union and anybody can do it, and those that need to be "married" can get a private institution to do it if they are willing, but as a someone with no religious leanings I could be underestimating the importance of the government recognizing "marriage".
Great, your solution is to abolish marriage. Why should everybody else agree to this?
The federal judges will not *bing* change the law; nine of the best legel minds in the world will argue about for a very long time before deciding if the right to mary for love no matter what the gender is part of the idea that all people are equal and weather marriage is an in-alienable right.
HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *pause* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! First of all, judges are not the best legal minds in the world. Second, please locate "all people are created equal" and "in-alienable" right in the Constitution. Third, even if they were in there, judges should simply fill up these general terms with whatever concepts they think they ought to mean. They ought to be bound by the meanings of those words as society understood them when they were adopted. To do otherwise violates the social contract.
Do you truly think that the state governments should be alloud to legislate what (harmless) sex acts consenting married adults can participate in?
You don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter what I "think!" It only matters what the laws say! The meaning of the Constitution should not, can not, must not, bend and change just to fit my own personal preferences!
You are making the rational basis analysis stricter than it really is. A rational basis doesn't even have to be why the law is actually enacted, it just has to be a rational basis for believing it promotes some legitimate government interest that could possibly be claimed by the state. It also can be over- or under-inclusive. It doesn't have to be the best way to promote the legitimate interest. It doesn't even have to be logical, just rationally related to a legitimate government interest (which for the state, are the police powers: health, safety, welfare, morals(?; maybe not after Lawrence), etc.)
As to your point about state constitutions; I don't see any legitimate basis for the federal courts to overturn the VT, CT, or MA courts' decisions. In fact, it's not at all uncommon for state constitutions to be much more protective than the federal constitution. They just can't be less protective, so the federal constitution is a baseline minimum that the states can freely build on, as far as legal rights and privileges are concerned.
Unless and until you can provide a compelling reason for the state to be able to come in and break up my relationship, but to NOT be able to do the same to YOUR relationship, you have not proven your case.
Look, I'm not opposed to you, in policy. In other contexts I would very much support your points of view. But in the constitutional context, I'm afraid I don't. The state does not need a "compelling" reason to pass a law. All of these things we are talking about, important to you though they may be, are questions of policy. Policy questions deserve to be hashed out in legislatures, by means of argument and persuasion, which you are effective at, trust me!
I don't think that your argument for constitutionalizing this issue is cogent. I sympathize with your personal feelings and hardship; I don't disagree it is backwards not to at least have these legal rights by civil union. But consider this: I also don't enjoy the rights that you talk of. Why? Because I'm single! The state has certain rights and priviliges for married people that single people do not have. Is this to be unconstitutional as well? The state takes money from the rich and provides certain benefits to poor people. Is this not unequal treatment? The state provides low-interest loans to college students. The state provides huge tax incentives for home owners. Is this not discrimination? I agree, more or less, with the Supreme Court's current distinction between suspect and non-suspect classifications. I guess I wonder what rationale you think is appropriate to determine who can and cannot be discriminated against by law. Simply adopting the position of "never" is warm and fuzzy, but plainly silly in practice, for law by its very nature classifies and distinguishes.
If a state super-majority were to decide to strip people of color of their right to vote, the Judiciary would have ever right to step in and say "no, that's wrong", and they'd be absolutely right to do so.
Their "right to do so" comes from the explicit language of the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and no where else. You are correct, of course, that there IS an equal protection clause. However, I do not think it means what you think it means. You might want to read up on the Fourteenth Amendment a little, especially the part about "suspect classes."
I care not at all whether or not the Court's decisions match my preferences. I only care that they are appying the Constitution faithfully and objectively, and not relying on their own personal values and preferences.
Well okay. I agree with you. So let's stop beating around the bush, because we both know what everybody is talking about: does the U.S. Constitution require states to permit homosexual marriages?
I cannot see how it does. Homosexuals are not a protected class under 14th amendment analysis, and I certainly don't see a rationale for adding them under the Carolene Products footnote. Thus, the states need only a rational basis for the exclusion, and there are certainly many; for example, promoting child socialization, promoting responsible childbirth in general, and so on. As to specific legal privileges, the SCOTUS may or may not determine that deprivation of that privilege has no rational basis, but as to the marriage license itself, there are plenty.
My fear, of course, is that the court will dismiss all this and simply hold that some emanance of a penumbra of a right means that could not have been guessed at means that one side wins and one side loses, for ever and ever.
I guess I might be missing other possible constitutional attacks. Suggestions?
I'm not presuming that I'm right, I'm basing it off of my argument, which I note you did not address. The majority has not persuaded me that their reading of the Eighth Amendment is legitimate. As for your statements; the Court is not granted the authority to define those things as they see fit, nor to allow or disallow anything as they see fit. They are granted the authority only to apply the Constitution, as it exists.
Just because you are ignorant of the more than 1000 rights granted by a civil marriage license
These are not minority protections. They are legal privileges. Desirable things, understandably, but it is nothing like the right to speak, or vote, or have due process. You do not help your case by pretending that it is.
Your whole rant was completely ignorant, I have to say. We're talking about the civil rights of individuals and equal protection under the law. Such things should never be put to public vote, as they are in herent in the whole idea of the constitution, and to the very idea of what it means to be free.
Please, just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean am I ignorant. And I do disagree. If such things are beyond the reach of any vote, then from where comes their legitimacy? Even the Constitution is not a dictator. It can be changed through democratic processes. It must be able to be changed, else we are living in a dictatorship. I will not tolerate living even in a benevolent dictatorship. You talk about freedom as though it means being able to feel good about yourself. The idea of freedom, to me, means that I have some say in every single aspect of my governance. Period.
but they should not have any say in which people should be targeted by punitive denials of civil liberties just because they don't like them.
You have not made the case that marriage is a civil liberty.
Thanks, but I already took Con Law I, Con Law II, and Advanced Con Law. I strongly believe in a structure like what we have, because by requiring supermajority powers for certain things, the institutions at the top are very conservative (by which I mean, resistant to change.) This is a Good Thing.
THAT is why I am so very much against placing controversial issues, even the ones that people feel extremely strongly about, in those higher levels. Let them stay below! People will not change by being forced from above. They will change by accepting the reality that exists around them.
This is a policy discussion. Obviously, in saying that I am looking at "empirical" evidence, I am considering aggregates, not anecdotes. Thus, I care not about "certain" single parents or "certain" gay couples. I care about better vs. worse. I am not prepared to allow most children be poorly socialized so that good people can feel good about themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
No, see, it's totally different, because...um.....Microsoft is a convicted monopolist! Clippy joke!
Yeah, well Microsoft has an even more principled outlook - that they will actively undermine (even at their own expense) vendors hostile to them.
How could it possibly be more explicit?
The user should click "Don't Send?"
A far more sensible argument is to ban cars. Some people can't handle them, and their crashes can actually KILL me.
Is there some reason, though, that we can't refrain from hyperventilating and shouting our sci-fi induced Orwellian nightmares while specks of spittle fling themselves from our lips, until this actually happens? You can pick any technology or system that you want and say that it's Bad and Wrong because SOMEDAY SOMEBODY might use it for evil. That's not an argument, though.
Right on! I mean, I only wanted to play Protovision's games. It's not like I was trying to hack into the WOPR! So now the FBI has to abduct me into a van simply because I caused us to go to DEFCON 5 and nearly started a global thermonuclear war?
He also missed the point that making things, even commodity things, ever cheaper and cheaper is itself a form of innovation.
Previous models failed for two main reasons: 1. Cost. Tablets are still generally more expensive than bargain laptops, but are now obtainable in the $1000-$2000 sweet spot. 2. Software. I have to admit, that Microsoft's Windows Tablet edition really goes a long way to making the technology useful and purposeful. The ink API's also make third-party developers able to extend the functionality easily. Now, if only the Gimp supported it!
Yes. Even my bargain-basement Averatec has this feature.
Or see if, as at least three other posters indicated they do, Apache users are blocking MSN.
If by "unbiased" you mean "censored, sanitized, and weighted to prefer certain sources," then I agree the Google is very unbiased.
Is that clear?
I suspect that, for many, "activation" is a rationalization for a desire to steal the software, or not have to learn how to use it. Much like many people rationalize never trying Linux because of the "difficult installation." For a few, it might be legitimate, but for many, is an excuse.
No, the Constitution lays down minimum rights that must be protected.
The founding fathers were afraid of that view, and some of them did not want to have the Bill of Rights at all for fear that people would think like that (that is why they are ammendments and not art of the main body of the document).
I would imagine that a reasonable person could legitamatly interpret the liberty and the persuit of happiness to mean being able to wed the way our heart takes you.
Well isn't that special. Please locate the phrase "pursuit of happiness" in the US Constitution.
I personaly think that legaly marriage should be degraded to a civil union and anybody can do it, and those that need to be "married" can get a private institution to do it if they are willing, but as a someone with no religious leanings I could be underestimating the importance of the government recognizing "marriage".
Great, your solution is to abolish marriage. Why should everybody else agree to this?
The federal judges will not *bing* change the law; nine of the best legel minds in the world will argue about for a very long time before deciding if the right to mary for love no matter what the gender is part of the idea that all people are equal and weather marriage is an in-alienable right.HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *pause* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! First of all, judges are not the best legal minds in the world. Second, please locate "all people are created equal" and "in-alienable" right in the Constitution. Third, even if they were in there, judges should simply fill up these general terms with whatever concepts they think they ought to mean. They ought to be bound by the meanings of those words as society understood them when they were adopted. To do otherwise violates the social contract.
Do you truly think that the state governments should be alloud to legislate what (harmless) sex acts consenting married adults can participate in?
You don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter what I "think!" It only matters what the laws say! The meaning of the Constitution should not, can not, must not, bend and change just to fit my own personal preferences!
As to your point about state constitutions; I don't see any legitimate basis for the federal courts to overturn the VT, CT, or MA courts' decisions. In fact, it's not at all uncommon for state constitutions to be much more protective than the federal constitution. They just can't be less protective, so the federal constitution is a baseline minimum that the states can freely build on, as far as legal rights and privileges are concerned.
You mean, "lawyers"?
Look, I'm not opposed to you, in policy. In other contexts I would very much support your points of view. But in the constitutional context, I'm afraid I don't. The state does not need a "compelling" reason to pass a law. All of these things we are talking about, important to you though they may be, are questions of policy. Policy questions deserve to be hashed out in legislatures, by means of argument and persuasion, which you are effective at, trust me!
I don't think that your argument for constitutionalizing this issue is cogent. I sympathize with your personal feelings and hardship; I don't disagree it is backwards not to at least have these legal rights by civil union. But consider this: I also don't enjoy the rights that you talk of. Why? Because I'm single! The state has certain rights and priviliges for married people that single people do not have. Is this to be unconstitutional as well? The state takes money from the rich and provides certain benefits to poor people. Is this not unequal treatment? The state provides low-interest loans to college students. The state provides huge tax incentives for home owners. Is this not discrimination? I agree, more or less, with the Supreme Court's current distinction between suspect and non-suspect classifications. I guess I wonder what rationale you think is appropriate to determine who can and cannot be discriminated against by law. Simply adopting the position of "never" is warm and fuzzy, but plainly silly in practice, for law by its very nature classifies and distinguishes.
Their "right to do so" comes from the explicit language of the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and no where else. You are correct, of course, that there IS an equal protection clause. However, I do not think it means what you think it means. You might want to read up on the Fourteenth Amendment a little, especially the part about "suspect classes."
I care not at all whether or not the Court's decisions match my preferences. I only care that they are appying the Constitution faithfully and objectively, and not relying on their own personal values and preferences.
I cannot see how it does. Homosexuals are not a protected class under 14th amendment analysis, and I certainly don't see a rationale for adding them under the Carolene Products footnote. Thus, the states need only a rational basis for the exclusion, and there are certainly many; for example, promoting child socialization, promoting responsible childbirth in general, and so on. As to specific legal privileges, the SCOTUS may or may not determine that deprivation of that privilege has no rational basis, but as to the marriage license itself, there are plenty.
My fear, of course, is that the court will dismiss all this and simply hold that some emanance of a penumbra of a right means that could not have been guessed at means that one side wins and one side loses, for ever and ever.
I guess I might be missing other possible constitutional attacks. Suggestions?
I'm not presuming that I'm right, I'm basing it off of my argument, which I note you did not address. The majority has not persuaded me that their reading of the Eighth Amendment is legitimate. As for your statements; the Court is not granted the authority to define those things as they see fit, nor to allow or disallow anything as they see fit. They are granted the authority only to apply the Constitution, as it exists.
These are not minority protections. They are legal privileges. Desirable things, understandably, but it is nothing like the right to speak, or vote, or have due process. You do not help your case by pretending that it is.
Your whole rant was completely ignorant, I have to say. We're talking about the civil rights of individuals and equal protection under the law. Such things should never be put to public vote, as they are in herent in the whole idea of the constitution, and to the very idea of what it means to be free.
Please, just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean am I ignorant. And I do disagree. If such things are beyond the reach of any vote, then from where comes their legitimacy? Even the Constitution is not a dictator. It can be changed through democratic processes. It must be able to be changed, else we are living in a dictatorship. I will not tolerate living even in a benevolent dictatorship. You talk about freedom as though it means being able to feel good about yourself. The idea of freedom, to me, means that I have some say in every single aspect of my governance. Period.
but they should not have any say in which people should be targeted by punitive denials of civil liberties just because they don't like them.
You have not made the case that marriage is a civil liberty.
THAT is why I am so very much against placing controversial issues, even the ones that people feel extremely strongly about, in those higher levels. Let them stay below! People will not change by being forced from above. They will change by accepting the reality that exists around them.
This is a policy discussion. Obviously, in saying that I am looking at "empirical" evidence, I am considering aggregates, not anecdotes. Thus, I care not about "certain" single parents or "certain" gay couples. I care about better vs. worse. I am not prepared to allow most children be poorly socialized so that good people can feel good about themselves.