I work for a large financial services firm. Everyone who comes to work there is required to undergo a background check and criminal records check, which includes fingerprinting (and running those fingerprints for matches in criminal and disciplinary databases). The goal with the SEC is, at least partly, to ensure that someone who has been convicted of securities fraud cannot sneak in after suspension of their license, etc.
Note, I'm not a licenses broker or any such thing - I'm in IT. But the rules apply.
Something about a previous finding against them in court. You know, the monopoly thing. If they get caught destroying evidence, people are going to jail. Not something at the top of Steve Balmers list, I suspect.
To me, it looks like Obama does better when politics are retail and Clinton when politics are machine. No surprise there, really. The question is, I think, can her machine bring in enough delegates to seal the deal. I don't think so.
I would say we are in for a brokered convention, and anything could happen. Heck, they could nominate Al Gore!
It certainly appears to me that this is an attempt to protect those stores against Amazon. Whether or not this is good for the consumer is an open question. I love to browse at bookstores -you find things you might otherwise not find. But frankly, I buy the vast majority of my books from Amazon because the price and shipping deals are often just to good to pass up. The thing is, if the local bookseller doesn't provide sufficient value in services to make up for the price difference, there is little anyone can do to help him, except restrain others from selling at a lower price. And that's what the French government is doing.
My preference is for allowing the market to settle this. That does not appear to be the French model. To each his own. It's their country and they are free to run it as they see fit. Countries can complete for people just like businesses do. If they are overly out of touch with their people, good people will leave if things don't change. Or kick the bums out. if they approved, so be it.
I have to disagree. I lead a team that supports a significant installation of Linux servers. Initially I had a choice between Windows & Linux for my desktop. The rest of my team chose Windows. I chose Linux. Both had some kind of significant struggle (for me it was the lack of Visio on Linux, issues with Notes on Linux and internal choices of IE for some intranet sites). I eventually had a chance to test a Mac, and it was about as perfect a solution as could be found. After a few weeks, the rest of my staff opted for Macs as well. Why? It provides the Unix environment we all prefer, but also provides an excellent GUI and doesn't suffer from the problems of many Linux distros (trouble playing videos, browser issues, etc).
Is it perfect? Nope. But it's the best of the available options. We're WAY more efficient and productive using Macs than we were under Windows or Linux.
Linux on the server, Mac on the desktop seems to be a sweet spot.
The fact that Google, M$, and Yahoo! have free speech rights under the first amendment is the source of the problem.
Then I guess you'll be really upset to learn that they have even MORE rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
See that little "of the press" part? They can publish (or not publish) what they like - so long as they aren't violating the law. Editorial decisions have significant protections under the US Constitution.
It's simply a string of numbers indicating where money is stored for social security benefits.
There's no money stored anywhere. Social Security is a "pay as you go" system, and any excess funds are replaced with Treasury Bonds (IOUs from the taxpayers to fund Social Security in the future). At some point, the tax needs of repaying those bonds, as well as covering new retirees will exceed the ability of the workforce to pay - unless a significant change in the system is enacted.
As there parent, you are allowed to give them wine, or beer. I don't know of any states where this is not true.
True in my own house, and if I am there to serve it. But that's the limit.
It may well be true that a lot of people want these laws, but the US (at least, which is where I am) was not meant to be goverened by a simple majority, especially on issues of personal freedom and responsiblity. The Founders, bless their hearts, set up a system that was designed to protect us from tyrrany, no matter what the source. Unfortunately, ways have been found around these protections, and our rights are diminished day by day.
I am involved - but people who actually want the Constitution enforced are mostly thought to be radicals who don't know what's good for the country.
Can't let my 18-year-old son have a beer with dinner? Fuck you, bust me.
One of my pet peeves. My kids have been allowed to drink wine with dinner since they were little. The state can shove their laws right up their collective...well, you know. The nanny state is getting worse by the minute, prodded along by big business like the MPAA, RIAA, etc, etc, and trying to control everything we do. Well, I have news for them:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
They seem to have forgotten about that in the past 200 years. Of course, it's not just a right, but a duty to get a new government, according to the Founders:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Unfortunately, too many people are too concerned about who is going to win on American Idol and just ignore the long train of abuses. Bread and circueses....
Sorry, but 10.2 to 10.3, or 10.3 to 10.4 are NOT service packs. The service packs are the 3rd digit: 10.3.2, 10.4.8 and so on. When the middle digit changes, they charge - and they provide significant new features. When the last digit changes, they provide bug fixes. Very simple.
If you are going to rail on the Mac, fine, but please at least know what you are talking about.
I've really been somewhat on the lookout for a decently open phone with fair storage, music playing capabilities and wifi.
Do you really think Microsoft is going to produce an 'open' product in this area? Given that they agreed to a 'music tax' on the Zune, and the limits they place on DRM'd music, I can't imagine that it would be more open than the iPhone (or even close).
Of course, the iPhone isn't the be-all, end-all either, since it too has it's restrictions (e.g. 3rd party applications).
But, we can hope! If they can make the launch every 2 months or so, that's going to be amazing - they have fewer orbiters than before, so it's pretty agressive. The question is, what comes next?
It looks to me that the Asian countries are going to take over real space exploration. That's both good and bad. China isn't exactly known for sharing information, but at least they are doing it.
The office is defined in the US Constitution - they are Federal officials. The same as Senators. The fact that states appoint them does not make them state officers. The 17th Amendment changed the way Senators are elected, but before that they sure weren't state officers despite being appointed/elected by the state legislatures.
All fine and good. But meaningless. Congress is the only judge of the Electoral Votes according to the Constitution. So in the end, the House will decide if the faithless elector is allowed to vote or not for President, and there is nothing the state can do to force Congress to accept any particular elector. And under separation of powers, the Supreme Court cannot interfere, since the Constitution assigns this duty to Congress and Congress alone. The same is true for the VP with regards to the Senate.
The electors, who are actually elected federal office holders, albeit with a very short term and only one permitted act, cannot be bound by any state or federal law to vote one way or another. It's not possible to prevent 'rogue' electors from voting for anyone they wish, anymore than it's possible for a state legislature to force the state's senators and representatives to vote a particular way on a bill.
Right now, electors represent the party of the candidate they pledge (i.e. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc). You would have to change this to non-partisan electors who agreed to vote with the national popular vote. And even then, you could not guarantee that the electors would do that, since they can't be forced to vote one way or another
The only way you will ever change this is to ammend the Constitution. And it's not clear that it should be changed. The Electoral College reduces the weight of large states and increases the weight of the small states, which makes it less likely a candidate will try to run up huge numbers in CA, NY, FL, TX, OH, VA and other large states so he/she can ignore the smaller states. Right now, you gain nothing from winning NY with say 70% of the vote vs 50%+1. That helps keep a few large states from dominating the process - the leveling effect limits their impact.
Of course, I know a lot of people don't agree with me. But that's no surprise, they mostly object to my calls to repeal (among others) the 17th Amendment and restore a true federal system.
The advice still holds - step outside and shut the door behind you. We don't have enough information to know if that was possible or not, but it's the best thing you can do. I realize it may not have worked in THIS case, but it's good advice anyway.
Perhaps having a locked screen/storm door would be a good idea - you can open the main door, but the police are still prevented from putting their foot in the door.
Not only was this guy arrested, but the police tresspassed on his property and kicked his wife out for 5 hours while they tried to get a search warrant -- even though they were effectively already illegally searching the place!
Number one rule - never let the police in your house unless they have a search warrant. Never. No matter what. Step out on your porch to talk to them. Or on the driveway. Or sidewalk. And really, don't talk to them without a lawyer present unless YOU called them to report a crime.
This sounds paranoid, but the police are no longer the friends of the honest citizen - they view EVERYONE as a criminal these days.
ran a story based on an informant, basicly saying that the minister of justice was running errands for the white house
Earlier this week, I was listening to the Radio Sweden Podcast and the leader of the Left Party (Vänster Partiet) was complaining about the government being the errand-boy of George Bush. What's funny is that the current government is the Social Democrats!
Given that there is an election coming shortly, is the center-right coalition even more pro-US? And will the Pirate Party get enough votes to take a place in Parliament?? That would be a real blow to the 'mainstream' parties.
Re:An IPO as new customer lure?
on
Vonage going IPO
·
· Score: 1
s few ducats is going to be at least $1600, if the pricing on the site is accurate, and could be more ($1800+), depending on how oversubscribed the offering is (if it is at all). You are required to by in 100 share lots. So your investment amounts are multiples of $1600 (again, assuming the price is $16) - $1600, $3200, etc. And putting that much into a speculative stock like this, especailly when they say 'no profits in the forseeable future' is pretty risky. So, yeah, if you have $1600 you can stand to have disappear, go for it.
This isn't to say you can't flip it and make a nice profit if it goes up, but note well you are required to tender 100% of the cost of the purchase before you can get the procedes from any sale, so even if you sell the same day, you can't do this with 'phantom' cash.'
This is why I'm my own ISP (so to speak). I run my own server, and do my own backups, which I retain ONLY for disaster recovery purposes. The system is backed-up each nite, with the backup files copied to another system. After 3 days, the backups are expunged with a secure erase program. It's all automated. It never hits tape, and as such, if I delete something, it's gone.
I also religiously encrypt outbound email, and ask my correspondants to encrypt mail they send to me.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think this is 100% secure, but it sure beats letting Google/Comcast/AT&T/Earthlink/MSN or whoever determine what gets kept and what doesn't.
I would never change back - come what may, as long as owning a server is legal, that's how I'm getting my email. And if they try to make it illegal, well, Jefferson told us how to deal with that problem.
Because the "religious right" doesn't like gambling, and they are very much into snooping into other peoples' business to make sure nothing they don't approve of is going on.
Add to that the "do-gooders" on the left who think gambling is the root of all evil (well, at least this week, anyway) and people have to be protected from it, and only laws can do that (after all, it's worked so well with guns) and you have real trouble gettig a legalization bill passed.
Judges simply do not read briefs unless they are written by lawyers.
I call BS. I can testify that this is not the case. I personally kicked a lawyer's butt in court. My motions were read, and granted. Both at the Federal District level and at the Appeals level. I did concede to the 'caste' system when the Court asked for 'formal' briefs (effectively, making oral argument unnecessary, which was to my advantage). But before that, I filed several motions and won all of them.
Now, granted, the person who sued me was a net.kook, but he had a real lawyer who was known for playing the system. That concerned me, of course, but I followed the rules to the letter. And I won.
Let's be clear - this was a no-brainer, since there were jurisdictional problems (the net.kook sued me in North Carolina State Court, and I live in Illinois, and have no contacts with North Carolina). The key was, I made absolutely sure I followed the court's rules, looked at sample pleadings, wrote my own stuff. And won.
One major caveat - I would never do this in a criminal case. Way too many pitfalls, traps, etc, that one could fall into. And that's where you need the lawyer - they know the system and the rules (or at least they are supposed to). Hopefully, though, I'll never be in THAT position.
I guess civil, otherwise she could just get a lawyer assigned to her.
IANAL, but there are times when lawyers are assigned in civil cases. For example, I am inovled in a lawsuit filed by a net.kook against a whole slew of folks. At the appeals level (he lost at the district level on motions because he's a fool), one of my co-defendants could not afford the lawyer to prepare a 'formal appeal brief' which had been ordered by the court, so the court assigned him a lawyer. So it does happen
And will there be a jury?
Probably, yes. But I believe that both sides could waive that right. And there may be other ways to prevent a jury trial, if the RIAA wanted to. Again, IANAL
I don't think any jury would be willing to convict her. Which would set a nice precedent.
Don't be so sure. Juries listen to judges (and prosecutors - though there isn't one in this case). If the judge's instructions to the jury say that if she did X, then you must find for the plaintiff, and she did do X (whatever it is), then the jury will ikely find against her.
Of course, there is always Jury Nullification but that's a whole other thing itself.
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a large financial services firm. Everyone who comes to work there is required to undergo a background check and criminal records check, which includes fingerprinting (and running those fingerprints for matches in criminal and disciplinary databases). The goal with the SEC is, at least partly, to ensure that someone who has been convicted of securities fraud cannot sneak in after suspension of their license, etc.
Note, I'm not a licenses broker or any such thing - I'm in IT. But the rules apply.
Something about a previous finding against them in court. You know, the monopoly thing. If they get caught destroying evidence, people are going to jail. Not something at the top of Steve Balmers list, I suspect.
To me, it looks like Obama does better when politics are retail and Clinton when politics are machine. No surprise there, really. The question is, I think, can her machine bring in enough delegates to seal the deal. I don't think so.
I would say we are in for a brokered convention, and anything could happen. Heck, they could nominate Al Gore!
It certainly appears to me that this is an attempt to protect those stores against Amazon. Whether or not this is good for the consumer is an open question. I love to browse at bookstores -you find things you might otherwise not find. But frankly, I buy the vast majority of my books from Amazon because the price and shipping deals are often just to good to pass up. The thing is, if the local bookseller doesn't provide sufficient value in services to make up for the price difference, there is little anyone can do to help him, except restrain others from selling at a lower price. And that's what the French government is doing.
My preference is for allowing the market to settle this. That does not appear to be the French model. To each his own. It's their country and they are free to run it as they see fit. Countries can complete for people just like businesses do. If they are overly out of touch with their people, good people will leave if things don't change. Or kick the bums out. if they approved, so be it.
Vive le difference!
I have to disagree. I lead a team that supports a significant installation of Linux servers. Initially I had a choice between Windows & Linux for my desktop. The rest of my team chose Windows. I chose Linux. Both had some kind of significant struggle (for me it was the lack of Visio on Linux, issues with Notes on Linux and internal choices of IE for some intranet sites). I eventually had a chance to test a Mac, and it was about as perfect a solution as could be found. After a few weeks, the rest of my staff opted for Macs as well. Why? It provides the Unix environment we all prefer, but also provides an excellent GUI and doesn't suffer from the problems of many Linux distros (trouble playing videos, browser issues, etc).
Is it perfect? Nope. But it's the best of the available options. We're WAY more efficient and productive using Macs than we were under Windows or Linux.
Linux on the server, Mac on the desktop seems to be a sweet spot.
Yep. On a Mac. The OP didn't specify....
According to the Acid2 site, Safari does not pass the Acid2 test.
Interesting. I just went to the site with Safari (Version 3.0.4 (523.12)) and to my eyes the rendering matches the reference.
Then I guess you'll be really upset to learn that they have even MORE rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
See that little "of the press" part? They can publish (or not publish) what they like - so long as they aren't violating the law. Editorial decisions have significant protections under the US Constitution.
There's no money stored anywhere. Social Security is a "pay as you go" system, and any excess funds are replaced with Treasury Bonds (IOUs from the taxpayers to fund Social Security in the future). At some point, the tax needs of repaying those bonds, as well as covering new retirees will exceed the ability of the workforce to pay - unless a significant change in the system is enacted.
As there parent, you are allowed to give them wine, or beer. I don't know of any states where this is not true.
True in my own house, and if I am there to serve it. But that's the limit.
It may well be true that a lot of people want these laws, but the US (at least, which is where I am) was not meant to be goverened by a simple majority, especially on issues of personal freedom and responsiblity. The Founders, bless their hearts, set up a system that was designed to protect us from tyrrany, no matter what the source. Unfortunately, ways have been found around these protections, and our rights are diminished day by day.
I am involved - but people who actually want the Constitution enforced are mostly thought to be radicals who don't know what's good for the country.
Can't let my 18-year-old son have a beer with dinner? Fuck you, bust me.
One of my pet peeves. My kids have been allowed to drink wine with dinner since they were little. The state can shove their laws right up their collective...well, you know. The nanny state is getting worse by the minute, prodded along by big business like the MPAA, RIAA, etc, etc, and trying to control everything we do. Well, I have news for them:
They seem to have forgotten about that in the past 200 years. Of course, it's not just a right, but a duty to get a new government, according to the Founders:
Unfortunately, too many people are too concerned about who is going to win on American Idol and just ignore the long train of abuses. Bread and circueses....
Sorry, but 10.2 to 10.3, or 10.3 to 10.4 are NOT service packs. The service packs are the 3rd digit: 10.3.2, 10.4.8 and so on. When the middle digit changes, they charge - and they provide significant new features. When the last digit changes, they provide bug fixes. Very simple.
If you are going to rail on the Mac, fine, but please at least know what you are talking about.
I've really been somewhat on the lookout for a decently open phone with fair storage, music playing capabilities and wifi.
Do you really think Microsoft is going to produce an 'open' product in this area? Given that they agreed to a 'music tax' on the Zune, and the limits they place on DRM'd music, I can't imagine that it would be more open than the iPhone (or even close).
Of course, the iPhone isn't the be-all, end-all either, since it too has it's restrictions (e.g. 3rd party applications).
But, we can hope! If they can make the launch every 2 months or so, that's going to be amazing - they have fewer orbiters than before, so it's pretty agressive. The question is, what comes next?
It looks to me that the Asian countries are going to take over real space exploration. That's both good and bad. China isn't exactly known for sharing information, but at least they are doing it.
The office is defined in the US Constitution - they are Federal officials. The same as Senators. The fact that states appoint them does not make them state officers. The 17th Amendment changed the way Senators are elected, but before that they sure weren't state officers despite being appointed/elected by the state legislatures.
All fine and good. But meaningless. Congress is the only judge of the Electoral Votes according to the Constitution. So in the end, the House will decide if the faithless elector is allowed to vote or not for President, and there is nothing the state can do to force Congress to accept any particular elector. And under separation of powers, the Supreme Court cannot interfere, since the Constitution assigns this duty to Congress and Congress alone. The same is true for the VP with regards to the Senate.
The electors, who are actually elected federal office holders, albeit with a very short term and only one permitted act, cannot be bound by any state or federal law to vote one way or another. It's not possible to prevent 'rogue' electors from voting for anyone they wish, anymore than it's possible for a state legislature to force the state's senators and representatives to vote a particular way on a bill.
Right now, electors represent the party of the candidate they pledge (i.e. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc). You would have to change this to non-partisan electors who agreed to vote with the national popular vote. And even then, you could not guarantee that the electors would do that, since they can't be forced to vote one way or another
The only way you will ever change this is to ammend the Constitution. And it's not clear that it should be changed. The Electoral College reduces the weight of large states and increases the weight of the small states, which makes it less likely a candidate will try to run up huge numbers in CA, NY, FL, TX, OH, VA and other large states so he/she can ignore the smaller states. Right now, you gain nothing from winning NY with say 70% of the vote vs 50%+1. That helps keep a few large states from dominating the process - the leveling effect limits their impact.
Of course, I know a lot of people don't agree with me. But that's no surprise, they mostly object to my calls to repeal (among others) the 17th Amendment and restore a true federal system.
The advice still holds - step outside and shut the door behind you. We don't have enough information to know if that was possible or not, but it's the best thing you can do. I realize it may not have worked in THIS case, but it's good advice anyway.
Perhaps having a locked screen/storm door would be a good idea - you can open the main door, but the police are still prevented from putting their foot in the door.
Not only was this guy arrested, but the police tresspassed on his property and kicked his wife out for 5 hours while they tried to get a search warrant -- even though they were effectively already illegally searching the place!
Number one rule - never let the police in your house unless they have a search warrant. Never. No matter what. Step out on your porch to talk to them. Or on the driveway. Or sidewalk. And really, don't talk to them without a lawyer present unless YOU called them to report a crime.
This sounds paranoid, but the police are no longer the friends of the honest citizen - they view EVERYONE as a criminal these days.
ran a story based on an informant, basicly saying that the minister of justice was running errands for the white house
Earlier this week, I was listening to the Radio Sweden Podcast and the leader of the Left Party (Vänster Partiet) was complaining about the government being the errand-boy of George Bush. What's funny is that the current government is the Social Democrats!
Given that there is an election coming shortly, is the center-right coalition even more pro-US? And will the Pirate Party get enough votes to take a place in Parliament?? That would be a real blow to the 'mainstream' parties.
s few ducats is going to be at least $1600, if the pricing on the site is accurate, and could be more ($1800+), depending on how oversubscribed the offering is (if it is at all). You are required to by in 100 share lots. So your investment amounts are multiples of $1600 (again, assuming the price is $16) - $1600, $3200, etc. And putting that much into a speculative stock like this, especailly when they say 'no profits in the forseeable future' is pretty risky. So, yeah, if you have $1600 you can stand to have disappear, go for it.
This isn't to say you can't flip it and make a nice profit if it goes up, but note well you are required to tender 100% of the cost of the purchase before you can get the procedes from any sale, so even if you sell the same day, you can't do this with 'phantom' cash.'
This is why I'm my own ISP (so to speak). I run my own server, and do my own backups, which I retain ONLY for disaster recovery purposes. The system is backed-up each nite, with the backup files copied to another system. After 3 days, the backups are expunged with a secure erase program. It's all automated. It never hits tape, and as such, if I delete something, it's gone.
I also religiously encrypt outbound email, and ask my correspondants to encrypt mail they send to me.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think this is 100% secure, but it sure beats letting Google/Comcast/AT&T/Earthlink/MSN or whoever determine what gets kept and what doesn't.
I would never change back - come what may, as long as owning a server is legal, that's how I'm getting my email. And if they try to make it illegal, well, Jefferson told us how to deal with that problem.
Because the "religious right" doesn't like gambling, and they are very much into snooping into other peoples' business to make sure nothing they don't approve of is going on.
Add to that the "do-gooders" on the left who think gambling is the root of all evil (well, at least this week, anyway) and people have to be protected from it, and only laws can do that (after all, it's worked so well with guns) and you have real trouble gettig a legalization bill passed.
Judges simply do not read briefs unless they are written by lawyers.
I call BS. I can testify that this is not the case. I personally kicked a lawyer's butt in court. My motions were read, and granted. Both at the Federal District level and at the Appeals level. I did concede to the 'caste' system when the Court asked for 'formal' briefs (effectively, making oral argument unnecessary, which was to my advantage). But before that, I filed several motions and won all of them.
Now, granted, the person who sued me was a net.kook, but he had a real lawyer who was known for playing the system. That concerned me, of course, but I followed the rules to the letter. And I won.
Let's be clear - this was a no-brainer, since there were jurisdictional problems (the net.kook sued me in North Carolina State Court, and I live in Illinois, and have no contacts with North Carolina). The key was, I made absolutely sure I followed the court's rules, looked at sample pleadings, wrote my own stuff. And won.
One major caveat - I would never do this in a criminal case. Way too many pitfalls, traps, etc, that one could fall into. And that's where you need the lawyer - they know the system and the rules (or at least they are supposed to). Hopefully, though, I'll never be in THAT position.
I guess civil, otherwise she could just get a lawyer assigned to her.
IANAL, but there are times when lawyers are assigned in civil cases. For example, I am inovled in a lawsuit filed by a net.kook against a whole slew of folks. At the appeals level (he lost at the district level on motions because he's a fool), one of my co-defendants could not afford the lawyer to prepare a 'formal appeal brief' which had been ordered by the court, so the court assigned him a lawyer. So it does happen
And will there be a jury?
Probably, yes. But I believe that both sides could waive that right. And there may be other ways to prevent a jury trial, if the RIAA wanted to. Again, IANAL
I don't think any jury would be willing to convict her. Which would set a nice precedent.
Don't be so sure. Juries listen to judges (and prosecutors - though there isn't one in this case). If the judge's instructions to the jury say that if she did X, then you must find for the plaintiff, and she did do X (whatever it is), then the jury will ikely find against her.
Of course, there is always Jury Nullification but that's a whole other thing itself.