That story about Santa Clara and corporate personhood is incorrect.
Santa Clara established that corporations were to be held to the same standards as persons under the 14th Amendment. Corporate personhood or anything like it does not appear anywhere in the case. It just means that corporations receieve equal protection under the law.
The confusion comes about from a note on the case that has no legal standing. Corporations are subject to different rules than individuals, and the government has no more right to impose a death sentence on a corporation than they have a right to tell the ACLU or the NAACP to disband.
The Constitution grants the right of assembly, and that right extends to corporations as well. A corporate death penalty would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Actually, from what I understand, there's nothing to prevent anyone from using a non-Microsoft OS to vote using this system. The only requirement is SSL 3.0, which is supported by browsers on MacOS and UNIX.
The real reason they say Windows is due to support. They don't want questions flooding in about problems that might emerge from using another operating system. Given that this is a government operation, they simply don't have the time to answer the question of 50,000 clueless n00bs calling up and asking "Where's my start button?"
Don't just assume that because Stein was a Nixon speechwriter that his comments are any less valid. I had a chance to talk with him for a few minutes a while back, and he's a really insightful guy.
As for your points:
1. Funding is good, but unless there's oversight and reform it will go to waste. We need a system that pushes for educational quality rather than payoffs for teachers who don't give a damn about their students educations and administrators who line their own pockets. The educational system in America is broken at a fundamental level, and until there are real reforms made increased funding won't be effective.
2. I'm a big propondent of the liberal arts. While a 2 year degree can get you a job, it also means you have a very limited skill set. If you lose your job, you're limited to only your chosen field. A liberal arts graduate on the other hand has a wide set of skills and can move between positions more easily. Although in certain cases, you're right, a technical education might be the best option.
3. Sounds like a good idea to me.
4. This might not be such a bad deal, although I'd be wary about increasing the time before a drug can go generic. Part of the solution involves streamlining the approval process for new drugs and reducing barriers to entry. The other part of high drug costs in the US is that we're paying for Canada's price controls as well. (Lousy freeloading Canadians!)
5. To an extent, I agree with you on that, although if another federal bureaucracy like NASA is the result I'd say it's not worth it. Our spending on science is very little compared to the fraud and waste that the US government produces. If we could just take one year's fraud from Medicare, Social Security, and foreign aid, we could have a manned Mars mission by 2010...
This is the first attack foisted on the US specifically. You're correct in pointing out that biowarfare isn't new, however this is the first time that the US has been hit with it. (In fact, the US has used biological weapons itself in the past - smallpox infected blankets given to various Indian tribes to wipe them out without firing a shot.)
You work in a government laboratory that works with dangerous pathogens that could be suitable for biological warfare.
You probably signed a contract stating that you must consent to all necessary searches. (These are common in contracts for workers in critical government facilities as part of your standard security agreements.)
We're currently facing the first known biological attack in US history.
Considering all these factors, you either have the choice of quitting or just living with the inconvience. There is certainly nothing unreasonable about throughly searching someone who works in such a critical environment. While, yes, IANAL, I don't really thing you have any case to object to these searches.
While I have a mixed opinion of the title music, I do believe it's not nearly as bad as some are saying it is. Yes, its a dramatic change from what Trek (and SF in general has done), but I would argue that's not at all a bad thing. Much of Trek's rut can be attributed to the fact that Berman and Braga hadn't been willing to take risks when they should have.
In fact, with each viewing, the song and the images that go with it are starting to grow on me. I think the orchestration could have been a little better in some spots, but that's more a point of personal preference.
Don't whine that Star Trek never does anything new when the fanbase urinates itself every time they do something new and/or different. The song is a very upbeat piece that matches the visuals beautifully. Granted, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but some of the people I watched with thought it was something that makes the theme of exploration more accessible. The fact is, that's what Fast Forward was made for, but don't try to fault Berman and Braga for at least giving an attempt to change the nature of Trek for the new century.
Already Alias|Wavefront has ported Maya (their flagship 3D software and the most commonly used package for movie animation) to Linux. The Pixar Renderman rendering engine is already ported to Linux. Basically, everything a studio would need is already ported to Linux. Softimage also has ported their software to Linux as well.
In other words, IBM is *way* behind the curve on this... Linux is already an integral part of 3D animation, and with the release of Maya 4 and it's Linux port, this trend is definately going to continue. Using off-the-shelf, inexpensive hardware for both workstations and render farms makes a lot of sense, and Linux is perfect as an extensible UNIX-based OS for animation purposes.
I'm getting a little sick of this notion that everything should be free. Dolby is fully within their rights to do whatever they damn well please with their technology. They developed it, they paid for it, and they own it.
The right of ownership doesn't end when you cross over from atoms to bits. That same right of ownership and property is what keeps me from taking the Linux source and making my own proprietary kernel. If someone did that, the Slashdot population would be shitting kittens for weeks and threatening to hang the company by their gonads. Dolby developed the AC3 standard, they have a right to expect the work they put into it to pay off, including charging to use it. Linus and Co. developed the Linux kernel, and they have a right to expect the work they put into it to pay off, including making it open for all to use.
It doesn't matter that ac3dec has uses other than piracy. It's still using someone elses property without their recompense or permission. While Dolby shouldn't sue over this issue (it would be pointless anyway, the genie's already out of the bottle...) there's no logical, rational justification for this crap about "corporations eroding our freedoms". It's as much a pile of bullshit as this "the GPL erodes your freedom" crap from Microsoft. When you create something, you have the right to do with it as you please, and just because you don't like what Dolby's doing with their product doesn't mean that you can force them to go along with your terms.
It's sad that even the term nuclear had been so villified in the United States. Environmentalist groups did their best to kill American nuclear power in the 70's and 80's - unwittingly allowing for more and more pollution from smog-emitting coal plants and inefficient natural gas plants. Good luck on NASA pushing nuclear rockets through - look at the trouble they had with the Cassini probe.
Considering that in 1993 then Vice President Al Gore killed both the lithium breeder and fuel pellet nuclear designs after tests showed them to be excellent energy producers and perfectly safe against radiation release, it's clear that the American attitude to anything with "nuclear" in the title is based off irrational fears and half-truths.
Breaking through this ignorance barrier is going to harder for NASA than sending a man to the Moon...
One has to wonder if the invention of the printing press ushered in the same. The farmers and serfs of the Dark Ages were probably thought too stupid to handle all of the material that came through the new invention of the press.
Oh wait, we got the Renaissance out of that. The growth of media has always corresponded with the development of society, from the clay tablets of the Babylonians and the Sumerians, to the Internet today. Yes, there's a time when people need to get used to this new information onslaught, but it will happen.
Douglas Coupland wrote a book called Joystick Nation that dealt with the fact that "Generation Y" has grown up with this kind of technology, and already has adapted to it. It's just a matter of acclimitization to all this media, something that people in their 40's and 50's didn't have to deal with. It's going to be naturally difficult to deal with all of that, but later generations will be much more adept.
Frankly, flame wars in large development projects aren't really surprising. Whenever you have a group of exceptionally bright people with differing ideas you're bound to get some conflict. That's true for an open source project, a television show, or any other type of collaborative effort.
What makes situations like that spin out of control is when there's no one in charge. Decentralizing development is good to a point, but when there isn't one person responsible for solving these disputes and ensuring that development goes forward, you end up spinning around in circles. Linux has Linus (and to a certain extent Alan Cox and others) as having a good deal of responsibility for the Linux kernel. You need to have someone willing to step up and ensure that things go smoothly.
This is certainly a good case example of how open source development isn't a panacea. Even OSS isn't immune to the kind of managerial problems that are inherent in any kind of collaborative enterprise. I hope that the GNOME team manages to get things back on track and continues to put out some quality software.
Re:/. crew's pro-democrat/left wing bias
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That notion, quite frankly, scares the living hell out of me. The fact that Americans won't even discuss incidents in which their own government acted like tyrannical thugs shows how easy it would be for them to do it again.
We must not hesitate to discuss these matters. We shouldn't sweep Ruby Ridge, Elian, or any of those under the rug any more than we should ignorethe bad actions of Phillip Morris or Microsoft. Only by exposing and working against injustice can we get anywhere.
You've got the first part absolutely right on the head. An active and informed citizenry is crucial to a free state. You are also correct in pointing out that Americans are rarely active and informed. Yes, this is a problem.
But blaming the "Corporate Republic" is an intellectual cop-out. First of all, the entire concept is a load of bullshit. You better damn well believe that if the government had any real desire to shut down Microsoft or AOL, they could. Corporations aren't more powerful than government, they only sometimes seem that way. If America were really owned lock stock and barrel by corporations then we wouldn't be seeing the load of regulatory garbage that gets passed through Congress each year.
The idea that corporations are able to shirk all responsibility is also BS. Corporations live and breathe by the market, and the market is driven by the consumer. The reasons we're seeing all this vertical integration is sure as hell not out of some kind of diabolic plan to squelch the voices of independent content producers, but because it's getting harder and harder to attract the kind of audiences that media outlets are used to. Hence AOL buying everything from ICQ to Netscape - they need to get subscribers to keep their bottom line. If you've got several million eyeballs, you can keep afloat of ads... and even then it's a crapshoot. "Big Media" isn't more powerful than ever... it's trying desperately to keep from hemorraging cash by spreading itself around. In the end, that may only make the situation worse.
Unless corporations understand market demands, they're doomed to end up pretty well fucked. Corporations have an *extreme* amount of accountability, to their shareholders, to the market, and more important to the consumers. AOL is sucessful because it caters to a large group of people and does it well. Ditto Microsoft, or almost any other major corporation.
This whole "corporate republic" bullshit is getting real old. It's the same anti-capitalist rhetoric that should have been buried a long time ago. The alternative proposed by this New Left is a socialist system where the *government* runs everything - and all you need to do is go take a little trip to a former or current Communist country to see where that would lead us. (And don't talk about Sweden like it was paradise either - they have a yearly national dept equal to 133% of their GNP. That's a burn rate that would make some dot coms flinch!)
The cellphone industry is trying to do two things:
Create a perception that the problem is being worked on - even if that problem doesn't exist. Even if the entire scientific community went on TV and announced to the world that the cellphone/brain cancer link was a pile of crap, it wouldn't matter. The perception is in the public's mind. Therefore, by putting a $1 shield in the phones the manufacturers can make themselves look like they're doing something, even though the problem never existed in the first place. (And the evidence is extremely flimsy... if cell phones *did* cause brain cancer than the bulky models of ten to twenty years ago should have fried the brains of several millon people by now.)
Next, make a cheap buck. By patenting the shield you can ensure that those cheap knockoffs already seen in stores and on TV are shut out of the action. After all, if the public's running in fear from the boogeyman, why not corner the market on boogeyman repellant?
This isn't some sinister plot, this is a rediculous response to some rediculous junk science. A study is released, intended to be reviewed by the scientific community, and the media picks up on the story and turns it into a full-blown scare. We saw it with Alar, with power transmission lines, and now with cell phones. But because people don't have the logical or scientific skill to determine the truth, they allow themselves to be scammed twice.
As a sidenote, those interested in such issues of Junk Science and how it's screwing you over should check out the book Gallileo's Revenge by Peter William Huber. It goes into considerable detail on how pseudo-scientific claims are exploited by lawyers and interests groups to serve their own policy purposes.
Does anyone else find it quite odd that Mundie is giving a speech at an Open Source conference? It seems to me that's like having Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker for a conference on Judiasm.
Still, I suppose they'll get some good press out of it. Hopefully they'll be able to show the PHBs why putting up with a company that rapes you with forced upgrades isn't necessary or wise.
First of all, a confession. I've been using IE5.x for quite some time now. It's always been faster than Netscape by far and more standards-compliant. (Even if tainted by embrace-and-extend.) Mozilla's never been fast or stable enough to compete.
.9.1 changes all of that.
This baby is *fast*, and I mean extremely fast. Pages pop right up on broadband, even those damned table layouts from the dark days of the 4.0 browsers, broken CSS, and terrible DOMs. Not only that, but it appears as stable as.9 was, which was far more stable than any previous Netscape release since it was called Mosaic.
First of all, a big thanks to the developers who finally proved that Open Source can deliver. It's been a massive undertaking, several years in the making, but Mozilla's OSS development model have kept it at the cutting edge.
Second of all, download this sucker right now. Make sure all your friends do as well. The faster we get standards-compliant browsers the quicker web developers can leverage CSS to make cool sites faster. Believe me, I'm sick of coding for Netscape 4.x and the steaming pile of feces that is it's CSS support. Perhaps this won't be enough to keep Netscape's market share, but the 7% or so of us that use Netscape should upgrade ASAP.
Some good points here, but I have to correct some mistakes.
SOS is based in Utah, and we have different legal and cultural norms here. The first amendment (ratified by the same idiots who brought us the secon amendment) may prevail in the Federal courts, but that doesn't mean we enforce it to the same extent in the state courts.
Last time I heard there was this little thing called federalism that makes sure that the states cannot violate the Constitution. The state courts may not always follow the spirit of the Constitution, but they're checked by the federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.
When the Founding Fathers broke away from England and enacted the bill of rights, they didn't intend for it to apply to this sort of situation. Heck, judging from their own passage of the "Alien and Sedition Act", they didn't even intend to protect actual political speech within their own time.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were massively unconsitutional and were struck down. (and rightly so.) You have damn well better believe that political speech is protected. Doesn't matter if it's "the mayor isn't qualified for the job" or "President Bush is an idiot." Political speech, especially about those working in public institutions like a public university, is clearly covered in the First Amendment. However, you are correct in pointing out that personal threats are not protected speech at all, and I'd bet that's the real issue here.
Since the site was hosted by the University and the university network was used, there's probably no legal recourse. However, seeking legal council is a must, and determining if there was any contract that surrendered your IP rights to the U will be important. If the U can prove that you violated their rules, then they have a case. However, if you had any legal language stating that you could not be held accountable for the statements of posters you might have some legal wiggle room.
As they say about porn "I know it when I see it..."
Granted, independents produce a lot of drek, but most radio stations play *100%* crap. At least with Internet radio there's exposure to artists whose name *isn't* Shaggy, O-Town, or deity-forbid, The Backstreet Boys. Granted, you still have to wade through a lot of crap, but at least it's *different* crap.
For example, I found an artist I've come to really enjoy through an interview on the Bravo TV network. No one in radio in the Midwest is going to play the works of a Canadian cabaret singer. (Patricia O'Callaghan is her name, BTW) However, the Internet provides those opportunities.
The issue isn't necessarily that independent or obscure music is always better... its about the *choice* to listen to those artists. Radio doesn't provide that. The Internet does. That's why radio is in the trouble it's in, more commercialism, less music, less choice.
Is anyone really surprised by this? After all, radio is the most heavily commercialized venue for music you're liable to find. Most Top 40 stations play nothing but typical commercialized drivel anyway. Considering that traditional music outlets like radio and MTV hardly spend more than a third of their time actually playing music, no wonder everyone's gone on the Napster bandwagon.
I've heard a more diverse selection of artists who aren't attached to the RIAA or the big labels through the Internet than traditional media have allowed. You better believe it's causing me to buy fewer major label CDs... because I actually can find *better music*. It's a win for good music, and a loss for the kind of crap that radio wallows in. Radio's a wasteland for the most part, and they're doing everything they can to help their bottom line. (Why else would they resort to giving money away to get listeners?) These payola deals are just one way of helping stave off oblivion before Internet mobile radio becomes practical and traditional radio dies comepletely.
While the corporate death penalty sounds like a good idea on the surface, take a look at the precedents it sets. Basically, you have the US government stepping in and abridging the right to freedom of association. More than likely the shareholders of the corporation weren't complicit in any crimes, yet they would be punished without due process in a criminal proceding. That's *very* unconstitutional. Class actions against shareholders are constitutional because they are civil and not criminal cases. (Anyone want to expand on that a bit?... I think I'm on the right track there but IANAL...)
Already RAMBUS is claiming that they have a patent on this technology and have planned a lawsuit against the creators of the chair. Likewise Microsoft has also sued stating that they've pioneered giving customers the shaft and any technology that does the same is their intellectual property.:)
Let's be clear here... I indeed did the ruling, and I refer you to the last paragraph. "Specifically, we [The SCOTUS] are unclear as to the extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the legislature's authority under Art. II, 1, cl.2."
Which is exactly what I pointed out... the SCOTUS is asking the Florida Supreme Court to justify their actions. While it isn't throwing the ruling out, it is clearing indicating that the Florida Supreme Court behaved in a manner inconsistant with Constitutional law.
Don't accuse someone of talking out of their ass unless you've got the facts to back it up.
You're a political scientist? First of all the civil war was fought over the idea that states could violate federal law (nullification doctrine) since, according to Bush et al, states give up a lot of their power for the federal government to exist in the first place, and although the war was settled, the issue never really was.
Federal supremacy has been upheld again and again. (not to say that's always a good thing) Last I heard, the South lost the Civil War. Nullification doctrine is firmly in the trash-heap of history. States do not have the right to ignore federal law. That's set up by two hundred years of precedent. The federal government does not have the right to dictate state law however, which is one of the reasons for the SC not overturning this decision.
It didn't really overstep its bounds at all- it did not override the legislature but instead pointed out that under existing, preset florida law, the certification deadline COULD be extended as needed. Hence there's no surprise that "SCOTUS" (as in supreme court of the united states, not "beam me up scotus") sent the Florida ruling back- it said that the REASONS were weak. Nothing about the ruling being unconstitutional.
Once again, my original comment stands. The court cannot and should not step in when they have not been asked. What the USSC has done is asked the Florida SC to prove the constitutionality of their ruling. They want to know why the Florida SC did what they did and how it was proper for them to do that.
It's hard enough getting accurate information about politics on Slashdot (not that I try) without having to worry about people whose only news comes from Bush's campaign hq. For these and other political points, why not watch some of the roundtable discussions they have? CNN has a pretty good one, though the name evades me now- Hardball on MSNBC also raises a lot of points and it's fun to figure out whether the host is a democrat or a republican on any given day. That said, please TRY to remain objective if you're going to feign knowledge. There's a precedent for every point out there and I'm not surprised by the ambiguity of the ruling.
My comments are based on the ruling of the SC, the Constitution, and the law. There's no political ideology involved. Read the ruling. The SC has asked the Florida SC to justify their position in the framework of federal and state law.
Now, while the USSC did not overturn the ruling, they did indicate that it was too problematic to stand. In the end, this was a prudent course for the Court to take. They haven't interfered in the state government, but they also have tried to ensure a Constitutional ruling. I honestly don't think that the Florida court will be able to give sufficient justification for their ruling, especially since they were not called to rule in the issue. Had they been called by either side, the Supreme Court probably would have taken this case. However, by jumping into the fray unannounced, they did attempt to set policy, as the Bush team contends. Yes, it's a technicality, but an important one.
Well, comsidering that federal supremacy has been the norm since McCollough v. Maryland in the early 1800s, I wouldn't be real surprised by this ruling. The Florida Supreme Court severely overstepped its bounds by adding time to the election procedings, which is a violation of the Article II of the US Constitution which gives control over election procedings to the state legislatures. The state judiciary has no right to dictate the terms of a state election, especially when not asked to do so.
This is a very easy ruling for the SCOTUS, as there was a clear violation of the Constitution by the Florida Supreme Court. Not only that, but the case Roe v. Alabama sets a federal precedent against changing election procedures while an election is still being counted. Clearly the SC was acting within the confines of federal and Constitutional law, and was not eroding state's rights in any way. States rights do not include the ability to violate federal law.
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That story about Santa Clara and corporate personhood is incorrect.
Santa Clara established that corporations were to be held to the same standards as persons under the 14th Amendment. Corporate personhood or anything like it does not appear anywhere in the case. It just means that corporations receieve equal protection under the law.
The confusion comes about from a note on the case that has no legal standing. Corporations are subject to different rules than individuals, and the government has no more right to impose a death sentence on a corporation than they have a right to tell the ACLU or the NAACP to disband.
The Constitution grants the right of assembly, and that right extends to corporations as well. A corporate death penalty would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Actually, from what I understand, there's nothing to prevent anyone from using a non-Microsoft OS to vote using this system. The only requirement is SSL 3.0, which is supported by browsers on MacOS and UNIX.
The real reason they say Windows is due to support. They don't want questions flooding in about problems that might emerge from using another operating system. Given that this is a government operation, they simply don't have the time to answer the question of 50,000 clueless n00bs calling up and asking "Where's my start button?"
Don't just assume that because Stein was a Nixon speechwriter that his comments are any less valid. I had a chance to talk with him for a few minutes a while back, and he's a really insightful guy.
As for your points:
1. Funding is good, but unless there's oversight and reform it will go to waste. We need a system that pushes for educational quality rather than payoffs for teachers who don't give a damn about their students educations and administrators who line their own pockets. The educational system in America is broken at a fundamental level, and until there are real reforms made increased funding won't be effective.
2. I'm a big propondent of the liberal arts. While a 2 year degree can get you a job, it also means you have a very limited skill set. If you lose your job, you're limited to only your chosen field. A liberal arts graduate on the other hand has a wide set of skills and can move between positions more easily. Although in certain cases, you're right, a technical education might be the best option.
3. Sounds like a good idea to me.
4. This might not be such a bad deal, although I'd be wary about increasing the time before a drug can go generic. Part of the solution involves streamlining the approval process for new drugs and reducing barriers to entry. The other part of high drug costs in the US is that we're paying for Canada's price controls as well. (Lousy freeloading Canadians!)
5. To an extent, I agree with you on that, although if another federal bureaucracy like NASA is the result I'd say it's not worth it. Our spending on science is very little compared to the fraud and waste that the US government produces. If we could just take one year's fraud from Medicare, Social Security, and foreign aid, we could have a manned Mars mission by 2010...
This is the first attack foisted on the US specifically. You're correct in pointing out that biowarfare isn't new, however this is the first time that the US has been hit with it. (In fact, the US has used biological weapons itself in the past - smallpox infected blankets given to various Indian tribes to wipe them out without firing a shot.)
Chances are you just have to live with it.
Considering all these factors, you either have the choice of quitting or just living with the inconvience. There is certainly nothing unreasonable about throughly searching someone who works in such a critical environment. While, yes, IANAL, I don't really thing you have any case to object to these searches.
While I have a mixed opinion of the title music, I do believe it's not nearly as bad as some are saying it is. Yes, its a dramatic change from what Trek (and SF in general has done), but I would argue that's not at all a bad thing. Much of Trek's rut can be attributed to the fact that Berman and Braga hadn't been willing to take risks when they should have.
In fact, with each viewing, the song and the images that go with it are starting to grow on me. I think the orchestration could have been a little better in some spots, but that's more a point of personal preference.
Don't whine that Star Trek never does anything new when the fanbase urinates itself every time they do something new and/or different. The song is a very upbeat piece that matches the visuals beautifully. Granted, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but some of the people I watched with thought it was something that makes the theme of exploration more accessible. The fact is, that's what Fast Forward was made for, but don't try to fault Berman and Braga for at least giving an attempt to change the nature of Trek for the new century.
Already Alias|Wavefront has ported Maya (their flagship 3D software and the most commonly used package for movie animation) to Linux. The Pixar Renderman rendering engine is already ported to Linux. Basically, everything a studio would need is already ported to Linux. Softimage also has ported their software to Linux as well.
In other words, IBM is *way* behind the curve on this... Linux is already an integral part of 3D animation, and with the release of Maya 4 and it's Linux port, this trend is definately going to continue. Using off-the-shelf, inexpensive hardware for both workstations and render farms makes a lot of sense, and Linux is perfect as an extensible UNIX-based OS for animation purposes.
I'm getting a little sick of this notion that everything should be free. Dolby is fully within their rights to do whatever they damn well please with their technology. They developed it, they paid for it, and they own it.
The right of ownership doesn't end when you cross over from atoms to bits. That same right of ownership and property is what keeps me from taking the Linux source and making my own proprietary kernel. If someone did that, the Slashdot population would be shitting kittens for weeks and threatening to hang the company by their gonads. Dolby developed the AC3 standard, they have a right to expect the work they put into it to pay off, including charging to use it. Linus and Co. developed the Linux kernel, and they have a right to expect the work they put into it to pay off, including making it open for all to use.
It doesn't matter that ac3dec has uses other than piracy. It's still using someone elses property without their recompense or permission. While Dolby shouldn't sue over this issue (it would be pointless anyway, the genie's already out of the bottle...) there's no logical, rational justification for this crap about "corporations eroding our freedoms". It's as much a pile of bullshit as this "the GPL erodes your freedom" crap from Microsoft. When you create something, you have the right to do with it as you please, and just because you don't like what Dolby's doing with their product doesn't mean that you can force them to go along with your terms.
I'd send an equally threatening letter charging $2001 for the time needed to read the letter...
...but I'm a bastard that way.
It's sad that even the term nuclear had been so villified in the United States. Environmentalist groups did their best to kill American nuclear power in the 70's and 80's - unwittingly allowing for more and more pollution from smog-emitting coal plants and inefficient natural gas plants. Good luck on NASA pushing nuclear rockets through - look at the trouble they had with the Cassini probe.
Considering that in 1993 then Vice President Al Gore killed both the lithium breeder and fuel pellet nuclear designs after tests showed them to be excellent energy producers and perfectly safe against radiation release, it's clear that the American attitude to anything with "nuclear" in the title is based off irrational fears and half-truths.
Breaking through this ignorance barrier is going to harder for NASA than sending a man to the Moon...
One has to wonder if the invention of the printing press ushered in the same. The farmers and serfs of the Dark Ages were probably thought too stupid to handle all of the material that came through the new invention of the press.
Oh wait, we got the Renaissance out of that. The growth of media has always corresponded with the development of society, from the clay tablets of the Babylonians and the Sumerians, to the Internet today. Yes, there's a time when people need to get used to this new information onslaught, but it will happen.
Douglas Coupland wrote a book called Joystick Nation that dealt with the fact that "Generation Y" has grown up with this kind of technology, and already has adapted to it. It's just a matter of acclimitization to all this media, something that people in their 40's and 50's didn't have to deal with. It's going to be naturally difficult to deal with all of that, but later generations will be much more adept.
Frankly, flame wars in large development projects aren't really surprising. Whenever you have a group of exceptionally bright people with differing ideas you're bound to get some conflict. That's true for an open source project, a television show, or any other type of collaborative effort.
What makes situations like that spin out of control is when there's no one in charge. Decentralizing development is good to a point, but when there isn't one person responsible for solving these disputes and ensuring that development goes forward, you end up spinning around in circles. Linux has Linus (and to a certain extent Alan Cox and others) as having a good deal of responsibility for the Linux kernel. You need to have someone willing to step up and ensure that things go smoothly.
This is certainly a good case example of how open source development isn't a panacea. Even OSS isn't immune to the kind of managerial problems that are inherent in any kind of collaborative enterprise. I hope that the GNOME team manages to get things back on track and continues to put out some quality software.
That notion, quite frankly, scares the living hell out of me. The fact that Americans won't even discuss incidents in which their own government acted like tyrannical thugs shows how easy it would be for them to do it again.
We must not hesitate to discuss these matters. We shouldn't sweep Ruby Ridge, Elian, or any of those under the rug any more than we should ignorethe bad actions of Phillip Morris or Microsoft. Only by exposing and working against injustice can we get anywhere.
You've got the first part absolutely right on the head. An active and informed citizenry is crucial to a free state. You are also correct in pointing out that Americans are rarely active and informed. Yes, this is a problem.
But blaming the "Corporate Republic" is an intellectual cop-out. First of all, the entire concept is a load of bullshit. You better damn well believe that if the government had any real desire to shut down Microsoft or AOL, they could. Corporations aren't more powerful than government, they only sometimes seem that way. If America were really owned lock stock and barrel by corporations then we wouldn't be seeing the load of regulatory garbage that gets passed through Congress each year.
The idea that corporations are able to shirk all responsibility is also BS. Corporations live and breathe by the market, and the market is driven by the consumer. The reasons we're seeing all this vertical integration is sure as hell not out of some kind of diabolic plan to squelch the voices of independent content producers, but because it's getting harder and harder to attract the kind of audiences that media outlets are used to. Hence AOL buying everything from ICQ to Netscape - they need to get subscribers to keep their bottom line. If you've got several million eyeballs, you can keep afloat of ads... and even then it's a crapshoot. "Big Media" isn't more powerful than ever... it's trying desperately to keep from hemorraging cash by spreading itself around. In the end, that may only make the situation worse.
Unless corporations understand market demands, they're doomed to end up pretty well fucked. Corporations have an *extreme* amount of accountability, to their shareholders, to the market, and more important to the consumers. AOL is sucessful because it caters to a large group of people and does it well. Ditto Microsoft, or almost any other major corporation.
This whole "corporate republic" bullshit is getting real old. It's the same anti-capitalist rhetoric that should have been buried a long time ago. The alternative proposed by this New Left is a socialist system where the *government* runs everything - and all you need to do is go take a little trip to a former or current Communist country to see where that would lead us. (And don't talk about Sweden like it was paradise either - they have a yearly national dept equal to 133% of their GNP. That's a burn rate that would make some dot coms flinch!)
"There's a sucker born every minute."
The cellphone industry is trying to do two things:
This isn't some sinister plot, this is a rediculous response to some rediculous junk science. A study is released, intended to be reviewed by the scientific community, and the media picks up on the story and turns it into a full-blown scare. We saw it with Alar, with power transmission lines, and now with cell phones. But because people don't have the logical or scientific skill to determine the truth, they allow themselves to be scammed twice.
As a sidenote, those interested in such issues of Junk Science and how it's screwing you over should check out the book Gallileo's Revenge by Peter William Huber. It goes into considerable detail on how pseudo-scientific claims are exploited by lawyers and interests groups to serve their own policy purposes.
Does anyone else find it quite odd that Mundie is giving a speech at an Open Source conference? It seems to me that's like having Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker for a conference on Judiasm.
Still, I suppose they'll get some good press out of it. Hopefully they'll be able to show the PHBs why putting up with a company that rapes you with forced upgrades isn't necessary or wise.
First of all, a confession. I've been using IE5.x for quite some time now. It's always been faster than Netscape by far and more standards-compliant. (Even if tainted by embrace-and-extend.) Mozilla's never been fast or stable enough to compete.
.9.1 changes all of that.
This baby is *fast*, and I mean extremely fast. Pages pop right up on broadband, even those damned table layouts from the dark days of the 4.0 browsers, broken CSS, and terrible DOMs. Not only that, but it appears as stable as .9 was, which was far more stable than any previous Netscape release since it was called Mosaic.
First of all, a big thanks to the developers who finally proved that Open Source can deliver. It's been a massive undertaking, several years in the making, but Mozilla's OSS development model have kept it at the cutting edge.
Second of all, download this sucker right now. Make sure all your friends do as well. The faster we get standards-compliant browsers the quicker web developers can leverage CSS to make cool sites faster. Believe me, I'm sick of coding for Netscape 4.x and the steaming pile of feces that is it's CSS support. Perhaps this won't be enough to keep Netscape's market share, but the 7% or so of us that use Netscape should upgrade ASAP.
Some good points here, but I have to correct some mistakes.
SOS is based in Utah, and we have different legal and cultural norms here. The first amendment (ratified by the same idiots who brought us the secon amendment) may prevail in the Federal courts, but that doesn't mean we enforce it to the same extent in the state courts.
Last time I heard there was this little thing called federalism that makes sure that the states cannot violate the Constitution. The state courts may not always follow the spirit of the Constitution, but they're checked by the federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.
When the Founding Fathers broke away from England and enacted the bill of rights, they didn't intend for it to apply to this sort of situation. Heck, judging from their own passage of the "Alien and Sedition Act", they didn't even intend to protect actual political speech within their own time.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were massively unconsitutional and were struck down. (and rightly so.) You have damn well better believe that political speech is protected. Doesn't matter if it's "the mayor isn't qualified for the job" or "President Bush is an idiot." Political speech, especially about those working in public institutions like a public university, is clearly covered in the First Amendment. However, you are correct in pointing out that personal threats are not protected speech at all, and I'd bet that's the real issue here.
Since the site was hosted by the University and the university network was used, there's probably no legal recourse. However, seeking legal council is a must, and determining if there was any contract that surrendered your IP rights to the U will be important. If the U can prove that you violated their rules, then they have a case. However, if you had any legal language stating that you could not be held accountable for the statements of posters you might have some legal wiggle room.
Oh yeah, IANAL, but I can fake it...
As they say about porn "I know it when I see it..."
Granted, independents produce a lot of drek, but most radio stations play *100%* crap. At least with Internet radio there's exposure to artists whose name *isn't* Shaggy, O-Town, or deity-forbid, The Backstreet Boys. Granted, you still have to wade through a lot of crap, but at least it's *different* crap.
For example, I found an artist I've come to really enjoy through an interview on the Bravo TV network. No one in radio in the Midwest is going to play the works of a Canadian cabaret singer. (Patricia O'Callaghan is her name, BTW) However, the Internet provides those opportunities.
The issue isn't necessarily that independent or obscure music is always better... its about the *choice* to listen to those artists. Radio doesn't provide that. The Internet does. That's why radio is in the trouble it's in, more commercialism, less music, less choice.
Is anyone really surprised by this? After all, radio is the most heavily commercialized venue for music you're liable to find. Most Top 40 stations play nothing but typical commercialized drivel anyway. Considering that traditional music outlets like radio and MTV hardly spend more than a third of their time actually playing music, no wonder everyone's gone on the Napster bandwagon. I've heard a more diverse selection of artists who aren't attached to the RIAA or the big labels through the Internet than traditional media have allowed. You better believe it's causing me to buy fewer major label CDs... because I actually can find *better music*. It's a win for good music, and a loss for the kind of crap that radio wallows in. Radio's a wasteland for the most part, and they're doing everything they can to help their bottom line. (Why else would they resort to giving money away to get listeners?) These payola deals are just one way of helping stave off oblivion before Internet mobile radio becomes practical and traditional radio dies comepletely.
While the corporate death penalty sounds like a good idea on the surface, take a look at the precedents it sets. Basically, you have the US government stepping in and abridging the right to freedom of association. More than likely the shareholders of the corporation weren't complicit in any crimes, yet they would be punished without due process in a criminal proceding. That's *very* unconstitutional. Class actions against shareholders are constitutional because they are civil and not criminal cases. (Anyone want to expand on that a bit?... I think I'm on the right track there but IANAL...)
Already RAMBUS is claiming that they have a patent on this technology and have planned a lawsuit against the creators of the chair. Likewise Microsoft has also sued stating that they've pioneered giving customers the shaft and any technology that does the same is their intellectual property. :)
Let's be clear here... I indeed did the ruling, and I refer you to the last paragraph. "Specifically, we [The SCOTUS] are unclear as to the extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the legislature's authority under Art. II, 1, cl.2."
Which is exactly what I pointed out... the SCOTUS is asking the Florida Supreme Court to justify their actions. While it isn't throwing the ruling out, it is clearing indicating that the Florida Supreme Court behaved in a manner inconsistant with Constitutional law.
Don't accuse someone of talking out of their ass unless you've got the facts to back it up.
You're a political scientist? First of all the civil war was fought over the idea that states could violate federal law (nullification doctrine) since, according to Bush et al, states give up a lot of their power for the federal government to exist in the first place, and although the war was settled, the issue never really was.
Federal supremacy has been upheld again and again. (not to say that's always a good thing) Last I heard, the South lost the Civil War. Nullification doctrine is firmly in the trash-heap of history. States do not have the right to ignore federal law. That's set up by two hundred years of precedent. The federal government does not have the right to dictate state law however, which is one of the reasons for the SC not overturning this decision.
It didn't really overstep its bounds at all- it did not override the legislature but instead pointed out that under existing, preset florida law, the certification deadline COULD be extended as needed. Hence there's no surprise that "SCOTUS" (as in supreme court of the united states, not "beam me up scotus") sent the Florida ruling back- it said that the REASONS were weak. Nothing about the ruling being unconstitutional.
Once again, my original comment stands. The court cannot and should not step in when they have not been asked. What the USSC has done is asked the Florida SC to prove the constitutionality of their ruling. They want to know why the Florida SC did what they did and how it was proper for them to do that.
It's hard enough getting accurate information about politics on Slashdot (not that I try) without having to worry about people whose only news comes from Bush's campaign hq. For these and other political points, why not watch some of the roundtable discussions they have? CNN has a pretty good one, though the name evades me now- Hardball on MSNBC also raises a lot of points and it's fun to figure out whether the host is a democrat or a republican on any given day. That said, please TRY to remain objective if you're going to feign knowledge. There's a precedent for every point out there and I'm not surprised by the ambiguity of the ruling.
My comments are based on the ruling of the SC, the Constitution, and the law. There's no political ideology involved. Read the ruling. The SC has asked the Florida SC to justify their position in the framework of federal and state law.
Now, while the USSC did not overturn the ruling, they did indicate that it was too problematic to stand. In the end, this was a prudent course for the Court to take. They haven't interfered in the state government, but they also have tried to ensure a Constitutional ruling. I honestly don't think that the Florida court will be able to give sufficient justification for their ruling, especially since they were not called to rule in the issue. Had they been called by either side, the Supreme Court probably would have taken this case. However, by jumping into the fray unannounced, they did attempt to set policy, as the Bush team contends. Yes, it's a technicality, but an important one.
Well, comsidering that federal supremacy has been the norm since McCollough v. Maryland in the early 1800s, I wouldn't be real surprised by this ruling. The Florida Supreme Court severely overstepped its bounds by adding time to the election procedings, which is a violation of the Article II of the US Constitution which gives control over election procedings to the state legislatures. The state judiciary has no right to dictate the terms of a state election, especially when not asked to do so.
This is a very easy ruling for the SCOTUS, as there was a clear violation of the Constitution by the Florida Supreme Court. Not only that, but the case Roe v. Alabama sets a federal precedent against changing election procedures while an election is still being counted. Clearly the SC was acting within the confines of federal and Constitutional law, and was not eroding state's rights in any way. States rights do not include the ability to violate federal law.
BTW, IANAL, but I am a political scientist.