Well, while I'm not a lawyer myself, my guess is that if the lawyer is -also- the defendant (or are themselves the plaintiff), that status takes precedence. At that point, however, they're not there as someone's lawyer, they're representing themself, just like you are.
It depends on the state. My father recently sued a company in small-claims in Denver, and when the company rep. brought a lawyer, the lawyer was asked to leave. In many states, the person being sued MUST personally represent themself, or an actual company representative represent the company. There are a LOT of default judgements for failure to appear in small claims court, for this reason-quite often, the company just doesn't bother showing up.
The main issue I see as to where the dividing line should be drawn is incidental vs. total, and individual vs. corporate.
It is "incidental" that anyone pays for hosting fees on their blog, same with wasting a bit of time at work. The primary object of either of these things is not to contribute toward the candidate, they are incidental. Even if you start up a website on your own that -happens- to grow large, that's incidental.
On the other hand, if you do a massive amount of work on the candidate's "official" website design at no charge, you have in effect given a major monetary contribution. I believe the legalese for it is "consideration"-and that's a bribe. (Of course, if you do such work at regular price, you are simply performing a standard service for one more client.) If you purchase TV airtime to support your candidate, there is NO purpose to your ad (unlike a blog) other than to endorse the candidate of your choice. And of course, if you directly slip the candidate (or their campaign) cash, there's no question of what it is you're doing-that's a bribe.
Any law has the potential for abuse-as does the lack of any governing law whatsoever. The current system IS being abused, both by the politicians and the massive donors. I would hope the new system -would not- be abused in the manner you describe, and if it were, I would be firmly opposed to such misuses of the law. (As, I would certainly imagine, would the Supreme Court, who can actually do something about it.) But make no mistake-we're not "tinkering" here, with something that works alright, we're looking at a fix to a system that's awash in massive amounts of corruption. Abuse already exists, and is indeed running rampant.
nobody said "property", they said intellectual property,
Please read what you just said one more time. Very carefully.
As to the rest-the fact that ideas -don't- fit very well into the "property" mold is exactly what I'm trying to demonstrate here! Or is believing that an idea can be property a requirement for a Computer Users' License now? Personally I'd rather see there be a basic understanding of how to spell words like "you" and demonstration of an ability to use and update antivirus/firewall...but that's just me.
...that any country can "steal" something considered "property" of the other country-without committing an overt, forceful act that would normally be considered an act of war?
Something seems very wrong with this definition of "property", and every attempt to shoehorn it into that box seems to be more of a stretch then the last.
"What are you cuffing me for, officer??? What do you mean I can't offer to slip you twenty bucks for forgetting what your radar gun said! I was exercising my right to free speech!"
Bribes, no matter what you call them, are not "speech". Speech is speech. If I choose to make a posting on my own blog, or here on Slashdot, or (fill in the blank), of course that should be my right, political or not-and it is. No one's stopping me, and no one's stopping you either.
If I'm wrong, when was your last visit from the FEC? You apparently are inclined toward political speech.
The big difference is whether you are unofficially exercising your right as a citizen to speak in support of or against a political candidate of your choice, or whether you are officially giving money to or speaking at the request of that candidate.
It's legal for me to speak any opinion I have (or to present facts-only thing you can't do is present something as fact that's provably untrue) about a police officer, judge, jury member, city department head, or any other public official. It should always be legal to the same for elected officials.
On the other hand, it is patently ILLEGAL for me to slip a bribe to any of those officials I just mentioned. And once again, it should be illegal for elected officials, as well. I would never be in favor of anything that abrogates the "one person, one vote" system-and our current system of "one dollar, one vote" is a grave threat to that indeed.
If we want to hold ANYONE accountable, let's first examine "shilling" in general-basically, a corporation paying a person to pretend to be a disinterested consumer of their product, while in reality they are a paid advertisement.
There is a name for offering money to someone in exchange for lying on your behalf, or accepting the money and telling the lie. It is "fraud".
Paid advertisements WHICH ARE CLEARLY MARKED AS SUCH are one thing-in that case, we know that the company has paid for that space/person to promote their product, and that the person may have never really used it at all. But paying people to lie and deceive, and accepting money/merchandise in exchange for doing it, is fraudulent. As is pretending to be a regular consumer when in reality you are an interested party (owner/employee of a company writing a good review for that company, owner/employee of another company writing a bad review for a competitor). Let's enforce disclosure, conflict-of-interest, and fraud laws-we don't NEED new laws, the ones that exist will work fine.
Very true-but still, if we're talking about a product that's easily and customarily available free of charge, isn't "free" its open-market value as well? (I'm neither a lawyer nor an accountant, so if you know anything about how that'd work, would like to hear.) It's an interesting scenario, really, and I can't really think of an analogue in the current property tax regime.
While that's true, isn't the value of a house or car generally determined effectively by resale value? I suppose they could tax support contracts, which do have a definable monetary value, but what's the "resale value" of something easily obtained for free?
You link to an article which states that x% of Americans believe that (torture|imprisomnent without trial|rendition) is legitimate?
Why do I say "x"? "x" is used in mathematics when the actual value can be anything. And here, it can be anything-and mean NOTHING. Not even if it's 99.9%.
I'm not sure whether you're supporting or opposing. But it doesn't matter. America must follow the rule of law and the international treaties it is a signatory to-even if 99.9% of American citizens decide they don't. "Suspected" terrorists are not convicted ones. If you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed or is attempting to commit a terrorist act, here's what you do:
Step 1: Arrest that person. Look at that, they're now in custody, and not setting off any bombs!
Step 2: Seek the proper warrants for searches or surveillance. (If you did this step pre-arrest, this may not apply.)
Step 3: Put your proof before a jury. If your proof's as good as you think it is, that jury will convict the person, and the judge will sentence them to a very, very long time in jail. (NOT to torture-hint, this never enters or should enter this procedure.) Look at that, they're STILL not setting off any bombs, they're behind a set of bars!
It's a pretty damn simple procedure, that's called "due process of law". Any state which does not follow it is-IN ITSELF-a criminal regime, a member of the famous "Axis of Evil".
I'd rather my country not be that. I'd rather it support, in deed as well as in word, the rule of law, international and domestic, a prohibition against torture, against any circumstances, and at any time, and a moral, ethical, and legal stance against totalitarianism.
im just saying that i dont think the government would be interested in what you have to say to your friends and family.
Then they shouldn't be monitoring it. There, isn't that simple?
as for the totalitarians, the difference there is that if you say something about the government they come and take you away to God knows where and do God knows what to you.
Eventually, yes. But generally at the beginning, they find a way to get the monitoring apparatus into place, and convince you that it's for your own good, and that you have nothing to fear from it.
personally, i dont care if they know that i talk about stuff with my brother even when i bash the cops for being bastards for thier rediculous traffic ticketing tactics.
Don't care about your privacy? Let's see if you do or not. Thus far, no one's answered this challenge, let's see if you'll be the first.
In your next post, please include: Your real name, your home and work/school physical address, your home, work/school, and cell phone numbers, all email addresses you use (with no obfuscation), all instant messenger or other communications you use, a link to a recent photograph of yourself, and the license numbers of all vehicles you own.
If you just found the thought of posting all that information to strangers profoundly uncomfortable-then you value your privacy, even though you ridicule others who do. If not, come on then, prove it.
too be fair, they have caught a bunch of terrorists and not just alleged ones, ones tried in public courts.
Really? They've been remarkably silent about it. Let's see a link to a case where a suspect tried in a real court was caught using the PATRIOT Act?
as for secrecy around detentions, do you think they want to draw attention to their arrests and (possibly) alert their terrorist buddies?
Don't know-and don't care. Secret detention without charge, counsel, or trial is illegal-regardless of what the detainer does or does not want to do.
it has done good so far, terrorists are on the run now. overall though, i think you are being a little arrogant to think they would want to monitor you.
"A little arrogant"? Then let me ask you, smart guy-I'm "arrogant" to believe they want to monitor massive volumes of communication, when you JUST SAW a press report that that's exactly what they're doing? I don't know if they're monitoring -me- specifically, and again, I don't really care. They shouldn't be monitoring any US citizen without a warrant. Ever. Period.
well... are you really trying to hide something from the government? i mean, i have a healthy paranoia but it's not of the federal government, it of corperations and scam artists. seriously, what do you have to hide?
Don't tell me someone is spewing that garbage again. Oh, someone is. Don't we learn anything? Ever?
What do I have to hide? The details of my private life. Period. Whether or not I'm doing anything illegal, I don't want a camera in my living room, nor my bedroom, nor my bathroom. If the police can develop probable cause to believe I've committed a crime, and need to search one of those rooms, or all of them, they can go before a judge, get a warrant, and search away. But until then, they can stay out.
Same applies to your communications. Would you be entirely comfortable with your speech over the phone if you knew someone was always listening? I don't want someone tapping into my phones. Once again, if they'd like to go get a warrant, tap away-and until then, stay out.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" has been used by totalitarian regimes to justify their actions this world over. And yet, it keeps on getting said, by people just like you.
How about we turn that around? The US government is supposed to work in a means that is as transparent as possible to the American people, as it should be. If they've got nothing to hide, they can quit taking so damn many of their actions in secret. They can tell us why hundreds of people are detained without a trial at one of our military bases. They can tell us why they're intercepting communications without telling us-and surely, they can tell us what good that's done so far.
After all, if they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear from us having a look.
I think I'm going to suggest a Slashdot article that I've got a keyboard that scares off terrorists!
After all, I'm typing on it right now, and there aren't any in this room. In fact, I've had this one since early 2002-and there have been absolutely no more terrorist attacks.
"What they're doing is working" on the premise that "No more attacks have occurred" is correlation equalling causation, a logical fallacy. I might've taken it to a slightly more ridiculous extreme, but neither assertion holds up logically.
At present, when you purchase a car there is computer technology in the car that keeps track of your average speed, but that technology is accepted and is viewed as net value add.
Correct in terms of a car, but that's where he (and the **AA's at large) go wrong on DRM.
When I'm going down the road, I WANT to know how fast I'm going. I don't want to wait until the nice police officer decides to pull me over and inform me of it, nor do I want to find out a bit too late that I'm taking a curve way faster then I should. Therefore, indeed, the speedometer is a value add-it's something that I, the owner of the car, WANT in my car (and in fact, even if legal not to have one, would not purchase a car without one.)
DRM by definition cannot be a "value add", only a "value subtract". No consumer buys a DVD saying "Man, I hope they made it hard for me to back this thing up!" or "I sure hope this will refuse to play on my computer without installing a bunch of intrusive software".
You may be correct. But it's still one more paving stone on one very famous road...
America is referred to as the Land of the Free for a reason-our freedoms are what makes us a great nation. Not our military, not our economic strength, not our President, good or bad, not our Congressional system, not our massive land area. Our freedoms, as enshrined in the US Constitution.
The PATRIOT Act undermines those guarantees-and therefore, no matter what else is to be said about it, it is unpatriotic in the extreme. It may be done with the best of intentions, but it is still the worst of laws. In the America that I know and love, the government is the one who follows "If you've got nothing to hide, don't hide anything", and opens its workings transparently to the American people. The government has no problem following the rules set forth for it, in terms of the due process of law and the Congressional guarantee of freedom.
I will oppose anything which will destroy this America, that I love. The PATRIOT Act is one of those things-and so, regardless of good intentions, bad intentions, or simple inattention, on the part of those who pass it, I oppose it.
ISP's are not all that willing to accommodate "non MS-Windows" in my experience. When my connection was getting massive latency a couple of weeks ago, I was looking through my ISP's troubleshooting guide. They had all the basic, smack-yourself-in-the-head stuff (reboot your machine, reset the modem, etc.) which I'd tried, and very little else, but I noticed that in their "system requirements", they stated "Works on Windows or Macintosh computers only, unfortunately at this time service is not available for Linux/Unix."
This rather amused me, as I was reading that page, on their service, through a Linux machine. Not to mention that Mac OS's are, by and large, Unix with a pretty front end.
Ran into the same thing with my last ISP-if it's not Windows, you're on your own, and it'll take them an hour and a half to believe you that it's something in their equipment causing the problem. I did finally find one tech who had a clue, and after that always requested to speak to him.
If he presents this as an ARTICLE on CNN, which are generally presented as fact, you're rich.
If he, on the other hand, presents it as a clearly-marked EDITORIAL on CNN, statement of opinion, then that's correct, not a damn thing anyone can do. Now, of course, CNN would lose a massive amount of credibility-so they won't do it, so not a concern.
No, you're not wrong in using a figure of speech. But taking it as reality is silly.
If I'm playing a multiplayer shooter with my friends, and hear "Damn, you just blew Justin's head off!" I do not presume that someone has just been killed across the room from me, but just that someone is expressing it in an easier way then "Damn, your virtual avatar just blew the virtual head off Justin's virtual avatar!"
Same here-"You stole my idea" can mean a wide range of things, and is generally understood in context-anything from "You plagiarized my work!" to "Dammit, I was going to say that but you got to it first!"
This is not an ADDITIONAL energy drain, it's simply harnessing waste energy which is already transmitted between the car and the road.
Your wheels must, by definition, transfer energy from your vehicle's engine to the road in order to move it forward. These simply capture a portion of that "wasted" energy and make it into electricity. What's bad about that?
Parent is not deserving of "a break". S/He posted a decent defense of trademark law-under a totally unrelated issue, that of patent law. S/He had no valid points as to patents, as any patents would have exactly nothing to do with the scenario which he proposed. McDonalds' name and logos are protected by TRADEMARK.
This was either a deliberate attempt to set up and attack a straw man, a troll, or just a simple failure to learn the most basic of facts on a subject about which you intend to debate. Regardless of which one, corrections are most certainly in order.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, while I'm not a lawyer myself, my guess is that if the lawyer is -also- the defendant (or are themselves the plaintiff), that status takes precedence. At that point, however, they're not there as someone's lawyer, they're representing themself, just like you are.
It depends on the state. My father recently sued a company in small-claims in Denver, and when the company rep. brought a lawyer, the lawyer was asked to leave. In many states, the person being sued MUST personally represent themself, or an actual company representative represent the company. There are a LOT of default judgements for failure to appear in small claims court, for this reason-quite often, the company just doesn't bother showing up.
The main issue I see as to where the dividing line should be drawn is incidental vs. total, and individual vs. corporate.
It is "incidental" that anyone pays for hosting fees on their blog, same with wasting a bit of time at work. The primary object of either of these things is not to contribute toward the candidate, they are incidental. Even if you start up a website on your own that -happens- to grow large, that's incidental.
On the other hand, if you do a massive amount of work on the candidate's "official" website design at no charge, you have in effect given a major monetary contribution. I believe the legalese for it is "consideration"-and that's a bribe. (Of course, if you do such work at regular price, you are simply performing a standard service for one more client.) If you purchase TV airtime to support your candidate, there is NO purpose to your ad (unlike a blog) other than to endorse the candidate of your choice. And of course, if you directly slip the candidate (or their campaign) cash, there's no question of what it is you're doing-that's a bribe.
Any law has the potential for abuse-as does the lack of any governing law whatsoever. The current system IS being abused, both by the politicians and the massive donors. I would hope the new system -would not- be abused in the manner you describe, and if it were, I would be firmly opposed to such misuses of the law. (As, I would certainly imagine, would the Supreme Court, who can actually do something about it.) But make no mistake-we're not "tinkering" here, with something that works alright, we're looking at a fix to a system that's awash in massive amounts of corruption. Abuse already exists, and is indeed running rampant.
nobody said "property", they said intellectual property,
Please read what you just said one more time. Very carefully.
As to the rest-the fact that ideas -don't- fit very well into the "property" mold is exactly what I'm trying to demonstrate here! Or is believing that an idea can be property a requirement for a Computer Users' License now? Personally I'd rather see there be a basic understanding of how to spell words like "you" and demonstration of an ability to use and update antivirus/firewall...but that's just me.
...that any country can "steal" something considered "property" of the other country-without committing an overt, forceful act that would normally be considered an act of war?
Something seems very wrong with this definition of "property", and every attempt to shoehorn it into that box seems to be more of a stretch then the last.
Money is speech, speech is money.
"What are you cuffing me for, officer??? What do you mean I can't offer to slip you twenty bucks for forgetting what your radar gun said! I was exercising my right to free speech!"
Bribes, no matter what you call them, are not "speech". Speech is speech. If I choose to make a posting on my own blog, or here on Slashdot, or (fill in the blank), of course that should be my right, political or not-and it is. No one's stopping me, and no one's stopping you either.
If I'm wrong, when was your last visit from the FEC? You apparently are inclined toward political speech.
The big difference is whether you are unofficially exercising your right as a citizen to speak in support of or against a political candidate of your choice, or whether you are officially giving money to or speaking at the request of that candidate.
It's legal for me to speak any opinion I have (or to present facts-only thing you can't do is present something as fact that's provably untrue) about a police officer, judge, jury member, city department head, or any other public official. It should always be legal to the same for elected officials.
On the other hand, it is patently ILLEGAL for me to slip a bribe to any of those officials I just mentioned. And once again, it should be illegal for elected officials, as well. I would never be in favor of anything that abrogates the "one person, one vote" system-and our current system of "one dollar, one vote" is a grave threat to that indeed.
If we want to hold ANYONE accountable, let's first examine "shilling" in general-basically, a corporation paying a person to pretend to be a disinterested consumer of their product, while in reality they are a paid advertisement.
There is a name for offering money to someone in exchange for lying on your behalf, or accepting the money and telling the lie. It is "fraud".
Paid advertisements WHICH ARE CLEARLY MARKED AS SUCH are one thing-in that case, we know that the company has paid for that space/person to promote their product, and that the person may have never really used it at all. But paying people to lie and deceive, and accepting money/merchandise in exchange for doing it, is fraudulent. As is pretending to be a regular consumer when in reality you are an interested party (owner/employee of a company writing a good review for that company, owner/employee of another company writing a bad review for a competitor). Let's enforce disclosure, conflict-of-interest, and fraud laws-we don't NEED new laws, the ones that exist will work fine.
Very true-but still, if we're talking about a product that's easily and customarily available free of charge, isn't "free" its open-market value as well? (I'm neither a lawyer nor an accountant, so if you know anything about how that'd work, would like to hear.) It's an interesting scenario, really, and I can't really think of an analogue in the current property tax regime.
I was going to do some research into this! I just never could seem to find the time...
While that's true, isn't the value of a house or car generally determined effectively by resale value? I suppose they could tax support contracts, which do have a definable monetary value, but what's the "resale value" of something easily obtained for free?
Im really surprised they understand the concept of software well enough to tax it.
Amazing-you got the whole point, and missed the whole point, all at the same time!
You link to an article which states that x% of Americans believe that (torture|imprisomnent without trial|rendition) is legitimate?
Why do I say "x"? "x" is used in mathematics when the actual value can be anything. And here, it can be anything-and mean NOTHING. Not even if it's 99.9%.
I'm not sure whether you're supporting or opposing. But it doesn't matter. America must follow the rule of law and the international treaties it is a signatory to-even if 99.9% of American citizens decide they don't. "Suspected" terrorists are not convicted ones. If you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed or is attempting to commit a terrorist act, here's what you do:
Step 1: Arrest that person. Look at that, they're now in custody, and not setting off any bombs!
Step 2: Seek the proper warrants for searches or surveillance. (If you did this step pre-arrest, this may not apply.)
Step 3: Put your proof before a jury. If your proof's as good as you think it is, that jury will convict the person, and the judge will sentence them to a very, very long time in jail. (NOT to torture-hint, this never enters or should enter this procedure.) Look at that, they're STILL not setting off any bombs, they're behind a set of bars!
It's a pretty damn simple procedure, that's called "due process of law". Any state which does not follow it is-IN ITSELF-a criminal regime, a member of the famous "Axis of Evil".
I'd rather my country not be that. I'd rather it support, in deed as well as in word, the rule of law, international and domestic, a prohibition against torture, against any circumstances, and at any time, and a moral, ethical, and legal stance against totalitarianism.
That whooshing sound you just heard? No, it wasn't proof of the black helicopters. Yes, it was the joke going right over your head...
im just saying that i dont think the government would be interested in what you have to say to your friends and family.
Then they shouldn't be monitoring it. There, isn't that simple?
as for the totalitarians, the difference there is that if you say something about the government they come and take you away to God knows where and do God knows what to you.
Eventually, yes. But generally at the beginning, they find a way to get the monitoring apparatus into place, and convince you that it's for your own good, and that you have nothing to fear from it.
personally, i dont care if they know that i talk about stuff with my brother even when i bash the cops for being bastards for thier rediculous traffic ticketing tactics.
Don't care about your privacy? Let's see if you do or not. Thus far, no one's answered this challenge, let's see if you'll be the first.
In your next post, please include: Your real name, your home and work/school physical address, your home, work/school, and cell phone numbers, all email addresses you use (with no obfuscation), all instant messenger or other communications you use, a link to a recent photograph of yourself, and the license numbers of all vehicles you own.
If you just found the thought of posting all that information to strangers profoundly uncomfortable-then you value your privacy, even though you ridicule others who do. If not, come on then, prove it.
too be fair, they have caught a bunch of terrorists and not just alleged ones, ones tried in public courts.
Really? They've been remarkably silent about it. Let's see a link to a case where a suspect tried in a real court was caught using the PATRIOT Act?
as for secrecy around detentions, do you think they want to draw attention to their arrests and (possibly) alert their terrorist buddies?
Don't know-and don't care. Secret detention without charge, counsel, or trial is illegal-regardless of what the detainer does or does not want to do.
it has done good so far, terrorists are on the run now. overall though, i think you are being a little arrogant to think they would want to monitor you.
"A little arrogant"? Then let me ask you, smart guy-I'm "arrogant" to believe they want to monitor massive volumes of communication, when you JUST SAW a press report that that's exactly what they're doing? I don't know if they're monitoring -me- specifically, and again, I don't really care. They shouldn't be monitoring any US citizen without a warrant. Ever. Period.
Oh, if at some point I'm not around here harassing people, and hopefully occasionally making them think, I'll send you a postcard from Guantanamo. :)
well... are you really trying to hide something from the government? i mean, i have a healthy paranoia but it's not of the federal government, it of corperations and scam artists. seriously, what do you have to hide?
Don't tell me someone is spewing that garbage again. Oh, someone is. Don't we learn anything? Ever?
What do I have to hide? The details of my private life. Period. Whether or not I'm doing anything illegal, I don't want a camera in my living room, nor my bedroom, nor my bathroom. If the police can develop probable cause to believe I've committed a crime, and need to search one of those rooms, or all of them, they can go before a judge, get a warrant, and search away. But until then, they can stay out.
Same applies to your communications. Would you be entirely comfortable with your speech over the phone if you knew someone was always listening? I don't want someone tapping into my phones. Once again, if they'd like to go get a warrant, tap away-and until then, stay out.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" has been used by totalitarian regimes to justify their actions this world over. And yet, it keeps on getting said, by people just like you.
How about we turn that around? The US government is supposed to work in a means that is as transparent as possible to the American people, as it should be. If they've got nothing to hide, they can quit taking so damn many of their actions in secret. They can tell us why hundreds of people are detained without a trial at one of our military bases. They can tell us why they're intercepting communications without telling us-and surely, they can tell us what good that's done so far.
After all, if they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear from us having a look.
I think I'm going to suggest a Slashdot article that I've got a keyboard that scares off terrorists!
After all, I'm typing on it right now, and there aren't any in this room. In fact, I've had this one since early 2002-and there have been absolutely no more terrorist attacks.
"What they're doing is working" on the premise that "No more attacks have occurred" is correlation equalling causation, a logical fallacy. I might've taken it to a slightly more ridiculous extreme, but neither assertion holds up logically.
At present, when you purchase a car there is computer technology in the car that keeps track of your average speed, but that technology is accepted and is viewed as net value add.
Correct in terms of a car, but that's where he (and the **AA's at large) go wrong on DRM.
When I'm going down the road, I WANT to know how fast I'm going. I don't want to wait until the nice police officer decides to pull me over and inform me of it, nor do I want to find out a bit too late that I'm taking a curve way faster then I should. Therefore, indeed, the speedometer is a value add-it's something that I, the owner of the car, WANT in my car (and in fact, even if legal not to have one, would not purchase a car without one.)
DRM by definition cannot be a "value add", only a "value subtract". No consumer buys a DVD saying "Man, I hope they made it hard for me to back this thing up!" or "I sure hope this will refuse to play on my computer without installing a bunch of intrusive software".
You may be correct. But it's still one more paving stone on one very famous road...
America is referred to as the Land of the Free for a reason-our freedoms are what makes us a great nation. Not our military, not our economic strength, not our President, good or bad, not our Congressional system, not our massive land area. Our freedoms, as enshrined in the US Constitution.
The PATRIOT Act undermines those guarantees-and therefore, no matter what else is to be said about it, it is unpatriotic in the extreme. It may be done with the best of intentions, but it is still the worst of laws. In the America that I know and love, the government is the one who follows "If you've got nothing to hide, don't hide anything", and opens its workings transparently to the American people. The government has no problem following the rules set forth for it, in terms of the due process of law and the Congressional guarantee of freedom.
I will oppose anything which will destroy this America, that I love. The PATRIOT Act is one of those things-and so, regardless of good intentions, bad intentions, or simple inattention, on the part of those who pass it, I oppose it.
ISP's are not all that willing to accommodate "non MS-Windows" in my experience. When my connection was getting massive latency a couple of weeks ago, I was looking through my ISP's troubleshooting guide. They had all the basic, smack-yourself-in-the-head stuff (reboot your machine, reset the modem, etc.) which I'd tried, and very little else, but I noticed that in their "system requirements", they stated "Works on Windows or Macintosh computers only, unfortunately at this time service is not available for Linux/Unix."
This rather amused me, as I was reading that page, on their service, through a Linux machine. Not to mention that Mac OS's are, by and large, Unix with a pretty front end.
Ran into the same thing with my last ISP-if it's not Windows, you're on your own, and it'll take them an hour and a half to believe you that it's something in their equipment causing the problem. I did finally find one tech who had a clue, and after that always requested to speak to him.
If he presents this as an ARTICLE on CNN, which are generally presented as fact, you're rich.
If he, on the other hand, presents it as a clearly-marked EDITORIAL on CNN, statement of opinion, then that's correct, not a damn thing anyone can do. Now, of course, CNN would lose a massive amount of credibility-so they won't do it, so not a concern.
No, you're not wrong in using a figure of speech. But taking it as reality is silly.
If I'm playing a multiplayer shooter with my friends, and hear "Damn, you just blew Justin's head off!" I do not presume that someone has just been killed across the room from me, but just that someone is expressing it in an easier way then "Damn, your virtual avatar just blew the virtual head off Justin's virtual avatar!"
Same here-"You stole my idea" can mean a wide range of things, and is generally understood in context-anything from "You plagiarized my work!" to "Dammit, I was going to say that but you got to it first!"
Initially I saw "Seagate buys Maxtor for $1.98"...I think that would be a lot more accurate reflection of what Maxtor's worth, anyway.
This is not an ADDITIONAL energy drain, it's simply harnessing waste energy which is already transmitted between the car and the road.
Your wheels must, by definition, transfer energy from your vehicle's engine to the road in order to move it forward. These simply capture a portion of that "wasted" energy and make it into electricity. What's bad about that?
Parent is not deserving of "a break". S/He posted a decent defense of trademark law-under a totally unrelated issue, that of patent law. S/He had no valid points as to patents, as any patents would have exactly nothing to do with the scenario which he proposed. McDonalds' name and logos are protected by TRADEMARK.
This was either a deliberate attempt to set up and attack a straw man, a troll, or just a simple failure to learn the most basic of facts on a subject about which you intend to debate. Regardless of which one, corrections are most certainly in order.