Does he becomes a senator without your and others' vote? I thought the idea was that no matter how rich you are, you still get only 1 vote. So why does a guy who uses the votes of Johnny public to get his position, ends up working for Johnny rich instead? If you hire a plumber to do your work, will you be okay if he spends the time instead, fixing the stuff of the rich folks across the street?
Why shouldn't sony, BMG etc. fix their broken business model, instead of asking everyone else to spend time and money on their behalf?
Yes, because everyone *else* in the world even remotely/tangentially having anything to do with digital media, has an obligation to spend considerable time and money protecting Sony, BMG. etc.'s business.
Search engines must hire additional coders to ensure that internet is censored as per Sony 's whims. Hardware manufacturing companies must spend significant extra money on ensure DRM compliance. ISPs must spy on their customers to ensure that no copyright-infringement happens. Police which is funded by public tax money(you and me) must spend valuable time and effort on catching the nefarious "music stealers". Senators who are elected by the people and paid by public tax money, must instead ensure laws favoring BMG/Sony that make copying files a worse crime than rape or murder.
Whereas, the same "victim" companies, move their headquarters outside to cheat the American public out of the benefits of any tax money they might have had to pay. We have all the obligations to them. They have none to us or even the actual creators of the said music etc.
Soon doctors will likely be required to ensure that they perform free deafening procedures on everyone who might end up listening to "infringing music".
The solution is simple. Realize that lobbying is equivalent to bribery and force your senator to pass a law against it.
There are useful hypothetical concepts and harmful ones, and everything in between. To think that a claim about a specific hypothetical concept applies to them all is arse-about thinking, a logical fallacy known as arguing from the specific to the general.
So splitting of a species based on "imaginary boundaries", into different factions and having world wars based on same, resulting in millions of deaths is a "useful hypothetical concept" to you? It seems like there is arse-about thinking and there is talking out of one's arse.
I think that's unlikely, but if he is, he has some company.
Indeed, so I notice. Pity. But at least you realize where you stand, which is a good thing.
If the concept of cyberspace is stupid, so is the concept of political boundaries. Both are merely hypothetical concepts devised by men. The author of the article is a moron. You cannot legitimately argue that "USA", "UK or "China" are any more real than cyberspace. We simply agree that there is an imaginary line dividing nations, much like we "pretend" that corporations are persons. If governments are willing to accept these, there is nothing less "real" about cyberspace either.
Problem here is that you will have to outright ban encryption to solve this problem. Here is a PERFECT analogy. Let us say you run a private company that provide lockers storage space at subways/bus stops etc. This is being abused by drug cartels to store drugs. A case may be made that since it is your company's property, it is your duty to go and check each and every locker periodically for drugs etc.and you can be held responsible(just because police/govt thinks your business is a nuisance for them). Will you be willing to go to jail in this case, for actions of the users of the said lockers? Or are you arguing for empowering the govt. to shutdown any business that are not technically illegal, but are "inconvenient" for them and their "sponsors"?
What exactly is the difference between a public lockers providing company and what mega is doing? Via encryption, they have made their business exactly like public lockers. If you think they are doing something illegal, you will have to ban public lockers too, since they are providing an identical service.
You might not be a lawyer, but as a techie you are expected to utilize your brain a bit. And you are expected to know that a bought judge can be made to rule whichever way you want, and it will have nothing to do with actual justice and having fair and just laws.
Let us argue it this way. US Govt is responsible for preventing crimes/murders/corruption etc. across the nation. People *still* commit those. Have any bureaucrats been jailed lately for *others* committing such acts? Better still, we all know that it is possible to outright buy senators and thus laws, via lobbying, leading to corruption of the entire US democratic process. Has the senate or any of the CEOs of lobbying corporates been jailed for such acts? It is interesting how one party can be made "morally responsible" for actions of others and punished, and people get brainwashed with THAT argument, while turning a blind eye to EXACTLY the same stuff pulled off those in power.
If you argue that mega somehow has a responsibility for actions of others, then so do our senators. Since they want extra-ordinary powers like the PATRIOT act, and a super-bloated budget, it follows that a single incident of someone still managing to sneak in on an airplane with explosives, should similarly result in everyone who votes for the laws and budgets being prosecuted with similar over-zealousness.
Accepting this kind of hypocrisy is precisely why your "freedoms" in USA, are the mess they are today. And worse, you are exporting the madness abroad with your IP/trade treaties etc.
I am not sure what exactly you are trying to say here. I suspect neither do you.
Americans by and large, always tend to paint WW2 as the ultimate battle between "good and evil", and how they finally "saved the world". World War II was initially two colonial powers vying for controls. Britishers, contrary to whatever they may have you believe, were NOT fighting Germans because Germans were very "evil". Hitler would funnily enough, have had a very limited role in history. His initial aims were to simply gain back the territories lost to Poland due to treaty of Versailles(through diplomacy actually, believe it or not). Britain's usual lust for controlling and ruling the world, saw them guaranteeing Poland its independence, which led to Hitler failing in his diplomatic attempts. Hitler did not one day wake up, and decided that he wanted to rule the world. Since Britain set itself as Germany's enemy, and declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland, Hitler got an opportunity to cement his power even more, and launch his holocaust agenda under guise of "war necessity". To be fair, Germany was simply trying to regain its lost territories initially.(I am not trying to justify Hitler here btw). Britain and France basically feared a new rising power so close back home. And in that mix, in jumped Italy and Russia. Cue World War 2. Hitler may have been trying to become a local power, but it was Britain and France declaring a war against it, which forced it on a campaign to move against Britain all over Europe and allying with other powers. Pakistan keeps trying to win back Kashmir from India. It is apparently not "evil" for starting wars to do so as per USA, and is an "important ally".
So if starting wars is not an evil act then all you have then, is the Holocaust. And we just proved that Britain had killed 10 times more folks than Hitler ever did, in the holocaust, making Britain 10 times more evil than Hitler/Nazis. And therefore USA actually sided up with the more evil guys. I mean the guys who did Holocaust times ten, in India. So how can US claim being one of the good guys then? You do not have to remember every genocide in history. But Americans have a tendency to blow anything they got remotely involved in, as the more important event since the big bang. Every thing they do, including brushing their teeths in the morning, and from sneezing, and bombing the crap out of civilians, carrying out assassinations, or funding the drug trade in Afghanistan in 80s, is to "SAAAAVEEE THE WORLDDDDD!!!"(tm). That was the only thing I was commenting on. Feel free to argue whatever you wish, beyond that.
I suppose unlike the dinosaurs, we can also survive for a long long time without needing to breathe? Cretaceous atmosphere is supposed to have been much more oxygen rich(50% more apparently) based on QMS analysis of ancient air bubbles trapped in amber. The higher oxygen content plausibly explains the huge sizes attained by many species too(since the related metabolism could be supported back then). I suppose the said 99.9% of the people of earth will all evolve overnight to make do with 50% less oxygen again? How about no sunlight for years? Stored grains and canned food will support you for years, with crop failures?
Also keep in mind, that all the dried dead plants from lack of sunlight will give rise to plenty of inflammable carbon fuel lying around. We are talking about a world wide wildfire. It is interesting how some people think of meteorite as something like a huge nuke, that will kill everything directly/instantly.
Close calls like these do need to be made as sensational as possible, to remind people how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket, and why cutting NASA's budget is like deciding to do away with life jackets on a ship, so as to "not waste money".
Let us put this another way then. Let us say that you are stuck say in NY, on September 11th 2001. Or some similar situation, perhaps a natural catastrophe. Food and supplies are scarce. Especially clean drinking water. Your rich neighbor goes and buys 15000 bottles of water from all the stores around for miles. Because he is rich. While your loved ones/little babies are dying of thirst.
And you will be just grinning and watching it happen. Because showing any concern about this sort of hoarding of resources, which impact your loved ones? That will be you just envying the rich, right?
I am not at all conflicted. I said I will not get into the debate of how "evil" or "good" Japan was. And you just excused murder of 58.73 million people through greed and apathy. Congrats. Looking at you, I am now beginning to understand how the British of those time could do such things. Monsters transcend ages and times.
History is written by victors because victors' propaganda manages to ultimately dilute the way majority of people later perceive things. Murder of 6 million is more "evil" than intentionally starving 58.73 millions to death, according to you for example. You are *very* sure of that. While I was looking at this photo : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/India-famine-family-crop-420.jpg
Look at those living skeletons. Do you think that breastfeeding baby was getting any actual food? To me that photo, except for skin-color and clothes could be one of the holocaust victims. To me they are BOTH a horrible testament of man's cruelty to others. And yet the propaganda works well enough on you, that when *you* look at this picture, you think "oh but they are not holocaust victims... so if this woman's baby died due to British destroying food crops, that is a much, much lesser evil thing than a *Jew* mother losing her baby due to starvation in a concentration camp. Yessir!".
Victors NEED to justify their all their acts. even the downright evil ones. So they become "necessary evil". Or "the final results justified it". Or "the other side was pure evil and ate live babies". The goal is not to make everyone forget, but to make everyone stop caring. You remember the 20 million because ultimately Stalin and his philosophy did not win obviously, as these things go. Mao and his philosophy won, and the 20-30 millions of deaths his policies caused have been forgiven too. China tries its best to censor the Nanking massacre and the public eventually stops caring. Even though you are aware of it, you hardly spare a thought to the genocide of native Red Indians for example, do you ? I noticed that that was not the first thing you said you remembered. Telling, isn't it? And that is what I am objecting to. The American seem to have this need to paint themselves as savior of the world and to belittle every other tragedy in the world, in comparison to the ones where they got involved. And that is how THAT propaganda has been working. Your second line just proved my point.
You did not understand my correctly. Did you miss the point about sanctioning BOTH sides? Not supplying steel to british would have crippled them a fair bit. Same with not supplying oil to the Japan. To sit out the war, this is what US should have ideally done. Ceased trade with BOTH sides straight off. There would have been considerable less carnage with both sides fairly crippled. And you nailed it. Roosevelt wanted a war that US public did not. So hell bent he was on getting his way, that he did everything possible to initiate one anyways. I will remind you btw, that currently US considers economic warfare exactly same as actual terrorist acts/acts of war. Have you taken a a look at the US laws lately?
Aggressive invading country? Was Japan invading USA right then? Or if it is some "fair and justice" principle you are supporting, why then ally with Britain first place which had been invading countries left and right before? We may argue till kingdom come, of the consequences of ceasing trade with both sides. But the key thing to remember is that by actively taking sides, you are entering the fight anyways. So you were NOT sitting it out. I am not debating whether or not Japan needed to be stopped or whether US was wrong or right in entering the war. It is the excuse of "we were minding our own business even though we were trying our best to ensure that British won" that I am objecting to.
In a rugby match, you are an audience only till you stay out of the field. When you start tripping one of the players, you are putting yourself in the game. "I am still audience because I did not touch the ball" won't wash.
Spoken truly like someone who has absolutely no clue regards attitude of many Britishers of the time had towards Indians.
Let us see:
Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race."
Winston Churchill : "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
General Dyer on his Jalianwalanbagh Massacre "I would have killed more Indians, if more ammunition had been available".
The actual nearest things to commander-in-chief of India during these periods, were not so different either:
Lord Lytton, the governing British viceroy in India during 1877–79 famine(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#British_response):
Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."
Intentionally destroying food crops, so that British cloth factories can get their dyes, even if it meant a famine, how is that so different? At least Hitler had some justification and a personal grudge in his mind. But intentionally starving millions, just because you believe they were less than human?
What is worse? Hitler ordering extermination of Jews due to a personal grudge, or the British purposefully starving millions so that the empire could turn more of a profit? I leave it to you to decide, since I cannot honestly decide. But your attitude is exactly what I am talking about. 58.73 millions killed for profit is excusable as per you, while 6 million killed due to a personal grudge is a huge crime, since it was done by the "evil" Germans, rather than one of the war partners.
I am not saying that holocaust was not a tragedy. But the guy excusing genocide of 58.37 millions... that is the person you are. All so that your childish belief in America "saving the world from evil" can be maintained.
Except that you didn't really. Propaganda and attempts to retroactively edit out history, cannot not change actual history. Let us observe the chain of events.
1. May 1939, USA, under Roosevelt, informs Japan that it is withdrawing from the 1911 Treaty of Commerce(Japan was highly dependent on USA for oil etc). Japan goes ahead with its conquest plans anyways.
2. July 1940, United States/Roosevelt imposed an embargo on aviation gasoline and high-grade scrap iron to Japan. Japan looks for alternative sources.
3. United States responds with a complete embargo on scrap iron. Japan announces the Axis Pact next day.
4. The United States extends the embargo to tools, iron, steel, copper, bronze, and many other critical metals.
5. Roosevelt orders freezing all Japanese assets in the United States.
6. Cut from critical resources, Japan tries negotiating with United States. After those failed, Japan declared war.
Your definition of sitting it out(while waging full blown economic warfare) is pretty different from rest of the world. I am not commenting on whether Japan needed to be stopped and how evil they were, and how they were killing babies and barbequing them and eating them raw even etc. etc. But Roosevelt was NOT sitting this one out.
World War 2 was not the glorious battle between "good and evil". It was two equally evil, bloodthirsty colonial powers duking it out. For the Nazi Holocaust, we have an quietly ignored Indian Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857#Aftermath) that saw British killing millions of Indians in direct reprisals. Add another 10 million or so, if you count the ones who died due to the famines caused by apathetic exploitative British rule. I think Jew holocaust casualties, high as they were, pale in contrast. But since history books are written by the victors, even though the figures were pretty much recorded, they are usually always ignored, else things like Jalianwala bagh massacre and 1857 massacres would make british much much more evil in terms of body count.
In the end, USA took sides, and was already participating in economic warfare against one of the sides. Truly staying neutral would have meant embargoing both sides(Britain for steel and Japan/Germany for oil) while the war was on, which would have crippled both sides and resulted in perhaps lesser carnage.
Except that the next time it happens to a common man, he can claim the "big misunderstanding" defense citing the Judge's case.
Even powerful, rich and influential ignore the media at their peril. Arab Spring should have taught you otherwise by now. Oh well, guess not.
And here I thought the Pakistani courts and religious leaders kept passing orders anyways to censor domains, based on hearsay about "immoral stuff" to be found on them . Doubt poor pakistani netizens could tell the difference here.
Someone hacks into sets this Judge's computer and sets it up as an exit node, and anonymously notifies the authorities and the media, and this ruling would change 2 days ago too. We will get to see if law is really an ass, or just a hypocrite, right there and then:)
Actually CIAPC should be raiding the sony corporation headoffice and other media houses etc. for helping the song to be published in the first place. If there was no song in the first place, it can be correctly argued that google would have had nothing to lead to. We need to arrest the media houses executives/employees, I guess, and implicate them for facilitating and promoting piracy. They too are corporations worth billions of dollars, not some child innocently led astray by a corporation's services, namely their music production.:)
And if you are seriously advocating to pay the police and prison employees from PUBLIC tax money, to protect and enforce the interests of PRIVATE corporates... instead of taking the usual civil suits route... you have to be either a RIAA/MPAA crony or certifiably batshit insane
. ...or of course, a US senator, who are usually both.
Just quoting a few nuggets that were the basis of having copyrights at all
. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
Thomas Jefferson : Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding — years but for no longer term and no other purpose.[9]
Copyright Act of 1976 : Barbara Ringer, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, called the new law "a balanced compromise that comes down on the authors' and creators' side in almost every instance.
So a question here... did RIAA sing this song? Because all the instances I can find(I quoted a few above), say that copyright laws were pushed on pretext of protecting authors, inventors and creators. But here you are coming and advocating that the an author/creator should be persecuted for infringing "their own" creations. Unless, you can point out the songs that RIAA and MPAA executives sang along with her. I am waiting. Go ahead...
The mills that produce the paper I use for making a painting, the middlemen I hire for something, the marketing firm I hire to promote my products, should have ZERO rights to prosecute me criminally over "infringing" my own creations. If you advocate for laws to PROMOTE progress of science and other useful Arts, then you should also PROHIBIT and deem conflicting any laws that DISSUADE progress of science and other useful Arts by allowing original creators themselves to be imprisoned and fined millions for "copyright infingment", instead of just being sued for a breach of contract for exact/actual damages caused.
And if you are seriously advocating to pay the police and prison employees from PUBLIC tax money, to protect and enforce the interests of PRIVATE corporates... instead of taking the usual civil suits route... you have to be either a RIAA/MPAA crony or certifiably batshit insane.
Are you an idiot? what you need to worry about now is Iran AND all the countries that do NOT like USA, pulling off this crap themselves. So let us make a couple of lists. How many countries hate Iran? Okay now... how many countries hate USA? Who should be more worried, do tell?
Slashdot Mirror
Does he becomes a senator without your and others' vote? I thought the idea was that no matter how rich you are, you still get only 1 vote. So why does a guy who uses the votes of Johnny public to get his position, ends up working for Johnny rich instead? If you hire a plumber to do your work, will you be okay if he spends the time instead, fixing the stuff of the rich folks across the street?
Why shouldn't sony, BMG etc. fix their broken business model, instead of asking everyone else to spend time and money on their behalf?
Yes, because everyone *else* in the world even remotely/tangentially having anything to do with digital media, has an obligation to spend considerable time and money protecting Sony, BMG. etc.'s business.
Search engines must hire additional coders to ensure that internet is censored as per Sony 's whims. Hardware manufacturing companies must spend significant extra money on ensure DRM compliance. ISPs must spy on their customers to ensure that no copyright-infringement happens. Police which is funded by public tax money(you and me) must spend valuable time and effort on catching the nefarious "music stealers". Senators who are elected by the people and paid by public tax money, must instead ensure laws favoring BMG/Sony that make copying files a worse crime than rape or murder.
Whereas, the same "victim" companies, move their headquarters outside to cheat the American public out of the benefits of any tax money they might have had to pay. We have all the obligations to them. They have none to us or even the actual creators of the said music etc.
Soon doctors will likely be required to ensure that they perform free deafening procedures on everyone who might end up listening to "infringing music".
The solution is simple. Realize that lobbying is equivalent to bribery and force your senator to pass a law against it.
There are useful hypothetical concepts and harmful ones, and everything in between. To think that a claim about a specific hypothetical concept applies to them all is arse-about thinking, a logical fallacy known as arguing from the specific to the general.
So splitting of a species based on "imaginary boundaries", into different factions and having world wars based on same, resulting in millions of deaths is a "useful hypothetical concept" to you? It seems like there is arse-about thinking and there is talking out of one's arse.
I think that's unlikely, but if he is, he has some company.
Indeed, so I notice. Pity. But at least you realize where you stand, which is a good thing.
If the concept of cyberspace is stupid, so is the concept of political boundaries. Both are merely hypothetical concepts devised by men. The author of the article is a moron. You cannot legitimately argue that "USA", "UK or "China" are any more real than cyberspace. We simply agree that there is an imaginary line dividing nations, much like we "pretend" that corporations are persons. If governments are willing to accept these, there is nothing less "real" about cyberspace either.
What exactly is the difference between a public lockers providing company and what mega is doing? Via encryption, they have made their business exactly like public lockers. If you think they are doing something illegal, you will have to ban public lockers too, since they are providing an identical service.
You might not be a lawyer, but as a techie you are expected to utilize your brain a bit. And you are expected to know that a bought judge can be made to rule whichever way you want, and it will have nothing to do with actual justice and having fair and just laws.
Let us argue it this way. US Govt is responsible for preventing crimes/murders/corruption etc. across the nation. People *still* commit those. Have any bureaucrats been jailed lately for *others* committing such acts? Better still, we all know that it is possible to outright buy senators and thus laws, via lobbying, leading to corruption of the entire US democratic process. Has the senate or any of the CEOs of lobbying corporates been jailed for such acts? It is interesting how one party can be made "morally responsible" for actions of others and punished, and people get brainwashed with THAT argument, while turning a blind eye to EXACTLY the same stuff pulled off those in power. If you argue that mega somehow has a responsibility for actions of others, then so do our senators. Since they want extra-ordinary powers like the PATRIOT act, and a super-bloated budget, it follows that a single incident of someone still managing to sneak in on an airplane with explosives, should similarly result in everyone who votes for the laws and budgets being prosecuted with similar over-zealousness. Accepting this kind of hypocrisy is precisely why your "freedoms" in USA, are the mess they are today. And worse, you are exporting the madness abroad with your IP/trade treaties etc.
I hear the Chinese are pretty well-armed too... and they have more cannon fodder.
Americans by and large, always tend to paint WW2 as the ultimate battle between "good and evil", and how they finally "saved the world". World War II was initially two colonial powers vying for controls. Britishers, contrary to whatever they may have you believe, were NOT fighting Germans because Germans were very "evil". Hitler would funnily enough, have had a very limited role in history. His initial aims were to simply gain back the territories lost to Poland due to treaty of Versailles(through diplomacy actually, believe it or not). Britain's usual lust for controlling and ruling the world, saw them guaranteeing Poland its independence, which led to Hitler failing in his diplomatic attempts. Hitler did not one day wake up, and decided that he wanted to rule the world. Since Britain set itself as Germany's enemy, and declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland, Hitler got an opportunity to cement his power even more, and launch his holocaust agenda under guise of "war necessity". To be fair, Germany was simply trying to regain its lost territories initially.(I am not trying to justify Hitler here btw). Britain and France basically feared a new rising power so close back home. And in that mix, in jumped Italy and Russia. Cue World War 2. Hitler may have been trying to become a local power, but it was Britain and France declaring a war against it, which forced it on a campaign to move against Britain all over Europe and allying with other powers. Pakistan keeps trying to win back Kashmir from India. It is apparently not "evil" for starting wars to do so as per USA, and is an "important ally".
So if starting wars is not an evil act then all you have then, is the Holocaust. And we just proved that Britain had killed 10 times more folks than Hitler ever did, in the holocaust, making Britain 10 times more evil than Hitler/Nazis. And therefore USA actually sided up with the more evil guys. I mean the guys who did Holocaust times ten, in India. So how can US claim being one of the good guys then? You do not have to remember every genocide in history. But Americans have a tendency to blow anything they got remotely involved in, as the more important event since the big bang. Every thing they do, including brushing their teeths in the morning, and from sneezing, and bombing the crap out of civilians, carrying out assassinations, or funding the drug trade in Afghanistan in 80s, is to "SAAAAVEEE THE WORLDDDDD!!!"(tm). That was the only thing I was commenting on. Feel free to argue whatever you wish, beyond that.
Also keep in mind, that all the dried dead plants from lack of sunlight will give rise to plenty of inflammable carbon fuel lying around. We are talking about a world wide wildfire. It is interesting how some people think of meteorite as something like a huge nuke, that will kill everything directly/instantly.
Close calls like these do need to be made as sensational as possible, to remind people how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket, and why cutting NASA's budget is like deciding to do away with life jackets on a ship, so as to "not waste money".
And you will be just grinning and watching it happen. Because showing any concern about this sort of hoarding of resources, which impact your loved ones? That will be you just envying the rich, right?
History is written by victors because victors' propaganda manages to ultimately dilute the way majority of people later perceive things. Murder of 6 million is more "evil" than intentionally starving 58.73 millions to death, according to you for example. You are *very* sure of that. While I was looking at this photo : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/India-famine-family-crop-420.jpg
Look at those living skeletons. Do you think that breastfeeding baby was getting any actual food? To me that photo, except for skin-color and clothes could be one of the holocaust victims. To me they are BOTH a horrible testament of man's cruelty to others. And yet the propaganda works well enough on you, that when *you* look at this picture, you think "oh but they are not holocaust victims... so if this woman's baby died due to British destroying food crops, that is a much, much lesser evil thing than a *Jew* mother losing her baby due to starvation in a concentration camp. Yessir!".
Victors NEED to justify their all their acts. even the downright evil ones. So they become "necessary evil". Or "the final results justified it". Or "the other side was pure evil and ate live babies". The goal is not to make everyone forget, but to make everyone stop caring. You remember the 20 million because ultimately Stalin and his philosophy did not win obviously, as these things go. Mao and his philosophy won, and the 20-30 millions of deaths his policies caused have been forgiven too. China tries its best to censor the Nanking massacre and the public eventually stops caring. Even though you are aware of it, you hardly spare a thought to the genocide of native Red Indians for example, do you ? I noticed that that was not the first thing you said you remembered. Telling, isn't it? And that is what I am objecting to. The American seem to have this need to paint themselves as savior of the world and to belittle every other tragedy in the world, in comparison to the ones where they got involved. And that is how THAT propaganda has been working. Your second line just proved my point.
Aggressive invading country? Was Japan invading USA right then? Or if it is some "fair and justice" principle you are supporting, why then ally with Britain first place which had been invading countries left and right before? We may argue till kingdom come, of the consequences of ceasing trade with both sides. But the key thing to remember is that by actively taking sides, you are entering the fight anyways. So you were NOT sitting it out. I am not debating whether or not Japan needed to be stopped or whether US was wrong or right in entering the war. It is the excuse of "we were minding our own business even though we were trying our best to ensure that British won" that I am objecting to.
In a rugby match, you are an audience only till you stay out of the field. When you start tripping one of the players, you are putting yourself in the game. "I am still audience because I did not touch the ball" won't wash.
Let us see : ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race."
Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India
Winston Churchill : "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
General Dyer on his Jalianwalanbagh Massacre "I would have killed more Indians, if more ammunition had been available".
The actual nearest things to commander-in-chief of India during these periods, were not so different either: :
Lord Lytton, the governing British viceroy in India during 1877–79 famine(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#British_response)
Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."
Intentionally destroying food crops, so that British cloth factories can get their dyes, even if it meant a famine, how is that so different? At least Hitler had some justification and a personal grudge in his mind. But intentionally starving millions, just because you believe they were less than human?
What is worse? Hitler ordering extermination of Jews due to a personal grudge, or the British purposefully starving millions so that the empire could turn more of a profit? I leave it to you to decide, since I cannot honestly decide. But your attitude is exactly what I am talking about. 58.73 millions killed for profit is excusable as per you, while 6 million killed due to a personal grudge is a huge crime, since it was done by the "evil" Germans, rather than one of the war partners.
I am not saying that holocaust was not a tragedy. But the guy excusing genocide of 58.37 millions... that is the person you are. All so that your childish belief in America "saving the world from evil" can be maintained.
The first major famine in India was caused directly due to the taxation policies of British as well as ordering farmers to crop Indigo plants?(for producing dyes for British cloth factories) instead of food crops. Food crops were in fact destroyed wherever found. Deaths caused : 21 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770#East_India_Company_responsibilities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#British_rule
The second big one in 1876, took a toll of 26 million, directly attributed to Bengal governor Richard temple, wanting not to be too charitable and suppressing relief efforts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%9378#Famine_and_relief
All in all, 58.73 millions were estimated to be dead, as per figures officially recorded. Jewish holocaust victims? About 10 percent or so, of that.
If Nazis were monsters for causing all the holocaust deaths, allying with British meant siding with the bigger monster by that criterion.
1. May 1939, USA, under Roosevelt, informs Japan that it is withdrawing from the 1911 Treaty of Commerce(Japan was highly dependent on USA for oil etc). Japan goes ahead with its conquest plans anyways.
2. July 1940, United States/Roosevelt imposed an embargo on aviation gasoline and high-grade scrap iron to Japan. Japan looks for alternative sources.
3. United States responds with a complete embargo on scrap iron. Japan announces the Axis Pact next day.
4. The United States extends the embargo to tools, iron, steel, copper, bronze, and many other critical metals.
5. Roosevelt orders freezing all Japanese assets in the United States.
6. Cut from critical resources, Japan tries negotiating with United States. After those failed, Japan declared war.
Your definition of sitting it out(while waging full blown economic warfare) is pretty different from rest of the world. I am not commenting on whether Japan needed to be stopped and how evil they were, and how they were killing babies and barbequing them and eating them raw even etc. etc. But Roosevelt was NOT sitting this one out.
World War 2 was not the glorious battle between "good and evil". It was two equally evil, bloodthirsty colonial powers duking it out. For the Nazi Holocaust, we have an quietly ignored Indian Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857#Aftermath) that saw British killing millions of Indians in direct reprisals. Add another 10 million or so, if you count the ones who died due to the famines caused by apathetic exploitative British rule. I think Jew holocaust casualties, high as they were, pale in contrast. But since history books are written by the victors, even though the figures were pretty much recorded, they are usually always ignored, else things like Jalianwala bagh massacre and 1857 massacres would make british much much more evil in terms of body count.
In the end, USA took sides, and was already participating in economic warfare against one of the sides. Truly staying neutral would have meant embargoing both sides(Britain for steel and Japan/Germany for oil) while the war was on, which would have crippled both sides and resulted in perhaps lesser carnage.
No. But the cops and the lawmakers apparently are. :)
Except that the next time it happens to a common man, he can claim the "big misunderstanding" defense citing the Judge's case. Even powerful, rich and influential ignore the media at their peril. Arab Spring should have taught you otherwise by now. Oh well, guess not.
And here I thought the Pakistani courts and religious leaders kept passing orders anyways to censor domains, based on hearsay about "immoral stuff" to be found on them . Doubt poor pakistani netizens could tell the difference here.
Someone hacks into sets this Judge's computer and sets it up as an exit node, and anonymously notifies the authorities and the media, and this ruling would change 2 days ago too. We will get to see if law is really an ass, or just a hypocrite, right there and then :)
Actually CIAPC should be raiding the sony corporation headoffice and other media houses etc. for helping the song to be published in the first place. If there was no song in the first place, it can be correctly argued that google would have had nothing to lead to. We need to arrest the media houses executives/employees, I guess, and implicate them for facilitating and promoting piracy. They too are corporations worth billions of dollars, not some child innocently led astray by a corporation's services, namely their music production. :)
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...or of course, a US senator, who are usually both.
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Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
Thomas Jefferson : Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding — years but for no longer term and no other purpose.[9]
Copyright Act of 1976 : Barbara Ringer, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, called the new law "a balanced compromise that comes down on the authors' and creators' side in almost every instance.
So a question here... did RIAA sing this song? Because all the instances I can find(I quoted a few above), say that copyright laws were pushed on pretext of protecting authors, inventors and creators. But here you are coming and advocating that the an author/creator should be persecuted for infringing "their own" creations. Unless, you can point out the songs that RIAA and MPAA executives sang along with her. I am waiting. Go ahead...
The mills that produce the paper I use for making a painting, the middlemen I hire for something, the marketing firm I hire to promote my products, should have ZERO rights to prosecute me criminally over "infringing" my own creations. If you advocate for laws to PROMOTE progress of science and other useful Arts, then you should also PROHIBIT and deem conflicting any laws that DISSUADE progress of science and other useful Arts by allowing original creators themselves to be imprisoned and fined millions for "copyright infingment", instead of just being sued for a breach of contract for exact/actual damages caused.
And if you are seriously advocating to pay the police and prison employees from PUBLIC tax money, to protect and enforce the interests of PRIVATE corporates... instead of taking the usual civil suits route... you have to be either a RIAA/MPAA crony or certifiably batshit insane.
How do I know this, you ask? That is because, I have deciphered the nefarious plans of this master-villain!
He is making a lifetime-supply of maple glazed walnuts!!!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/maple-glazed-walnuts-recipe/index.html
Are you an idiot? what you need to worry about now is Iran AND all the countries that do NOT like USA, pulling off this crap themselves. So let us make a couple of lists. How many countries hate Iran? Okay now... how many countries hate USA? Who should be more worried, do tell?
...unless money and greed is involved! Way to go US politicians.