Why all these cludges to make web pages appear like a terminal program? Why not just create a standard for Telnet/SSH clients displaying HTML? A link would be treated as a text string that would be sent to the host as a string... forms could be sent as a string of XML data... Build your SSH/Telnet client into the browser, and you are good to go!
If, as a political candidate, I pay the American Steel Industry Journal to run an editorial endorsing me, it is somehow fraud and I get in trouble with the FEC.
If, as a political candidate, I promise to give a billion dollar subsidy to steel manufacturing, and a billion dollar subsidy to the American Steel Industry Journal to promote "Steel Manufacturing Awareness", and of course they endorse me, I am A-OK?
So why is it wrong to bribe people with your own money, but great to bribe people with other people's money?
The DMCA doesn't say "Don't Steal", it says "Don't say or do anything that could in any way, intentiallly or unintentionally, help someone to steal".
If I post on a website how to backup my copy protected video games, I can end up in jail! If I post a security flaw in a piece of software, I can go to jail.
If you have to hire a lawyer and an accountant to PROVE to the FEC that you do not recieve too much political funding... and the FEC can then decide to fine you, or restrict what you say, because you might have not filed the right form, or they are not "sure" on some funding issue, and to fight it you must carry out a lengthly legal proceedings... You do not have freedom of speech, at least if you are an average person.
Only the rich will have the lawyers, and only the politically well connected will be able to get FEC approval...
Look at how ruthlessly and openly the Democrats used FEC and local election officials to try to destroy the election chances of the Green party. Democrats were openly bragging they were going to use the law to "destroy" the Greens. And you are going to tell me that I can trust those same people to "regulate" my speech? HELL NO!
You blindly support the Democrats and are just trying to make some sort of excuse why all political speech needs to be regulated by a handful of people from only two parties.
Except that campaign finance reform eliminates free speech for the little guy and gives it only to the guys big enough to hire an army of lawyers and accountants and lobbyists to get FEC approval and to comply with the law.
It is the little parties and organizations that are against capaign finance reform, and the big PAC and the Democrats and Republics that are for it!
Actually the Libertarian Party and the Green party are cordial enough. Both organized the "alternative presidential debates" and have organized joint protests of the Iraq war.
Basicly, the mainstream left (and the right too, but that doesn't apply to the Green Party) in the U.S. are hardcore dedicating to supressing all political parties except the Democrats and the Republicans... if we can get them interested in another party like the Green Party, maybe the left wouldn't be so rabidly hostile to a true multi-party democracy like they are now, and would help eliminate all these legal restrictions that give Democrats and Republicans total politcal power.
Now, some of you "money is speech" libertarians might like that, but I, for one, am not. Speech with money: TV Commercials, Radio Commercials, Print Ads, Pamphlets, Web Sites
Speech without money: stand on the street corner and yell real loud.
Libertarians are rightfully outraged by this campaign finance reform, because like nearly all the parties besides the Democrats and Republican party, the Libertarians could in many places lose 90% of their donations (well, in places were the Libertarian party is allowed to exist as a functioning party... in many places the Democrats and Republicans have "protected the public" with campaign laws that don't allow Libertarians to run as Libertarians and bullshit like that)... effectivly silencing the party (or silencing it more that it already is with all the legal and quasi-legal restrictions on third parties).
I love it how the "campaign finance laws" that are supposed to "protect the public" from parties "stealing the elections" by spending hundreds of millions on advertising, are in effect crippling all the political parties except for the two that have hundreds of millions to spend on advertising.
Not exactly... Slashdot has a clear moderation policy which you agree to when you join. You are not supposed to moderate a discussion down because you disagree with something someone says. You can mod it down because it really is flamebait (meaning it bring nothing to the discussion, and basicly says "you suck") or causes a disruption, or is providing bad information (a link to a porno website) or something like that. Of course, meta-moderation can be just as biased as moderation, and there is no objective way for Slashdot to detect bias... but if you "mod however I like", you are breaking your word of honour, which is generally considered a bad thing.
Aside from the violations of the moderation policy which you agreed to, activly supressing opinions that disagree with yours is a pretty good sign that your political beliefs are of the more authoritarian / totalitarian / facist nature. When Democrats vote against exempting political speech to extra constitutional controls, and then Democrats on Slashdot mod in violation of the mod policy to supress speech critical of the Democrats... it makes it hard to believe that Democrats in any way shape or form support free expression.
Look at overseas gambling operations for an example of that.
Americans went to a small island nation where all gambling is legal. They set up online casinos in full compliance of the laws there. Americans in the U.S. use the online casinos in the small island nation. Now, the Americans are wanted criminals in the U.S., and will be arrested and charged if they go back.
So, you can set up a web site in a foriegn country... as long as the government can't trace anything back to you, you are OK. But if the government DOES find out it was you, you are treated just like if the website was in the U.S.
I agree that the Republicans created a bad bill in order for it not to pass... (the bill isn't needed if the government would obey the bill of rights, because clearly any type of "capaign finance reform" is a restriction of freedom of speech and violates the constitution).
But that doesn't mean that the Democrats hating free speech isn't true. The Democrats are as rapid for censorship, government regulation of media, "capaign finance reform" i.e. government regulation of political speech, restricting public protests, etc., as the Republicans. In certain areas even more so.
The Democrats do want to end the free speech, despite any shading conspiracies of the Republicans. What you are trying to do is justify why you support a party so against freedom of speech.
The Dems clearly have a party-wide almost universal mandate to regulate political speech on the internet, where as the Republicans tend to not favor government regulation of political speech on the internet, but there are enough Republicans on the other side of the issue that it didn't pass.
So basicly, on this specific issue - Democrats = Hardcore Facists... Republics = spineless weenies that enable Facism. That isn't to say that there aren't other issues were the Republicans are the hardcore facists, and the Democrats are the spinless weenie enablers (such as gay marrage, or the war on drugs)...
But what this issue SHOULD be is a moment for people who vote Democrat to reflect, and come to the realization that "Yes, I am a facist", and either find another party that more reflects liberal ideals, or simply stop the charade and proudly proclaim their support for facism. But don't decieve yourself by thinking the Republicans are the evil ones and the Democrats the good guys. The Democrats are hardcore facists, as much as the Republics, and the supporters of both parties are closet facists.
And it is VERY clear that these rules are such a bad thing... because any web site with advertisements or makes money in any way will have to register with the government, do loads of paperwork, and be monitored by the government in order to be allowed to make political commentary.
Teachers must be getting paid a hell of a lot in England if you need to worry about U.S. taxes. You don't pay taxes on at least the first $80,000... and usually a lot more than that, if you qualify for any other number of exemptions / tax shelters / etc.
But I would agree with what you are saying, if you did have to pay U.S. taxes while living in a foriegn country, that would indeed suck.
ummm why would people buying things in a different country want to come to a country where they would have to pay more in taxes?
There would be no tax on exports, so it wouldn't effect foriegn consumption of U.S. goods.
Buisnesses would want to come to the U.S. (or not leave the U.S.), because they would not pay any taxes. The government would tax the workers - and U.S. workers are a lot less likely to leave the U.S. for tax reasons, than buisnesses.
When a hydrogen tank ruptures, the hydrogen rises (because it is lighter than air), the dangerous combustable disapearing from around the vehicle in a fraction of a second. Even if the entire cloud of hydrogen was somehow spontaniously mixed with the nessicary oxygen to that it could all explode instantly (very unlikely), the hydrogen flames would last only for that fraction of a second.
On the other hand, when gasoline ruptures, it sprays everything with a nice sticky layer of gasoline... which burns nice and slow, especially when you and your clothing are soaked in it!
Hydrogen is WAY WAY WAY safer than gasoline! I mean way safer! Give me hydrogen fuel over gasoline any day.
They don't have to go after royalties... They could argue that by using patented technology in a free product, that lowers the value of licencing the technology for for-profit corporation like Microsoft. They could also argue that open source has a service based profit model, and they should collect royalties from people who provide free software related services.
Except lawsuits and regulation tend to help big corporations. Microsoft can afford a huge legal team to fight having to pay for frivolous patents, and if they do have to pay, they have the money to pay.
A small software company, however, will be put out of buisness by these extreme patent regulation and legislation.
Always expect the big corporation to be on the side of expanded litigation and government intervention.
If 1 in 4 children were dying from Malaria in the U.S. or Europe or wherever the hell you live your very comfortable life, people would be screaming for the government to spray DDT by the ton. There would be ZERO debate from anyone across the political spectrum on the use of DDT! Do you think the first world would hesitate for even a second to use DDT if it could save millions of lives in North America or Europe?
Cancer is a disease that wealthy people in the first world worry about, because just about every other natural danger has been elminated. But don't forcefully project your western bias on the rest of the world.
Polar bears and birds didn't die out back in the 1960's when Canada and the U.S. were dumping massive amounts of DDT on crops and in the water supply right next to the bears... so don't pretend the threat of small-scale use of DDT in Africa having some minute effect half a world away in North America is enough of a threat to let millions of Africans die. And don't pretend that you in America or Europe have some greater love over the animals and nature of Africa than native African's do.
If we want to eliminate the use of DDT in our own countries, that is fine! But it is clear that Africans, when given a choice (which all too often they aren't), choose to accept whatever "risk" DDT presents than to watch millions of people die slow and painful deaths.
People's attitude towards this just wreaks of arrogance!
Did you bother to read the BBC link presented? I know you didn't, so here is the word from the BBC science editor when he researched the issue:
DDT is widely regarded as a threat to human health - a potent poison and a carcinogen. But the scientific evidence presents a rather different picture.
Professor Len Ritter, from Guelph University, is executive director of the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres, which compiled a major report on DDT and related substances for the United Nations.
"I hate to say conclusively yes or no because these matters are always subject to interpretation; but I would say on the totality of the weight of the evidence, I could not conclude that DDT poses a significant risk of cancer," he told Earth Files.
Professor Ritter's report came to a similar conclusion regarding the other suggested harmful effects of DDT - as a disrupter of the human immune system, of hormone levels, as a cause of birth defects.
On whether DDT is acutely poisonous to humans, the eminent British scientist Kenneth Mellanby writes in his book The DDT Story: "I myself, when lecturing about DDT during the years immediately after World War II, frequently consumed a substantial pinch of DDT, to the consternation of the audience, but with no apparent harm to myself, either then or during the next 40 years."
In the west, though, DDT continues to be seen as a pariah chemical.
So apparently the BBC Science editor, and UN experts on toxicology are also idiots. And those Africans are stupid too, for wanting to prevent 1 of 4 children dying by using a chemical that according to the worst projections might give 1 in 100 people cancer (those numbers are disputed by nearly all scientist, but even assuming the enviornmental worst case sceniaros DDT isn't that bad).
Refer to my BBC article... the BBC is far more respectable than rantings of some random personal blog you have posted as your "definitive proof". And according to the BBC:
1. FACT: Experts such as Len Ritter from the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres say that "I would say on the totality of the weight of the evidence, I could not conclude that DDT poses a significant risk of cancer".
2. FACT: Attempts at using alternatives have caused the 10 fold increase in Malaria cases... From the article: "Eight years ago South Africa switched from DDT to a different type of insecticide called pyrethroids, regarded as more environmentally benign. But within four years, mosquitoes became resistant, and the annual number of malaria cases rose tenfold. This paralleled the experience of Madagascar, which suffered an epidemic of malaria in the late 1980s, brought on by the curtailment of DDT spraying programmes - only curbed again by its re-introduction."
3. FACT: Western governments and political groups are openly admiting they are discouraging the use of DDT. From the article:
"DDT is one of 12 substances deemed to be environmentally damaging that will be banned shortly under a new treaty. The global treaty is called Pops, short for Persistent Organic Pollutants, and comes into force in 12 months' time... Environmental groups like Greenpeace lobby for the Pops exemption to end in just a few years' time."
"However, the British government's Department for International Development funds 13 malaria-only projects in eight African countries; none of them uses DDT."
"The Swedish aid agency Sida has a procurement policy expressly prohibiting the use of its funds for buying DDT."
"The US aid agency USAid was unable to supply such data, but told the BBC: "For most countries with USAid support for malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa, indoor residual spraying has not been judged to be the most effective use of US government funds."
"Perhaps the most damaging allegation is that United Nations organisations are ignoring the opportunities offered by spraying. A few months ago the UN agency Roll Back Malaria produced a draft document called Scaling Up For Sustainable Impact which set out a suggested strategy for the next four years. One group of leading experts sent back a lengthy critique. 'We consider that the dismissive paragraph about indoor residual spraying is seriously flawed.'"
It is nice and fancy that Bill Gates is giving money to fight malaria... but at the same time the U.N. is, and most of the countries in the world are, making the most effective Malaria prevention tool illegal, all because of bad science from reactionary enviornmentalist... and tens of millions are dying because of it:
Western governments could spend a fraction of the money they are spending now, and eliminate Malaria by at least 90%! The U.N., U.S., Canada, E.U. are esentially ensuring the death of millions in order to score a few token political points with the enviornmental lobby!
This isn't simply a matter of Western governments "not giving enough" to fight Malaria. Fighting malaria is cheap and easy, and most government can handle the problem with just a little help. This is a case of Western governments using their money and power to force policies on other countries that kill millions.
What is evil is the killing, a completly objectivly defined thing. We can both agree on exactly what "killing" is, and we can clearly and objectivly measure if certain actions result in killing. And, most societies tend to have a taboo on killing - at least in members of your own political/economic unit, so wanting to stop killing is an almost universal thing.
We both agree that killing someone based on their skin color is bad, because murdering someone is a pretty objectively mesured thing, with a clear pattern of cause and effect (if you point a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger, they suffer physical harm. Nearly every sane adult understands and agrees with that idea).
But, lets take another "social justice" policy related to that... In the 1960's, the U.S. government, in the name of "planning for the public good" and "providing for the poor and disadvantaged" and "promoting social justice", razed a bunch of predominatly black urban neighborhoods, and moved the people into what were essential giant Soviet style housing projects. Needless to say the idea was a disaster. By putting mostly black people in housing projects, they were in effect segregating black people from the larger community. Because they tore down the existing communities to build the projects, they destroyed the buisnesses that people owned or were employed at, creating a terrible unemployment problem. Crime became rampant, the buildings began falling apart, and the projects became know as "ghettos" - and what was supposed to be a symbol of "social justice", became a symobl of "social injustice". What were thriving working-class communities, became the stereotypical "ghetto projects", and the negative effects are still deeply effecting the inner cities of the U.S. to this day.
The real reason the projects were built, is because large builder contracting companies wanted to get in on gravy contracts with the government, and the politicians knew that they could call what they were doing "social justice" or some equally vauge "progressive" jargon, and that would shut people up. By using terms like "social justice" that are vauge and could be applied to almost any action or policy, those politicians got progressives, socialists, and the American left-wing to back a massive government segregation program that wasn't much different that what the Nazis did early on when they came to power (which is why parts of U.S. cities where the poor and underclass live are commonly refered to as "ghettos", the term the Nazis used). Anybody who opposed this massive segregation program at the time (now everyone has revised history to pretend they opposed it at the time), was accused of vauge things like being "anti-progressive", or of trying to "impede social justice".
And the example I give is just a small example. Look at the history of Marxist governments: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... a hundred million people murderded in the 20th century by regimes based on a philosophy claiming to promote "social justice". And of course, every dictator, totalitarian, murderer, and thug claims that they are doing it for "social justice".
"Social justice" is a term that is used to justify behavior that has no immediate connection to the objective well being of people. It is a term that is used to justify behavior that on it's own merits would be considered wrong, but is made OK because it will bring "social justice".
When people start talking about "social justice", that is when your facism radar should start to go off!
The trouble is that "social injustices" is a concept that is completly sugjective... if you ask 20 people what "social injustice" is, you will get 20 answers. So that the process of "fixing" that "social injustice" usually involves the strongest of the 20 telling everyone else what to do at gunpoint. And it is inevitable that one person's "social justice" will be percieved as anothers "social injustice".
The concept of "social justice" is so vauge and meaningless, and therefore how to fix "social injustice" is so undefined and amorphous, that "social justice" simply becomes an excuse to justify any kind of destructive behavior you like.
Modders want to change something that they own and paid for... and accept the responsibility if they fry their gadget or mess something up.
Activists want to change not only things that other people own, but also change people against their will, and don't want to accept responsibility if they screw up (i.e. when do activists for public housing take responsiblity for the disasterous urban housing projects debacles of the 1960s that led to the creation of new "Ghettos"??? When do anti-nuclear activists take responsibility for global warming because they have eliminated a potential form of non-greenhouse emitting energy?? When do anti-drug activists take responsibility for the half-million and rising Americans in prison, and the thousands killed in the drug war in Columbia??? When do human rights activists who want the U.S. to cut trade with "human rights abusing countries" take responsibility for pissing off half the world???)
Imagine if a "modder" decided to "improve" someone elses dialasis machine, and that someone else died in the process, and then the "modder" blamed the manufacterer of the dialasis machine... and that is a perfect example of an "activist".
The world could do with a few less activists, and a few more people minding their own damn buisness!
I needed to change servers for a company I was working for back in 96 or 97... of course I didn't have any of the domain registration information, because the guy who had all the info got fired. So what was the high-security way to get access to change my domain registration information? I had to fax a request on company letterhead! Yes, that is right, anyone could steal anyone elses domain name, simply by making a faxed request on company letterhead! Of course, I was not stealing the domain, I really was authorized by my employer to make the changes. But it was SIMPLE beyond comprehension.
Yes, I know those were the 90s wild west days of the Internet, but come on? Company letterhead as a security device? I am shocked that domain highjacking wasn't far more of a problem than it was!
Slashdot Mirror
Why all these cludges to make web pages appear like a terminal program? Why not just create a standard for Telnet/SSH clients displaying HTML? A link would be treated as a text string that would be sent to the host as a string... forms could be sent as a string of XML data... Build your SSH/Telnet client into the browser, and you are good to go!
AJAX is nice concept, but such a cludge!
If, as a political candidate, I pay the American Steel Industry Journal to run an editorial endorsing me, it is somehow fraud and I get in trouble with the FEC.
If, as a political candidate, I promise to give a billion dollar subsidy to steel manufacturing, and a billion dollar subsidy to the American Steel Industry Journal to promote "Steel Manufacturing Awareness", and of course they endorse me, I am A-OK?
So why is it wrong to bribe people with your own money, but great to bribe people with other people's money?
The DMCA doesn't say "Don't Steal", it says "Don't say or do anything that could in any way, intentiallly or unintentionally, help someone to steal".
If I post on a website how to backup my copy protected video games, I can end up in jail! If I post a security flaw in a piece of software, I can go to jail.
If you have to hire a lawyer and an accountant to PROVE to the FEC that you do not recieve too much political funding... and the FEC can then decide to fine you, or restrict what you say, because you might have not filed the right form, or they are not "sure" on some funding issue, and to fight it you must carry out a lengthly legal proceedings... You do not have freedom of speech, at least if you are an average person.
...
Only the rich will have the lawyers, and only the politically well connected will be able to get FEC approval
Look at how ruthlessly and openly the Democrats used FEC and local election officials to try to destroy the election chances of the Green party. Democrats were openly bragging they were going to use the law to "destroy" the Greens. And you are going to tell me that I can trust those same people to "regulate" my speech? HELL NO!
You blindly support the Democrats and are just trying to make some sort of excuse why all political speech needs to be regulated by a handful of people from only two parties.
Except that campaign finance reform eliminates free speech for the little guy and gives it only to the guys big enough to hire an army of lawyers and accountants and lobbyists to get FEC approval and to comply with the law.
It is the little parties and organizations that are against capaign finance reform, and the big PAC and the Democrats and Republics that are for it!
Actually the Libertarian Party and the Green party are cordial enough. Both organized the "alternative presidential debates" and have organized joint protests of the Iraq war.
Basicly, the mainstream left (and the right too, but that doesn't apply to the Green Party) in the U.S. are hardcore dedicating to supressing all political parties except the Democrats and the Republicans... if we can get them interested in another party like the Green Party, maybe the left wouldn't be so rabidly hostile to a true multi-party democracy like they are now, and would help eliminate all these legal restrictions that give Democrats and Republicans total politcal power.
Now, some of you "money is speech" libertarians might like that, but I, for one, am not.
Speech with money:
TV Commercials, Radio Commercials, Print Ads, Pamphlets, Web Sites
Speech without money:
stand on the street corner and yell real loud.
Libertarians are rightfully outraged by this campaign finance reform, because like nearly all the parties besides the Democrats and Republican party, the Libertarians could in many places lose 90% of their donations (well, in places were the Libertarian party is allowed to exist as a functioning party... in many places the Democrats and Republicans have "protected the public" with campaign laws that don't allow Libertarians to run as Libertarians and bullshit like that)... effectivly silencing the party (or silencing it more that it already is with all the legal and quasi-legal restrictions on third parties).
I love it how the "campaign finance laws" that are supposed to "protect the public" from parties "stealing the elections" by spending hundreds of millions on advertising, are in effect crippling all the political parties except for the two that have hundreds of millions to spend on advertising.
Not exactly... Slashdot has a clear moderation policy which you agree to when you join. You are not supposed to moderate a discussion down because you disagree with something someone says. You can mod it down because it really is flamebait (meaning it bring nothing to the discussion, and basicly says "you suck") or causes a disruption, or is providing bad information (a link to a porno website) or something like that. Of course, meta-moderation can be just as biased as moderation, and there is no objective way for Slashdot to detect bias... but if you "mod however I like", you are breaking your word of honour, which is generally considered a bad thing.
Aside from the violations of the moderation policy which you agreed to, activly supressing opinions that disagree with yours is a pretty good sign that your political beliefs are of the more authoritarian / totalitarian / facist nature. When Democrats vote against exempting political speech to extra constitutional controls, and then Democrats on Slashdot mod in violation of the mod policy to supress speech critical of the Democrats... it makes it hard to believe that Democrats in any way shape or form support free expression.
Look at overseas gambling operations for an example of that.
Americans went to a small island nation where all gambling is legal. They set up online casinos in full compliance of the laws there. Americans in the U.S. use the online casinos in the small island nation. Now, the Americans are wanted criminals in the U.S., and will be arrested and charged if they go back.
So, you can set up a web site in a foriegn country... as long as the government can't trace anything back to you, you are OK. But if the government DOES find out it was you, you are treated just like if the website was in the U.S.
I agree that the Republicans created a bad bill in order for it not to pass... (the bill isn't needed if the government would obey the bill of rights, because clearly any type of "capaign finance reform" is a restriction of freedom of speech and violates the constitution).
But that doesn't mean that the Democrats hating free speech isn't true. The Democrats are as rapid for censorship, government regulation of media, "capaign finance reform" i.e. government regulation of political speech, restricting public protests, etc., as the Republicans. In certain areas even more so.
The Democrats do want to end the free speech, despite any shading conspiracies of the Republicans. What you are trying to do is justify why you support a party so against freedom of speech.
The Dems clearly have a party-wide almost universal mandate to regulate political speech on the internet, where as the Republicans tend to not favor government regulation of political speech on the internet, but there are enough Republicans on the other side of the issue that it didn't pass.
... Republics = spineless weenies that enable Facism. That isn't to say that there aren't other issues were the Republicans are the hardcore facists, and the Democrats are the spinless weenie enablers (such as gay marrage, or the war on drugs)...
So basicly, on this specific issue - Democrats = Hardcore Facists
But what this issue SHOULD be is a moment for people who vote Democrat to reflect, and come to the realization that "Yes, I am a facist", and either find another party that more reflects liberal ideals, or simply stop the charade and proudly proclaim their support for facism. But don't decieve yourself by thinking the Republicans are the evil ones and the Democrats the good guys. The Democrats are hardcore facists, as much as the Republics, and the supporters of both parties are closet facists.
And it is VERY clear that these rules are such a bad thing... because any web site with advertisements or makes money in any way will have to register with the government, do loads of paperwork, and be monitored by the government in order to be allowed to make political commentary.
Teachers must be getting paid a hell of a lot in England if you need to worry about U.S. taxes. You don't pay taxes on at least the first $80,000 ... and usually a lot more than that, if you qualify for any other number of exemptions / tax shelters / etc.
But I would agree with what you are saying, if you did have to pay U.S. taxes while living in a foriegn country, that would indeed suck.
I think you answered your own question. With the last option probably being the best one.
ummm why would people buying things in a different country want to come to a country where they would have to pay more in taxes?
There would be no tax on exports, so it wouldn't effect foriegn consumption of U.S. goods.
Buisnesses would want to come to the U.S. (or not leave the U.S.), because they would not pay any taxes. The government would tax the workers - and U.S. workers are a lot less likely to leave the U.S. for tax reasons, than buisnesses.
When a hydrogen tank ruptures, the hydrogen rises (because it is lighter than air), the dangerous combustable disapearing from around the vehicle in a fraction of a second. Even if the entire cloud of hydrogen was somehow spontaniously mixed with the nessicary oxygen to that it could all explode instantly (very unlikely), the hydrogen flames would last only for that fraction of a second.
On the other hand, when gasoline ruptures, it sprays everything with a nice sticky layer of gasoline... which burns nice and slow, especially when you and your clothing are soaked in it!
Hydrogen is WAY WAY WAY safer than gasoline! I mean way safer! Give me hydrogen fuel over gasoline any day.
They don't have to go after royalties... They could argue that by using patented technology in a free product, that lowers the value of licencing the technology for for-profit corporation like Microsoft. They could also argue that open source has a service based profit model, and they should collect royalties from people who provide free software related services.
Except lawsuits and regulation tend to help big corporations. Microsoft can afford a huge legal team to fight having to pay for frivolous patents, and if they do have to pay, they have the money to pay.
A small software company, however, will be put out of buisness by these extreme patent regulation and legislation.
Always expect the big corporation to be on the side of expanded litigation and government intervention.
If 1 in 4 children were dying from Malaria in the U.S. or Europe or wherever the hell you live your very comfortable life, people would be screaming for the government to spray DDT by the ton. There would be ZERO debate from anyone across the political spectrum on the use of DDT! Do you think the first world would hesitate for even a second to use DDT if it could save millions of lives in North America or Europe?
Cancer is a disease that wealthy people in the first world worry about, because just about every other natural danger has been elminated. But don't forcefully project your western bias on the rest of the world.
Polar bears and birds didn't die out back in the 1960's when Canada and the U.S. were dumping massive amounts of DDT on crops and in the water supply right next to the bears... so don't pretend the threat of small-scale use of DDT in Africa having some minute effect half a world away in North America is enough of a threat to let millions of Africans die. And don't pretend that you in America or Europe have some greater love over the animals and nature of Africa than native African's do.
If we want to eliminate the use of DDT in our own countries, that is fine! But it is clear that Africans, when given a choice (which all too often they aren't), choose to accept whatever "risk" DDT presents than to watch millions of people die slow and painful deaths.
People's attitude towards this just wreaks of arrogance!
Did you bother to read the BBC link presented? I know you didn't, so here is the word from the BBC science editor when he researched the issue:
DDT is widely regarded as a threat to human health - a potent poison and a carcinogen. But the scientific evidence presents a rather different picture.
Professor Len Ritter, from Guelph University, is executive director of the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres, which compiled a major report on DDT and related substances for the United Nations.
"I hate to say conclusively yes or no because these matters are always subject to interpretation; but I would say on the totality of the weight of the evidence, I could not conclude that DDT poses a significant risk of cancer," he told Earth Files.
Professor Ritter's report came to a similar conclusion regarding the other suggested harmful effects of DDT - as a disrupter of the human immune system, of hormone levels, as a cause of birth defects.
On whether DDT is acutely poisonous to humans, the eminent British scientist Kenneth Mellanby writes in his book The DDT Story: "I myself, when lecturing about DDT during the years immediately after World War II, frequently consumed a substantial pinch of DDT, to the consternation of the audience, but with no apparent harm to myself, either then or during the next 40 years."
In the west, though, DDT continues to be seen as a pariah chemical.
So apparently the BBC Science editor, and UN experts on toxicology are also idiots. And those Africans are stupid too, for wanting to prevent 1 of 4 children dying by using a chemical that according to the worst projections might give 1 in 100 people cancer (those numbers are disputed by nearly all scientist, but even assuming the enviornmental worst case sceniaros DDT isn't that bad).
Refer to my BBC article... the BBC is far more respectable than rantings of some random personal blog you have posted as your "definitive proof". And according to the BBC:
1. FACT: Experts such as Len Ritter from the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres say that "I would say on the totality of the weight of the evidence, I could not conclude that DDT poses a significant risk of cancer".
2. FACT: Attempts at using alternatives have caused the 10 fold increase in Malaria cases... From the article:
"Eight years ago South Africa switched from DDT to a different type of insecticide called pyrethroids, regarded as more environmentally benign. But within four years, mosquitoes became resistant, and the annual number of malaria cases rose tenfold. This paralleled the experience of Madagascar, which suffered an epidemic of malaria in the late 1980s, brought on by the curtailment of DDT spraying programmes - only curbed again by its re-introduction."
3. FACT: Western governments and political groups are openly admiting they are discouraging the use of DDT. From the article:
"DDT is one of 12 substances deemed to be environmentally damaging that will be banned shortly under a new treaty. The global treaty is called Pops, short for Persistent Organic Pollutants, and comes into force in 12 months' time... Environmental groups like Greenpeace lobby for the Pops exemption to end in just a few years' time."
"However, the British government's Department for International Development funds 13 malaria-only projects in eight African countries; none of them uses DDT."
"The Swedish aid agency Sida has a procurement policy expressly prohibiting the use of its funds for buying DDT."
"The US aid agency USAid was unable to supply such data, but told the BBC: "For most countries with USAid support for malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa, indoor residual spraying has not been judged to be the most effective use of US government funds."
"Perhaps the most damaging allegation is that United Nations organisations are ignoring the opportunities offered by spraying. A few months ago the UN agency Roll Back Malaria produced a draft document called Scaling Up For Sustainable Impact which set out a suggested strategy for the next four years. One group of leading experts sent back a lengthy critique. 'We consider that the dismissive paragraph about indoor residual spraying is seriously flawed.'"
It is nice and fancy that Bill Gates is giving money to fight malaria... but at the same time the U.N. is, and most of the countries in the world are, making the most effective Malaria prevention tool illegal, all because of bad science from reactionary enviornmentalist... and tens of millions are dying because of it:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3532273
This article addresses the Bill Gates absurdity directly:
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.ph
Western governments could spend a fraction of the money they are spending now, and eliminate Malaria by at least 90%! The U.N., U.S., Canada, E.U. are esentially ensuring the death of millions in order to score a few token political points with the enviornmental lobby!
This isn't simply a matter of Western governments "not giving enough" to fight Malaria. Fighting malaria is cheap and easy, and most government can handle the problem with just a little help. This is a case of Western governments using their money and power to force policies on other countries that kill millions.
But you give a perfect example...
What is evil is the killing, a completly objectivly defined thing. We can both agree on exactly what "killing" is, and we can clearly and objectivly measure if certain actions result in killing. And, most societies tend to have a taboo on killing - at least in members of your own political/economic unit, so wanting to stop killing is an almost universal thing.
We both agree that killing someone based on their skin color is bad, because murdering someone is a pretty objectively mesured thing, with a clear pattern of cause and effect (if you point a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger, they suffer physical harm. Nearly every sane adult understands and agrees with that idea).
But, lets take another "social justice" policy related to that... In the 1960's, the U.S. government, in the name of "planning for the public good" and "providing for the poor and disadvantaged" and "promoting social justice", razed a bunch of predominatly black urban neighborhoods, and moved the people into what were essential giant Soviet style housing projects. Needless to say the idea was a disaster. By putting mostly black people in housing projects, they were in effect segregating black people from the larger community. Because they tore down the existing communities to build the projects, they destroyed the buisnesses that people owned or were employed at, creating a terrible unemployment problem. Crime became rampant, the buildings began falling apart, and the projects became know as "ghettos" - and what was supposed to be a symbol of "social justice", became a symobl of "social injustice". What were thriving working-class communities, became the stereotypical "ghetto projects", and the negative effects are still deeply effecting the inner cities of the U.S. to this day.
The real reason the projects were built, is because large builder contracting companies wanted to get in on gravy contracts with the government, and the politicians knew that they could call what they were doing "social justice" or some equally vauge "progressive" jargon, and that would shut people up. By using terms like "social justice" that are vauge and could be applied to almost any action or policy, those politicians got progressives, socialists, and the American left-wing to back a massive government segregation program that wasn't much different that what the Nazis did early on when they came to power (which is why parts of U.S. cities where the poor and underclass live are commonly refered to as "ghettos", the term the Nazis used). Anybody who opposed this massive segregation program at the time (now everyone has revised history to pretend they opposed it at the time), was accused of vauge things like being "anti-progressive", or of trying to "impede social justice".
And the example I give is just a small example. Look at the history of Marxist governments: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... a hundred million people murderded in the 20th century by regimes based on a philosophy claiming to promote "social justice". And of course, every dictator, totalitarian, murderer, and thug claims that they are doing it for "social justice".
"Social justice" is a term that is used to justify behavior that has no immediate connection to the objective well being of people. It is a term that is used to justify behavior that on it's own merits would be considered wrong, but is made OK because it will bring "social justice".
When people start talking about "social justice", that is when your facism radar should start to go off!
The trouble is that "social injustices" is a concept that is completly sugjective... if you ask 20 people what "social injustice" is, you will get 20 answers. So that the process of "fixing" that "social injustice" usually involves the strongest of the 20 telling everyone else what to do at gunpoint. And it is inevitable that one person's "social justice" will be percieved as anothers "social injustice".
The concept of "social justice" is so vauge and meaningless, and therefore how to fix "social injustice" is so undefined and amorphous, that "social justice" simply becomes an excuse to justify any kind of destructive behavior you like.
Modders want to change something that they own and paid for... and accept the responsibility if they fry their gadget or mess something up.
Activists want to change not only things that other people own, but also change people against their will, and don't want to accept responsibility if they screw up (i.e. when do activists for public housing take responsiblity for the disasterous urban housing projects debacles of the 1960s that led to the creation of new "Ghettos"??? When do anti-nuclear activists take responsibility for global warming because they have eliminated a potential form of non-greenhouse emitting energy?? When do anti-drug activists take responsibility for the half-million and rising Americans in prison, and the thousands killed in the drug war in Columbia??? When do human rights activists who want the U.S. to cut trade with "human rights abusing countries" take responsibility for pissing off half the world???)
Imagine if a "modder" decided to "improve" someone elses dialasis machine, and that someone else died in the process, and then the "modder" blamed the manufacterer of the dialasis machine... and that is a perfect example of an "activist".
The world could do with a few less activists, and a few more people minding their own damn buisness!
I needed to change servers for a company I was working for back in 96 or 97... of course I didn't have any of the domain registration information, because the guy who had all the info got fired. So what was the high-security way to get access to change my domain registration information? I had to fax a request on company letterhead! Yes, that is right, anyone could steal anyone elses domain name, simply by making a faxed request on company letterhead! Of course, I was not stealing the domain, I really was authorized by my employer to make the changes. But it was SIMPLE beyond comprehension.
Yes, I know those were the 90s wild west days of the Internet, but come on? Company letterhead as a security device? I am shocked that domain highjacking wasn't far more of a problem than it was!