"And many folks stayed away from the polls because they thought business has already been taken care of."
That's what they SAID, but they also happen to be the same half of the registered voters that didn't vote in any of the other elections before or since....
I consider the nearly 50% abstention voters to be in favor of "whoever won". In the final analysis, that makes it something like 75% Bush, 25% Gore.
So you can be one of the roughly 50% who elect our government through apathy!
I'd be surprised if it wasn't an explicit goal of some campaigns to discourage people from voting. It might be easier to persuade someone to stay home than to convince them to vote for your party.
How long before people stop believing that a bureaucratic organization is going to bring about a revolutionary change in government?
Does anyone really believe the ACLU has any power? Against the country whose policy toward organizations like the UN and the World Court is basically, "The Finger?"
A person who does not cast a ballot, votes for "whomever wins". So the end result is, the number of registered voters who did not cast a ballot, are votes for Bush. My apologies if your non-vote didn't go to the guy you wanted...
Actually there are rules for private speedways in most states. Also, there are often rules governing what sort of horsepower/gearing ratios are street legal. (In CA, you don't even have to be moving to get a ticket for "aggressive display of speed" -- just showing off the capability is enough, like revving at a light, warming up your tires, etc.) But generally, simply being capable of exceeding the speed limit is not enough to make your car illegal; and certainly selling the parts to make the car go faster isn't illegal, unless there are specific issues making the parts themselves illegal: For instance, you fabbed a patented part, or you stamped someone's trademark on it.
If someone sold me a part for my Saab that had a Saab insignia stamped on it, I'd scream bloody murder about the counterfeit (and I'm the *customer*, not Saab!) That's a whole lot closer to the issue here in this particular case, except that the customer is complicit in the fraud, not a victim.
Yes, the way it's supposed to work is the constituents are actively involved in the process of government. This is supposed to extend FAR beyond voting. We can't even be bothered to do the FIRST thing: the apathy vote carries every election from the smallest municipal bond to the federal lawmakers to the president. Why should we expect the people to actually participate (develop true relationships with politicians and/or parties... starting from when they are local politicians, and continuing these relationships into the national arena.).
Wait! A bunch of people ARE doing that... and guess what? They are creating a government that is an expression of their will!
If you have not been a part of that process, it is your fault. If you don't vote, your vote is for "whoever wins" which is distinct from a vote for "nobody". If you don't participate in a party organization, the party assumes the candidates they select are just hunky dory with you, and that you support whatever policies and platforms they decide to run with.
Too many people seem to have this idea that the political process begins and ends with a presidential ballot whenever the race comes around, and they don't even bother with it. The idea that the government is the net result of MANY, MANY smaller elections that they also did not participate in, is lost on them.
So, when the government that they didn't participate in goes in a direction they disagree with, the only thing they can think to do is protest. The understanding that the current government is the result of decades of work by people who have actively pursued it is lost in the noise of the notion that the entire US government is the result of a single botched presidential election. So people delude themselves with the fallacious notion that removing the president will fix everything. They choose not to recognize just how limited the president's powers actually are -- because then they would be forced to acknolwedge just how many OTHER people are in government that disagree with their views.
And then they don't show up for their mayor, state legislature, or bond elections... And they wonder why the government doesn't express the will of the people..
"By clicking you agree, you're voting with your dollars, and that's all that matters to these companies."
People will sign contracts without reading them because it is highly inconvenient to do otherwise. I regard that as their right, but I also think it's important that they suffer the full consequences if it backfires on them. God help you if I'm on a civil jury where you're a defendant that signed a contract without reading it. People don't read real world paper contracts that bestow financial obligations, what makes you think they read things like the software licenses or the back of the utility bill? They (reasonably) assume that there are no dire consequences awaiting them, so they choose to take the risk.
Now, I do usually ask people that are getting married if they can briefly outline an understanding of the State marriage license. So far, not one has actually read it before signing....
I assume you're referring to the novelty of having a coke machine/soda fountain in your house. Having a hot tub, a dry sauna, and a massage table will do even more!
My frat house had a modified coke machine. It was the type where the bottle rolled from left to right on an incline and you pulled the bottle out from the front (after paying your 75 cents).
It turned a consistent profit, and gave us a decent source of after-hours beer. Anybody who wanted one could have one, provided they knew the combination to the rec room, and they paid their 75 cents. (The 1 person with a key to the machine could be trusted not to steal).
The beer machine in the lounge and the joust console in the kitchen were very consistent money makers. It adds up after a couple of years...
"Which, if it's a LEGAL enterprise, is all on the books. Else the company, managers and officers are comitting felonies."
It's not a crime to do private transactions for goods and services, as long as the goods and services themselves are not illegal, and as long as you aren't trying to avoid a tax or other regulation.
If I, an apple salesman, go to an orchard to buy apples, I don't have any obligation to show a paper trail from that transaction. I and the farmer can make the agreement, negotiate terms, exchange cash or barter, and walk away with nothing more formal than a handshake and a box of apples.
Are you suggesting to me that one of us has committed a felony by not reporting the trade?
Until spamming itself is illegal, your argument isn't valid.
I'm in support of legalized cannabis for recreational use, textiles, etc., but I am not convinced that the energy you get out of a hemp-fuel system is greater than the energy you put into it. Any agricultural product is going to require a great deal of energy to produce on a commercial scale. Imagining that you can get more energy out of your crop as a fuel than it takes to grow, irrigate, harvest, transport, and process that crop, seems like a fallacy.
Instead of wishful thinking by all the "hemp this, hemp that" people, I wish the movement would just spell out what it really wants: Recreational marijuana in the United States.
The people are given an opportunity to make that happen at the ballot box, and they do not avail themselves of the opportunity.
Hiding the true desires under a patina of "hemp for energy" grates on my nerves. I know damned well what the people pushing the hemp agenda really want, and I would be able to voice much more support if they were honest about it.
Textiles and Biodiesel might be viable as a by-product of the marijuana industry, but I have doubts that they can be THE product. Well, maybe textiles -- but don't kid me that the hemp textile industry provides it's own energy!
>paypal is an international entity, althoug it is >based in the us.
And that will be their undoing.
If the US is an oppressive tyrrany, why don't more people and businesses put their money where their mouth is, go elsewhere, and help make some other countries into economic superpowers?
(I'm not coming from the "America love it or leave it camp")
Anyway, if I write a song and record it, and I keep all distribution rights to that recording, and then you come along and distribute it for me, you have taken away something: my exclusive right to distribute my recorded work.
Practical matters aside, the notion that intellectual property is property, is quite well established. It is a matter of law. Just like the law that protects the OP from me coming and camping in his living room, get it?
So is real estate. Do I need your permission to move into your spare room? If you don't have a spare room, can I just take yours?
I agree that theft and copyright infringement are different things, but, I disagree that they are different in the sense that one is a legal fiction and the other is not.
Our legal notions of intellectual property are not as mature as those of physical property, but, they still are well-grounded in the traditions and legal history of many cultures and nations.
>I could understand the use of Volkswagen, but not >"bug".
If you make an accessory that fits the bug, and you try to market it as a "bug accessory", you are indeed likely to receive a C&D letter for it.
I agree that if you make a replacement part, and you cast it with VW's crest and part number, then you've done something counterfeit. But that's nowhere near where VW draws the line. They've managed to harass quite a few of the microbus parts people out of the business... These are folks that pretty much did it as a hobby anyway.
I'm offended enough that I will never buy a VW even if they redeem themselves.
It would not surprise me in the least to hear of VWOA issuing cease and desist orders against the use of "Volkswagen" and "Bug".
This isn't even a joke.
I understand that corporations are obligated to defend their trademarks, but I disagree that they are forced into the brutally hostile position, like in VW's case, attacking the people who have made the whole aircooled vw hobby possible, making aftermarket parts, doing rallys, publishing magazines, that sort of thing.
I've been a VW enthusiast for a very long time. My first car was a beetle, in 1979. I've owned 7 vw's of various types. But VW's trademark escapades were the main influence against me buying a Passat. I won't touch VW ever again, after what they've done to the hobbyists in the name of "trademark protection".
I really do not believe there's any law that obligates you to be an asshole. That's just how it is interpreted by people who need an excuse to play bully.
"He is still getting a $1 million dollars a year salary from them."
I'm not going to try to say "no he doesn't" but I will say that if you have any evidence to support that assertion, you have the biggest executive scandal since the blue dress.
Look, I know damned well the politicians are benefitting personally. But it would be a huge problem if Cheney were actually receiving a salary from the public sector. If that's the case, and he puts it on his tax return, it would be political suicide. On the other hand, if he is receiving comensation like that and DOESN'T put it on his return, it's a federal offense. Either way, Cheney is not that dumb, and you don't have the evidence to support your claim. If you think you do have evidence, take it to Congress!
>He is still on Haliburton's payroll and still >owns 8 million of Haliburton's stock options.
He most certainly does not. If you could substantiate this allegation you would actually have grounds for impeachment. But you cannot -- he is not that careless, and your accusation is false anyway.
Cheney's (and Bush's) assets are in a blind trust. They don't know how their money is invested, and the people doing the investing don't know whose money it is. As a result, the money is probably in fixed assets, not in energy or tech stocks.
This is precisely the reason people like Gates and Forbes don't run for president -- they would have to take inconceivable financial risks if they took office.
I'm not trying to say US politicians aren't scoundrels and crooks, but I am saying they're not so dumb as to make it easy to engineer their downfall.
"Terrorists do what they do because they don't have the military strength to fight a government head-on."
Is there any force on earth that can fight against the US military? Let's leave strategic nukes out of the picture for the sake of argument.
I know that's not your assertion, but I've been wondering why the only opposition to the US/UK "coalition" has been with words. I see nothing at all that I would regard as a military impediment to the operation. It certainly appears that Iraq has no allies coming to its aid.
I call that support, with a feeble voice of dissent here and there. Opposition would involve some sort of action. Russian subs in the Gulf? Combined forces of the Arab nations sandwiching to defend Baghdad? A domestic rebellion in the States?
I didn't see anything like that. There were a few protest rallies, but none of them ended with a batallion of dead police. There have been questions as to the legality of the war operations, but not serious enough to provoke a military unit to turn its guns against its own command. There have been a lot of words in the mahogony rooms of the UN, but only words.
If some nation truly "opposed" the actions of the US, why didn't they put some force between the US and its target? Nothing says "I oppose this agression" like a US carrier at the bottom of the gulf. I don't see that any nation considered anything like that.
I consider that "support", not "opposition".
All I see at home is the US wrapping itself in the flag, being proud that their boys have kicked some ass. (For the record, I do support the troops, but, I'm embarrassed by the pride and satisfaction we seem to take from the whole thing. It's like taking a 20 minute dump in the morning then bragging about it all day.) Fight a war against a country with equal military technology - under a just and ethical cause, of course -- and THEN be proud. Why are we proud that we can flatten Iraq? Using an army that could conquer Europe? This shouldn't satisfy anybody. Hussein should have fallen by lunchtime on the first day of the first gulf war.
The Halliburton company has been around for a very long time; Cheney didn't found it or anything like that.
If you were involved in the oil producing business, you would realize that Halliburton is the only serious choice for certain types of equipment and services. They go back to the days when Kerosene was the main product of the industry and Gasoline was considered a waste product, a nuisance.
There really aren't that many companies that are up to the task, or prepared to make a credible bid for the job. I think we should look elsewhere for our conspiracy data.
Rumsfeld has been in DC since the Kennedy Administration. So has Valenti. It's not a giant global conspiracy, it's just that US politics moves slower than our attention span.
Slashdot Mirror
November 22, 1963.
"And many folks stayed away from the polls because they thought business has already been taken care of."
That's what they SAID, but they also happen to be the same half of the registered voters that didn't vote in any of the other elections before or since....
I consider the nearly 50% abstention voters to be in favor of "whoever won". In the final analysis, that makes it something like 75% Bush, 25% Gore.
"I would not say scientific and technical progress depends on those things. I would say it is helped along by those things."
I would say that science is *defined* by those things. It's what makes science distinct from superstition.
>If you haven't already done so, Register to Vote
So you can be one of the roughly 50% who elect our government through apathy!
I'd be surprised if it wasn't an explicit goal of some campaigns to discourage people from voting. It might be easier to persuade someone to stay home than to convince them to vote for your party.
How long before people stop believing that a bureaucratic organization is going to bring about a revolutionary change in government?
Does anyone really believe the ACLU has any power? Against the country whose policy toward organizations like the UN and the World Court is basically, "The Finger?"
>Bush siezed the White House
I choose to look at it like this:
A person who does not cast a ballot, votes for "whomever wins". So the end result is, the number of registered voters who did not cast a ballot, are votes for Bush. My apologies if your non-vote didn't go to the guy you wanted...
Actually there are rules for private speedways in most states. Also, there are often rules governing what sort of horsepower/gearing ratios are street legal. (In CA, you don't even have to be moving to get a ticket for "aggressive display of speed" -- just showing off the capability is enough, like revving at a light, warming up your tires, etc.) But generally, simply being capable of exceeding the speed limit is not enough to make your car illegal; and certainly selling the parts to make the car go faster isn't illegal, unless there are specific issues making the parts themselves illegal: For instance, you fabbed a patented part, or you stamped someone's trademark on it.
If someone sold me a part for my Saab that had a Saab insignia stamped on it, I'd scream bloody murder about the counterfeit (and I'm the *customer*, not Saab!) That's a whole lot closer to the issue here in this particular case, except that the customer is complicit in the fraud, not a victim.
Yes, the way it's supposed to work is the constituents are actively involved in the process of government. This is supposed to extend FAR beyond voting. We can't even be bothered to do the FIRST thing: the apathy vote carries every election from the smallest municipal bond to the federal lawmakers to the president. Why should we expect the people to actually participate (develop true relationships with politicians and/or parties... starting from when they are local politicians, and continuing these relationships into the national arena.).
Wait! A bunch of people ARE doing that... and guess what? They are creating a government that is an expression of their will!
If you have not been a part of that process, it is your fault. If you don't vote, your vote is for "whoever wins" which is distinct from a vote for "nobody". If you don't participate in a party organization, the party assumes the candidates they select are just hunky dory with you, and that you support whatever policies and platforms they decide to run with.
Too many people seem to have this idea that the political process begins and ends with a presidential ballot whenever the race comes around, and they don't even bother with it. The idea that the government is the net result of MANY, MANY smaller elections that they also did not participate in, is lost on them.
So, when the government that they didn't participate in goes in a direction they disagree with, the only thing they can think to do is protest. The understanding that the current government is the result of decades of work by people who have actively pursued it is lost in the noise of the notion that the entire US government is the result of a single botched presidential election. So people delude themselves with the fallacious notion that removing the president will fix everything. They choose not to recognize just how limited the president's powers actually are -- because then they would be forced to acknolwedge just how many OTHER people are in government that disagree with their views.
And then they don't show up for their mayor, state legislature, or bond elections... And they wonder why the government doesn't express the will of the people..
I say "it DOES."
"By clicking you agree, you're voting with your dollars, and that's all that matters to these companies."
People will sign contracts without reading them because it is highly inconvenient to do otherwise. I regard that as their right, but I also think it's important that they suffer the full consequences if it backfires on them. God help you if I'm on a civil jury where you're a defendant that signed a contract without reading it. People don't read real world paper contracts that bestow financial obligations, what makes you think they read things like the software licenses or the back of the utility bill? They (reasonably) assume that there are no dire consequences awaiting them, so they choose to take the risk.
Now, I do usually ask people that are getting married if they can briefly outline an understanding of the State marriage license. So far, not one has actually read it before signing....
>chick dig things they don't normally get
I assume you're referring to the novelty of having a coke machine/soda fountain in your house. Having a hot tub, a dry sauna, and a massage table will do even more!
My frat house had a modified coke machine. It was the type where the bottle rolled from left to right on an incline and you pulled the bottle out from the front (after paying your 75 cents).
It turned a consistent profit, and gave us a decent source of after-hours beer. Anybody who wanted one could have one, provided they knew the combination to the rec room, and they paid their 75 cents. (The 1 person with a key to the machine could be trusted not to steal).
The beer machine in the lounge and the joust console in the kitchen were very consistent money makers. It adds up after a couple of years...
"Which, if it's a LEGAL enterprise, is all on the books. Else the company, managers and officers are comitting felonies."
It's not a crime to do private transactions for goods and services, as long as the goods and services themselves are not illegal, and as long as you aren't trying to avoid a tax or other regulation.
If I, an apple salesman, go to an orchard to buy apples, I don't have any obligation to show a paper trail from that transaction. I and the farmer can make the agreement, negotiate terms, exchange cash or barter, and walk away with nothing more formal than a handshake and a box of apples.
Are you suggesting to me that one of us has committed a felony by not reporting the trade?
Until spamming itself is illegal, your argument isn't valid.
>Probably not. As long as they can click the porn
>link and have a picture come up it doesn't
>matter.
Of course, the situation in the article is exactly the sort of thing that might jeapordize the click-and-wank community.
[Hemp for fuel]
I'm in support of legalized cannabis for recreational use, textiles, etc., but I am not convinced that the energy you get out of a hemp-fuel system is greater than the energy you put into it. Any agricultural product is going to require a great deal of energy to produce on a commercial scale. Imagining that you can get more energy out of your crop as a fuel than it takes to grow, irrigate, harvest, transport, and process that crop, seems like a fallacy.
Instead of wishful thinking by all the "hemp this, hemp that" people, I wish the movement would just spell out what it really wants: Recreational marijuana in the United States.
The people are given an opportunity to make that happen at the ballot box, and they do not avail themselves of the opportunity.
Hiding the true desires under a patina of "hemp for energy" grates on my nerves. I know damned well what the people pushing the hemp agenda really want, and I would be able to voice much more support if they were honest about it.
Textiles and Biodiesel might be viable as a by-product of the marijuana industry, but I have doubts that they can be THE product. Well, maybe textiles -- but don't kid me that the hemp textile industry provides it's own energy!
>paypal is an international entity, althoug it is
>based in the us.
And that will be their undoing.
If the US is an oppressive tyrrany, why don't more people and businesses put their money where their mouth is, go elsewhere, and help make some other countries into economic superpowers?
(I'm not coming from the "America love it or leave it camp")
Anyway, if I write a song and record it, and I keep all distribution rights to that recording, and then you come along and distribute it for me, you have taken away something: my exclusive right to distribute my recorded work.
Practical matters aside, the notion that intellectual property is property, is quite well established. It is a matter of law. Just like the law that protects the OP from me coming and camping in his living room, get it?
>Intellectual property is an artificial concept.
So is real estate. Do I need your permission to move into your spare room? If you don't have a spare room, can I just take yours?
I agree that theft and copyright infringement are different things, but, I disagree that they are different in the sense that one is a legal fiction and the other is not.
Our legal notions of intellectual property are not as mature as those of physical property, but, they still are well-grounded in the traditions and legal history of many cultures and nations.
>I could understand the use of Volkswagen, but not
>"bug".
If you make an accessory that fits the bug,
and you try to market it as a "bug accessory",
you are indeed likely to receive a C&D letter for it.
I agree that if you make a replacement part, and you cast it with VW's crest and part number, then you've done something counterfeit. But that's nowhere near where VW draws the line. They've managed to harass quite a few of the microbus parts people out of the business... These are folks that pretty much did it as a hobby anyway.
I'm offended enough that I will never buy a VW even if they redeem themselves.
It would not surprise me in the least to hear of VWOA issuing cease and desist orders against the use of "Volkswagen" and "Bug".
This isn't even a joke.
I understand that corporations are obligated to defend their trademarks, but I disagree that they are forced into the brutally hostile position, like in VW's case, attacking the people who have made the whole aircooled vw hobby possible, making aftermarket parts, doing rallys, publishing magazines, that sort of thing.
I've been a VW enthusiast for a very long time. My first car was a beetle, in 1979. I've owned 7 vw's of various types. But VW's trademark escapades were the main influence against me buying a Passat. I won't touch VW ever again, after what they've done to the hobbyists in the name of "trademark protection".
I really do not believe there's any law that obligates you to be an asshole. That's just how it is interpreted by people who need an excuse to play bully.
>Percentage of budget of US foreign aid: 1.0%
>Average response to the question, "how much
>should we spend on foreign aid?": 8.4%
I suspect the Anchoring Effect is at work.
"He is still getting a $1 million dollars a year salary from them."
I'm not going to try to say "no he doesn't" but I will say that if you have any evidence to support that assertion, you have the biggest executive scandal since the blue dress.
Look, I know damned well the politicians are benefitting personally. But it would be a huge problem if Cheney were actually receiving a salary from the public sector. If that's the case, and he puts it on his tax return, it would be political suicide. On the other hand, if he is receiving comensation like that and DOESN'T put it on his return, it's a federal offense. Either way, Cheney is not that dumb, and you don't have the evidence to support your claim. If you think you do have evidence, take it to Congress!
>He is still on Haliburton's payroll and still
>owns 8 million of Haliburton's stock options.
He most certainly does not. If you could substantiate this allegation you would actually have grounds for impeachment. But you cannot -- he is not that careless, and your accusation is false anyway.
Cheney's (and Bush's) assets are in a blind trust. They don't know how their money is invested, and the people doing the investing don't know whose money it is. As a result, the money is probably in fixed assets, not in energy or tech stocks.
This is precisely the reason people like Gates and Forbes don't run for president -- they would have to take inconceivable financial risks if they took office.
I'm not trying to say US politicians aren't scoundrels and crooks, but I am saying they're not so dumb as to make it easy to engineer their downfall.
"Terrorists do what they do because they don't have the military strength to fight a government head-on."
Is there any force on earth that can fight against the US military? Let's leave strategic nukes out of the picture for the sake of argument.
I know that's not your assertion, but I've been wondering why the only opposition to the US/UK "coalition" has been with words. I see nothing at all that I would regard as a military impediment to the operation. It certainly appears that Iraq has no allies coming to its aid.
I call that support, with a feeble voice of dissent here and there. Opposition would involve some sort of action. Russian subs in the Gulf? Combined forces of the Arab nations sandwiching to defend Baghdad? A domestic rebellion in the States?
I didn't see anything like that. There were a few protest rallies, but none of them ended with a batallion of dead police. There have been questions as to the legality of the war operations, but not serious enough to provoke a military unit to turn its guns against its own command. There have been a lot of words in the mahogony rooms of the UN, but only words.
If some nation truly "opposed" the actions of the US, why didn't they put some force between the US and its target? Nothing says "I oppose this agression" like a US carrier at the bottom of the gulf. I don't see that any nation considered anything like that.
I consider that "support", not "opposition".
All I see at home is the US wrapping itself in the flag, being proud that their boys have kicked some ass. (For the record, I do support the troops, but, I'm embarrassed by the pride and satisfaction we seem to take from the whole thing. It's like taking a 20 minute dump in the morning then bragging about it all day.) Fight a war against a country with equal military technology - under a just and ethical cause, of course -- and THEN be proud. Why are we proud that we can flatten Iraq? Using an army that could conquer Europe? This shouldn't satisfy anybody. Hussein should have fallen by lunchtime on the first day of the first gulf war.
The Halliburton company has been around for a very long time; Cheney didn't found it or anything like that.
If you were involved in the oil producing business, you would realize that Halliburton
is the only serious choice for certain types of equipment and services. They go back to the days when Kerosene was the main product of the industry and Gasoline was considered a waste product, a nuisance.
There really aren't that many companies that are up to the task, or prepared to make a credible bid for the job. I think we should look elsewhere for our conspiracy data.
Rumsfeld has been in DC since the Kennedy Administration. So has Valenti. It's not
a giant global conspiracy, it's just that US politics moves slower than our attention span.