Who the hell do they work for over there at the FTC? The American people or the newspaper industry?
Neither. They report to a chief executive who is all about taxing the vanishingly small part of the population that is actually productive, and using that money to buy a permanently dependent constituency at both the personal and the business/institutional levels. Their boss is all about central economic control, government influence over communication, and confiscating/redistributing the output of people's work via a croney-based, Chicago-style corruptocracy. This is not news. This is Hugo Chavez, v2.0, and it's exactly what people voted for. And now they have it.
YES! Outlaws was terrific in its day, and the soundtrack is a classic that still sets the standard. I've actually popped the game CD in an audio player just to have a moment listening to the soundtrack for its own sake. Great stuff.
Polls also show that everybody thinks they one of the top 10% of drivers that are the best, safest, and most experienced behind the wheel. People - at least 93% of them - are just about always wrong about anything involving statistics.
Hmmm. Let's see... am I the one "editing" one of a handful of summaries that are presented to untold thousands of visitors on a high profile web site every day? Nope! That apostrophe was a typo, anyway. It was a thinko.
In spite of their prevalent use in criminal activities, a lawsuit against them was dismissed in 2003
You'll notice that the lawsuit wasn't about a manufacturer of those weapons actually running a marketing campaign that encouraged their customers to knock over liquor stores and to murder the competition in your Crack Dealership franchise area. This, compared to Limewire's active, and sustained message to its users: "use this tool to make it easier to illegally rip off movies and music." You do see the difference, right?
The problem with this is that people very frequently say "it's a nice day" (instead of "it is a nice day"). And so it's rather convenient to have a consistent, rule-based way to write that same expression, without confusing anyone about whether or not you meant the term in its possessive form. Contractions are a natural part of language. Writing them down is an unavoidable necessity. So... how helpful that we have a very simple, binary rule. "It's" always means "it is" and "its" is always possesive - it's not mysterious! It's no more complicated that "he's" and "his."
Regardless, I congratulate you on your English skills - they greatly exceed my abilities in any other language.
There was so much power involved in the interaction between those two black holes that millions of apostrophes were flung violently out of the two merging galaxies. One of them landed in the middle of this summary's word "its" and making the editor appear to be an idiot.
I mean, I can't think of any other reason it's there.
And with that single comment, you've exposed your bias right there
No, it's an insightful observation (since Gore has made big money off of his crusade, and is positioned to make many, many millions more). What happened is that you have exposed your own biases by insisting that anyone who points out those simple facts is somehow evil.
actually showing through reasoned argument why a republic is the pinnacle of government
Because it is based on the consent of the governed while making mob rule deliberately difficult, and doesn't involve giving government power or prestige to people simply because they were born into a given family. Of course those things are self-evident, and you already knew them. I'd say the burden is on you to explain why inherited power over other people's lives is a more rational approach.
My agenda is simple. I merely point out that none of the proposed wonderful things are currently, in any practical way, useful. Despite your assurance that past gain in (for example, solar) efficiency won't be in any way hampered by those pesky laws of physics (or cloud cover), that doesn't help with the fact that there isn't a hint of the infrastructure required to turn intermittent solar energy into, say, the highly energy-dense liquid fuels needed to move a caravan of trucks loaded with surplus protein into those spots in the world where people are starving to death.
Population densities can't be thought of as a mere matter of square kilometers. Coastal regions are subject to floods and storms. Mountains can't support the same sort of settlement as plains. Potable water is all but gone in huge swaths of the world, with no prospect of many aquifers seeing replenishment for generations if used to water the crops needed to feed more people (let alone the GP's proposed hundreds of times as many people).
Most of the world isn't the Netherlands and can't ever be, especially if you have any interest at all in preserving certain habitats and species. If the only thing you want is a hundred times as many people packed into every available corner of the earth, then that's a different set of priorities, certainly.
The viewpoint that the solution is less people is, frankly, myopic.
You're missing the point. The problem is too many people. Right now. Given the available technology now and for the intermediate future, there are too many people. The "solution" may indeed by found in technolgy, but that we are decades - at least - away from ways to transport (for example) food to even twice as many people as we have now without needing more energy than is available. To say nothing of the people from whom that energy must be purchased.
Because the NIMBY leftists can't stand nuclear power, and because wind and solar can only scratch around the surface of the shortcomings, we are going to be in a worsening state in this regard for decades, yet. Waving your hands and pretending that a change on the scale of that from hunter gatherers to current industrialized agriculture is just around the corner and will be hundreds of times more efficient... is just silly. Just as silly as suggesting that there are ways to grow nutrious food without fertile soil. Plants cannot synthesize everything that makes good food literally out of the air.
There are monarchies around the world that have existed for more than a 1000 years
Sure, because in most cases the elected representatives in those countries have chosen to retain those monarchies as celebrity pets. In cases where the monarchies actually have any real power or authority, it's maintained by force - not by the happy support of a given family's subjects. Of course you know that, and you're just thrashing around trying to find a way in which a constitution-based representative republic can be made to look bad, since you'd prefer a pure Nanny State.
In reality, we can easily support hundreds of billions of people all living at what we would call "western standards", whatever that means in 20-80 years time.
What a load of crap. Hundreds of billions of people living well on a world that can barely support a few percent of that number now? And... are planning on stacking them all up in warehouses, Matrix-style, or what? Never mind your presumption about Helium 3 or Mr. Fusion, or whatever you think is going to provide climate control and food/water processing and transportation for hundreds of times more people than are currently packed into the world's livable spots. Do you really want to live like that? I guess if you're a never-leave-Mom's-basement type, that might seem just fine.
Where was that famous American sense of personal responsibility? Did the lack of regulation really work for the people when the banks collapsed? I think not.
Then you weren't paying attention. The entire problem was a result of the government being involved in the home lending industry. They implicitly gauranteed loans made to low-income people who had no prospects of being able to actually pay them back. When people in the Bush administration went before Congress to explain that it appeared to be getting out of control, the Democrats in charge of the oversight committee (like chairman Barney Frank) insisted that the quasi-governmental mortgage underwriting entities in question were perfectly well capitalized, and in fact that what needed to happen was for the government to put more pressure on lenders to hand out more absurd loans.
With all of that government-pushed, cheap, too-abundant home debt credit out there, the supply pressure on the houses was huge... and so up went the prices, and we had a housing bubble. All of those really foolish, government-pushed/backed loans were still held by the companies that issued them, and many of them wanted to get rid of them. They were bundled up and sold in blocks to investors. These were considered easy investments, because the government was backing the loans.
Of course there was no real, honest equity in all of those sub-prime, idiotic loans that were used to "buy" houses that were (as a result) wildy over-priced. The government caused the problem (no company would have issued those loans without the governement pressure involved), and the people in the government currently roasting investment companies for not seeing that the house of cards was as serious as it was are the very same people that pushed to build it in the first place.
Government involvement in a market, in the name of social engineering, is directly at the heart of the entire mess. And those that were screaming the loudest about how it was "unfair" for people making $30,000 a year to not be able to easily get a no-down-payment, interest-only loan for a $500,000 house are now the ones screaming that investors who saw it for the sham that it was bet against that bubble ("shorting" the situation). Typical.
the governments have the responsibility to ensure their citizens are safe
Does the government tie your shoes each morning, and make sure that you change the oil on your car? Do they announce bans on roof work by construction crews during high winds, or make announcements to swimming pool operators to ban swimming every time a thunderstorm is in the area?
Does nobody in your country have any sense of personal accountability and judgement that could possibly rise to the level of a different person in your country who just happens to work for the government? How do you decide what to have for breakfast each morning? Think of the risks!
My theory is that if the focus is generating revenues, not the customer (or the product), failure is to be expected in this case
Why to people always act like these things are mutually exclusive? Who wants customers that can't undertand that the people providing them with the goods and services they want won't be there if they're bankrupt? Companies have to keep customers in mind, and customers who like those companies can't complain that money needs to change hands for the relationship to grow and thrive.
Danny Glover said that the Haitian earthquake happened because there wasn't enough climate treaty action in Denmark with week before. Was Al Gore on vacation?
You want to be a fan of a person, an artist, a writer, a great athlete, a craftsman, that's fine, because as a human being, he has a desire to do something of value, even if for the appreciation of one other person.
What a bunch of nonsense. I know plenty of artists and craftsman that would not spend all of their waking hours doing what they do if they couldn't make a profit doing it. Pretending that artists (all of them) don't care about turning a profit is just silly.
A corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit, and profit does not respond to people's desires or needs or appreciation of beauty or excellence.
An even bigger bunch of nonsense. Do you really find it impossible to conceive of customers buying things from a company because they find the product to be beautiful and responsive to their desires? That's the whole point of competition in a market. Do people just buy any bathroom faucet they see, or do they make aesthetic choices, purchasing the one they like? It may not matter to some people (say, those that are just looking for function and a low price), but for others, it's not a bit different than buying a sculpture from an artist. Or from a group of artists who happen to have incorporated in order to conduct their business.
A corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit
They can't exist if they don't make one (not counting all of those non-profit corporations, of course), but that doesn't mean that is their only reason to exist. People form companies all the time, specifically because they want to see an organization doing a particular thing in a particular way, in puruit of a particular customer with particular values and priorities. Those things and earning a profit are not mutually exclusive. But not earning a profit is a sure way to be no longer able to do those things in the way you like.
you failed in the market, so get the government to force people to pay you
How is the government forcing people to pay them? The government can only force people who ripped them off, and got caught doing it, to pay court-ordered damages. The government isn't forcing people to rip off a movie any more than it forces people to hop over a fence to sneak into a concert without paying.
No amount of blind justification of strict government enforcement or ad hominem attacks against me and others like me will change that.
Nor will your deliberate (or wildly ignorant) mischaracterization of "idea communication" ever give you moral cover for wanting creative people to be your pet entertainment slaves. What does "blind justification" actually mean, anyway? There's nothing "blind" going on here - it's all very simple. You can't copy somebody's work without their permission, and some people grant that permission in advance, while others don't. You'd prefer to force that creative person to do as you see fit, because you think you are entitled to their day's work. Nothing blind about it - it's plain as day.
This whole copyright protection debate is just corporate-sponsored Prohibition for the 21st century. It's unenforceable without totalitarian government control
Spoken just like a person who's never created anything in his life, especially for a living. You do realize (right?) that artists, film makers, muscians, writers - anyone who makes something that is covered by copyright law - can waive those rights any time they want. Which means that the actual people you're bitching about aren't The Eeeevil Corporate Publishers, but the artists who make the conscious, deliberate decision to work with a publisher in order to make a living at what they do. Why aren't you complaining about all of the novelists, painters, photographers, illustrators, designers, composers, recording artists and everyone else who creates material being such big supporters of Totalitarianism? Why? Because you know you're being a jackass, that's why.
Communicating ideas to another person should never be illegal
Go ahead! Communicate an idea. But if you're too lazy to have your own ideas to communicate (even your rant, above, is a lazy regurgitation), how about respecting the wishes of the creative person you want to shamelessly parrot? Some of them have agreed to let other people reproduce their work at will, and most have no choice but to allow properly framed "fair use" excerpts to be introduced into academic and journalistic presentations.
Of course you know all of that. You're just looking for some moral cover so that you can rip off porn, comic books, and your favorite Brittany Spears material without feeling so sleazy about it. Too late.
The only time our debt has gone down since that giant "debt clock" thing was built was under Clinton
Yup. And lucky Clinton got to benefit from the coasting period following the Regean economic growth, and he got have a nice big vacation from the Cold War and its current counterparts. This had nothing to do with Clinton, and everything to do with what he was handed by circumstance. By the time Clinton was done, we were well on our way to a recession, a ruinous housing/tech bubble, and Islamists that he was hoping would just go away were ramping up to 9/11, even though Clinton gave them a very stern lecture about attacking the WTC the first time, blowing up US embassies, and damaging the USS Cole with casualties to her crew, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Who the hell do they work for over there at the FTC? The American people or the newspaper industry?
Neither. They report to a chief executive who is all about taxing the vanishingly small part of the population that is actually productive, and using that money to buy a permanently dependent constituency at both the personal and the business/institutional levels. Their boss is all about central economic control, government influence over communication, and confiscating/redistributing the output of people's work via a croney-based, Chicago-style corruptocracy. This is not news. This is Hugo Chavez, v2.0, and it's exactly what people voted for. And now they have it.
YES! Outlaws was terrific in its day, and the soundtrack is a classic that still sets the standard. I've actually popped the game CD in an audio player just to have a moment listening to the soundtrack for its own sake. Great stuff.
Polls also show that everybody thinks they one of the top 10% of drivers that are the best, safest, and most experienced behind the wheel. People - at least 93% of them - are just about always wrong about anything involving statistics.
Hmmm. Let's see... am I the one "editing" one of a handful of summaries that are presented to untold thousands of visitors on a high profile web site every day? Nope! That apostrophe was a typo, anyway. It was a thinko.
In spite of their prevalent use in criminal activities, a lawsuit against them was dismissed in 2003
You'll notice that the lawsuit wasn't about a manufacturer of those weapons actually running a marketing campaign that encouraged their customers to knock over liquor stores and to murder the competition in your Crack Dealership franchise area. This, compared to Limewire's active, and sustained message to its users: "use this tool to make it easier to illegally rip off movies and music." You do see the difference, right?
Simply don't use "its". Just type "it is".
... how helpful that we have a very simple, binary rule. "It's" always means "it is" and "its" is always possesive - it's not mysterious! It's no more complicated that "he's" and "his."
The problem with this is that people very frequently say "it's a nice day" (instead of "it is a nice day"). And so it's rather convenient to have a consistent, rule-based way to write that same expression, without confusing anyone about whether or not you meant the term in its possessive form. Contractions are a natural part of language. Writing them down is an unavoidable necessity. So
Regardless, I congratulate you on your English skills - they greatly exceed my abilities in any other language.
There was so much power involved in the interaction between those two black holes that millions of apostrophes were flung violently out of the two merging galaxies. One of them landed in the middle of this summary's word "its" and making the editor appear to be an idiot.
I mean, I can't think of any other reason it's there.
now where is my anti-aging pill?
There is no anti-aging pill (except maybe more Vitamin D than you're probably getting).
There is, though, an aging pill. It's called a "donut."
And with that single comment, you've exposed your bias right there
No, it's an insightful observation (since Gore has made big money off of his crusade, and is positioned to make many, many millions more). What happened is that you have exposed your own biases by insisting that anyone who points out those simple facts is somehow evil.
actually showing through reasoned argument why a republic is the pinnacle of government
Because it is based on the consent of the governed while making mob rule deliberately difficult, and doesn't involve giving government power or prestige to people simply because they were born into a given family. Of course those things are self-evident, and you already knew them. I'd say the burden is on you to explain why inherited power over other people's lives is a more rational approach.
What's your agenda - and why?
My agenda is simple. I merely point out that none of the proposed wonderful things are currently, in any practical way, useful. Despite your assurance that past gain in (for example, solar) efficiency won't be in any way hampered by those pesky laws of physics (or cloud cover), that doesn't help with the fact that there isn't a hint of the infrastructure required to turn intermittent solar energy into, say, the highly energy-dense liquid fuels needed to move a caravan of trucks loaded with surplus protein into those spots in the world where people are starving to death.
Population densities can't be thought of as a mere matter of square kilometers. Coastal regions are subject to floods and storms. Mountains can't support the same sort of settlement as plains. Potable water is all but gone in huge swaths of the world, with no prospect of many aquifers seeing replenishment for generations if used to water the crops needed to feed more people (let alone the GP's proposed hundreds of times as many people).
Most of the world isn't the Netherlands and can't ever be, especially if you have any interest at all in preserving certain habitats and species. If the only thing you want is a hundred times as many people packed into every available corner of the earth, then that's a different set of priorities, certainly.
You used the word "bloated" twice.
The viewpoint that the solution is less people is, frankly, myopic.
... is just silly. Just as silly as suggesting that there are ways to grow nutrious food without fertile soil. Plants cannot synthesize everything that makes good food literally out of the air.
You're missing the point. The problem is too many people. Right now. Given the available technology now and for the intermediate future, there are too many people. The "solution" may indeed by found in technolgy, but that we are decades - at least - away from ways to transport (for example) food to even twice as many people as we have now without needing more energy than is available. To say nothing of the people from whom that energy must be purchased.
Because the NIMBY leftists can't stand nuclear power, and because wind and solar can only scratch around the surface of the shortcomings, we are going to be in a worsening state in this regard for decades, yet. Waving your hands and pretending that a change on the scale of that from hunter gatherers to current industrialized agriculture is just around the corner and will be hundreds of times more efficient
There are monarchies around the world that have existed for more than a 1000 years
Sure, because in most cases the elected representatives in those countries have chosen to retain those monarchies as celebrity pets. In cases where the monarchies actually have any real power or authority, it's maintained by force - not by the happy support of a given family's subjects. Of course you know that, and you're just thrashing around trying to find a way in which a constitution-based representative republic can be made to look bad, since you'd prefer a pure Nanny State.
In reality, we can easily support hundreds of billions of people all living at what we would call "western standards", whatever that means in 20-80 years time.
... are planning on stacking them all up in warehouses, Matrix-style, or what? Never mind your presumption about Helium 3 or Mr. Fusion, or whatever you think is going to provide climate control and food/water processing and transportation for hundreds of times more people than are currently packed into the world's livable spots. Do you really want to live like that? I guess if you're a never-leave-Mom's-basement type, that might seem just fine.
What a load of crap. Hundreds of billions of people living well on a world that can barely support a few percent of that number now? And
Where was that famous American sense of personal responsibility? Did the lack of regulation really work for the people when the banks collapsed? I think not.
... and so up went the prices, and we had a housing bubble. All of those really foolish, government-pushed/backed loans were still held by the companies that issued them, and many of them wanted to get rid of them. They were bundled up and sold in blocks to investors. These were considered easy investments, because the government was backing the loans.
Then you weren't paying attention. The entire problem was a result of the government being involved in the home lending industry. They implicitly gauranteed loans made to low-income people who had no prospects of being able to actually pay them back. When people in the Bush administration went before Congress to explain that it appeared to be getting out of control, the Democrats in charge of the oversight committee (like chairman Barney Frank) insisted that the quasi-governmental mortgage underwriting entities in question were perfectly well capitalized, and in fact that what needed to happen was for the government to put more pressure on lenders to hand out more absurd loans.
With all of that government-pushed, cheap, too-abundant home debt credit out there, the supply pressure on the houses was huge
Of course there was no real, honest equity in all of those sub-prime, idiotic loans that were used to "buy" houses that were (as a result) wildy over-priced. The government caused the problem (no company would have issued those loans without the governement pressure involved), and the people in the government currently roasting investment companies for not seeing that the house of cards was as serious as it was are the very same people that pushed to build it in the first place.
Government involvement in a market, in the name of social engineering, is directly at the heart of the entire mess. And those that were screaming the loudest about how it was "unfair" for people making $30,000 a year to not be able to easily get a no-down-payment, interest-only loan for a $500,000 house are now the ones screaming that investors who saw it for the sham that it was bet against that bubble ("shorting" the situation). Typical.
honestly would have thought at this point almost all spam originated outside the US
It does. You're confusing the origination of the spam with the infected machines used to relay it.
the governments have the responsibility to ensure their citizens are safe
Does the government tie your shoes each morning, and make sure that you change the oil on your car? Do they announce bans on roof work by construction crews during high winds, or make announcements to swimming pool operators to ban swimming every time a thunderstorm is in the area?
Does nobody in your country have any sense of personal accountability and judgement that could possibly rise to the level of a different person in your country who just happens to work for the government? How do you decide what to have for breakfast each morning? Think of the risks!
My theory is that if the focus is generating revenues, not the customer (or the product), failure is to be expected in this case
Why to people always act like these things are mutually exclusive? Who wants customers that can't undertand that the people providing them with the goods and services they want won't be there if they're bankrupt? Companies have to keep customers in mind, and customers who like those companies can't complain that money needs to change hands for the relationship to grow and thrive.
Danny Glover said that the Haitian earthquake happened because there wasn't enough climate treaty action in Denmark with week before. Was Al Gore on vacation?
You want to be a fan of a person, an artist, a writer, a great athlete, a craftsman, that's fine, because as a human being, he has a desire to do something of value, even if for the appreciation of one other person.
What a bunch of nonsense. I know plenty of artists and craftsman that would not spend all of their waking hours doing what they do if they couldn't make a profit doing it. Pretending that artists (all of them) don't care about turning a profit is just silly.
A corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit, and profit does not respond to people's desires or needs or appreciation of beauty or excellence.
An even bigger bunch of nonsense. Do you really find it impossible to conceive of customers buying things from a company because they find the product to be beautiful and responsive to their desires? That's the whole point of competition in a market. Do people just buy any bathroom faucet they see, or do they make aesthetic choices, purchasing the one they like? It may not matter to some people (say, those that are just looking for function and a low price), but for others, it's not a bit different than buying a sculpture from an artist. Or from a group of artists who happen to have incorporated in order to conduct their business.
A corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit
They can't exist if they don't make one (not counting all of those non-profit corporations, of course), but that doesn't mean that is their only reason to exist. People form companies all the time, specifically because they want to see an organization doing a particular thing in a particular way, in puruit of a particular customer with particular values and priorities. Those things and earning a profit are not mutually exclusive. But not earning a profit is a sure way to be no longer able to do those things in the way you like.
you failed in the market, so get the government to force people to pay you
How is the government forcing people to pay them? The government can only force people who ripped them off, and got caught doing it, to pay court-ordered damages. The government isn't forcing people to rip off a movie any more than it forces people to hop over a fence to sneak into a concert without paying.
No amount of blind justification of strict government enforcement or ad hominem attacks against me and others like me will change that.
Nor will your deliberate (or wildly ignorant) mischaracterization of "idea communication" ever give you moral cover for wanting creative people to be your pet entertainment slaves. What does "blind justification" actually mean, anyway? There's nothing "blind" going on here - it's all very simple. You can't copy somebody's work without their permission, and some people grant that permission in advance, while others don't. You'd prefer to force that creative person to do as you see fit, because you think you are entitled to their day's work. Nothing blind about it - it's plain as day.
This whole copyright protection debate is just corporate-sponsored Prohibition for the 21st century. It's unenforceable without totalitarian government control
Spoken just like a person who's never created anything in his life, especially for a living. You do realize (right?) that artists, film makers, muscians, writers - anyone who makes something that is covered by copyright law - can waive those rights any time they want. Which means that the actual people you're bitching about aren't The Eeeevil Corporate Publishers, but the artists who make the conscious, deliberate decision to work with a publisher in order to make a living at what they do. Why aren't you complaining about all of the novelists, painters, photographers, illustrators, designers, composers, recording artists and everyone else who creates material being such big supporters of Totalitarianism? Why? Because you know you're being a jackass, that's why.
Communicating ideas to another person should never be illegal
Go ahead! Communicate an idea. But if you're too lazy to have your own ideas to communicate (even your rant, above, is a lazy regurgitation), how about respecting the wishes of the creative person you want to shamelessly parrot? Some of them have agreed to let other people reproduce their work at will, and most have no choice but to allow properly framed "fair use" excerpts to be introduced into academic and journalistic presentations.
Of course you know all of that. You're just looking for some moral cover so that you can rip off porn, comic books, and your favorite Brittany Spears material without feeling so sleazy about it. Too late.
The only time our debt has gone down since that giant "debt clock" thing was built was under Clinton
Yup. And lucky Clinton got to benefit from the coasting period following the Regean economic growth, and he got have a nice big vacation from the Cold War and its current counterparts. This had nothing to do with Clinton, and everything to do with what he was handed by circumstance. By the time Clinton was done, we were well on our way to a recession, a ruinous housing/tech bubble, and Islamists that he was hoping would just go away were ramping up to 9/11, even though Clinton gave them a very stern lecture about attacking the WTC the first time, blowing up US embassies, and damaging the USS Cole with casualties to her crew, etc.