Those are some hardcore ***ards. They have been told by scientists they have nothing, but they carry on.
But they're not forcing anybody to invest in their venture, so it's really not any worse than talking somebody into investing in a restaurant that you insist on putting in a place that gets no foot traffic, has no parking, and to which you stand no chance of attracting patrons. Somebody might buy into the wishful thinking, but a rational investor will realize that it's not easy (or ever likely) money.
Now, if they're actually defrauding investors by falsifying data, that's another matter. But they seem to be walking the line pretty cannily, here. At which point, the investors get what they deserve.
I'm talking about LICENSED software installed on corporate desktops, dipshit.
Which is why I mentioned the other options, you know? Why are you bitching about software made in another country, instead of bitching about the fact that nobody in your country can be bothered to make something superior, and better suited to your tastes? Oh, I know. Because you're a caustic person who'd rather come out swinging at what about another country "really pisses me off" instead of talking about how unhappy he is that none of his countrymen are in the mood to compete with their own products, or demonstrate enough of a demand for regionalized printer drivers and user interfaces to cause it to happen.
I'm talking about LICENSED software installed on corporate desktops, dipshit
And instead of complaining about your corporate IT department's unwillingness to procure and configure your tools the way you want, you just decide that those damn foreign companies are what really piss you off? I can see that you're a joy to work with.
It really, really pisses me off when software defaults to Letter size paper, Imperial (non-metric) measures, MDY dates, American spelling. Often WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING OR ASKING THE USERL
Well, maybe you should use properly licensed, regionalized software, instead of pirated warez based on stuff published for U.S. users? Or, maybe there should be something like a major Australian software company that sees things the way you'd prefer them? Then you can gloat when pirated copies of their products don't make any damn sense to people in other cultures.
Really, it's simple. Just don't buy products you don't like, and don't bitch if you're using stuff you haven't paid for. You can either roll your own, or pay someone who makes something the way you like it.
But those scenarios require the assumption that all double-votes (which can only be counted as being for a given candidate if you claim to be able to read the voter's mind) were really votes for Gore. Those scenarios were looked at as a way to see if there was any conceivable way to see a way in which Gore could have won, regardless of the districts that he wanted recounted. The answer is yes, if you provide for the acceptance of ballots that would never normally be accepted, and which you're willing to interpret in a deliberately unreasonable way. In other words: those scenrarios are what-ifs that would never, and should never, pass muster in reality.
Everything wandering around for a few years after the election said that Gore took the vote when the whole state was recounted
If by "everything," you mean "out-of-context poor excerpts from the actual facts," then... sure, I suppose. The actual reality is that the only way in which a state-wide recount would have barely pushed things into Gore's favor would have been the inclusion of rejected "over-votes," where the voter voted for both candidates, and where the favor only goes to Gore if you assume that all double votes were really Gore votes. Such ballots are - for obvious reasons - not generally ever accepted, because that would require mind reading on the part of the election board.
I'd like to know which year the history was successfully rewritten
2001, when then studies were all finished.
Were minority voters (Gore) still hosed during the election?
Yes, yes, all minorities were treated horribly and all of them are known by you absolutely to only vote left. Nice of you to speak for them. I suppose you're also quite upset with the 2008 polling places that had Black Panthers with nightsticks intimidating reporters and "non-minorities" at the door. Right? You are upset about that, right? Does it bother you that the Justice Department under the current administration watched video tape of these clowns, and still decided not to prosecute them? No? OK, just checking.
Did Bush now leap into action as soon as he heard WTC got hit? or did he still wait ~45 min?
What's it like there in your comic book fantasy world where the president micro manages things on sketchy information, and "leaps into action" without having his professional security, intelligence, defense, and law enforcement people first gather and present enough information to actually act on? Or do you prefer the way that Obama lept into action days after a US flagged ship was taken by pirates off Somalia? What? You mean he didn't drop what he was doing, fly to the sccene, and grab a rifle from a Navy SEAL to personally help out? You must really be upset, huh. Or is it that you're just trolling? Yeah, I thought so.
The point is that the Supreme Court cancelled the recount of the Florida election results, effectively appointing George W. Bush president. Why didn't they allow the recount to finish?
Ah, so you preferred the method that Gore's lawyers wanted, and which the left-leaning courts in Florida initially backed: partial recounts, only in those voting districts hand-picked by Gore's team to increase the odds of improving his count. The Supreme Court weighed in on the fact that the standards being used to handle those recounts weren't consistent, and weren't in keeping with the constitutional concept of equal protection. You'll note that Gore's team vigrousoy opposed a state-wide recount (becuase they didn't want that - it would have been to their disadvantage, and they knew it).
And of course, you're surely aware that in the weeks following the ruling, every vote was recounted by several teams of people, using every standard advocated by either candidate, and several others, as well. In each recount, regardless of the technique used, Gore lost in Florida. Not to bother you with the facts or anything.
The Supreme Court didn't stop "the recount," they stopped a capricious, moving-target, standards-less partial recount of one candidate's hand-picked districts that was handling one voter's hanging chad different than another voter's from a different zip code. It took the follow-up state-wide recounts done by journalists and researchers months to finish, but the results were as expected and as first (and repeatedly) certificed by the Florida board of elections: Gore lost no matter how you looked at the numbers. To say nothing of the large number of military votes (from Floridians, those are usually not left-leaning) that never even made it into the mix.
Of course, you already knew all of this. Nice troll, though!
Of course. Slashdot is always full of comments mentioning all of the fabulous entertainment being made by people who hate The Man and are producing and distributing their work without the baggage of a major label or the DRM or other things so frequently railed against. The way to "opt out" is to patronize the artists who don't want money, instead of the ones that do want money. That's what everyone here preaches, so they must be speaking from experience and have lots of no-money-needed-to-live artists to choose from. That way they can opt out of ripping off the artists who are asking for money inexchange for providing entertainment.
Just ask around. This site is full of people who are sure that there's no need to pay artists. They must have a great list of volunteers who make great films, novels, and sophisticated studio recordings that they're happy to give away. Because, that's what we keep hearing, right? That the artists hate that they are forced to sign contracts with publishers, right? So, now the internet is magic, and nobody needs to charge anything any more. What a great time to want entertainment! Yay! The quality of entertainment will only go up, now that there's no need to think of composers or authors or photographers or musicians as professionals. Passionate, penniless amateurs who produce their art part time while working landscaping jobs during the day are a much better model.
Which is... what? That when an artist offers something for sale, it's no OK and "modern" to just rip them off and not pay, rather than go somewhere else for your entertainment? So modern! "Of course I just ripped off music that my favorite artist offered for sale! I'm modern, and everybody else is doing it!"
sabotage and/or sue
Ah, so you've got some case studies of record labels that sue other record labels who give away signed artists' work? Please, do tell.
A "good" capitalist business should... cater to their customer
People who rip off a business are not "customers."
should work with their customer
Which most do. The people who are their actual customers are the ones they work with. A retail store really doesn't need to "work with" a shoplifter.
should take advantage of technology, etc
You mean, find a way to avoid having their wares ripped off by people using technology... like, by using technology to find out who is ripping them off?
A good business would sue someone who stole their property for the amount of losses they experienced.
Or they might even sue for what it costs them to deal with the fact that they were ripped off (as in, the legal costs of having to actually get into a civil court in the first place to make someone stop ripping them off). Losses include what it costs to deal with the fact that there are losses - the costs of dealing with the person you've just caught causing those losses. Or are you saying that a business should pass the true costs of theft on to a real, paying customers, even when they know who is ripping them off?
the consumers are the victims
When you rip somebody off, you don't get to decide later to just pay what the goods would have cost, then - having made that "offer" (which you, being the sort of person who was happy to rip them off in the first place, would never have made unless caught ripping them off in the first place) - get to call yourself a "customer" and demand warm and fuzzy treatment, and complain that the people you were ripping off were mean for having caught you in the act, and then getting testy when you stamp your feet and insist that it's unfair that you can't dictate the terms under which you rip things off.
A "good" capitalist is one that doesn't rip off stuff they're not in the mood to pay for. A good capitalist takes their business to another record label and artist and either buys their entertainment there, or finds someone who wants to work for free, and says so. The people who rip off stuff they're too cheap to pay for, but don't have the intellectual integrity to simply walk away from, are the only ones who are in a position to drive or stop this sort of thing.
If a trade association does sue someone for ripping off one of their members, and there isn't any actual evidence that it happened, then not only is a judge going to laugh it out of court, but that trade association is a legitimate sitting duck for a suit from the person who was baselessly sued. But that doesn't really matter, does it, when the person in question actually was ripping them off, and obviously felt so entitled to do so that even when confronted by the people she ripped off, she just assumed that nothing bad could really happen to her - and poured gasoline on the fire she started.
Yes. The Japanese, who started that conflict and who were busy raping their way around the Pacific Rim (literally), sure were lucky to get a wake-up call from two small nukes so that hundreds of thousands or millions more of their people didn't die in the ground invasion that would otherwise would have been necessary to shut down what they started.
Why you prefer the horrors of being shot to pieces or burned alive in "conventional" attacks that kill many more people is something of a mystery, but hey, if you're a sadist you're a sadist, I guess.
By that logic, would the East be morally justified in destroying American nuclear weapons facilities?
No, because the western democracies do not conduct themselves in the same way as the tyrants that run places like Iran and North Korea. Western governments don't make fist-shaking speeches that include discussions about their glorious nuclear programs and also about wiping another country and its people off the map.
Really? You really think that a years-long string of state and federal investigations into repeat offenses by ACORN will somehow just go away because you trot out the "citation needed" card? Just spend a couple of moments Googling, why don't you.
Of course the left-leaning blogosphere is whistling past the graveyard, and hoping nobody notices the mess. But people who don't actually like George Soros et al are happy to accumulate some salient details for you.
That isn't even a coherent question. You need to ask, "Which serves the idealogical goal of redistribution of someone else's work?" or "Which provides guaranteed cash for people that are not working?" or "Which method entrenches the Nanny State more effectively?" or "Which approach provides a dis-incentive to be productive?"
By "more social" do you mean "more in keeping with what is currently understood to be a Socialist approach to running a society?"
And you're not? Your idealogy embraces the taking of part of one person's productive work, by threat of force/imprisonment, and giving it to someone else to improve that other person's standard of living at the expense of the other. That's the height of dyed-in-the-wool idealogy, and it's all about "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need," with the government defining ability and need, and doing so in an entirely political context.
And don't tell me you're simply a pragmatist. Because being willing to take something from one person to give to another, by force, in the name of pragmatism does define a specific world view. It says volumes about who you value, what value you attach to a person's work, and what value you put into giving an intermediary (the government) the power to take and distribute the products of one group of people's work to another group. You're endorsing slavery, as a matter of principle. That's as idealogical as it gets, however twisted it might be.
Ah. And what are you measuring? The density of a particular chemical as found within a give volume of the plant material? And every example of the plant material will always have the same proportion of that chemical by weight or by volume, every time? No need to worry about how damp the material is when you make those measurements? So at what point does establishing a careful, reproducibly accurate method of delivering a specific amount of a chemical from a plant still fall short of being a pharmaceutical? Is it only a pharmaceutical if the measurement is accurate, and it's "alternative" if you can't really be sure how much of something is in there? Or is it only a pharaceutical if the person who's preparing it for you happened to incorporate their business?
Never mind. Obviously you don't actually think about anything that carefully anyway. How's that rhinocerous horn powder working on your virility problem, anyway?
Sure, except when it doesn't, or is faced with a wound or pathogen that the body simply can't handle.
if people expanded their horizons and stopped popping Advils or taking Zicam when they aren't feeling well and taking another root (natural medicine, anyone?), It's guaranteed society would notice a difference
Ah, so you know of a root that is an analgesic, or which has anti-inflammatory properties? That's nice. Can you tell how to provide exactly the right amount of that root, prepared in exactly the right and consistent way, to produce just the anti-inflammatory effect needed without also causing liver or kidney trouble, or provoking an allergic response? Really? So, can you explain to a couple hundred thousand local witch doctors exactly how to predictably prepare, store, and dispense that substance so that anyone traveling can be sure they're getting just what they know will work, no matter where they go? I see, so we need some standards for preparation and dosing, just to be safe? I know, let's call those "pharmaceuticals."
I know precisely how much Ibuprofen will relieve a handful of aches and pains that I can routinely get from certain physical activities. I can find it anywhere, and bank on the results. I'm glad that I don't have to go into an "alternative medicine" shop and get what I hope will be the right sort of powdered root extract from a guy who also promises me that ground up rhinocerous horn will improve my love life.
It's a total mass produced, corporate, industrially made drug
Ah, so a drug made by one person is OK, then? How about two people? Ten? At which point does the number of people working in the facility that puts a given chemical into a given form change it from being Good to being Bad? Ah, I see, you're a blowhard nitwit.
The millionaire still has $900,000 left, which can cover ANYONE'S basic living needs
The objective of a government is to write tax policies around leaving just enough for people to get by on? Level the playing field by tearing down the most productive people? Excellent plan.
Further, your flat income tax suggestion ignores the ability-to-pay-principle: those who can afford to pay more, should (i.e. progressive taxation). Otherwise you are expecting the weak to carry the same burden as the strong, when the weak should be supported by the strong. Because the weak (poor) spend a greater proportion of their income on the necessities of life than their strong (rich), a flat tax hits them proportionally harder - though it seems counter-intuitive, a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners. Also supporting the ability-to-pay-principle is the decreasing marginal utility of income.
This is so wrong it's not even wrong.
With a flat tax, the people who earn substantially more money are paying substantially more taxes. In a 10% scenario, the kid out of school, flipping burgers for beer money and making only $10k, pays $1k in taxes. The law firm partner making $1m pays a thousand times more in taxes (do you really suppose he's getting a thousand times more in government services?). He pays the same tax burden as thousand part-time burger flippers. To say nothing of the tax revenue that is also created through sales and use taxes when he actually spends any of his more substantial income, or when he pays his real estate property taxes, or when the people he pays to maintain that property in turn participate in the economy and tax system.
...a flat tax hits them proportionally harder...
No. It hits each of their dollars in exactly the same way.
a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners
How? It's utterly blind to how a given dollar is made. A progressive tax, on the other hand, actually does, actively and by design, discriminate against those that produce more, or work harder. Your low-wage-earning guy that has it in him to work two jobs so that he can bring up his family's standard of living? That guy, through progressive taxes, is punished for having the energy and dedication to work harder and take risks. That is discrimination.
a tax-free threshold that would allow everyone to purchase the necessities of life, then taxing flatly from then on
So, is a fat person allowed to purchase more "necessities of life" than a skinny person? Is the person who decides to live in an area where houses are routinely destroyed by hurricanes allowed to get more tax-free "necessities of life" income because they've chosen to live in a way that costs more than someone else? Ah, I see - you're suggesting a gigantic new bureacracy (paid for by more taxes, of course) that would be in charge of figuring out just how much of a necessity is each and every purchase, as applied to each demographic living under each possible circumstance in each geographic area. Because obviously someone living in North Dakota needs a substantial all-terrain vehicle and a snowmobile, whereas the family living in Georgia doesn't. Or do they? Gosh, the efficiency of your plan is amazing! What could possibly get in the way of it being fair and quickly implemented!
is to simply give everyone a basic income (say, US$11000 - the US Poverty Threshold in 2008) and then tax every dollar of income.
Ah, a sort of fiscal perpetual motion machine, then? Why not simply redistribute less of someone else's income to the people who get the freebies, and not collect tax from them? Oh, because you think it's more efficient to involve more money moving around, more tax professionals needed to keep track of who gets what, more record keeping... more friction in the system that generates the heat of corruption, political power grabbing, and all of the rest that naturally comes from more government involvement in money flowing two directions, instead of just one? You aren't working for a government employee labor union's public relations office by any chance are you?
the collection and payment of sales tax is up to the landscaper or handyman, not the person paying them
Actually, in most states, is IS up to the person buying the goods or services to pay the taxes if the service provider or vendor doesn't collect and remit those taxes. It's usually called a "use" tax, etc. So, if you're in California for example, and have a product shipped to you from South Dakota... you're supposed to write a check to your state government in the amount that the sales tax would have been if you'd made the same purchase from a retailer in California.
Maybe it is, or maybe it isn't. But this thread had nothing to do with censorship. We're talking about a private web site run by a business. They are under absolutely no obligation to show, index, or communicate anything in a particular way. Serving the thumbnails off of a separate domain doesn't censor anything. It changes nothing unless you take some extra step yourself to block traffic coming from that domain. Regardless, it's not the government, there's no force involved... it's not censorship. People who use that word in this context are just displaying their ongoing ignorance of what censorship actually is, and their ignorance of the difference between a business tailoring what it delivers on its own web site and, say, China or Iran - where actual censorship (with consquences) is routine.
Then maybe you should say what you actually mean, rather than suggesting that people wouldn't care if their likenesses were used commercially without their permission if only our society had evolved in a way that makes artists' work communal property. Though you did seem pretty clear about that, since you used words that say just that.
No, I got your point just as you really intended it. You'd prefer a society where leeching is the norm, and where having a say in the disposition of your own work is considered somehow bad. And in this fantasy world, skilled and clever artists will still somehow magically want to entertain you with their creative works without earning a living. I suppose you'd like a pony, too. A nice, compliant, socialist pony.
almost as much learning curve as it would to build a custom solution from scratch to suit your needs
Man, have I got a snappy retort for you, mister. Hold on while I write my own version of the slashcode and put up a new web site so you can see what I have to say. Or, I can send you a fax. I'll need your street address so I can string up some copper wire to your house.
They are talking about primary roads here, which are generally roads which connect one populated area to another populated area, and are thus vital to the commerce of the entire area
Ah, well, there's your problem. This is Michigan. There no longer is any commerce, so no need for fancy-pants roads. The Romans had nice roads, didn't they? Look what happened to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are some hardcore ***ards. They have been told by scientists they have nothing, but they carry on.
But they're not forcing anybody to invest in their venture, so it's really not any worse than talking somebody into investing in a restaurant that you insist on putting in a place that gets no foot traffic, has no parking, and to which you stand no chance of attracting patrons. Somebody might buy into the wishful thinking, but a rational investor will realize that it's not easy (or ever likely) money.
Now, if they're actually defrauding investors by falsifying data, that's another matter. But they seem to be walking the line pretty cannily, here. At which point, the investors get what they deserve.
I'm talking about LICENSED software installed on corporate desktops, dipshit.
Which is why I mentioned the other options, you know? Why are you bitching about software made in another country, instead of bitching about the fact that nobody in your country can be bothered to make something superior, and better suited to your tastes? Oh, I know. Because you're a caustic person who'd rather come out swinging at what about another country "really pisses me off" instead of talking about how unhappy he is that none of his countrymen are in the mood to compete with their own products, or demonstrate enough of a demand for regionalized printer drivers and user interfaces to cause it to happen.
I'm talking about LICENSED software installed on corporate desktops, dipshit
And instead of complaining about your corporate IT department's unwillingness to procure and configure your tools the way you want, you just decide that those damn foreign companies are what really piss you off? I can see that you're a joy to work with.
It really, really pisses me off when software defaults to Letter size paper, Imperial (non-metric) measures, MDY dates, American spelling. Often WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING OR ASKING THE USERL
Well, maybe you should use properly licensed, regionalized software, instead of pirated warez based on stuff published for U.S. users? Or, maybe there should be something like a major Australian software company that sees things the way you'd prefer them? Then you can gloat when pirated copies of their products don't make any damn sense to people in other cultures.
Really, it's simple. Just don't buy products you don't like, and don't bitch if you're using stuff you haven't paid for. You can either roll your own, or pay someone who makes something the way you like it.
Gore won some of the scenarios
But those scenarios require the assumption that all double-votes (which can only be counted as being for a given candidate if you claim to be able to read the voter's mind) were really votes for Gore. Those scenarios were looked at as a way to see if there was any conceivable way to see a way in which Gore could have won, regardless of the districts that he wanted recounted. The answer is yes, if you provide for the acceptance of ballots that would never normally be accepted, and which you're willing to interpret in a deliberately unreasonable way. In other words: those scenrarios are what-ifs that would never, and should never, pass muster in reality.
Everything wandering around for a few years after the election said that Gore took the vote when the whole state was recounted
If by "everything," you mean "out-of-context poor excerpts from the actual facts," then... sure, I suppose. The actual reality is that the only way in which a state-wide recount would have barely pushed things into Gore's favor would have been the inclusion of rejected "over-votes," where the voter voted for both candidates, and where the favor only goes to Gore if you assume that all double votes were really Gore votes. Such ballots are - for obvious reasons - not generally ever accepted, because that would require mind reading on the part of the election board.
I'd like to know which year the history was successfully rewritten
2001, when then studies were all finished.
Were minority voters (Gore) still hosed during the election?
Yes, yes, all minorities were treated horribly and all of them are known by you absolutely to only vote left. Nice of you to speak for them. I suppose you're also quite upset with the 2008 polling places that had Black Panthers with nightsticks intimidating reporters and "non-minorities" at the door. Right? You are upset about that, right? Does it bother you that the Justice Department under the current administration watched video tape of these clowns, and still decided not to prosecute them? No? OK, just checking.
Did Bush now leap into action as soon as he heard WTC got hit? or did he still wait ~45 min?
What's it like there in your comic book fantasy world where the president micro manages things on sketchy information, and "leaps into action" without having his professional security, intelligence, defense, and law enforcement people first gather and present enough information to actually act on? Or do you prefer the way that Obama lept into action days after a US flagged ship was taken by pirates off Somalia? What? You mean he didn't drop what he was doing, fly to the sccene, and grab a rifle from a Navy SEAL to personally help out? You must really be upset, huh. Or is it that you're just trolling? Yeah, I thought so.
The point is that the Supreme Court cancelled the recount of the Florida election results, effectively appointing George W. Bush president. Why didn't they allow the recount to finish?
Ah, so you preferred the method that Gore's lawyers wanted, and which the left-leaning courts in Florida initially backed: partial recounts, only in those voting districts hand-picked by Gore's team to increase the odds of improving his count. The Supreme Court weighed in on the fact that the standards being used to handle those recounts weren't consistent, and weren't in keeping with the constitutional concept of equal protection. You'll note that Gore's team vigrousoy opposed a state-wide recount (becuase they didn't want that - it would have been to their disadvantage, and they knew it).
And of course, you're surely aware that in the weeks following the ruling, every vote was recounted by several teams of people, using every standard advocated by either candidate, and several others, as well. In each recount, regardless of the technique used, Gore lost in Florida. Not to bother you with the facts or anything.
The Supreme Court didn't stop "the recount," they stopped a capricious, moving-target, standards-less partial recount of one candidate's hand-picked districts that was handling one voter's hanging chad different than another voter's from a different zip code. It took the follow-up state-wide recounts done by journalists and researchers months to finish, but the results were as expected and as first (and repeatedly) certificed by the Florida board of elections: Gore lost no matter how you looked at the numbers. To say nothing of the large number of military votes (from Floridians, those are usually not left-leaning) that never even made it into the mix.
Of course, you already knew all of this. Nice troll, though!
is there an opt-out button somewhere?
Of course. Slashdot is always full of comments mentioning all of the fabulous entertainment being made by people who hate The Man and are producing and distributing their work without the baggage of a major label or the DRM or other things so frequently railed against. The way to "opt out" is to patronize the artists who don't want money, instead of the ones that do want money. That's what everyone here preaches, so they must be speaking from experience and have lots of no-money-needed-to-live artists to choose from. That way they can opt out of ripping off the artists who are asking for money inexchange for providing entertainment.
Just ask around. This site is full of people who are sure that there's no need to pay artists. They must have a great list of volunteers who make great films, novels, and sophisticated studio recordings that they're happy to give away. Because, that's what we keep hearing, right? That the artists hate that they are forced to sign contracts with publishers, right? So, now the internet is magic, and nobody needs to charge anything any more. What a great time to want entertainment! Yay! The quality of entertainment will only go up, now that there's no need to think of composers or authors or photographers or musicians as professionals. Passionate, penniless amateurs who produce their art part time while working landscaping jobs during the day are a much better model.
the modern way of thinking
Which is... what? That when an artist offers something for sale, it's no OK and "modern" to just rip them off and not pay, rather than go somewhere else for your entertainment? So modern! "Of course I just ripped off music that my favorite artist offered for sale! I'm modern, and everybody else is doing it!"
sabotage and/or sue
Ah, so you've got some case studies of record labels that sue other record labels who give away signed artists' work? Please, do tell.
A "good" capitalist business should ... cater to their customer
... like, by using technology to find out who is ripping them off?
People who rip off a business are not "customers."
should work with their customer
Which most do. The people who are their actual customers are the ones they work with. A retail store really doesn't need to "work with" a shoplifter.
should take advantage of technology, etc
You mean, find a way to avoid having their wares ripped off by people using technology
A good business would sue someone who stole their property for the amount of losses they experienced.
Or they might even sue for what it costs them to deal with the fact that they were ripped off (as in, the legal costs of having to actually get into a civil court in the first place to make someone stop ripping them off). Losses include what it costs to deal with the fact that there are losses - the costs of dealing with the person you've just caught causing those losses. Or are you saying that a business should pass the true costs of theft on to a real, paying customers, even when they know who is ripping them off?
the consumers are the victims
When you rip somebody off, you don't get to decide later to just pay what the goods would have cost, then - having made that "offer" (which you, being the sort of person who was happy to rip them off in the first place, would never have made unless caught ripping them off in the first place) - get to call yourself a "customer" and demand warm and fuzzy treatment, and complain that the people you were ripping off were mean for having caught you in the act, and then getting testy when you stamp your feet and insist that it's unfair that you can't dictate the terms under which you rip things off.
A "good" capitalist is one that doesn't rip off stuff they're not in the mood to pay for. A good capitalist takes their business to another record label and artist and either buys their entertainment there, or finds someone who wants to work for free, and says so. The people who rip off stuff they're too cheap to pay for, but don't have the intellectual integrity to simply walk away from, are the only ones who are in a position to drive or stop this sort of thing.
If a trade association does sue someone for ripping off one of their members, and there isn't any actual evidence that it happened, then not only is a judge going to laugh it out of court, but that trade association is a legitimate sitting duck for a suit from the person who was baselessly sued. But that doesn't really matter, does it, when the person in question actually was ripping them off, and obviously felt so entitled to do so that even when confronted by the people she ripped off, she just assumed that nothing bad could really happen to her - and poured gasoline on the fire she started.
Someone remember Hiroshima
Yes. The Japanese, who started that conflict and who were busy raping their way around the Pacific Rim (literally), sure were lucky to get a wake-up call from two small nukes so that hundreds of thousands or millions more of their people didn't die in the ground invasion that would otherwise would have been necessary to shut down what they started.
Why you prefer the horrors of being shot to pieces or burned alive in "conventional" attacks that kill many more people is something of a mystery, but hey, if you're a sadist you're a sadist, I guess.
By that logic, would the East be morally justified in destroying American nuclear weapons facilities?
No, because the western democracies do not conduct themselves in the same way as the tyrants that run places like Iran and North Korea. Western governments don't make fist-shaking speeches that include discussions about their glorious nuclear programs and also about wiping another country and its people off the map.
[citation needed]
Really? You really think that a years-long string of state and federal investigations into repeat offenses by ACORN will somehow just go away because you trot out the "citation needed" card? Just spend a couple of moments Googling, why don't you.
Of course the left-leaning blogosphere is whistling past the graveyard, and hoping nobody notices the mess. But people who don't actually like George Soros et al are happy to accumulate some salient details for you .
Which is more social?
That isn't even a coherent question. You need to ask, "Which serves the idealogical goal of redistribution of someone else's work?" or "Which provides guaranteed cash for people that are not working?" or "Which method entrenches the Nanny State more effectively?" or "Which approach provides a dis-incentive to be productive?"
By "more social" do you mean "more in keeping with what is currently understood to be a Socialist approach to running a society?"
you're a dyed-in-the-wool ideologist
And you're not? Your idealogy embraces the taking of part of one person's productive work, by threat of force/imprisonment, and giving it to someone else to improve that other person's standard of living at the expense of the other. That's the height of dyed-in-the-wool idealogy, and it's all about "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need," with the government defining ability and need, and doing so in an entirely political context.
And don't tell me you're simply a pragmatist. Because being willing to take something from one person to give to another, by force, in the name of pragmatism does define a specific world view. It says volumes about who you value, what value you attach to a person's work, and what value you put into giving an intermediary (the government) the power to take and distribute the products of one group of people's work to another group. You're endorsing slavery, as a matter of principle. That's as idealogical as it gets, however twisted it might be.
it's called measuring retard
Ah. And what are you measuring? The density of a particular chemical as found within a give volume of the plant material? And every example of the plant material will always have the same proportion of that chemical by weight or by volume, every time? No need to worry about how damp the material is when you make those measurements? So at what point does establishing a careful, reproducibly accurate method of delivering a specific amount of a chemical from a plant still fall short of being a pharmaceutical? Is it only a pharmaceutical if the measurement is accurate, and it's "alternative" if you can't really be sure how much of something is in there? Or is it only a pharaceutical if the person who's preparing it for you happened to incorporate their business?
Never mind. Obviously you don't actually think about anything that carefully anyway. How's that rhinocerous horn powder working on your virility problem, anyway?
The body has phenomenal healing capabilities
Sure, except when it doesn't, or is faced with a wound or pathogen that the body simply can't handle.
if people expanded their horizons and stopped popping Advils or taking Zicam when they aren't feeling well and taking another root (natural medicine, anyone?), It's guaranteed society would notice a difference
Ah, so you know of a root that is an analgesic, or which has anti-inflammatory properties? That's nice. Can you tell how to provide exactly the right amount of that root, prepared in exactly the right and consistent way, to produce just the anti-inflammatory effect needed without also causing liver or kidney trouble, or provoking an allergic response? Really? So, can you explain to a couple hundred thousand local witch doctors exactly how to predictably prepare, store, and dispense that substance so that anyone traveling can be sure they're getting just what they know will work, no matter where they go? I see, so we need some standards for preparation and dosing, just to be safe? I know, let's call those "pharmaceuticals."
I know precisely how much Ibuprofen will relieve a handful of aches and pains that I can routinely get from certain physical activities. I can find it anywhere, and bank on the results. I'm glad that I don't have to go into an "alternative medicine" shop and get what I hope will be the right sort of powdered root extract from a guy who also promises me that ground up rhinocerous horn will improve my love life.
It's a total mass produced, corporate, industrially made drug
Ah, so a drug made by one person is OK, then? How about two people? Ten? At which point does the number of people working in the facility that puts a given chemical into a given form change it from being Good to being Bad? Ah, I see, you're a blowhard nitwit.
The millionaire still has $900,000 left, which can cover ANYONE'S basic living needs
The objective of a government is to write tax policies around leaving just enough for people to get by on? Level the playing field by tearing down the most productive people? Excellent plan.
Further, your flat income tax suggestion ignores the ability-to-pay-principle: those who can afford to pay more, should (i.e. progressive taxation). Otherwise you are expecting the weak to carry the same burden as the strong, when the weak should be supported by the strong. Because the weak (poor) spend a greater proportion of their income on the necessities of life than their strong (rich), a flat tax hits them proportionally harder - though it seems counter-intuitive, a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners. Also supporting the ability-to-pay-principle is the decreasing marginal utility of income.
...a flat tax hits them proportionally harder...
This is so wrong it's not even wrong.
With a flat tax, the people who earn substantially more money are paying substantially more taxes. In a 10% scenario, the kid out of school, flipping burgers for beer money and making only $10k, pays $1k in taxes. The law firm partner making $1m pays a thousand times more in taxes (do you really suppose he's getting a thousand times more in government services?). He pays the same tax burden as thousand part-time burger flippers. To say nothing of the tax revenue that is also created through sales and use taxes when he actually spends any of his more substantial income, or when he pays his real estate property taxes, or when the people he pays to maintain that property in turn participate in the economy and tax system.
No. It hits each of their dollars in exactly the same way.
a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners
How? It's utterly blind to how a given dollar is made. A progressive tax, on the other hand, actually does, actively and by design, discriminate against those that produce more, or work harder. Your low-wage-earning guy that has it in him to work two jobs so that he can bring up his family's standard of living? That guy, through progressive taxes, is punished for having the energy and dedication to work harder and take risks. That is discrimination.
a tax-free threshold that would allow everyone to purchase the necessities of life, then taxing flatly from then on
So, is a fat person allowed to purchase more "necessities of life" than a skinny person? Is the person who decides to live in an area where houses are routinely destroyed by hurricanes allowed to get more tax-free "necessities of life" income because they've chosen to live in a way that costs more than someone else? Ah, I see - you're suggesting a gigantic new bureacracy (paid for by more taxes, of course) that would be in charge of figuring out just how much of a necessity is each and every purchase, as applied to each demographic living under each possible circumstance in each geographic area. Because obviously someone living in North Dakota needs a substantial all-terrain vehicle and a snowmobile, whereas the family living in Georgia doesn't. Or do they? Gosh, the efficiency of your plan is amazing! What could possibly get in the way of it being fair and quickly implemented!
is to simply give everyone a basic income (say, US$11000 - the US Poverty Threshold in 2008) and then tax every dollar of income.
Ah, a sort of fiscal perpetual motion machine, then? Why not simply redistribute less of someone else's income to the people who get the freebies, and not collect tax from them? Oh, because you think it's more efficient to involve more money moving around, more tax professionals needed to keep track of who gets what, more record keeping... more friction in the system that generates the heat of corruption, political power grabbing, and all of the rest that naturally comes from more government involvement in money flowing two directions, instead of just one? You aren't working for a government employee labor union's public relations office by any chance are you?
the collection and payment of sales tax is up to the landscaper or handyman, not the person paying them
Actually, in most states, is IS up to the person buying the goods or services to pay the taxes if the service provider or vendor doesn't collect and remit those taxes. It's usually called a "use" tax, etc. So, if you're in California for example, and have a product shipped to you from South Dakota... you're supposed to write a check to your state government in the amount that the sales tax would have been if you'd made the same purchase from a retailer in California.
Censorship is getting increasingly surreal.
Maybe it is, or maybe it isn't. But this thread had nothing to do with censorship. We're talking about a private web site run by a business. They are under absolutely no obligation to show, index, or communicate anything in a particular way. Serving the thumbnails off of a separate domain doesn't censor anything. It changes nothing unless you take some extra step yourself to block traffic coming from that domain. Regardless, it's not the government, there's no force involved... it's not censorship. People who use that word in this context are just displaying their ongoing ignorance of what censorship actually is, and their ignorance of the difference between a business tailoring what it delivers on its own web site and, say, China or Iran - where actual censorship (with consquences) is routine.
No you did not understand what I meant at all.
Then maybe you should say what you actually mean, rather than suggesting that people wouldn't care if their likenesses were used commercially without their permission if only our society had evolved in a way that makes artists' work communal property. Though you did seem pretty clear about that, since you used words that say just that.
You completely misunderstood my point
No, I got your point just as you really intended it. You'd prefer a society where leeching is the norm, and where having a say in the disposition of your own work is considered somehow bad. And in this fantasy world, skilled and clever artists will still somehow magically want to entertain you with their creative works without earning a living. I suppose you'd like a pony, too. A nice, compliant, socialist pony.
almost as much learning curve as it would to build a custom solution from scratch to suit your needs
Man, have I got a snappy retort for you, mister. Hold on while I write my own version of the slashcode and put up a new web site so you can see what I have to say. Or, I can send you a fax. I'll need your street address so I can string up some copper wire to your house.
They are talking about primary roads here, which are generally roads which connect one populated area to another populated area, and are thus vital to the commerce of the entire area
Ah, well, there's your problem. This is Michigan. There no longer is any commerce, so no need for fancy-pants roads. The Romans had nice roads, didn't they? Look what happened to them.