We're talking about Yahoo's free Flickr service, and you said that Yahoo is restraining your rights to speak freely. Again: is it their obligation to provide you with a platform from which to speak? That is a fundamental, non-nuanceable question.
You seem profoundly confused on the subject of the government not being allowed to limit what you can say, and a business being able to enter into a contract with you about how you will use their web site. Can you really not see that those two things have nothing to do with one another?
because they don't bother to protect you. In other words, all it takes is an accusation, or even a threat of a threat of an accusation. They shut you down and you have to retain a lawyer using money you (according to the laws of averages) do not have to "PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE".
Who is "they?" StrawManHosting.com? There is no such "they" unless you choose, from thousands of inexpensve hosting operations, one that provides for that in the contract you set up with them. The process by which a web site is taken down is clearly defined in the contract you establish with the provider. Some have an elaborate review process, and some don't. Since you seem uncharacteristically obsessed with hosting content that you're convinced will be, to a reasonable observer, seen as illegal, you must surely be willing to take the time to read through the terms and conditions of several different hosting contracts to find one you like. There are thousands to choose from, and a highly competitive, global market for that commodity service. A market you can also enter into for far less than the "millions" you claim.
Again: what content is it that you are so sure will fall outside the bounds of the contract you will sign? If your content only appears illegal to a reasonable person, you have recourse: spend your $10/month somewhere else, or allow a contingency lawyer to make both of you money off of a demonstrated breach of contract.
But you know that won't be necessary, because you know that this is all BS. You are flailing around trying to dream up reasons why a hosting company's terms of service are equal to the feudal use of force against your person. Your ability to just take your business elsewhere, or set up your own at will, completely nullifies that absurd metaphor. There is no one stopping you from speaking (as you're doing right now), and the constition correctly has nothing to say about whether or not other citizens or the companies they form and run are under any obligation to provide you with a printing press, a web site, a telephone or any other mechanism for your to publish your thoughts. Just like those people, you can build or buy a press, or a web site, at will, and for a trivial cost. There is no one stopping you.
If you're on someone's land, even if you're paying them for the use of it, you are not free, period. They dictate your life
They are forcing you to be on their private property? Or if you made an agreement with them about how you would use that property, are you saying that they are in breach of that agreement? What consequences did they agree to, in the case that breach their agreement? Or, again, is it that you're too lazy to shop around for a lease that actually has terms you like? That's what a market is for. Or, again, are you contemplating illegal actions on that property, in which case it's not the owner of the property that you're really complaining about, is it? Since you've carefully avoided any acknowlegement of the fact that your complaints are meaningless without that context, there's no point talking about this until you say, yes or no, that what you're looking for is cover to perform illegal activities. Are you? Yes or no.
In the days of our forefathers, The estates of the nobility were also the primary economic units.
Which relates to your free use of someone else's web site, which they pay to operate, how? You continue t
Why? In what way is your freedom to speak being reduced by someone else's policy that says you can do whatever you want as long as it's not illegal? The whole point is that you're making arrangements - a contract, which serves you - that provides for exactly what that hosting company can and cannot do or require of you. Your agreement with Yahoo doesn't provide the flexibility you want, but you don't have to do business with them.
As I expected, you were too cowardly to directly answer the simple questions that cut to heart of what you're saying. So, let's try reducing it to ONE simpler one for you:
Is some other private party obligated to provide you with a platform from which to speak?
You assert that only rich people can have freedom of speech, because it costs millions of dollars to run you own web site. Of course, several people have pointed out that you can run your own web site for a few dollars a month. You carefully avoid being in any way specific about why that's a problem. You have your choice of hosting companies that will let you do anything you want that's not actually illegal. Specifically, how is this a problem? How are you being silenced, unless it's illegal material that you wish to post? Your complaint that businesses are controlling what you can say is absurd on the face of it. Use your own web site - and say what you want. You can either explain how $10/month is too much to have your own web site for all the world to see, complete with your own rules for what's acceptable content, or explain how a hosting company is silencing you when they won't facilitate something illegal.
Which is it? Right now. One or the other. If you (again) can't address that without saying "blah blah blah" like an infant that knows he's been caught BS-ing, then your only remaining option is to admit you're simply BS-ing. Hint: that is your only option, unless it's the illegal option that you're actually fussing about, here.
As for your citation of someone else's post: I didn't reply to that because it's muddle-headed, logically inconsistent, and doesn't even speak to your issue (your issue being that you think other people should provide you free services, and should have nothing to say about how those services are used... and that $10/month to get out from under their content guidelines is the sort of thing that only "rich" people can afford).
So, how about showing a little courage and actually addressing the specifics of the issues that you bring up?:
1) Less than $10/month is only for rich people. Yes or No?
2) Other people should pay for and do things for you for free, and cannot say how and whether they will. Yes or No?
I expect you're too craven to actually answer those questions directly because it will expose how you actually see the world. You will now attempt to mis-use the word "feudalism" again, even though the definition of that word, per the dictionary, is:
The system of political organization prevailing in Europe from the 9th to about the 15th centuries having as its basis the relation of lord to vassal with all land held in fee and as chief characteristics homage, the service of tenants under arms and in court, wardship, and forfeiture.
A web site is not a piece of land. A free web site is an especially bad parallel. Unlike land, you can create and occupy as many web sites as you like. For practically no money. Right about now, you'll probably switch gears and try mis-using the word "fascist," is my guess. That's the usual fall-back language abuse target for people having an immature tantrum over the fact that it costs money to run web sites.
Why? You have thousands of hosting companies to choose from. Did you choose one, but lie to them when you signed a contract? Are you unable to think clearly about the content you're putting up on your own web site, and just can't mentally reconcile it with the agreement you made? What sort of content is it that you're so obsessed about hosting, anyway? The thread is about - for example - pictures of kids smoking. There's nothing illegal about such a picture, but it certaily fell outside of Yahoo's boundaries defining what they want showing on their web site. You don't have to have such boundaries on your own web site, and there are plenty of hosting companies that don't care what you host, as long as it's not actually illegal. So, the only conclusion here is that you're looking to use a web presence to actually do something illegal.
Now all of your flimsy arguments and tap-dancing around reality are starting to make sense. You're angry that there are laws governing the publishing of certains types of images. Just do it: come right out and say that what you're all about here is kiddie pr0n. No? Then what IS it that you're so sure will be illegal? Are you sure it will NOT be illegal? Then you have your choice of thousands of hosting companies that will only charge you a few dollars a month. Like, $10 a month. Your red herring arguments about needing a private circuit are just as transparently sophomoric as everything else that you've said. What you're really saying is that it seems expensive to you to set up hosting for something that would be illegal in any country in which you might park it. Anyone who would go through all of the intellectually dishonest thrashing around that you have in order to indirectly stake out a position like that can't possibly be expected to be taken seriously.
The good news, for you? The first amendment. You can stand on a street corner all day long, and preach about how the web content you want to post, currently illegal as it is, should NOT be so. In fact, you can say that right here, right now. You won't get arrested for attempting to string together such an argument - people do it all the time, obviously. So, have at it. Make the case you REALLY want to make, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Eeeevil Corporations taking away your freedoms. What you want is a change in the laws limiting whatever illegal content you have in mind, and you want a business run and funded by other people to set up hosting for you, on their dime. Just say it. Just boil it down to those basic things. You'll fee so much better.
Or - here's an idea - admit that you're just mad that people want to govern their own systems so that they can better shape what they're offering to the customers they want to attract. You want to tell them how they should run their business, and are too cheap to pay GoDaddy $9.95 a month to host your ramblings. You doth protest too much. You probably have NOTHING controversial, image-wise, to put up at Flickr, and are making a giant straw man argument out of this whole thing because you just want to rant about how people who start up a business should only be allowed to run them according to your rules. You want all of the fruits of a market economy (like cheap web hosting), but you want to run it according to a philosophy that - actually expressed in practical terms - destroys the very means by which competition provides those services. In other words, you have a classic case of badly mixed premises, upon which you have built a shaky, inconsistent world view and a childishly acute sense of entitlement, seasoned with resentment over the fact that people not as lazy as you can go out, mow one lawn, and take the proceeds to run a web site that month.
contract law means they can get you to sign away pretty much everything
How? How, specifically, is Yahoo forcing you to use their free service? How are they forcing you to turn away from all of their competitors, forcing you to not just run your own web site with pictures of little kids doing things that Yahoo doesn't wish to have associated with their company name? How are they "getting you" to sign anything? Is it that you are so mesmerized by their use of multi-syllable words that you can't stop yourself from clicking the "I agree" button?
the very fact their TOS remains that way shows they have that much market share
The fact that they have users who want to use a service that doesn't, for example (as cited in the original post), want to exhibit pictures of children smoking, means they have the same power as the government?
that kind of catch-all "we own you" clause
You realize, right, that you're actually deluded, here? If you don't like the fact that they might actually do what they say they will (moderate the content on their own web site), just walk away! How do they "own" you if you don't even use their system? If you can't actually answer that question (which, of course, you can't), then you need to admit that you're utterly BS-ing about everything else you're saying. But you won't, because that's how disconnected you are from reality, or that's how tightly you're clinging to your socialist agenda... all so that you can have two Grande No Fat Half-Caff Lattes each month instead of putting your money where your whining mouth is and making your own web site. Pathetic.
ah, so only rich people are entitled to freedom, how nice of you to betray your elitism.
Are you really so desparate to avoid the few dollars a month - less than the cost of a couple slices of pizza that it takes to host your own web site where you can say whatever you desire - that you're willing to torture the meaning of the word "freedom" to mean its exact opposite? Your definition of freedom is right out of Orwell. Freedom for you is someone else spending money and effort according to your wishes, instead of according to their own. You're no different than every other lazy tyrant that would wait for someone else to build something before moving in to bleed it to death. I imagine you love Hugo Chavez's brand of freedom - he's right up your alley.
Do you complain that I'm denying you your freedom to drive around by cruelly not buying you a car? Or is it only successful businesses that are mean for not buying you a car? Those bastards, denying you your freedom! I'll bet you've lost track of how many Eeeevil Corporations have denied you the freedom of free food, free mobile phone service, and all sorts of other amenities that you - if you were only free from them - would have for free. Free! Free free free. Other than the whole "someone else actually gets to pay for it" part. It's OK, you're such a superior intellect, and so deserving of having other people toil on your behalf, you SHOULD have businesses making special exceptions to their terms, just for you, because you say so.
Yeah, we all know who the elitist is here. It looks good on you, too. Anyway, I know you're busy. The people you've got chained up in the basement cleaning your clothes and whatnot probably need supervising. Just remind them that it's your personal freedom that's at stake, and to use extra starch.
Yeah, because we all know competitors are offering better terms of service, right?
Flickr has all sorts of competition, and there is nothing at all stopping you from being one of those competitors. You could then run an image-sharing service that has no limitations on its terms.
this brings us back to my point. When a property owner has sufficient market power, they gain equivalent authority to government
Even if we were to stipulate that (which is nonsense, because you're presuming that the property owner is not subject to the rule of law, which is false), a web site like flickr has no such market share/power.
If you're on someone's land, even if you're paying them for the use of it, you are not free, period. They dictate your life.
Yeah, until you simply buy your own, like they did. Or, in the case of web sites - which, unlike real estate, are vastly less expensive - you build and host your own. You seem determined to complain about everything, but don't mention that little detail: that just like Yahoo did, you can persuade people that you've got a good idea, and can attract the funds it takes to set up shop the way YOU want to... or you can use your own cash. Either way.
that censorship can cause companies to go out of business
Exactly backwards. My point is that business that actually states that it polices its content to keep the trash away from it - essentially that's part of its advertising pitch to prospective users/customers - and fails to do so, will hurt their business. It's not "censorship" to actually do what you say you're going to do, and failure to do it can wreck your business.
if you don't hold large property owners to the same constitutional standards as the governments whose power they equal, you have ushered feudalism in through the back door
Which might be worth talking about, except that the government doesn't play the role of running commercial web sites. These two have nothing to do with each other. In a feudal society, the contracts between you and a third party aren't governed by a constitutional framework. Which your contract with Flickr IS, when you agree to it.
In short, it doesn't grant you power over anyone. It just says that the government can't have certain powers over you
You are a very confused person.
If I own a press, I can pick and choose my own customers as I see fit. I have NO power over you, because you can go and get your OWN press, just like I got mine. The government can't stop you just like they couldn't stop me, and if I do something illegal to stop you from getting and using your OWN press, you have legal recourse.
They are renting you the photo hosting for the advertising traffic.
It's no different than leasing someone a car (to bring up the famous slashdot car analogy).
Yeah, no difference, other than the whole "completely different" part. When you rent a car, you sign a contract. It probably stipulates, for example, that you can't paint it a different color, or damage it.
The completely different contract that you agree to when you opt to participate in the activities on the private system that is Flickr, also stipulates that you can't damage that system. Using it to exhibit material that's outside of the boundaries they've established puts you in breach of the agreement YOU made with them, and they're certainly welcome to decide what is considered damaging to the business they're running - as they explain in the terms to which you agree before you can use the system. Is the problem here that you don't actually understand what it means to agree to a contract with another party?
Why is a citation needed? A company that runs a web site to deliver a particular sort of service... and fails to do so, can go out of business by alienating their users. Content moderation is an important role in many business models. If flickr never moderated a flood of hugely offensive material, they'd lose most of their users. No users, no ad views. No ad views, no staying in business.
That said, generally people who fit the description being made fun of are less bothered by it than people close to those who fit it. So I'm guessing it's a fair description of your wife - though it's surprising really that you don't fit the description too given you both share the same parents.
There we go! That's perfect! I knew I could count on slashdot to come through.
Actually, what I'm really enjoying is the tremendous irony of YOU feeling like my comment hit too close to home, and then acting out the part of the snarky, class-baiting hypocrit perfectly. Fantastic. Your tribe is proud of you, no doubt.
Use a mirror. Pointy head? alarmingly low/thick/broad brow? Lantern jaw? Narrow eyes remarkably close together? Then you probably won't easily get medical insurance, what with all the hooch and the home grown tobaccy. But never mind, you still got your banjo, your smooth bore and your free AOL CD.
I still can't for the life of me figure out why some people think that slashdot is populated by elitist snobs and condescending asshats. There's simply no evidence for that. It would be interesting, though, to see how many of them could survive a week in the woods, or make (even with an open source recipe) one squirrel pot-pie that starts out with a live squirrel.
Ah, there you go. I was wondering when you'd trot out the 1960's. That's extremely meaningful. I guess we could also talk about Australia being populated entirely by criminals? Oh, right, that has no bearing on anything any more, does it. Right.
No combat deaths? How about doing a little math? The US has over a hundred thousand people in the field, doing vastly more patrols, and with considerably more exposure. I don't particularly think of the Aussie troops as cowards or anything, but they're certainly not being asked to do the same jobs, and in nowhere like the same numbers. The US 'cannon fodder' is doing the dirty work. Nice of you to point that out.
Friendly fire? Do you mean air ordinance? Please detail the number of Australian aircraft providing close air support and longer term combat air patrols during the worst of the insurgency fighting. Compare those numbers to those fielded by the U.S. Air Force and Marine pilots. When troops on the ground phone in an air strike, are you saying that Australian pilots would second guess such commands, and drop ordinance somewhere else? How often would that happen? Once? Twice?
I know it makes you more comfortable to say that. Of course, the same information was loudly proclaimed by the same intelligence analysts, working under the same CIA director that was appointed by Clinton, back before Bush was even in office. You seem very confused.
The UN inspectors observed large stockpiles of these weapons on prior visits. This is a simple matter of record, since they described it publicly, published photographs, etc. Such weapons were used to kill thousands of people. It's a simple matter of record. Saddam's regime refused to disclose the dispostion of those very real weapons, and only accounted for the destruction of a small percentage of them. Many of the places that Hans Blix and his crew asked to inspect (and from which they were turned away, before eventually being thrown out of the country by Saddam) were places where they had previously seen large caches of items like VX shells. Those places, reasonably, seemed like good places to revisit, since Saddam would not even pretend to provide records of what happend to those weapons - something he was obliged to do when he signed the terms of the cease-fire following his invasion of Kuwait. He spent years afterwards never meeting that obligation. The UN increased the risk to him - the consequences of his refusal to support the inspection process - over a period of many years. All the while, he was shooting at patroling aircraft, smuggling in new weapons, building new missiles... do you actually pretend to deny any of that? If so, which parts? There's really no point sending you links to each and every one of those facts, since they're commonly known to anyone who was awake at the time.
Who cares how "howled at" you were, or how much you're howling now? Scott Ritter didn't say there were no WMDs, he said that there was no longer a production program. He DID point out that there were WMDs, because people on his own team were part of the team that had personally seen and started the accounting for them in the preceeding years. He was among the people who said that he could not say where those weapons had wound up, or if they had been destroyed, because Saddam did not provide that information, nor allow the inspectors to actually inspect.
Your need to use the terms "rabid" and "idiot" say a lot more about you than they say about anything (or anyone) else. Go back, and read the news. The intelligence agencies of Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, the UK, and many others all agreed (BEFORE Bush was even in office, when Clinton's stated policy was the removal of Saddam from power, and his assessment was also that Saddam's possible maintenance of WMD caches posed a grave threat) that WMDs in Iraq were a huge risk, considering his willingness to do business with countries like North Korea on long-range missiles, and his willingness to do cash business with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah (recall Saddam's public payments of $50,000 to the families of bombers, etc). If you "remember the time well," then you must have only been listening to yourself talk, and not to everyone else. Inspectors were blocked, and history could not be ignored. And coalition aircraft were being shot at by Saddam, every week. Use your perfect memory to remind yourself of the stuff that doesn't do your current political demands so much good, but which none the less is simple, established fact. That shouldn't be so hard for you, what with you being so brilliant and everything.
Which facts did you have in mind? Saddam's continued shooting at the coaliton forces? His blocking of inspectors? His refusal to indicate what happened to tons of VX gas? His continued construction of long-range missiles? His continued subversion of the UN sanctions and corrupt skimming of the oil-for-food program? The biggest fact involved was the elaborate lengths that he and his minions went to in order to make sure that facts about his weapons programs and spending were as un-discoverable as possible. His refusal to permit inspections is the only fact you need (and was the reason that best-guess intel from numerous sources was the only thing available on that topic). Of course, if you were paying attention, you'd have noticed that his stonewalling on weapons inspections were NOT the only thing that mandated his removal from power. Shooting at coalition aircraft - BY ITSELF - removed all of the cover he had from when he signed his surrender of hostilities following Kuwait. He un-ended that war, all on his own.
And your ex post facto attempt to spin the causus belli into something legitimate, as with all the others since then
How hard to you have to block your ears in the months leading up to Saddam's removal in order to not hear the continual discussion of ALL of those issues at the UN? Of course, the depth of his corruption (the details) on the oil-for-food mess wasn't known until later... but the fact that his people weren't getting the food that was supposed to be purchased with that cash, while he continued to buy spendy SCUDs and whatnot, was obvious, and cited continually by people throughout his region, the EU, AND the U.S.
Colin Powell related the intel that was available. If inspectors had been allowed to visit the very areas that he showed through satellite imagery, we'd all have known more about the activities carried on there. But of course, the inspectors weren't allowed to DO that job, were they? Considering Saddam's history, known posession of weapons stockpiles, and traffic with kindly vendors like North Korea, on what side of the issue would you have erred? Do you not remember him shooting long-range missiles across borders? Do you not remember the piles of VX that the UN inspectors DID know about, but could not account for? Did you not observe the final bit of nonsensical theater (following his kicking the inspectors out of the country) where he "complied" with the UN's request for a report on the dispostion of that VX, etc., with a set of binders and CDs full of absolute BS? Were you tuning out as he made PR hay out of sendin $50,000 to families of suicide bombers, trying to buy some cheap support from regional players that knew exactly what sort of tyrant he was?
It now appears that he himself thought he had more such weapons than he actually did. That his underlings in some cases lied to him about the preservation of some of it - to avoid getting in trouble (read: having their family members sent through Uday's shredding machine), while some of the rest was shipped to Syria as part of several large cash deals about which Saddam likely didn't even know. Doesn't matter. As was stated over and over prior to the invasion that took him down, it was the whole package of things: primarily, his refusal to allow inspectors to work, while also shooting at the coalition aircraft patroling both the no-fly zones AND the inspection regime's logistics.
Ypur claim that pre existing resolutions authorised this is at best laughable
How many other things that take the fun out of your arguments are able to actually, factually change by stamping your feet in that way?
Perhaps you were not born, yet, when Saddam invaded and looted Kuwait? He agreed, as his foreces were being driven back, to all sorts of conditions. Among them, the no-fly zones that were set up to protect the people he was slaughtering in the north and south of Iraq. Agreeing to those no-fly zones included stipulations about the authority of coaltion aircraft patroling the skies in those zones. Saddam's armed forces then set about, for years shooting at those aircraft, in direct violation of the agreements he made in order to end the Kuwait-related conflict. His continual and violent violation of those terms, right there, put him in breach of the agreement that took his regime out of the line of fire. The fact that the UN continued to approve new sanctions in reaction to his blocking of inspectors, ongoing manufacturing of long-range missiles (which he had agreed to not only cease importing/making, but to destroy), etc... that all added to the list of violations in advance his regime's demise.
Disengenuous? That's you. Your decision to ignore the actual facts doesn't change them. And to the extent that you spin your disregard for those facts as part of your absurd call for "war crimes" trials just shows you as the politically motivated liar that you are.
If I vote for Obama because I would benefit from his health care plan, am I not exchanging my vote for something that is valuable to me?
What you mean is you would benefit from MY healthcare plan. Because that's who's going to pay for it. Or do you mean that you'll also be paying for your own health care? Here's an idea: you pay for yours, and I'll pay for mine!
Of course, it doesn't matter. The president can't cause a healthcare plan to come into existence. That's a legislative function. He can sign it, but nothing happens without Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who set that agenda. Huh, wonder why that doesn't seem important to them just now? Baseball steroids hearings are more important, I guess, that sort of thing.
Something tells me that "the world's supply" of these elements isn't actually going down. Unless Ye Olde Alchemical Procefes (sorry, Mr. Stephenson) are actually transmuting, say, indium, into gold... it's just a question of where the elements are. Which is to say that I'm sure there's lots of it sitting right there in landfills, probably easier to get to than it is when bound up in 100 tons of rock and dirt in a mine. I mean, we didn't ship THAT much of the stuff to Mars yet, did we?
Or, if the point is that all of these elements are bound up in in-use devices, and always will be, then that's another matter. But I'd be a bit surprised to find that we've actually touched even close to all of the deposits available. Just the cheap ones. And recycling will probably be cheaper than, say, mining it on the moon or the ocean floor.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice dodge.
We're talking about Yahoo's free Flickr service, and you said that Yahoo is restraining your rights to speak freely. Again: is it their obligation to provide you with a platform from which to speak? That is a fundamental, non-nuanceable question.
You seem profoundly confused on the subject of the government not being allowed to limit what you can say, and a business being able to enter into a contract with you about how you will use their web site. Can you really not see that those two things have nothing to do with one another?
because they don't bother to protect you. In other words, all it takes is an accusation, or even a threat of a threat of an accusation. They shut you down and you have to retain a lawyer using money you (according to the laws of averages) do not have to "PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE".
Who is "they?" StrawManHosting.com? There is no such "they" unless you choose, from thousands of inexpensve hosting operations, one that provides for that in the contract you set up with them. The process by which a web site is taken down is clearly defined in the contract you establish with the provider. Some have an elaborate review process, and some don't. Since you seem uncharacteristically obsessed with hosting content that you're convinced will be, to a reasonable observer, seen as illegal, you must surely be willing to take the time to read through the terms and conditions of several different hosting contracts to find one you like. There are thousands to choose from, and a highly competitive, global market for that commodity service. A market you can also enter into for far less than the "millions" you claim.
Again: what content is it that you are so sure will fall outside the bounds of the contract you will sign? If your content only appears illegal to a reasonable person, you have recourse: spend your $10/month somewhere else, or allow a contingency lawyer to make both of you money off of a demonstrated breach of contract.
But you know that won't be necessary, because you know that this is all BS. You are flailing around trying to dream up reasons why a hosting company's terms of service are equal to the feudal use of force against your person. Your ability to just take your business elsewhere, or set up your own at will, completely nullifies that absurd metaphor. There is no one stopping you from speaking (as you're doing right now), and the constition correctly has nothing to say about whether or not other citizens or the companies they form and run are under any obligation to provide you with a printing press, a web site, a telephone or any other mechanism for your to publish your thoughts. Just like those people, you can build or buy a press, or a web site, at will, and for a trivial cost. There is no one stopping you.
If you're on someone's land, even if you're paying them for the use of it, you are not free, period. They dictate your life
They are forcing you to be on their private property? Or if you made an agreement with them about how you would use that property, are you saying that they are in breach of that agreement? What consequences did they agree to, in the case that breach their agreement? Or, again, is it that you're too lazy to shop around for a lease that actually has terms you like? That's what a market is for. Or, again, are you contemplating illegal actions on that property, in which case it's not the owner of the property that you're really complaining about, is it? Since you've carefully avoided any acknowlegement of the fact that your complaints are meaningless without that context, there's no point talking about this until you say, yes or no, that what you're looking for is cover to perform illegal activities. Are you? Yes or no.
In the days of our forefathers, The estates of the nobility were also the primary economic units.
Which relates to your free use of someone else's web site, which they pay to operate, how? You continue t
You have to own it end to end
Why? In what way is your freedom to speak being reduced by someone else's policy that says you can do whatever you want as long as it's not illegal? The whole point is that you're making arrangements - a contract, which serves you - that provides for exactly what that hosting company can and cannot do or require of you. Your agreement with Yahoo doesn't provide the flexibility you want, but you don't have to do business with them.
As I expected, you were too cowardly to directly answer the simple questions that cut to heart of what you're saying. So, let's try reducing it to ONE simpler one for you:
Is some other private party obligated to provide you with a platform from which to speak?
Yes or No.
Let's boil this down, shall we?
You assert that only rich people can have freedom of speech, because it costs millions of dollars to run you own web site. Of course, several people have pointed out that you can run your own web site for a few dollars a month. You carefully avoid being in any way specific about why that's a problem. You have your choice of hosting companies that will let you do anything you want that's not actually illegal. Specifically, how is this a problem? How are you being silenced, unless it's illegal material that you wish to post? Your complaint that businesses are controlling what you can say is absurd on the face of it. Use your own web site - and say what you want. You can either explain how $10/month is too much to have your own web site for all the world to see, complete with your own rules for what's acceptable content, or explain how a hosting company is silencing you when they won't facilitate something illegal.
Which is it? Right now. One or the other. If you (again) can't address that without saying "blah blah blah" like an infant that knows he's been caught BS-ing, then your only remaining option is to admit you're simply BS-ing. Hint: that is your only option, unless it's the illegal option that you're actually fussing about, here.
As for your citation of someone else's post: I didn't reply to that because it's muddle-headed, logically inconsistent, and doesn't even speak to your issue (your issue being that you think other people should provide you free services, and should have nothing to say about how those services are used... and that $10/month to get out from under their content guidelines is the sort of thing that only "rich" people can afford).
So, how about showing a little courage and actually addressing the specifics of the issues that you bring up?:
1) Less than $10/month is only for rich people. Yes or No?
2) Other people should pay for and do things for you for free, and cannot say how and whether they will. Yes or No?
I expect you're too craven to actually answer those questions directly because it will expose how you actually see the world. You will now attempt to mis-use the word "feudalism" again, even though the definition of that word, per the dictionary, is:
The system of political organization prevailing in Europe from the 9th to about the 15th centuries having as its basis the relation of lord to vassal with all land held in fee and as chief characteristics homage, the service of tenants under arms and in court, wardship, and forfeiture.
A web site is not a piece of land. A free web site is an especially bad parallel. Unlike land, you can create and occupy as many web sites as you like. For practically no money. Right about now, you'll probably switch gears and try mis-using the word "fascist," is my guess. That's the usual fall-back language abuse target for people having an immature tantrum over the fact that it costs money to run web sites.
the web provider will cut the account
Why? You have thousands of hosting companies to choose from. Did you choose one, but lie to them when you signed a contract? Are you unable to think clearly about the content you're putting up on your own web site, and just can't mentally reconcile it with the agreement you made? What sort of content is it that you're so obsessed about hosting, anyway? The thread is about - for example - pictures of kids smoking. There's nothing illegal about such a picture, but it certaily fell outside of Yahoo's boundaries defining what they want showing on their web site. You don't have to have such boundaries on your own web site, and there are plenty of hosting companies that don't care what you host, as long as it's not actually illegal. So, the only conclusion here is that you're looking to use a web presence to actually do something illegal.
Now all of your flimsy arguments and tap-dancing around reality are starting to make sense. You're angry that there are laws governing the publishing of certains types of images. Just do it: come right out and say that what you're all about here is kiddie pr0n. No? Then what IS it that you're so sure will be illegal? Are you sure it will NOT be illegal? Then you have your choice of thousands of hosting companies that will only charge you a few dollars a month. Like, $10 a month. Your red herring arguments about needing a private circuit are just as transparently sophomoric as everything else that you've said. What you're really saying is that it seems expensive to you to set up hosting for something that would be illegal in any country in which you might park it. Anyone who would go through all of the intellectually dishonest thrashing around that you have in order to indirectly stake out a position like that can't possibly be expected to be taken seriously.
The good news, for you? The first amendment. You can stand on a street corner all day long, and preach about how the web content you want to post, currently illegal as it is, should NOT be so. In fact, you can say that right here, right now. You won't get arrested for attempting to string together such an argument - people do it all the time, obviously. So, have at it. Make the case you REALLY want to make, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Eeeevil Corporations taking away your freedoms. What you want is a change in the laws limiting whatever illegal content you have in mind, and you want a business run and funded by other people to set up hosting for you, on their dime. Just say it. Just boil it down to those basic things. You'll fee so much better.
Or - here's an idea - admit that you're just mad that people want to govern their own systems so that they can better shape what they're offering to the customers they want to attract. You want to tell them how they should run their business, and are too cheap to pay GoDaddy $9.95 a month to host your ramblings. You doth protest too much. You probably have NOTHING controversial, image-wise, to put up at Flickr, and are making a giant straw man argument out of this whole thing because you just want to rant about how people who start up a business should only be allowed to run them according to your rules. You want all of the fruits of a market economy (like cheap web hosting), but you want to run it according to a philosophy that - actually expressed in practical terms - destroys the very means by which competition provides those services. In other words, you have a classic case of badly mixed premises, upon which you have built a shaky, inconsistent world view and a childishly acute sense of entitlement, seasoned with resentment over the fact that people not as lazy as you can go out, mow one lawn, and take the proceeds to run a web site that month.
"Nasa"?
It's NASA, for cryin' out loud. That's almost as bad as the people who pronounce it "Nassau."
contract law means they can get you to sign away pretty much everything
How? How, specifically, is Yahoo forcing you to use their free service? How are they forcing you to turn away from all of their competitors, forcing you to not just run your own web site with pictures of little kids doing things that Yahoo doesn't wish to have associated with their company name? How are they "getting you" to sign anything? Is it that you are so mesmerized by their use of multi-syllable words that you can't stop yourself from clicking the "I agree" button?
the very fact their TOS remains that way shows they have that much market share
The fact that they have users who want to use a service that doesn't, for example (as cited in the original post), want to exhibit pictures of children smoking, means they have the same power as the government?
that kind of catch-all "we own you" clause
You realize, right, that you're actually deluded, here? If you don't like the fact that they might actually do what they say they will (moderate the content on their own web site), just walk away! How do they "own" you if you don't even use their system? If you can't actually answer that question (which, of course, you can't), then you need to admit that you're utterly BS-ing about everything else you're saying. But you won't, because that's how disconnected you are from reality, or that's how tightly you're clinging to your socialist agenda... all so that you can have two Grande No Fat Half-Caff Lattes each month instead of putting your money where your whining mouth is and making your own web site. Pathetic.
ah, so only rich people are entitled to freedom, how nice of you to betray your elitism.
Are you really so desparate to avoid the few dollars a month - less than the cost of a couple slices of pizza that it takes to host your own web site where you can say whatever you desire - that you're willing to torture the meaning of the word "freedom" to mean its exact opposite? Your definition of freedom is right out of Orwell. Freedom for you is someone else spending money and effort according to your wishes, instead of according to their own. You're no different than every other lazy tyrant that would wait for someone else to build something before moving in to bleed it to death. I imagine you love Hugo Chavez's brand of freedom - he's right up your alley.
Do you complain that I'm denying you your freedom to drive around by cruelly not buying you a car? Or is it only successful businesses that are mean for not buying you a car? Those bastards, denying you your freedom! I'll bet you've lost track of how many Eeeevil Corporations have denied you the freedom of free food, free mobile phone service, and all sorts of other amenities that you - if you were only free from them - would have for free. Free! Free free free. Other than the whole "someone else actually gets to pay for it" part. It's OK, you're such a superior intellect, and so deserving of having other people toil on your behalf, you SHOULD have businesses making special exceptions to their terms, just for you, because you say so.
Yeah, we all know who the elitist is here. It looks good on you, too. Anyway, I know you're busy. The people you've got chained up in the basement cleaning your clothes and whatnot probably need supervising. Just remind them that it's your personal freedom that's at stake, and to use extra starch.
Yeah, because we all know competitors are offering better terms of service, right?
Flickr has all sorts of competition, and there is nothing at all stopping you from being one of those competitors. You could then run an image-sharing service that has no limitations on its terms.
this brings us back to my point. When a property owner has sufficient market power, they gain equivalent authority to government
Even if we were to stipulate that (which is nonsense, because you're presuming that the property owner is not subject to the rule of law, which is false), a web site like flickr has no such market share/power.
If you're on someone's land, even if you're paying them for the use of it, you are not free, period. They dictate your life.
Yeah, until you simply buy your own, like they did. Or, in the case of web sites - which, unlike real estate, are vastly less expensive - you build and host your own. You seem determined to complain about everything, but don't mention that little detail: that just like Yahoo did, you can persuade people that you've got a good idea, and can attract the funds it takes to set up shop the way YOU want to... or you can use your own cash. Either way.
that censorship can cause companies to go out of business
Exactly backwards. My point is that business that actually states that it polices its content to keep the trash away from it - essentially that's part of its advertising pitch to prospective users/customers - and fails to do so, will hurt their business. It's not "censorship" to actually do what you say you're going to do, and failure to do it can wreck your business.
if you don't hold large property owners to the same constitutional standards as the governments whose power they equal, you have ushered feudalism in through the back door
Which might be worth talking about, except that the government doesn't play the role of running commercial web sites. These two have nothing to do with each other. In a feudal society, the contracts between you and a third party aren't governed by a constitutional framework. Which your contract with Flickr IS, when you agree to it.
In short, it doesn't grant you power over anyone. It just says that the government can't have certain powers over you
You are a very confused person.
If I own a press, I can pick and choose my own customers as I see fit. I have NO power over you, because you can go and get your OWN press, just like I got mine. The government can't stop you just like they couldn't stop me, and if I do something illegal to stop you from getting and using your OWN press, you have legal recourse.
They are renting you the photo hosting for the advertising traffic.
It's no different than leasing someone a car (to bring up the famous slashdot car analogy).
Yeah, no difference, other than the whole "completely different" part. When you rent a car, you sign a contract. It probably stipulates, for example, that you can't paint it a different color, or damage it.
The completely different contract that you agree to when you opt to participate in the activities on the private system that is Flickr, also stipulates that you can't damage that system. Using it to exhibit material that's outside of the boundaries they've established puts you in breach of the agreement YOU made with them, and they're certainly welcome to decide what is considered damaging to the business they're running - as they explain in the terms to which you agree before you can use the system. Is the problem here that you don't actually understand what it means to agree to a contract with another party?
Citation needed. When has that ever happened
Why is a citation needed? A company that runs a web site to deliver a particular sort of service... and fails to do so, can go out of business by alienating their users. Content moderation is an important role in many business models. If flickr never moderated a flood of hugely offensive material, they'd lose most of their users. No users, no ad views. No ad views, no staying in business.
That said, generally people who fit the description being made fun of are less bothered by it than people close to those who fit it. So I'm guessing it's a fair description of your wife - though it's surprising really that you don't fit the description too given you both share the same parents.
There we go! That's perfect! I knew I could count on slashdot to come through.
Actually, what I'm really enjoying is the tremendous irony of YOU feeling like my comment hit too close to home, and then acting out the part of the snarky, class-baiting hypocrit perfectly. Fantastic. Your tribe is proud of you, no doubt.
Use a mirror. Pointy head? alarmingly low/thick/broad brow? Lantern jaw? Narrow eyes remarkably close together? Then you probably won't easily get medical insurance, what with all the hooch and the home grown tobaccy. But never mind, you still got your banjo, your smooth bore and your free AOL CD.
I still can't for the life of me figure out why some people think that slashdot is populated by elitist snobs and condescending asshats. There's simply no evidence for that. It would be interesting, though, to see how many of them could survive a week in the woods, or make (even with an open source recipe) one squirrel pot-pie that starts out with a live squirrel.
Viet Nam
Ah, there you go. I was wondering when you'd trot out the 1960's. That's extremely meaningful. I guess we could also talk about Australia being populated entirely by criminals? Oh, right, that has no bearing on anything any more, does it. Right.
No combat deaths? How about doing a little math? The US has over a hundred thousand people in the field, doing vastly more patrols, and with considerably more exposure. I don't particularly think of the Aussie troops as cowards or anything, but they're certainly not being asked to do the same jobs, and in nowhere like the same numbers. The US 'cannon fodder' is doing the dirty work. Nice of you to point that out.
Friendly fire? Do you mean air ordinance? Please detail the number of Australian aircraft providing close air support and longer term combat air patrols during the worst of the insurgency fighting. Compare those numbers to those fielded by the U.S. Air Force and Marine pilots. When troops on the ground phone in an air strike, are you saying that Australian pilots would second guess such commands, and drop ordinance somewhere else? How often would that happen? Once? Twice?
faked by the Bush admin
I know it makes you more comfortable to say that. Of course, the same information was loudly proclaimed by the same intelligence analysts, working under the same CIA director that was appointed by Clinton, back before Bush was even in office. You seem very confused.
The UN inspectors observed large stockpiles of these weapons on prior visits. This is a simple matter of record, since they described it publicly, published photographs, etc. Such weapons were used to kill thousands of people. It's a simple matter of record. Saddam's regime refused to disclose the dispostion of those very real weapons, and only accounted for the destruction of a small percentage of them. Many of the places that Hans Blix and his crew asked to inspect (and from which they were turned away, before eventually being thrown out of the country by Saddam) were places where they had previously seen large caches of items like VX shells. Those places, reasonably, seemed like good places to revisit, since Saddam would not even pretend to provide records of what happend to those weapons - something he was obliged to do when he signed the terms of the cease-fire following his invasion of Kuwait. He spent years afterwards never meeting that obligation. The UN increased the risk to him - the consequences of his refusal to support the inspection process - over a period of many years. All the while, he was shooting at patroling aircraft, smuggling in new weapons, building new missiles... do you actually pretend to deny any of that? If so, which parts? There's really no point sending you links to each and every one of those facts, since they're commonly known to anyone who was awake at the time.
Who cares how "howled at" you were, or how much you're howling now? Scott Ritter didn't say there were no WMDs, he said that there was no longer a production program. He DID point out that there were WMDs, because people on his own team were part of the team that had personally seen and started the accounting for them in the preceeding years. He was among the people who said that he could not say where those weapons had wound up, or if they had been destroyed, because Saddam did not provide that information, nor allow the inspectors to actually inspect.
Your need to use the terms "rabid" and "idiot" say a lot more about you than they say about anything (or anyone) else. Go back, and read the news. The intelligence agencies of Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, the UK, and many others all agreed (BEFORE Bush was even in office, when Clinton's stated policy was the removal of Saddam from power, and his assessment was also that Saddam's possible maintenance of WMD caches posed a grave threat) that WMDs in Iraq were a huge risk, considering his willingness to do business with countries like North Korea on long-range missiles, and his willingness to do cash business with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah (recall Saddam's public payments of $50,000 to the families of bombers, etc). If you "remember the time well," then you must have only been listening to yourself talk, and not to everyone else. Inspectors were blocked, and history could not be ignored. And coalition aircraft were being shot at by Saddam, every week. Use your perfect memory to remind yourself of the stuff that doesn't do your current political demands so much good, but which none the less is simple, established fact. That shouldn't be so hard for you, what with you being so brilliant and everything.
The US did not rely on facts to justify the war
Which facts did you have in mind? Saddam's continued shooting at the coaliton forces? His blocking of inspectors? His refusal to indicate what happened to tons of VX gas? His continued construction of long-range missiles? His continued subversion of the UN sanctions and corrupt skimming of the oil-for-food program? The biggest fact involved was the elaborate lengths that he and his minions went to in order to make sure that facts about his weapons programs and spending were as un-discoverable as possible. His refusal to permit inspections is the only fact you need (and was the reason that best-guess intel from numerous sources was the only thing available on that topic). Of course, if you were paying attention, you'd have noticed that his stonewalling on weapons inspections were NOT the only thing that mandated his removal from power. Shooting at coalition aircraft - BY ITSELF - removed all of the cover he had from when he signed his surrender of hostilities following Kuwait. He un-ended that war, all on his own.
And your ex post facto attempt to spin the causus belli into something legitimate, as with all the others since then
How hard to you have to block your ears in the months leading up to Saddam's removal in order to not hear the continual discussion of ALL of those issues at the UN? Of course, the depth of his corruption (the details) on the oil-for-food mess wasn't known until later... but the fact that his people weren't getting the food that was supposed to be purchased with that cash, while he continued to buy spendy SCUDs and whatnot, was obvious, and cited continually by people throughout his region, the EU, AND the U.S.
Colin Powell related the intel that was available. If inspectors had been allowed to visit the very areas that he showed through satellite imagery, we'd all have known more about the activities carried on there. But of course, the inspectors weren't allowed to DO that job, were they? Considering Saddam's history, known posession of weapons stockpiles, and traffic with kindly vendors like North Korea, on what side of the issue would you have erred? Do you not remember him shooting long-range missiles across borders? Do you not remember the piles of VX that the UN inspectors DID know about, but could not account for? Did you not observe the final bit of nonsensical theater (following his kicking the inspectors out of the country) where he "complied" with the UN's request for a report on the dispostion of that VX, etc., with a set of binders and CDs full of absolute BS? Were you tuning out as he made PR hay out of sendin $50,000 to families of suicide bombers, trying to buy some cheap support from regional players that knew exactly what sort of tyrant he was?
It now appears that he himself thought he had more such weapons than he actually did. That his underlings in some cases lied to him about the preservation of some of it - to avoid getting in trouble (read: having their family members sent through Uday's shredding machine), while some of the rest was shipped to Syria as part of several large cash deals about which Saddam likely didn't even know. Doesn't matter. As was stated over and over prior to the invasion that took him down, it was the whole package of things: primarily, his refusal to allow inspectors to work, while also shooting at the coalition aircraft patroling both the no-fly zones AND the inspection regime's logistics.
incompetent and unprofessional soldiers can murder civilians and as usual
Ah, well, so long as it's clear that you're well informed and rational.
Ypur claim that pre existing resolutions authorised this is at best laughable
... that all added to the list of violations in advance his regime's demise.
How many other things that take the fun out of your arguments are able to actually, factually change by stamping your feet in that way?
Perhaps you were not born, yet, when Saddam invaded and looted Kuwait? He agreed, as his foreces were being driven back, to all sorts of conditions. Among them, the no-fly zones that were set up to protect the people he was slaughtering in the north and south of Iraq. Agreeing to those no-fly zones included stipulations about the authority of coaltion aircraft patroling the skies in those zones. Saddam's armed forces then set about, for years shooting at those aircraft, in direct violation of the agreements he made in order to end the Kuwait-related conflict. His continual and violent violation of those terms, right there, put him in breach of the agreement that took his regime out of the line of fire. The fact that the UN continued to approve new sanctions in reaction to his blocking of inspectors, ongoing manufacturing of long-range missiles (which he had agreed to not only cease importing/making, but to destroy), etc
Disengenuous? That's you. Your decision to ignore the actual facts doesn't change them. And to the extent that you spin your disregard for those facts as part of your absurd call for "war crimes" trials just shows you as the politically motivated liar that you are.
slightly less broken and unfair
So... who's going to pay for it?
If I vote for Obama because I would benefit from his health care plan, am I not exchanging my vote for something that is valuable to me?
What you mean is you would benefit from MY healthcare plan. Because that's who's going to pay for it. Or do you mean that you'll also be paying for your own health care? Here's an idea: you pay for yours, and I'll pay for mine!
Of course, it doesn't matter. The president can't cause a healthcare plan to come into existence. That's a legislative function. He can sign it, but nothing happens without Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who set that agenda. Huh, wonder why that doesn't seem important to them just now? Baseball steroids hearings are more important, I guess, that sort of thing.
Something tells me that "the world's supply" of these elements isn't actually going down. Unless Ye Olde Alchemical Procefes (sorry, Mr. Stephenson) are actually transmuting, say, indium, into gold... it's just a question of where the elements are. Which is to say that I'm sure there's lots of it sitting right there in landfills, probably easier to get to than it is when bound up in 100 tons of rock and dirt in a mine. I mean, we didn't ship THAT much of the stuff to Mars yet, did we?
Or, if the point is that all of these elements are bound up in in-use devices, and always will be, then that's another matter. But I'd be a bit surprised to find that we've actually touched even close to all of the deposits available. Just the cheap ones. And recycling will probably be cheaper than, say, mining it on the moon or the ocean floor.
would you want these clowns rescuing you
No. I think the grand old French tradition of surrendering is far more predictable, and safer for everyone concerned.