So just to be clear, you're not talking about a mini ice age?
No, I'm talking about the most recent, actual, real, covering-half-the-continent ice age. There was neither agriculture, nor even a significant human population (and sure as hell nothing approaching, say, the wildebeast or bison populations) in play when we last saw a dramatic change in temp, climbing their way upwards ever since. We weren't meaningfully THERE to impact that huge change, let alone cause it, and be the only causes of it. So, implying that, since that big change, things have just nicely leveled off, and would STAY that way if it weren't for human activity and ONLY human activity, is spectacularly disengenuous. So much so, that when that notion gets spouted as the primary thesis and summary of so many "let's all be activists" school assemblies and slashdot summaries, that you have to wonder (or not so much) what political axe is being ground... because it can't POSSIBLY be that the deliverers of that message really think that climate would not be changing if we weren't here. And if they DO think that, then you have to question their ability to string together any two bits of information and form any sort of rational thought, and then you have to ask yourself why you're listening to them for advice on whether that new hybrid Honda really is, or isn't a true net positive on the environment, or why they're so opposed to nuclear power at the same time they're bitching about coal.
The only problem with their publishing this information is that it just won't do any good if you can't convince people to read it.
And the REASON you can't get people to read it is that it tends to be introduced with summary notions that imply: "The weather would be perfectly stable, and very pleasant, and nothing would ever, ever change, and there would be unicorns bringing us nice books to read under the light of their sweet, sweet rainbows if it weren't for Americans and their cars, which also happen to be painted ugly colors." Climate has been, and always will be all over the place, in terms of trends and even huge ugly swings. We certainly are contributing some to the current state of affairs. If we were all living in loin cloths in villages of a hundred people, though, the climate would still be very different today that it was 25,000 years ago. And 100,000 years ago. The Sahara used to be bigger, and hotter than it is now... perhaps because there was a lull in paleolithic SUV driving or something, who knows.
You can't "debunk" the ice age. Well, I mean, you CAN... but then you might as well attribute all of our delusions about glacially relocated megatons of rocks and top soil in the US midwest to... what? The Electric Universe and lightning bolts from Mars? Aliens competing in giant Curling matches? Yeesh.
It's when talking points are either flat out wrong or just drastically miss the point that problems arise, and that's what we see with most global warming denialist ones.
You say that, and ignore the summary that cites, "this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere"... ? is due to
That absolute tone - stating that there is no other contributing factor, and that only humans have anything to do with climate change - not only flies in the face of countless other observations (and just plain common sense), but it's the sort of smug, one-dimensional, fear-mongering assertion that tends to bring out the opposing talking points you're so annoyed by. If you don't like simplistic counter-fire, why aren't you combatting the real provocation for them, which is unadulterated crap like that gross and misleading simplification? Not long ago we were in an ice age. Things have changes a lot since then. Man did not do it. Man's activity could well be an important contributor to the nature of, or impact of ages old cycles and other influences. But "it's man, and that's that" is a deliberate bit of trolling and the foundation for political power grabbing.
And they were obtained and used in violation of the terms under which she presented them. A movie theatre may put up a copy of a poster on a wall for promotional purposes. Right there, where the public can see it. That doesn't make it cool to run it over to Kinkos to reproduce it, and especially not to SELL those reproductions.
There is a big difference between copying/downloading a cd/movie and selling copies of a cd/movie.
Ripping it off for your own use: civil court matter
Ripping it off to sell it: criminal matter
Both: ethically identical. The person who rips it off to sell it is looking to avoid having to pay the cost of something they want to use (in this case, in their 'retail' business). The person who rips it off to show on their big screen TV on Friday night when their friends come over for a pizza and beer is looking to avoid paying the cost of something they want to use (for entertainment).
Ripping off the artist is ripping off the artist. Period. Don't want to pay what the artist is asking? Just walk away, and choose entertainment that an artist is willing to give away, or which you're more willing to pay for. Don't like that an artist would rather concentrate on their art, and have decided to let a publishing company handle all of their business affairs? Just walk away, and get your entertainment from bar bands, street performers, the local playhouse, or some other source. Don't rip off the artist to make a point about how you think they should be working under your terms, rather than their own. There is no difference between ripping it off to make the artist your own personal entertainment-making slave, and ripping it off to make the artist your own personal creator-of-entertainment-which-you-then-sell slave.
Well, the usual response is "this is totally different because they resold the (art, program, etc.) without crediting the (artist, programmer, etc.)." Ripping off movies and music is OK because, you know, they're not being resold...
But even when the conversation turns to outright piracy for sale, people here are wierdly hesitant to call a spade a spade. For example, if someone rips off a copy of MS Windows and sells it for $2 on the street, people here do a Simpson's 'ha-ha!' and move on. When a photographer's work gets ripped off and used as the cover art on a $2 CD on the street, there's an awkward silence, and then all sorts of mumbling about how The Man might be interfering with the artist's choice of venues to complain about being ripped off. *sigh*
It will be interesting to see how the/. groupthink tackles this. Photographer (and hence, at least partially-nerd) from the imagined-to-be-always-hip Iceland strives to make some money doing something creative and leveraging the internet to become visible and reach customers. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "Man, she sure got screwed. But let's argue about whether and how to use the word "censorship" when Flickr removes a contentions and legally risky post from their system."
Or, she's a filmaker who puts, porportionately, the same amount of her money and reputation on the line (along with that of usually many other people), and works with a distributor as a way to make money from her work and fund her next project. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "That's cool. I shouldn't have to pay for bits."
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the entire point of the Gonzo hearings that there was undue political interference in government business?
No, that's the picture that the politicians milling up the hearings would like you to take away. The appointing, management, and retention of US Attorneys is ENTIRELY political, from start to finish. When Clinton fired ALL of them, it was for political reasons, too... not because he suddenly found that they all sucked at their jobs. Political appointees are just that. These aren't career employees at some agency - they are people hired to expressly conduct their activities in keeping with the priorities and thinking of the person who appointed them, and the serve at that person's whim. Which is better: replacing some of them, because the people in the political food chain that chose them (because of their politics) decided, on reflection, that there are other political appointees they'd rather see in those slots... or firing all of them, regardless?
The "outrage" you're citing is nothing but Kabuki Theater, and everyone involved knows it, especially the ones who are conducting it. From the polls yesterday: the under-new-management Congress has a lower public approval rating than does G.W. Bush. That should tell you something about how transparently time-wasting and grandstanding this sort of faux outrage actually is.
"They" aren't "talkin to Karl Rove." He made that one comment about the availability of mail going to/from accounts that aren't part of the normal government flow of things through the archived WH comms system. Political communications - such as when, say, Al Gore was working (while being VP) to coordinate campaign-related fundraisers - are traditionally done through other channels, and in fact in some cases are required by federal law to be handled through other channels. You may recall the heat Gore got for conducting Dem party business over White House phone lines. That sort of thing is supposed to be a no-no. That's the problem with being in office... you work for the people that employ you, but you're also, personally, a politician that has an interest in your relations to the party that put you there, and the need to conduct campaign and party-strategy-type communications that - gasp! - may happen to involve talking about the spin you put on things related to what you also - gasp! - have to have something to do with when you're punched back into your job in the executive branch.
I don't envy anyone in that role. In a given day I wear lots of different hats... checking/sending e-mails to/from the very same people using different mailboxes based on the context of the communication, and whether it's being paid for. I might have a thread going with someone because of a contract we're both working on, and want to leave a trail in a corporate box to help track that project. But we might also have reason to talk more off-line over the prospects of another gig, or to strategize a bit on how we want to talk to/about someone who overlaps with our other (directly for pay) communications. Very easy to have some messages go through the wrong channel sometimes. Same reason Gore picked up his White House office line to raise cash, and same reason some staffer might be having at least some of the e-mail exchanges that help a boss shape a political posture on the retention of a politically appointed employee (say, a US attorney) through more than one e-mail system.
Karl Rove doesn't, and shouldn't have to know squat about how the plumbing works. No more than Al Gore would know how the PBX that handles his oops-I-used-the-wrong-phone-line fund raising calls works. If the first thing Rove heard was, "sorry, we don't save mail from those other accounts," then that's what he's going to repeat. You'll notice he's not chiming in on the details of it, or expressing an expert opinion on it... not to be confused with politically opposed congressional reps who make thundering speeches about how it's the 21st century and there's no such thing as un-retrievable e-mail. But... I host mail for some of my own tasks, and once the backups have cascaded through the fairly short retention time on a separate volume, they're GONE, baby. Even if a sound-bite-generating congressman says otherwise.
Perhaps they will be financed by some other means, as happened before copyright existed, and as still happens in various artistic fields. Perhaps they won't be made.
There was no analogy to a modern long-term film project going back into antiquity. The nearest thing would be either large architectural projects - funded by government or very rich people directly - or perhaps something smaller, like an opera. And people produced operas so that they could be paid, and the people that staged them (and built opera houses to exhibit them) in order to derive income from the effort. Will we rich patrons have films made for their own amusement? Perhaps. But how about this: if someone wants to raise money to make a movie, and then charge for you to see it, you can either pay what they're asking, or go away. There! Problem solved! We don't have laws to make these things profitable - as is repeatedly shown, most such projects are NOT profitable - not even close, even when the tricky accountants are out of the equation. Why? Because the people who raised the money to produce the gambled badly, and didn't make something that could earn enough of a repuation to attract a large enough paying audience. But it's up to the person who made it to decide if they'd rather just go ahead and assign you the right to distribute their work as you see fit, or make money off of doing so. Since you obviously have great disdain for people who would like to charge for the experience of watching what it took them years to make, why do you care about the relationship they have with their customers? Just ignore them, and stick with the people who don't want you to pay them to entertain you. I'm sure you have some in mind.
Reducing the copyright laws to an appropriate level, even if it resulted in fewer movies being made, and those movies having lower budgets, still would probably leave the public better off than we are now. That makes it worth it.
Put your lack of money, and the lack of money that the teams making the entertainment you'll settle for, where your mouth is, then. If you're right that we'll get better films by not paying for them then: just talk some quality producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, grips, costumers, actors, editors, transportation specialists, set medics, mixers, and the other 50% of the crew into seeing your light. And talk them into waiving most or all of their copyrights... if you're right, and able to persuade the person who will be paying all of those people to live and eat while they work that even though other people will be able to reproduce the work and distribute it without any financial ties back to the people who paid the bills in advance, that somehow it will all work out, and they won't go bankrupt.
I realize that you want a world where everything is produced at the mom-and-pop level, but I'm wondering if you feel the same way about globe-spanning communications networks, anti-biotics, high-end optics, microprocessors, etc. Without money being risked in the expectation of recouping it, big projects don't happen. Your canard about trillion dollar movies, straw man that it is, isn't very effective at changing the topic here. All you have to do is not patronize expensively made films... and likewise remind other people who want it but don't feel like sacrificing two cups of coffee to hold up their part of the transaction, that if they have any intellectual honesty, they'll just stick with the movies that are created by people who are giving them away.
It is entirely possible that the same is true of the hundred million dollar movies we've got these days.
How about: let the paying audiences (or the lack of them) settle the issue so you don't have to speculate? Markets work. People who rip off someone who brings something to a market distort those markets. Don't like what an artist asks of you? Just walk away. There's no compulsion to enter into the deal, there's no obligation on your part
All I'm saying is that one person pirating a copy of adobe is a civil matter which is what we where talking about
But SELLING such pirated goods is a criminal matter. That's whole point, here: having the same people that deal with imports into the country (the customs, coast guard, people, etc) are very familiar with which organized groups go to a lot of trouble to pirate and sell ripped off creative works. It's a crime. Some kid insisting that he has a right to a copy of Photoshop, and that simply because he wants it, he shouldn't have to actually do business with the people that create, support, improve, and invest in it - that's civil. Until he burns you a copy of his ripped off copy, and charges you $5 for his "effort," or charages you for access to a web site where he's stashing the ISO, or making ad money off of site where's he's distributing it, along with ripped off music and movies, to 500,000 of his "closest friends." Then he's no different than any other Pacific-rim massive piracy operation, and he knows it.
Is that really the only way you can see it? Who do you think CREATES the stuff that gets sold, as pirated copies, for $2 on the sidewalk? Do you think corporate execs choose camera angles, write soundtracks, direct actors, do makeup, design sets and costumes, spend thousands of hours editing, create software to execute new animation techniques, and the rest? ARMIES of people have to work untold thousands of hours to produce the very same popular film that someone else wants to make $50 on, parasite-style, while selling badly reproduced knock-offs of it on the street.
If the people who scrape together and risk the money to pay the huge staff of creative people, for YEARS, to produce something that can only recoup all of that effort and cost once the work starts to sell find that there's simply no way to make it worth the trouble (as in, they'd be better off investing athletic shoes or a fast food chain), how is it that you think multi-year projects involving top-flight technical and creative talent are going to be made? The very same people that are happy to crow about some cool new movie, but which are too cheap to pay a latte-and-half to see it and channel some funds back to the people that made it - are the very ones who will then bitch about how no one seems to be able to really get their act together and produce quality, creative work. You can't have it both ways. And people who deliberately CHOOSE to sit down and pirate that work, and sell knock-offs, are and should be treated like the criminal parasites they are. And if they do it enough, then parole (which, when violated no matter what they were doing to violate it, should land them in jail) is at least what they should be seeing. They obviously have no respect for the huge life-long commitment that other people are making to their jobs and creative work, so we certainly shouldn't just shrug our shoulders when they make a commitment to deliberately ripping it off to make a few lousy bucks or to skip out on paying for something because they've found a slippery way to do so.
And as for Paris don't you think it's sad that she didn't go to jail for the DUI or the ridiculous reckless driving but rather the parole violation?
Just how much more jail space, exactly, would you like to build? They don't usually jail people the first time they make that mistake, especially when they haven't caused a serious accident or hurt someone. If they did, we'd have untold thousands of more people locked away. But when someone who has shown that sort of carelessness in their lives (risking other people) STILL screws up (say, by driving on a suspended license, like she did), you've now got a pattern of behavior, and more sound basis on which to trot out some jail time.
Are you kidding me? Drunk driving..... copy right infringement
I'm not TALKING about drunk driving. I'm talking about being on probation for something. At least that has some teeth to it. If you make a career out of selling pirated goods, and you get probation for doing so because you keep getting busted for doing it, you've got to keep your nose clean, or you'll go to jail. That's not the same as going to jail FOR selling ripped-off works, but it's a decent reason to try creating something yourself or respecting the person that did instead of being a leech as a career. I cited Paris Hilton because, if she hadn't done more than one very avoidable, stupid thing, she wouldn't be going to jail.
That said, I agree that it's absurd that we can even think of locking people up for life for copying bits.
Um... so, how about if you're selling other ripped off or forgery-flavor items? Say, counterfeit handbags? How about counterfeit replacement safety parts (like airbag assemblies) for cars? If you decide to rip a copy of a just-released movie, crank out copies of it and sell them for money... and you're caught running such an enterprise over and over... how is that any different than ripping off/faking your way into other markets? Criminal activity - especially the obvious, high-volume pirate flavor, the kind that you see occupying entire buildings and container loads in Asia - is what this is about.
For example, probation, being forbidden to own/operate a computer, etc.
Probation, sure. Because then if you screw up in other ways (see Paris Hilton), you get to go to actual jail. But "forbidden to use a computer?" Are you KIDDING me? By the way, what IS a computer, these days? A *nix-running PDA? A hacked game console? Your PHONE, if it's net-connected and can run a remote shell?
We wouldn't describe me using a coupon to reduce my cable bill "getting a rebate check from the CEO of Time Warner."
And that's because the people creating and providing your cable service are producing a valuable service. Their actions create the thing that you value, and if you are more inclined to do business with them by taking the producer/provider of those services up on a competitive offer, then that means they've made a shrewd marketing decision. On this, you've drawn a non-working analogy.
The government's expenditures are not limited to tax revenue.
Sure they are. Just not necessarily current tax revenue. Why do you think we have to pay so much interest on money that congress has elected to spend, in the absence of adequate taxes? It really does cost something if congress doesn't reduce expenditure when it reduces what it collects. You reduce someone's taxes by $100 and don't reduce expenditures by that much? You get to start paying interest, instead. That makes this even MORE offensive.
I like your second choice. I own a large SUV, but hardly ever drive it, since I telecommute all but perhaps two days a month. But when I do use the SUV, it's a very suitable vehicle (to seat 6+ people and a large payload, etc). So, gallons-per-month-wise, I've got a very light touch. It shouldn't be OWNING a vehicle that stabs you with fees, it should be using it in a wasteful way that does so.
There's an interest in the government to subsidize new technologies with the potential for greater societal good.
Note that I'm not suggesting that investment in new technologies is a bad thing, or that tax money - when spent - shouldn't be spent on things that, given a choice, spur on more competition to produce efficient technologies. My point is that the GP is suggesting that his Hybrid really doesn't cost him as much as some people would suggest, because he also gets tax breaks for driving it... but he's deliberately ignoring that fact that the vast majority of us who haven't yet (or can't, etc) buy a hybrid are the ones subsidizing his cheaper price. It's that classic disconnect, wherein people refer to "the government" (and it's spending or crediting of money) as if it's somehow not the rest of us... but it is the rest of us. He's getting a tax credit, and thus the rest of us are getting a tax increase. I'm not weighing in on whether the investment is good, I'm weighing in on whether or not he's characterizing it correctly, and/or being more than a little disengenuous.
I hate these people who run the numbers and leave out other numbers.
And I can't stand it when people talk as if getting tax credits reduces costs. It transfers costs to someone else. Ironically, even the guy who takes his bicycle or public transportation to work is going to have to shoulder some of the federal income tax burden that you - as a driver of your own personal vehicle - are able to shrug off because of the flavor of engine you bought. Unless you can demonstrate how your purchase of that vehicle is going to reduce the federal government's cost of doing business by the amount of your tax credit, you're just asking everyone else in the country to write you a rebate check out of their own income.
what motive could congress have to investigate this guy?
Ask the person running congress: Nancy Pelosi. So far, her agenda (in terms of how to use the waking hours that congress has to do things) seems to be more or less entirely centered around pointless political spectacle. That IS the motive, and this would plug right into it... the appearance of gnashing their teeth over how federal money is spent, while simultaneously looking for ways to tack hundreds of millions in unrelated pork (spinach subsidies? peanut storage?) onto military spending bills. Essentially, congress is just doing its usual flailing about, and whatever committee chair-creature is in charge of this one justs wants to look tough on camera for the folks back home.
The connection technology just now being rolled out by ONE phone company in a handful of cities?
Right. Before it was being rolled out, they weren't having to compete with it. Now it IS being rolled out, so they DO have to compete with it. Is this a little too complex, or something? People (including zoning boards in municipalities, property managers for large buildings, developers, etc) are going to be making lots of infrastructure decisions. Things that weren't, but now ARE available figure into that. If a cable company doesn't show any sign that they're even going to TRY to compete with a wildly faster technology that is now actually in use by actual consumers, what do you think would happen to them over time? That's not a "funny definition" of competition, it IS competition. Or... do you think that something's only a factor in competition if it magically appears on the market in exactly equal supply, with perfect adoption in exact porportion? If you're even slightly thinking that way, then Macs and Linux boxes can't be competition for Windows boxes, either. Which would surprise all of those Mac owners out there, for example. Sort of like my mom would be surprised that when she had her choice of a dish provider or two, two cable companies, and Verizon's FIOS, that competition wasn't a factor in all of those sales pitches at her front door.
More realistic is that they have to learn to live with the fact that satellite images are available to the general public and adjust their strategy accordingly.
Um, it's not the NGA that would have to 'adjust their strategy.' It's the many facilities, run by everyone from the DoE to DoS to DoD to state and municipal entities, all of which would have to adapt to it.
Too bad humans on the wrong team don't get this sort of consideration, ie, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, etc.
You say "don't get" as if none do, as opposed to the fraction who didn't/don't because not every person who has a job along those lines handles it well all the time, or enough, before getting the can. Your point is pointless unless you're also going to say that it's too bad medical patients at Johns Hopkins don't get this sort of consideration. Or kids in day care don't get this sort of consideration. Or that seniors in retirement homes don't get this sort of consideration. Or that thoughtful, insightful comments on slashdot don't get this sort of consideration.
When you sweep all actions by everyone in a particular circumstance into the same bucket that a few losers so visibly occupy, you're even worse than the few losers you're using to taint the (much more numerous) good guys, because you know it's not true. Unless you really do think that: Dentists Rape Patients Under Sedation. Boy Scout Troop Leaders Are Pedophiles. Open Source File System Developers Are Murderers. Um... do you? Or do you have a magic broom you use for your sweeping generalizations, and while it avoids treating all F/OSS devs as murderers, it just happens to describe all people in the military as gleeful torturers.
Oh, and we know for a fact that nobody in the US has ever been killed by people with a political agenda.
You seem to be confusing individual acts - which originate across the political spectrum - with the sustained, advertised, obvious actions of an actual totalitarian regime that uses the old round-'em-up-and-shoot-'em approach as seen in places like Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. Regimes that stay in power by overtly using such tactics to maintain power are NOT the same as democracies that routinely and peacefully (on a calendar schedule, in case you're not paying attention) rotate legislative and executive authorities in and out of office as a matter of course.
As to surveillance, do I have to mention the NSA?
Do you need to? Their existence and their mission is as well known as it is necessary.
Just because other places in the world are worse than the US, does that mean that the US is not totalitarian?
No, the fact that the US is not run by a totalitarian regime is what means it's not a totalitarian country. You know, almost like that word has meaning or something, even though some people use it more as some sort of wish-list-mantra because it would help them feel better about just generally feeling resentful about everything, and the difficulty they have gathering enough people to back their own favorite politicians into meaningful power. In other words: using that word, out of context and without any recognition of what it actually means, cheapens it when it actually applies, and just sounds that much more shrill and whiny when misapplied.
A woman who is 3 days pregnant is *just* as pregnant as a woman whose belly looks like a beachball. Whether or not the accusation of the US being totalitarian is correct, if the correct word to use for Cuba was totalitarian, and the US fulfilled the same criteria as Cuba, then it would, in fact, be totalitarian.
Yeah, and some people see a fat young woman with no wedding ring and just assume she's a pregnant young bimbo, and form all sorts of invalid opinions which - even after they've been shown their idiocy - they have a hard time shaking off. The analogy police say: totalitarian is as totalitarian does. I agree that if we can all agree that Cuba is a totalitarian state, and that if the US carried on just like Cuba, we could also call the US a totalitarian state. But it clearly doesn't, and thus isn't. You're talking about semantics as a peculiar way to avoid actually addressing the fact that the GP is a little daft, referring to the US as a totalitarian country.
From the dictionary: of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy : authoritarian, dictatorial; especially : despotic b: of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism)
No matter how much people on the left THINK it serves them to trot out that word and so heavily mis-apply it to the current administration, they never seem to quite figure out that its the folks on THEIR side that push the nanny state, more state control of business, more state influence over culture, more state influence over who gets what job, etc. There's far more censorship-ish urges pushed forward from the left than there ever is from their counterparts... so I always find this sort of conversation deliciously ironic.
Slashdot Mirror
So just to be clear, you're not talking about a mini ice age?
No, I'm talking about the most recent, actual, real, covering-half-the-continent ice age. There was neither agriculture, nor even a significant human population (and sure as hell nothing approaching, say, the wildebeast or bison populations) in play when we last saw a dramatic change in temp, climbing their way upwards ever since. We weren't meaningfully THERE to impact that huge change, let alone cause it, and be the only causes of it. So, implying that, since that big change, things have just nicely leveled off, and would STAY that way if it weren't for human activity and ONLY human activity, is spectacularly disengenuous. So much so, that when that notion gets spouted as the primary thesis and summary of so many "let's all be activists" school assemblies and slashdot summaries, that you have to wonder (or not so much) what political axe is being ground... because it can't POSSIBLY be that the deliverers of that message really think that climate would not be changing if we weren't here. And if they DO think that, then you have to question their ability to string together any two bits of information and form any sort of rational thought, and then you have to ask yourself why you're listening to them for advice on whether that new hybrid Honda really is, or isn't a true net positive on the environment, or why they're so opposed to nuclear power at the same time they're bitching about coal.
The only problem with their publishing this information is that it just won't do any good if you can't convince people to read it.
And the REASON you can't get people to read it is that it tends to be introduced with summary notions that imply: "The weather would be perfectly stable, and very pleasant, and nothing would ever, ever change, and there would be unicorns bringing us nice books to read under the light of their sweet, sweet rainbows if it weren't for Americans and their cars, which also happen to be painted ugly colors." Climate has been, and always will be all over the place, in terms of trends and even huge ugly swings. We certainly are contributing some to the current state of affairs. If we were all living in loin cloths in villages of a hundred people, though, the climate would still be very different today that it was 25,000 years ago. And 100,000 years ago. The Sahara used to be bigger, and hotter than it is now... perhaps because there was a lull in paleolithic SUV driving or something, who knows.
You can't "debunk" the ice age. Well, I mean, you CAN... but then you might as well attribute all of our delusions about glacially relocated megatons of rocks and top soil in the US midwest to... what? The Electric Universe and lightning bolts from Mars? Aliens competing in giant Curling matches? Yeesh.
It's when talking points are either flat out wrong or just drastically miss the point that problems arise, and that's what we see with most global warming denialist ones.
... ? is due to
You say that, and ignore the summary that cites, "this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere"
That absolute tone - stating that there is no other contributing factor, and that only humans have anything to do with climate change - not only flies in the face of countless other observations (and just plain common sense), but it's the sort of smug, one-dimensional, fear-mongering assertion that tends to bring out the opposing talking points you're so annoyed by. If you don't like simplistic counter-fire, why aren't you combatting the real provocation for them, which is unadulterated crap like that gross and misleading simplification? Not long ago we were in an ice age. Things have changes a lot since then. Man did not do it. Man's activity could well be an important contributor to the nature of, or impact of ages old cycles and other influences. But "it's man, and that's that" is a deliberate bit of trolling and the foundation for political power grabbing.
She had images available for download for free.
And they were obtained and used in violation of the terms under which she presented them. A movie theatre may put up a copy of a poster on a wall for promotional purposes. Right there, where the public can see it. That doesn't make it cool to run it over to Kinkos to reproduce it, and especially not to SELL those reproductions.
There is a big difference between copying/downloading a cd/movie and selling copies of a cd/movie.
Ripping it off for your own use: civil court matter
Ripping it off to sell it: criminal matter
Both: ethically identical. The person who rips it off to sell it is looking to avoid having to pay the cost of something they want to use (in this case, in their 'retail' business). The person who rips it off to show on their big screen TV on Friday night when their friends come over for a pizza and beer is looking to avoid paying the cost of something they want to use (for entertainment).
Ripping off the artist is ripping off the artist. Period. Don't want to pay what the artist is asking? Just walk away, and choose entertainment that an artist is willing to give away, or which you're more willing to pay for. Don't like that an artist would rather concentrate on their art, and have decided to let a publishing company handle all of their business affairs? Just walk away, and get your entertainment from bar bands, street performers, the local playhouse, or some other source. Don't rip off the artist to make a point about how you think they should be working under your terms, rather than their own. There is no difference between ripping it off to make the artist your own personal entertainment-making slave, and ripping it off to make the artist your own personal creator-of-entertainment-which-you-then-sell slave.
Well, the usual response is "this is totally different because they resold the (art, program, etc.) without crediting the (artist, programmer, etc.)." Ripping off movies and music is OK because, you know, they're not being resold...
But even when the conversation turns to outright piracy for sale, people here are wierdly hesitant to call a spade a spade. For example, if someone rips off a copy of MS Windows and sells it for $2 on the street, people here do a Simpson's 'ha-ha!' and move on. When a photographer's work gets ripped off and used as the cover art on a $2 CD on the street, there's an awkward silence, and then all sorts of mumbling about how The Man might be interfering with the artist's choice of venues to complain about being ripped off. *sigh*
It will be interesting to see how the /. groupthink tackles this. Photographer (and hence, at least partially-nerd) from the imagined-to-be-always-hip Iceland strives to make some money doing something creative and leveraging the internet to become visible and reach customers. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "Man, she sure got screwed. But let's argue about whether and how to use the word "censorship" when Flickr removes a contentions and legally risky post from their system."
Or, she's a filmaker who puts, porportionately, the same amount of her money and reputation on the line (along with that of usually many other people), and works with a distributor as a way to make money from her work and fund her next project. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "That's cool. I shouldn't have to pay for bits."
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the entire point of the Gonzo hearings that there was undue political interference in government business?
No, that's the picture that the politicians milling up the hearings would like you to take away. The appointing, management, and retention of US Attorneys is ENTIRELY political, from start to finish. When Clinton fired ALL of them, it was for political reasons, too... not because he suddenly found that they all sucked at their jobs. Political appointees are just that. These aren't career employees at some agency - they are people hired to expressly conduct their activities in keeping with the priorities and thinking of the person who appointed them, and the serve at that person's whim. Which is better: replacing some of them, because the people in the political food chain that chose them (because of their politics) decided, on reflection, that there are other political appointees they'd rather see in those slots... or firing all of them, regardless?
The "outrage" you're citing is nothing but Kabuki Theater, and everyone involved knows it, especially the ones who are conducting it. From the polls yesterday: the under-new-management Congress has a lower public approval rating than does G.W. Bush. That should tell you something about how transparently time-wasting and grandstanding this sort of faux outrage actually is.
"They" aren't "talkin to Karl Rove." He made that one comment about the availability of mail going to/from accounts that aren't part of the normal government flow of things through the archived WH comms system. Political communications - such as when, say, Al Gore was working (while being VP) to coordinate campaign-related fundraisers - are traditionally done through other channels, and in fact in some cases are required by federal law to be handled through other channels. You may recall the heat Gore got for conducting Dem party business over White House phone lines. That sort of thing is supposed to be a no-no. That's the problem with being in office... you work for the people that employ you, but you're also, personally, a politician that has an interest in your relations to the party that put you there, and the need to conduct campaign and party-strategy-type communications that - gasp! - may happen to involve talking about the spin you put on things related to what you also - gasp! - have to have something to do with when you're punched back into your job in the executive branch.
I don't envy anyone in that role. In a given day I wear lots of different hats... checking/sending e-mails to/from the very same people using different mailboxes based on the context of the communication, and whether it's being paid for. I might have a thread going with someone because of a contract we're both working on, and want to leave a trail in a corporate box to help track that project. But we might also have reason to talk more off-line over the prospects of another gig, or to strategize a bit on how we want to talk to/about someone who overlaps with our other (directly for pay) communications. Very easy to have some messages go through the wrong channel sometimes. Same reason Gore picked up his White House office line to raise cash, and same reason some staffer might be having at least some of the e-mail exchanges that help a boss shape a political posture on the retention of a politically appointed employee (say, a US attorney) through more than one e-mail system.
Karl Rove doesn't, and shouldn't have to know squat about how the plumbing works. No more than Al Gore would know how the PBX that handles his oops-I-used-the-wrong-phone-line fund raising calls works. If the first thing Rove heard was, "sorry, we don't save mail from those other accounts," then that's what he's going to repeat. You'll notice he's not chiming in on the details of it, or expressing an expert opinion on it... not to be confused with politically opposed congressional reps who make thundering speeches about how it's the 21st century and there's no such thing as un-retrievable e-mail. But... I host mail for some of my own tasks, and once the backups have cascaded through the fairly short retention time on a separate volume, they're GONE, baby. Even if a sound-bite-generating congressman says otherwise.
Perhaps they will be financed by some other means, as happened before copyright existed, and as still happens in various artistic fields. Perhaps they won't be made.
There was no analogy to a modern long-term film project going back into antiquity. The nearest thing would be either large architectural projects - funded by government or very rich people directly - or perhaps something smaller, like an opera. And people produced operas so that they could be paid, and the people that staged them (and built opera houses to exhibit them) in order to derive income from the effort. Will we rich patrons have films made for their own amusement? Perhaps. But how about this: if someone wants to raise money to make a movie, and then charge for you to see it, you can either pay what they're asking, or go away. There! Problem solved! We don't have laws to make these things profitable - as is repeatedly shown, most such projects are NOT profitable - not even close, even when the tricky accountants are out of the equation. Why? Because the people who raised the money to produce the gambled badly, and didn't make something that could earn enough of a repuation to attract a large enough paying audience. But it's up to the person who made it to decide if they'd rather just go ahead and assign you the right to distribute their work as you see fit, or make money off of doing so. Since you obviously have great disdain for people who would like to charge for the experience of watching what it took them years to make, why do you care about the relationship they have with their customers? Just ignore them, and stick with the people who don't want you to pay them to entertain you. I'm sure you have some in mind.
Reducing the copyright laws to an appropriate level, even if it resulted in fewer movies being made, and those movies having lower budgets, still would probably leave the public better off than we are now. That makes it worth it.
Put your lack of money, and the lack of money that the teams making the entertainment you'll settle for, where your mouth is, then. If you're right that we'll get better films by not paying for them then: just talk some quality producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, grips, costumers, actors, editors, transportation specialists, set medics, mixers, and the other 50% of the crew into seeing your light. And talk them into waiving most or all of their copyrights... if you're right, and able to persuade the person who will be paying all of those people to live and eat while they work that even though other people will be able to reproduce the work and distribute it without any financial ties back to the people who paid the bills in advance, that somehow it will all work out, and they won't go bankrupt.
I realize that you want a world where everything is produced at the mom-and-pop level, but I'm wondering if you feel the same way about globe-spanning communications networks, anti-biotics, high-end optics, microprocessors, etc. Without money being risked in the expectation of recouping it, big projects don't happen. Your canard about trillion dollar movies, straw man that it is, isn't very effective at changing the topic here. All you have to do is not patronize expensively made films... and likewise remind other people who want it but don't feel like sacrificing two cups of coffee to hold up their part of the transaction, that if they have any intellectual honesty, they'll just stick with the movies that are created by people who are giving them away.
It is entirely possible that the same is true of the hundred million dollar movies we've got these days.
How about: let the paying audiences (or the lack of them) settle the issue so you don't have to speculate? Markets work. People who rip off someone who brings something to a market distort those markets. Don't like what an artist asks of you? Just walk away. There's no compulsion to enter into the deal, there's no obligation on your part
All I'm saying is that one person pirating a copy of adobe is a civil matter which is what we where talking about
But SELLING such pirated goods is a criminal matter. That's whole point, here: having the same people that deal with imports into the country (the customs, coast guard, people, etc) are very familiar with which organized groups go to a lot of trouble to pirate and sell ripped off creative works. It's a crime. Some kid insisting that he has a right to a copy of Photoshop, and that simply because he wants it, he shouldn't have to actually do business with the people that create, support, improve, and invest in it - that's civil. Until he burns you a copy of his ripped off copy, and charges you $5 for his "effort," or charages you for access to a web site where he's stashing the ISO, or making ad money off of site where's he's distributing it, along with ripped off music and movies, to 500,000 of his "closest friends." Then he's no different than any other Pacific-rim massive piracy operation, and he knows it.
people that "rob" from corporate pockets
Is that really the only way you can see it? Who do you think CREATES the stuff that gets sold, as pirated copies, for $2 on the sidewalk? Do you think corporate execs choose camera angles, write soundtracks, direct actors, do makeup, design sets and costumes, spend thousands of hours editing, create software to execute new animation techniques, and the rest? ARMIES of people have to work untold thousands of hours to produce the very same popular film that someone else wants to make $50 on, parasite-style, while selling badly reproduced knock-offs of it on the street.
If the people who scrape together and risk the money to pay the huge staff of creative people, for YEARS, to produce something that can only recoup all of that effort and cost once the work starts to sell find that there's simply no way to make it worth the trouble (as in, they'd be better off investing athletic shoes or a fast food chain), how is it that you think multi-year projects involving top-flight technical and creative talent are going to be made? The very same people that are happy to crow about some cool new movie, but which are too cheap to pay a latte-and-half to see it and channel some funds back to the people that made it - are the very ones who will then bitch about how no one seems to be able to really get their act together and produce quality, creative work. You can't have it both ways. And people who deliberately CHOOSE to sit down and pirate that work, and sell knock-offs, are and should be treated like the criminal parasites they are. And if they do it enough, then parole (which, when violated no matter what they were doing to violate it, should land them in jail) is at least what they should be seeing. They obviously have no respect for the huge life-long commitment that other people are making to their jobs and creative work, so we certainly shouldn't just shrug our shoulders when they make a commitment to deliberately ripping it off to make a few lousy bucks or to skip out on paying for something because they've found a slippery way to do so.
And as for Paris don't you think it's sad that she didn't go to jail for the DUI or the ridiculous reckless driving but rather the parole violation?
Just how much more jail space, exactly, would you like to build? They don't usually jail people the first time they make that mistake, especially when they haven't caused a serious accident or hurt someone. If they did, we'd have untold thousands of more people locked away. But when someone who has shown that sort of carelessness in their lives (risking other people) STILL screws up (say, by driving on a suspended license, like she did), you've now got a pattern of behavior, and more sound basis on which to trot out some jail time.
Are you kidding me? Drunk driving ..... copy right infringement
I'm not TALKING about drunk driving. I'm talking about being on probation for something. At least that has some teeth to it. If you make a career out of selling pirated goods, and you get probation for doing so because you keep getting busted for doing it, you've got to keep your nose clean, or you'll go to jail. That's not the same as going to jail FOR selling ripped-off works, but it's a decent reason to try creating something yourself or respecting the person that did instead of being a leech as a career. I cited Paris Hilton because, if she hadn't done more than one very avoidable, stupid thing, she wouldn't be going to jail.
That said, I agree that it's absurd that we can even think of locking people up for life for copying bits.
Um... so, how about if you're selling other ripped off or forgery-flavor items? Say, counterfeit handbags? How about counterfeit replacement safety parts (like airbag assemblies) for cars? If you decide to rip a copy of a just-released movie, crank out copies of it and sell them for money... and you're caught running such an enterprise over and over... how is that any different than ripping off/faking your way into other markets? Criminal activity - especially the obvious, high-volume pirate flavor, the kind that you see occupying entire buildings and container loads in Asia - is what this is about.
For example, probation, being forbidden to own/operate a computer, etc.
Probation, sure. Because then if you screw up in other ways (see Paris Hilton), you get to go to actual jail. But "forbidden to use a computer?" Are you KIDDING me? By the way, what IS a computer, these days? A *nix-running PDA? A hacked game console? Your PHONE, if it's net-connected and can run a remote shell?
We wouldn't describe me using a coupon to reduce my cable bill "getting a rebate check from the CEO of Time Warner."
And that's because the people creating and providing your cable service are producing a valuable service. Their actions create the thing that you value, and if you are more inclined to do business with them by taking the producer/provider of those services up on a competitive offer, then that means they've made a shrewd marketing decision. On this, you've drawn a non-working analogy.
The government's expenditures are not limited to tax revenue.
Sure they are. Just not necessarily current tax revenue. Why do you think we have to pay so much interest on money that congress has elected to spend, in the absence of adequate taxes? It really does cost something if congress doesn't reduce expenditure when it reduces what it collects. You reduce someone's taxes by $100 and don't reduce expenditures by that much? You get to start paying interest, instead. That makes this even MORE offensive.
I like your second choice. I own a large SUV, but hardly ever drive it, since I telecommute all but perhaps two days a month. But when I do use the SUV, it's a very suitable vehicle (to seat 6+ people and a large payload, etc). So, gallons-per-month-wise, I've got a very light touch. It shouldn't be OWNING a vehicle that stabs you with fees, it should be using it in a wasteful way that does so.
There's an interest in the government to subsidize new technologies with the potential for greater societal good.
Note that I'm not suggesting that investment in new technologies is a bad thing, or that tax money - when spent - shouldn't be spent on things that, given a choice, spur on more competition to produce efficient technologies. My point is that the GP is suggesting that his Hybrid really doesn't cost him as much as some people would suggest, because he also gets tax breaks for driving it... but he's deliberately ignoring that fact that the vast majority of us who haven't yet (or can't, etc) buy a hybrid are the ones subsidizing his cheaper price. It's that classic disconnect, wherein people refer to "the government" (and it's spending or crediting of money) as if it's somehow not the rest of us... but it is the rest of us. He's getting a tax credit, and thus the rest of us are getting a tax increase. I'm not weighing in on whether the investment is good, I'm weighing in on whether or not he's characterizing it correctly, and/or being more than a little disengenuous.
I hate these people who run the numbers and leave out other numbers.
And I can't stand it when people talk as if getting tax credits reduces costs. It transfers costs to someone else. Ironically, even the guy who takes his bicycle or public transportation to work is going to have to shoulder some of the federal income tax burden that you - as a driver of your own personal vehicle - are able to shrug off because of the flavor of engine you bought. Unless you can demonstrate how your purchase of that vehicle is going to reduce the federal government's cost of doing business by the amount of your tax credit, you're just asking everyone else in the country to write you a rebate check out of their own income.
what motive could congress have to investigate this guy?
Ask the person running congress: Nancy Pelosi. So far, her agenda (in terms of how to use the waking hours that congress has to do things) seems to be more or less entirely centered around pointless political spectacle. That IS the motive, and this would plug right into it... the appearance of gnashing their teeth over how federal money is spent, while simultaneously looking for ways to tack hundreds of millions in unrelated pork (spinach subsidies? peanut storage?) onto military spending bills. Essentially, congress is just doing its usual flailing about, and whatever committee chair-creature is in charge of this one justs wants to look tough on camera for the folks back home.
The connection technology just now being rolled out by ONE phone company in a handful of cities?
Right. Before it was being rolled out, they weren't having to compete with it. Now it IS being rolled out, so they DO have to compete with it. Is this a little too complex, or something? People (including zoning boards in municipalities, property managers for large buildings, developers, etc) are going to be making lots of infrastructure decisions. Things that weren't, but now ARE available figure into that. If a cable company doesn't show any sign that they're even going to TRY to compete with a wildly faster technology that is now actually in use by actual consumers, what do you think would happen to them over time? That's not a "funny definition" of competition, it IS competition. Or... do you think that something's only a factor in competition if it magically appears on the market in exactly equal supply, with perfect adoption in exact porportion? If you're even slightly thinking that way, then Macs and Linux boxes can't be competition for Windows boxes, either. Which would surprise all of those Mac owners out there, for example. Sort of like my mom would be surprised that when she had her choice of a dish provider or two, two cable companies, and Verizon's FIOS, that competition wasn't a factor in all of those sales pitches at her front door.
More realistic is that they have to learn to live with the fact that satellite images are available to the general public and adjust their strategy accordingly.
Um, it's not the NGA that would have to 'adjust their strategy.' It's the many facilities, run by everyone from the DoE to DoS to DoD to state and municipal entities, all of which would have to adapt to it.
longer form of a protein
As long as... a spaghetti noodle, perhaps?
Too bad humans on the wrong team don't get this sort of consideration, ie, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, etc.
You say "don't get" as if none do, as opposed to the fraction who didn't/don't because not every person who has a job along those lines handles it well all the time, or enough, before getting the can. Your point is pointless unless you're also going to say that it's too bad medical patients at Johns Hopkins don't get this sort of consideration. Or kids in day care don't get this sort of consideration. Or that seniors in retirement homes don't get this sort of consideration. Or that thoughtful, insightful comments on slashdot don't get this sort of consideration.
When you sweep all actions by everyone in a particular circumstance into the same bucket that a few losers so visibly occupy, you're even worse than the few losers you're using to taint the (much more numerous) good guys, because you know it's not true. Unless you really do think that: Dentists Rape Patients Under Sedation. Boy Scout Troop Leaders Are Pedophiles. Open Source File System Developers Are Murderers. Um... do you? Or do you have a magic broom you use for your sweeping generalizations, and while it avoids treating all F/OSS devs as murderers, it just happens to describe all people in the military as gleeful torturers.
Oh, and we know for a fact that nobody in the US has ever been killed by people with a political agenda.
You seem to be confusing individual acts - which originate across the political spectrum - with the sustained, advertised, obvious actions of an actual totalitarian regime that uses the old round-'em-up-and-shoot-'em approach as seen in places like Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. Regimes that stay in power by overtly using such tactics to maintain power are NOT the same as democracies that routinely and peacefully (on a calendar schedule, in case you're not paying attention) rotate legislative and executive authorities in and out of office as a matter of course.
As to surveillance, do I have to mention the NSA?
Do you need to? Their existence and their mission is as well known as it is necessary.
Just because other places in the world are worse than the US, does that mean that the US is not totalitarian?
No, the fact that the US is not run by a totalitarian regime is what means it's not a totalitarian country. You know, almost like that word has meaning or something, even though some people use it more as some sort of wish-list-mantra because it would help them feel better about just generally feeling resentful about everything, and the difficulty they have gathering enough people to back their own favorite politicians into meaningful power. In other words: using that word, out of context and without any recognition of what it actually means, cheapens it when it actually applies, and just sounds that much more shrill and whiny when misapplied.
A woman who is 3 days pregnant is *just* as pregnant as a woman whose belly looks like a beachball. Whether or not the accusation of the US being totalitarian is correct, if the correct word to use for Cuba was totalitarian, and the US fulfilled the same criteria as Cuba, then it would, in fact, be totalitarian.
Yeah, and some people see a fat young woman with no wedding ring and just assume she's a pregnant young bimbo, and form all sorts of invalid opinions which - even after they've been shown their idiocy - they have a hard time shaking off. The analogy police say: totalitarian is as totalitarian does. I agree that if we can all agree that Cuba is a totalitarian state, and that if the US carried on just like Cuba, we could also call the US a totalitarian state. But it clearly doesn't, and thus isn't. You're talking about semantics as a peculiar way to avoid actually addressing the fact that the GP is a little daft, referring to the US as a totalitarian country.
From the dictionary: of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy : authoritarian, dictatorial; especially : despotic b: of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism)
No matter how much people on the left THINK it serves them to trot out that word and so heavily mis-apply it to the current administration, they never seem to quite figure out that its the folks on THEIR side that push the nanny state, more state control of business, more state influence over culture, more state influence over who gets what job, etc. There's far more censorship-ish urges pushed forward from the left than there ever is from their counterparts... so I always find this sort of conversation deliciously ironic.