This argument is one normally applied to central planning. It sounds great in principle (less waste because we don't have duplication of effort). In practice, it doesn't work worth a damn.
In the case of GPL, it does not "remove futile cycles" in all cases, any more than proprietary software produces the best result in all cases.
GPL can produce futile cycles too - look at all the variants of Linux that are out there.
And since public domain allows programmers to use the GPL model if they want, I have no idea why you think the freedom oriented approach of public domain "ties all the programmers of the world" to anything at all!
As far as the government granted monopoly, it is also called for in the US constitution, and exists for a specific purpose. The fact that it is often abused does not mean it is wrong. FURTHERMORE, public domain does not create such a monopoly. It only allows someone to sell software that they have created or modified that way. It DOES NOT prohibit anyone else from taking the same fruits of the public work and using it for free or modifying it and release it for free or even with a restrictive license like GPL.
Those who imagine that GPL == freedom don't understand freedom.
You are confusing the means and the ends. The means I propose are freer than the means you propose. The ends may or may not be better, but I would argue that in most cases the results will be. In any case, the principle of freedom in this case trumps the principle of socially engineered results like the GPL attempts to achieve.
Sigh. I wish I could edit my own postings after I put them up there. A deficiency of slashdot. Of course, I deserve a whack by a small stick for not re-reading before hitting the submit button.
The third paragraph SHOULD HAVE READ:
As far as the principle of freedom, what is more free than a public domain license? GPL is *less* free!
GPL removes competition by preventing alternative forms of organizations and licensing.
If a big corporation can convince people to take its proprietary version of the software, is that so bad? Do you think that consumers are idiots and that *you* know what is in their best interests more than they do? Mos timportantly, it does not prevent anyone else from creating GPL versions of the original public domain software.
As far as the principle of freedom, what is more free than an open source license? GPL is *less* free!
This is easily proven:
Definition: freedom is that licensing system which allows the most people or entities to distribute and modify the software.
Freedom measure of GPL:
The only people or organizations which can improve the software are those with the time and/or resources to do so *without* the renumeration provided by a proprietary interest in the results.
Freedom measure of public domain:
All of the same people and organizations covered under GPL
-and-
Any organization which wants to adopt other licensing schemes, with alternate investment and renumeration potential.
The latter is clearly more than the former, therefore GPL is less freedom oriented (less free) than public domain.
Your argument misses the point that all models are allowed to compete with each other if the software is released as public domain.
If the only software to survive this free choice by users is incompatable proprietary junk, blame the consumer!
By making all software GPL, it is entirely likely (actually, it is quite factual with existing PD software) that most of the software won't be used by anyone, because typical PD software is not packaged or portable or polished enough for all but the most determined to use, or for those in *exactly* the same environment as those who originally developed it.
GPL, BSD and proprietary all can extend that software. But sometimes the only people willing to do it are those who need or demand property rights in the results (i.e. capital investment often requires closed source to be recouped).
If the software is so useful to the public, GPL or BSD efforts are perfectly free to also adapt it and keep it open.
I simply am advocating competition. If GPL can't stand up to the competition in a particular case, then why use it?
Forcing the government to release code under GPL is *removing* competition from the market. Public domain is much better. The code can be taken up by private companies and they can improve and sell it. And nothing I am aware of keeps that same code for forming the basis of a GPL and/or BSD project.
So turn the code loose with no strings at all, and let the best licensing system win!
I have read the DirectPC (satellite broadband)policy (disclaimer - I don't use them so I don't know if it really works this way).
Their approach achieves appropriate allocation of bandwidth, at least on downlink, with a mechanism that seems to be very fair. They do so without regulating any particular application.
The approach is to have a bit bucket. Not the traditional trash can bit bucket... but a bucket used as a capacity measurement. They continuously fill your bandwidth bucket at a specific rate (I think it was 46 kbps for a home user). When you use bandwidth, it depletes the bucket at the rate you use it. The bucket, of course, has a maximum capacity... it never can be filled over a certain size (a few hundred megabytes).
Thus you get good peak bandwidth. You get decent average bandwidth. And you can't hog the system at the expense of other users.
Sure, this would be a pain for downloading a CD, and it breaks big P-P sites if a similar approach is used for uplink.
But I have no sympathy for those wanting to serve up a lot of P-P stuff, consuming vast amounts of upstream bandwidth compare to normal users. Hey, if you want to P-P serve up movies, *pay* for the bandwidth.
As a number of other posters have pointed out, correctly, why bandwidth indeed must be limited, and the average bandwidth to a home broadband user needs to be a lot less than the peak bandwidth. You may have a peak bandwidth of 5Mbps, but you sure aren't paying for it as an average bandwidth - see the other posts - and you haven't been guaranteed that bandwidth in any way unless you bought DSL or a dedicated line (which would cost thousands per month for 5Mbps).
I guess I can't resist rebutting the previous poster. Sigh.
Bandwidth limitations are bullshit. In the age of multi gigabit fiber connections and the ability to multiplex connections across a single strand of fiber, there is no reason to limit bandwidth.
There's more to bandwidth than long distance fiber. As George Gilder, who probably mis-influenced your thinking, found out - the "last mile" is the problem. Most of the dark fiber is wholesale fiber - long haul stuff. It is a lot more expensive to get it from your house to the backbone! The cost of installing the fiber is very high. The cost of switching it onto the net is also high, and bandwidth related. In fact, few people have fiber to their house. In most cases, it is coax that goes to a nearby multiplexor that goes onto fiber. And guess what? That multiplexor costs a lot. Furthermore, ultimately all the bandwidth has to go through the ISP's infrastructure and extremely expensive access points to get onto the net. It ain't free. Your dark fiber reasoning is terribly naive.
Now, as to your bandwidth calculation, you conveniently ignore the issue of peak bandwidth, which to most people is far more important than 24x7 bandwidth. Your calculation is for the latter. When you have a wideband connection, you have high peak bandwidth (my microwave connection typically gives about 4.7mbps). But since peaks average out across users, this is not nearly as expensive to provision as the same amount of bandwidth average.
I don't know about you, but I have never seen a broadband ad (other than DSL) that guaranteed continuous high bandwidth.
All of the Clinton scandals were first published by the right wing media, and the rest picked it up because they had no choice at that point.
Bush got plenty of media coverage about all you described - in fact, the coverage of his business dealings was far worse than the actual fact of his dealings.
Not necessarily. If the spam crosses state lines, it is interstate commerce. The interstate commerce clause of the constitution has been used for a lot of very bad things, but even those of us who are "strict constructionists" would agree that the federal government can override any state law in this field.
In fact, the whole point of the interstate commerce clause was to allow the federal government to stop states from erecting barriers to interstate trade (such as tariffs).
BTW... a misguided interpretation of the commerce clause is what opened the door to the modern nanny state. FDR wanted all sorts of social programs that would require taxation outside of income tax (Social Security is an example), and the courts would not permit this because, by strict construction, the commerce clause applied only to true interstate commerce. FDR, who totally controlled congress, threatened to increase the number of members of the supreme court (one of the congressional powers in the constitution that most folks aren't aware of), and then to appoint justices who would vote his way. In response, the Supreme Court suddenly found ways to apply the commerce clause far beyond original intent.
Re:There's more to it that just frequency
on
Cellphones On Airplanes
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This is not true. Only non-linear devices will cause harmonics.
Of course, it doesn't take much to make a nonlinear device - for example, corrosion on a metal to metal junction is sufficient.
Not only does these devices create harmonics, they also create intermodulation. This causes the sum and difference frequencies of all radio signals and all of their harmonics to appear in the spectrum. This is a common problem on repeater sites where multiple radio transmitters and receivers a co-located. It is also a problem on navy ships, where there may be in some cases dozens to hundreds of radios operating, and the salt air is especially good at causing corrosion.
I think any radio transmitter in the aircraft has some potential of causing problems. However, this, like any risk in life, needs to be quantified. After all, aircraft are already subject to interference from external signals. For example, some cable channels operate in the aircraft VHF navigations bands and have caused interference. The FCC has especially strict rules that cable companies must follow when they use those frequencies (which they pretty much all do these days).
Back when I used to fly private planes, I experienced interference with my navigation radios and my VHF AM communications radio when I used my 2 meter ham radio handi-talkie.
OTOH, when I used it in a glider I had no such problems, because there were zero electronic devices in the glider (sailplane for the purists):-)
Actually, I am not so sure that I am unhappy with the voter turnout. If those who do not care enough to vote don't vote, it leaves the governance to those of us who DO care enough to vote!
It would be better if the citizenry were more educated (hard to do with our idiotic educational system) and more motivated.
Also, it doesn't matter if those who don't vote have political opinions we don't like. They have no input.
Also, a lot of us who do watch events very closely and apply critical thinking to them do believe that our country is already at war, declared by radical islamists and by totalitarians by Saddam, and that we must act to protect our interests (which mostly correspond to the interests of the civilized world).
The NYT is and has long been hostile to republicans and conservatives in general. They take every opportunity to hurt the president and his policies. The same is true of the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the major networks and CNN (perhaps less so since they have lost leadership to FOX).
However, after 9/11 I don't think the NYT felt like self censorship. I think their natural reaction to the attack was to retaliate (although few at that time were talking about bombing Iraq). If your city had just been attacked that way, and you were in the press, you might also be a "war monger" (term normally applied by the left to the right) for a while.
Now it is true that the Guardian, which you cite as some sort of reference, is even more reflexively anti-Bush than the New York Times. But in Britain, unlike the US, the media are at least willing to admit, or brag about their particular editorial biases.
The US press does indeed in self-censorship, in the sense that they select which stories to cover of the myriad of possible subjects. But this selection is based on their editorial biases (which they don't admit to having) rather than some odd idea like "don't criticize the president."
Nazis who say they want to gas jews are abhorrent, but unless they openly incite violence they are *not* infringing on other peoples' rights!
I know of have heard of only one anti-abortion site that advocates killing of doctors. Most pro-lifers are just that: pro-life and abhor killing, even in their cause.
Stereotyping pro-lifers to make it seem that all are like the most extreme is like stereotyping leftists by accusing them of favoring the policies of Pol-Pot.
In the US, you can put up an ANTHRAX-HOWTO and you can set up a pro-terrorism website, and it is perfectly legal (although the latter has a few limits).
Fortunately, in the US we have constitutional democracy. In other words, we have checks and balances to prevent the majority from violating constitutionally protected rights of minorities.
Of course, our self-admiring universities, actively try to suppress speech that *they* don't like, but that abhorrent practice is not as bad as the state passing censorship laws.
I think Germans should be able to read Nazi hate propaganda. It is good to be able to understand how these groups operate. They should be able to read pre-WW-II Nazi propaganda in order to understand how a majority of Germans supported Hitler well into World War II.
As far as the suppression of the jesus-is-lord site, it looks to me like hate speech suppression. Jesus-is-lord is audacious enough to attack certain acts of certain muslims: Muslims are killing, raping, torturing, mutilating, kidnapping, and enslaving Sudanese Christians in their Islamic jihad ("holy war").
The fact that this statement happens to be true is apparently not enough for the site to avoid censorship.
Or maybe it is their attack on the Catholic Church? Somehow I doubt the European governments are all that fond of protecting it!
Or maybe it is their complaint about abortion?
But nowhere that I saw (and I didn't have the stomach or time to read beyond the front page), the site does NOT preach violence or hate.
In general, the site is pretty bizarre and offensive, but to deny their citizenry the right to read it is wrong and silly.
Given what gets posted on slashdot, including this posting, maybe Slashdot will be next on their censorship list!
Obvious this poster doesn't read the New York Times, watch network TV or in general partake of the dominant media in the US, which has a long history of critizing presidents during war - especially republican presidents.
The journalists arrested for failing to reveal their sources simply highlights the natural conflict between freedom of the press and the need of the people to be protected from criminals. None of these people have been imprisoned for refusing to reveal *political* sources.
I didn't say it was the *only* factor, but it is the most significant.
Furthermore, people are *not* dying of other diseases the way they did in the past. The result is most people will die of either cancer, heart disease or degenerative diseases. Hence your historical comparison is not a good way to look at things.
It does *not* patent the gene. The way to evaluate what it "patents" is to read the claims section of the patent.
It *does* patent several broad, generic methods for detecting the gene - perhaps all reasonable ways of doing it.
As such, I would consider this similar to a software patent. It does not require any ingenuity to come up with these methods that are claimed (although it may require lots of work and money to actually commercialize them). If the gene variations they are testing for were found with public research, I would arge that this is an abusive patent.
Nice. But when the evidence supports the position, it is not just a rhetorical trick, but a legitimate argument.
And in this case, the evidence does *NOT* support the policy recommendations that the consertives object to. In fact, the evidence does not confirm the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.
Thus nobody is going to prove anything true or false. It ain't a binary world like it would be in a courtroom.
Do you think non-scientists are incapable of recognizing that the science in this case is questionable - perhaps by examining what the scientists themselves are saying?
Actually, one of the conservatives' arguments against global warming hysteria is that if the models are true, the uneven distribution of warming is mostly beneficial!
But the most important argument is a policy argument: whether it is appropriate (and more important - practical) to make policy to ameliorate global warming, given:
1) The uncertainty of the science 2) The expected major costs of significant intervention (note that Kyoto doesn't really do anything by itself for global warming - the predicted effects are undetectable after 100 years). 3) The uncertainty about future technological and political developments. I believe the last two are killer arguments against Kyoto - even assuming the IPCC consensus model is valid.
Besides, I now live in Arizona and used to live in Kansas. Kansas could benefit from Arizona's climate:-)
I believe that man is quite capable of changing the environment. Rush does not.
I like Rush. I think he is a good political analyst and an outstanding entertainer. But on areas related to science and technology, he is clueless, and unfortunately stubbornly so (according to George Gilder in private communication with me - George is one of Rush's heroes and an adviser to him).
One of his entertaining activities is in fact to parody himself. Many of his pronouncements about his omniscience, etc, are made fully with tongue in cheek. But one science, he just doesn't get it.
An example outside of global warming is his attitude towards the use of Ritalin in the treadment of ADD. He believes it is a plot by school systems to quiet annoying kids. No doubt there is some truth to the idea that schools overdiagnose ADD and may be predisposed to do so. But what Rush denies, in strong contradiction to the facts, is that ritalin is strongly proven to help people with genuine ADD.
The argument on the right (although not constrained to those holding right-wing views) is composed of several parts:
1) The science and evidence is far from conclusive. In fact, it is riddled with uncertainties, systematic errors, and bias.
2) Even if it is true, the best thing to do is to learn to adapt to it. The reason is that the steps required to prevent it (given the IPCC estimates) are so dramatic that they will not be implementable by real political systems. Furthermore they are so drastic that they will result in massive economic distruption. Kyoto, for example, would have such a small climate effect as to me not measurable over 100 years (see the IPCC data if you don't believe me!) Even most of its proponents accept that it would cost a lot of money (which would not go towards investment and thus would be a net loss to the world economy).
3) Attempting to predict the course of human technology and political behavior over the next 100 years is sheer folly - even harder than predicting the climate! Imagine if global warming was a big deal in 1902. I suspect little events like WW-I, WW-II, the rise of communism and the numerous unforseen technological changes would have derailed both all predictions and all international accords to prevent it.
There are, of course, some on the right whose viewpoints are as stated. The most visible example is Rush Limbaugh, whose knowledge of science is stubbornly zero, and who thus has indeed stated that mankind is too insignificant to cause such changes. But those views shouldn't be taken seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
This argument is one normally applied to central planning. It sounds great in principle (less waste because we don't have duplication of effort). In practice, it doesn't work worth a damn.
In the case of GPL, it does not "remove futile cycles" in all cases, any more than proprietary software produces the best result in all cases.
GPL can produce futile cycles too - look at all the variants of Linux that are out there.
And since public domain allows programmers to use the GPL model if they want, I have no idea why you think the freedom oriented approach of public domain "ties all the programmers of the world" to anything at all!
Fine, then let GPL compete against those vendors!
Public domain *does not prohibit GPL*!
As far as the government granted monopoly, it is also called for in the US constitution, and exists for a specific purpose. The fact that it is often abused does not mean it is wrong. FURTHERMORE, public domain does not create such a monopoly. It only allows someone to sell software that they have created or modified that way. It DOES NOT prohibit anyone else from taking the same fruits of the public work and using it for free or modifying it and release it for free or even with a restrictive license like GPL.
Those who imagine that GPL == freedom don't understand freedom.
You are confusing the means and the ends. The means I propose are freer than the means you propose. The ends may or may not be better, but I would argue that in most cases the results will be. In any case, the principle of freedom in this case trumps the principle of socially engineered results like the GPL attempts to achieve.
Sigh. I wish I could edit my own postings after I put them up there. A deficiency of slashdot. Of course, I deserve a whack by a small stick for not re-reading before hitting the submit button.
The third paragraph SHOULD HAVE READ:
As far as the principle of freedom, what is more free than a public domain license? GPL is *less* free!
oops
GPL removes competition by preventing alternative forms of organizations and licensing.
If a big corporation can convince people to take its proprietary version of the software, is that so bad? Do you think that consumers are idiots and that *you* know what is in their best interests more than they do? Mos timportantly, it does not prevent anyone else from creating GPL versions of the original public domain software.
As far as the principle of freedom, what is more free than an open source license? GPL is *less* free!
This is easily proven:
Definition: freedom is that licensing system which allows the most people or entities to distribute and modify the software.
Freedom measure of GPL:
The only people or organizations which can improve the software are those with the time and/or resources to do so *without* the renumeration provided by a proprietary interest in the results.
Freedom measure of public domain:
All of the same people and organizations covered under GPL
-and-
Any organization which wants to adopt other licensing schemes, with alternate investment and renumeration potential.
The latter is clearly more than the former, therefore GPL is less freedom oriented (less free) than public domain.
*case closed*
Your argument misses the point that all models are allowed to compete with each other if the software is released as public domain.
If the only software to survive this free choice by users is incompatable proprietary junk, blame the consumer!
By making all software GPL, it is entirely likely (actually, it is quite factual with existing PD software) that most of the software won't be used by anyone, because typical PD software is not packaged or portable or polished enough for all but the most determined to use, or for those in *exactly* the same environment as those who originally developed it.
GPL, BSD and proprietary all can extend that software. But sometimes the only people willing to do it are those who need or demand property rights in the results (i.e. capital investment often requires closed source to be recouped).
If the software is so useful to the public, GPL or BSD efforts are perfectly free to also adapt it and keep it open.
I simply am advocating competition. If GPL can't stand up to the competition in a particular case, then why use it?
Forcing the government to release code under GPL is *removing* competition from the market. Public domain is much better. The code can be taken up by private companies and they can improve and sell it. And nothing I am aware of keeps that same code for forming the basis of a GPL and/or BSD project.
So turn the code loose with no strings at all, and let the best licensing system win!
I have read the DirectPC (satellite broadband)policy (disclaimer - I don't use them so I don't know if it really works this way).
Their approach achieves appropriate allocation of bandwidth, at least on downlink, with a mechanism that seems to be very fair. They do so without regulating any particular application.
The approach is to have a bit bucket. Not the traditional trash can bit bucket... but a bucket used as a capacity measurement. They continuously fill your bandwidth bucket at a specific rate (I think it was 46 kbps for a home user). When you use bandwidth, it depletes the bucket at the rate you use it. The bucket, of course, has a maximum capacity... it never can be filled over a certain size (a few hundred megabytes).
Thus you get good peak bandwidth. You get decent average bandwidth. And you can't hog the system at the expense of other users.
Sure, this would be a pain for downloading a CD, and it breaks big P-P sites if a similar approach is used for uplink.
But I have no sympathy for those wanting to serve up a lot of P-P stuff, consuming vast amounts of upstream bandwidth compare to normal users. Hey, if you want to P-P serve up movies, *pay* for the bandwidth.
As a number of other posters have pointed out, correctly, why bandwidth indeed must be limited, and the average bandwidth to a home broadband user needs to be a lot less than the peak bandwidth. You may have a peak bandwidth of 5Mbps, but you sure aren't paying for it as an average bandwidth - see the other posts - and you haven't been guaranteed that bandwidth in any way unless you bought DSL or a dedicated line (which would cost thousands per month for 5Mbps).
I guess I can't resist rebutting the previous poster. Sigh.
Bandwidth limitations are bullshit. In the age of multi gigabit fiber connections and the ability to multiplex connections across a single strand of fiber, there is no reason to limit bandwidth.
There's more to bandwidth than long distance fiber. As George Gilder, who probably mis-influenced your thinking, found out - the "last mile" is the problem. Most of the dark fiber is wholesale fiber - long haul stuff. It is a lot more expensive to get it from your house to the backbone! The cost of installing the fiber is very high. The cost of switching it onto the net is also high, and bandwidth related. In fact, few people have fiber to their house. In most cases, it is coax that goes to a nearby multiplexor that goes onto fiber. And guess what? That multiplexor costs a lot. Furthermore, ultimately all the bandwidth has to go through the ISP's infrastructure and extremely expensive access points to get onto the net. It ain't free. Your dark fiber reasoning is terribly naive.
Now, as to your bandwidth calculation, you conveniently ignore the issue of peak bandwidth, which to most people is far more important than 24x7 bandwidth. Your calculation is for the latter. When you have a wideband connection, you have high peak bandwidth (my microwave connection typically gives about 4.7mbps). But since peaks average out across users, this is not nearly as expensive to provision as the same amount of bandwidth average.
I don't know about you, but I have never seen a broadband ad (other than DSL) that guaranteed continuous high bandwidth.
All of the Clinton scandals were first published by the right wing media, and the rest picked it up because they had no choice at that point.
Bush got plenty of media coverage about all you described - in fact, the coverage of his business dealings was far worse than the actual fact of his dealings.
State laws could remain stronger
Not necessarily. If the spam crosses state lines, it is interstate commerce. The interstate commerce clause of the constitution has been used for a lot of very bad things, but even those of us who are "strict constructionists" would agree that the federal government can override any state law in this field.
In fact, the whole point of the interstate commerce clause was to allow the federal government to stop states from erecting barriers to interstate trade (such as tariffs).
BTW... a misguided interpretation of the commerce clause is what opened the door to the modern nanny state. FDR wanted all sorts of social programs that would require taxation outside of income tax (Social Security is an example), and the courts would not permit this because, by strict construction, the commerce clause applied only to true interstate commerce. FDR, who totally controlled congress, threatened to increase the number of members of the supreme court (one of the congressional powers in the constitution that most folks aren't aware of), and then to appoint justices who would vote his way. In response, the Supreme Court suddenly found ways to apply the commerce clause far beyond original intent.
This is not true. Only non-linear devices will cause harmonics.
:-)
Of course, it doesn't take much to make a nonlinear device - for example, corrosion on a metal to metal junction is sufficient.
Not only does these devices create harmonics, they also create intermodulation. This causes the sum and difference frequencies of all radio signals and all of their harmonics to appear in the spectrum. This is a common problem on repeater sites where multiple radio transmitters and receivers a co-located. It is also a problem on navy ships, where there may be in some cases dozens to hundreds of radios operating, and the salt air is especially good at causing corrosion.
I think any radio transmitter in the aircraft has some potential of causing problems. However, this, like any risk in life, needs to be quantified. After all, aircraft are already subject to interference from external signals. For example, some cable channels operate in the aircraft VHF navigations bands and have caused interference. The FCC has especially strict rules that cable companies must follow when they use those frequencies (which they pretty much all do these days).
Back when I used to fly private planes, I experienced interference with my navigation radios and my VHF AM communications radio when I used my 2 meter ham radio handi-talkie.
OTOH, when I used it in a glider I had no such problems, because there were zero electronic devices in the glider (sailplane for the purists)
Actually, I am not so sure that I am unhappy with the voter turnout. If those who do not care enough to vote don't vote, it leaves the governance to those of us who DO care enough to vote!
It would be better if the citizenry were more educated (hard to do with our idiotic educational system) and more motivated.
Also, it doesn't matter if those who don't vote have political opinions we don't like. They have no input.
Also, a lot of us who do watch events very closely and apply critical thinking to them do believe that our country is already at war, declared by radical islamists and by totalitarians by Saddam, and that we must act to protect our interests (which mostly correspond to the interests of the civilized world).
Regarding US press self-censorship...
The NYT is and has long been hostile to republicans and conservatives in general. They take every opportunity to hurt the president and his policies. The same is true of the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the major networks and CNN (perhaps less so since they have lost leadership to FOX).
However, after 9/11 I don't think the NYT felt like self censorship. I think their natural reaction to the attack was to retaliate (although few at that time were talking about bombing Iraq). If your city had just been attacked that way, and you were in the press, you might also be a "war monger" (term normally applied by the left to the right) for a while.
Now it is true that the Guardian, which you cite as some sort of reference, is even more reflexively anti-Bush than the New York Times. But in Britain, unlike the US, the media are at least willing to admit, or brag about their particular editorial biases.
The US press does indeed in self-censorship, in the sense that they select which stories to cover of the myriad of possible subjects. But this selection is based on their editorial biases (which they don't admit to having) rather than some odd idea like "don't criticize the president."
Nazis who say they want to gas jews are abhorrent, but unless they openly incite violence they are *not* infringing on other peoples' rights!
I know of have heard of only one anti-abortion site that advocates killing of doctors. Most pro-lifers are just that: pro-life and abhor killing, even in their cause.
Stereotyping pro-lifers to make it seem that all are like the most extreme is like stereotyping leftists by accusing them of favoring the policies of Pol-Pot.
In the US, you can put up an ANTHRAX-HOWTO and you can set up a pro-terrorism website, and it is perfectly legal (although the latter has a few limits).
Fortunately, in the US we have constitutional democracy. In other words, we have checks and balances to prevent the majority from violating constitutionally protected rights of minorities.
Of course, our self-admiring universities, actively try to suppress speech that *they* don't like, but that abhorrent practice is not as bad as the state passing censorship laws.
I think Germans should be able to read Nazi hate propaganda. It is good to be able to understand how these groups operate. They should be able to read pre-WW-II Nazi propaganda in order to understand how a majority of Germans supported Hitler well into World War II.
As far as the suppression of the jesus-is-lord site, it looks to me like hate speech suppression. Jesus-is-lord is audacious enough to attack certain acts of certain muslims: Muslims are killing, raping, torturing, mutilating, kidnapping, and enslaving Sudanese Christians in their Islamic jihad ("holy war").
The fact that this statement happens to be true is apparently not enough for the site to avoid censorship.
Or maybe it is their attack on the Catholic Church? Somehow I doubt the European governments are all that fond of protecting it!
Or maybe it is their complaint about abortion?
But nowhere that I saw (and I didn't have the stomach or time to read beyond the front page), the site does NOT preach violence or hate.
In general, the site is pretty bizarre and offensive, but to deny their citizenry the right to read it is wrong and silly.
Given what gets posted on slashdot, including this posting, maybe Slashdot will be next on their censorship list!
Obvious this poster doesn't read the New York Times, watch network TV or in general partake of the dominant media in the US, which has a long history of critizing presidents during war - especially republican presidents.
The journalists arrested for failing to reveal their sources simply highlights the natural conflict between freedom of the press and the need of the people to be protected from criminals. None of these people have been imprisoned for refusing to reveal *political* sources.
I didn't say it was the *only* factor, but it is the most significant.
Furthermore, people are *not* dying of other diseases the way they did in the past. The result is most people will die of either cancer, heart disease or degenerative diseases. Hence your historical comparison is not a good way to look at things.
Nice myth, but not reality.
The single most important risk factor for heart disease is genetics.
It does *not* patent the gene. The way to evaluate what it "patents" is to read the claims section of the patent.
It *does* patent several broad, generic methods for detecting the gene - perhaps all reasonable ways of doing it.
As such, I would consider this similar to a software patent. It does not require any ingenuity to come up with these methods that are claimed (although it may require lots of work and money to actually commercialize them). If the gene variations they are testing for were found with public research, I would arge that this is an abusive patent.
Nice. But when the evidence supports the position, it is not just a rhetorical trick, but a legitimate argument.
And in this case, the evidence does *NOT* support the policy recommendations that the consertives object to. In fact, the evidence does not confirm the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.
Thus nobody is going to prove anything true or false. It ain't a binary world like it would be in a courtroom.
And where did you come up with the lawyers?
Do you think all conservatives are lawyers?
Do you think non-scientists are incapable of recognizing that the science in this case is questionable - perhaps by examining what the scientists themselves are saying?
Sigh.
Actually, one of the conservatives' arguments against global warming hysteria is that if the models are true, the uneven distribution of warming is mostly beneficial!
:-)
But the most important argument is a policy argument: whether it is appropriate (and more important - practical) to make policy to ameliorate global warming, given:
1) The uncertainty of the science
2) The expected major costs of significant intervention (note that Kyoto doesn't really do anything by itself for global warming - the predicted effects are undetectable after 100 years).
3) The uncertainty about future technological and political developments. I believe the last two are killer arguments against Kyoto - even assuming the IPCC consensus model is valid.
Besides, I now live in Arizona and used to live in Kansas. Kansas could benefit from Arizona's climate
I believe that man is quite capable of changing the environment. Rush does not.
I like Rush. I think he is a good political analyst and an outstanding entertainer. But on areas related to science and technology, he is clueless, and unfortunately stubbornly so (according to George Gilder in private communication with me - George is one of Rush's heroes and an adviser to him).
One of his entertaining activities is in fact to parody himself. Many of his pronouncements about his omniscience, etc, are made fully with tongue in cheek. But one science, he just doesn't get it.
An example outside of global warming is his attitude towards the use of Ritalin in the treadment of ADD. He believes it is a plot by school systems to quiet annoying kids. No doubt there is some truth to the idea that schools overdiagnose ADD and may be predisposed to do so. But what Rush denies, in strong contradiction to the facts, is that ritalin is strongly proven to help people with genuine ADD.
Mod that guy up!
I love it.
To quote him again: "aibohphobia-the fear of palindromes. get it?"
You seriously mischaractize both arguments.
The argument on the right (although not constrained to those holding right-wing views) is composed of several parts:
1) The science and evidence is far from conclusive. In fact, it is riddled with uncertainties, systematic errors, and bias.
2) Even if it is true, the best thing to do is to learn to adapt to it. The reason is that the steps required to prevent it (given the IPCC estimates) are so dramatic that they will not be implementable by real political systems. Furthermore they are so drastic that they will result in massive economic distruption. Kyoto, for example, would have such a small climate effect as to me not measurable over 100 years (see the IPCC data if you don't believe me!) Even most of its proponents accept that it would cost a lot of money (which would not go towards investment and thus would be a net loss to the world economy).
3) Attempting to predict the course of human technology and political behavior over the next 100 years is sheer folly - even harder than predicting the climate! Imagine if global warming was a big deal in 1902. I suspect little events like WW-I, WW-II, the rise of communism and the numerous unforseen technological changes would have derailed both all predictions and all international accords to prevent it.
There are, of course, some on the right whose viewpoints are as stated. The most visible example is Rush Limbaugh, whose knowledge of science is stubbornly zero, and who thus has indeed stated that mankind is too insignificant to cause such changes. But those views shouldn't be taken seriously.