"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences"
Are you sure they are talking about the gaming industry? Sounds more like a debate about the Clinton family! Lets see Criminal Acts: Whitewater - the Rose law firm cover-up and murder ~ (everyone knows that Hillary was involved but escaped liability due to being first lady); Loose Morals: the whole Monika episode and all the other interns and staffers that Bill screwed while in both the White house and the Governors mansion ~ aside from being adultery this abuse of power in the work place would be considered sexual harassment in the private sector. Under the HR policies of most fortune 500 firms if the Chief exec had screwed some intern they would be fired by the board immediately; Lying to congress under oath - aside from be an impeachable offense, this is just plain despicable and weasel like activity especially from the man who is entrusted with defending the constitution.
I think that Hillary should clean her own house before she starts pointing fingers at others. Especially the gaming industry. Games are just that - games. They do not advocate that you pick up a gun and go out to kill people. These games are already rated and it is the parents responsibility to watch & manage their children's activity. The state has no right or responsibility to engineer what moral codes parents choose to instill in their children. Also as the former first lady and a current democratic senator one would think that she actually believes in the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of expression but I guess she is still really just at heart the commie hippie she used to be back in college.
Between idiots like her and Bush, Americans are experiencing a rapid erosion of all their rights ~ by time your grandchildren grow up they will be living in some capitalist version of the former soviet union complete with Homeland KGB. Da Comrade.
Condi Rice says that the Martians have weapons of mass destruction. PLUS they are not even Christians! Bush wants to go there to bring peace, democracy and free elections to Mars. The Martians will be totally shocked and awed by our suborbital nuclear bombardment!
Gravity is a fact. It can be observed, verified and measured.
Evolution is a theoretical field. Facts can be observed, which are currently best explained by the Theory of evolution by Natural Selection. Like many other empirical scientific theories, it may prove at some point to be correct, partially correct or incorrect.
God and the Bible however is just conjecture. As speculative fiction it does not deserve the claim to be even a hypothesis. Faith, or personal belief do not make God a fact. No facts can be observed or measured that support the claim that any God(s) exist.
Some primative idiots could not explain the physical world around them and choose to believe in some mystical omnipotent beings. These beliefs later evolved into a single god speculative fiction. At some point a best seller was written (the Bible) wherein the authors claimed to have some ability to know the origins of life as well as being able to document thousands of years of history preceding the writting of the Bible ~ again a ludicrous claim by the authors. At the same time other primitive cultures were undergoing similar monothesis evolutions in their primitive belif systems.
Even today, with our well documented historical documents, historians with access to gigabytes of information can not reach back even a few years and write with authority on many matters. Why should we lend any credance to the claims by the authors of the bible? Indeed why should we listen to any religious claims.
Religion was created by man to explain the natural world around him at a time when he did not even know the world was round! Everything was magic! The only excuse for religious belief is ignorance.
Religion should be outlawed. I look around the world and instead of seeing religion helping ignorant people to deal with a big unexplainable universe, I see religion being used as an excuse to kill, to hate, to restrict thought and freedoms. Religion's time is past.
I have watched the "special editions" and I do prefer the versions that I saw in the theater (I saw my first in 1977 and have been a fan since).
Unfortunate that we will have to wait until Lucas dies. Inevitably the AFI will eventually sponser some effort to "restore" the original versions then.
I have no intention to buy the new versions as long as my originals are intact.
According to the article, the cost of a typical major-label release with a list price of $15.99 breaks down as follows:
$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead
Maybe I am stupid, but I see plenty of profit in here. They have already included allowances for manufacturing, packaging, distribution, marketing, as well as profits for the artists, the retail chain, the label, the publisher, and a piece for the union.
This covers all the input costs to manufacture and sell this product. So explain to me this: why should I pay an extra $6.80 per album for so called "label overhead" and "retail overhead". These costs are already covered. This sounds like the same bullshit accounting the movie industry uses to avoid paying profit sharing to partners and taxes to the government.
As much as I would not like to work for, sell to, or compete with Walmart, this is a good move. I hope Walmart is successful, and until they are keep on downloading!
No one. Hemp is a superior alternative to both of these materials. Compared with cotton, hemp is already naturally insect resistant, requires no chemicals to grow, and does not deplete the soil the way cotton does.
Hemp produces fabrics which have greater strength and durability than cotton and they are resistant to environmental weathering (which is why it was traditionally used for canvas sails and ropes oin sailing ships).
Hemp is also a renewable crop for paper production. Tree farming is not as friendly to the environment: you can replant trees but the forest ecology take decades after the trees have grown to rebuild and by then the trees are being harvested again.
While GM does have a place in food crops, given our population growth, to maximize yields per acre, there are also many good alternative to some GM crops. Too bad the US government is so rabid about pot.
Re your disagreement to my point on road capacity: I did mean things like your point on green lights; I was not advocating a wider Gardner, although more off ramps and collector/express lanes would help. The gridlock begins once those cars start backing up at the few exit ramps and try to funnel into the downtown as well as at points like where the QEW and 427 both dump all their traffic onto the Gardner. Also if the subway went south of Union, many more commuters would park down there and take a 5 minute ride into the core (I know I would have). It looks like we are circling each other with semantics and I really see no fundamental difference from in our opinions, just in implimentation.
I have to disagree with your point on the Allen. Those cars are heading into/out of the downtown any way. To efficiently expedite this and reduce traffic on Yonge & Avenue could only have yielded positive benefits.
On mass transit, I am right with you. TTC/GO sucks. They may be good compared to some small town but for a city of this population they need to go much further. As a former suburban GO user, I have to say that the speed, frequency, reliability and cost of the service was not a superior alternative to driving. (I could drive in the same or less time from Brampton, at only a slightly higher cost but with a much higher convenience factor) Now living in midtown, I do not find the TTC much better: it takes me 30 minutes to get to work by subway/streetcar; I can walk the same route into the downtown and arrive at work in 45-50 minutes.
They need to make substantial investments in mass transit. I think they should have extended the Bloor line west past the airport to Square-One in Missisauga, and extended the Yonge line up to Richmond Hill (and yes the transit systems should be amalgamated). For a new line I would have started with placing a line from York U. across midtown Toronto, but definitely not along Sheppard, it needs to be south of Lawrence.
But we do still need to invest more in roads as well. Keep in mind that a large amount of the traffic during business hours will never be replaced by public transit. Many of these people are mobile as a part of their employment. Public transit just will not meet this need as efficiently as a private vehicle.
OK, I can see we both have time to debate urban planning, the highway traffic act etc. We are so far off topic now, I keep expecting to be moderated down, but I guess this thread is so old that we are the only ones still reading.
Here goes:
"Worse are the cars though who turn where they aren't supposed to"
Again, I can only agree with your point on illegal turns as the law is very specific in this matter.
However your next point is arguing the absurd:
"a lot of bikers I guess do this [commit traffic violations] because they don't want to meddle with cars"
To argue that violating the law and endangering the saftey of pedestrians is somehow justified because you felt unsafe biking on the road is not only absurd, it is a selfish attitude. If cylcists feel unsafe on the road, then they have the choice to not use their bike or walk with it on the sidewalk. They do not have the choice to break the law and ride on the sidewalks. Two wrongs do not add up to a right.
I applaud any democratice efforts by you to improve biking, such as lobbying for more paths, or complaining to council to have existing bylaws enforced, however I have to disgree with your opinion on urban planning:
"I think moving away from a car centric approach within downtown Toronto would go a very very long way of making the city more liveable both for bike riders and pedestrians."
My opinion on this matter is that Toronto suffers from too much of an anti car attitude, and the underlying cause of this is not a true concern for environment or health but rather a thinly disguised attempt to misdirect the public attention away from a very critical problem in Toronto: for decades we have failed to make the very needed infrastructure investments to upgrade road capacity to meet projected population growth.
Currently we are suffering with roadways which were designed to support a 1950's sized Toronto. Our budgets have not even allowed for proper maintainance of the existing roadways. Greater capacity is needed. This is essential to the economic survival of Toronto and with more efficiant traffic flow we would also gain reduced smog emissions.
Stopgap measures to funnel traffic with one way streets and no turn intersections only serves to further increase smog generating gridlock, extend transit time and exasberate illegal driving. Investment in more advanced traffic control systems, the inclusion of more advance turn green lights, and left turn lanes at busy high volume intersections would be a more useful strategy.
The failure by city council to effectively plan our roadways is compounded by foolish political decisions such as the Sheppard line. (I could talk about this boondoggle alone for a whole day). Politics is not a new problem. Politics also killed the original plans for the Allen Expressway (which was supposed to have extended all the way to the Gardner, which would have relieved a large amount of the traffic which instead comes south on Yonge or Avenue).
I suppose that some of the blame can be layed at the federal and provincial level as well. Given the huge net outflow of tax revenue from the GTA into the federal coffers, you would think that we would recieve some more support from them. As the third largest city in North America, and the largest tax base in Canada, Toronto is currently in a precarious position somewhat similar to that which New York was in during the late 70's. We stand at a crossroads. If we do not begin to make some critical investments soon, then we will face a rapid decline which will start with the loss of jobs as major corporations relocate head offices out of Toronto. At the end of that slippery slope you can say good bye to more bike paths, and hello more crime.
You made a valid point. I agree that "as close as practicable to the right edge" would be fairly considered to include allowance for door openings by parked cars.
I was simply making a legal point based on the observation of your original assertion that you boldly ride in the center of the street, and all other traffic be dammed. I do not see the need to debate whether a safe allowance should be 2 meters or 1 meter, I will leave the measurement of car doors to your own judgement.
Personally I feel that much of this problem could be reduced if the police would more vigorously enforce existing no-parking restrictions on primary commuting arteries like Yonge Street and Avenue Road etc. (Such parking while convenient for merchants is frustrating and dangerous for both motorist and cyclist alike)
The original intent in my first post was to illustrate the my concern that many cylists consistantly fail to adhere to the rules of the road. As a pedestrian, I am continually endangered by cyclists who choose to ride on the sidewalk, ride through crosswalks etc. I am tired of this. If a car was driving down the sidewalk you can bet that 50 people would be on their cell phones calling the police to report a dangerous driver. Bikers always get away with this with impunity.
Your original point that cars must share the roads in safety with cylists is true and without debate. However sidewalks are the domain of pedestrians. Until cylists begin to respect this fact I fail to see why they should be indignant at recieving similar treatment by motorists.
Your knowledge of enterprise purchasing seems to be limited.
I used to sell voice/data service to fortune 500 enterprises (almost 10 years with 2 deifferent teleco's), and never once did I "negotiate" any of the contracts or SLA's with lawyers. I had plenty of meetings with senior execs up to C level, mainly in the technology groups and finance groups, but corporate lawyers were pretty much limited to reviewing the verbally agreed upon contracts. Seldom did a contract come back with any major revisions that actually required any renegotiations.
As for the telco's voluntarily releasing accurate data to prospects - good luck. Say good bye to 5 nines, hello 4.
Allow me to quote you: "My solution to the passing problem is to be bold and ride in the middle of the lane, especially if there are two lanes.....According to the highway traffic act here in Ontario (and I think all of Canada) a bike is "vehicle" and thus the lane is mine."
In answer: under the HTA section 148(6), you are failing to yield to the faster passing vehicle, and contrary to your claim, the lane is not "yours", under section 147 you are failing to comply with the requirement to have your slower vehicle "as close as practicable to the right edge of the road, except when preparing to turn left or when passing another vehicle"(s147).
While I can not speak to your specific incident where the officer states that the vehicle was committing the offense of dangerous driving, were an accident to have occurred (and were you to survive) any good lawyer would be able to have the charges dismissed as you both were committing offenses under the HTA at the time so no fault can reasonably be ascertained.
You are incorrect and in violation of the Ontario Highway traffic act.
Bicycles are recognized as vehicles in the Government of Ontario's Highway Traffic Act. All traffic regulations for motorized vehicles and their operators apply equally to bicycles. In addition to these there are further laws that apply specifically to bicycles. Here is a summary of these.
Bicycles overtaken &/or traveling slower than normal traffic:
Any vehicle moving slower than the normal traffic speed shall drive in the right-hand lane, or "as close as practicable to the right" edge of the road, except when preparing to turn left or when passing another vehicle according to Section 147. Furthermore, section 148(6) states: every person on a bicycle or motor assisted bicycle who is overtaken by a vehicle traveling at a greater speed shall turn out to the right and allow the vehicle to pass and the vehicle overtaking shall turn out to the left so far as may be necessary to avoid a collision.
Passing motorist should also be aware that every person in charge of a vehicle on a highway meeting a person travelling on a bicycle shall allow the cyclist sufficient room on the roadway to pass as per section 148(4).
Slow moving vehicles:
Contrary to one persons assertion that you can liken your bicycle to a garbage truck or street cleaner, a bike is not considered to be a slow moving vehicle under the highway traffic act. If you were considered a "slow moving vehicle" there are a whole slew of additional laws regulating their operation including the display of a caution sign.
Cycling on Shoulders:
Although Section 150 prohibits motorists in most circumstances from driving on shoulders, cyclists are subject to no such restriction. However, by using the shoulder cyclists are deemed to have left the roadway, and must yield right of way to vehicles on the roadway before returning to it.
Riding in pedestrian crossover prohibited:
Section 140 (6) specifies that no person shall ride a bicycle across a roadway within a pedestrian crossover.
Passing other Vehicles:
Section 148(5) requires drivers of vehicles (including cyclists) to overtake on the left.
Hand/Arm Signals:
Section 142 requires cyclists to use hand/arm signals if a turning or stopping cyclist affects the operation of another vehicle. There are two permitted signals for a right turn. The right arm horizontal signal; the other right turn signal is the left arm out horizontally, elbow bent and forearm and hand extended vertically.
Lighting:
Section 62 (17) requires lighting equipment to be used one half hour before sunset and one half hour after sunrise. A white or amber lamp must be on the front of the bicycle. The white reflector sold with most bicycles does not meet the requirement. A red lamp or a red reflector must be attached at the rear. White and red reflective materials are required front and rear respectively also, but contrary to common belief, reflective material is not required on bicycles ridden only during the hours of daylight. It should be noted that all equipment must be attached to the bicycle. Technically, equipment worn by the cyclist does not satisfy legal requirements. A red flashing light is expressly forbidden by Section 62 (14). Get rear-ended at night while using one of these and a smart lawyer will sue you for damage to his client's car.
Brakes:
Section 64 (3) specifies that no person shall ride a bicycle on a highway unless it is equipped with a rear-wheel braking system on which will enable the rider to make the braked wheel skid on dry level pavement. Try this at home kids, but I believe you will find that under this test most of your mountain bike prove to be illegal to operate on the roads of Ontario. Any good lawyer would use this point to find you at fault for any accidents that you are involved in!
Bells, Gongs and Horns:
Section 74 requires a bell, gong or a horn to be attached to any types of vehicle, including a bicycle.
Bicyclists to wear helmet:
Section 104 (2.1) No person sh
That is the standard position that Bell Canada takes. I used to work for a CLEC here and I had a client that was on month to month with Bell. Their original contract had expired several years prior. On a conference call to Bell, me and the client confirmed that there was no valid contract in place and that they were only obliged for billing up to the termination of service.
Satisfied with this answer the client signed a contract with me and we ported their lines. A few days later they recieved a bill from Bell for over 40 thousand dollars in "early termination" charges. The client freaked but I said I would handle the matter for them.
Keep in mind that this was a global fortune 50 company, Bell does not discriminate who they attempt to blackmail. I got our carrier relations people involved in this (who were ex-Bell as was most of our staff) and we attempted to resolve this in a polite manner.
During our first inquiries they stated that the client was in a contract. We noted that in a call to them, witnessed by a third party, they had previously stated no contract in effect. We demanded that they provide a copy of the contract. They putzed around for a few weeks before they finally admitted that they had no written contract (after several attempts to claim they could not find it, or it seems to be lost and plenty of shuffling us from person to person).
Then they claimed instead that there was a verbal renewal. The CRTC has laws up here governing telecom carriers with regard to "automatic contract renewals" and "verbal renewals" as a result of previous complaints about unethical business practices and unfair competition by Bell.
The client stated that they had never renewed this agreement and Bell then claimed that they had done so using a IVR and that they had a recorded confirmation of this. We insisted on a copy of this. They again putzed around before finally admitting no copy "could be found".
Still however they insisted that a contract was in effect; the previous contract "automatically rolled over" at the end of term. Bell is require to go through a number of things for this to be legally binding including written notice to the client and obtaining acknowlegement of their consent to roll the contract over, otherwise the client is deemed to be on a month-to-month basis.
Predictably, just like some sleazy landlord, they continued to insist that the client had approved this and that proof would be forth coming. We now started all over and went through all their excussed again. Still Bell refused to back down, all the while offering to waive all the charges if they returned to Bell and cancelled the contract with us.
Finally after escalating to several legal threats and a complaint to the CRTC including our fully documented copy of the process with them and the copies of the legal precidents backing our case: Bell backed down.
This was a 6 month process and the client only got out of it because his new carrier (me) went to bat for him to keep the business. All the time this was going on the telcom manager who had made the decision to switch to us was in fear of god that he would be fired as Bell continued to make heavy handed collection efforts on this account which placed a lot of pressure on him to cave.
In my own personal experience I have never received a credit for any of the incorrect charges that I have brought to their attention on my home line. Thats why I now use VoIP and Cellular for my home. Screw Bell. The whole telecom sector is crap, glad to be out of it.
I agree that the decisions on tape copies form sufficient legal precident for your right to copy and share music in digital format as well. Any argument that mp3's digital nature void this decision by being able to make repeatable perfect copies is simply bull.
Analog tape copies are closer to perfect: a well made tape can contain the entire frequency spectrum of the original recording, however you have some signal loss and add the noise native to this media.
Digital copies do not have the same problems as tape but are only reproducing a fraction of the original spectrum and are only sampling the music at a rate that you can not audibly detect the missing music. Furthermore, compared to a wave file the MP3 is a piece of crap and this is audibly noticable when you play the same song side by side with a CD on a proper sterio system (as opposed to your ipod or other portable device).
Don't get me wrong ~ I love the convenience of mp3s but I would never pay to buy these unless the price were less than ten percent of the comparable cost to buy in wave format, and as for DRM: would you buy a car that could only be driven buy the original buyer! If I pay for it - it's mine to use however and whenever I want, if the labels don't like that then they should not be in the business of selling!!!
For me mp3s offer a means to audition music and I continue to buy albums that I want as part of my permanent collection. The ones I don't buy, I would never have shelled out cash for anyway so there is no loss to the artist: back in the day I would have taped it anyway and eventually discarded it when I lost interest in it. If the recording industry really wants to recapture the lost youth market for CD's then they should re-evaluate their price structure and accept lower margins on higher volumes, or they can shut up and continue as is.
As for Realplayer, hasn't everyone that knows better long since gotten rid of that resource hogging spyware piece of @#$%!
Ok. Your right. Within the border you are protected by the constitution and there is no reason to violate your freedom from unreasonable searches etc.
Personally I think the buck stops with the customs and immigration staff who police the entry into the country. Screening entry INTO the US is a valid and essential task of the government in protecting it's citizens from foreign threats.
People do not automatically have the right to enter the country and they have no constitutional protections outside of it's jurisdictions. The failure of 911 is a lack of resources and communications between the various intelligence services and border policing who allowed these people into the country in the first place.
Good points, but why do you feel that the government does not have the right to require airlines to do this in exchange for a FAA license? How is this different from any other condition imposed on regulated industries by the government in exchange for licensing. You could make a similar argument against broadcast standards that limit freedom of speech ~ limits that have been imposed on broadcasters for decades and yet no courts have overturned them.
As for the monitoring of citizens travel I fully agree that the government has no carte blanc right to do this as a general policy (as opposed to specific individual cases as warranted by valid law enforcement efforts)and I agree that CAPPS is a threat to individual's freedoms.
However it seems that we are being tracked by everyone - not just our movement but more concerning our communications. I am more concerned about private enterprises invading my privacy and monitoring my internet communication/surfing to sell me crap than I am about the government screening my name against some terrorist profiler list. The internet issue is virtually equivalent to a private wiretap on my phone and provides zero potential value to me.
Your constitutional rights are not being violated by the airline'a request of ID before boarding. Just like you, the airline as a corporation has rights to protect their property ~ the plane, the liability they incure to passengers if they are negligent ~ for them to ask to see your ID to enter onto their PRIVATE property is well within their rights. You still retain the freedom to decline to show ID and choose to stay off of their property. This is no different from a bar "carding" a suspected underage patron ~ a business, like an individual, has the right to refuse entry onto their property by any person they feel may place them in violation of some public statute etc; as long as they are not discriminating against you on some racial, sexual, or religous basis they are doing nothing you can complain about.
As for your freedom of movement ~ try walking or driving. A policeman can not reasonably expect every pedestrian to be carrying ID so usually will not ticket you as a John Doe unless you behave like a dumbass, in any event a reasonable judge would throw such a case out.
As for driving, you probably always carry your license when you drive ~ when was the last time you complained about being asked for that by a cop!
Until they start doing things like in Europe (where you need a passport just to register in a hotel), or start asking pedestrians for "papers please" I do not think you really need to get so concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a
paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences"
Are you sure they are talking about the gaming industry? Sounds more like a debate about the Clinton family! Lets see Criminal Acts: Whitewater - the Rose law firm cover-up and murder ~ (everyone knows that Hillary was involved but escaped liability due to being first lady); Loose Morals: the whole Monika episode and all the other interns and staffers that Bill screwed while in both the White house and the Governors mansion ~ aside from being adultery this abuse of power in the work place would be considered sexual harassment in the private sector. Under the HR policies of most fortune 500 firms if the Chief exec had screwed some intern they would be fired by the board immediately; Lying to congress under oath - aside from be an impeachable offense, this is just plain despicable and weasel like activity especially from the man who is entrusted with defending the constitution.
I think that Hillary should clean her own house before she starts pointing fingers at others. Especially the gaming industry. Games are just that - games. They do not advocate that you pick up a gun and go out to kill people. These games are already rated and it is the parents responsibility to watch & manage their children's activity. The state has no right or responsibility to engineer what moral codes parents choose to instill in their children. Also as the former first lady and a current democratic senator one would think that she actually believes in the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of expression but I guess she is still really just at heart the commie hippie she used to be back in college.
Between idiots like her and Bush, Americans are experiencing a rapid erosion of all their rights ~ by time your grandchildren grow up they will be living in some capitalist version of the former soviet union complete with Homeland KGB. Da Comrade.
...since Empire Strikes Back is "Thumbwars". Oh wait, he didn't write the scripts for either of these, or direct them; thats why they were good!
u mb wars/
http://www.oentertainment.com/InsaneO/Thumbs/th
Condi Rice says that the Martians have weapons of mass destruction. PLUS they are not even Christians! Bush wants to go there to bring peace, democracy and free elections to Mars. The Martians will be totally shocked and awed by our suborbital nuclear bombardment!
Gravity is a fact. It can be observed, verified and measured.
Evolution is a theoretical field. Facts can be observed, which are currently best explained by the Theory of evolution by Natural Selection. Like many other empirical scientific theories, it may prove at some point to be correct, partially correct or incorrect.
God and the Bible however is just conjecture. As speculative fiction it does not deserve the claim to be even a hypothesis. Faith, or personal belief do not make God a fact. No facts can be observed or measured that support the claim that any God(s) exist.
Some primative idiots could not explain the physical world around them and choose to believe in some mystical omnipotent beings. These beliefs later evolved into a single god speculative fiction. At some point a best seller was written (the Bible) wherein the authors claimed to have some ability to know the origins of life as well as being able to document thousands of years of history preceding the writting of the Bible ~ again a ludicrous claim by the authors. At the same time other primitive cultures were undergoing similar monothesis evolutions in their primitive belif systems.
Even today, with our well documented historical documents, historians with access to gigabytes of information can not reach back even a few years and write with authority on many matters. Why should we lend any credance to the claims by the authors of the bible? Indeed why should we listen to any religious claims.
Religion was created by man to explain the natural world around him at a time when he did not even know the world was round! Everything was magic! The only excuse for religious belief is ignorance.
Religion should be outlawed. I look around the world and instead of seeing religion helping ignorant people to deal with a big unexplainable universe, I see religion being used as an excuse to kill, to hate, to restrict thought and freedoms. Religion's time is past.
Unfortunate that we will have to wait until Lucas dies. Inevitably the AFI will eventually sponser some effort to "restore" the original versions then.
I have no intention to buy the new versions as long as my originals are intact.
$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead
Maybe I am stupid, but I see plenty of profit in here. They have already included allowances for manufacturing, packaging, distribution, marketing, as well as profits for the artists, the retail chain, the label, the publisher, and a piece for the union.
This covers all the input costs to manufacture and sell this product. So explain to me this: why should I pay an extra $6.80 per album for so called "label overhead" and "retail overhead". These costs are already covered. This sounds like the same bullshit accounting the movie industry uses to avoid paying profit sharing to partners and taxes to the government.
As much as I would not like to work for, sell to, or compete with Walmart, this is a good move. I hope Walmart is successful, and until they are keep on downloading!
Hemp produces fabrics which have greater strength and durability than cotton and they are resistant to environmental weathering (which is why it was traditionally used for canvas sails and ropes oin sailing ships).
Hemp is also a renewable crop for paper production. Tree farming is not as friendly to the environment: you can replant trees but the forest ecology take decades after the trees have grown to rebuild and by then the trees are being harvested again.
While GM does have a place in food crops, given our population growth, to maximize yields per acre, there are also many good alternative to some GM crops. Too bad the US government is so rabid about pot.
I have to disagree with your point on the Allen. Those cars are heading into/out of the downtown any way. To efficiently expedite this and reduce traffic on Yonge & Avenue could only have yielded positive benefits.
On mass transit, I am right with you. TTC/GO sucks. They may be good compared to some small town but for a city of this population they need to go much further. As a former suburban GO user, I have to say that the speed, frequency, reliability and cost of the service was not a superior alternative to driving. (I could drive in the same or less time from Brampton, at only a slightly higher cost but with a much higher convenience factor) Now living in midtown, I do not find the TTC much better: it takes me 30 minutes to get to work by subway/streetcar; I can walk the same route into the downtown and arrive at work in 45-50 minutes.
They need to make substantial investments in mass transit. I think they should have extended the Bloor line west past the airport to Square-One in Missisauga, and extended the Yonge line up to Richmond Hill (and yes the transit systems should be amalgamated). For a new line I would have started with placing a line from York U. across midtown Toronto, but definitely not along Sheppard, it needs to be south of Lawrence. But we do still need to invest more in roads as well. Keep in mind that a large amount of the traffic during business hours will never be replaced by public transit. Many of these people are mobile as a part of their employment. Public transit just will not meet this need as efficiently as a private vehicle.
Here goes:
"Worse are the cars though who turn where they aren't supposed to"
Again, I can only agree with your point on illegal turns as the law is very specific in this matter.
However your next point is arguing the absurd:
"a lot of bikers I guess do this [commit traffic violations] because they don't want to meddle with cars"
To argue that violating the law and endangering the saftey of pedestrians is somehow justified because you felt unsafe biking on the road is not only absurd, it is a selfish attitude. If cylcists feel unsafe on the road, then they have the choice to not use their bike or walk with it on the sidewalk. They do not have the choice to break the law and ride on the sidewalks. Two wrongs do not add up to a right.
I applaud any democratice efforts by you to improve biking, such as lobbying for more paths, or complaining to council to have existing bylaws enforced, however I have to disgree with your opinion on urban planning:
"I think moving away from a car centric approach within downtown Toronto would go a very very long way of making the city more liveable both for bike riders and pedestrians."
My opinion on this matter is that Toronto suffers from too much of an anti car attitude, and the underlying cause of this is not a true concern for environment or health but rather a thinly disguised attempt to misdirect the public attention away from a very critical problem in Toronto: for decades we have failed to make the very needed infrastructure investments to upgrade road capacity to meet projected population growth.
Currently we are suffering with roadways which were designed to support a 1950's sized Toronto. Our budgets have not even allowed for proper maintainance of the existing roadways. Greater capacity is needed. This is essential to the economic survival of Toronto and with more efficiant traffic flow we would also gain reduced smog emissions.
Stopgap measures to funnel traffic with one way streets and no turn intersections only serves to further increase smog generating gridlock, extend transit time and exasberate illegal driving. Investment in more advanced traffic control systems, the inclusion of more advance turn green lights, and left turn lanes at busy high volume intersections would be a more useful strategy.
The failure by city council to effectively plan our roadways is compounded by foolish political decisions such as the Sheppard line. (I could talk about this boondoggle alone for a whole day). Politics is not a new problem. Politics also killed the original plans for the Allen Expressway (which was supposed to have extended all the way to the Gardner, which would have relieved a large amount of the traffic which instead comes south on Yonge or Avenue).
I suppose that some of the blame can be layed at the federal and provincial level as well. Given the huge net outflow of tax revenue from the GTA into the federal coffers, you would think that we would recieve some more support from them. As the third largest city in North America, and the largest tax base in Canada, Toronto is currently in a precarious position somewhat similar to that which New York was in during the late 70's. We stand at a crossroads. If we do not begin to make some critical investments soon, then we will face a rapid decline which will start with the loss of jobs as major corporations relocate head offices out of Toronto. At the end of that slippery slope you can say good bye to more bike paths, and hello more crime.
I was simply making a legal point based on the observation of your original assertion that you boldly ride in the center of the street, and all other traffic be dammed. I do not see the need to debate whether a safe allowance should be 2 meters or 1 meter, I will leave the measurement of car doors to your own judgement.
Personally I feel that much of this problem could be reduced if the police would more vigorously enforce existing no-parking restrictions on primary commuting arteries like Yonge Street and Avenue Road etc. (Such parking while convenient for merchants is frustrating and dangerous for both motorist and cyclist alike)
The original intent in my first post was to illustrate the my concern that many cylists consistantly fail to adhere to the rules of the road. As a pedestrian, I am continually endangered by cyclists who choose to ride on the sidewalk, ride through crosswalks etc. I am tired of this. If a car was driving down the sidewalk you can bet that 50 people would be on their cell phones calling the police to report a dangerous driver. Bikers always get away with this with impunity.
Your original point that cars must share the roads in safety with cylists is true and without debate. However sidewalks are the domain of pedestrians. Until cylists begin to respect this fact I fail to see why they should be indignant at recieving similar treatment by motorists.
I used to sell voice/data service to fortune 500 enterprises (almost 10 years with 2 deifferent teleco's), and never once did I "negotiate" any of the contracts or SLA's with lawyers. I had plenty of meetings with senior execs up to C level, mainly in the technology groups and finance groups, but corporate lawyers were pretty much limited to reviewing the verbally agreed upon contracts. Seldom did a contract come back with any major revisions that actually required any renegotiations.
As for the telco's voluntarily releasing accurate data to prospects - good luck. Say good bye to 5 nines, hello 4.
Allow me to quote you: "My solution to the passing problem is to be bold and ride in the middle of the lane, especially if there are two lanes.....According to the highway traffic act here in Ontario (and I think all of Canada) a bike is "vehicle" and thus the lane is mine."
In answer: under the HTA section 148(6), you are failing to yield to the faster passing vehicle, and contrary to your claim, the lane is not "yours", under section 147 you are failing to comply with the requirement to have your slower vehicle "as close as practicable to the right edge of the road, except when preparing to turn left or when passing another vehicle"(s147).
While I can not speak to your specific incident where the officer states that the vehicle was committing the offense of dangerous driving, were an accident to have occurred (and were you to survive) any good lawyer would be able to have the charges dismissed as you both were committing offenses under the HTA at the time so no fault can reasonably be ascertained.
Bicycles are recognized as vehicles in the Government of Ontario's Highway Traffic Act. All traffic regulations for motorized vehicles and their operators apply equally to bicycles. In addition to these there are further laws that apply specifically to bicycles. Here is a summary of these.
Bicycles overtaken &/or traveling slower than normal traffic: Any vehicle moving slower than the normal traffic speed shall drive in the right-hand lane, or "as close as practicable to the right" edge of the road, except when preparing to turn left or when passing another vehicle according to Section 147. Furthermore, section 148(6) states: every person on a bicycle or motor assisted bicycle who is overtaken by a vehicle traveling at a greater speed shall turn out to the right and allow the vehicle to pass and the vehicle overtaking shall turn out to the left so far as may be necessary to avoid a collision. Passing motorist should also be aware that every person in charge of a vehicle on a highway meeting a person travelling on a bicycle shall allow the cyclist sufficient room on the roadway to pass as per section 148(4).
Slow moving vehicles: Contrary to one persons assertion that you can liken your bicycle to a garbage truck or street cleaner, a bike is not considered to be a slow moving vehicle under the highway traffic act. If you were considered a "slow moving vehicle" there are a whole slew of additional laws regulating their operation including the display of a caution sign.
Cycling on Shoulders: Although Section 150 prohibits motorists in most circumstances from driving on shoulders, cyclists are subject to no such restriction. However, by using the shoulder cyclists are deemed to have left the roadway, and must yield right of way to vehicles on the roadway before returning to it.
Riding in pedestrian crossover prohibited: Section 140 (6) specifies that no person shall ride a bicycle across a roadway within a pedestrian crossover.
Passing other Vehicles: Section 148(5) requires drivers of vehicles (including cyclists) to overtake on the left.
Hand/Arm Signals: Section 142 requires cyclists to use hand/arm signals if a turning or stopping cyclist affects the operation of another vehicle. There are two permitted signals for a right turn. The right arm horizontal signal; the other right turn signal is the left arm out horizontally, elbow bent and forearm and hand extended vertically.
Lighting: Section 62 (17) requires lighting equipment to be used one half hour before sunset and one half hour after sunrise. A white or amber lamp must be on the front of the bicycle. The white reflector sold with most bicycles does not meet the requirement. A red lamp or a red reflector must be attached at the rear. White and red reflective materials are required front and rear respectively also, but contrary to common belief, reflective material is not required on bicycles ridden only during the hours of daylight. It should be noted that all equipment must be attached to the bicycle. Technically, equipment worn by the cyclist does not satisfy legal requirements. A red flashing light is expressly forbidden by Section 62 (14). Get rear-ended at night while using one of these and a smart lawyer will sue you for damage to his client's car.
Brakes: Section 64 (3) specifies that no person shall ride a bicycle on a highway unless it is equipped with a rear-wheel braking system on which will enable the rider to make the braked wheel skid on dry level pavement. Try this at home kids, but I believe you will find that under this test most of your mountain bike prove to be illegal to operate on the roads of Ontario. Any good lawyer would use this point to find you at fault for any accidents that you are involved in!
Bells, Gongs and Horns: Section 74 requires a bell, gong or a horn to be attached to any types of vehicle, including a bicycle.
Bicyclists to wear helmet: Section 104 (2.1) No person sh
That is the standard position that Bell Canada takes. I used to work for a CLEC here and I had a client that was on month to month with Bell. Their original contract had expired several years prior. On a conference call to Bell, me and the client confirmed that there was no valid contract in place and that they were only obliged for billing up to the termination of service.
Satisfied with this answer the client signed a contract with me and we ported their lines. A few days later they recieved a bill from Bell for over 40 thousand dollars in "early termination" charges. The client freaked but I said I would handle the matter for them.
Keep in mind that this was a global fortune 50 company, Bell does not discriminate who they attempt to blackmail. I got our carrier relations people involved in this (who were ex-Bell as was most of our staff) and we attempted to resolve this in a polite manner.
During our first inquiries they stated that the client was in a contract. We noted that in a call to them, witnessed by a third party, they had previously stated no contract in effect. We demanded that they provide a copy of the contract. They putzed around for a few weeks before they finally admitted that they had no written contract (after several attempts to claim they could not find it, or it seems to be lost and plenty of shuffling us from person to person).
Then they claimed instead that there was a verbal renewal. The CRTC has laws up here governing telecom carriers with regard to "automatic contract renewals" and "verbal renewals" as a result of previous complaints about unethical business practices and unfair competition by Bell.
The client stated that they had never renewed this agreement and Bell then claimed that they had done so using a IVR and that they had a recorded confirmation of this. We insisted on a copy of this. They again putzed around before finally admitting no copy "could be found".
Still however they insisted that a contract was in effect; the previous contract "automatically rolled over" at the end of term. Bell is require to go through a number of things for this to be legally binding including written notice to the client and obtaining acknowlegement of their consent to roll the contract over, otherwise the client is deemed to be on a month-to-month basis.
Predictably, just like some sleazy landlord, they continued to insist that the client had approved this and that proof would be forth coming. We now started all over and went through all their excussed again. Still Bell refused to back down, all the while offering to waive all the charges if they returned to Bell and cancelled the contract with us.
Finally after escalating to several legal threats and a complaint to the CRTC including our fully documented copy of the process with them and the copies of the legal precidents backing our case: Bell backed down.
This was a 6 month process and the client only got out of it because his new carrier (me) went to bat for him to keep the business. All the time this was going on the telcom manager who had made the decision to switch to us was in fear of god that he would be fired as Bell continued to make heavy handed collection efforts on this account which placed a lot of pressure on him to cave.
In my own personal experience I have never received a credit for any of the incorrect charges that I have brought to their attention on my home line. Thats why I now use VoIP and Cellular for my home. Screw Bell. The whole telecom sector is crap, glad to be out of it.
I agree that the decisions on tape copies form sufficient legal precident for your right to copy and share music in digital format as well. Any argument that mp3's digital nature void this decision by being able to make repeatable perfect copies is simply bull.
Analog tape copies are closer to perfect: a well made tape can contain the entire frequency spectrum of the original recording, however you have some signal loss and add the noise native to this media.
Digital copies do not have the same problems as tape but are only reproducing a fraction of the original spectrum and are only sampling the music at a rate that you can not audibly detect the missing music. Furthermore, compared to a wave file the MP3 is a piece of crap and this is audibly noticable when you play the same song side by side with a CD on a proper sterio system (as opposed to your ipod or other portable device).
Don't get me wrong ~ I love the convenience of mp3s but I would never pay to buy these unless the price were less than ten percent of the comparable cost to buy in wave format, and as for DRM: would you buy a car that could only be driven buy the original buyer! If I pay for it - it's mine to use however and whenever I want, if the labels don't like that then they should not be in the business of selling!!!
For me mp3s offer a means to audition music and I continue to buy albums that I want as part of my permanent collection. The ones I don't buy, I would never have shelled out cash for anyway so there is no loss to the artist: back in the day I would have taped it anyway and eventually discarded it when I lost interest in it. If the recording industry really wants to recapture the lost youth market for CD's then they should re-evaluate their price structure and accept lower margins on higher volumes, or they can shut up and continue as is.
As for Realplayer, hasn't everyone that knows better long since gotten rid of that resource hogging spyware piece of @#$%!
Ok. Your right. Within the border you are protected by the constitution and there is no reason to violate your freedom from unreasonable searches etc.
Personally I think the buck stops with the customs and immigration staff who police the entry into the country. Screening entry INTO the US is a valid and essential task of the government in protecting it's citizens from foreign threats.
People do not automatically have the right to enter the country and they have no constitutional protections outside of it's jurisdictions. The failure of 911 is a lack of resources and communications between the various intelligence services and border policing who allowed these people into the country in the first place.
Good points, but why do you feel that the government does not have the right to require airlines to do this in exchange for a FAA license? How is this different from any other condition imposed on regulated industries by the government in exchange for licensing. You could make a similar argument against broadcast standards that limit freedom of speech ~ limits that have been imposed on broadcasters for decades and yet no courts have overturned them. As for the monitoring of citizens travel I fully agree that the government has no carte blanc right to do this as a general policy (as opposed to specific individual cases as warranted by valid law enforcement efforts)and I agree that CAPPS is a threat to individual's freedoms. However it seems that we are being tracked by everyone - not just our movement but more concerning our communications. I am more concerned about private enterprises invading my privacy and monitoring my internet communication/surfing to sell me crap than I am about the government screening my name against some terrorist profiler list. The internet issue is virtually equivalent to a private wiretap on my phone and provides zero potential value to me.
Your constitutional rights are not being violated by the airline'a request of ID before boarding. Just like you, the airline as a corporation has rights to protect their property ~ the plane, the liability they incure to passengers if they are negligent ~ for them to ask to see your ID to enter onto their PRIVATE property is well within their rights. You still retain the freedom to decline to show ID and choose to stay off of their property. This is no different from a bar "carding" a suspected underage patron ~ a business, like an individual, has the right to refuse entry onto their property by any person they feel may place them in violation of some public statute etc; as long as they are not discriminating against you on some racial, sexual, or religous basis they are doing nothing you can complain about. As for your freedom of movement ~ try walking or driving. A policeman can not reasonably expect every pedestrian to be carrying ID so usually will not ticket you as a John Doe unless you behave like a dumbass, in any event a reasonable judge would throw such a case out. As for driving, you probably always carry your license when you drive ~ when was the last time you complained about being asked for that by a cop! Until they start doing things like in Europe (where you need a passport just to register in a hotel), or start asking pedestrians for "papers please" I do not think you really need to get so concerned.