So, if someone chooses to be a farmer, do I have the right to compel them to feed me?
What does "right" mean? So long as enough people agree on what rights we have, those are the ones we have. If we generally agree that everyone should get free ice cream on prime-numbered days in odd-numbered months, we have that right. In most western countries around the world, people generally agree that any medical care one receives should not be tethered to their ability to pay for it. We kinda half-ass it since we have EMTALA and Medicaid.
At this very moment, I can walk into an emergency room for a common cold, have them evaluate me, send me home with some NyQuil, and never pay a dime. So we already have such a right in "emergency" situations. Even your conservative friends in Congress aren't calling for the repeal of EMTALA.
Also, what do you intend to do about the large number of physicians who've said that they intend to leave the profession if socialized medicine passes?
I'm not really sure why you're asking such a non sequitur. There is no socialized medicine bill that has seen so much as a hearing in committee, much less a vote on the floor of either body. If you're trying to confuse the issue by calling increased government regulation of private insurers and a government-run insurance option (that only a very small amount of people can buy) "socialized medicine", I will point out that "socialized medicine" is what the NHS is in the UK. And even if we take your definition, Medicaid and Medicare already account for over half of all health care spending. These doctors would have quit a long time ago.
I suppose we could. It has never been tried since the USPS has a statutory monopoly on the standard services.
I hardly believe they could do it for cheaper. Fourty-odd cents on average for a letter to get from A to B in the country is a pretty good deal. I could almost guarantee that if the UPS did something like that it'd be a lot more expensive. Even factoring the tax money we pay for assisting the USPS during the downtimes, it is still a great deal.
And before you respond with "it's licensed, not sold": (1) if you purchase a DVD containing a copy of OS X, you own a copy -- that's what owning a copy means; (2) most courts have found that software is actually sold, not licensed, regardless of what the company "licensing" it wants you to think.
You point out that section 117 provides the owner of a copy of software to make copies needed to run it. However, there is still a circuit split as to whether or not EULAs are valid contracts, which dovetails on the sold v. licensed question. I'm betting that the SCOTUS, whenever they get around to hearing such a case, will rule EULAs valid contracts so long as the customer has the ability to get a full refund after viewing the contract. This will completely gut section 117 as companies that sell actual copies of software are almost non-existent.
That's not completely correct in terms of your 2nd answer.
The free-market solution would be to not regulate any pollution, but to put the onus on the property owner to file a suit for any pollution placed on his property or in his airspace. Have fun proving the pollution in your air was created by a particular corporation.
This is why we have communal ownership of airspace rights and the government regulates pollution. The deal is that Monsanto et al. can emit a particular amount of pollution with impunity. In theory the regulators would look out for what the public safety, but as is with almost all regulatory bodies in this country, they are captured by the industries they attempt to regulate. Therefore the regulatory body is an arm of the industry, essentially charged with making sure the industry's costs are increasingly externalized.
Sure, I know, they were supposed to, by law. But they at least didn't drag their feet too long, and deserve some kudos for choosing an open-source platform to begin with.
I disagree here. Simply choosing to use open source software and then trying to stiff people their rights granted under that license isn't any better than choosing a closed source platform.
Let's not beat around the bush here. If there weren't enough people demanding the code, it would have never been released. I don't know about you, but I don't applaud anyone who is doing exactly what is required of them and no more.
Modern copyright law is based on the idea that making artificial scarcity creates economic progress. To put it another way, if copyrights lasted for only 14 years, there'd be a lot of copying of creative works without anyone getting paid. The idea is that someone getting paid is better than no one getting paid because the former adds to GDP while the latter doesn't. Additions to GDP mean more tax revenue as well.
Of course, this is just another version of the broken window fallacy. Only the well-heeled and well connected get a government license to break people's windows. The rest of us are expected to live with it.
We're actually quite lucky due to previous precedents in the law. IMO, if first sale and fair use were novel concepts, they wouldn't stand court challenges today. Remember, it was a 5-4 SCOTUS decision that allowed us to record shows off of TV (fair use). Just imagine if that would have went the other way. I could easily see libraries being shut down for breaking a book's EULA that contained provisions stating that loaning someone that book would be a violation of copyright (first sale).
ZorbaTHut's experiences notwithstanding, I found that some old DX9 ATI cards (think 9600 or so) work fine for compiz.
The newer ATIs (onboard or otherwise) have very spotty 3D support. This page gives you a nice rundown of what cards do good 3D and which ones don't.
And not that you asked, but my onboard Intel graphics so Compiz fine. The Intel drivers are FOSS and constantly being improved by people who actually work for Intel.
Someone was thinking that voting was primarily a counting problem and had the idea that computers were excellent at counting, so computers would be excellent at registering votes.
Of course, voting is minimally about counting, and from what we've seen even these clowns couldn't do that right.
So what are those countries in Europe doing that makes college so cheap? Wikipedia states that one can get a master's degree in France for a few thousand Euros. You'd be hard-pressed to get a quarter or semester at a community college here for that price.
Yeah, I was pretty shocked when I read that. I've got a student loan that's sitting at 1.88% right now. When I consolidate that with my "high interest" 5% loan, I'm looking at around 3%.
If I'm not mistaken, you're playing the natural rights card. There are no natural rights. Rights are whatever the ruling body of the population proclaims them to be.
We have decided that gay people shouldn't have equal rights as of yet. We'll get there one day, but for now they have to wait.
We're generally for some restrictions on the majority for this reason. However these restrictions were determined by majority vote. Once the majority decides to give the minority a proper voice, they'll have equal rights again.
To say that everyone should have equal rights because of the inherent order of the universe begs the question. Not only that, anyone can charge that any proposed right is "natural" and no one can disprove him.
People can organize themselves however they see fit. Some of the time they make bad decisions and decisions we might not like. That doesn't imply that they don't have the ability to do so.
A limited, republican form of government isn't something everyone agrees is a good thing. You and I happen to agree that it is, but some people really don't mind the tyranny of the majority too much. If indeed that form of government is inherently superior, everyone will get on board one day. If not, it's just different strokes for different folks.
You know they're trying really hard to pull this off, but the script is horrid. I mean these guys have to eat, so I'm not going to bemoan them doing this "ad", but Christ Almighty, that was so bad I couldn't watch the whole thing. I just kept thinking about those poor tortured souls who are the face of this nightmare.
If the amount of driving you do on your own property is non-trivial there should be a way to deduct that from your mileage. If you are a farmer or have large tracts of land you could probably do some non-trivial traveling. It should be pretty easy to determine if the amount is plausible. A guy from Lower Manhattan that claims he is deducting 10,000 miles is probably lying. Someone in rural Wyoming might have a case.
That or just pay the extra $5 and get on with your life.
Re:Maybe the Dem's Should Follow Nasa's Lead...
on
NASA May Outsource
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· Score: 1
You're absolutely right.
requiring hospitals to treat people who won't pay
That wouldn't fly in a free market. However, the cure is worse than the disease in this case.
Do you want the ambulance to run a credit check before they take you to the hospital after a drunk driver hit you? And if you can't demonstrate the ability to pay, they just leave you there until you die? That's what free market health care would look like.
At least you're man enough to admit it. Most free market dogmatists conveniently neglect that fact when speaking of health care reform.
Congratulations! You have successfully pointed out that the US is a republic! What kind of republic you ask? A democratic one.
This is a democracy in that we vote for our leaders, which is what the OP was talking about. However, feel free to continue to score points with your friends by pointing out we're a republic. You know what the guy meant, cut him some slack.
I think it is a public performance as is defined by the law. I'd expect any good judge to make a decision based on the law, rather than what the law should be.
The ASCAP probably has a case. That is the scary part. The law shouldn't allow them to have one.
Slashdot Mirror
What does "right" mean? So long as enough people agree on what rights we have, those are the ones we have. If we generally agree that everyone should get free ice cream on prime-numbered days in odd-numbered months, we have that right. In most western countries around the world, people generally agree that any medical care one receives should not be tethered to their ability to pay for it. We kinda half-ass it since we have EMTALA and Medicaid.
At this very moment, I can walk into an emergency room for a common cold, have them evaluate me, send me home with some NyQuil, and never pay a dime. So we already have such a right in "emergency" situations. Even your conservative friends in Congress aren't calling for the repeal of EMTALA.
I'm not really sure why you're asking such a non sequitur. There is no socialized medicine bill that has seen so much as a hearing in committee, much less a vote on the floor of either body. If you're trying to confuse the issue by calling increased government regulation of private insurers and a government-run insurance option (that only a very small amount of people can buy) "socialized medicine", I will point out that "socialized medicine" is what the NHS is in the UK. And even if we take your definition, Medicaid and Medicare already account for over half of all health care spending. These doctors would have quit a long time ago.
I suppose we could. It has never been tried since the USPS has a statutory monopoly on the standard services.
I hardly believe they could do it for cheaper. Fourty-odd cents on average for a letter to get from A to B in the country is a pretty good deal. I could almost guarantee that if the UPS did something like that it'd be a lot more expensive. Even factoring the tax money we pay for assisting the USPS during the downtimes, it is still a great deal.
You repeat yourself, Mr. eldavojohn.
Excellent point here, but you're the optimist.
You point out that section 117 provides the owner of a copy of software to make copies needed to run it. However, there is still a circuit split as to whether or not EULAs are valid contracts, which dovetails on the sold v. licensed question. I'm betting that the SCOTUS, whenever they get around to hearing such a case, will rule EULAs valid contracts so long as the customer has the ability to get a full refund after viewing the contract. This will completely gut section 117 as companies that sell actual copies of software are almost non-existent.
That's not completely correct in terms of your 2nd answer.
The free-market solution would be to not regulate any pollution, but to put the onus on the property owner to file a suit for any pollution placed on his property or in his airspace. Have fun proving the pollution in your air was created by a particular corporation.
This is why we have communal ownership of airspace rights and the government regulates pollution. The deal is that Monsanto et al. can emit a particular amount of pollution with impunity. In theory the regulators would look out for what the public safety, but as is with almost all regulatory bodies in this country, they are captured by the industries they attempt to regulate. Therefore the regulatory body is an arm of the industry, essentially charged with making sure the industry's costs are increasingly externalized.
I disagree here. Simply choosing to use open source software and then trying to stiff people their rights granted under that license isn't any better than choosing a closed source platform.
Let's not beat around the bush here. If there weren't enough people demanding the code, it would have never been released. I don't know about you, but I don't applaud anyone who is doing exactly what is required of them and no more.
Modern copyright law is based on the idea that making artificial scarcity creates economic progress. To put it another way, if copyrights lasted for only 14 years, there'd be a lot of copying of creative works without anyone getting paid. The idea is that someone getting paid is better than no one getting paid because the former adds to GDP while the latter doesn't. Additions to GDP mean more tax revenue as well.
Of course, this is just another version of the broken window fallacy. Only the well-heeled and well connected get a government license to break people's windows. The rest of us are expected to live with it.
We're actually quite lucky due to previous precedents in the law. IMO, if first sale and fair use were novel concepts, they wouldn't stand court challenges today. Remember, it was a 5-4 SCOTUS decision that allowed us to record shows off of TV (fair use). Just imagine if that would have went the other way. I could easily see libraries being shut down for breaking a book's EULA that contained provisions stating that loaning someone that book would be a violation of copyright (first sale).
ZorbaTHut's experiences notwithstanding, I found that some old DX9 ATI cards (think 9600 or so) work fine for compiz.
The newer ATIs (onboard or otherwise) have very spotty 3D support. This page gives you a nice rundown of what cards do good 3D and which ones don't.
And not that you asked, but my onboard Intel graphics so Compiz fine. The Intel drivers are FOSS and constantly being improved by people who actually work for Intel.
As my Software Engineering instructor said...
Someone was thinking that voting was primarily a counting problem and had the idea that computers were excellent at counting, so computers would be excellent at registering votes.
Of course, voting is minimally about counting, and from what we've seen even these clowns couldn't do that right.
So what are those countries in Europe doing that makes college so cheap? Wikipedia states that one can get a master's degree in France for a few thousand Euros. You'd be hard-pressed to get a quarter or semester at a community college here for that price.
Yeah, I was pretty shocked when I read that. I've got a student loan that's sitting at 1.88% right now. When I consolidate that with my "high interest" 5% loan, I'm looking at around 3%.
Usually something like 5-10 years development for the Windows 7 platform.
No problem here.
Either tax breaks should be based on communal living or we simply shouldn't have them.
Get 10 people in a house living communally and I have no problem giving them tax breaks like we give to married couples.
If I'm not mistaken, you're playing the natural rights card. There are no natural rights. Rights are whatever the ruling body of the population proclaims them to be.
We have decided that gay people shouldn't have equal rights as of yet. We'll get there one day, but for now they have to wait.
We're generally for some restrictions on the majority for this reason. However these restrictions were determined by majority vote. Once the majority decides to give the minority a proper voice, they'll have equal rights again.
To say that everyone should have equal rights because of the inherent order of the universe begs the question. Not only that, anyone can charge that any proposed right is "natural" and no one can disprove him.
People can organize themselves however they see fit. Some of the time they make bad decisions and decisions we might not like. That doesn't imply that they don't have the ability to do so.
A limited, republican form of government isn't something everyone agrees is a good thing. You and I happen to agree that it is, but some people really don't mind the tyranny of the majority too much. If indeed that form of government is inherently superior, everyone will get on board one day. If not, it's just different strokes for different folks.
They do if enough people get together and agree that they do. Such is called government.
I'm feeling some serious empathy for the actors.
You know they're trying really hard to pull this off, but the script is horrid. I mean these guys have to eat, so I'm not going to bemoan them doing this "ad", but Christ Almighty, that was so bad I couldn't watch the whole thing. I just kept thinking about those poor tortured souls who are the face of this nightmare.
If the amount of driving you do on your own property is non-trivial there should be a way to deduct that from your mileage. If you are a farmer or have large tracts of land you could probably do some non-trivial traveling. It should be pretty easy to determine if the amount is plausible. A guy from Lower Manhattan that claims he is deducting 10,000 miles is probably lying. Someone in rural Wyoming might have a case.
That or just pay the extra $5 and get on with your life.
You're absolutely right.
That wouldn't fly in a free market. However, the cure is worse than the disease in this case.
Do you want the ambulance to run a credit check before they take you to the hospital after a drunk driver hit you? And if you can't demonstrate the ability to pay, they just leave you there until you die? That's what free market health care would look like.
At least you're man enough to admit it. Most free market dogmatists conveniently neglect that fact when speaking of health care reform.
If the going rate is $.46 per word, I'm in the wrong line.
That's absolutely true.
I'd say an "open" standard would mean that anyone could implement the standard without need to buy a license to implement all or part of it.
And the "clunker" you have to turn in must have an MPG of less than 18.
I was thinking of trading in my '99 Taurus for a new Smart Fortwo, but, alas, my car is too efficient.
I suppose going from a 20mpg car to 36mpg car isn't enough. :-(
The idea that to change the laws we must become lobbyists or donate to lobbyists is extremely alarming.
Congratulations! You have successfully pointed out that the US is a republic! What kind of republic you ask? A democratic one.
This is a democracy in that we vote for our leaders, which is what the OP was talking about. However, feel free to continue to score points with your friends by pointing out we're a republic. You know what the guy meant, cut him some slack.
Right.
I think it is a public performance as is defined by the law. I'd expect any good judge to make a decision based on the law, rather than what the law should be.
The ASCAP probably has a case. That is the scary part. The law shouldn't allow them to have one.