The CD is the physical medium you purchased and you can do whatever you want. The content is what you are licensing. You agree to the licensing by making the purchase, it is that simple, noone is forcing you to purchase it. Now, even beyond this, you don't see Apple really dragging every hobbyist that is running a hackintosh into court do you? It is a violation of the agreement made in the purchase. What is happening is another company is blatantly violating the rights of Apple by profiting off the violation of the licensing terms.
Unless of course you are going to argue the point that licensing can be ignored and users can do whatever they want with the content. The same people that rally the troops when some person/company violates the GPL and closes up some code and sells a product based on that code are bitching about how Psystar should be allowed to violate the license of Apple. This entirely boils down to "I get to do what I want and I get to stop what I don't want other people to do and my rights are the only ones that matter." It is more self absorbed selfish bullshit. So I suppose you can make that argument, but it also invalidates the GPL.
I grab CD, I walk out, I get arrested, I go to court. So the store should have made me sign a contract upon entry that I agree to pay for anything I want before leaving the store? There are a fistful of implied or oral contracts that you encounter in just day to day life. Ultimately, Apple makes no secret out of the fact that their OS X boxes are not meant to be stand alone products. Their decision to sell it for $129 is based on the license that says it can only be used on a Mac. If some moron judge decides that he has the power control Apple by forcing them to sell to everyone I imagine we will see a change. Either OSX will get an extra 0 tacked on to the end of the price to make it unprofitable for anyone to pull this stupid crap or it they will quit selling the upgrades altogether and move to a more draconian system of controlling their software such as product keys and activation codes.
Ultimately I tend to be pro consumer, but the level of whining involved in this OS X business is just disgusting. It has crossed over from consumer rights into the "I get to do whatever I want, the world owes me, fuck anyone else's rights" self inflated bullshit that is fucking up our society so well. Companies aren't just evil organizations just the same as not all people are murderous criminals. Yeah, shitbags exist everywhere, you do what you can to stop them. Taking away all the rights of companies is just as wrong as taking away all the rights of the consumer. You have to strike a balance or your economy falls apart. You can have all the consumers in the world, but if noone is willing to produce anything because the courts will let the consumer fuck them out of their products you won't exactly have much to buy.
I heard the band XYZ recently returned from overseas....we have some questions to ask...
Who the hell said anything about paying anyone? Make em play or toss em in gitmo! Don't stand there like we didn't let the Executive branch grow its power exponentially over the last 8 years...
I might buy that argument if we didn't have Sept 19, International Speak Like a Pirate Day. If there weren't 3 huge success movies that made pirates lovable characters. If there wasn't millions and millions being made off of of the merchandising of anything pirate related. If anything it should have the opposite effect of what you state. When REAL Somali pirates steal boats and murder crew and then they get on this software nonsense and call it piracy....well...call a kid who shoplifted something a rapist and see who's side everyone takes.
Because the contract law comes into play at the time of purchase. You are not purchasing the rights to do whatever you want with the movie, just like you aren't purchasing the right to do whatever you want with the software. You are purchasing a right to use those things. In the case of the movie that right to use is dictated by copyright law. In software the right to use is dictated by the licensing agreement. You can pretty much do whatever you want with the physical piece you purchased. The DVD/CD whatever does indeed belong to you completely. However, the contents of that DVD/CD are not yours. You do not own the rights to Star Wars because you picked up a $10 DVD any more than you own the rights to OS X because you bought the $129 upgrade disc.
This is the same problem that makes DRM pretty questionable in these cases. I bought the DVD, I can do whatever the hell I want with the DVD. I should be allowed to watch it on a custom modified toaster running linux if I want to. I believe the rights involved in how you watch it belong to the consumer owning the media, not the producer owning the content.
No. Most contracts do not need anything written. Many are simple oral agreements, and that isn't even necessary. There are contracts that are implied agreements as well. So you purchasing their box involves agreeing to the terms of their sale. No paperwork of nonsense required.
Actually I have a huge problem with that EULA popup crap where you agree after purchase. However, agree before purchase is pretty simple contract law. You either agree and purchase or you disagree and don't purchase. Apple makes no secret that their License Agreement is only for "Apple-labeled computers". Their whole tagline for Leopard is "add a new Mac to your Mac".
The only time I have seen EULA legitimately questioned was when it was that click-wrap crap where you have to open/install and then cannot return it if you disagree or when it violated First Sale (ala AutoCAD lawsuit).
Companies sell their products at a price based these contracts. Fact is, you cannot do whatever you want with what you purchase. You can't make copies of DVDs and sell them legally for example. If you could really do whatever you want with any product you buy things like OSs and DVDs would only be available to the ultrarich. What movie studio is going to sell you a master copy for $10 at walmart? Apple set its price of $129 with the condition that it only can be used on Macs. They are well within their right to do that. If people don't like it noone is forcing them to buy it or use it. Hell, MS has more restrictions and bullshit with their OS and it costs twice as much. Apple sells a 5 license family pack for $199, how much do you think 5 Vista licenses will cost you?. Also, OSX installs have no bullshit product keys, activations, or other such nonsense. So in turn for not treating their customers like criminals they get thier stuff stolen and people whining about how they should be allowed to steal it from them. This is exactly why companies turn to such horrid draconian measures.
I assume you mean how Bush implemented voluntary pollution control measures in his state and none of the big polluters actually did anything and then continued to benefit from government dollars. Yup...totally a Working Economy there.
However, ending slavery, ending Company Towns, worker protection and safety laws are all government intervention and punishment that actually made things better.
I'm not sure if you live in free market fantasy land or are a shill for Bush policies, but either way the government intervention & punishment is the only thing that really works. The problem is we have allowed the corporations to buy off enough of the government to manipulate the game and rules far too much and the government gets involved in WAY too much bullshit that it has no business meddling with.
Funny, I always thought the real world experience of every oppresive government disarmed its citizens to increase control was a good example of why not to disarm. In fact, that is the only reason the 2nd Amendement even exists! Both sides of this stupid argument frame this as protecting ourselves against our fellow citizens when the only reason it was written was for the citizens to protect themselves from the government.
Also, the average legally armed American has 2-3x more experience with their firearm than most police or military members. Police and military are only required to requalify at certain intervals. Numerous studies have shown that private gun owning citizens get more pratice time on the range by a long shot. So even the argument that only the police/military should have guns is backwards (despite the notion that only the government should be allowed to carry weapons is dangerous and stupid) in that the police/military are most often less qualified with the weapons in question.
Most people that legally own and carry weapons are not the ones that are doing evil deeds. So you can bet that even where weapons are legal the police CHECK that weapon when they find it so your story about police not having to wait is nonsense. It still requires them to find the weapon in the first place. Unless of course you are advocating periodic searches in all public places, in which case I have no desire to live in your version of a perfect nation.
Go read that basket article, read the comments towards the bottom. Nevermind that it doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense to steal infrastructure to make baskets instead of selling it for scrap, the author really does put out some fairly harmful disinformation by making that accusation. Most of the weavers purchase their wire, and most of the wire isn't even copper anymore because it costs too much. Which goes back to copper theives are going to scrap it, not make baskets.
I know this is slashdot and all, but did anyone actually read the article? It is pretty fascinating what this guy is doing. This is real science, the standard crap is frequently little more than research. If this process works then it could mean a tremendous shift in medical practices. The impact that this could have on surgery, especially for high risk operations is incredible. The effects on battlefield medicine would be profound as well. Military medicine over the centuries has brought some pretty impressive things in terms of trauma care.
The problem is violence, sex, and comedy are probably the top three interests of the human mind. Even when it isn't terribly overt, a great many things boil back down to those three things. That whole lets sit and think out a puzzle stuff probably tends to come after those 3 on average. Even for those that fancy themselves as strictly intellectuals are driven by the first three, and the ones that deny frequently turn out to be the more dangerous people. The more aware people recognize those animalistic impulses and can manage them without denying it or getting out of control.
I can pretty much promise that without the violence/sex/comedy inputs elsewhere in your life that no game without them would be very fun.
Oh, I think there are very valid restrictions on speech. To add to the ones you mentioned there are other issues like yelling fire in a theater. I just think hate speech in it specific form is nonsensical at best and only fuels the fire. "Now look at dem niggars tellin us we can't call dem niggars..." Please...the best thing to do with hate speech is ignore it. People make words offensive by being offended by them. Now...under the banner of hate speech we can quietly slip in "or based on their profession" so that you can't deride someone for being a lowly garbage man or portopotty cleaner or whatever. But wait...did you notice...that also means you can't say bad things about someone being a lawyer or a politician... Wait...jail time for hate speech for saying bad things about politicians?! Holy shit, we are in the gulag for speaking against our glorious leader!
It only quashes religious freedom when it isn't run by a theocracy. This is the problem...I would put big money on MASSIVE protests by the Christian religious right if suddenly prayer was allowed in school, but the school wanted to do Christians on monday, Islam on tuesday, and so on. The religious right is all about your freedom to be exactly the same as them. The religious right brought us the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, the Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials. It is the current religious right that is promoting the "Crusade" and the whole "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" nonsense in their little War on Terror. So no...only the MINORITY religious groups typically worry about Big Brother government. It amuses me to no end to watch Christian thinktanks continue to whine in America like they are some suppressed minority. While I have seen the atheist create the utopia now business, it pales in comparison to what is done in the name of religion to "root out evil" and destroy the heathens and all of that nonsense.
Now, that said...Christianity on a whole has precious little to do with the real teachings these days. It is too hard to beat on the cover of the book while it is open it seems. When I can say things like "Jesus was such a Jew" or say "Yeshua" and have people get upset or call me heathen, or continue to use "Christ" like it was his last name instead of a title...it is pretty clear they don't understand their own damned religion. It bothers me to no end to watch people focus on the torture and execution of Jesus and chant "he died for our sins" and totally ignore the 20-30 years of his words and actions that convinced those in power to execute him. It is horribly ironic that his "followers" have built up such a huge legalistic judgmental religion when his entire life was fighting AGAINST the pharisees and their legalistic judgmental religious practices. Even better, he plainly states that this is exactly what would happen and he will say get away for I never knew you.
(Disclaimer: I don't consider myself Christian because even outside of the hypocrisy issues, there is a fair amount I don't agree with anyways. However, I think Jesus is grossly misrepresented through the grotesque behavior of so many of his "followers" and the weird shiney happy coloring book Jesus that is sold to kids in the indoctrination process. He was an angry little jew with a lot to say, most of which was terribly insightful regardless of your beliefs.)
Clearly your head must be composed of the densest material known to man. You couldn't tell that the "to silence Ann Coulter" part of that is a joke? This kind of melodramatic reaction to things is one of the many things liberals do to make themselves look bad. Please don't blame it on anyone else.
Again...more of that liberal think tank at work. My point with unified groupthink/identical individuals is that both the far left and far right agendas want everyone to think the same as them, they just frame it in different ways. I am not going to sit here and cite every insane instance of this behavior of both sides, but it is hardly uncommon.
Oh please...are you telling me that Tetris isn't horribly suggestive?
You enjoy your having 'fun'. I am going to keep playing the Fallout series that has violence, sex, comedy, AND drugs. My fun will be without the quotes.
I'm honestly not sure if she ever checked and got the joke. I am pretty sure I got full points for the essay. This was a little surprising because while she wasn't really a bad teacher, she was pretty anal about those kinds of details. (She taught me absolute hatred and loathing for APA style).
I am guessing that the USPTO is that way because it isn't a glamerous parking ground for inept political allies. Also, it isn't very counter intuitive if you really pause to think. Political types are most often law students in some variant... Most are some kind of lawyer breed. Now...pause and think about who really profits from a broken USPTO. You see multi million/billion dollar lawsuits being flung around amongst the actual producers and patent trolls. The real winners in all of this are the lawyers. Regardless of which side they are on they get paid. A broken USPTO is taking care of their own.
Funny...my observation of the modern conservative is that they are afraid of hate speech laws because then the Ann Coulters of the world wouldn't be allowed to speak. While I agree hate speech laws are a stupid idea and a dangerous slippery slope...I'm less and less convinced that it wouldn't be worth it to forever silence people like Ann Coulter.
The leftists these days what unified groupthink. The right wingers want everyone to be an individual so long as they are all identical individuals.
I don't know if you have been paying attention to the politics going on lately, but all of the self described "conservatives" have NOTHING to do with any of the values you just described. They pay lipservices to "free market" when what they mean is "corporate welfare for my friends and a playing field that favors the ones that can pay us off". They most certainly do not believe in your free speech rights. "Your either with us or against us" comes to mind. Nevermind all of the rather unflattering things that these people have suggested we do with anyone who would dare question the U.S. Government.
Libertarians are the closest thing to your "classical liberal" out there these days. Both the D and R teams have spun off into nightmarish parties of government consolidated power and control that the only way to tell them apart is by the pillow talk after they are done screwing you.
Fox pulls high numbers because there are a large number of low IQ people floating about that can't be bothered to READ and check sources. Fox is the same group that showed how the "hacker" group anonymous blows up vans... Fox is the same "fair and balanced" that covered Ahmenidjad's speech showing his title as "Axis President" while the other 3 stations said "President of Iran". Fox lead the charge on the bait and switch of Osama vs Iraq. They are a massive propoganda outlet, nothing more, and their reporting on pretty much anything is laughable at best.
Because then the guy in the garage that comes up with the next supergadget goes broke trying to patent it and some megacorp patent troll comes along and claims its theirs anyways. I think the alternative would actually be a maximum page kinda thing. "Look, you either write it concisely, or you go to hell, your choice."
A bit of a side issue but I actually wrote a paper for one of my english classes for college that addressed this problem. They teach that you should write clearly and consisely and then immediately following that say "and it must be a minimum of X00 words or Y pages". So even if you can get your point across clearly in 200 words you are stuck writing a 500 word essay. The paper I wrote was the first paper of the class, a little intro thing and background in writing. 500 word minimum. I titled the paper "Off by One" and wrote on the subject of the insane rules of grammar, format, punctuation, etc we are held to for writing while being told to write clearly and consisely and that the greatest writers like Shakespeare and friends all broke all the damned rules and made words up. It was exactly 499 words.
Your use of words is interesting to me for a simple reason.
The religious right puts forward an omnipotent God that watches us everywhere we go and ultimately judges all of our actions and determines the state of our eternal soul. So they are already inherently conditioned to this big brother mentality. The part that I have a hard time following is they are also the ones that tend to be the biggest pushers for this kind of big brother society run by man. The conditioning part of it makes sense, but it seems to me by demanding it in their own society they are questioning their God's ability to watch/judge. This is actually pretty counter to the teachings they claim to uphold because it is pretty clear about the whole don't worry about what anyone else is up to because God will judge them.
It is amusing watching them try to work around that argument btw if you ever have that conversation. "So, what you are telling me is that you need the power to watch me and judge me because God can't?" What these people represent and what is actually in their little book they beat on are most often two very different things. For those of you above the intelligence level of "haha invisible sky wizard" mocking, you should flip through New Testement stuff (the basis of Christianity). In a nutshell the whole story is about an angry jewish kid who fights the legalistic approach to religion at the time and gets executed for it. That this spawned a new legalistic religion in his name is terribly ironic. There are some real gems in there that can be used to absolutely destroy fundamentalist arguments using their own "weapon". Getting them mad at sky wizard drivel isn't nearly as entertaining as watching them get stuck fighting the words of their own savior as documented in their own holy texts.
An intelligent designer would have us reproducing asexually since those dirty genetics wouldn't have an effect (see Adam Eve case study).
I also have reason to believe we wouldn't have an appendix since its only apparent purpose is to explode and kill us and said designer would already have the divine powers to do that without needing to install a self destruct organ.
Whoa whoa whoa now. I think the physics and whatnot that drive all of creation are very well "designed" and seem to interoperate quite nicely. If there was any mistake it was the whole hairless talking monkey creation part. (Incidentally, for those of you who don't do your research before opening your mouths for or against religion it is noted that creating man WAS indeed a mistake. "He is only capable of evil thoughts and evil actions" is the Christian supplied reason for God doing the whole whole world destroying flood business. Further, even THAT was determined to be a mistake and thus spake the lord "Shit, I'm sorry, here is a rainbow to show I won't destroy the earth again....by using a flood....")
Like the painter that sneezes and splatters paint on an otherwise perfect creation, then tries to wipe up that paint and makes it worse. I think we have more than enough biological strangeness to us to pretty much discount any intelligent designing. Some of our organs have spares, some of our organs have no purpose, our recreational organs double as waste disposal organs...
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The CD is the physical medium you purchased and you can do whatever you want. The content is what you are licensing. You agree to the licensing by making the purchase, it is that simple, noone is forcing you to purchase it. Now, even beyond this, you don't see Apple really dragging every hobbyist that is running a hackintosh into court do you? It is a violation of the agreement made in the purchase. What is happening is another company is blatantly violating the rights of Apple by profiting off the violation of the licensing terms.
Unless of course you are going to argue the point that licensing can be ignored and users can do whatever they want with the content. The same people that rally the troops when some person/company violates the GPL and closes up some code and sells a product based on that code are bitching about how Psystar should be allowed to violate the license of Apple. This entirely boils down to "I get to do what I want and I get to stop what I don't want other people to do and my rights are the only ones that matter." It is more self absorbed selfish bullshit. So I suppose you can make that argument, but it also invalidates the GPL.
I grab CD, I walk out, I get arrested, I go to court. So the store should have made me sign a contract upon entry that I agree to pay for anything I want before leaving the store? There are a fistful of implied or oral contracts that you encounter in just day to day life. Ultimately, Apple makes no secret out of the fact that their OS X boxes are not meant to be stand alone products. Their decision to sell it for $129 is based on the license that says it can only be used on a Mac. If some moron judge decides that he has the power control Apple by forcing them to sell to everyone I imagine we will see a change. Either OSX will get an extra 0 tacked on to the end of the price to make it unprofitable for anyone to pull this stupid crap or it they will quit selling the upgrades altogether and move to a more draconian system of controlling their software such as product keys and activation codes.
Ultimately I tend to be pro consumer, but the level of whining involved in this OS X business is just disgusting. It has crossed over from consumer rights into the "I get to do whatever I want, the world owes me, fuck anyone else's rights" self inflated bullshit that is fucking up our society so well. Companies aren't just evil organizations just the same as not all people are murderous criminals. Yeah, shitbags exist everywhere, you do what you can to stop them. Taking away all the rights of companies is just as wrong as taking away all the rights of the consumer. You have to strike a balance or your economy falls apart. You can have all the consumers in the world, but if noone is willing to produce anything because the courts will let the consumer fuck them out of their products you won't exactly have much to buy.
I heard the band XYZ recently returned from overseas....we have some questions to ask...
Who the hell said anything about paying anyone? Make em play or toss em in gitmo! Don't stand there like we didn't let the Executive branch grow its power exponentially over the last 8 years...
I might buy that argument if we didn't have Sept 19, International Speak Like a Pirate Day. If there weren't 3 huge success movies that made pirates lovable characters. If there wasn't millions and millions being made off of of the merchandising of anything pirate related. If anything it should have the opposite effect of what you state. When REAL Somali pirates steal boats and murder crew and then they get on this software nonsense and call it piracy....well...call a kid who shoplifted something a rapist and see who's side everyone takes.
Because the contract law comes into play at the time of purchase. You are not purchasing the rights to do whatever you want with the movie, just like you aren't purchasing the right to do whatever you want with the software. You are purchasing a right to use those things. In the case of the movie that right to use is dictated by copyright law. In software the right to use is dictated by the licensing agreement. You can pretty much do whatever you want with the physical piece you purchased. The DVD/CD whatever does indeed belong to you completely. However, the contents of that DVD/CD are not yours. You do not own the rights to Star Wars because you picked up a $10 DVD any more than you own the rights to OS X because you bought the $129 upgrade disc.
This is the same problem that makes DRM pretty questionable in these cases. I bought the DVD, I can do whatever the hell I want with the DVD. I should be allowed to watch it on a custom modified toaster running linux if I want to. I believe the rights involved in how you watch it belong to the consumer owning the media, not the producer owning the content.
No. Most contracts do not need anything written. Many are simple oral agreements, and that isn't even necessary. There are contracts that are implied agreements as well. So you purchasing their box involves agreeing to the terms of their sale. No paperwork of nonsense required.
Actually I have a huge problem with that EULA popup crap where you agree after purchase. However, agree before purchase is pretty simple contract law. You either agree and purchase or you disagree and don't purchase. Apple makes no secret that their License Agreement is only for "Apple-labeled computers". Their whole tagline for Leopard is "add a new Mac to your Mac".
The only time I have seen EULA legitimately questioned was when it was that click-wrap crap where you have to open/install and then cannot return it if you disagree or when it violated First Sale (ala AutoCAD lawsuit).
Companies sell their products at a price based these contracts. Fact is, you cannot do whatever you want with what you purchase. You can't make copies of DVDs and sell them legally for example. If you could really do whatever you want with any product you buy things like OSs and DVDs would only be available to the ultrarich. What movie studio is going to sell you a master copy for $10 at walmart? Apple set its price of $129 with the condition that it only can be used on Macs. They are well within their right to do that. If people don't like it noone is forcing them to buy it or use it. Hell, MS has more restrictions and bullshit with their OS and it costs twice as much. Apple sells a 5 license family pack for $199, how much do you think 5 Vista licenses will cost you?. Also, OSX installs have no bullshit product keys, activations, or other such nonsense. So in turn for not treating their customers like criminals they get thier stuff stolen and people whining about how they should be allowed to steal it from them. This is exactly why companies turn to such horrid draconian measures.
I assume you mean how Bush implemented voluntary pollution control measures in his state and none of the big polluters actually did anything and then continued to benefit from government dollars. Yup...totally a Working Economy there.
However, ending slavery, ending Company Towns, worker protection and safety laws are all government intervention and punishment that actually made things better.
I'm not sure if you live in free market fantasy land or are a shill for Bush policies, but either way the government intervention & punishment is the only thing that really works. The problem is we have allowed the corporations to buy off enough of the government to manipulate the game and rules far too much and the government gets involved in WAY too much bullshit that it has no business meddling with.
Funny, I always thought the real world experience of every oppresive government disarmed its citizens to increase control was a good example of why not to disarm. In fact, that is the only reason the 2nd Amendement even exists! Both sides of this stupid argument frame this as protecting ourselves against our fellow citizens when the only reason it was written was for the citizens to protect themselves from the government.
Also, the average legally armed American has 2-3x more experience with their firearm than most police or military members. Police and military are only required to requalify at certain intervals. Numerous studies have shown that private gun owning citizens get more pratice time on the range by a long shot. So even the argument that only the police/military should have guns is backwards (despite the notion that only the government should be allowed to carry weapons is dangerous and stupid) in that the police/military are most often less qualified with the weapons in question.
Most people that legally own and carry weapons are not the ones that are doing evil deeds. So you can bet that even where weapons are legal the police CHECK that weapon when they find it so your story about police not having to wait is nonsense. It still requires them to find the weapon in the first place. Unless of course you are advocating periodic searches in all public places, in which case I have no desire to live in your version of a perfect nation.
Actually, I think this is the part where China demands the source code to examine before allowing it to be used again...
Go read that basket article, read the comments towards the bottom. Nevermind that it doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense to steal infrastructure to make baskets instead of selling it for scrap, the author really does put out some fairly harmful disinformation by making that accusation. Most of the weavers purchase their wire, and most of the wire isn't even copper anymore because it costs too much. Which goes back to copper theives are going to scrap it, not make baskets.
I know this is slashdot and all, but did anyone actually read the article? It is pretty fascinating what this guy is doing. This is real science, the standard crap is frequently little more than research. If this process works then it could mean a tremendous shift in medical practices. The impact that this could have on surgery, especially for high risk operations is incredible. The effects on battlefield medicine would be profound as well. Military medicine over the centuries has brought some pretty impressive things in terms of trauma care.
Oh my God that is hilarious! Here's to hoping that they leave her that way.
The problem is violence, sex, and comedy are probably the top three interests of the human mind. Even when it isn't terribly overt, a great many things boil back down to those three things. That whole lets sit and think out a puzzle stuff probably tends to come after those 3 on average. Even for those that fancy themselves as strictly intellectuals are driven by the first three, and the ones that deny frequently turn out to be the more dangerous people. The more aware people recognize those animalistic impulses and can manage them without denying it or getting out of control.
I can pretty much promise that without the violence/sex/comedy inputs elsewhere in your life that no game without them would be very fun.
Oh no no no, you are confused. In this case "peers" means people who pee. No wonder people are so confused about our court system.
Oh, I think there are very valid restrictions on speech. To add to the ones you mentioned there are other issues like yelling fire in a theater. I just think hate speech in it specific form is nonsensical at best and only fuels the fire. "Now look at dem niggars tellin us we can't call dem niggars..." Please...the best thing to do with hate speech is ignore it. People make words offensive by being offended by them. Now...under the banner of hate speech we can quietly slip in "or based on their profession" so that you can't deride someone for being a lowly garbage man or portopotty cleaner or whatever. But wait...did you notice...that also means you can't say bad things about someone being a lawyer or a politician... Wait...jail time for hate speech for saying bad things about politicians?! Holy shit, we are in the gulag for speaking against our glorious leader!
Slippery slope. (the abridged version).
It only quashes religious freedom when it isn't run by a theocracy. This is the problem...I would put big money on MASSIVE protests by the Christian religious right if suddenly prayer was allowed in school, but the school wanted to do Christians on monday, Islam on tuesday, and so on. The religious right is all about your freedom to be exactly the same as them. The religious right brought us the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, the Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials. It is the current religious right that is promoting the "Crusade" and the whole "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" nonsense in their little War on Terror. So no...only the MINORITY religious groups typically worry about Big Brother government. It amuses me to no end to watch Christian thinktanks continue to whine in America like they are some suppressed minority. While I have seen the atheist create the utopia now business, it pales in comparison to what is done in the name of religion to "root out evil" and destroy the heathens and all of that nonsense.
Now, that said...Christianity on a whole has precious little to do with the real teachings these days. It is too hard to beat on the cover of the book while it is open it seems. When I can say things like "Jesus was such a Jew" or say "Yeshua" and have people get upset or call me heathen, or continue to use "Christ" like it was his last name instead of a title...it is pretty clear they don't understand their own damned religion. It bothers me to no end to watch people focus on the torture and execution of Jesus and chant "he died for our sins" and totally ignore the 20-30 years of his words and actions that convinced those in power to execute him. It is horribly ironic that his "followers" have built up such a huge legalistic judgmental religion when his entire life was fighting AGAINST the pharisees and their legalistic judgmental religious practices. Even better, he plainly states that this is exactly what would happen and he will say get away for I never knew you.
(Disclaimer: I don't consider myself Christian because even outside of the hypocrisy issues, there is a fair amount I don't agree with anyways. However, I think Jesus is grossly misrepresented through the grotesque behavior of so many of his "followers" and the weird shiney happy coloring book Jesus that is sold to kids in the indoctrination process. He was an angry little jew with a lot to say, most of which was terribly insightful regardless of your beliefs.)
Clearly your head must be composed of the densest material known to man. You couldn't tell that the "to silence Ann Coulter" part of that is a joke? This kind of melodramatic reaction to things is one of the many things liberals do to make themselves look bad. Please don't blame it on anyone else.
Again...more of that liberal think tank at work. My point with unified groupthink/identical individuals is that both the far left and far right agendas want everyone to think the same as them, they just frame it in different ways. I am not going to sit here and cite every insane instance of this behavior of both sides, but it is hardly uncommon.
Oh please...are you telling me that Tetris isn't horribly suggestive?
You enjoy your having 'fun'. I am going to keep playing the Fallout series that has violence, sex, comedy, AND drugs. My fun will be without the quotes.
I'm honestly not sure if she ever checked and got the joke. I am pretty sure I got full points for the essay. This was a little surprising because while she wasn't really a bad teacher, she was pretty anal about those kinds of details. (She taught me absolute hatred and loathing for APA style).
I am guessing that the USPTO is that way because it isn't a glamerous parking ground for inept political allies. Also, it isn't very counter intuitive if you really pause to think. Political types are most often law students in some variant... Most are some kind of lawyer breed. Now...pause and think about who really profits from a broken USPTO. You see multi million/billion dollar lawsuits being flung around amongst the actual producers and patent trolls. The real winners in all of this are the lawyers. Regardless of which side they are on they get paid. A broken USPTO is taking care of their own.
Funny...my observation of the modern conservative is that they are afraid of hate speech laws because then the Ann Coulters of the world wouldn't be allowed to speak. While I agree hate speech laws are a stupid idea and a dangerous slippery slope...I'm less and less convinced that it wouldn't be worth it to forever silence people like Ann Coulter.
The leftists these days what unified groupthink. The right wingers want everyone to be an individual so long as they are all identical individuals.
I don't know if you have been paying attention to the politics going on lately, but all of the self described "conservatives" have NOTHING to do with any of the values you just described. They pay lipservices to "free market" when what they mean is "corporate welfare for my friends and a playing field that favors the ones that can pay us off". They most certainly do not believe in your free speech rights. "Your either with us or against us" comes to mind. Nevermind all of the rather unflattering things that these people have suggested we do with anyone who would dare question the U.S. Government.
Libertarians are the closest thing to your "classical liberal" out there these days. Both the D and R teams have spun off into nightmarish parties of government consolidated power and control that the only way to tell them apart is by the pillow talk after they are done screwing you.
Fox pulls high numbers because there are a large number of low IQ people floating about that can't be bothered to READ and check sources. Fox is the same group that showed how the "hacker" group anonymous blows up vans... Fox is the same "fair and balanced" that covered Ahmenidjad's speech showing his title as "Axis President" while the other 3 stations said "President of Iran". Fox lead the charge on the bait and switch of Osama vs Iraq. They are a massive propoganda outlet, nothing more, and their reporting on pretty much anything is laughable at best.
Because then the guy in the garage that comes up with the next supergadget goes broke trying to patent it and some megacorp patent troll comes along and claims its theirs anyways. I think the alternative would actually be a maximum page kinda thing. "Look, you either write it concisely, or you go to hell, your choice."
A bit of a side issue but I actually wrote a paper for one of my english classes for college that addressed this problem. They teach that you should write clearly and consisely and then immediately following that say "and it must be a minimum of X00 words or Y pages". So even if you can get your point across clearly in 200 words you are stuck writing a 500 word essay. The paper I wrote was the first paper of the class, a little intro thing and background in writing. 500 word minimum. I titled the paper "Off by One" and wrote on the subject of the insane rules of grammar, format, punctuation, etc we are held to for writing while being told to write clearly and consisely and that the greatest writers like Shakespeare and friends all broke all the damned rules and made words up. It was exactly 499 words.
Your use of words is interesting to me for a simple reason.
The religious right puts forward an omnipotent God that watches us everywhere we go and ultimately judges all of our actions and determines the state of our eternal soul. So they are already inherently conditioned to this big brother mentality. The part that I have a hard time following is they are also the ones that tend to be the biggest pushers for this kind of big brother society run by man. The conditioning part of it makes sense, but it seems to me by demanding it in their own society they are questioning their God's ability to watch/judge. This is actually pretty counter to the teachings they claim to uphold because it is pretty clear about the whole don't worry about what anyone else is up to because God will judge them.
It is amusing watching them try to work around that argument btw if you ever have that conversation. "So, what you are telling me is that you need the power to watch me and judge me because God can't?" What these people represent and what is actually in their little book they beat on are most often two very different things. For those of you above the intelligence level of "haha invisible sky wizard" mocking, you should flip through New Testement stuff (the basis of Christianity). In a nutshell the whole story is about an angry jewish kid who fights the legalistic approach to religion at the time and gets executed for it. That this spawned a new legalistic religion in his name is terribly ironic. There are some real gems in there that can be used to absolutely destroy fundamentalist arguments using their own "weapon". Getting them mad at sky wizard drivel isn't nearly as entertaining as watching them get stuck fighting the words of their own savior as documented in their own holy texts.
An intelligent designer would have us reproducing asexually since those dirty genetics wouldn't have an effect (see Adam Eve case study).
I also have reason to believe we wouldn't have an appendix since its only apparent purpose is to explode and kill us and said designer would already have the divine powers to do that without needing to install a self destruct organ.
Whoa whoa whoa now. I think the physics and whatnot that drive all of creation are very well "designed" and seem to interoperate quite nicely. If there was any mistake it was the whole hairless talking monkey creation part. (Incidentally, for those of you who don't do your research before opening your mouths for or against religion it is noted that creating man WAS indeed a mistake. "He is only capable of evil thoughts and evil actions" is the Christian supplied reason for God doing the whole whole world destroying flood business. Further, even THAT was determined to be a mistake and thus spake the lord "Shit, I'm sorry, here is a rainbow to show I won't destroy the earth again....by using a flood....")
Like the painter that sneezes and splatters paint on an otherwise perfect creation, then tries to wipe up that paint and makes it worse. I think we have more than enough biological strangeness to us to pretty much discount any intelligent designing. Some of our organs have spares, some of our organs have no purpose, our recreational organs double as waste disposal organs...