I work in magazine publishing, and have faced a very similar situation, but in the US. Take a look at the standard usage contract that Corbis issues. You'll notice a very steep penalty for using without attribution, even if the images are licensed.
I haven't seen the images posted by the submitter, nor their context, nor the online publishing contract. However, it would not surprise me to learn that the $25,000 is inclusive of the penalty for using the image without attribution, in which case Corbis could, I beleive, recoup that from submitter even in UK court, if Corbis chose to be jerks about it.
In my experience, Corbis is very reasonable (we regularly pay 6 months after publication). The problem here is that they've most likely 'sold' the whole kit and kaboodle to their solicitor, who is looking to make bank on it. The trick is to make sure Corbis is aware that you'll be using them in the future should this be resolved amicably. Having a prior business history with them helps.
As good citizens, Christians are willing to take patriotic stands
Nothing like a good old martyrdom tradition:)
In the absence of clear Biblical direction, the official Christian position is unclear, and many Christians take advantage of the situation, and many other Christians are taken advantage of.
Well, that depends. There is no 'official' Christian position, particularly in most of the protestant sects, since protestant sects rely on person interpretation of the scripture.
As for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, there are definitely official positions -- the structure of these Churches demand official positions, otherwise no one would know if they were acting in accordance to the wishes of God. This is the foundation of these hierarchical churches, since the Nicene creed and the other three synods for the Catholic church, and synods around the same time for the Orthodox Churches, until Thomas of Aquinas.
In my experience, many (but not all) Christians use scripture when expedient; when not, they ignore it. For many professed Christians, their faith is nebulous and unimportant in daily life.
As for Jesus not wanting to pick fights with governments, that's not quite accurate. Jesus espoused a doctrine of government irrelevance to life and God -- obeyance to civil government had very little to do with what he preached. There were actually quite a few Christian cults[1] that practiced civil disobedience as a matter of course. The Donatists in north Africa are a prime example; they maintained that bishops who had apostatized (broken religious rules to kowtow to the state) couldn't baptise anyone into the faith. Only Honorius using the state to declare the Donatists heretical prevented this view from becoming dominant (the Donatist Church was much larger than Augustine's Orthodox Church). And even so, it might have proved a problem for the Catholic Church had arabs not conquered north Africa, the center of Donatist strength.
Seen any of the info about improper inquiries into Congresspeople inquirinig about ongoing investigations? That's nothing to do with Plame etc, a different matter entirely.
it would be a criminal matter, not a matter for politicized polemic in congress.
Congress has the responsibility to investigate.
I'll agree that the Deomcrats are making hay from this, but it is within reason.
I think you're missing the possibility that firings were done in retribution for failed attempts to influence the midterm elections and/or Congressional interference in ongoing legislation. This would be a clear violation of law, and is the reason for the brouhahah.
Anything else is largely impractical, and the only way that ordinary citizens of a country could do the same would probably involve guerilla tactics, at which point, a spear is as deadly as an uzi.
You're right about guerrilla warfare being the answer (if the question is how would one overthrow a modern oppressive regime). But a spear hasn't nearly the effective range of an Uzi, let alone an assault rifle, and so is much less useful for guerrilla warfare.
Guns are more likely to be used for personal protection and resource acquisition from 'neutrals' in a chaotic revolution in the US, IMO. Although, I am do leaving out snipers, which could be a major tool in a rebel effort.
I was raised Quaker, am an atheist now. But one of the great things I learned in the Quaker Church is that my conscience is subordinate to no one's, that I am responsible for my actions, and responsible for interpreting morality for myself.
We can look to those in the past for inspiration and guidance, but in the end, it's our own personal understanding that matters.
Sure there is. Per-book print costs for paperbacks are well under $1 each for large print runs, typically you can have 10,000 copies printed for just over 1.00 each now -- it's the marketing, shelf placement, shipping, etc that drive costs up. On Amazon, you get to remove shipping costs (not included in the $1.99 price).
Also, look at the pricing structure over time. If you sell a few thousand books at 7.99, you may have just covered printing and marketing costs for tens of thousands of books. Lots of creative accounting in publishing -- say you expense all of the marketing costs during the first year of publication. All the sudden, you don't have to factor them into the margins on your reduced-price sales, if you reduce the price during the next calendar year.
Well, Thomas of Aquinas's teachings weren't made 'gospel' until late 19th century under Leo XIII, though they definitely had influence before then. Not sure how much they really influenced moral thought among the lay faithful, many of whom didn't have (or make use of) access to his writings before then.
One of the things I think is great about Thomas of Aquinas is that he managed to reconcile classic Greek thinking with the Church. This was a major cause of the Renaissance, IMO.
However, I think much of the Catholic Church (and other churches post-Luther) chose to ignore Thomas of Aquinas's teachings on personal responsibility for ordered actions. It's just to easy to ascribe blame to someone else for expediency, especially when it's ingrained culturally.
I.E. I don't see where you can get away saying "I was following orders" when ordered to do something immoral.
The justification was that the "moral" liability for the action was carried by the soul of the person who gave the order(whether a good act or a sinful one), not by the soul of the person who carried it out. Furthermore, disobedience was a sin, so on the balance sheet of the sould, disobedience for morality reasons was a net sin.
First you state that there is a big stink about the eight fired 8 attorneys, which compares to no uproar when Clinton fired all the attorneys at the beginning of the term.
This is deliberately misleading, since the mid-term firings for possibly political reasons are different from wholesale replacement at the beginning of an administration -- which Bush also did.
Then you attempted to defend your initial statement by pulling a quote from the beginning of the Bush administration -- which is also misleading, since the actual context was that he was leaving them in for a short time before replacing all of them. You conveniently made it seem as though the administration left them in place, which they did not.
Maybe you didn't know these facts when you made your posts, but it sure seems like you were deliberately misleading for effect.
You don't like the way that one of your political appointees runs their office, sets their priorities, or spins something? Great! They're yours to fire, at will.
Not so. Wrongful termination suits are still made (and sometimes won) in at-will employment states; why would it be different for political employees?
It doesn't matter if they were appointed by the same guy originally.You're right. But the reason they were fired does matter. Firing a US attorney for political reasons (such as to evade an investigation into the Plame leak, or to punish someone for *not* announcing an investigation into one's political opponent before an election, or to punish someone for investigating a political ally) is clearly an ethical violation (and, actually, a legal violation).
It's actually a tremendous breath of fresh air to know that there is such a thing as a federal employee that can under- or mis-perform a job and actually be let go.
Funny how you miss the above-average performance reviews most of these appointees received.
Of course, it's NOT a mystery: this is a manufactured "scandal" that the administration was clumsy enough to act defensive about, which just turned into something it wasn't.
I see. According to your thinking, manipulating federal employees (potentially for political purposes, which is the reason this is a scandal) in order to manipulate an election is A-OK. Funny thing is, it's illegal to do so, as those attorneys are employees of the federal government, not employees of GWB, or employees of the Republican Party. One cannot use federal resources such as those attorneys for election purposes.
You simply aren't bothering to looking for it, and it's trivial to find.
It's more than that -- I think he's deliberately ignoring information counter to what he's stating. And the sad thing is, so are all the television media outlets. There is no excuse for not knowing that the attorneys fired by Bush was all attorneys he appointed when he cleaned house upon taking office. Or that quote about keeping the attorneys in place when Bush took office was only meant to delay the hirings; in a wise move, Bush didn't want to disrupt the entire legal process at that level by firing all the attorneys at once; eventually (within a year) all of them were fired.
It is very problable that he deliberately telling partial truths in order to support an untenable position.
Heh. I get called a shill pretty often, since I point out that those who do choose to pirate music are a tad hypocritical when they then accuse the RIAA of inflating losses due to piracy. If they had any conviction, they'd boycott those artists represented by the RIAA.
I'm pretty blunt in stating that many people who complain about the RIAA are primarily interested in getting things for free, and are upset that the well is running dry. Sure, some people are motivated by justifiable reasons (fair use, etc), and I relish the opportunity to discuss the issues with them.
But to me, the best action totake against the RIAA is simple:
If you don't what they are selling (listening & access licenses), don't use it. Don't pirate it, don't buy the physical media, don't buy the digital media. Make them irrelevant, and the artists you like will choose to sign with better labels, or self-publish.
The reason Borders partnered with Amazon in the first place was because they couldn't come up with a good enough web site on their own.
Not really. They were late to the party, which is a major reason for their small market share in 2001 when they partnered up with Amazon. Overall online book sales were diminishing then, so the future looked bad for their online division. Strapped for cash, Borders traded the possibility of market share gains (long-term benefit) for cash flow from referral commissions from Amazon (short-term benefit).
But, today is far different than 2001. Online retailing has been proven successful for a wide variety of companies, even as an extension of primarily B&M shops. Furthermore, the Amazon brand no longer dominates online retailing -- the online market has matured a bit, to the point where every major B&M retailer has its own online sales division.
For right now they are still duly elected and answerable to the public. If you draw their attention to important matters like this, most of them will take action.
I disagree. Right now they are answerable to the media, who control the focus of the public. There is a huge difference -- if you want them to take action, you need to convince the media to pay attention to the matter.
Given that the media have their own motivations (as part of corporate conglomerates who have a symbiotic relationship with US politicians), how exactly can we make our politicians answerable to the people? This is the problem with having so much power invested in a structure where the average decision-maker (Congressperson) is accountable to over 500,000 people.
I think you're missing the point of the article. Even if he were to have a job he loved 100%, he would most likely still want to keep his work life separate from his home life. Some people are motivated by what they produce, some people are motivated by whether people like them, many people are motivated by something completely different.
I know that no matter how fulfilling my career may be at some point in my life, it will never be fulfilling enough for me to not separate it from my personal life. I tend to hyperfocus, which means that if I bring my work home *at all*, I'll end up neglecting my family.
Indeed. There may be a moral responsibility to disobey the unconstitutional law, but there is at least technically a legal responsibility to obey it
Depends on your philosophical roots. The Catholic Church, for example, explicitly stated that the moral responsibility to obey one's superiors supercedes other moral responsibilities. This was in the 4th century CE (IIRC, may have been the 5th century), but has so pervaded Western thought that it remains a huge problem today.
This is a major reason why a lot of fundamentalist Christians continue to support the President -- it's cultural, even if they are not fully aware of it. Europe was forced to face this problem and try to find a solution in the 1940s and 50s; this remains a large area of psychological study even today. In the US, we touched on the subject during and after Vietnam, but culturally it still remains a problem.
There are a couple of books that go into it in depth, one is Conservatives Without Conscience light-ish read but very enlightening -- written by a former Nixon staffer, John W. Dean. Dean's book discusses more than this topic, but it's the foundation of his theory that the conservative movement has been taken over by people without an innate moral compass.
The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason -- the other, by Charles Freeman, is much drier, but really, in detail, explains the process by which the western culture became this way, with a focus on the church -- as well as the factors that led to these decisions being made. Not surprisingly, most of them came from a desire for security, an attempt to solidify power, or an attempt to destroy a rival.
I'm not saying that we don't have a moral responsibility to do the right thing even when ordered not to by our superiors (be they government, church, workplace, etc), I'm just saying that understanding the cultural reasons for people acting this way is the first step to rectifying the problem.
Up here in the north, we say "thanks, New Jersey" -- but we're talking about insurance rates, property taxes, traffic congestion, Superfund sites (too polluted to live or work in), college football (wait, scratch that -- for now), odor, gum-chewing "Juicy"-pantsed too-much-makeup hyper-stiffened-mallhair-wearing teenage girls, bad accents, medical waste on the beaches, I could go on. Really, I could, but I'm too proud of my home state's charms to continue.
But, the opposing party's majority supported the PATRIOT act, and supported renewing it because they saw the need to do so
By "saw the need to do so" you mean "had a desire for relection", right?
all they can do is talk about non-binding resolutions that stamp their feet in disapproval over the conduct of the conflict in Iraq
That's funny, they are currently working on a new appropriations bill for the war in Iraq, and it looks like it won't pass without a clause stipulating the withdrawal of troops must begin in spring 2008. Check your facts. It also seems to me that you have an over-simpified view of how Congress works -- there is a lot of deal-making to do, a lot of feeling-out to do, and a lot of basic things that need to be addressed before any huge legislation like that can be brought up. And, of course, there is the over-riding pressure to ensure re-electability and to help secure the presidency for 2009. Any drastic action that alienates too much of the relatively-uneducated (on the issues) center is verboten. I know you are hinting at this in your post, but it's important to note that this is a problem with the politicial system, when bad legislation cannot be fixed for fear of a massive smear campaign (John Q. Senator voted to loosen controls on terrorists!!)
get in a lather over how a handful of US attorneys (ALL of whom work entirely at the whim of every president and are political appointees, and ALL of whom the previous administration fired without so much as a minor hissy fit out of congress) were dismissed.
Are people still buying into the "b-b-b-but Clinton did it" excuse for this, when what Clinton did was nowhere near the same? Clinton fired the attorneys when he took office, as did the previous regimes. Again, check your facts.
People can't bitch about the poor intelligence sharing/processing lapses leading up to 9/11, and also bitch about the piece of legislation that fixes the problem.
False dichotomy. While there are good intelligence measures in the PATRIOT Act, there are also many parts of it that are bad, as you later agree in your post. It's not a logical fallacy at all to have a problem with the Act due to parts of it that are unconstitutional, while still supporting the both the stated intent behind the Act and the legal provisions within it.
well, we need a hell of a lot more judges who are able to constructively weigh in on that issue on a moment's notice, and with the IT-savvy skills to grasp the issues at stake
Wouldn't help. The FBI et al will overload any number of judges -- this is the excuse for not requiring judicial approval, that it takes too long because of the load. If you double the number of judges, you'll simply find double the number of requests. If you train the judges to make quicker decisions, then the decision process will become more complex. The bureacracy is there for a reason -- to ensure that there is an excuse for extralegal activity to miss proper review.
If they do, in fact, inform the individual that this is a matter of national security & that they will be bringing justice to the enemies of the United States, then I hope they are eventually published so we can all have a good laugh
I think you misspelled "cry".
But seriously,
and that they might serve as a reminder for victims of future schemes.
Serve as a reminder? I don't think this is a minor problem, this is a strong signal of the US's descent into a fascist state. Leaning on patriotism and fear of reprisal to get people to report on their neighbors (we're all neighbors in the digital era)? Sounds familiar.
I really don't want to Godwin the thread, but in this case there is a parallel that is best not ignored.
My personal harvest of spam has dropped recently from 1000/day to 500/day.
I noticed the same thing recently, but to use the word 'harvest'?
Gives me the shivers, a vision of thousands of spamfarmers toiling in underground caves carefully tending their spam crops until harvest-time.
I much prefer the term 'cull', since it implies getting rid of the chaff (to mix a farm metaphor or two) as well as refers to the 'meat' connotations of spam.
* their lobbying efforts alone make their non-profit status pretty hard to justify under 501(c)(3)
But they are not registered as a 501(c)3.
501(c)3 is a designation for non-profits to whom personal donations are tax-deductible; there are many, many non-profits that do not fall under this category. Under federal tax law, a business may still deduct donations to a lobbying non-profit as business expenses, if the lobbying is in support of the business interests of the business -- personal contributions, however, aren't exempt.
Yet another way the corporations and their crony legislators have reinforced their domination of the legislative process.
Not really. At a casino table, you cards are what you call them... so if you have a straight to the six, but call "six high" when you reveal your cards, then 6 high is all you have. You lose to any other hand in poker.
This is why a lot of people don't even announce their hand, they let the dealer sort it out.
I don't work in the music industry, and am in no way compensated for any of my posts. You're way off base. Please see my responses earlier in the comment tree.
Obviously you need primers in reading comprehension and general lack-of-asshattedness, as well as a basic understanding of the fact that, as I stated earlier, it's possible that people who are on the same side can have differing viewpoints on tangential subjects.
As for lacking sympathy and understanding -- that's a load of crap. The guy ignored the warnings he got at Rhino, he ignored the documentation that came with his music player. And I certainly hesitate to believe his reconstruction of the dialogues with the CSRs. At any rate, he was given all the info he needed to know that the file he paid for wouldn't play on his iPod.
Even so, I'm in full agreement wrt the inanity of the DRM structure and limitation on fair use. I just think you have a thing or two to learn about assumptionas and where they come from. Frankly, I'm insulted that you'd think I have anything to do with RIAA companies, and if you bothered to check my post history, or even comments to this article you'd know that.
But hey, I guess the anonymous internet asshole theory still applies.
Slashdot Mirror
I work in magazine publishing, and have faced a very similar situation, but in the US. Take a look at the standard usage contract that Corbis issues. You'll notice a very steep penalty for using without attribution, even if the images are licensed.
I haven't seen the images posted by the submitter, nor their context, nor the online publishing contract. However, it would not surprise me to learn that the $25,000 is inclusive of the penalty for using the image without attribution, in which case Corbis could, I beleive, recoup that from submitter even in UK court, if Corbis chose to be jerks about it.
In my experience, Corbis is very reasonable (we regularly pay 6 months after publication). The problem here is that they've most likely 'sold' the whole kit and kaboodle to their solicitor, who is looking to make bank on it. The trick is to make sure Corbis is aware that you'll be using them in the future should this be resolved amicably. Having a prior business history with them helps.
Well, that depends. There is no 'official' Christian position, particularly in most of the protestant sects, since protestant sects rely on person interpretation of the scripture.
As for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, there are definitely official positions -- the structure of these Churches demand official positions, otherwise no one would know if they were acting in accordance to the wishes of God. This is the foundation of these hierarchical churches, since the Nicene creed and the other three synods for the Catholic church, and synods around the same time for the Orthodox Churches, until Thomas of Aquinas.
In my experience, many (but not all) Christians use scripture when expedient; when not, they ignore it. For many professed Christians, their faith is nebulous and unimportant in daily life.
As for Jesus not wanting to pick fights with governments, that's not quite accurate. Jesus espoused a doctrine of government irrelevance to life and God -- obeyance to civil government had very little to do with what he preached. There were actually quite a few Christian cults[1] that practiced civil disobedience as a matter of course. The Donatists in north Africa are a prime example; they maintained that bishops who had apostatized (broken religious rules to kowtow to the state) couldn't baptise anyone into the faith. Only Honorius using the state to declare the Donatists heretical prevented this view from becoming dominant (the Donatist Church was much larger than Augustine's Orthodox Church). And even so, it might have proved a problem for the Catholic Church had arabs not conquered north Africa, the center of Donatist strength.
Congress has the responsibility to investigate.
I'll agree that the Deomcrats are making hay from this, but it is within reason.
I think you're missing the possibility that firings were done in retribution for failed attempts to influence the midterm elections and/or Congressional interference in ongoing legislation. This would be a clear violation of law, and is the reason for the brouhahah.
Guns are more likely to be used for personal protection and resource acquisition from 'neutrals' in a chaotic revolution in the US, IMO. Although, I am do leaving out snipers, which could be a major tool in a rebel effort.
I was raised Quaker, am an atheist now. But one of the great things I learned in the Quaker Church is that my conscience is subordinate to no one's, that I am responsible for my actions, and responsible for interpreting morality for myself.
We can look to those in the past for inspiration and guidance, but in the end, it's our own personal understanding that matters.
Sure there is. Per-book print costs for paperbacks are well under $1 each for large print runs, typically you can have 10,000 copies printed for just over 1.00 each now -- it's the marketing, shelf placement, shipping, etc that drive costs up. On Amazon, you get to remove shipping costs (not included in the $1.99 price).
Also, look at the pricing structure over time. If you sell a few thousand books at 7.99, you may have just covered printing and marketing costs for tens of thousands of books. Lots of creative accounting in publishing -- say you expense all of the marketing costs during the first year of publication. All the sudden, you don't have to factor them into the margins on your reduced-price sales, if you reduce the price during the next calendar year.
Well, Thomas of Aquinas's teachings weren't made 'gospel' until late 19th century under Leo XIII, though they definitely had influence before then. Not sure how much they really influenced moral thought among the lay faithful, many of whom didn't have (or make use of) access to his writings before then.
One of the things I think is great about Thomas of Aquinas is that he managed to reconcile classic Greek thinking with the Church. This was a major cause of the Renaissance, IMO.
However, I think much of the Catholic Church (and other churches post-Luther) chose to ignore Thomas of Aquinas's teachings on personal responsibility for ordered actions. It's just to easy to ascribe blame to someone else for expediency, especially when it's ingrained culturally.
First you state that there is a big stink about the eight fired 8 attorneys, which compares to no uproar when Clinton fired all the attorneys at the beginning of the term.
This is deliberately misleading, since the mid-term firings for possibly political reasons are different from wholesale replacement at the beginning of an administration -- which Bush also did.
Then you attempted to defend your initial statement by pulling a quote from the beginning of the Bush administration -- which is also misleading, since the actual context was that he was leaving them in for a short time before replacing all of them. You conveniently made it seem as though the administration left them in place, which they did not.
Maybe you didn't know these facts when you made your posts, but it sure seems like you were deliberately misleading for effect.
Not so. Wrongful termination suits are still made (and sometimes won) in at-will employment states; why would it be different for political employees?
It doesn't matter if they were appointed by the same guy originally.You're right. But the reason they were fired does matter. Firing a US attorney for political reasons (such as to evade an investigation into the Plame leak, or to punish someone for *not* announcing an investigation into one's political opponent before an election, or to punish someone for investigating a political ally) is clearly an ethical violation (and, actually, a legal violation).
Funny how you miss the above-average performance reviews most of these appointees received.
I see. According to your thinking, manipulating federal employees (potentially for political purposes, which is the reason this is a scandal) in order to manipulate an election is A-OK. Funny thing is, it's illegal to do so, as those attorneys are employees of the federal government, not employees of GWB, or employees of the Republican Party. One cannot use federal resources such as those attorneys for election purposes.
I guarantee you that Rhino's license is downloadable through standard settings on standard firewalls, of both the hardware and software varieties.
It is very problable that he deliberately telling partial truths in order to support an untenable position.
Heh. I get called a shill pretty often, since I point out that those who do choose to pirate music are a tad hypocritical when they then accuse the RIAA of inflating losses due to piracy. If they had any conviction, they'd boycott those artists represented by the RIAA.
I'm pretty blunt in stating that many people who complain about the RIAA are primarily interested in getting things for free, and are upset that the well is running dry. Sure, some people are motivated by justifiable reasons (fair use, etc), and I relish the opportunity to discuss the issues with them.
But to me, the best action totake against the RIAA is simple:
If you don't what they are selling (listening & access licenses), don't use it. Don't pirate it, don't buy the physical media, don't buy the digital media. Make them irrelevant, and the artists you like will choose to sign with better labels, or self-publish.
But, today is far different than 2001. Online retailing has been proven successful for a wide variety of companies, even as an extension of primarily B&M shops. Furthermore, the Amazon brand no longer dominates online retailing -- the online market has matured a bit, to the point where every major B&M retailer has its own online sales division.
Given that the media have their own motivations (as part of corporate conglomerates who have a symbiotic relationship with US politicians), how exactly can we make our politicians answerable to the people? This is the problem with having so much power invested in a structure where the average decision-maker (Congressperson) is accountable to over 500,000 people.
I know that no matter how fulfilling my career may be at some point in my life, it will never be fulfilling enough for me to not separate it from my personal life. I tend to hyperfocus, which means that if I bring my work home *at all*, I'll end up neglecting my family.
This is a major reason why a lot of fundamentalist Christians continue to support the President -- it's cultural, even if they are not fully aware of it. Europe was forced to face this problem and try to find a solution in the 1940s and 50s; this remains a large area of psychological study even today. In the US, we touched on the subject during and after Vietnam, but culturally it still remains a problem.
There are a couple of books that go into it in depth, one is Conservatives Without Conscience light-ish read but very enlightening -- written by a former Nixon staffer, John W. Dean. Dean's book discusses more than this topic, but it's the foundation of his theory that the conservative movement has been taken over by people without an innate moral compass.
The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason -- the other, by Charles Freeman, is much drier, but really, in detail, explains the process by which the western culture became this way, with a focus on the church -- as well as the factors that led to these decisions being made. Not surprisingly, most of them came from a desire for security, an attempt to solidify power, or an attempt to destroy a rival.
I'm not saying that we don't have a moral responsibility to do the right thing even when ordered not to by our superiors (be they government, church, workplace, etc), I'm just saying that understanding the cultural reasons for people acting this way is the first step to rectifying the problem.
Up here in the north, we say "thanks, New Jersey" -- but we're talking about insurance rates, property taxes, traffic congestion, Superfund sites (too polluted to live or work in), college football (wait, scratch that -- for now), odor, gum-chewing "Juicy"-pantsed too-much-makeup hyper-stiffened-mallhair-wearing teenage girls, bad accents, medical waste on the beaches, I could go on. Really, I could, but I'm too proud of my home state's charms to continue.
By "saw the need to do so" you mean "had a desire for relection", right?
That's funny, they are currently working on a new appropriations bill for the war in Iraq, and it looks like it won't pass without a clause stipulating the withdrawal of troops must begin in spring 2008. Check your facts. It also seems to me that you have an over-simpified view of how Congress works -- there is a lot of deal-making to do, a lot of feeling-out to do, and a lot of basic things that need to be addressed before any huge legislation like that can be brought up. And, of course, there is the over-riding pressure to ensure re-electability and to help secure the presidency for 2009. Any drastic action that alienates too much of the relatively-uneducated (on the issues) center is verboten. I know you are hinting at this in your post, but it's important to note that this is a problem with the politicial system, when bad legislation cannot be fixed for fear of a massive smear campaign (John Q. Senator voted to loosen controls on terrorists!!)
Are people still buying into the "b-b-b-but Clinton did it" excuse for this, when what Clinton did was nowhere near the same? Clinton fired the attorneys when he took office, as did the previous regimes. Again, check your facts.
False dichotomy. While there are good intelligence measures in the PATRIOT Act, there are also many parts of it that are bad, as you later agree in your post. It's not a logical fallacy at all to have a problem with the Act due to parts of it that are unconstitutional, while still supporting the both the stated intent behind the Act and the legal provisions within it.
Wouldn't help. The FBI et al will overload any number of judges -- this is the excuse for not requiring judicial approval, that it takes too long because of the load. If you double the number of judges, you'll simply find double the number of requests. If you train the judges to make quicker decisions, then the decision process will become more complex. The bureacracy is there for a reason -- to ensure that there is an excuse for extralegal activity to miss proper review.
I think you misspelled "cry".
But seriously,
Serve as a reminder? I don't think this is a minor problem, this is a strong signal of the US's descent into a fascist state. Leaning on patriotism and fear of reprisal to get people to report on their neighbors (we're all neighbors in the digital era)? Sounds familiar.
I really don't want to Godwin the thread, but in this case there is a parallel that is best not ignored.
Gives me the shivers, a vision of thousands of spamfarmers toiling in underground caves carefully tending their spam crops until harvest-time.
I much prefer the term 'cull', since it implies getting rid of the chaff (to mix a farm metaphor or two) as well as refers to the 'meat' connotations of spam.
501(c)3 is a designation for non-profits to whom personal donations are tax-deductible; there are many, many non-profits that do not fall under this category. Under federal tax law, a business may still deduct donations to a lobbying non-profit as business expenses, if the lobbying is in support of the business interests of the business -- personal contributions, however, aren't exempt.
Yet another way the corporations and their crony legislators have reinforced their domination of the legislative process.
Not really. At a casino table, you cards are what you call them... so if you have a straight to the six, but call "six high" when you reveal your cards, then 6 high is all you have. You lose to any other hand in poker.
This is why a lot of people don't even announce their hand, they let the dealer sort it out.
Well, we have no way of knowing if the problem was on his side or Rhino's side. He's responsible for his firewall, which appeared ot be the problem.
They attmepted to deliver the goods, he 'refused delivery' in a manner of speaking.
I don't work in the music industry, and am in no way compensated for any of my posts. You're way off base. Please see my responses earlier in the comment tree.
Obviously you need primers in reading comprehension and general lack-of-asshattedness, as well as a basic understanding of the fact that, as I stated earlier, it's possible that people who are on the same side can have differing viewpoints on tangential subjects.
As for lacking sympathy and understanding -- that's a load of crap. The guy ignored the warnings he got at Rhino, he ignored the documentation that came with his music player. And I certainly hesitate to believe his reconstruction of the dialogues with the CSRs. At any rate, he was given all the info he needed to know that the file he paid for wouldn't play on his iPod.
Even so, I'm in full agreement wrt the inanity of the DRM structure and limitation on fair use. I just think you have a thing or two to learn about assumptionas and where they come from. Frankly, I'm insulted that you'd think I have anything to do with RIAA companies, and if you bothered to check my post history, or even comments to this article you'd know that.
But hey, I guess the anonymous internet asshole theory still applies.