And if you read the article *real* close, you'll notice that if he is tried for battery, he *has* to be tried as a juvenile. Only anything related murder requires an adult court.
The pre-trial reduction is irrelevant. If I start with a stupid charge, should you be happy that you get a somewhat less stupid charge later?
Prior convictions are indeed taken into consideration. However, a prior conviction for battery doesn't mean that another battery automatically gets elevated to attempted 2nd degree murder. You get to increase the sentence for another battery conviction, but you don't get to charge an entirely different crime.
The same thing goes for the violation of probation. Violation of probation is its own separate crime, with its own sentencing rules. Just because you violate a probation doesn't mean that you get to have an entirely new charge thrown at you.
I'm really curious - do you think that he actually tried to kill the guy?
Elaborate. Are you arguing the three strike equivalent here? Because that's a whole different ball of wax. Or are you arguing that battery -> attempted 2nd degree murder is a proper escalation of charges? Don't forget - from a legal perspective, once you've served your sentence, you've paid your debt to society. You have the same rights and privileges as anyone else. Finally, shouldn't the circumstances of the crime dictate the charges? I.e., charge someone with attempted murder if they actually tried to kill someone? And charge them with battery if it was a simple beating they administered?
You might want to think your snide comments through. You otherwise run the risk of sounding like the stereotypical tv-addled consumer with all breadth and no depth.
What do prior battery convictions have to do with attempted 2nd degree murder charges? What do you know about the prior battery convictions? Were they similarly exaggerated as the 2nd degree murder task? Considering the current state of affairs, I'm curious about that.
As for charges that were reduced pre-trial - some of the defendants were charged with battery instead of attempted 2nd degree murder. Should they be grateful that a gross injustice had been reduced to merely having the book thrown at them - the adult version of the book, not the juvenile version, as required by law?
The beauty of a free society is that everyone is free to pursue their interests. You have an idea on how time could be better spent? Congrats - go do it. The other beauty of a free society is that no matter how much we think people are assholes for doing what they're doing, they're free to do it. The reason this is a beauty is that a few people with brilliant ideas can change everyone's approach to something, even if everyone initially resists.
You think it's better to show people your receipt? Congrats. Go do it. But don't think for a second that that makes you better. All it says is that you're more interested in not making waves than standing up for a (granted, small) infringement on your current rights. Is it better, worse? Honestly, it's not up to me decide that. I don't even care who's the better person. All I care is that someone else is doing the hard stuff so that I can just sit back, take in the results, and decide whether it's worthwhile making the much smaller sacrifice of joining his stand, or whether I should just ignore him.
He just saved you 10K because you actually don't have to test the theory that it is better to show your receipt than to adhere to the current law. He did that for you. You should thank him for that. Even if you disagree with what he did.
I see you failed history, psychology, social studies, civil studies, basic reading comprehension and typing stuff into google. Nice.
The nooses were hung on Sept 1. The fight occurred on Dec 4th. That's three months. The events are definitely related. Unless you want to argue that reminding black people of race-based hangings in the area is supposed to be a peace offering. The problem wasn't the beating either - it was the sentence for attempted 2nd degree murder, as well as the charge of shotgun theft when defending themselves against someone pointing a shotgun them (another totally unrelated incident, I'm sure).
Honestly, all I can say is - get the fuck out of my country. I hear Russia is again looking for bigots like you.
The problem is when a beating gets you attempted 2nd degree murder and 20 years in jail, while someone pulling a shotgun on you.... gets to charge the other person with theft of said shotgun.
The problem is the disparate set of charges that are leveled when a white person commits a crime and when a black person commits a crime.
Huh. Care to explain why if you have more CO2 molecules available, infrared absorption does not increase linearly? Band saturation has to do with how many molecules have electrons that can absorb photons of a particular wave length. Are you suggesting that as you increase the number of available molecules, the energy gaps and energy states of the outer electrons actually changes (which is what it means to have the absorption spectrum expand)? If so... I suggest you write some Physics journal, because you got some novel physics there.
Yes, I'm sure all particle physicists only care about defeating Bush and his evil minions, which is why they're promulgating incorrect physics. On that matter, could you please enlighten me what the absorption spectrum of N2 and O2 is? Because last I heard, they weren't that great at absorbing infrared wavelengths.
Err? The "heat" of a gas has no impact on its absorption spectrum. The temperature of the earth is measured by infrared radiation. Therefore, the spectrum of radiated electromagnetic energy outside of infrared is by definition not relevant. The partial pressure is a direct function of concentration, which is easily measurable. It's why people still send up weather balloons.
All in all, the impact of CO2 on the absorption and re-radiation of infrared light is easy to measure and easy to understand. Now, if you want to argue about the impact that the absorption of infrared light by atmospheric CO2 has on the average global temperature or even local averages, that's a different story. But the CO2 infrared absorption mechanism is well-known and well-measured.
Foul editors who tease me with thoughts of a complete Panzer Dragoon compilation! Begone. Shoo! I would have also settled for a redone Panzer Dragoon - still the single best game in the entire PD series, in my opinion.
Ceteris paribus: Latin for "all else being equal". In the day and age of google, it doesn't help with sounding mysterious and knowledgeable. Considering you repeatedly use the phrase instead of its perfectly valid English equivalent, I suspect you're more interested in demonstrating your grasp of latin instead of advancing the discussion. Though if that's your goal, I would have liked a post completely in latin. Tamen google mos non succurro vos.
Just to be somewhat relevant - while there are negative feedback loops, there are also positive CO2/temperature feedback loops. Albedo comes to mind. Not only that, but a lot of the feedback mechanisms are known. The only question is "how much", not "how". The biggest reason people are concerned is that certain things (ice melt, albedo changes) are happening faster than expected, pointing to parameters that were set too conservatively.
Finally, the "ceteris paribus impact" (Hah!) is perfectly well known. Increase CO2 in an atmospheric gas mix, and infrared absorption goes up. End of story.
What's with the AC who consistently shills for Sony in nearly all game-related threads - certainly all console-hardware related threads? They are actually cut-and-past jobs.
Right now, no one's really seen home in action. Most of the bullet points listed by the AC are nothing but unsubstantiated marketing drivel (this applies to his posts about home, online games and games in general). In short - every last one of these AC posts is pure drivel.
I find Home interesting, but right now, it's nothing but empty promises. Wake me up when it's out and I can actually check it out. In the meantime, I'll mod you troll.
All I can say is that I'm glad no one else thought the Wii was gonna be a hit. I've tripled my investment in Nintendo since I bought it. It's just a shame I didn't have more money available to invest in them.
Iraq was first sold as fighting Al-Qaeda. Then it was sold as fighting bad people with WMDs. Finally, it was sold as a fight against bad people. If you would have paid attention to his speeches, you would have notied that.
And please don't be a sophist and argue that Iraq colluding with Al-Qaeda isn't the same as Iraq being behind 9-11. At that time, it was exactly the same thing. We were ready to pound anybody who just vaguely resembled Al-Qaeda.
I've worked with military networks. No, not everything that ends in.mil is classified. Yes, they also run windows boxes. No, it doesn't require special skill to hack into that kind of network. It's very similar to breaching any ol' corporate network. Granted, the people I worked with were fairly paranoid and quite up to speed on proper security procedures. But this crack isn't the same as getting access to classified hardware.
Call me again when that happens. In the meantime - congrats, they probably found out who went to lunch with whom last Friday, or read the Navy newsletter.
Imagine this scenario: an album currently costs $14.95. I have no interest in purchasing it at that price, and haven't. A friend of mine then says "hey, check this album out - it's great", and I download it from him. What's the end result?
The artist still has zero of my dollars. The record company still has zero of my dollars. My friend still has the album he paid for. I have an album that I didn't pay for, and that I didn't intend to pay for. Should I have that album in my possession to begin with? No. However, who is damaged by it? As far as I can tell, the only loss could possibly be my time spent listening to an album I don't like.
Again - potential revenue is not realized revenue. There might be a fair price at which I would buy the album. If the record company doesn't sell it that price though, it will not realize any revenue at that price point. Again - the fact that I might be willing to buy a record for a certain price does not mean that the company can count that as money in the bank, and me not buying it at the non-existing price point as a loss. Now, if the album is available for a price that I'm willing to pay for it, and I still download it - yes, the company has lost potential revenue to the scourge of downloading. Again though, I want to make crystal clear that these things are not the same - and conflating them is dishonest on the part of record companies.
It sounds more like folks are upset that software which can be obtained for free (as in without money) from hard-working and good-hearted programmers is being sold for pure profit by other people without credit given.
I guess i wasn't quite clear in my comment, but that's exactly what I was trying to argue.
Since this is a discussion of the law, and neither your nor anyone else's sense of morality should factor into what's wrong or right and the penalties one should face.
I completely disagree with this, though. If my sense of morality doesn't factor into what's wrong or right, I'm no more than a lawyer (cue jokes about sharks and lawyers). I'll leave the discussion of the legality of GPL and other copyright violations to lawyers. I will, however, chime in about the morality of various copyright violations.
I have no idea where you got the idea that people claim that copyright infringement is not illegal. From what I can tell (ignoring the crackpots for a second), the distinction between theft/piracy and copyright infringement is made to remove the "hang 'em high!" component of the piracy/theft argument. No one for a second is arguing that it is not illegal.
However, another point you may have missed is the distinction between illegal and illegitimate - or, conversely, the distinction between legal and legitimate. This is for me a critical aspect of the debate whether it is worse to copy mp3s from someone else or to ignore GPL requirements when redistributing software.
Personally, I think that copying mp3s is often a victimless crime (if I didn't have buy the mp3 at full price because I thought it was overpriced, but then download it later from a friend because he has it results in a zero loss for all involved parties), though can screw over people in particular circumstances. As a result, downloading mp3s is for me a crime on the scale of jaywalking. It might therefore be legal to sue someone for $100000 per infringement, but it doesn't seem legitimate to me. On the other hand, ignoring the GPL when distributing software is taking someone's effort to improve the world, reapproprating it and selling it as your own. Monetary gain or not, it's a shit thing to do.
Again, I challenge you to find me posts that say downloading mp3s is not illegal. I'll show you a post arguing about pre-set levies on blank media or a crackpot. Not only that, but on the more subtle point of whether it is the same thing to download MP3s or to break the GPL license, I completely disagree with you. Breaking the GPL license is to me like stealing candy from a baby - you're a complete jack-ass if you do it. Downloading mp3s.... meh, just make sure to not get caught.
Apparently, your anecdote differs from mine.:) I'm not saying that all Chinese are lobbying for tanks to crush any dissenters. But there seem to be enough out there to create a significant constituency - as much as a constituency can exist in China.
What we do know is that the technocrats and military officers at the top of the Chinese political system have no problem torturing dissidents and turning the tanks on their own people.
You know what's really scary? The amount of Chinese living in China and abroad that supported and still support this action. And I'm not talking about the Chinese equivalent of a redneck - I'm talking about smart, educated people who just happen to think that western-style democracy will destroy China.
They are killers with no meaningful legal apparatus to prevent them from doing anything they please.
True. Strangely enough, no matter how autocratic, the Chinese rulers have always been terrified of failing their Heavenly Mandate. If they can't deliver on their promises of stability, food and glory for the nation, they'll lose their mandate and.... well, this hasn't happened in a while, so it's hard to say how that'll play out. But there is a good reason why current Chinese leaders are very worried about keeping a good face: they know that they're at the top only for as long as they deliver what the masses clamor for (currently: having money and returning China to its historic superpower status). The execution of the minister responsible for the equivalent of the FDA shows how seriously the Chinese Party takes the current quality scandal. They know that if they let this fester, the entire country could unravel.
That said.... this is merely an explanation of the Why of how China works. I loathe the Chinese emphasis on national stability over individual liberty. But that doesn't change what we can continue to expect from China.
I agree that the intent may have been to force TorrentSpy to turn on logging. However, the judgment was written in a very broad fashion - broad to the point that nowhere is it mentioned to "just turn on the damn logging". Instead, it is a ruling that states that data in RAM is governed by federal discovery rules, and as a result, needs to be preserved.
While it is unlikely that always logging ALL data in RAM will become a federal requirement, it is quite possible that this will turn into one of those things that everybody has to violate in order to function. The result of this will be that someone, somewhere will be permanently fucked by a ruling based on this. Yes, the law might be changed after this, but only after someone's life has been permanently fucked with.
Remember the high-school senior who got a blowjob from a 15 year old? He's doing time, because a law designed to catch sex offenders was badly written. The law was changed in response to his conviction, but it was too late for him. He's still in jail, the football scholarship is now out of the question, and he will have a criminal record.
I'm paranoid because too many lawyers and politicians and people in general have abused bad laws for their own gain.
You misunderstand the value of open-access to telcos: it reduces the value of the bid. Removing the open access restrictions adds value for the telcos that didn't bid, and therefore makes it more likely that the FCC gets its minimum value. This is done so that if Google decides to renege on its promise (this was, after all, only a PR declaration), the FCC isn't left without an option to get at least some money.
Good points. I'm not arguing that statism is the way to go. That we all should cling with all our force to what is, and postpone any change. What I am arguing is that these are the costs that will come from Climate Change - small things like reactor re-engineering, crop changes, changes in energy utilization, building requirements, etc. These are the things that will cost billions, even trillions.
I'm all for adapting to change. If someone's dog shits in my garden, I'll clean it up, and make sure that i find a way to keep dogs from shitting in my garden, or taking advantage of the fact that they do. In other words, I propose a slight tweak: change what you can, accept what you can't, and work to find a way to make change work for you. This includes Climate Change.
To everyone who says that this is jackbooted Oppressiveness, what exactly do you propose should we do to make sure that hijackers can't get on a plane?
I agree that most items currently in place (putting toothpaste in a clear zip bag, requiring ID, watch lists, etc) are nothing but band-aids designed to make the government look like it's doing something. This is the closest thing anyone has to identifying actual intent. Yes, it's not fool-proof. Yes, it is open to abuse. Yes, it is based on something very vague. But for anyone who has managed to leave a bar right before a fight breaks out, who knew that people around them were about to get nasty and got out, this is one of the few approaches that can actually work.
If this makes you feel uncomfortable, what exactly do you propose? It's easy to shoot holes in things - how about coming up with some constructive criticism? How about an alternative? Business as usual won't work - so what will?
Slashdot Mirror
And if you read the article *real* close, you'll notice that if he is tried for battery, he *has* to be tried as a juvenile. Only anything related murder requires an adult court.
The pre-trial reduction is irrelevant. If I start with a stupid charge, should you be happy that you get a somewhat less stupid charge later?
Prior convictions are indeed taken into consideration. However, a prior conviction for battery doesn't mean that another battery automatically gets elevated to attempted 2nd degree murder. You get to increase the sentence for another battery conviction, but you don't get to charge an entirely different crime.
The same thing goes for the violation of probation. Violation of probation is its own separate crime, with its own sentencing rules. Just because you violate a probation doesn't mean that you get to have an entirely new charge thrown at you.
I'm really curious - do you think that he actually tried to kill the guy?
Elaborate. Are you arguing the three strike equivalent here? Because that's a whole different ball of wax. Or are you arguing that battery -> attempted 2nd degree murder is a proper escalation of charges? Don't forget - from a legal perspective, once you've served your sentence, you've paid your debt to society. You have the same rights and privileges as anyone else. Finally, shouldn't the circumstances of the crime dictate the charges? I.e., charge someone with attempted murder if they actually tried to kill someone? And charge them with battery if it was a simple beating they administered?
You might want to think your snide comments through. You otherwise run the risk of sounding like the stereotypical tv-addled consumer with all breadth and no depth.
What do prior battery convictions have to do with attempted 2nd degree murder charges? What do you know about the prior battery convictions? Were they similarly exaggerated as the 2nd degree murder task? Considering the current state of affairs, I'm curious about that.
As for charges that were reduced pre-trial - some of the defendants were charged with battery instead of attempted 2nd degree murder. Should they be grateful that a gross injustice had been reduced to merely having the book thrown at them - the adult version of the book, not the juvenile version, as required by law?
The beauty of a free society is that everyone is free to pursue their interests. You have an idea on how time could be better spent? Congrats - go do it. The other beauty of a free society is that no matter how much we think people are assholes for doing what they're doing, they're free to do it. The reason this is a beauty is that a few people with brilliant ideas can change everyone's approach to something, even if everyone initially resists.
You think it's better to show people your receipt? Congrats. Go do it. But don't think for a second that that makes you better. All it says is that you're more interested in not making waves than standing up for a (granted, small) infringement on your current rights. Is it better, worse? Honestly, it's not up to me decide that. I don't even care who's the better person. All I care is that someone else is doing the hard stuff so that I can just sit back, take in the results, and decide whether it's worthwhile making the much smaller sacrifice of joining his stand, or whether I should just ignore him.
He just saved you 10K because you actually don't have to test the theory that it is better to show your receipt than to adhere to the current law. He did that for you. You should thank him for that. Even if you disagree with what he did.
I see you failed history, psychology, social studies, civil studies, basic reading comprehension and typing stuff into google. Nice.
The nooses were hung on Sept 1. The fight occurred on Dec 4th. That's three months. The events are definitely related. Unless you want to argue that reminding black people of race-based hangings in the area is supposed to be a peace offering. The problem wasn't the beating either - it was the sentence for attempted 2nd degree murder, as well as the charge of shotgun theft when defending themselves against someone pointing a shotgun them (another totally unrelated incident, I'm sure).
Honestly, all I can say is - get the fuck out of my country. I hear Russia is again looking for bigots like you.
The problem is when a beating gets you attempted 2nd degree murder and 20 years in jail, while someone pulling a shotgun on you.... gets to charge the other person with theft of said shotgun.
The problem is the disparate set of charges that are leveled when a white person commits a crime and when a black person commits a crime.
Huh. Care to explain why if you have more CO2 molecules available, infrared absorption does not increase linearly? Band saturation has to do with how many molecules have electrons that can absorb photons of a particular wave length. Are you suggesting that as you increase the number of available molecules, the energy gaps and energy states of the outer electrons actually changes (which is what it means to have the absorption spectrum expand)? If so... I suggest you write some Physics journal, because you got some novel physics there.
Yes, I'm sure all particle physicists only care about defeating Bush and his evil minions, which is why they're promulgating incorrect physics. On that matter, could you please enlighten me what the absorption spectrum of N2 and O2 is? Because last I heard, they weren't that great at absorbing infrared wavelengths.
Err? The "heat" of a gas has no impact on its absorption spectrum. The temperature of the earth is measured by infrared radiation. Therefore, the spectrum of radiated electromagnetic energy outside of infrared is by definition not relevant. The partial pressure is a direct function of concentration, which is easily measurable. It's why people still send up weather balloons.
All in all, the impact of CO2 on the absorption and re-radiation of infrared light is easy to measure and easy to understand. Now, if you want to argue about the impact that the absorption of infrared light by atmospheric CO2 has on the average global temperature or even local averages, that's a different story. But the CO2 infrared absorption mechanism is well-known and well-measured.
Foul editors who tease me with thoughts of a complete Panzer Dragoon compilation! Begone. Shoo! I would have also settled for a redone Panzer Dragoon - still the single best game in the entire PD series, in my opinion.
Except Blizzard made the world persistent, slapped on a Warcraft skin and called it World of Warcraft.
Ceteris paribus: Latin for "all else being equal". In the day and age of google, it doesn't help with sounding mysterious and knowledgeable. Considering you repeatedly use the phrase instead of its perfectly valid English equivalent, I suspect you're more interested in demonstrating your grasp of latin instead of advancing the discussion. Though if that's your goal, I would have liked a post completely in latin. Tamen google mos non succurro vos.
Just to be somewhat relevant - while there are negative feedback loops, there are also positive CO2/temperature feedback loops. Albedo comes to mind. Not only that, but a lot of the feedback mechanisms are known. The only question is "how much", not "how". The biggest reason people are concerned is that certain things (ice melt, albedo changes) are happening faster than expected, pointing to parameters that were set too conservatively.
Finally, the "ceteris paribus impact" (Hah!) is perfectly well known. Increase CO2 in an atmospheric gas mix, and infrared absorption goes up. End of story.
What's with the AC who consistently shills for Sony in nearly all game-related threads - certainly all console-hardware related threads? They are actually cut-and-past jobs.
Right now, no one's really seen home in action. Most of the bullet points listed by the AC are nothing but unsubstantiated marketing drivel (this applies to his posts about home, online games and games in general). In short - every last one of these AC posts is pure drivel.
I find Home interesting, but right now, it's nothing but empty promises. Wake me up when it's out and I can actually check it out. In the meantime, I'll mod you troll.
All I can say is that I'm glad no one else thought the Wii was gonna be a hit. I've tripled my investment in Nintendo since I bought it. It's just a shame I didn't have more money available to invest in them.
Got a source for that? Something this blatant just sounds.... well, too blatant to be true.
The very first sale of the Iraq War was centered around a link to Al-Qaeda. From a link shamelessly ripped from an earlier post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32862-20 03Sep5?language=printer
Iraq was first sold as fighting Al-Qaeda. Then it was sold as fighting bad people with WMDs. Finally, it was sold as a fight against bad people. If you would have paid attention to his speeches, you would have notied that.
And please don't be a sophist and argue that Iraq colluding with Al-Qaeda isn't the same as Iraq being behind 9-11. At that time, it was exactly the same thing. We were ready to pound anybody who just vaguely resembled Al-Qaeda.
I've worked with military networks. No, not everything that ends in .mil is classified. Yes, they also run windows boxes. No, it doesn't require special skill to hack into that kind of network. It's very similar to breaching any ol' corporate network. Granted, the people I worked with were fairly paranoid and quite up to speed on proper security procedures. But this crack isn't the same as getting access to classified hardware.
Call me again when that happens. In the meantime - congrats, they probably found out who went to lunch with whom last Friday, or read the Navy newsletter.
Imagine this scenario: an album currently costs $14.95. I have no interest in purchasing it at that price, and haven't. A friend of mine then says "hey, check this album out - it's great", and I download it from him. What's the end result?
The artist still has zero of my dollars. The record company still has zero of my dollars. My friend still has the album he paid for. I have an album that I didn't pay for, and that I didn't intend to pay for. Should I have that album in my possession to begin with? No. However, who is damaged by it? As far as I can tell, the only loss could possibly be my time spent listening to an album I don't like.
Again - potential revenue is not realized revenue. There might be a fair price at which I would buy the album. If the record company doesn't sell it that price though, it will not realize any revenue at that price point. Again - the fact that I might be willing to buy a record for a certain price does not mean that the company can count that as money in the bank, and me not buying it at the non-existing price point as a loss. Now, if the album is available for a price that I'm willing to pay for it, and I still download it - yes, the company has lost potential revenue to the scourge of downloading. Again though, I want to make crystal clear that these things are not the same - and conflating them is dishonest on the part of record companies.
I guess i wasn't quite clear in my comment, but that's exactly what I was trying to argue.
I completely disagree with this, though. If my sense of morality doesn't factor into what's wrong or right, I'm no more than a lawyer (cue jokes about sharks and lawyers). I'll leave the discussion of the legality of GPL and other copyright violations to lawyers. I will, however, chime in about the morality of various copyright violations.
I have no idea where you got the idea that people claim that copyright infringement is not illegal. From what I can tell (ignoring the crackpots for a second), the distinction between theft/piracy and copyright infringement is made to remove the "hang 'em high!" component of the piracy/theft argument. No one for a second is arguing that it is not illegal.
However, another point you may have missed is the distinction between illegal and illegitimate - or, conversely, the distinction between legal and legitimate. This is for me a critical aspect of the debate whether it is worse to copy mp3s from someone else or to ignore GPL requirements when redistributing software.
Personally, I think that copying mp3s is often a victimless crime (if I didn't have buy the mp3 at full price because I thought it was overpriced, but then download it later from a friend because he has it results in a zero loss for all involved parties), though can screw over people in particular circumstances. As a result, downloading mp3s is for me a crime on the scale of jaywalking. It might therefore be legal to sue someone for $100000 per infringement, but it doesn't seem legitimate to me. On the other hand, ignoring the GPL when distributing software is taking someone's effort to improve the world, reapproprating it and selling it as your own. Monetary gain or not, it's a shit thing to do.
Again, I challenge you to find me posts that say downloading mp3s is not illegal. I'll show you a post arguing about pre-set levies on blank media or a crackpot. Not only that, but on the more subtle point of whether it is the same thing to download MP3s or to break the GPL license, I completely disagree with you. Breaking the GPL license is to me like stealing candy from a baby - you're a complete jack-ass if you do it. Downloading mp3s.... meh, just make sure to not get caught.
Apparently, your anecdote differs from mine. :) I'm not saying that all Chinese are lobbying for tanks to crush any dissenters. But there seem to be enough out there to create a significant constituency - as much as a constituency can exist in China.
You know what's really scary? The amount of Chinese living in China and abroad that supported and still support this action. And I'm not talking about the Chinese equivalent of a redneck - I'm talking about smart, educated people who just happen to think that western-style democracy will destroy China.
True. Strangely enough, no matter how autocratic, the Chinese rulers have always been terrified of failing their Heavenly Mandate. If they can't deliver on their promises of stability, food and glory for the nation, they'll lose their mandate and.... well, this hasn't happened in a while, so it's hard to say how that'll play out. But there is a good reason why current Chinese leaders are very worried about keeping a good face: they know that they're at the top only for as long as they deliver what the masses clamor for (currently: having money and returning China to its historic superpower status). The execution of the minister responsible for the equivalent of the FDA shows how seriously the Chinese Party takes the current quality scandal. They know that if they let this fester, the entire country could unravel.
That said.... this is merely an explanation of the Why of how China works. I loathe the Chinese emphasis on national stability over individual liberty. But that doesn't change what we can continue to expect from China.
I agree that the intent may have been to force TorrentSpy to turn on logging. However, the judgment was written in a very broad fashion - broad to the point that nowhere is it mentioned to "just turn on the damn logging". Instead, it is a ruling that states that data in RAM is governed by federal discovery rules, and as a result, needs to be preserved.
While it is unlikely that always logging ALL data in RAM will become a federal requirement, it is quite possible that this will turn into one of those things that everybody has to violate in order to function. The result of this will be that someone, somewhere will be permanently fucked by a ruling based on this. Yes, the law might be changed after this, but only after someone's life has been permanently fucked with.
Remember the high-school senior who got a blowjob from a 15 year old? He's doing time, because a law designed to catch sex offenders was badly written. The law was changed in response to his conviction, but it was too late for him. He's still in jail, the football scholarship is now out of the question, and he will have a criminal record.
I'm paranoid because too many lawyers and politicians and people in general have abused bad laws for their own gain.
You misunderstand the value of open-access to telcos: it reduces the value of the bid. Removing the open access restrictions adds value for the telcos that didn't bid, and therefore makes it more likely that the FCC gets its minimum value. This is done so that if Google decides to renege on its promise (this was, after all, only a PR declaration), the FCC isn't left without an option to get at least some money.
Good points. I'm not arguing that statism is the way to go. That we all should cling with all our force to what is, and postpone any change. What I am arguing is that these are the costs that will come from Climate Change - small things like reactor re-engineering, crop changes, changes in energy utilization, building requirements, etc. These are the things that will cost billions, even trillions.
I'm all for adapting to change. If someone's dog shits in my garden, I'll clean it up, and make sure that i find a way to keep dogs from shitting in my garden, or taking advantage of the fact that they do. In other words, I propose a slight tweak: change what you can, accept what you can't, and work to find a way to make change work for you. This includes Climate Change.
To everyone who says that this is jackbooted Oppressiveness, what exactly do you propose should we do to make sure that hijackers can't get on a plane?
I agree that most items currently in place (putting toothpaste in a clear zip bag, requiring ID, watch lists, etc) are nothing but band-aids designed to make the government look like it's doing something. This is the closest thing anyone has to identifying actual intent. Yes, it's not fool-proof. Yes, it is open to abuse. Yes, it is based on something very vague. But for anyone who has managed to leave a bar right before a fight breaks out, who knew that people around them were about to get nasty and got out, this is one of the few approaches that can actually work.
If this makes you feel uncomfortable, what exactly do you propose? It's easy to shoot holes in things - how about coming up with some constructive criticism? How about an alternative? Business as usual won't work - so what will?