I would frankly be surprised if anyone in that chamber has even *glanced* at the U.S. Constitution since they took a required class on it once in law school.
I'm pretty sure they took more than just one class on constitutional law, and have read the entirety of it more often than you suspect. As for it being a rubber stamp - it can't be at once a rubber stamp for both the President and for Congress, since those two are pretty much at loggerheads over everything these days.
Personally, I'm pretty sure that if you'd ask anyone of the justices, they would all say that they're ruling in defense of citizens' Constitutional rights, and that they just happen to disagree with your personal interpretation of it. Or do you think that the Constitution is the only writing in history where everyone who reads it always comes to the same conclusion? I mean, computer software doesn't even behave like that, and it has one less level of human involvement: the interpreter/compiler. A software writer is as human as a constitutional law writer.
That's why we must put the law above the government, that's what Constitution is all about
I'm endlessly amused by the fact that you're repeating the same mistake as in your earlier statement. Fortunately for you, you're not alone in that. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, you're not alone in that.
Yes, but how do you enforce the lack of fraud? Who defines fraud? Who polices it? Prosecutes it? Carries out the sentence? Verifies that the sentence is being carried out? Who informs others that said sentence has been carried out correctly?
And now you're right back in big government mode. And if you say free market, I've got some nice land to sell you in Somalia.
Libertarianism is to reality as Communism is to reality.
We are all dictators inside and that's the exact reason why government power must be limited in a way that satisfies libertarian principles
I'm endlessly amused by this sentence, as it so beautifully sums up everything that's wrong with libertarians. On the one hand, they understand that people are the problem with government: anyone at the top of a power pyramid will be sorely tempted to abuse that power for personal reasons. Many more will actually abuse that power, even if it is well-intentioned. At the same time, they utterly fail to see that when the government is removed from society, the government power structure will be replaced with any of the other power structures that predate the invention of any formal government: personal connections, money, raw strength, military might, etc. Remove government, and you'll find your life governed by those other power structures.
Just like Karl Marx, they correctly identify today's issue with society. Just like Karl Marx, they utterly fail at incorporating human nature into their solution.
So, while Occupy was (literally) occupying public spaces, there would have been no problem at all with another group holding a large assembly or march that went right through the same space?
Why would a second large group hold a rally in the exact same location? Outside of just antagonizing the people who are holding the first rally.
Would Occupy agree to tear down their tents, food stations, and the rest, because a city official told them that another group had a permit to use the space?
Straw man. As far as I'm aware, no one applied for a permit in the same exact space. Feel free to show me a link supporting your scenario.
Furthermore, I find the issuance of permits for protests hilarious. For any serious issue, the permit would be denied - because a serious issue implies a malfunctioning government that actively obstructs the work of its citizens. You want protest theater? It's right there in the permit system. Finally, the fees in the protest permits do not cover the full cost to the system, especially if the local government feels that it has to deploy a lot of bodies to properly police it. It's pretty much a filing fee.
Sure there is. You show some manners, and move
But what gives you the right to occupy that space, but not me? Seems that manners in this case are employed to make sure that you get to do what you want, without regard to what others want.
OWS has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't think manners apply to them.
[Citation Needed] And I don't mean that picture of the guy taking a dump on the police cruiser. I mean a link that shows that an entire occupy camp was shitting all over the place and not cleaning up after itself.
You say that, but you're not mentioning anything that's made up.
I'm aware that you're still disagreeing. Before you post the half-dozen links that I'm pretty sure that you're itching to pull up, note a few things: * one guy taking a dump is not the OWS movement * one guy littering is not the OWS movement * a protest movement by definition has to protest, which by definition will inconvenience some people. Merely being some place is not illegal. Show illegal activities that originate from at least 25% of the entire occupy encampment to support your claim that "the occupy groups" in general are engaged in illegal activities. * being in front of a business is not the same as blocking access to it
The whole point of these groups squatting in plublic places, banging drums 24x7, blocking business entrances, marching into museums, taking craps in the street and on police cars, etc., is to disrupt.
Drumming did get restricted. Business entrances were not blocked (feel free to show evidence). Not sure why it would be illegal to enter a museum. And we still haven't progressed to the point that a few people are an entire group. It's kinda hard to take you seriously if you are being dishonest in your presentation of the facts in place.
Would you like it if a bunch of people who say you're evil were blocking the door to your place of work, blocking traffic, preventing your use of public spaces at no cost to them (though you would, should you hold an event there, have to pay), and such?
Please show any evidence for your claims in this sentence. You can leave out the lack of permitting, as I agree to it, in its entire hilarity.
I don't think you're capable of applying the same standards to anyone but the people you idealogically support.
Feel free to provide any supporting evidence for that statement.
Please find a definition of detainee in that bill that contradicts, supersedes or otherwise expands on the definition in section 1028. Finally, I find it quite amusing that an arbitrary birth place should influence who we deal with people attacking the US. If you're a funny looking person from outside the US, we will gladly burn all of our principles to hole you up, but if you're born in the US, we will at least pretend to be civilized.
When a group of people decides that they, and nobody else, are the new owners of a public space, they no longer care about the freedom of speech. They only care about having that venue for themselves, and denying it to others.
Don't make shit up. Say what you will about the Occupy protests, but they never denied anybody access to the places they were occupying? Have you tried going to one? Tried talking to the people there? Generally friendly and welcoming.
Now, you could argue that by sheer mass they're denying the space to other large groups, but at that point, you might as well argue that the 2 square feet my body occupies in space means that I'm denying that space to others. Of course that's true, but there's no real option to mitigate that.
Let's consider some sort of sensible arrangement that involves something like... permits! You know, arrangements by which your large group of people get to have their large organized event (and take care of things like sanitation, traffic management, etc) in a way that doesn't impact their fellow citizens' taxes or shut down their places of work in random, obnoxious ways.
Wow, you need a permit to make a political point? Not to mention that permits do nothing to raise money to cover municipal expenses for the demonstration?
I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed with the Slashdot conservatives. They seem to mostly just make up stuff so that they can be outraged at others disrupting their quiet little life.
Oddly enough, Switzerland is also the closest thing to a Direct Democracy the world has. Does that mean you would like to see a Direct Democracy in the US?
Hey look, it's the return of the Block Ward and Citizens-spying-on-citizens programs! Just as stupid, and just as dangerous. Not to mention that I WANT my terrorist sites out in the open. That way, we can watch them, identify the arguments, communication methods and even plans of the more retarded terrorists much more easily! To anyone who is arguing that this program doesn't mean that the sites have to be taken down, yes it will: can you imagine how you run against somebody who says "I shut down 20000 terrorist websites in the last year alone"? The only thing to do is to shout that you shut down 200000, and that your opponent sleeps with terrorists.
You might be right from a legal perspective, but the reality is that the way that corporations are set up, their only goal is to maximize profit. The key part behind that is the legal immunity that corporate officers have from prosecution. Granted, it is not absolute, but it is good enough that people can get away with behavior that would get you personally thrown out of any social circle you're in. Add in the fact that the only metrics that count internally are almost always related to how much profit you made the company, and suddenly, you have corporations who act exactly like a sociopath bent on maximizing profit at all cost.
You realize all those finds game after the Balkan War? The UN's and NATO's involvement in Kosovo and Yugoslavia were about preventing a European conflict spilling into the rest of Europe. WW1 was essentially started over the locals being stupid, and WW2 was just WW1 being properly finished. Europe has tried like hell since then to stop any local war.
You're confusing the rights of the government with the rights of individuals or corporations. A government can't restrict your freedom of expression, as that destroys the legitimacy of the government. Corporations and individuals on the other hand, being as they operate on private property, can institute any rules they want as long as the rules apply to everyone equally and only cover actions, not states.
Unless, apparently, it results in 10s of thousands of emails clogging their inbox, a public bitch-slapping of the companies that employ said pond scum and the hints to the wife of pond-scum that she married pond scum.
Then pond scum seems to suddenly care.
But that requires us to care. I think the current evolution of the testing methods, whereby the copyrighted tests are slowly erased from the working memory of the field, is bitch-slapping enough.
And the company ended up having to give everyone on pre-order a $10 discount. How does the joke go? "I know this widget costs $10 to make and we sell it for $5, but we'll make it up in volume!"
This is a huge fiasco for the company that is going to cost them dearly. Yes, brand recognition might be up, but if it costs them more to clean up that recognition"than they make from sales (and I bet you that their margins aren't that awesome to begin with), this is a net loss.
So the current "marketting" so far has cost the company $10 on every controller ordered so far, a one-star review on Amazon, required the revamp of their marketing department, their CS methods and another PR campaign to put out the message "Sorry about that". These are real costs that I'm pretty sure aren't covered by the exposure. Not to mention that now everyone also knows about the shitty delivery time frames.
Here's the difference: seatbelts on vs seatbelts off is a very simple situation. It's easy to figure out which one is which, easy to figure out how much each situation costs to implement and to enforce, and how much benefit each one has to those impacted by the decision.
Offensive content, on the other hand, is near impossible to police on a world-wide level. It is impossible to know who is offended by what, the number of things that offend someone somewhere is much greater than those that do not offend anyone anywhere, the policing is horribly expensive, false positives abound and the benefits gained from this approach are unknown at best.
That's why Google's approach is wrong, again. I have to admit, I'm agreeing more and more with someone else's assessment that Google is, at its core, a tech company run by techies, and therefore unable (or at least has a much harder time) to produce something that tickles people's soft underbelly and need for personal validation. They have great tools - love gmail, love maps, love their search - but those are tools. I use them, then stop using them and don't think about them until I have to use them again. Their use is strictly determined by their usefulness: if something else comes along that is better, I will switch in a heartbeat. But they suck at producing an experience - something that makes me feel fuzzy on the inside every time I use it. And quite frankly, that's what Facebook is and does: it satisfies the urge of humans to interact and be social. Until Google understands the purpose of social networks and satisfies those needs, it's going to fail with its last-ditch attempt a staying relevant in one of the most important areas of the Internet.
There might be some truth to it. Or Google is looking at MySpace, and how it was derided as the social network for angsty teens who are trying to shock themselves into relevance.
I think it's simpler than that though. Google is trying so hard to make a relevant social network that it is managing it from the top down. Unfortunately, Social Networks don't work that way. The only reason people will use one is because they get some benefit from it. If the main thing they get from is constant aggravation about playing by some arbitrary rules, they are going to leave.
I would love for there to be a social network around that competes with Facebook. The reality at this point though is that Google+, despite its nifty circles, ain't it. I should be their main evangelist, but I can't endorse a social network where some arbitrary and unknown rule is going to get the entire thing yanked. Dear Google, please let me fuck up my own social network. If I can't be trusted to not put up pictures of me that aren't offensive, will piss off my boss or have my girlfriend walk out on me, then please don't try to help me. You have no idea what is acceptable for 7Billion people, and shouldn't try.
This is the kind of thing where Google ought to keep in mind the old mantra about asking for permission vs for forgiveness - keep the heavy-handed stuff for when you're successful. Kinda like Facebook.
Yes, I'm aware of Watt's "paper". And it was laughed at by every scientist and scientific blog. Why? Because after all that talk, the best he could show was that some stations show temperature aberrations that could skew the overall temperature readings - which is something that was known for a long time, and was accounted for in all previous papers.
Watts is moron who has zero scientific insight or mathematical knowledge. Sorry to go there, but that's the truth - and his own paper showed it.
Unfortunately, and as always, wattsupwiththat does nothing to deal with the basic claims, but instead has a lot of snark about whitewashing and how history shows that the projections are completely wrong. And as always, Watt's will not publish his own studies demonstrating his claims, or if he does, he will be laughed out of the science room.
The problem with your sarcasm is that it is indistinguishable from the actual position of some people on Slashdot. I was scratching my head at your post, trying to figure out if it was real or not.... Then went with sarcasm just because it's easier to be wrong when giving people the benefit of the doubt.
So the only way to have the patent system benefit you is to drain your own company of funds and toss everyone out on the street once the going gets tough? Wow. The future is depressing. Note that I don't disagree with you, but I find your notion of how to make the patent system work for you a particularly depressing one.
Are you like 18 or have you not noticed this general trend where the consumer is concerned?
Are you like 18 that you have no self-control or disposable income? I have about 40-60 apps on my Android. I paid for exactly one, because it was a non-trivial app that I use every day, for at least an hour to two hours. The rest are all free. Exactly one comes with ads, and I only have it because it's a fun game to play with friends (I won't mention the game because I don't want to give extra publicity to the game, and because I don't want to admit that I actually support the company via ads).
Do some research on what you use, and you can live a nice, uncluttered life filled with useful apps that don't cost you a dime. And if you do find a particularly nice one, do the right thing and donate.
Then the poor schmucks making the app won't have to turn to the dark side to make a living.
I'm not questioning the value or the quality of Apple's garden. But I am questioning the impact that such a walled garden has on the Internet in general.
Slashdot Mirror
I would frankly be surprised if anyone in that chamber has even *glanced* at the U.S. Constitution since they took a required class on it once in law school.
I'm pretty sure they took more than just one class on constitutional law, and have read the entirety of it more often than you suspect. As for it being a rubber stamp - it can't be at once a rubber stamp for both the President and for Congress, since those two are pretty much at loggerheads over everything these days.
Personally, I'm pretty sure that if you'd ask anyone of the justices, they would all say that they're ruling in defense of citizens' Constitutional rights, and that they just happen to disagree with your personal interpretation of it. Or do you think that the Constitution is the only writing in history where everyone who reads it always comes to the same conclusion? I mean, computer software doesn't even behave like that, and it has one less level of human involvement: the interpreter/compiler. A software writer is as human as a constitutional law writer.
That's why we must put the law above the government, that's what Constitution is all about
I'm endlessly amused by the fact that you're repeating the same mistake as in your earlier statement. Fortunately for you, you're not alone in that. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, you're not alone in that.
Yes, but how do you enforce the lack of fraud? Who defines fraud? Who polices it? Prosecutes it? Carries out the sentence? Verifies that the sentence is being carried out? Who informs others that said sentence has been carried out correctly?
And now you're right back in big government mode. And if you say free market, I've got some nice land to sell you in Somalia.
Libertarianism is to reality as Communism is to reality.
We are all dictators inside and that's the exact reason why government power must be limited in a way that satisfies libertarian principles
I'm endlessly amused by this sentence, as it so beautifully sums up everything that's wrong with libertarians. On the one hand, they understand that people are the problem with government: anyone at the top of a power pyramid will be sorely tempted to abuse that power for personal reasons. Many more will actually abuse that power, even if it is well-intentioned. At the same time, they utterly fail to see that when the government is removed from society, the government power structure will be replaced with any of the other power structures that predate the invention of any formal government: personal connections, money, raw strength, military might, etc. Remove government, and you'll find your life governed by those other power structures.
Just like Karl Marx, they correctly identify today's issue with society. Just like Karl Marx, they utterly fail at incorporating human nature into their solution.
So, while Occupy was (literally) occupying public spaces, there would have been no problem at all with another group holding a large assembly or march that went right through the same space?
Why would a second large group hold a rally in the exact same location? Outside of just antagonizing the people who are holding the first rally.
Would Occupy agree to tear down their tents, food stations, and the rest, because a city official told them that another group had a permit to use the space?
Straw man. As far as I'm aware, no one applied for a permit in the same exact space. Feel free to show me a link supporting your scenario.
Furthermore, I find the issuance of permits for protests hilarious. For any serious issue, the permit would be denied - because a serious issue implies a malfunctioning government that actively obstructs the work of its citizens. You want protest theater? It's right there in the permit system. Finally, the fees in the protest permits do not cover the full cost to the system, especially if the local government feels that it has to deploy a lot of bodies to properly police it. It's pretty much a filing fee.
Sure there is. You show some manners, and move
But what gives you the right to occupy that space, but not me? Seems that manners in this case are employed to make sure that you get to do what you want, without regard to what others want.
OWS has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't think manners apply to them.
[Citation Needed] And I don't mean that picture of the guy taking a dump on the police cruiser. I mean a link that shows that an entire occupy camp was shitting all over the place and not cleaning up after itself.
You say that, but you're not mentioning anything that's made up.
I'm aware that you're still disagreeing. Before you post the half-dozen links that I'm pretty sure that you're itching to pull up, note a few things:
* one guy taking a dump is not the OWS movement
* one guy littering is not the OWS movement
* a protest movement by definition has to protest, which by definition will inconvenience some people. Merely being some place is not illegal. Show illegal activities that originate from at least 25% of the entire occupy encampment to support your claim that "the occupy groups" in general are engaged in illegal activities.
* being in front of a business is not the same as blocking access to it
The whole point of these groups squatting in plublic places, banging drums 24x7, blocking business entrances, marching into museums, taking craps in the street and on police cars, etc., is to disrupt.
Drumming did get restricted. Business entrances were not blocked (feel free to show evidence). Not sure why it would be illegal to enter a museum. And we still haven't progressed to the point that a few people are an entire group. It's kinda hard to take you seriously if you are being dishonest in your presentation of the facts in place.
Would you like it if a bunch of people who say you're evil were blocking the door to your place of work, blocking traffic, preventing your use of public spaces at no cost to them (though you would, should you hold an event there, have to pay), and such?
Please show any evidence for your claims in this sentence. You can leave out the lack of permitting, as I agree to it, in its entire hilarity.
I don't think you're capable of applying the same standards to anyone but the people you idealogically support.
Feel free to provide any supporting evidence for that statement.
Please find a definition of detainee in that bill that contradicts, supersedes or otherwise expands on the definition in section 1028. Finally, I find it quite amusing that an arbitrary birth place should influence who we deal with people attacking the US. If you're a funny looking person from outside the US, we will gladly burn all of our principles to hole you up, but if you're born in the US, we will at least pretend to be civilized.
When a group of people decides that they, and nobody else, are the new owners of a public space, they no longer care about the freedom of speech. They only care about having that venue for themselves, and denying it to others.
Don't make shit up. Say what you will about the Occupy protests, but they never denied anybody access to the places they were occupying? Have you tried going to one? Tried talking to the people there? Generally friendly and welcoming.
Now, you could argue that by sheer mass they're denying the space to other large groups, but at that point, you might as well argue that the 2 square feet my body occupies in space means that I'm denying that space to others. Of course that's true, but there's no real option to mitigate that.
Let's consider some sort of sensible arrangement that involves something like ... permits! You know, arrangements by which your large group of people get to have their large organized event (and take care of things like sanitation, traffic management, etc) in a way that doesn't impact their fellow citizens' taxes or shut down their places of work in random, obnoxious ways.
Wow, you need a permit to make a political point? Not to mention that permits do nothing to raise money to cover municipal expenses for the demonstration?
I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed with the Slashdot conservatives. They seem to mostly just make up stuff so that they can be outraged at others disrupting their quiet little life.
Oddly enough, Switzerland is also the closest thing to a Direct Democracy the world has. Does that mean you would like to see a Direct Democracy in the US?
Hey look, it's the return of the Block Ward and Citizens-spying-on-citizens programs! Just as stupid, and just as dangerous. Not to mention that I WANT my terrorist sites out in the open. That way, we can watch them, identify the arguments, communication methods and even plans of the more retarded terrorists much more easily! To anyone who is arguing that this program doesn't mean that the sites have to be taken down, yes it will: can you imagine how you run against somebody who says "I shut down 20000 terrorist websites in the last year alone"? The only thing to do is to shout that you shut down 200000, and that your opponent sleeps with terrorists.
You might be right from a legal perspective, but the reality is that the way that corporations are set up, their only goal is to maximize profit. The key part behind that is the legal immunity that corporate officers have from prosecution. Granted, it is not absolute, but it is good enough that people can get away with behavior that would get you personally thrown out of any social circle you're in. Add in the fact that the only metrics that count internally are almost always related to how much profit you made the company, and suddenly, you have corporations who act exactly like a sociopath bent on maximizing profit at all cost.
You realize all those finds game after the Balkan War? The UN's and NATO's involvement in Kosovo and Yugoslavia were about preventing a European conflict spilling into the rest of Europe. WW1 was essentially started over the locals being stupid, and WW2 was just WW1 being properly finished. Europe has tried like hell since then to stop any local war.
You're confusing the rights of the government with the rights of individuals or corporations. A government can't restrict your freedom of expression, as that destroys the legitimacy of the government. Corporations and individuals on the other hand, being as they operate on private property, can institute any rules they want as long as the rules apply to everyone equally and only cover actions, not states.
Unless, apparently, it results in 10s of thousands of emails clogging their inbox, a public bitch-slapping of the companies that employ said pond scum and the hints to the wife of pond-scum that she married pond scum.
Then pond scum seems to suddenly care.
But that requires us to care. I think the current evolution of the testing methods, whereby the copyrighted tests are slowly erased from the working memory of the field, is bitch-slapping enough.
And the company ended up having to give everyone on pre-order a $10 discount. How does the joke go? "I know this widget costs $10 to make and we sell it for $5, but we'll make it up in volume!"
This is a huge fiasco for the company that is going to cost them dearly. Yes, brand recognition might be up, but if it costs them more to clean up that recognition"than they make from sales (and I bet you that their margins aren't that awesome to begin with), this is a net loss.
So the current "marketting" so far has cost the company $10 on every controller ordered so far, a one-star review on Amazon, required the revamp of their marketing department, their CS methods and another PR campaign to put out the message "Sorry about that". These are real costs that I'm pretty sure aren't covered by the exposure. Not to mention that now everyone also knows about the shitty delivery time frames.
Here's the difference: seatbelts on vs seatbelts off is a very simple situation. It's easy to figure out which one is which, easy to figure out how much each situation costs to implement and to enforce, and how much benefit each one has to those impacted by the decision.
Offensive content, on the other hand, is near impossible to police on a world-wide level. It is impossible to know who is offended by what, the number of things that offend someone somewhere is much greater than those that do not offend anyone anywhere, the policing is horribly expensive, false positives abound and the benefits gained from this approach are unknown at best.
That's why Google's approach is wrong, again. I have to admit, I'm agreeing more and more with someone else's assessment that Google is, at its core, a tech company run by techies, and therefore unable (or at least has a much harder time) to produce something that tickles people's soft underbelly and need for personal validation. They have great tools - love gmail, love maps, love their search - but those are tools. I use them, then stop using them and don't think about them until I have to use them again. Their use is strictly determined by their usefulness: if something else comes along that is better, I will switch in a heartbeat. But they suck at producing an experience - something that makes me feel fuzzy on the inside every time I use it. And quite frankly, that's what Facebook is and does: it satisfies the urge of humans to interact and be social. Until Google understands the purpose of social networks and satisfies those needs, it's going to fail with its last-ditch attempt a staying relevant in one of the most important areas of the Internet.
There might be some truth to it. Or Google is looking at MySpace, and how it was derided as the social network for angsty teens who are trying to shock themselves into relevance.
I think it's simpler than that though. Google is trying so hard to make a relevant social network that it is managing it from the top down. Unfortunately, Social Networks don't work that way. The only reason people will use one is because they get some benefit from it. If the main thing they get from is constant aggravation about playing by some arbitrary rules, they are going to leave.
I would love for there to be a social network around that competes with Facebook. The reality at this point though is that Google+, despite its nifty circles, ain't it. I should be their main evangelist, but I can't endorse a social network where some arbitrary and unknown rule is going to get the entire thing yanked. Dear Google, please let me fuck up my own social network. If I can't be trusted to not put up pictures of me that aren't offensive, will piss off my boss or have my girlfriend walk out on me, then please don't try to help me. You have no idea what is acceptable for 7Billion people, and shouldn't try.
This is the kind of thing where Google ought to keep in mind the old mantra about asking for permission vs for forgiveness - keep the heavy-handed stuff for when you're successful. Kinda like Facebook.
Yes, I'm aware of Watt's "paper". And it was laughed at by every scientist and scientific blog. Why? Because after all that talk, the best he could show was that some stations show temperature aberrations that could skew the overall temperature readings - which is something that was known for a long time, and was accounted for in all previous papers.
Watts is moron who has zero scientific insight or mathematical knowledge. Sorry to go there, but that's the truth - and his own paper showed it.
Unfortunately, and as always, wattsupwiththat does nothing to deal with the basic claims, but instead has a lot of snark about whitewashing and how history shows that the projections are completely wrong. And as always, Watt's will not publish his own studies demonstrating his claims, or if he does, he will be laughed out of the science room.
We have a winner!
The problem with your sarcasm is that it is indistinguishable from the actual position of some people on Slashdot. I was scratching my head at your post, trying to figure out if it was real or not.... Then went with sarcasm just because it's easier to be wrong when giving people the benefit of the doubt.
You might want to ask the Fishermen in the North Atlantic how that idea that fish stock perpetually fluctuates is working out for them.
The Canadians walked away from Kyoto; shall we ask if they, too, are anti-science?
Your unspoken assumption that Canadians walked away from Kyoto for scientific reasons is a neat summary of all your other unspoken assumptions, and a neat proxy for how wrong you are on them as well. There's a nice summary of the actual situation here: http://www.politics.ubc.ca/fileadmin/user_upload/poli_sci/Faculty/harrison/Canada_US_august.pdf
So the only way to have the patent system benefit you is to drain your own company of funds and toss everyone out on the street once the going gets tough? Wow. The future is depressing. Note that I don't disagree with you, but I find your notion of how to make the patent system work for you a particularly depressing one.
Are you like 18 or have you not noticed this general trend where the consumer is concerned?
Are you like 18 that you have no self-control or disposable income? I have about 40-60 apps on my Android. I paid for exactly one, because it was a non-trivial app that I use every day, for at least an hour to two hours. The rest are all free. Exactly one comes with ads, and I only have it because it's a fun game to play with friends (I won't mention the game because I don't want to give extra publicity to the game, and because I don't want to admit that I actually support the company via ads).
Do some research on what you use, and you can live a nice, uncluttered life filled with useful apps that don't cost you a dime. And if you do find a particularly nice one, do the right thing and donate.
Then the poor schmucks making the app won't have to turn to the dark side to make a living.
I'm not questioning the value or the quality of Apple's garden. But I am questioning the impact that such a walled garden has on the Internet in general.