The "job" of the ACLU is to pursue its goals of ensuring government bodies act appropriately. A "stick and carrot" approach is most likely the most effective way to do that.
If we wanted real airline security, we'd stop putting all our faith in expensive gadgets and employ more (and pay substantially more, so we can stop getting idiots) human beings, so that every single passenger gets an interview before they get on the plane.
Riiiiight. More intrusion and an extremely subjective analysis. That's the ticket.
I have a better idea.
- Change the "No Fly" list to an "Extra Attention" list.
- Go back to a reasonable screening process. It should be capable of screening out the likely force multipliers, but it doesn't necessarily have to catch the boxcutters.
- Train and equip the air marshalls so they can handle the limited types of weapons that could get through screening
- Put at least one air marshall on X% of flights where X is >= 50%
- If someone on the "Extra Attention" list boards a flight, put at least two marshalls on the flight.
Voila. Highly effective, unintrusive security.
Cheap? No, but it's not like we've been pinching pennies anyways. It's a small price to pay to be safe and free.
Am I the only one here that knows Congress is the one that writes the budgets? States can (rightfully) bitch about unfunded mandates all they want, but if the legislature wants to make something happen, it can. Saying "Bush didn't fund it" is a cop-out. They should just be honest and say, "All things things considered, we don't want to pay for that."
...and no, I'm not going to rant about "election stealing". The "spoiler effect" is so strong in Plurality voting that the minor parties don't have a chance. They can't build momentum from election to election, so the only way a non-Republicrat gets elected to high offices is if one of the parties becomes so abysmal that 90+% defect to the same minor party. Anything less and they will lose the election to other major party. Look no further than Perot and Nader to see the people wouldn't make that "mistake" twice.
Until we have a voting method that has a "nursery effect", there's very little we can do to steer the Exxon-Valdez known as our federal government. BTW, I'd go for Approval Voting, because of its beautiful simplicity.
And yes, I do still vote at every opportunity. No, I don't choose between the "lesser of two evils". No, I don't think it will matter.
Perhaps you should consider contacting the guys at Justin.tv. I don't care about them in the least, but it sounds like their tech might be useful to you.
By this interpretation of the law anyone with a camcorder at a back yard cookout or public event is committing a felony, unless you have permission from everyone there.
No, if the camcorder is clearly visible, you have the implied consent of of everyone.
The law has serious problems, but let's not exaggerate them.
The governments lie of just focusing on selling it to the highest bidder, who just it turn feels they will be able to charge us the most for access , means they are no in any way shape or form representing the interests of the people
The spectrum is owned by all 400+ million of us, right? Only a subset of us wish to use that spectrum for any given purpose. Should the rest of us give the spectrum to that subset for free? Heck, no. We sell it, like any other asset, for the highest value that the buyers are willing to pay.
In the end, those of us that wish to use the spectrum may do so for a fair price and those of us who do not are compensated by way of lower taxes, increased governments services and/or (cynically) wealthier politicians.
Please. I beg of you. Consider these issues as, to use a universally understood analogy, the flair on the uniform of a candidate. Worry about economic disparity. Worry about who will or won't lie their way into a war. If a candidate promised me that he or she would introduce national single-payer healthcare
DISCLAIMER: I must say that your examples clearly show your bias, so don't assume that I agree with your perspective on those two issues, just because I use them in my response.
My point: It's freaking May 2007; If a candidate doesn't line up with your major positions, you shouldn't waste a single moment evaluating him/her at this point. Once you've crossed out the candidates that have some sort of "deal breaker", all that's left is to examine the flair. So spend the next 12 months scrutinizing the flair! Then come back to the big-ticket items when you're down to a handful of choices.
I'm a libertarian, so I certainly sympathize with your ideals, but it sounds your an anarcho-capitalist, so I disagree with some of your more extreme positions. You talk about how "the system has an obligation to change for the people", well how do you expect that to happen? Whether you like it or not, you're not founding a new nation, so you don't get to start with a clean slate. Our predecessors have passed many, many laws. Luckily, they also gave us procedures for changing laws that we don't like.
No one is talking about a "God-given right" to control copies and distributions. It is a right that was granted by society to content producers under the assumption that it would ultimately be beneficial to society in the long run. If we ever decide that our predecessors were wrong, we can pass an amendment and take it back.
And I'm sorry, but the slavery analogy is not valid. Your right to basic liberty is inalienable; that's why slavery was unjust. Your right to copy and distribute any particular item is alienable. Your pissed that a super-majority already transferred your rights under certain conditions and I understand your frustration, because I also disagree with many decisions our predecessors have made, but that doesn't make those decisions unjust. There is an important difference between a law being "detrimental" and "unjust".
The basic copyright system is just, regardless of whether or not it's "anti-freedom" or "anti-free market". It's just because it is so uncontroversial that it was written into the constitution. You don't like it? Go pass an amendment. Until then, abide by it.
Having said that, it's not hard to build a case against the extensions that have been passed in the recent past. Content producers, if their stuff is any good at all, don't need 70+ years to receive a fair compensation for their efforts.
The problem is that pirates lose their moral high ground by pirating brand new content. Some people paid hundreds of millions of dollars to produce that new movie (even if its plot sucks) and we agreed 200+ years ago that those people had the right control its distribution for a limited period of time.
The vast majority of brick & mortar customers are local residents, so they could easily reach a critical mass before needing to worry about reading out-of-state licenses.
... as long as there's adequate competition. The problem is that plurality elections don't give you the same kind of competition that you'd find in the marketplace, so you end up with a duopoly.
Institute a voting system such as Approval, Range, or IRV (or many others) and you'll introduce a level of competition that can allow young parties to challenge the majors. Once that starts to happen, the parties will be a lot less aloof.
Give me a voting method (Approval, Range, IRV, I don't care) that gives third-parties a reasonable shot and we can talk about "de-regulating" primaries. Until then, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the party leaders have the final word on who gets the nomination.
Software as a service works because enough of the aspects of providing that software are a PITA. A decade from now, it's within reason that the software will be simple enough, the hardware will be cheap enough, and the bandwidth will be plentiful enough for the pendulum to swing back.
Quite, the story is incorrect. The Bush administration is making the proposal. Congress is not going to pass it./blockquote....the last congress would have rubber stamped it. I'm no Democrat, but I'm glad they have at least a little power these days.
Can the government retroactively take away all the bad PR for the companies that sold us out?
Yes, just publicly declare them "patriots". Maybe even give their CEOs a shiny metal. CNN will air and people will pay at least as much attention to that as they did the original story.
Just refuse to install the pirated software. Continue on with your normal job activities. If they fire you, unemployment is a given. If they don't, you won.
Its time the government did something helpful instead of something protective
The problem is that government officials always believe they're doing both.
Society can and does evolve without government "solutions". Do you really think the story about "creepy old guys on myspace" spread to congressmen before it spread through every school in the country? If there's one thing adolescents do well, it's communicate. They may not heed the warnings, but it's not like you can pass legislation that will make them care either.
However, Windows does not stand on its own and requires hardware to run.
...Microsoft has the cash to enter the hardware business by the end of the month if they wanted to. They'd have some serious catching up to do, but Dell's business model is pretty simple to duplicate for anyone with enough resources.
And laziness. The average person doesn't want to have to learn about something and investigate
There's no reason to be condescending.
In most cases, the difference between value of the "best" product and its competitors is less than the time/money cost of determining which is indeed the "best".
in case you didn't notice, there is a certain ideologically opposed country that has a lot more people than we do. Force multipliers might just save our hide one of these days.
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The "job" of the ACLU is to pursue its goals of ensuring government bodies act appropriately. A "stick and carrot" approach is most likely the most effective way to do that.
Am I the only one here that knows Congress is the one that writes the budgets? States can (rightfully) bitch about unfunded mandates all they want, but if the legislature wants to make something happen, it can. Saying "Bush didn't fund it" is a cop-out. They should just be honest and say, "All things things considered, we don't want to pay for that."
P.S. I'm no friend of W.
...and no, I'm not going to rant about "election stealing". The "spoiler effect" is so strong in Plurality voting that the minor parties don't have a chance. They can't build momentum from election to election, so the only way a non-Republicrat gets elected to high offices is if one of the parties becomes so abysmal that 90+% defect to the same minor party. Anything less and they will lose the election to other major party. Look no further than Perot and Nader to see the people wouldn't make that "mistake" twice.
Until we have a voting method that has a "nursery effect", there's very little we can do to steer the Exxon-Valdez known as our federal government. BTW, I'd go for Approval Voting, because of its beautiful simplicity.
And yes, I do still vote at every opportunity. No, I don't choose between the "lesser of two evils". No, I don't think it will matter.
Perhaps you should consider contacting the guys at Justin.tv. I don't care about them in the least, but it sounds like their tech might be useful to you.
Of course, I'd do that by slashing the total budget at an even greater rate than I'd slash the Minipax budget.
Show some love for Ron Paul.
DISCLAIMER: I must say that your examples clearly show your bias, so don't assume that I agree with your perspective on those two issues, just because I use them in my response.
My point:
It's freaking May 2007; If a candidate doesn't line up with your major positions, you shouldn't waste a single moment evaluating him/her at this point. Once you've crossed out the candidates that have some sort of "deal breaker", all that's left is to examine the flair. So spend the next 12 months scrutinizing the flair! Then come back to the big-ticket items when you're down to a handful of choices.
Unjust laws should be broken.
If every law is just, it will always be within our power to correct the ill-advised laws. Only the unjust laws need to be subverted.
I'm a libertarian, so I certainly sympathize with your ideals, but it sounds your an anarcho-capitalist, so I disagree with some of your more extreme positions. You talk about how "the system has an obligation to change for the people", well how do you expect that to happen? Whether you like it or not, you're not founding a new nation, so you don't get to start with a clean slate. Our predecessors have passed many, many laws. Luckily, they also gave us procedures for changing laws that we don't like. No one is talking about a "God-given right" to control copies and distributions. It is a right that was granted by society to content producers under the assumption that it would ultimately be beneficial to society in the long run. If we ever decide that our predecessors were wrong, we can pass an amendment and take it back. And I'm sorry, but the slavery analogy is not valid. Your right to basic liberty is inalienable; that's why slavery was unjust. Your right to copy and distribute any particular item is alienable. Your pissed that a super-majority already transferred your rights under certain conditions and I understand your frustration, because I also disagree with many decisions our predecessors have made, but that doesn't make those decisions unjust. There is an important difference between a law being "detrimental" and "unjust".
The basic copyright system is just, regardless of whether or not it's "anti-freedom" or "anti-free market". It's just because it is so uncontroversial that it was written into the constitution. You don't like it? Go pass an amendment. Until then, abide by it.
Having said that, it's not hard to build a case against the extensions that have been passed in the recent past. Content producers, if their stuff is any good at all, don't need 70+ years to receive a fair compensation for their efforts.
The problem is that pirates lose their moral high ground by pirating brand new content. Some people paid hundreds of millions of dollars to produce that new movie (even if its plot sucks) and we agreed 200+ years ago that those people had the right control its distribution for a limited period of time.
I don't believe ACH system has any sort of allowance for a PIN. Sure, you could put a wrapper around the whole system, but that wouldn't be trivial.
The vast majority of brick & mortar customers are local residents, so they could easily reach a critical mass before needing to worry about reading out-of-state licenses.
... as long as there's adequate competition. The problem is that plurality elections don't give you the same kind of competition that you'd find in the marketplace, so you end up with a duopoly. Institute a voting system such as Approval, Range, or IRV (or many others) and you'll introduce a level of competition that can allow young parties to challenge the majors. Once that starts to happen, the parties will be a lot less aloof.
Give me a voting method (Approval, Range, IRV, I don't care) that gives third-parties a reasonable shot and we can talk about "de-regulating" primaries. Until then, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the party leaders have the final word on who gets the nomination.
Software as a service works because enough of the aspects of providing that software are a PITA. A decade from now, it's within reason that the software will be simple enough, the hardware will be cheap enough, and the bandwidth will be plentiful enough for the pendulum to swing back.
Just refuse to install the pirated software. Continue on with your normal job activities. If they fire you, unemployment is a given. If they don't, you won.
Surely, you're familiar with the plural form of "you".
There's no reason to be condescending.
In most cases, the difference between value of the "best" product and its competitors is less than the time/money cost of determining which is indeed the "best".
in case you didn't notice, there is a certain ideologically opposed country that has a lot more people than we do. Force multipliers might just save our hide one of these days.