You're right. IANAL, I took one semester of Business Law in college. But the one thing I took away from that is that it seemed like the law was mostly common sense. Applying common sense here I think she should be prosecuted. If I remember correctly the use of precident has to include most of the circumstances of the case being used. Maybe it's different in a criminal case as most business law involves civil suits. I don't think a lawyer could argue that just because someone broke the terms of service the same fate should be applied unless the same (or similar) results occur. Maybe a terms of service violation isn't the right approach, but I think she should suffer some consequences for her actions, and thusfar she's suffered none (other than becoming a social outcast). I'm thinking criminal negligence; aggrivated battery maybe. What most irritated me was the suggestion that she would have committed suicide anyway eventually. There's no way to know that, and even if it were true it doesn't in my opinion absolve that woman of her responsibility in the matter.
I understand the concern about creating a legal precident, but even if they successfully prosecute I don't think that it automatically creates a legal precident to throw someone in jail for violation of terms of service no matter how small the infraction. That would be a pretty flimsy application of the judgement. IANAL, but it would seem to me that there are significant circumstances in this case that would prevent someone from coming along and using it against someone who simply violated the terms of service without any other aggrivating circumstances. It's not like some moronic lawyer could come along and say "we convicted this woman for violation of terms of service that resulted in someone's death, and therefore we should convict this guy here because he exceeded his download cap". No judge in the world would buy off on that. At least I would hope not. So I think the back story does have some relevance in the application of the law. I sign up with bogus information for web services all the time. Mostly because I don't like junk mail, unwanted phone calls, and spam. Not only that my personal information is mine, and if I wanted to sell it I would. Am I worried about going to jail for that? Not at all.
I would agree if it was a simple "terms of service" violation. Someone is dead over this. Parents lost their child. Yes she took her own life, but to say this woman had no other involvment than a violation of terms of service is quite inaccurate. How do you know it was inevitable? Some people suffer with depression in their teen years. It's pretty common actually. If the 40 year old woman hadn't pushed her over the edge by deliberately tormenting her perhaps the girl might have gone on to live a full a vibrant life. I don't fully support putting people in jail for simply violating a EULA, but she did much more than that, and I fully support putting her in jail. The other kid that sent the message saying "the world would be a better place without you" deserves a fair amount of accountability as well. Actions have consequences, and I think it's a far worse precident to set by suggesting otherwise. I was saddened by this at the start, and it's not going to make me feel any better about it putting her behind bars, but it might at least send a message. Just because you're somewhat anonymous on the Internet doesn't give you the right to go about ruining peoples lives.
If they can take your laptop, and hang on to it for as long as they want to investigate you, what makes you think they would care in the slightest? No, I'm afraid you'd probably get arested for making a scene. I almost got arested last week just trying to get a passport because I yelled at the issuing agent. She was giving my wife a hard time, and we still can't get a passport. My wife was adopted, and her birth certificate looks like a copy, but that was what they gave her mother when her mother paid for it in 1968. The certificate states that it has to be stamped on the back, and it is. It's in black ink, but that's what they used back then. That's no longer acceptable, so we have to wait 16 weeks to order one from Sacramento. Then we'd have to wait 4-6 more weeks for our passports. By then summer will be over, and our kids will be going back to school. Guess we didn't want to travel this summer after all. But allow that to become aggravating, and suddenly you're facing the prospect of arest. Keep in mind I wasn't being threatening, I was just venting my frustration with their assinine policies. We would have had an easier time getting a passport by just paying the local drug dealer $200 for a very convincing set of official looking documents... DL, SS, and birt cert. Pay the fee, Bob's your uncle, and we could have gone on our merry way. Yeah. Great system. That's going to do quite a bit to stop terrorism.
I don't know about that. I listen to both sides, but I find myself agreeing with people on the right regarding some things, and people on the left regarding others. I watch Fox News, but I also watch CNN, MSN, and MSNBC as well as reading several blogs and I don't think you could make the argument that all of the media is within the right and there is no left representation. Maybe not the "viva la revolution let's all f*ck and take drugs all day while the country goes to hell it sucks anyway" left, but then I don't see the far right nuts like Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson (let's ban everything we don't agree with because we're good Christians while justifying our unchristian actions, and shoot anyone who disagrees) on Fox News either. To me when all is said and done Fox seems to be the only media outlet that presents both sides. I don't see much perspective that gets left out there, and gets coverage elsewhere, but I can say that about the other networks. There are whole stories they won't even bother to cover because it doesn't fit with their agenda. I commonly see interviews on CNN where Fox will show the same interview with stuff that's been left out. So if by far right you mean more complete and fairly presented then I guess I'm with you there.
And of course you can rest assured that all politicians always follow through on all of their campaign promises and implement them in a way that benefits the people of the nation rather than corporations. Oh wait... nevermind.
Obama is a politician. I know it's hard for some people to see that because of his charisma and charm, but you can be fairly sure that if he's running for office he'll be one of the last people to change things for the better. If you'll notice, he's all about change, and has been very vague about what he will change. He uses generic terms like, "the old politics", and "change we can believe it". It all sounds really good, but there's no substance behind it. I listen to him speak, and if I didn't know better I'd be wholely behind him. However, I can tell you from his voting record, and now this thing with Wright (who in my opinion he is rejecting out of political necessity not because he finds what he says offensive), he's probably the worst of the 3 choices. He's a liar and he's a left wing elitist nut to boot. Oh crap, my bias is showing. I gotta go.
Quite frankly I'd rather see McCain win over Obama. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd find myself aligned with Hilary, but I guess there's always a first time for everything:).
Boy that would sure be nice. It seems like we'd have a legitimate argument in doing so too, being that their leader went to such great lengths to make us think they had them.
If it's something that you're ashamed of why don't you just delete it now. Not only that in this day and age where there really is no privacy it's worth considering that you wouldn't want to put anything on your system you don't want someone else to see as someone probably already has access to it now.
There is something to be said for finding contentment in that which is otherwise tedious. There's got to be some aspect of what you do that is rewarding on some level. Focus on that, and forget about the negatives.
Tower Records had something similar to this idea back in the late 80s / early 90s where you could make custom tapes in store. The selection of songs wasn't exceedingly great, but I wondered back then how they got buy in from the record companies. Now days I wouldn't think there would be much call for a brick and mortar operation when it's so easy to buy single MP3s and burn your own CDs. I know it's not FLAC, but the majority of the mass market doesn't care much about quality anyway (perception largely based on what's popular). I prefer CDs because I like the quality, and to me they're versitile enough. I can rip a CD and put it into my MP3 player, and still come home to a high quality copy to listen to on the sound system. I haven't used a brick and mortar for years though. At first (late 90s) I was buying from online vendors like Amazon, but now I'm pulling from E-Bay almost exclusively and I'm paying on average about $8 for a CD including shipping. In this way the RIAA makes nothing off of me, as I'm typically buying used. However I still own a legal copy of the disc. When I want a custom disc I rip the tracks I want and burn it. If I want to rip everything I have and store it on a hard drive to take with me on vacation I can do that too. I like it that way. I don't think I'll ever give up the ability to have a physical copy, or accept any form of DRM. Even if it's lossless. But like I said before I know I'm not the average music consumer.
It could have something to do with all of the campaign contributions that come from large organizations manufacturing goods and services. Of course it could be that the general populous likes products that are dangerous, poisonous, fake, bogus and fraudulent. It's so hard to tell.
I live in an area where you can't buy alcohol at all on Sunday, and if you want anything other than beer or wine you have to go to a state run dispensary. It was annoying when I first moved here, but after getting stuck once I learned to plan ahead (what a novel concept). It's never been a problem since. Now if I'm running low on Saturday I go down before 8PM when they close and grab another bottle. When I get home from church I can have a drink if I want to, problem solved. So to equate what these guys are doing with blue laws seems like reaching. Cell phone service is a critical public service. Being able to buy booze is not. You can't work around it if they turn the towers off.
That's fine if you're at home and have nothing better to do then spend your time logging in. But when I'm at work and the boss is brething down my neck to find out why some service isn't running I sure don't want to be sitting there for 5-10 minutes trying to get my "haiku" right.
oh yes, because the big government we currently have has been so successful in protecting the common man thus far. I think we do a much better job of protecting ourselves. You don't like MS business practices, don't buy MS products. You don't like the way things work, then use the existing legal framework to change it. It shouldn't be hard if so many citizens are affected. The problem is that it's much easier to turn it into a government problem. Then we can all sit around and complain when nothing changes.
I agree with most of your points on the candidates, except Huckabee. I don't think that being a minister is really a negative, but I guess it depends on what your viewpoint is. Personally I'd rather have someone in the presidency that values a basic level of morality. Does that mean I want to be told what version of the Bible I can read, or what church I have to attend? No, in fact, that's exactly what our forefathers were trying to avoid when they proposed the separation of church and state. It has been twisted recently to remove religion from all public view, and I think that is doing this country a great disservice. I think we owe much of our success as a nation to the faith of our founding fathers. I think removing faith from the decision making process of our nation's leadership will hasten its demise. I think that's one of Huckabee's redeaming qualities. Most Americans, even those who aren't part of the "evangelical right" recognize that without some set of standards to live by we would have chaos.
Conversely, I think his fair tax plan is an absolutely terrible idea. Let's see I no longer have to pay income tax (16%), but instead I'll have a 25% sales tax on everything I buy. No thank you. For most of who are living paycheck to paycheck that doesn't pan out to be a net positive. I'd be alright with his plan if I didn't think it would wind up costing the majority of us more in the long run. As far as I can see the only ones it would help are those who save way more of their income than they spend. His tax record from when he was governor doesn't really indicate that he's a financial conservative either. I like the idea of reducing income tax by way of spending less at the federal level, and cutting costs to make it possible without increasing our national debt and weakening our global standing.
Assuming that you were being serious, and not really a troll (I'm getting somewhat frustrated with the moderators here). The OEMs don't love it. At least I don't. MS does not make it very easy for OEMs to just offer whatever they want. There is usually an incentive for them to push Vista (like the language in their partner agreement requiring them to install Vista). Customers who want XP have to explicitly request it. Vista really is terrible IMNSHO. It's much slower than XP, the nagging prompts are obnoxious (yes I know you can turn them off - but then that defeats the intended security benefit), and the tangible benefits are just not there. It's all eye candy primarily. Not only that I've had several users complain of problems with the Wireless drivers, printers that come and go, and stuff like that. It's not very stable. Think Windows ME, and you won't be far off.
The last time I had to do this the doctor gave me a general anesthetic so I wasn't all the way out, but I wasn't able to get up either. He shoves this thing down my throat and keeps moving it, and every time he'd move it I was gagging on it. He keeps saying "just relax" yeah right, let me shove this thing down your throat and see you relax. Putz. Not only that my throat was sore for a week afterwords. I like the idea of this pill much better. Now if only my HMO would use it within the next 20 years. Yeah I know I'm dreamin'. Don't wake me.
I know this is getting off on a tangent, but here's a scary thought: maybe he did have something to hide. Maybe his goons moved the WMDs to another country (like Syria), or gave them to a terrorist organization for use at an opportune time when we think all is well, or burried them somewhere we haven't looked yet. I seriously doubt that we've dug up every square foot of the country. There's a very real posibility that we may still be waiting for Sadam's last laugh while we sit smuggly by claiming victory. We had no interest in messing with Sadam until he started kicking the UN out, and violating the treaties he had signed. We had plenty to do in Afghanastan right about then. What Sadam did caused a great deal of alarm, but just maybe we played right into his hands. Maybe that was the whole point; to spread us thin and make it more difficult for us to fight against the Taliban. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but the truth is that we really don't know. I find it hard to believe that so many were convinced on both side of the political isle that he had WMDs if there really wasn't something there.
I agree. Most artists who make music do so because they like to make music. I come home after working all day and my wife and I write a little, record a little, if others like it that's fine, but I'm not really doing it for them. It's the executives that have decided that the artists need to give up their 9 to 5 in exchange for back to back world wide tours. If you look at a number of the artists the results haven't exactly been positive over the years. The general flow seems to be start with a good sound and a good band -> get discovered -> make more money than you know what to do with -> give in to the lure of drugs and wild living -> lose the ability to even perform -> go to rehab -> organize a comeback tour and do it all again if the industry thinks you're still a money making venture. The toll it takes on the artist is tremendous, and the only ones that benefit are the industry executives. With the rise of the Internet the music will survive, and the only thing dying is that which was not necessary in the first place.
This actually could be turned against them. If I was a start up I'd widely publicise the fact that MS is doing this and pass the cost on to the user. If you want to use MSN with my system then you have to pay the 0.25 fee. No other messaging system is charging, so I would think that over time in the interest of consolidating services, and people generally not wanting to pay for what they can get for free MS would be squeezed out.
Yes I guess I should have specified that it was the moderator that I was referring to and not you personally.
Like I said previously it really depends on who you listen to and what you believe. If by reason with me you mean change my mind, well yes you're right you're not going to be able to do that any more than I will probably change yours. The point of having discussion is to find that there are many opinions on any given subject, and this happens to be mine. My feeling is that while yes Sadam's rhetoric was only words what he was saying was pretty threatening. Personally I'm glad we didn't wait until one of our cities was glowing before taking action. The countries that have joined to the UN are coming together under the guise of unity (hence why it's the United Nations). Whether or not they have met that objective is a completely separate discussion (I personally feel that it should be disbanded). However, we (as the US) are expected to live up to our end of the agreement when we sign a treaty under the guise of promoting global unity. If we didn't we would have no legitimacy with the rest of our partners. Iraq was clearly not interested in global unity choosing to pursue their own aggressive nationalistic goals (nuclear power, punking Isreal, etc.), which would have been bad for everyone around them. The UN refused to require Iraq to uphold their end of the agreements. Why should we sit by and let them obtain the means to distroy us? I happen to think we did the right thing over all. Time will tell.
While the WMDs were not in a usable state there are still a couple of things that bother me about that. For years he maintained that they didn't have any chemical weapons (he lied, big surprise there), so while they we're usable when we found them they certainly were at one time. What else did he have that we didn't find is what I'd like to know. Another thing that bothers me about that is those weapons could still be used in dirty bomb in a manor that would be effective. Hence, if they fell into the wrong hands they're not exactly benign.
Yeah, I'm trolling because you disagree with me. Nice. Open discussion as long as you don't depart from the groupthink.
I guess it really depends on who you listen to, and what you take away from the conversation. The official reason for going into Iraq was that they had WMDs. The rhetoric that was coming from Sadam at the time was certainly indicitive to me that he must have something because he was being so bold and obnoxious. If he really didn't have anything, why not let the inspectors in uninhibited? His stance was that they're a sovereign nation and did't have to. For years they broke their agreements with us after we gave them what they wanted. As part of the agreement that they signed with the UN they were obligated to do let the UN inspectors in, and they didn't. It wasn't just the US that thought they had WMDs. The whole world was in agreement that they probably did, but yet could not agree on what to do about it. Now you can say "They never found nuclear weapons", and you'd be correct they didn't. They did find chemical WMDs, and there's no guarantee that they didn't smuggle others out before we invaded. We may still be waiting for the sharp end of the stick to become apparent. Why would Sadam have acted that way unless he was trying to draw us into conflict? So to say that "the official arguments for going into Iraq were false" is not wholly accurate. My point is that France was a major detractor against the invasion not because they wanted to promote peace, but because they wanted to protect their own corrupt interests. Is that a point that ought to be ignored because it doesn't fit the world mantra that America is bad?
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You're right. IANAL, I took one semester of Business Law in college. But the one thing I took away from that is that it seemed like the law was mostly common sense. Applying common sense here I think she should be prosecuted. If I remember correctly the use of precident has to include most of the circumstances of the case being used. Maybe it's different in a criminal case as most business law involves civil suits. I don't think a lawyer could argue that just because someone broke the terms of service the same fate should be applied unless the same (or similar) results occur. Maybe a terms of service violation isn't the right approach, but I think she should suffer some consequences for her actions, and thusfar she's suffered none (other than becoming a social outcast). I'm thinking criminal negligence; aggrivated battery maybe. What most irritated me was the suggestion that she would have committed suicide anyway eventually. There's no way to know that, and even if it were true it doesn't in my opinion absolve that woman of her responsibility in the matter.
I understand the concern about creating a legal precident, but even if they successfully prosecute I don't think that it automatically creates a legal precident to throw someone in jail for violation of terms of service no matter how small the infraction. That would be a pretty flimsy application of the judgement. IANAL, but it would seem to me that there are significant circumstances in this case that would prevent someone from coming along and using it against someone who simply violated the terms of service without any other aggrivating circumstances. It's not like some moronic lawyer could come along and say "we convicted this woman for violation of terms of service that resulted in someone's death, and therefore we should convict this guy here because he exceeded his download cap". No judge in the world would buy off on that. At least I would hope not. So I think the back story does have some relevance in the application of the law. I sign up with bogus information for web services all the time. Mostly because I don't like junk mail, unwanted phone calls, and spam. Not only that my personal information is mine, and if I wanted to sell it I would. Am I worried about going to jail for that? Not at all.
I would agree if it was a simple "terms of service" violation. Someone is dead over this. Parents lost their child. Yes she took her own life, but to say this woman had no other involvment than a violation of terms of service is quite inaccurate. How do you know it was inevitable? Some people suffer with depression in their teen years. It's pretty common actually. If the 40 year old woman hadn't pushed her over the edge by deliberately tormenting her perhaps the girl might have gone on to live a full a vibrant life. I don't fully support putting people in jail for simply violating a EULA, but she did much more than that, and I fully support putting her in jail. The other kid that sent the message saying "the world would be a better place without you" deserves a fair amount of accountability as well. Actions have consequences, and I think it's a far worse precident to set by suggesting otherwise. I was saddened by this at the start, and it's not going to make me feel any better about it putting her behind bars, but it might at least send a message. Just because you're somewhat anonymous on the Internet doesn't give you the right to go about ruining peoples lives.
If they can take your laptop, and hang on to it for as long as they want to investigate you, what makes you think they would care in the slightest? No, I'm afraid you'd probably get arested for making a scene. I almost got arested last week just trying to get a passport because I yelled at the issuing agent. She was giving my wife a hard time, and we still can't get a passport. My wife was adopted, and her birth certificate looks like a copy, but that was what they gave her mother when her mother paid for it in 1968. The certificate states that it has to be stamped on the back, and it is. It's in black ink, but that's what they used back then. That's no longer acceptable, so we have to wait 16 weeks to order one from Sacramento. Then we'd have to wait 4-6 more weeks for our passports. By then summer will be over, and our kids will be going back to school. Guess we didn't want to travel this summer after all. But allow that to become aggravating, and suddenly you're facing the prospect of arest. Keep in mind I wasn't being threatening, I was just venting my frustration with their assinine policies. We would have had an easier time getting a passport by just paying the local drug dealer $200 for a very convincing set of official looking documents... DL, SS, and birt cert. Pay the fee, Bob's your uncle, and we could have gone on our merry way. Yeah. Great system. That's going to do quite a bit to stop terrorism.
I don't know about that. I listen to both sides, but I find myself agreeing with people on the right regarding some things, and people on the left regarding others. I watch Fox News, but I also watch CNN, MSN, and MSNBC as well as reading several blogs and I don't think you could make the argument that all of the media is within the right and there is no left representation. Maybe not the "viva la revolution let's all f*ck and take drugs all day while the country goes to hell it sucks anyway" left, but then I don't see the far right nuts like Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson (let's ban everything we don't agree with because we're good Christians while justifying our unchristian actions, and shoot anyone who disagrees) on Fox News either. To me when all is said and done Fox seems to be the only media outlet that presents both sides. I don't see much perspective that gets left out there, and gets coverage elsewhere, but I can say that about the other networks. There are whole stories they won't even bother to cover because it doesn't fit with their agenda. I commonly see interviews on CNN where Fox will show the same interview with stuff that's been left out. So if by far right you mean more complete and fairly presented then I guess I'm with you there.
And of course you can rest assured that all politicians always follow through on all of their campaign promises and implement them in a way that benefits the people of the nation rather than corporations. Oh wait... nevermind.
Obama is a politician. I know it's hard for some people to see that because of his charisma and charm, but you can be fairly sure that if he's running for office he'll be one of the last people to change things for the better. If you'll notice, he's all about change, and has been very vague about what he will change. He uses generic terms like, "the old politics", and "change we can believe it". It all sounds really good, but there's no substance behind it. I listen to him speak, and if I didn't know better I'd be wholely behind him. However, I can tell you from his voting record, and now this thing with Wright (who in my opinion he is rejecting out of political necessity not because he finds what he says offensive), he's probably the worst of the 3 choices. He's a liar and he's a left wing elitist nut to boot. Oh crap, my bias is showing. I gotta go.
Quite frankly I'd rather see McCain win over Obama. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd find myself aligned with Hilary, but I guess there's always a first time for everything :).
Boy that would sure be nice. It seems like we'd have a legitimate argument in doing so too, being that their leader went to such great lengths to make us think they had them.
If it's something that you're ashamed of why don't you just delete it now. Not only that in this day and age where there really is no privacy it's worth considering that you wouldn't want to put anything on your system you don't want someone else to see as someone probably already has access to it now.
There is something to be said for finding contentment in that which is otherwise tedious. There's got to be some aspect of what you do that is rewarding on some level. Focus on that, and forget about the negatives.
Tower Records had something similar to this idea back in the late 80s / early 90s where you could make custom tapes in store. The selection of songs wasn't exceedingly great, but I wondered back then how they got buy in from the record companies. Now days I wouldn't think there would be much call for a brick and mortar operation when it's so easy to buy single MP3s and burn your own CDs. I know it's not FLAC, but the majority of the mass market doesn't care much about quality anyway (perception largely based on what's popular). I prefer CDs because I like the quality, and to me they're versitile enough. I can rip a CD and put it into my MP3 player, and still come home to a high quality copy to listen to on the sound system. I haven't used a brick and mortar for years though. At first (late 90s) I was buying from online vendors like Amazon, but now I'm pulling from E-Bay almost exclusively and I'm paying on average about $8 for a CD including shipping. In this way the RIAA makes nothing off of me, as I'm typically buying used. However I still own a legal copy of the disc. When I want a custom disc I rip the tracks I want and burn it. If I want to rip everything I have and store it on a hard drive to take with me on vacation I can do that too. I like it that way. I don't think I'll ever give up the ability to have a physical copy, or accept any form of DRM. Even if it's lossless. But like I said before I know I'm not the average music consumer.
It could have something to do with all of the campaign contributions that come from large organizations manufacturing goods and services. Of course it could be that the general populous likes products that are dangerous, poisonous, fake, bogus and fraudulent. It's so hard to tell.
I live in an area where you can't buy alcohol at all on Sunday, and if you want anything other than beer or wine you have to go to a state run dispensary. It was annoying when I first moved here, but after getting stuck once I learned to plan ahead (what a novel concept). It's never been a problem since. Now if I'm running low on Saturday I go down before 8PM when they close and grab another bottle. When I get home from church I can have a drink if I want to, problem solved. So to equate what these guys are doing with blue laws seems like reaching. Cell phone service is a critical public service. Being able to buy booze is not. You can't work around it if they turn the towers off.
That's fine if you're at home and have nothing better to do then spend your time logging in. But when I'm at work and the boss is brething down my neck to find out why some service isn't running I sure don't want to be sitting there for 5-10 minutes trying to get my "haiku" right.
oh yes, because the big government we currently have has been so successful in protecting the common man thus far. I think we do a much better job of protecting ourselves. You don't like MS business practices, don't buy MS products. You don't like the way things work, then use the existing legal framework to change it. It shouldn't be hard if so many citizens are affected. The problem is that it's much easier to turn it into a government problem. Then we can all sit around and complain when nothing changes.
I agree with most of your points on the candidates, except Huckabee. I don't think that being a minister is really a negative, but I guess it depends on what your viewpoint is. Personally I'd rather have someone in the presidency that values a basic level of morality. Does that mean I want to be told what version of the Bible I can read, or what church I have to attend? No, in fact, that's exactly what our forefathers were trying to avoid when they proposed the separation of church and state. It has been twisted recently to remove religion from all public view, and I think that is doing this country a great disservice. I think we owe much of our success as a nation to the faith of our founding fathers. I think removing faith from the decision making process of our nation's leadership will hasten its demise. I think that's one of Huckabee's redeaming qualities. Most Americans, even those who aren't part of the "evangelical right" recognize that without some set of standards to live by we would have chaos. Conversely, I think his fair tax plan is an absolutely terrible idea. Let's see I no longer have to pay income tax (16%), but instead I'll have a 25% sales tax on everything I buy. No thank you. For most of who are living paycheck to paycheck that doesn't pan out to be a net positive. I'd be alright with his plan if I didn't think it would wind up costing the majority of us more in the long run. As far as I can see the only ones it would help are those who save way more of their income than they spend. His tax record from when he was governor doesn't really indicate that he's a financial conservative either. I like the idea of reducing income tax by way of spending less at the federal level, and cutting costs to make it possible without increasing our national debt and weakening our global standing.
They must have forgotten to pay their dues.
Yes you did get the only copy that doesn't have problems. I sure wish you'd send it to all of my users that have nothing but problems.
Assuming that you were being serious, and not really a troll (I'm getting somewhat frustrated with the moderators here). The OEMs don't love it. At least I don't. MS does not make it very easy for OEMs to just offer whatever they want. There is usually an incentive for them to push Vista (like the language in their partner agreement requiring them to install Vista). Customers who want XP have to explicitly request it. Vista really is terrible IMNSHO. It's much slower than XP, the nagging prompts are obnoxious (yes I know you can turn them off - but then that defeats the intended security benefit), and the tangible benefits are just not there. It's all eye candy primarily. Not only that I've had several users complain of problems with the Wireless drivers, printers that come and go, and stuff like that. It's not very stable. Think Windows ME, and you won't be far off.
The last time I had to do this the doctor gave me a general anesthetic so I wasn't all the way out, but I wasn't able to get up either. He shoves this thing down my throat and keeps moving it, and every time he'd move it I was gagging on it. He keeps saying "just relax" yeah right, let me shove this thing down your throat and see you relax. Putz. Not only that my throat was sore for a week afterwords. I like the idea of this pill much better. Now if only my HMO would use it within the next 20 years. Yeah I know I'm dreamin'. Don't wake me.
I know this is getting off on a tangent, but here's a scary thought: maybe he did have something to hide. Maybe his goons moved the WMDs to another country (like Syria), or gave them to a terrorist organization for use at an opportune time when we think all is well, or burried them somewhere we haven't looked yet. I seriously doubt that we've dug up every square foot of the country. There's a very real posibility that we may still be waiting for Sadam's last laugh while we sit smuggly by claiming victory. We had no interest in messing with Sadam until he started kicking the UN out, and violating the treaties he had signed. We had plenty to do in Afghanastan right about then. What Sadam did caused a great deal of alarm, but just maybe we played right into his hands. Maybe that was the whole point; to spread us thin and make it more difficult for us to fight against the Taliban. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but the truth is that we really don't know. I find it hard to believe that so many were convinced on both side of the political isle that he had WMDs if there really wasn't something there.
I agree. Most artists who make music do so because they like to make music. I come home after working all day and my wife and I write a little, record a little, if others like it that's fine, but I'm not really doing it for them. It's the executives that have decided that the artists need to give up their 9 to 5 in exchange for back to back world wide tours. If you look at a number of the artists the results haven't exactly been positive over the years. The general flow seems to be start with a good sound and a good band -> get discovered -> make more money than you know what to do with -> give in to the lure of drugs and wild living -> lose the ability to even perform -> go to rehab -> organize a comeback tour and do it all again if the industry thinks you're still a money making venture. The toll it takes on the artist is tremendous, and the only ones that benefit are the industry executives. With the rise of the Internet the music will survive, and the only thing dying is that which was not necessary in the first place.
This actually could be turned against them. If I was a start up I'd widely publicise the fact that MS is doing this and pass the cost on to the user. If you want to use MSN with my system then you have to pay the 0.25 fee. No other messaging system is charging, so I would think that over time in the interest of consolidating services, and people generally not wanting to pay for what they can get for free MS would be squeezed out.
Yes I guess I should have specified that it was the moderator that I was referring to and not you personally.
Like I said previously it really depends on who you listen to and what you believe. If by reason with me you mean change my mind, well yes you're right you're not going to be able to do that any more than I will probably change yours. The point of having discussion is to find that there are many opinions on any given subject, and this happens to be mine. My feeling is that while yes Sadam's rhetoric was only words what he was saying was pretty threatening. Personally I'm glad we didn't wait until one of our cities was glowing before taking action. The countries that have joined to the UN are coming together under the guise of unity (hence why it's the United Nations). Whether or not they have met that objective is a completely separate discussion (I personally feel that it should be disbanded). However, we (as the US) are expected to live up to our end of the agreement when we sign a treaty under the guise of promoting global unity. If we didn't we would have no legitimacy with the rest of our partners. Iraq was clearly not interested in global unity choosing to pursue their own aggressive nationalistic goals (nuclear power, punking Isreal, etc.), which would have been bad for everyone around them. The UN refused to require Iraq to uphold their end of the agreements. Why should we sit by and let them obtain the means to distroy us? I happen to think we did the right thing over all. Time will tell.
While the WMDs were not in a usable state there are still a couple of things that bother me about that. For years he maintained that they didn't have any chemical weapons (he lied, big surprise there), so while they we're usable when we found them they certainly were at one time. What else did he have that we didn't find is what I'd like to know. Another thing that bothers me about that is those weapons could still be used in dirty bomb in a manor that would be effective. Hence, if they fell into the wrong hands they're not exactly benign.
Yeah, I'm trolling because you disagree with me. Nice. Open discussion as long as you don't depart from the groupthink. I guess it really depends on who you listen to, and what you take away from the conversation. The official reason for going into Iraq was that they had WMDs. The rhetoric that was coming from Sadam at the time was certainly indicitive to me that he must have something because he was being so bold and obnoxious. If he really didn't have anything, why not let the inspectors in uninhibited? His stance was that they're a sovereign nation and did't have to. For years they broke their agreements with us after we gave them what they wanted. As part of the agreement that they signed with the UN they were obligated to do let the UN inspectors in, and they didn't. It wasn't just the US that thought they had WMDs. The whole world was in agreement that they probably did, but yet could not agree on what to do about it. Now you can say "They never found nuclear weapons", and you'd be correct they didn't. They did find chemical WMDs, and there's no guarantee that they didn't smuggle others out before we invaded. We may still be waiting for the sharp end of the stick to become apparent. Why would Sadam have acted that way unless he was trying to draw us into conflict? So to say that "the official arguments for going into Iraq were false" is not wholly accurate. My point is that France was a major detractor against the invasion not because they wanted to promote peace, but because they wanted to protect their own corrupt interests. Is that a point that ought to be ignored because it doesn't fit the world mantra that America is bad?