ya know, being a republic doesn't actually guarantee, or even IMPLY any sort of freedoms, right?
all it means is that the head of state position is not hereditary. that is, it's not a monarchy.
China is a republic. the USSR was a republic. all dictatorships are, by definition, republics (otherwise they're absolute monarchies, which is only Almost the same thing.)
republic in no way implies democracy, freedom of speech, or anything else.
worst part is that it's draining Dotcom's coffers, draining the NZG's coffers... and is basically an irrelevant drop in the bucket in the USG's budget/debt situation. they can pretty much keep this up indefinately... and the international level response to unpaid debts, the only way to reclaim them, is invasion... and there's no way NZ can get anywhere trying to pull That stunt vs the US... so even if the case is tossed and the USG stuck with the bill for the whole chain of bullshit, nothing will come of it.
(especially as our PM (and others) seems to be getting along FAR too well with the entities responsible for this mess...)
except that the mafIAA keep trying to claim that it IS theft, the USG keeps trying to claim that somehow this is terrorism or something, and that the bank thing was a 'would be joking if it weren't dead on' explanation/analogy of the utterly bullshit 'logic' involved, the nature of the actual entities being irrelevant. (could have used trees, squirrels, and nuts rather than banks, people, and money, and it would have held.)
while said cereal box instructions are rare here (the products largely sell themselves or don't sell at all), they Have shown up from time to time (i think there was a model space shuttle one time...) ...
....
should. it Should get the case thrown out immediately with prejudice.
see, thing is, the case against Megaupload?
that IS taking place in the US.
the only stuff that's happening in NZ is an attempt to extradite Kim Dotcom ... which.... doesn't seem to be getting anywhere all that fast. partially because, hey, legal system, and partially because every time something like this comes out it makes it look more and more like the political nonsense it is rather than a matter of law and justice.
on the flip side, the longer it drags out, the more of Dotcom's funds are drained away, so the harder it is for him to come back from it... but the more State funds are drained away and the more pissed off the public get about it.
'course, there's the usual pro US right wing Morons who think the correct solution to such a situation is to just let the USG have him. .... i call them morons for a reason. at this point, the correct response is to bill the USG for the whole mess, and/or reject the extradition.
it's saying that they care more about money than anything else.
which is... pretty much inevitable in a plutocratic republic (which is what the US has, and is pretty much what it's Always had. plus or minus however much 'bureaucracy' replaces one or the other term.)
aristocrats, plutocrats... either way it's the elite who care more about their power and status (wealth is simply a way of measuring this) than about the nation or public. (at least aristocracy Usually goes along with some vague idea that they should try to do what they think is best for the country rather than just using rabid 'patriotism' as a pubic justification for their nonsense. even if it doesn't actually result in any better behaviour.)
... you've not been paying attention, have you?
a unit of stupid seems to be cancelled out by a few hundredth units of currency...
tells you something that the corporations involved in this insanity pay hundreds of thousands of such currency units on a regular basis to get the things passed, doesn't it?
i dunno about their other stuff, but logic-tech's good for it's low end stuff: relatively basic, low price, high quality. pretty much everyone else's equivalents are either crap or a lot more expensive.
dunno about fancy, high end, customisable 'far too many buttons to be reasonable' stuff, mind. never had much need for it, myself.
heh. even 'to verb a noun' is a case of verbing a noun, in this case, the word 'verb' is a noun assigned to ... verbs... (i'm going to stop there before this becomes recursive or something...)
ehhh sort of.
the basic nature of large groups of people remains the same, yes.
however, individual persons can change quite drastically if given motivation to, and the culture of an institution, on any scale, changes how these two factors translate into actual behaviour.
ANY sort of sales tax becomes a Regressive tax which is a Terrible idea that rapidly leads to poverty And reduces the number of transactions taking place, slowing the economy down over all.
higher income taxes look scary due to being in one lump sum, but cause far less problems.
can't prove a negative.
burden of proof is on the one disputing it to prove the positive that nullifies it.
because, you know, that's actually possible.
come to think of it, our resident trolls need to learn that one.
(yes, I realise you were probably joking and know this already, and found it amusing in that capacity. I have problems leaving incorrect things alone, and not just on the internet. Hence part of the reason for my usual excess of parentheticals and my inability to leave uncorrected trolls alone :S)
i can't be the only one who initially read that as the Parliamentary Copyright Maximalists being the ones doing the plotting, and was thus understandably confused. (headlines tend to leave out Who was doing the 'seeing', as it is implied to be 'various people, who we will tell you about/speak to in the article. also, possibly, the public.')
oddly, back when demos were to be had, i came across more than one that was Great fun... and then the game itself was just... kind of flat. (some version or another of Worms was a prime example.) or sometimes outright terrible. so they weren't really representative anyway...
not that advertisers want you to understand that: "this X was 18.99, now only 7.99, save 11 dollars!" uh... no. not save 11, spend 8. i would Save that money by NOT spending it... as in, not buying your product. (though one could argue it's 'save 11 dollars more than you would have had you bought this previously. hah! take that earlier customers!' so... yeah.)
also: making sure that removing it actually REMOVED it. never really having bothered with Apple's stuff, i don't know how big of a deal this is, but i know Windows is absolutely Terrible about leaving random fragments of things behind when they've supposedly been 'removed' (and they're often in all sorts of strange places, so kind of hard to kill.) ... so, you know, there's that.
(untitled comment)
ya know, being a republic doesn't actually guarantee, or even IMPLY any sort of freedoms, right?
all it means is that the head of state position is not hereditary. that is, it's not a monarchy.
China is a republic. the USSR was a republic. all dictatorships are, by definition, republics (otherwise they're absolute monarchies, which is only Almost the same thing.)
republic in no way implies democracy, freedom of speech, or anything else.
Re:
*facepalm*
worst part is that it's draining Dotcom's coffers, draining the NZG's coffers... and is basically an irrelevant drop in the bucket in the USG's budget/debt situation. they can pretty much keep this up indefinately... and the international level response to unpaid debts, the only way to reclaim them, is invasion... and there's no way NZ can get anywhere trying to pull That stunt vs the US... so even if the case is tossed and the USG stuck with the bill for the whole chain of bullshit, nothing will come of it.
(especially as our PM (and others) seems to be getting along FAR too well with the entities responsible for this mess...)
Re: Re:
except that the mafIAA keep trying to claim that it IS theft, the USG keeps trying to claim that somehow this is terrorism or something, and that the bank thing was a 'would be joking if it weren't dead on' explanation/analogy of the utterly bullshit 'logic' involved, the nature of the actual entities being irrelevant. (could have used trees, squirrels, and nuts rather than banks, people, and money, and it would have held.)
Re: Re:
while said cereal box instructions are rare here (the products largely sell themselves or don't sell at all), they Have shown up from time to time (i think there was a model space shuttle one time...) ...
they made FAR more sense than that.
Re:
....
should. it Should get the case thrown out immediately with prejudice.
see, thing is, the case against Megaupload?
that IS taking place in the US.
the only stuff that's happening in NZ is an attempt to extradite Kim Dotcom ... which.... doesn't seem to be getting anywhere all that fast. partially because, hey, legal system, and partially because every time something like this comes out it makes it look more and more like the political nonsense it is rather than a matter of law and justice.
on the flip side, the longer it drags out, the more of Dotcom's funds are drained away, so the harder it is for him to come back from it... but the more State funds are drained away and the more pissed off the public get about it.
'course, there's the usual pro US right wing Morons who think the correct solution to such a situation is to just let the USG have him. .... i call them morons for a reason. at this point, the correct response is to bill the USG for the whole mess, and/or reject the extradition.
Re:
it's saying that they care more about money than anything else.
which is... pretty much inevitable in a plutocratic republic (which is what the US has, and is pretty much what it's Always had. plus or minus however much 'bureaucracy' replaces one or the other term.)
aristocrats, plutocrats... either way it's the elite who care more about their power and status (wealth is simply a way of measuring this) than about the nation or public. (at least aristocracy Usually goes along with some vague idea that they should try to do what they think is best for the country rather than just using rabid 'patriotism' as a pubic justification for their nonsense. even if it doesn't actually result in any better behaviour.)
Re:
fairly easy to detect if they think of it... i already came up with a simple solution.
but i'm not sharing.
don't want to give anyone ideas...
Re:
... you've not been paying attention, have you?
a unit of stupid seems to be cancelled out by a few hundredth units of currency...
tells you something that the corporations involved in this insanity pay hundreds of thousands of such currency units on a regular basis to get the things passed, doesn't it?
(untitled comment)
i dunno about their other stuff, but logic-tech's good for it's low end stuff: relatively basic, low price, high quality. pretty much everyone else's equivalents are either crap or a lot more expensive.
dunno about fancy, high end, customisable 'far too many buttons to be reasonable' stuff, mind. never had much need for it, myself.
Re: Re: My biggest complaint about your post . . .
heh. even 'to verb a noun' is a case of verbing a noun, in this case, the word 'verb' is a noun assigned to ... verbs... (i'm going to stop there before this becomes recursive or something...)
Re: Re:
ehhh sort of.
the basic nature of large groups of people remains the same, yes.
however, individual persons can change quite drastically if given motivation to, and the culture of an institution, on any scale, changes how these two factors translate into actual behaviour.
Re: Re: Re: Point 4: A "consumption" tax isn't practical.
ANY sort of sales tax becomes a Regressive tax which is a Terrible idea that rapidly leads to poverty And reduces the number of transactions taking place, slowing the economy down over all.
higher income taxes look scary due to being in one lump sum, but cause far less problems.
Re: "We swear we didn't pay him."
can't prove a negative.
burden of proof is on the one disputing it to prove the positive that nullifies it.
because, you know, that's actually possible.
come to think of it, our resident trolls need to learn that one.
(yes, I realise you were probably joking and know this already, and found it amusing in that capacity. I have problems leaving incorrect things alone, and not just on the internet. Hence part of the reason for my usual excess of parentheticals and my inability to leave uncorrected trolls alone :S)
who's plotting?
i can't be the only one who initially read that as the Parliamentary Copyright Maximalists being the ones doing the plotting, and was thus understandably confused. (headlines tend to leave out Who was doing the 'seeing', as it is implied to be 'various people, who we will tell you about/speak to in the article. also, possibly, the public.')
(untitled comment)
oddly, back when demos were to be had, i came across more than one that was Great fun... and then the game itself was just... kind of flat. (some version or another of Worms was a prime example.) or sometimes outright terrible. so they weren't really representative anyway...
Re:
*facepalms*
Re:
this post is entertaining, but i'm having serious trouble figuring out which direction you're coming at this from and what conclusion you're reaching.
Some of this has to be sarcastic... but i can't tell which bit.
pretty sure that's an achievement...
Re: Re: Sigh. Technical complaint by some idiot alleging "lost his" data".
not that advertisers want you to understand that: "this X was 18.99, now only 7.99, save 11 dollars!" uh... no. not save 11, spend 8. i would Save that money by NOT spending it... as in, not buying your product. (though one could argue it's 'save 11 dollars more than you would have had you bought this previously. hah! take that earlier customers!' so... yeah.)
Re:
slightly more likely to stab and/or shoot you, mind you.
Re: Plaintiff estimated the wrong cost
also: making sure that removing it actually REMOVED it. never really having bothered with Apple's stuff, i don't know how big of a deal this is, but i know Windows is absolutely Terrible about leaving random fragments of things behind when they've supposedly been 'removed' (and they're often in all sorts of strange places, so kind of hard to kill.) ... so, you know, there's that.