How about if it were illegal to publish my personal information without my express consent? Oh wait, it is. Do you know why? Because unless you live in a tent, keep all your money in cash, get payed in cash, and don't file your taxes there is no way to keep your personal information hidden. Privacy laws exist because it is not reasonable to expect a person to live like that.

I am sure you would love to have all your personal information published. Where you shop, what you eat, what you buy, who you call, what you read, what you watch on TV, what websites you browse. After all your ISP knows your entire online history, they should be able to act freely with that information. You phone company should be able to do whatever they want with your phone records. Your credit card company, perfectly fine for them to sell your shopping history. Its their information after all. Hey, even Uncle Sam can get into the act and sell your tax returns to advertisers. That would raise billions of dollars. Budget deficit solved! You are so smart.

Somehow I don't find that protecting the rights of corporations to do whatever they want with your purchase history to be a noble and just cause.

Video rental records are protected information under existing federal law. Netflix released rental information to the public. Therefore they are liable for damages if the information was personally identifiable. End of story.

"obtaining delivery information for a gift from one or more information sources other than the gift giver and recipient"

Hey, if they have truly figured out a way to determine who I am sending a gift to without asking me or the person receiving the gift I would say that is worthy of a patent. All other retailers will be stuck actually asking you where you want your stuff mailed and who has the time to enter all that info?

Don't worry, as with all business in China you just have to know who to bribe.

Well duh, all you are saying is items that are cheaper on Amazon cost less. No shit Sherlock. If they cost less before factoring in tax then that makes the whole argument that sales tax is killing local retailers invalid.

There is no such thing as free. Either you pay shipping or Amazon pays shipping. The only question is is sales tax more or less then shipping cost.

Vote with your feet move to some other country or vote for a representative that will lower taxes or run for office yourself.

Whats the difference between free beer and free lap dances?

#1) Every event I have ever been to that offered free beer also had a variety of other drinks for people who don't like beer or don't consume alcohol.

#2) I have never been to a professional event where watching people drink is an acceptable form of entertainment.

#3) If you don't drink you can simply decline. If you don't want to watch a lap dace the best you can do is leave the room. That's not, in my opinion, a reasonable thing to expect people to do during a conference.

#4) It is socially acceptable to have a few drinks in a public setting while having a lap dance is generally not.

I have no issues with adult entertainment. I don't buy the line that it is exploitation but things have a time and a place and a developers conference is not it. I am sure there was more then one person there who did not appreciate it. The fact that no one stopped to think that it may not be appropriate for the venue shows at very least a lack of taste from the event planners.

I think most people choose #4 Go find something better to do. After all, donating time to OSS is a hobby. Its something you do because you enjoy it. If all you get is grief why bother?

Also, excusing bad behavior because it is 'human nature' isn't really a good argument. Weather you want to call it sexism or not, the fact is, that the actions of some people in the OSS community tend to alienate women. Hiding the fact that you are a woman might spare you some direct harassment (which is probably rare in all honesty) but it doesn't change the fact that the environment is just not comfortable.

Maybe but don't expect your senator to like it.

Its sexist because the presentation was specifically catered to appeal to men. It would be less sexist but equally offensive if he had slides with scantly clad, well endowed men as well as the slides of women.