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Comment Re:F? (Score 1) 91

I should clarify: I didn't mean actual expansion of the law. What I meant in regard to item "F" was: since when does difficulty of enforcement, even if they did prove it, justify loosening the standards of evidence? I did not think that was allowable.

Well I knew exactly what you meant Jane, even before you 'clarified' it.

Comment Re:F? (Score 3, Insightful) 91

Hi, NYCL! I haven't noticed you around here much lately. Is item F even a thing? Since when does the difficulty of enforcing a law allow judicial expansion of the law? I thought that idea had been thoroughly buried a long time ago.

I have to agree with you Jane Q. For 10 years I've been trying to wake the courts up to the fact that they're not supposed to bend the law to help content owners just because the content owners don't know who committed the infringement. Glad to see them coming around.

Comment Re:Victory for common sense! (Score 1) 91

I think that if this troll can prove they have a copyright on the material and the right to enforce it, they will have a good case to appeal this decision and it will likely be overturned.

You also have to prove that the person you're suing actually committed the infringement. It's not enough that they paid the bill for an internet service account that somebody used to commit an infringement.

Submission + - Judge Calls Malibu Media "Troll", Denies Subpoena

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: In what could be the beginning of the end of the Malibu Media litigation wave involving alleged BitTorrent downloads of porn films, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court has denied Malibu Media's request for a subpoena to get the subscriber's name and address from his or her internet service provider. In his 11-page decision (PDF), Judge Hellerstein discussed "copyright trolls" and noted that (a) it is not clear that Malibu Media's porn products are entitled to copyright protection, (b) discussed some of its questionable litigation practices, (c) Malibu's "investigation" leads at best to an IP address rather than to an individual infringer, (d) there is a major risk of misidentification, (e) Malibu has no evidence that the individual John Doe committed any act of infringement, and (f) Malibu's claim that there is no other practical way for it to target infringement was not supported by adequate evidence.

Comment Re:Varoufakis (Score 1) 431

Problem for Russia is that low debt ratio came about purely on high oil and gas prices. Those have evaporated leaving a black hole in the countries finances and no way to plug it other than borrowing, which is hard because their credit rating is now literally junk or cuts aka austerity.

So while they may have a lower debt to GDP ratio than Germany they are in recession and no clear way to plug the hole other than a rise in oil and gas prices which looks increasingly unlikely.

Comment Re:Austerity fails again (Score 1) 1307

And why does the rest of the world have an obligation to help them? They don't and right now those who have been trying to help them over the past five years have basically given up, and are likely to wash their hands of the whole situation.

Comment Re:Drop the hammer on them. (Score 1) 1307

It is amazing how many deluded people think the slave trade involved ships sailing up to the coast of Africa and grabbing people before sailing over the Atlantic. It was called the slave TRADE for a reason people. The ships sailed into ports in Africa where they purchased slaves from Africans.

Comment Re:Tell me again when they engage in nuclear black (Score 0) 409

You make it sound like Al Qaeda and Islamic State are the only terrorist organizations in existence. Sure Iran does not sponsor Islamic State, but there are definite links between Iran and Al Qaeda.

However Islamic State is not responsible for the majority of the worlds terrorism of the past 40 years, not even close. That would fall to the likes Hamas, Hezbollah, and in the past the PLO, all of which have received state sponsorship from Iran.

Comment Re:Iran is not trying to save money (Score 1) 409

Then why did they enrich uranium to 20%? That is way more than you require for nuclear fuel. Yes it is required for making certain medical isotopes (mostly Tc-99m), but guess what the number of facilities for making these medical isotopes in the *ENTIRE* world can be counted on your hands. Further more they are looking to shift production to either low enriched unranium or directly from the bombardment of Tc-100 with protons from an accelerator. There are also programs to switch production of other medical isotopes from reactor based methods.

So why did Iran really enrich uranium beyond the 5% needed for nuclear fuel in a reactor. The *ONLY* reasonable explanation is that they wanted to

Add in a backdrop of Russia offering to sell Iran fuel rods at or below cost and take them back for reprocessing why even bother going to the hassle of enriching the fuel?

Comment Re:Future is unclear (Score 1) 359

Problem is if it is not a currency they can print then they have really serious problems in terms of cash flow for the government to pay things like salaries. In short they have no money now and nobody is willing to lend them more, so it's either cut spending or print more cash. If it's not your own currency you can't print it.

Of course if you are in the situation of needing to print cash then you are in a very bad place anyway, and both printing cash or cutting spending are equally as bad choices. Best thing is to not get yourself in that situation in the first place. Problem is the Greek's are as a society collectively unable to accept that nobody owes them a free lunch.

Comment Re:Austerity or... (Score 1) 359

Do you wish to point me to some reference that shows the Spanish government was fiscally irresponsible prior to the global financial crisis in 2008 please?

Perhaps before you start tarring everyone from southern Europe with the same brush you might want to get your facts straight. Oh and I am from northern Europe and outside the Euro for the record.

Comment Re:What were they thinking? (Score 1) 177

Looking a raw statistics one might argue that lack of a "don't jaywalk" rule has lead to increased safety of pedestrians in the UK compared to the USA.

In reality it has probably more to do with stricter driving tests, structurally safer roads; I am primarily referring to far fewer intersections and far more roundabouts, and on average smaller cars than the USA. However I imagine road safety as taught to children probably plays a part as well.

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