I tried to argue this, but the site is so clearly full of douchbags and jerkoffs that I don't even care.

Guy does not think he is a communist (hint: "democratic socialist" is not the same thing) Neither is "socialist") Random website he knows fuck all about uses his name and image without endorsement or permission, and... TRADEMARK BULLYING.

Fuck, no.

The douchebag is strong here: and that's not with the Bernie campaign.

Either way its not a story.

I didn't miss it, I ignored it as its a nonsense attempt at a semantic trap. Language hasn't caught up with the reality of what transgendered people go through.

And that's a red herring. You managed to cut out the point where the mental health professionals diagnose gender dysphoria as an actual condition, not a delusion, not a belief.

Further, the condition is not a mental disease or disorder. Its not something that can be treated with medication or therapy (though therapy and medication are often used to manage the symptoms caused by the condition while the therapist works through the issues to determine if its really gender dysphoria and if surgery or hormone therapy is really needed).

There's no "species dysphoria".

Except the experts on things like delusions-- you know, the mental health profession-- has determined that gender dysphoria is not, in fact, a delusion. It is something that is really wrong with someone, and which is appropriately treated in many cases not by medication or counseling but sexual reassignment surgery.

Its in the freaking *manual* of the scientific and medical community that's responsible for diagnosing and treating mental health.

> If someone walks into a restroom and looks like a man, he/she/it/whatever needs to leave.

Except this law doesn't do that, at all.

This law REQUIRES that a transgendered man -- genetically female, appearing male -- use a womens restroom.

It REQUIRES that a transgendered woman -- genetically male, appearing female -- use a men's restroom.

The anti-discrimination ordinance doesn't allow "some dude to walk in". It allows a transgendered woman to use the bathroom she feels safe in. You want to force her to use the men's bathroom, even though she's been on hormones and might be post-op, and think it would be safe for her in the men's room?

You want to force a transgendered man to use the women's bathroom? You think a genetically female person, who is on hormone therapy and has facial hair and dresses in men's clothes, would be welcome in the women's bathroom, and would feel comfortable and safe there?

By your own admission, your wife would object to the latter -- and threaten violence, in fact. You think that's sane or safe?

Wrong; the law removes the right of local governments to pass any anti-discrimination laws that are broader then the state.

The 'bathroom issue' is a smokescreen and a scare tactic used to hide the usual 'its okay to discriminate against gays because religious freedom' laws that are all the rage in the south these days.

As there are NO state laws protecting -- for instance -- employment or housing with regards to sexual orientation on the state level, and there were local laws, this explicitly removes those local protections.

Actually, the transgender / bathroom issue is real, but its used largely as a smokescreen for the fact that this law is, in fact, a direct attack on the LGBT community as a whole.

The law doesn't just mandate bathroom uses, but also removes the ability for any local government to pass any anti-discrimination legislation that is broader then the state definition (so much for small government). Specifically, laws against employment and housing discrimination of gay people.

In most places in the country, you can be fired for being gay. You can be denied an apartment because you're a lesbian. Only a few states actually include sexual orientation in the protected classes, even though polls repeatedly show most people think they're already protected. They aren't. A few communities, usually urban ones, are (with support of business interests) trying to add local protections.

And every time one of those communities does it in the south, suddenly the proponents of small and local government freak out and passes a state law taking away the local right to legislate the issue within their communities. NC is only the latest, and they did it using the bullshit 'protect the children from perverts' smokescreen argument around the Transgender bathroom issue.

There has been basically zero cases of men dressing up as women to try to get into a bathroom to assault women or girls. Rapists are going to rape and this won't protect anyone. Its a non-issue. Its a complete lie, a complete fabrication because while more and more people have friends and family members who are gay and are more and more finding it impossible to justify discrimination against the LGB community, Transgendered people are still relatively rare and the idea gender dysphoria is hard to relate to, so they're made easy targets.

But the laws that allow discrimination against them are -- every time -- broader then they're made out to be, and actually target the any community that might not be enshrined in the state law. Which is the entire LGBT community.

The 30-50% thing is a myth. Apple's most recent gross margin is something on the order of 25%. The iPhone has at times peaked in mid-30's. That's not 30% over 'market rates' (whatever that means), that's 30% over cost.

Having a margin in the 25% range is not at all unusual or excessive. Intel, Qualcomm and Cisco all have similar margins, and I found those with ten seconds of googling.

It hasn't really been about "them" getting anything for awhile now, is my perspective. There's a certain pile of cash and the lawyers want it and they'll get it (ahead of other creditors) by actively perusing lawsuit.

I just thought the pile ran out, but if that lawfirm filed again, clearly there's money somewhere they can grab.

This stopped being about anything but billable hours... years ago.

Apple's cut doesn't come from the merchant, it comes from the *bank*. The merchant gets the full amount. The bank pays the percentage in theory as payment to cut down on fraud.

Apple does solve problems, real problems that we hear about almost every month-- retailer X gets hacked and steals tens or hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers. Since Apple Pay transactions don't transfer the card number to the merchant, but instead a unique one time code, the merchant can't lose personal information it doesn't have.

Why do you think someone has to be charged first? You seem to have this very firm idea that its an absolute requirement that someone has to be charged before a court has jurisdiction over them.

They don't.

Search warrants happen all the time before someone is charged, they rely on a judge determining there's probable cause -- these happen BEFORE charges because they're how the initial evidence of the crime is gathered.

This is similar, though its not a search warrant and Apple is not a party to the actual criminal investigation (which makes this all a little bit weird). The authority for this order comes from the All Writ's Act. Its practically a blanket authorization of judicial orders covering anything that's not specifically covered by another area of law.

Its a horrible law, but was passed when the country was young and it hadn't fully developed all of its body of law yet, but whenever there's something novel that happens, the All Writ's Act gets invoked.

Its established in other law that third party companies have a responsibility to assist the executive in exercising its authority -- wire tapping, for example -- provided several tests are passed, such as it not being an undue burden. Apple argues, among other things, that this is an undue burden (and no talking about how rich they are matters: undue burden is a legal distinction that doesn't go away just because you can afford it). But, as with a telecom company and wire taps, no one has to be charged before the judicial order is made requiring the telecom to assist the executive in the wire tapping.

The thing is, that 'established in other law' is not only being stretched by the FBI here, but Congress specifically forbade the executive from mandating certain technological decisions that would lead to them being able to break digital encryption. So the FBI is citing the All Writ's Act to get the order, instead of relying on the CALEA, which specifically addresses what is legally required of companies in the form of assistance provided, and under what limitations such assistance operates under.

Twitter, being a private entity, can make whatever policies they want and kick anyone off for almost any reason. All these responses about BLAH CENSORSHIP and BLAH FIRST AMENDMENT and BLAH FREE SPEECH are nonsense. Twitter can set whatever content standards it wants.

That said, you have to be really careful when political speech is involved. Even if Trump really is violating their policies (I don't know he is, I just don't follow him because he's an idiot saying idiotic things), kicking him off might constitute an illegal campaign contribution to everyone else.

Political speech is a live wire they likely don't want to touch.

No, that's not true.

By making a DCMA claim, you're attesting under penalty of perjury that you own a right to whats being copied, or represent a rights holder, or otherwise have a right to make a claim. That's actionable if untrue. Just because its not usually acted upon -- that's a sad state of the imbalance of our legal system -- not the lack of a cause of action.

Now it requires someone else to actually fight it before it goes anywhere, and most DCMA claims end up in a kind of internet oblivion, but to make a claim is not -- in fact -- a zero liability action.

That's entirely different.

YouTube is hosting content, and they don't simply throw up their arms at all: they provide ample tools for rights holders to file DCMA claims and promptly disable content that is claimed, according to the obligations the DCMA sets upon them.

There is actually an opposite problem with Youtube: they accept dubious and wrong claims, which sucks, but from their POV they have to -- if someone puts in an incorrect DCMA claim on penalty of perjury, its on them in a court of law. But Google is a neutral party and has neither the right nor responsibility to judge these things.

So they readily take down content claimed infringing.

Google, the web search engine though? They aren't hosting content. They aren't providing content. SOmeone else is. They're indexing stuff, and to put on them the obligation for what is legal or not (that is hosted by someone else entirely) is a completely unfair burden.

I think you underestimate how many people this sort of thing stops. Yeah, it won't stop most techheads, but the inconvenience is enough to stop most people. Hell, most people don't even know you can turn off javascript. Most people don't even know what javascript is.

That's sufficient for their purposes, really. They can't stop everyone, no system is perfect, its enough for them to minimize it.