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Comment Re:Coporate Influence (Score 3, Informative) 530

Actually, public universities have very little power to restrict student speech on campus. See, for example, Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, where the Supreme Court required the University to fund a Christian magazine on the same basis it funded student-run secular magazines. Just a few years before that happened, the University tried to defund a conservative magazine. The argument was that commenting on the activities of NOW and other liberal organizations was an inappropriate "political" use of student activity funds; no one seemed take into account that the activities being commented on were funded by those same fees. That one didn't go to court, because of a media storm.

The fact that the students are in some sense "using" state-funded resources doesn't really provide a constitutional basis to restrict their private speech. If resource are made available for private student speech, a public university has very little leeway to favor one viewpoint over another--and this includes attempts to exclude entire topics in a supposedly neutral manner. This error has been repeated quite often in this thread, and it's one reason organizations like FIRE are needed: the public is woefully uneducated on this issue. For example, if a public university allows students to hand out flyers on the quad as a general matter, they can't really control the content of those flyers. And if they restrict the flyers to "official" university functions, they have to ensure that the definition of official is precise and hat they don't allow exceptions.

Comment Re:Fair enough I suppose (Score 1) 196

What First Amendment challenge? Since when does the First Amendment oblige the school to give the reporter credentials? Methinks you have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. You do realize that getting credentials is a privilege and not a right, correct?

If that "privilege" is conditioned (by a state institution like a public university) on the content of the coverage, it would absolutely be a First Amendment violation. if the reporter could prove that the reason for denial of press credentials is the content of his reporting, he would win if he brought suit. It's not even a close question on the law; it's proving the necessary facts that might cause problems for such a plaintiff.

In this case, it's a closer question of law. On its face, the restriction is content neutral, and would probably be judged as a time-place-manner speech restriction. Those can be upheld, but they're typically upheld when the speech itself impinges on an important state interest. For example, amplified sound in the park interferes with the state's purpose of allowing citizens quiet enjoyment of the park. As long as the ban on amplified sound is content neutral, both on its face and in the manner in which it is enforced, such a restriction would probably be upheld. In this case, I think it would come down to whether the court judges the revenue from contracted media to be an important enough state interest to warrant such protection.

It's also possible that the court could view this as non-content-neutral, assuming it doesn't apply to tweets about things other than the ongoing event. Such a restriction would receive strict scrutiny, and likely be struck down because the state is conditioning privileges on a requirement that a reporter not engage in protected speech (which a tweet during a basketball game is).

I think the time-place-manner analysis is more likely, but I'd have to do some case research to be sure.

Comment Re:Enlighten me (Score 1) 217

The judge laid out his reasoning about why the additions were false and misleading in the opinion. Rather than just call him wrong, and accuse him of "pretending," how about you provide some reasoning, analysis, or evidence that he was wrong. Otherwise, we're left with a bunch of facts and reasoning laid out in a logical fashion on one side, and some guy on the internet saying "Nuh uh!" on the other.

Comment Re:State gone Mad (Score 1) 383

The market this product as a toy for children.

Wrong tense. They used to market this product as a toy for children. That recall you mentioned in your post? Guess what that was for: "The high powered magnets sets were labeled 'Ages 13+' and do not meet the mandatory toy standard ... which requires that such powerful magnets are not sold for children under 14." Oh, and the recall itself mentions that this was in the past: "Since March 2010, Buckyballs® high powered magnets sets were labeled 'Keep Away From All Children' and are not being recalled."

Comment Re:Sounds more like a slam against Penn State admi (Score 3, Informative) 371

Defamation is a broad category that includes libel and slander. Libel is defamation that occurs in a persistent form; slander is defamation that occurs in a transitory form.

According to the complaint, Mann is suing for five counts of libel and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Comment Re:Someone forgot to tell these guys (Score 1) 315

Nothing about this decay was ever described as non-linear. By their measure, it would be gone in 1042 years, maybe less. If say there is a fixed number of enzymes and they can destroy a fixed number of bonds per year, it would be linear.

The term "half-life" is inherently non-linear. It is a means of measuring exponential decay. And it seems it was used correctly (that is, to describe non-linear decay)in the article: "That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on."

Comment Re:Wrong. Free Software is the fundation of the 'n (Score 1) 362

You switch from Free (as in speech) to free (as in beer) halfway through your post, greatly weakening your point. The creation of all of that software was not free. It was, in fact, very expensive. People paid for it for various reasons: altruism, idealism, and, yes, to make a profit. Not to mention that the physical infrastructure, without which none of that software would matter, was (and is) very, very costly.

That's not to say I agree with ITIF's statement regarding DNT. DNT requests should be honored (although I don't think sites should be forced to serve those who select DNT). But I have no problem with sites advertising. In fact, I'm glad of it, because it means I've got access to Google, Slashdot, the Washington Post, many webcomics, and hundreds of other sites that probably would not exist otherwise.

I'm glad other sites can get by without advertising. Wikipedia survives on donations and not advertising (except for the self-advertising on the site), and so do a couple of my other daily-read sites. But I'd lose access to a lot of information without web ads.

Comment Re:Congress (Score 2) 379

You haven't given a single example of that or refuted any of the supporting examples I gave.

You didn't actually give any examples. you made a bunch of assertions of general powers Congress has allegedly usurped, but not one example of situations where these alleged usurpations limited presidential power beyond what it used to be. And the examples you've given now are ridiculous:

If Congress passed a law George Washington had unilateral authority with regard to it's execution and only a new law, the judicial, or the people via jury nullification could change his actions.

Simply not true.

Today if he didn't do what a handful of congressmen in an oversight committee wanted checks would bounce the next day.

Also not true. To change funding, Congress would have to either pass a new law, or wait for appropriations to expire and then not re-appropriate funding. And Congress would have to act as a whole. SCOTUS has consistently ruled that Congress cannot authorize subsets of itself to exercise powers delegated to Congress as a whole. See INS v. Chadha for a concrete example.

Further, in your first post that I responded to, you mentioned Congress's making funding renewable as if it were something new. It's not. Most appropriations since the Constitution was enacted have had expiration dates.

Comment Re:You forgot the IANAL (Score 2) 379

Yes, the chief justice's portion of the opinion (which no other justice joined) limited the commerce clause. It's unclear whether that part of the opinion will be viewed as dicta or binding precedent by the courts; strong arguments have been made both ways. But it doesn't really matter in a practical sense, because the clearly binding portion of the opinion of the court gave Congress a blueprint on how to enact commerce mandates within the bounds of the constitution. And because that power was derived from the taxing power, it's actually not just limited to interstate commerce.

Comment Re:Congress (Score 1) 379

Are you seriously arguing that "all power held by the executive branch" has been eliminated? Even allowing for hyperbole in the word "all," it's hard to make the case that presidential power has lessened in any way. Presidential power is pretty much at its height. Except for maybe two presidential terms,* presidential power has increased since 1933 pretty much continuously, starting with the rise of the regulatory state (which has expanded under both parties) and expanding throughout WWII, the cold war, and its associated armed conflicts (also expanding under both parties).

*There was probably less power at the end of the 1973-77 term (Nixon/Ford) than at the start, due to Watergate, and it's possible presidential power didn't grow under Carter, depending on how you measure it. Even Carter effectively ended the building of nuclear power plants.

Comment Re:It's saying "WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" (Score 1) 1080

It's saying exactly what I said it says. "I'm going to use incandescents and get around the restriction because government told me I shouldn't.

No, it does not say "because government told me I shouldn't." It says, in effect, "the government told me I shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway." It doesn't actually say why.

(PS I notice you fail to give a reason other than that)

So? I'm not going to engage in the mind-reading you seem to be so fond of. I don't know why he doesn't want to give up incandescents. Other people have given various reasons here, some of which I find to be convincing, some of which I don't. Some people have disagreed with those reasons, or explained why the factual premises underlying those reasons are wrong. Some people have posted explanations in response to those explanations. Some people - me included - have sought information about non-incandescent light bulbs in order to see if they might work adequately in their situation. You know, having an actual discussion.

For some reason, I think that's better than calling people twats, attributing immature motives to people who don't act the way you want them to, and calling them babies.

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