The New York Times article states that Amazon collects sales tax in the four states (Washington State, North Dakota, Kentucky and Kansas) in which it has presence that legally requires them to collect sales tax. It has offices in other states, but due to the nature of these offices, amazon is not required to collect taxes in these states.

So, basically, the NYT is saying that Amazon should go above and beyond its legal obligations and pay more taxes for the hell of it. I somehow don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps those states with unbalanced budgets that could benefit from Amazon paying additional taxes should start enforcing their existing use tax laws?

I would have to disagree that there is no creation involved in the performance of music. Without a performer, music is simply marks on a page. The performer takes the written music and translates it into sound, adding many interperative nuances, such as slight changes to tempo, dynamics, etc.

I'm not at all saying that the composer is unimporant, just that there is an opportuntity for creativity for both composer and performer in the creation of music. Otherwise, copyrights on performance would make no sense. (Granted, there are some who think they make no sense anyway :P)

I don't think volume really factors into the heat death situation. As long as there's a finite and fixed amount of energy in the universe, a fixed amount of entropy is required to cause heat death. Now, I haven't read that much on heat death, so I could be quite wrong. I hope someone will correct me if so.

Well, considering that an intranet is just another name for an internet that isn't accesible directly from the Internet (do notice the capitalization), that's a bit redundant. Coinsidering it was the only internet around, I'd say it was probably the beginning of the Internet.

Because promoting open source is such a nefarious agenda...