Huh? The whole purpose of the Constitution is to protect rights. The whole idea of the Bill of Rights was to restrict the powers of government. Today, the government gives rights, and what the government giveth, government can taketh away. But don't confuse current situation from the original intent. If you go back and read the Bill of Rights, they are very carefully worded. "Congress shall make no law" or something like that. Not "you have the right to do this and that." Huge difference, but unfortunately irrelevant today with our plutocracy.

I believe that is quite possible. When you play his recording backwards, I'd swear I hear Edison saying "worship the devil!" I could be hearing things, but you never know . . .

As humans, aren't we a little too hard on ourselves? First, we criticize ourselves for cutting down trees. Then, we criticize ourselves for global warming. Now, we criticize ourselves because our poops suck? Sheesh. When will it end?

One of the features of open source/software freedom, is to benefit the users, not the corporations. Red Hat often commented that they turned a multi-billion dollar industry into a multi-million dollar one. Why no billion dollar open source companies? Because users are cutting costs, competition is rising with more players, and there is less gouging going on. From a non-software corporation point of view, that's a good thing.

There are several reasons to do such research: 1. Be able to publish a paper and make a name for yourself. 2. Make policies so you can stand behind some meaningless principle that you can con others into believing and supporting your (political power). 3. Make money with the grants you get from such studies. 4. Get on good terms with your deity. In summary: gold, glory, and god. If we can learn something about human behavior, that may be an interesting side effect.

On the Family Guy, Peter thought he was a genius and played trivial pursuit with Brian. Peter asked Brian the question, and Brian answered "Cadmium?" Peter's response was "No. Tungsten, dumbass," as if that was an obvious answer. I'm disappointed that no one saw or remembered that scene, but I'm MORE disappointed that I actually do.

What naturally occurring substance has the highest known melting point? Answer: Cadmium?

Maybe. For example, if the requirement was to upgrade all RHEL to all bids for the next RHEL version with trademarks in place, then yes. Up in arms. If requirement was upgrade to any GNU/Linux: Novell, RHEL, Oracle (he he he), Ubuntu, CentOs with support of local firm, then no. The concept is competition. Yes, I understand the comparison in this context doesn't fit perfectly, but any time I can be unfair to a corporation, I'll jump at it.

This was the model for creative art for hundreds of years. There were patrons, who sponsored commission on a work. Afterwards, the patron owned the work, but the rest of the world got to appreciate it. In other words, the patron could use it for whatever purpose they wanted, but the rest of the world could only use it for viewing (modern equivalent of non-commercial purposes imo). The flaw in using this model in the modern era, is that neither group can make sick money. Honest living, yes. Sick money, no.

Also on the upside, I can start printing facts like "I am a liar and a cheat." So if someone calls me that, I can sue for copyright infringement, which is worth millions, and I can also call the FBI to assist in prosecution!

Hey, now that's just fighting words. That was my favorite movie. Yeah, and what of it! No, seriously, it was.

Not quite, although I can see where you got that from. What I am saying is that a system open to blatant corruption is a broken system. We can obviously differ on definitions of "blatant corruption." My opinion, the patent system is open to "blatant corruption" to the extreme. Ergo, the patent system is broken.

Excellent, car analogies. I am not arguing the theory of patents with you, only the implementation. If there were no rules on roads regarding direction of flow, stop signs/lights, speed, etc, people can still drive carefully and avoid accidents. But that is just not a reasonable expectation. Therefore, we need to make rules and enforce them. Otherwise, the system would be broken: open to blatant corruption . . . "because most people drive like assholes." People still break the laws and drive like assholes, but the system doesn't seem broken in this case. At least, not according to my view of "blatant corruption." Boy, I sure like those quotes, don't I?

Isn't that the basis of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument? If a system exists where people are going to break it, and requires that people will play nice to each other, then I think the system truly IS broken. Because you just can't expect people to naturally play nice, and not game the system.

With regard to your earlier post, eliminating patents would screw over the honest patent appliers. Status quo screws over everyone.

Several solutions, but the most obvious would be to upgrade to wife 2.0+.

100% agree. In a free society (not saying we have one in the US, just in theory), the default should be to protect freedom and prevent monopolies, unless there is some overwhelming reason to otherwise limit this freedom. In the US, and much of the world, we forgot that somewhere along the line.