Star Wars is Kurosawa's Forbidden Fortress crossed with the Dambusters, Dune and Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Dune is Exodus crossed with Lawrence of Arabia. I agree with your definitions of infringement vs piracy.

Whenever someone says "you can't "own" an idea," I realized I'm communicating with a jealous retard who's incapable of creative product. In the example you give, were a flintknapper come up with a new way to knap flint arrows, he would be fed and supported by his community (effectively paid royalties) and the idea would not be shared with other tribes. He would, in essence, own the idea, until he could teach a worthy apprentice the same trick. If that idea were stolen by another tribe, it would be deemed a loss. If it were shared at a council, then an idea or other value would be expected in return. This is not to say the OP is a clear case one way or the other, or that there aren't issues with IP law. But one can, does, and for a long time have owned ideas. The only people who argue this want the benefit of others' creativity for their own selfish use, without offering value to the creator. Also, any cursory reading of history will show that IP, replacing patronage, led to an explosion in arts and sciences. But hey, feel free to live in your mythical stone age, if it's so wonderful.

More laws! That will fix the problem! Should this be a Commerce issue, Education, or FCC? We can have them kick in the doors at DC and seize all the comics. THAT'll teach those corporate fuckers!

It's called a "boycott." You'll probably study it when you get to 7th grade.

Seeing as this is the moron behind moron.org, excuse me, moveon.org, a group of lefticle trash who are running an 0:infinity track on accomplishing their political goals and predicting destruction of our precious bodily fluids if we don't all become socialists right now, I'm hardly going to click on the link. I'm sure he'd love it if we were all forced to see his opinion on everything, but yes, I'd enjoy a default parameter to exclude him, and support preferences that figure that out. I'm certainly interested in legitimate left commentary. But really, these are the extreme Anti-Fox, Anti-Tea Party, How Can We Dial Up The Idiocy To Another Level losers. I'm amazed anyone would waste bandwidth on them.

Next he'll get an award for transparency, in private.

.45 ACP is subsonic, and several rifles can be loaded with powerful subsonic loads, such as .500 Whisper. Or just use artillery or set off fucking bombs. Doesn't do them any good to detect a concussion wave at 3 atm overpressure.

Baen titles are $6, or all 6 titles for the month for $15. No DRM. Sharing encouraged. I suppose next you want them to pay you for your time downloading, right?;-)

http://www.gomorrahy.com/sin-of-gomorrah.htm

I don't see what the problem is. Your position is that people are entitled to my goods and labor without my consent for their own benefit. That's called slavery. Don't promote the fallacy that I "benefit" from it too. Slaves were given medical care and housing. If someone less dedicated or capable "Starves to death" (I challenge you to find a statistically relevant number of cases, and further to demonstrate that such people can survive without a guardian making decisions for them in any society), I'm not clear on how I am morally culpable. You've a tautology that the state is entitled to whatever amount of my goods and labor it deems appropriate, and I am selfish to refuse. I offer a counter. I desire to perform anal sex on someone. Please provide me with a recipient.

Have you compared accident rates in the US to say, Germany? Might want to rethink that statement. I've seen as many, if not more, bad drivers with sticks than autos.

If you have to "pound frantically for a nonexistent clutch (and sometimes hit the brake...)" I guess you're not as good a driver as you think you are. Speaking as someone who's driven stick construction equipment, military trucks, semis, little Toyotas in the Middle East, US, Brit and Canadian manuals, and automatic combat vehicles, construction equipment and American cars. There are a small number of advantages to sticks. Automatics are superior in all other regards. If you really think you need to change gears, you just adjust revs accordingly...and as to the previous poster, if he can't get an auto to accelerate fast enough to avoid being hit in traffic, he should probably let someone else drive, before he gets squashed.

Like my friends the biochemists and physicists?

Congrats on picking DDT, the marketing myth that has killed millions of people.

No, the cake is pi.