Also, it seems to me that making rulings in order to achieve desired social outcomes rather than based on reasonable interpretations of the law undermines the rule of law.

If certain actions criminalize a religion without just cause (i.e. the criminalized set of acts is representative of a harmless behavior, or a set of non-criminal acts that only happen under this religion in this way)

It seems to me that if a reasonable interpretation of a law leads to negative unintended consequences, it then becomes the legislative branch's duty to rectify it, not the judicial branch's. Creating an incoherent ruling merely to achieve a desired social outcome severely undercuts the separation of powers, it seems to me.

Regardless of the clever implementation, Aereo behaved like a subscription cable service. How it collected and stored programming was not relevant to this.

Appearances can deceive: The elephant bird may have looked like an ostrich but it's not related to ostriches. It's actually related to kiwis.

From the article: "Launched a year ago in New York and then extended to 10 other U.S. cities, it allows customers to watch over-the-air TV programs on a smartphone, tablet, or computer for as little as $8 a month."

Here's how Aereo [works | worked]. Redirecting a free over-the-air product over the web is a clever idea. It would seem to me that it would give advertisers a broader reach.

I don't think this tech is going to go away. This ruling merely consolidates the power of the existing media companies over the broadcast medium. Which, in my opinion, is regrettable. They already have too much power IMO.

He's not: "As Stephen Breyer, one of the Supreme Court justices, said in this week’s hearing, “What disturbs me is I don’t understand what the decision for you or against you is going to do to all kinds of other technologies.”

It seems to me that judges should be ruling based on the law, not perceived ancillary social influences. That's why we have three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. Legislative makes the law, and judicial merely determines if actions are legal or not legal? Quaint, no?

We imposed term limits to prevent an imperial presidency.

We did nothing to limit an imperial congress.

So - I really like the idea of the PAC. I want to contribute. BUT, I don't want to undermine my other causes.

Question: Will this PAC be promoting both liberal and conservative politicians who advocate this one very important issue? The mayday.us website says 5 races will be targeted. What races and why those particular races?

Example:
Politician A is "wrong" on every issue but campaign finance reform.
Politician B is "right" on every issue but wrong on campaign finance reform.

How can someone like me - who believes the current campaign finance system is a rot at the heart of our democracy, but also has to balance this issue with other important issues - how can my concerns be assuaged?

It is amazing to me that politicians can take money from people and businesses with the expectation of favors in return.

This is perfectly legal. It is nothing but legalized bribery.

From a recent article on a court case which further loosened campaign finance restrictions: "For the donors, they really prefer to cut the vast number of checks,” he said. “For them, it’s not about giving money, it’s about building a relationship. You’re not going to get any face time, they’re not going to hear your story.” Individual donors want to feel gratitude from the candidate — legal, “completely non-corrupting gratitude,” Backer hastened to note."

Politicians shake down big donors. Big donors try to influence politicians. It's a symbiotic relationship. What's lost are the interests of the populace. Granted, those interests can be varied, in direct conflict and not monolithic. But the politician's incentives - while always self centered of course, they're only people - should be more aligned with the public interest rather than merely with the interest of a few large donors.

I discovered the big problem in American business today: Executives can make big money by running a company aground. Enough money so that their grandchildren won't have to work.

Greenspan thought companies would self regulate. His mistake was subtle: He assumed that the leadership of the company needed the company to be healthy in order for the executives to prosper. But a new pattern emerged: executives could engage in behavior which could yield a multiple-lifetime supply of wealth by engaging in practices which ultimately destroyed the company.

And that's what happened to the financial sector in the US. And doubtless other companies which yield this particular prize.

I don't know what the common underlying reason is but this is the common symptom - being able to make the Big Score by running a company aground.

It started last summer, when patent trolls started messing with one of the biggest political donors of all time - the National Association of Realtors.

If you take a look at Patrick Leahy's donors, you can see real estate is down the list.

Summary - this issue got before Congress only when the NAR was bitten by it. I don't the issue is dead, not by a long shot. The NAR has deep connections in government and unless they somehow get the issue to go away for them personally, anti-patent troll legislation is likely to come back. Perhaps more quietly next time.

You can walk away for any reason and they can let you go for almost any reason. Being fired/laid off is a bitter pill... but impulse control keeps you out of jail. And it's the other side of being able to walk away at any time.

"Natural Monopolies" are an economic concept. These are industries in which the barriers to entry are so high that new competitors are blocked from entering. Infrastructure is commonly cited - power lines, power stations, the last mile infrastructure. The same goes for most infrastructure - telephone lines, cable lines, oil and gas pipelines, railroads.

So, there's no way to let customers vote with their feet in natural monopolies. There are no competitors. Hence the need for regulation to avoid the problem of monopolies, which is "monopoly pricing."

Say there's a pesky blog that keeps posting pointed, critical commentary at NBC-Comcast or at a cause they support. If you allow prioritizing of data, shockingly, that site's traffic might receive the lowest priority possible, or intermittent blockage. The Internet is the last bastion of the free flow of ideas. That should be protected, strongly. Because if there's an opportunity to abuse the privilege of prioritizing data, in order to increase profit or stifle dissenting voices, it most assuredly will be abused.

Here is an informative 3 minute video highlighting some of the ways to abuse data prioritization.

Also: No maintenance for Excel files other than backing them up, i.e. copying them to thumb drives or DVDs. Access files get corrupted and need to be recovered. Servers have to be rebooted and client-server databases have to be backed up.

I've created a several Access applications, plus several LAMP-based Internet applications. I've interfaced a lot with non-technical people. They don't GET databases. They don't understand normalization or foreign keys or indexes. They don't understand SQL or joins. It's not their area of expertise. They do the actual work of the charity or the company so I'm not in the least bashing them - but they just don't understand databases.

My experience is that after brief training, they'll get spreadsheets. They understand tables very quickly and easily. Explain to them the concept of worksheets. And there's no complexity in opening an Excel file. You just double-click and you are immediately there, looking at the data. Heck, with some thoughtful use of the individual worksheets in an Excel file, you can even get a hint of normalization. Like putting different geographical regions in different worksheets in a single workbook. Having multiple Excel files (workbooks) for different larger groups. People kind of naturally understand that tree-like data structure.

Many people think Access is a toy. But it's still a database and it uses database concepts and SQL. And that is beyond the ken of non-technical types. Spreadsheets are simply much more understandable to them. And ultimately - much more maintainable. And maintainability and understandability is the key here. The charity is going to be here, on the ground, doing their work, long after you've moved back to the States.

There is a fraction of the learning curve with spreadsheets than there is with any relational database, regardless of whether it's a file-based system or a client-server system.

FYI, here are the Excel load limits.

You have big players on either side of this, but the big communication companies have probably donated much more to politicians. AT&T is the 4th largest donor to federal politicians over the period 1989-2012, for example. Also, the big communications companies got their man on the inside as the head of the FCC. These rules could go through, and it'll start driving prices up, but by then, the voting public won't make the connection between any politician and rising prices or worse service. Most people don't understand what net neutrality is.

Net result: Keeps the big donors happy, very little or no voting consequence, especially with responsibility plausibly divided between both parties.