Telling me your opinion of what I should have done is still telling me what I should have done, because you telling me what I should have done is only ever going to be your opinion.

Nowhere did I say you didn't have the right to express your opinion. I was simply pointing out the irony of you telling me me what I should have said in the same article where you admit that telling other people what they should or should not do or say is beyond your control.

Maybe that's why I said the following in what you replied to?

The only issue would be where the money goes, not that Amazon got a TLD of its own. Who makes a profit from ICANN domain sales?

The issue seemed to be that Amazon was getting a TLD and ending competition and nobody else had any chance anymore. That's what the people I replied to complained about. Not the "free money machine".

No, I don't. It's not like there is only one and Amazon got it. There are a large number already and more will be created in the future.

So what if you can't get a domain in the .buy TLD? Big deal. The only issue would be where the money goes, not that Amazon got a TLD of its own. Who makes a profit from ICANN domain sales?

Yeah, if I'm not all doom and gloom about one TLD, that didn't exist yesterday so already had no registrations, not allowing you to register a name tomorrow, it must be my problem and not one of chicken little's.

What is your problem? You couldn't have a domain name under .buy yesterday, you won't be able to get one tomorrow. What's the big difference? What's changed?

Yeah, because it isn't like anyone can go get a domain name in some other TLD and still have a viable and active web presence or anything. It's over. The Internet belongs to Jeff Bezos. Film at 11.

Just as you admit that controlling what other people do or think is seldom within one's ability, so is telling other people what points they should be making and how broadly they ought to discuss things.

My point is, and remains, that the concept of "actually fixing the problems of discrimination, abuse and violence" (the part I quoted) requires telling other people how to think and behave. It also requires a correct definition of "discrimination, abuse and violence", and one worker telling a blond joke within earshot of a woman just doesn't reach that level. Sending 50 people to a class to learn how not to "discriminate, abuse or be violent" when they aren't doing that to start with is still a waste of everyone's time. Sending them to a class to learn how not to violate some law that has ridiculous definitions of "discrimination, abuse and violence" is only slightly less a waste of time.

There are a large number of people in the US who care very much if the companies they deal with have corporate offices in the US so they will be paying US business taxes on money they make by selling things in the US. Burger King has a lot of people angry because it bought Tim Horton's and it was claimed that they were moving their corporate HQ to Canada to avoid US taxes. Several other companies are doing the same thing, and our President has said he's going to stop this if the congress doesn't.

So, perhaps, the Canadian government has a vested interest in knowing how may of Netflix' customers are in Canada so they know if Netflix is paying the right amount of Canadian taxes on the money they make from Canadian services?

Netflix neither knows nor cares what is good or bad, they're in the business of selling people what people will pay to see.

Those laws were created a long time ago when Canada was pushing back against the USification of broadcast television content. It has nothing to do with trying to force Canadians to consume Canadian made stuff.

I, for one, am glad those laws exist, because it promoted the creation of shows like SCTV (not the SCTV New York dreck) and "You Can't Do That On Television". Gosh I miss Moose. And even Barth.

Of course. This is obvious. Horrible things are bad. The problem comes in defining what is horrible.

If you think what someone is doing is horrible but they don't, then saying "you love doing horrible things" is a lie. They don't love doing horrible things and they aren't doing anything horrible -- in their definition of horrible. It is a complete waste of time to argue on that level. If the first statement out of your mouth when trying to get someone to change their behavior is obviously (to them) a lie, they have no reason to listen to anything else you say.

So, in this context, the question that includes "comments about physical beauty" and even "cognitive gender differences" in the category "sexual assault or harassment", and then reports that 71% of women report being sexually assaulted or harassed, is a dishonest question. I.e., a lie. Some percentage of those answering the question yes will have experienced the horrible and terrifying situation of a coworker telling them they're nicely dressed or wearing pretty earrings. Or they may have seen a copy of the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" on someone's desk. Or, if a man, they'll have looked inside any copy of Elle or Vogue or Cosmo.

As one gets older, or if one obtains the help of any 12 step program, you learn that you have very little control over what other people do or think. Most of the efforts to fix these problems are a waste of energy. Sending 50 people to a workplace sexual harassment prevention seminar for the day will waste the time of all fifty people. It accomplishes two things: it satisfies legal requirements for such "training" to have been given, and it provides a better basis for firing someone who is actually causing a problem. Of course it doesn't look so good if the actual problem is counseled privately the first time and then fired the second, so 49 people have to be told not to do "horrible things" in the workplace when they are already not doing horrible things. But that seminar didn't fix anything.

I love lying to survey takers. If someone wants to waste my time asking me stupid questions, I'll waste his with stupid answers.

I especially love lying to push-pollers. "Why yes, I do favor a candidate who eats babies and pours toxic chemicals down his toilet. What I can't stand are politicians who write federal legislation exempting politicians from the do-no-call list."

That's because they aren't true roundabouts and aren't treated as such legally.

We had one in our town. I treated it as a roundabout. I got a ticket for failing to yield to someone who was waiting to enter from a street to my right. That's right -- traffic in the circle was expected to yield to traffic waiting to enter the circle.

All of that being true, there is still no "right to know" when applied to "everything that everyone in the government knows". For example, there is no "right to know" that the ambassador from some certain country is a dick and the best way to deal with him is to scratch his back a lot before asking for anything. What do you learn from that, and what does it benefit you to know? On the other hand, the idea that he's a dick is really counterproductive to future negotiations but is good to know so those negotiations can be productive.

And that kind of information is some of the really secret stuff that we all had a "right to know" from the Wikileaks documents.

You're really trying to argue that government run competition is how you create a "free market"? Really?

No, it just shows that when you remove the requirement for prices to cover costs and yield a profit, governments can do what private companies cannot. If the existing telecom could cover any operating losses by just dipping into the taxpayer general fund, you'd see prices go way down -- covered by taxes, of course.

And that is what makes government competing with existing private companies wrong. It isn't fair in any sense of the word, and the private companies, even if the courts say they are free to compete if they want to, have no way they'll make any return on their investment. I mean, existing markets are already defacto monopolies (not dejure) because even in major markets the density of consumers is too low to support two systems in direct head to head competition. If both TW and Comcast could make a profit operating in the same markets, they would. They'd both get franchises and both run physical plant and you'd have a choice.

Those gullible Canadians, buying 550 metric tons of non-existant yellow cake.

Ok.

That's what happens when you announce to the world the date that you're going to pull your troops out of a country where you're trying to help the government restore some semblance of order. All the opponents have to do is go into hiding, planning for the day when you leave. They have no reason to surrender if they know they're going to win on a certain preset day.

Actually, no it isn't. It is a description for a group of people that actually defines group membership.

A stereotype would be to say that liberals are all politically correct, professionally offended people. You see how that works? A group defined by some other property is claimed to have another potentially unrelated property assigned to it.

For another example, there is a group of people who play online or video games, called "gamers". To then say that "gamers are misogynists" would be stereotyping.