Perhaps if she took it a step further and superimposed an image big rubber stamp saying "void" or "this guy sucks" over his comment, she would be "appropriating" just as much as he is, as demonstrably proven by the past court case(s) against him therefore citing his previous cases as defense, he absolutely can't sue her.

But then what of the original works? If I were her I probably would be litigating because unlike his previous case where he modified (somewhat) the original image, he hasn't really done dick to "transform" anything except add his comment and print it out.

But that's just my opinion.

damnit ./ stop stripping stuff.

(bad texas accent) But nothin'... quit stutterin', boy, people'll think yewr stoopid (/bad texas accent)

Hmm. That first sentance was supposed to have a funny tag around it. Let's try that again:

  But nothin'... quit stutterin', boy, people'll think yewr stoopid

But nothin'... quit stutterin', boy, people'll think yewr stoopid

If you read my post at all, you'd see I am also not in favour of student loans. Universities should be publicly funded and available to any citizen/resident or at the very least the student should be able to fund their education and living expenses with a part-time job.

This whole idea of student loans is stupid and supports this whole obsession America has with credit and going in to debt to get stuff - top, middle and bottom all suffer from this same thing.

So basically you didn't read my post at all. Try replying to what I actually wrote and only then can we have a coherent discussion.

Again, for you, but as we have identified in other posts, your situation is an anomaly.

Secondly, the choice between DSL and cable isn't really choice.

Besides that, for the vast majority of subscribers, only one of those options actually offers (properly) high speeds -- and in a significant portion of cases the DSL on offer barely squeaks above the *old* definition of broadband.

So yes, there is a problem.

But it's also noteworthy that you've neglected to reply to my replies to other comments, just this and one other ;)

Publicly funded healthcare works when the healthcare PROVIDERS aren't charging the insurance (private OR public) 3 or 5 times the actual price of the service. I was talking to a guy just last night who told me that paying for his surgery was "only" about $70k compared to the $300k they would have charged his insurance (and he'd still have been stuck with 20% of that).

I'm not talking about subsidizing student loans - getting an education shouldn't require a massive student loan, subsidized or not, nor should it require parents to start a college fund the day they get the positive pregnancy test. Students should be able to afford to pay for university and their living expenses by themselves with *at most* a part-time job and come out of it without any significant debt - like it used to be in the US and still is in some other countries.

In the US, both of these things though seem to be the "free market" at work - providers of education and health are charging whatever the hell they want, and in both cases are charging amounts that are inflationary, exploitative and far beyond reason - as we already know, per capita spending on both of these things in the US is far higher than anywhere else yet the quality/outcome is far lower by comparison.

Having private education and healthcare for those who can afford it and want the extra perks (Ivy League universities, for example) but to deny those who can't afford it *any* option whatsoever (ie, no university or healthcare for you, poor person!) is not.

The average student shouldn't *have* to rely on scholarships and/or student loans just to pay for their degree even at random-state-U, but should have the option to apply for those things if they want to go for something specific.

Then you need to figure out another way because the "free market" isn't working.

and/or the incumbent would probably sue the newcomer for anything and everything, so the newcomer would have to have very deep pockets to get anywhere.

Now you're starting to make some sense.

1 pipe (who you don't deal with), multiple retailers (who you do deal with).

So long as said infrastructure provider is sufficiently regulated in that they can't charge $500/mo for access to the pipes, you might be on to something ;)

In your neighbourhood, perhaps. But as mentioned in a previous post, your situation is an anomaly and as a result, you are enjoying something 90+% of the rest of the country does not have.

This is ***probably*** due to citizen objections rather than government... kind of a NIMBY/DON'T INCONVENIENCE ME!!!!/Environmentalist etc deal.

This is what happens when politicians don't stand up to those people who are blocking genuinely important/beneficial projects and say "this is for your own good, like it or fuck off".

Unfortunately, it's when that attitude permeates the thinking of projects for the greedy/power hungry types (NSA, TSA, etc - name your poison) that such thinking is problematic.

Government things aren't really *meant* to turn a profit, but when they do, you seem to get some sort of refund sometime in late April or early May. The thing about government projects - unlike private projects - is that they're meant to serve everybody, so they average things out, so while *YOU* might pay 10 cents more a month on your Internet bill, someone 10 miles out of town can now get the same services at the same speeds for the same price as you can... and cities like Seattle can finally feel what it's like to have Broadband.

Then learn to deal with paying more than 1.5% tax (as recent filings of certain normal everyday individuals I know recently revealed their effective rate to be) and not getting massive multiple-thousand-dollar refunds every year.

There's nothing really wrong with higher taxes when it benefits the people... Maybe if your taxes were a bit more reasonable (and you slowed down on all the war stuff), your infrastructure might not be decaying, you could afford to pay teachers properly, water would be free and clean, and I wouldn't be paying $14 a month to the city separately for garbage collection.

What, like subsidized healthcare and education which actually benefits the citizens of the country?

To each their own, I suppose, but some things just stink of a ripoff.

Anecdote: I wanted to get a prescription for some basic antibiotics recently (precautionary). Walk-in doctor wanted $200-something before they'd even take a look plus $some unknown amount for the medication. Bugger that - I'd have rather spent the money on a trip to Panama (they give you a health card at the border, even as a tourist) and got taken care of there.

Now imagine if I wanted something more than just that - because insurance doesn't usually cover precautionary stuff: do I put up with the skyrocketing costs in the US or go somewhere that doesn't try to bankrupt you for getting sick? I think the latter. (Obviously, there's a reason my travel insurance used to cost me 2.5x as much per day when the US was on my itinerary as compared to anywhere else in the world - even places like Iraq and others ending in "stan").

Almost everything you cite is something that doesn't directly sell services to the people.

As someone who comes from a country (New Zealand) where when I was in high school we used to ENVY you Americans with your >1 megabit cable but which now has an very well regulated telecom sector with a single infrastructure provider for most of the country who is building a nationwide fiber network which is actually doing what was promised AND where the majority of consumers in the country have a choice of 30+ ISPs who compete on price, customer service and various other value features rather than "we own this territory", I can say with reasonable certainty that you are demonstrably wrong and as such, I cannot "trust you" -- especially considering where I live now (Illinois) and the options available to me in the states I'm looking at moving to (somewhere on the east-coast).

The problem is that your situation is an anomaly. The vast majority of the country does not enjoy the choice you have.

I consider myself fairly lucky to live where I do - I get reasonable speeds at reasonable prices, however, I'm looking to move to another state in a few months and one of the significant deciding factors as to where I'll live is based on which provider(s) is/are in the area, and I'm not having much fun trying to make this decision. I may actually end up living in an "out of the way" place or worse neighbourhood JUST because the Internet provider in that area is better than another more convenient place.

Which is completely stupid - I shouldn't have to do that. I would rather have a choice of several retail providers no matter who has the physical cables running in to the house.