This was the whole point with the NDAA too.... when you allow someone to decide that a person can be denied a trial indefinitely because the president said the magic word "Terrorist" then; in point of fact, nobody had any rights at all except the President anymore.

If you are denied your right to face your accusations in court and state your case, then you have no rights at all. If a man can decide when the law applies and when it doesn't, then the law is, in fact, not the highest power in the land and....its all a pack of lies.

Oh was that one of the races in morrowind? I never played that one; Gygax was their leader?

In my skyrim playthrough I chose "Dark Elf" because it sounded cool. Only problem is, the dark elves have little representation throughout Skyrim and most groups are prejudiced against them. Everywhere I went was a bunch of racist Nords and asshole Thalmor

Pretty quickly I came to the opinion that the main factions were a bunch of racist assholes and I had no horse in their race (a metaphor for real elections), and really just hoped for as bloody a battle as possible between them both.

After a while I started to identify with that part of the character, to the point that it did effect the choices I made in the game. It really is a powerful disincentive to know you are dealing with someone who sees you right off the bad as not their equal.

I am ok with that. Now I propose YOU are also an undocumented immigrant.
Sure we could go to trial and give you a chance to prove otherwise, but, if we just deport you instead then we don't have to bother going through all that.

Or you know...the police could do the job they are paid to do and do the fucking paperwork...and if they can't convince a court....they can move the fuck on and remain within the law....you know, since they take a paycheck to do that.

That is, unless you are the police. Sure, they may see evidence tossed in a case they spent time on, but that is the absolute extent of it.

It doesn't matter if someones rights have been violated, lives turned upside down, the police know they will NEVER be held to account.

Unless there is something particularly distracting about them....like a perceptable lag, then I don't see how being able to see more of whats around you can be overload. I am already used to looking at a scene that includes the sky, trees, and a whole mess of information beyond what I strictly need....hell, half the road is generally irrelevant as long as everybody is doing their job.

OTOH at night, screens emit light, so what it will do is light up the inside of the car making occupants more visible than they would be during the day, and possibly more visible than the pedestrian outside the car, I almost wonder if more accidents wont be saved by calling up the attention of pedestrians to the car than the other way around.

> Man, I don't deceive myself into thinking I 'deserve' to consume whatever some artist makes.

Perhaps cave paintings should then be scoured off out of respect for the artists whose hard work is being used by others for free.

> Secondly, if copyright were actually set to 14 years like you propose, the main ones who would benefit would
> be giant corporations. Would Disney pay for the rights to Starwars if they could just wait it out and take it
> for free? No, they wouldn't.

Bullshit. Just because you can pick a few examples of places where big corperations would win out, doesn't mean that those are the rule. I mean are you really suggesting that entire industries, with deep enough pockets to do all sorts of analsys for themselves, have spent millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars fighting to extend and strengthen copyright....you really are suggesting they have misspent all that money and they are really the ones who stand the most to GAIN by just....not doing that.

Its not that I would never buy that argument but, I think its going to take a bit more than "look they could have just used star wars" to do so. I mean its true but, that is such a simplistic view, when it would ALSO open the door for everyone else to use it, including many smaller outlets.

I mean seriously, if every yahoo out there making star wars fan fiction could actually try to make a buck off it, well, few would actually see any returns, and most would still be shit, but, I have trouble imagining there wouldn't be a few that rose out of there above the rest and who could put some real production value into it. Perhaps we would have some movies out by now in that universe that rivaled the originals or even surpassed them.

I don't see how that is opposite, of course that makes sense. You could even say that turning off or severely restricting HZT is hard to see as anything but a requirement for developing as a multicellular organism that lives and dies by its coordination.

My point was really about the other end.... trying to imagine the evolution of sexual reproduction from simple cell lines that only pass genes vertically through the generations....I can see why that is hard, but we don't have to imagine that since, it was unlikely to have happened exactly like that in such a simple and clean fashion.

Ugh, and if they do that, I hope they know.... I have been stuck in traffic many times for little more reason than the fact that so many places did this that there is only a single remaining route through the area.

Because of that, I personally look down on people who request such things, and really, do hold it against someone when they feel that their desire to see clear streets is more important than the entire set of communities around them needing to travel.

Heh "organs". Look at single cell organisms today and you will find our idea of sex is so..... specific and limited.

These suckers don't have "sex organs" they actually toss out copies of their genetic mateiral for others to grab and use. If anything the sex organs provide a method for filtering and slowing down the messy process of gene exchange, rather than enabling it.

I would bet that the origins of sexuality are actually related to horizontal gene transfer and mechanisms organisms developed to tone down the party.

> While it might have the effect you suggest of reducing the market for actual child porn,
> I still think that there would probably be the urge to see, and pay for, the real deal.

and I have to point out, what you think is something I really don't know about. In fact, I think its something we can't really evaluate just by thinking about because there are too many things that COULD happen and little real way to say what would.

Does satiating sexual desire with porn increase the frequency or amplitude of desire? Does it make one want the real thing more if so, is that even relevant? Perhaps the desire increases but the satiation is enough to lead to apathy?

That certainly would line up with the claims other people make about porn. "Porn is why my husband no longer sleeps with me", may or may not be a legitimate claim but, is NOT an infrequent one. To be honest I think the real relationship between sexual desire, sexual action, and available means of satiation is, well, a sticky issue to say the least.

Well I think he is saying we can trust them about as far as we can throw a battleship.

Certainly is evidence that the people in charge, up to the highest levels, don't seem bound by any sense of duty to their own laws, or really any sense of justice. I mean, bad enough they broke the law and tortured people, but, the wrong people? And the only response was to cover it up? Now....now we are to take their statements on other issues at face value?

Thing is, it gets worst. We have the DEA having openly claimed in the past that they believe Parallel construction is perfectly acceptible practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Based on that alone ANY claim they make as to the investigation and ESPECIALLY to where information was obtained is suspect....they have admitted openly they will fabricate the origin of information, and go so far as to present that fabrication to prosecution and the courts.

If I ran a secret tor site, I wouldn't register the servers with my email address based on my real name.

Common mistake I know. However, once you consider its distance and the 6000 year age of the universe, the distance of 237 million light years is well within the range you would expect to find if God wanted light to move faster so that we could see it as part of His plan.

Well "treat it like an addiction" doesn't necessarily mean stop. If you are addicted to pain medication but, also constantly in pain, do you stop just because you are an addict? No, but perhaps you pay more attention.

Sugar is fine in small amounts. Same is true for most things. Coffee is an addiction too. Its ok to recognize that and still drink it, but it does mean that when 4 pm rolls around, and I look down at the bottom of my cup and think "I could use some joe", I stop myself and don't make another full pot and drink it down so I am awake until 4 am

The problem with sugar is really a quantity thing, and that it has secondary effects on appetite. Which is why you want to manage sugar intake since sugar intake leads to more food cravings. The less hunger you need to resist the easier it is to eat less, and its much easier to manage that up front by managing sugar intake than ignoring hunger.