No but to play devil's advocate here it is far more likely they would lob one at Israel. When that happens, because of treaties we have with them (lots of Jewish folk here to push it through), we would be at war with whoever did attack Israel. It's the same situation with North and South Korea.

Naming conventions aside, petition campaigns, especially form petition types have never worked in the past. They require the receiving party to actually give a shit about the petitions and set aside their own self interest and those of the ones funding them. Blackouts and demonstrations of the proposed nasty are far more effective. And it needs to be the big boys doing it first. That would be Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. that is what stopped SOPA. Not some silly form sent to individual representatives. It prompted Joe Blow to actually call and write DIRECTLY to their reps expressing in their own words how they feel. That is way more effective than getting the same form over and over again. And even then, there will be politicians that won't set aside that self interest.

What makes this story news is that the FBI arrested him, not the fact that he is a corrupt Democratic politician, so there is no reason to mention his party affiliation.

Exactly. The point is both parties are an evil duopoly that are allowed to fester with decisions like Citizen's United. A politician these days spends many more hours raising funds than they spend doing their Constitutionally mandated job. I know many that have taken the attitude of "if I never heard of you you get my vote!" that is why here in West Virginia a convicted felon in a Texas prison garnered 48% of the Democratic vote. That and the fact that not one of our Democratic leaders in Congress or the Governor himself, also a Democrat, supports President Obama. But that has more to do with coal and the EPA than anything else.

Anyway, coming from a state that is controlled for the past 35 years by Democrats has lead to some of the most egregious criminal acts. Just the past election has one county where 125% of the population cast votes. Lots going to prison over that. Suffice it to say that both parties are rotten especially if they are incumbents.

I don't think that's true. Let's try it on some other examples.

Serial killers wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Lotto customers wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Beggars wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Antivax zealots wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Snake charmers wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Traditional chinese medicine believers wouldn't wouldn't eat those endangered animal penises if it didn't pay off.
Slashdot first poster trolls wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.

Wouldn't this be wholly dependent on the distribution channel? I mean if you're going through Spotify and they're not paying you but beans, or iTunes isn't exactly working out, couldn't you...you know...use *another* service? The cost of reproducing the songs is nil given that it's already in a digital format, so it doesn't hurt to shop around. I know they don't have a lot of popular support (last time I checked anyway) but what about services like Ubuntu One and Magnatune? Especially on the latter the payout model's pretty simple and straightforward. You could also say, "fuck it," and just put your stuff out on YouTube/ThePirateBay/Facebook/Google+/Wherever for free, with links to your event calendar for shows and something like Magnatune if they want to support you otherwise, maybe even a Cafepress/similar site for swag. I'm not saying it's all the artists' fault mind you, industry execs are some evil filth, but they're not exactly lacking in options.

Indeed, but his sample size of 1 is just as statistically insignificant as GGP's.

That's what you get for thinking..

The only facetime that counts are the ones with greenbacks behind them. All others need not apply...

You're just saying that because I get your sense of humor.

So your post is now at "0", up from "-1"?

I'm grad.

And may I say that I don't want you to be at the bottom of the ocean, either, at least until it's your time :)

Right. Now it remains to be seen whether the Judge is going to call Verizon in on the carpet. If I were the Judge, I surely would be doing that, but I haven't seen any hint of that in the Court's orders.

So far.

None of the procedures you described are applicable in this court.