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Comment: Re:Is it bribery? (Score 1) 311

by _Sharp'r_ (#43731441) Attached to: Did Internet Sales Tax Backers Bribe Congress? (Video)

So someone gets paid and they broadcast political information from all sides of the political spectrum, but you don't have political advertising?

Sounds like a distinction without much difference. You just have the political advertising that the government or the media has decided to allow. I agree, that will certainly result in less political advertising.

You say all sides of the political spectrum, but does anyone get to decide whose side is shown how much in a particular context? Someone other than the person who wants to get their views out? It sounds like what you have is a set of elites who get to filter political information for the "proles". I wonder whose interests they serve...

Comment: Re:Is it bribery? (Score 1) 311

by _Sharp'r_ (#43724325) Attached to: Did Internet Sales Tax Backers Bribe Congress? (Video)

Britain is a good example, then.

Does the BBC not seem to have a political opinion on anything? Never criticized for any sort of bias? How come people who work at the BBC get to give out their political opinion in Britain, but other people can't broadcast theirs?

How come Rupert Murdoch gets to put out all the print political opinions he wants in Britain? Isn't that political advertising?

It sounds to me more like you're looking at Britain and because you're ok with whose opinions get to be expressed, you're ok with blocking everyone else.

Comment: Re:Is it bribery? (Score 1) 311

by _Sharp'r_ (#43719513) Attached to: Did Internet Sales Tax Backers Bribe Congress? (Video)

In theory, you could ban all "political advertisements". In reality, you need an enforcement mechanism, which comes with regulators, prosecutors, etc... You also get a government board or committee to setup rules defining what is allowed and what isn't under your law banning "political advertisements".

Pretty soon, that board is run by either big media companies or else entrenched political consultants, because hey, they're the ones that really care enough to really study the laws and the regulations and gosh darn it, they have all sorts of relevant experience that makes them perfect for the job, right? So the board starts defining terms like "political" and "advertisement". Is a movie about events in Benghazi political? Is it an advertisement? Perhaps that depends on who is making the movie, some right-wing group, of course it's political. Hollywood? Of course not, they're not political, right? Maybe it depends on if Hilary or Obama are mentioned by name in the movie or not? Or perhaps we can just exclude stuff like that when it's shown say, within 60 days of an election where people mentioned in the move are involved?

Not sure if you're movie is going to fall afoul of the regulations? Better to just make sure your movie gets pre-clearance from the regulators who report to the board. That way you can be sure you aren't wasting your money on that Benghazi movie the government will order you to not release, or fine you or throw you in prison for showing.

Of course, like with all other laws, there's prosecutorial discretion. I mean, we have to allow for the prosecutor to have some common sense in only going after the actual bad guys, right? Maybe if the prosecuting attorney happens to be appointed by someone who is politically friendly to you, you get a little more leeway in what kind of movies and advertisements you can put out there? Perhaps everyone knows that if old Joe wasn't the prosecutor, you couldn't put that union "Let's all work together!" ad out there because someone else might call it political, but since Joe doesn't prosecute that sort of thing, you're ok.

I mean, it's not as if your elected and bureaucratic representatives have any incentives around caring which politicians get elected, right? No incentive to ensure the system can be gamed for their benefit?

Hopefully you can begin to see why banning "political advertisements" is in effect, the same as giving whoever is in power a filter to tilt media and advertising in their direction. That's what campaign finance "reform" has always been about in Congress in this country. Gaining an advantage over your political foes, tilting the playing field and ensuring you keep power.

Fortunately, we (all forms) have a right to free speech and the current supreme court is interested in preserving it more than they're interested in letting those in power in the government restrict it.

United States

Did Internet Sales Tax Backers Bribe Congress? (Video) 311

Posted by Roblimo
from the money-and-politics-have-an-irresistable-attraction-for-each-other dept.
This may be a coincidence, but according to MapLight, Senators who voted last week for the bill allowing states to directly collect taxes on sales via the Internet, AKA The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, received 40 times as much campaign donation money (yes, that's four-oh, not just four) from businesses in favor of the bill as those who voted against it received from businesses that were against Internet sales taxes. Was this bribery? Of course not! We're not some piddly fifth-world country. But it's a prime example of how money influences politics here in the good old USA, and it's far from the only one we've seen lately. In this video, MapLight Program Director Jay Costa shares a bunch more with us, along with tips on how to spot this sort of thing and some steps we voters can take to fight against both direct and indirect influence-buying. Note that all this is totally non-partisan; the politicians with the most influence -- whether local, state or federal -- get most of the available special interest money no matter what other agenda(s) they may have. And for those who want to learn more about who is spending their dollars to influence your representatives, Jay also suggests a look at these two money-in-politics resources: FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org.
Government

US DOJ Say They Don't Need Warrants For E-Mail, Chats 457

Posted by Soulskill
from the you-can-trust-us dept.
gannebraemorr writes "The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal. Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail."

Comment: Re:I'd be excited about this movie, except... (Score 3, Insightful) 470

by _Sharp'r_ (#43660053) Attached to: <em>Ender's Game</em> Trailer Released

He's an active practicing Mormon who wrote an article for a Mormon audience about how someone can't be a practicing Homosexual and dedicated to the Homosexual scene and also be dedicated to the Mormon church.

Presuming you know anything about the Mormon church, is there anything in that sentence you disagree with? His article was basically you can't serve two masters.

This is all much ado about nothing.

Comment: Re:Look at the voting ownership (Score 1) 205

by _Sharp'r_ (#43324753) Attached to: Why Bad Directors Aren't Thrown Out

You seem to be under the impression that Directors actually run things. At most places, they're just placeholders for the major shareholders. The Directors at Netflix don't run the company, they just vote how the hedge fund managers tell them to vote. As long as they vote how the shareholders (i.e. owners) tell them to, why would they ever lose their position?

It's the company owners making the decisions. That's why you see shareholder agreements about how many directors each major shareholder is entitled to nominate, etc... Directors are just a way of sharing the proxy power around. Sure, some companies have owners that are also directors, but in many cases nowadays, it's just a prestigious side job where you get some input to the owners, not a management position where you make your own decisions.

Comment: Re:In other news... (Score 3, Insightful) 199

by _Sharp'r_ (#43324521) Attached to: Cuban Video Game Recreates Revolutionary History

Now they have a better Literacy, infant mortality and healthcare than the US.

Uhh... Bullshit? It always amazes me that so many people are willing to credulousness accept "statistics" like that from total propaganda. You probably also believed that the Soviet Union was a massive economic powerhouse for it's people in the 80s, right?

Hint: People don't take leaky boats and swim across oceans to get elsewhere because where they live is just too wonderful for them to handle. Try talking to someone who's actually lived in Cuba and then escaped.

Comment: Re:Bad Headline: there's no Linux (Score 2) 79

by _Sharp'r_ (#42676633) Attached to: Arch GNU/Linux Ported To Run On the FreeBSD Kernel

Even better are all the white folks I've met in America who were born in Africa (South Africa, mostly).

They tend to be confused why certain people look at them oddly when they claim the title of African-American, even though it much more applies to them than to someone who happens to have dark skin and has no known relations in Africa...

So yeah, Steve Nash is technically the only "African-American" currently playing for the Lakers, using the "American" part loosely...

Comment: Re:Brilliant idea (Score 1) 480

by _Sharp'r_ (#42629895) Attached to: Google Declares War On the Password

U.S. Banks typically use RSA ids for business accounts, but not personal accounts. I have three U.S. bank issued RSA fobs hanging from my keychain right now and a fourth at home.

The reason is that for personal accounts, the customer isn't very liable for fraud performed with their login, so they don't care enough to be inconvenienced.

For most business accounts, the business is liable for and fraud performed with their login, so enough of them demand better login security from the banks that they provide it as the default service.

Now, the dumbest thing U.S. banks do that I wish I could opt out of is the whole "security question" charade that basically inconveniences me while at the same time making my account _less_ secure. Now THAT'S annoying...

Businesses

A Twisted Clean-Tech Tale: How A123 Wound Up In Bankruptcy 164

Posted by timothy
from the fallacies-on-display dept.
curtwoodward writes "Advanced battery maker A123 Systems was supposed to be one of the marquee names of the U.S. cleantech manufacturing scene — it won hundreds of millions in federal grants, had operations around the globe, and supplied the luxury Fisker electric car. In 2009, as the economy sputtered, A123 registered the country's biggest IPO. Today, it's in bankruptcy court, with possible buyers submitting bids for its parts and pieces. How'd A123 fall so far, so fast? As losses mounted, its reliance on just two big customers came back to haunt the company — and a series of screwups at a Michigan plant delivered the final blow."

Comment: Re:Quick find all the people that care (Score 1) 600

by _Sharp'r_ (#42126811) Attached to: Bitcoin Mining Reward About To Halve

No, if you can't afford to pay someone on retainer, then you sell part of your contract rights to someone else who can enforce them.

It's not like a similar system didn't keep the peace and work fine in Iceland for hundreds of years until the Catholic church moved in, took over and started creating taxes based on property locations, after which the old system started fading away.

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