And YOU are ranting based on words that didn't address prescribed drugs. Which makes you drama queen with no reading comprehension, and someone having a shrill hissy fit over which I imagine your late mother would be embarassed, since observations about the hemp-obsessed subculture have absolutely nothing to do with the nature of her demise. I do like your fantastically ironic bitching about arrogance, though. Fine work.

Well that's just, like, your opinon, man.

True, though. But this is still just about stoners looking for another avenue. A familiar refrain from the crowd that thinks they'd be better off with a tires, a spouse, underwear, and air craft carriers all made out of hemp.

But this is where I think we disagree. A print is an object. Making a photograph is a process. There are many routes to that print (or projected slide, or gird of pixels on a tablet, etc).

No, photographs (here, sticking with your notion of not referring to digitally captured images as photographs, only things that use something chemically photosensitive) are manipulated. Every single one of them. Film speed and tonal behavior? Lens behavior like field curvature, chromatic smearing, and non-infinite depth of field? Choice of chemistry? Grain? Paper stock? How it's all souped? Filters to deal with color temps? The photographer's own choice of exposure method? The use of reflectors or supplementray lighting?

Every projection of the scene by a lens onto a two-dimensional surface placed by the photographer somewhere that records that projection according to his or her thoughts on composition is a manipulation from beginning to end. The entire concept of a "real" image is just silly. Chemical production of grains that are patterned after the projected light, or variations in a grid of pixels pushed through an A to D process ... a distinction of no distinction other than the need to master a different set of tools.

Bad analogy. Criminals steal cars - expressly for the purpose of using them in a crime - all the time.

Really bad analogy. Your implication is that we could stop people from having sex with children by banning children.

The analogy you're looking for is that just like we have laws that carry penalties for abusing kids, we have penalties for killing people. Using rifles, or using blunt instruments like pipes and bats (which are used far more often than rifles to murder people, says the FBI).

So yes: we have laws that "ban" murder, by making it really suck to be a murderer that's been caught having murdered someone. Just like it sucks to be someone that's been caught having abused a kid.

Public employee unions.

Is there a way that can be tightened back up?

Single sign on, and tools like Active Directory aren't just in beta testing, you know?

Did you see the outfit that ERP was wearing? That general ledger module was WAY above it's knee. And I think the CRM middleware was wearing a lot of perfume. Totally asking for it.

No, it's a cultural thing. Some demographics seem obsessed with being seen having one in their ear, and some just break them out when it's actually useful to use one.

I live in the DC area. This is a very easy thing to observe, over and over again, as you move from one demographic to another. It's strange, but it's plain as day.

No, it's not.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

What's Draconian about a cease and desist letter? It takes minutes to write one, and it takes the people ripping off someone else's work to further their own commercial activities minutes to take down the ripped-off material. It takes them even less time to decide not to rip stuff off in the first place. Hey, look! Nothing draconian involved.

Oh, you mean the draconian measures required when someone has had it pointed out to them that they're ripping off someone's work to avoid paying for the marketing material they're using in their own money-making activities and refuse to stop? The only thing that could make that draconian is the deliberate action of the person ripping off the work. It's a self-inflicted wound, and so no, "we" can't all agree on anything at all resembling what you're saying.

You keep saying that, but you really don't know the first thing about it, do you? No, you don't.

You don't actually know what that means, do you?