That's a bit of a dangerous tack to take.. the obvious rebuttal is that the internet is international and the feds have no right to regulate it either.. I mean I know the US is horribly egocentric and doesn't like thinking of other countries as having rights or sovereignty.. but they do and it's a possible argument that Calif could bring up to counter the internet being "interstate"

Oh people definitely think TransUnion is creepy. But they came around long before the interwebs could let us all know that our privacy had been destroyed behind our back and by the time we did, it was already "business as usual."

Not that it matters. Nobody will stop using their credit cards or getting loads. And nobody will give up their iPhones. At least for a first approximation of "nobody."

Freedom isn't valuable to you? I mean its China and I realize talking about "freedom" in that context is like kicking the rubble after the building's already collapsed.. but every additional kick is one less pebble the Chinese people have available to them.

Because you're expanding authority either way - if the government doesn't run things, then private interests will. It's not a choice between "government" and "freedom," it's a choice between "government I have some tiny amount of control over via my vote" and "pseudo-government that can do whatever they want." Unless you live in the US of course where money is speech and can be used to just buy the government anyway.. I suppose in that case the only real difference is the amount of red tape companies like Verizon have to cut through to screw you. Not screwing you isnt a viable option in that environment.

Same thing as why American companies are all following gdpr regulations - international treaties would likely allow the EU to sue US companies that are serving Europeans, even if they aren't physically located in Europe (the company or the user, at least in the gdpr case.)

Depends on the judge and whether they determine that simply uploading the file to YouTube constitutes a carte blanche license to the entire world. I suspect it probably doesn't. I mean it's probably grey enough that Sony wouldn't bother pursuing it (especially since it would be nearly impossible to identify "infringers") and it is their fault after all but if for some crazyassed reason, they did decide to take it to a judge.. I wouldnt put a whole lot of faith in the judge deeming it a legal licensing.

Unfortunately even imprisonment kind of falls in that category -- you can't return time to a person's life either.

The only thing they can return should an inmate be exonerated is their honor and standing in society.. and unfortunately we're moving away from that as well. For example, many applications and other forms that used to ask "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" now ask "have you ever been arrested?" -- so false arrests, crimes for which you were found not guilty, crimes for which you were exonerated.. all of those now get punished in addition to the already questionable practice of discriminating against people who have finished paying their debt to society and are supposed to be treated like free men and women again.

A bullet to the head is _messy_ though, and it tends to leave an ugly corpse. Being humane when killing a prisoner also involves dealing with their body afterward, including the fact that the family probably doesn't want to see a massive exploded pile of flesh where a head should be.

Or you know, treat them like people and try to work out a better system.

Of course, as long as we treat Israel and Saudi Arabia's sovereignty as more important than America's, that will likely not be a plausible solution for decades or perhaps centuries. Need to get the religious bullshit out of power in all of those countries before they have any hope of cooperating with each other.

If MBS can hold on to his power and continues to be progressive (by Middle Eastern standards at least.. then there's some hope for Saudi Arabia.

Israel definitely won't be changing under Netanyahu and the safe bet is that whoever takes over after him is _probably_ not going to be terribly progressive either. Progressives in that part of the world tend to be kept out of government positions as much as the clergy and the existing state are capable.

And of course Iran themselves need to change. They're rather at an inflection point right now from all I've seen where they could possibly start heading towards a secular direction or they could dive right back into religious control. Unfortunately Trump's recent decision to end the Iran deal is very likely to send them back down the religious path and set them back 20 or 30 years socially while doing pretty much nothing to slow (and in fact will likely increase) their military output, including nuclear weapons development.

I assume you've built you own roads to drive to work? Until you've done that, you may as well STFU and stop being hypocritical.

Its a fad to be sure, and its kind of BS at best.. but basically the vinyl lovers (I hate to call them audiophiles..) are mostly looking for the non-musical effects. Things like the attenuation caused by the disk being slightly warped, the needle not being perfect, etc. Essentially, the music changes slightly and unpredictably as you play the record more often which I guess some people like.

Meaning this "HD" vinyl, if it lives up to its claims, is pretty much the worst of both worlds -- all the inconvenience of an LP but without all of the "interesting" quirks that vinyl gave you. If those people wanted digital music, they'd go to iTunes like everybody else. But they specifically don't want that.

I mean I'm sure some people will buy it thinking it will be like an LP but with better sound quality, and some who don't know wtf they're talking about and just want to be "cool" with their record player will probably enjoy it.. but for most vinyl lovers, they'll likely be disappointed and these new disks won't last long.

There's one big reason: Lots of money on the table. But since the agreement is signed and sealed, the US wouldn't get to be the bully if they came crawling back. They'd just have to take it pretty much as it is. The other countries will just laugh at him if Trump joins and then immediately tries to start renegotiating it like he's doing with NAFTA.

Which brings up another interesting quirk: rejoining the TPP would probably significantly weaken the US' stance with regards to NAFTA renegotiation since Canada and Mexico are both in the TPP and if the US grants them access to American markets under the TPP, they have no reason to make concessions in NAFTA for those particular markets. NAFTA would immediately either be restricted to things the TPP doesn't cover, or would have to provide some measurable benefit over any corresponding TPP clauses.

Of course the reverse is also true -- the US would gain access to Canadian and Mexican markets under the TPP, but since they're the ones wanting new NAFTA rules and wanting to "win" the trade agreement, they're also the ones who stand to lose the most when relevant markets are opened up through other means and taken off the NAFTA table.

They have the leverage of being the largest economy in the world (for now.) What the US has likely given up though is their ability to control (and in some cases, dictate) terms of the agreement since its already signed and done. They might get some tweaks for themselves (especially in per-country addenda where some subset of the signatories agree to basically a mini-treaty on the side) but its extremely unlikely that the US would be able to say, re-inject their draconian version of the IP chapter at this point.

Don't forget, NAFTA2 is being negotiated in the same manner. As is most other major trade agreements these days. We're letting corporate interests negotiate binding treaties behind closed doors and Congress (and whatever equivalent in other countries) are often given less than a week (and sometimes less than a day) to decide whether or not to take the deal. Its absolutely insane and basically gives up sovereignty to the likes of Monsanto and Pfizer.

I'm all for trade deals and free trade, but I'm definitely not in favor of these secret business deals that have the power to override the nation's laws. _Some_ secrecy is required in any negotiation to ensure that you've got a leg to stand on, but these deals go way beyond that and for a very different reason -- they're not being secretive to prevent the other side from finding out what cards they're holding anymore, they're being secretive because they know the bullshit they're passing is untenable to average voters and would never have a snowballs chance in hell of getting passed if anyone knew what they were getting before it was too late.

Yeah. He sacrifices $400k so that people like you will keep parroting for him, meanwhile he blows something like $13m/year of taxpayer money just on trips to his golf courses. Never mind the $11m he gets from the estate tax changes, and who knows how many tens or hundreds of millions he gains thanks to the rest of the disaster they called a tax bill.