I think you're being naive. What, exactly, would prevent the same people who buy power in the federal government from buying power in each state?

I'm glad we agree.

Actually, you should understand that A) coinreturn made the claim and that B) it wasn't about the data but about the leading question at the end and C) that I was explaining it. I happen to agree that LoyalOpposition did try to turn it into a right-left argument, but I don't particularly care that he did.

If you insist on playing, I look at what AuMatar wrote, and I see no explicit conversion into a right-left argument other than the fact that he used the work lockstep which would implicitly criticise two conservative judges for voting together too often. However, it is a rather mild criticism, and not terribly political. If it had been Kagan who had voted with the majority, and AuMatar had noted that it was one of the few times Kagan hadn't voted in lockstep with Sotomeyer, would you be this angry? I certainly wouldn't be.

It takes more than a criticism of someone "on your team" to create a right-left argument. If that's all it took, then you could never criticise anyone without starting a political fight. That hardly seems like an ideal situation.

I was explaining to BWS what the other poster was unclearly saying. Frankly, I do not have enough interest or patience to play childish "who politicised it first" games.

He was refering to the final line "So, if voting in lockstep like Thomas and Scalia is bad at 86%, what is it when Sotomayor and Kagan vote together 94% of the time? Is that also lockstep?".

The point was that the choice of Sotomayor and Kagan over Roberts and Alito who voted together 96% of the time was a blantant attempt to make to turn this into a right-left issue.

I'm not sure what your outburst has to do with anything. To convict someone of purgery, obstruction, or as an accessory to the crime, the prosecutor would, of course, have to prove that they willfully lied under oath, obstructed an investigation, or assisted the criminal. It has been done before. However, to lay the charges against you, the prosecutor only needs reasonable grounds. I don't think the judge has to prove anything to hold you in contempt of court because it's an offense against the court. Although, in theory he might need to prove that the action was reasonable if there was a follow up inquiry into his actions.

Have you ever forgotten what your name is, where you work, or what your friend's names are? For weeks or months at a time? Without suffering from an indentifiable medical condition, injury or trauma? The statement "I forgot the password I use every day on my computer" simply isn't convincing unless there are special circumstances because it's something you regularly use. My point isn't that you can't get away with lieing, my point is that the situation could get worse because if you lied about it. That's why you're allowed to plead the fifth instead of making up lies in the first place.

That's not an ad hominem argument, for example I am not claiming that you are wrong because you are an idiot. You are wrong because your argument is based on your personal view of how trademarks and DNS should work, rather than how they actually do work. You have repeatedly dismissed the fact that your views do not match reality as irrelevent to the discussion. If you reject reality, no further discussion is possible.

Of course, you are allowed to forget things, however, if you claim to have forgotten something that you haven't really forgotten, you can be charged with purgery, obstruction, contempt of court, or even as an acessory to the crime, depening on the circumstances. In this case, the judge isn't going to beleive that he just forgot the passwords that unlock all of his encrypted drives. It would simply be an unbelievable claim, the defendant is better of refusing to give the password than trying to tell transparently false lies.

No one would be complaining about PETA shelters if they just euthanized some animals that arrived to the shleters "sick" and "neglected". The problem seems to be that almost all of the animals (95%), many of whom were delivered in good health, seem to end up "sick" , "neglected" and dead shortly after arriving.

Most people don't consider a few days locked in a cage to be "a long pleasant life" for the average puppy or kitten.

So your justification is that you don't understand how the Domain Name System works and thus you must be correct. Dunning Kruger FTW.

You appear to be significantly confused. WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization, and WIPO is explicitly empowered as the arbiter for international disputes over domain names.

According to the rules, the first person to register the domain is the legitimate owner unless they're engaging in domain squatting.

There's a simple problem with that statement: ownership of a trade mark is not a pre-requisite for ownership of a domain. It's merely one of three factors that are looked at to determine if a domain grievance is legitimate. Specifically, that criteria is part of the process to determine whether the complainant even has a legitimate claim to the domain.

That's the way the system works. If you think it should work differently, that's an entirely different conversation which has no impact on whether the WIPO panel was correctly enforcing the already established dispute resolution system. As an aside, it's interesting that you would think first-to-register is a not valid method of determine domain name ownership, yet in general libertarians are perfectly ok with first-to-register as a method of determining ownership of real property.

Alternatively, it could be because Ron Paul doesn't have a trade mark on the name Ron Paul, and his request was denied because he failed to show that the people using the domain name were acting in bad faith and had no legitimate interest in the name. This was clearly stated in the ruling. Did you read it?

It's also interesting that you equate Ron Paul's interest in the domain with a non-commercial interest, because it seems he wants the domain so that he can sell his books online, that strikes me as a commercial interest.

According to the rules, even if "Ron Paul" was the name of a corporation, the request would have failed because it would only have met one of the three criteria. Assuming of course that the corporation has a registered trade mark on their name. So, in that regard the system does, in fact, favour corporations.

What makes you think I am either a liberal, a progressive, or defending the system? I am merely amused by the spectacle of libertarians jumping through hoops to justify how this one time, it's ok for government to transfer ownership of private property (because it benefits someone they like).

I've read it, it's biased and self-serving. It might be reasonable for a kleptocrat.

Ron Paul failed to meet the burden of proof. He couldn't prove he has a trade mark on his name (because he hasn't registered one), couldn't show that the site owners had no legitimate interest in the site (because they clearly have a legitimate interest), and couldn't show that they were using the site in bad faith (because he asked them to sell it). You may not understand this, but he had to prove all three allegations. He's 0 for 3.

Actually it doesn't. It says "fan site" on the site's header, it's pretty hard to miss. The domain name is nothing but an easy way to remember the site's address.

It's rather amusing to watch libertarians complain that the government isn't confiscating the property of one libertarian and transferring it to another. I love seeing exactly how deep your principles run.

Except they're not domain squatters or misusing the domain to mislead supporters. They're actual Ron Paul supporters who spent years voluntarily building a site dedicated to him, and his response was to try and take their property by force because he thought he could get away with making false accusations.