What we call "strategy" in in fact mostly a matter of logistics - having a perfect tactical plan is worthless if you can't keep your troops supplied during the course of it. RTS games are generally just a simplified/idealized version of how things work in the real world.

(attributed to Gen. Omar Bradley)

It sounds like what *you* want is a large-scale RTT (Real-time tactical) game, where all you have to worry about is deciding on which units to move and where to move them. Personally, I would consider *that* boring, as it removes a lot of the complexity that makes a good RTS challenging.

Under the current copyright laws, no damages have to be proven - the law allows the rights holder to sue for statutory damages, without a single bit of actual evidence that they were actually harmed in any way by the infringement. This is how the RIAA companies are able to sue people like Jammie Thomas and get damages of $80k per work infringed.

(Note that in the Capitol v. Thomas case it's pretty unlikely that they'll ever get any actual money from her, and even if the outrageous award was actually paid probably wouldn't cover their legal costs. They're just trying to make an example of her. But I could see a copyright troll like the US Copyright Group sending out tons of threat-o-grams, in the hopes of collecting $500-$1000 from those who are afraid that putting up a fight will bankrupt them).

As of Aug 18, 2010, the U.S. Treasury held 61% of GM's stock. So saying it's "owned by the US government" is not entirely incorrect. Though I would *hope* that the term "Government Motors" was sarcasm...

Sorry, sharks won't eat lawyers. It's a matter of "professional courtesy"...

You mean like a trial lawyer patenting a method for making jury selections? Sorry, it's already happened, and I haven't seen any *fun* resulting...

Like they care. The MPAA/RIAA are quite successful at not only creating a "unified front" for political dealings, but also at diverting attention away from the member companies. So the MPAA site get's DOS'ed, but the studios who are the heart of the MPAA remain completely untouched. Think that's going to have any effect?

At which point you then have to buy a new phone. I think we've identified the "profit" step in their plan...

No - the rules were intended to prevent a repeat of what *did* happen:

1. Feds get a warrant to obtain drug testing records of 10 specific baseball players (based on actual evidence against those 10 players).
2. Judge specifically limits them, saying that they have to separate out the records of everyone else, and only keep the records on the 10 specific players.
3. Feds ignore judge's limits, getting records on hundreds of individuals (not limited to just baseball players). No attempt is made to separate out the records on the specific players.
4. Feds then use the info on other players (that they previously had no reason to suspect) to issue supoenas for evidence against those additional players.

What's really scary about this whole mess is that the government is relying on the "in plain sight" doctrine, which basically states that if an officer observes something that is in plain sight during the course of a legal search, whatever the officer observes can be seized and used as evidence even if it wasn't listed on the warrant. For instance, if they're searching your house on looking for stolen goods, and they see your stash of pot, they can seize it and charge you with possession.

But once you have access to a computer, pretty much anything on it is readily accessible (unless encrypted). So applying this doctrine to digital searches ends up being analogous to getting a search warrant for a specific set of (dead tree) files, and then claiming that *all* of the files in the file cabinet are now "in plain sight", and as such they can browse them to their heart's content.

The court *did* uphold that the supoenas, and any information resulting from them, were invalid. But by removing the specific guidelines the earlier court had created, they've opened the door to a repeat performance of this whole mess. Which you can bet *will* happen fairly quickly.

Except the second edition has been edited to remove the information that the DoD objects to in the first edition. They're just trying to clean up after a mistake (the book was cleared for release, but now they're claiming it wasn't cleared by the "proper" authorities).

Only if they lose...

Some larger cities also have an income tax. In the case of Philadelphia, they have something called a "wage tax", which they say is not an "income tax" - not sure exactly what the difference is.

Sure it does. It's the door with the "Beware of Leopard" sign on it.

1. He wasn't charged with speeding. He was charged with "careless driving", for which they don't need to prove you were speeding.

2. He admitted in his post as to the when and where, and mentioned that there was a person writing something down as he passed, probably a license plate number, but "he was too fast for them".

Given this, the police probably went to that neighborhood and asked around (if no complaint had already been filed, that is). That would give them evidence that a crime was committed. If they got a partial license plate number, a description of the car, and a description of the driver from witnesses, then they probably had enough to charge and likely convict him.

He was *not* convicted based on his forum post. He was *identified* as a result of the forum post, which later lead to police arresting him. He then pled guilty to the charge.

Not a legal scholar, but I believe that since the power to establish copyright is explicitly granted to the federal government in the US Constitution, it's presumably forbidden for the states to have their own copyright laws.

But put the numbers in perspective.

US GDP $14,260,000,000,000 (2009 estimate, courtesy of the CIA)

$200 Billion equals 1.4% of the GDP
$5 Billion equals 0.035% of the GDP

One is a problem worthy of immediate attention. The other is a problem to worry about when nothing else is pressing.