Fairness in taxes is that you all pay equally not that "the rich pay more, but have more chances to hide income so in effect pay far less"..

This whole business of having 1 part of the tax code aimed at "fairness for the lower income/middle classes, and those with most ability to pay paying more" and another part whose only reason for existance is to create loopholes in the tax code so that "those most able to pay taxes do not have to pay them".

Best thing that could be done is have a flat rate that actually pays the bills it needs to pay for the government,. and abolish *all* forms of loopholes once and for all.. I dream of a day where the US federal tax code consists of a single typewritten page saying "insert total income here and multiply by
Of course this will not happen until we can figure out a way to get strict 1 year term limits in congress (1 year and done for life, no moving around, no hopping from house to senate etc) and reform elections to where the guy with the most money wins (causing such idiocy as DNC and republicans spending 2 million or more on TV advertising for a house seat in a small district that means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things

The tax side is not the only half of that.. you cannot arbitrarily reduce taxes to nil and expect to fund every government program on the planet.. the idea is to use taxes in the most efficient manner possible, and stop trying to play favorites with tax dollars/breaks.. creating a monstrosity of a tax code that says in essence "taxes are paid at a rate of X % unless you are
I am no fan of high taxes, but i am even less of a fan of using taxes to create "most favored nation" loopholes to try to steal businesses from one town to another etc.. not to mention "tax breaks" as an incentive to do things

The "green gear" tax cuts need to go away as well.. if they want things green legislate it as a requirement and let competition sort out prices to be the most efficient.. rather than the current absurd situation where anything with a "green rebate" costs exactly what the Max rebate amount is.. or has added to what it should really sell for the amount the government is giving them (300$ instant hot water heaters that have been available for 20 years.. suddenly costing 1500+ due to a recent 1500$ rebate tax program)

That "run an ad in the local paper" is called a DBA and its required in all 50 states .. its to announce to the world that John Smith is now doing business as "John's Carpentry"...

When he "gave up and incorporated" he paid someone else to do it, but the ads where still run in the "paper of record" for the area he was doing business...

THe system is meant to protect consumers from drifters and scammers, if you cannot figure out how to goto your local tax collectors office, get a permit, run a classified ad (at worst 1 phonecall to the local paper). and fill out some paperwork.. perhaps you shouldn't be running a business ? Regardless of "type of business" most of these "onerous regulations" are really no more difficult than any other dealings with a government bureaucracy (DMV in most states, etc)

I dont even know how much the timeframe really matters.. I am more saying the total # is not relevant unwanted emails are unwanted emails..

sending 10 malware infested phishing emails to old ladies to steal their bank account info.. or 300,000,000 "buy viagra now" that get spam filtered... which is worse?

Given the 0 cost of sending virtually limitless #s of emails, I think that quoting numbers is pointless *shrug*

You sir are completely and utterly wrong on the subject.. this is not like "internet tax collection" where the "lack of a physical local entity" means you can ignore all local laws/regulations/courts.

You do not get to ignore any court for any reason just because you A) do not live near there B) feel that your right and the plaintiff is wrong.

As I have said, if this was not spamhaus vs random spam company, this wouldnt even be under discussion.. as a matter of fact, if it was Microsoft posting a letter of intent to ignore the judgement of an italian, or ukranian or south american court.. ./ readers would be all over them for being belligerent assholes..

People need to learn to seperate their pet peeves/petty grudges and actually read with an open mind the circumstances before they start typing..

I dunno over what timeframe? How many legit emails do you receive per month? The fact that the number of mails blocked was more than the number of people with email accounts is not as relevant as say... the MPAA saying that a studio lost 10 trillion dollars due to piracy of Avatar.. or some other sillyness where the numbers are meaningless.. Lemme give you an example.

Company X does list management for several large companies (ibm, apple, microsoft) who collectively have 100,000,0000 email addresses subscribed across various informational/promotional lists.. if *each* of them sends 10 emails per month to each user thats 3 billion messages.. The number is not really that large when talking about mail, the way your stating it is OMG ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO SEND EMAIL MORE TIMES THAN THERE ARE CONNECTED COMPUTERS.. which also btw ignores the fact that there are far more than 1 user per computer in most of the world. Not to mention multiple email addresses per person (isp, yahoo, google, apple, hotmail, lord knows how many others).

In short, less focusing on the number, more focus on the content if you wanna get your point across.

How bout this.. You wanna sue me for selling you something over ebay and not providing the goods as promised.. You goto your local small claims court, you give them my information and address, They WILL issue me a summons to appear in court in the UK, if I do not show, you can take your judgement that you will doubtless win, and file it in my home jurisdiction and they WILL accept it, and they WILL attach a lien against my real property in your name, which will screw up my credit, and force payment to you before I can sell that property with clear title.

The same happens in reverse .. which is why spamhaus still owes 27,000$ to e360, because rather than showup, and defend themselves, they chose to mock the court and not show up.. Tell me how do judges in the UK take it if you fail to appear? I am betting they are not very happy either.

Umm no you see because once you have said legal judgement you are now able to exercise that judgement, its merely a matter of presenting it to a british court and getting an order of attachment/seizure which happens *all* the time.. you dont get a pass on paying bills just because you are not physically in the country where you owe the money. Check it out sometime.. see how long it takes before you get a garnishment vs paycheck, or a lien against your house/real property filed in your home jurisdiction.

We are not talking about a country run by a dictator with no local court system etc.. we are talking about 2 countries with a *long* history of legal cooperation.. remember spamhaus is treating this is a political statement.. but a political statement or not (nor the reason why the judgement was issued) matter.. once the judgement exists.. it makes no matter to the LOCAL BRITISH COURT *why* the judgement was issued, only that it was issued at all.. for all the court knows or cares, spamhaus bought services from e360 and didnt pay.

Except that they where wrong as this was a civil case, which makes them responsible to appear to defend themselves in the matter or accept potential summary judgement

Even in a country where X is legal, you cannot legally provide/do/share/publish said items in jurisdictions where it is illegal.. You cannot ship alcohol into Lynchburg, TN as it is still a legally "Dry" county..

Whether or not the Local Court can force you to get on a plane and come defend yourself is not relevant to the discussion.. the fact of the matter is that you cannot just "ignore" the rule of law, just because you are trying to be vigilante in another country.

Example incoming to fix the problem you have in your brain that cannot tell the difference between civil and criminal law

You sit in a country and post what in your country is perfectly legal content , you then decide to start charging for access to said content.. *IF* you sell content to a jurisdiction and someone in that jurisdiction (wherever that may be in the world) has a problem with your content/service/etc they are perfectly able to sue you for whatever reason the court accepts in civil cases.

As long as spamhaus (their actual name not haus) decides to only operate in their home country they are only bound to that country's laws.. by actively marketing products and services *outside* of that country it opens you up to the laws of the land in every country where you are actively doing business...

Microsoft cannot "ignore" the laws of germany and ship games into germany for the 360/windows that ignore the local anti-violence laws (green blood/etc) if they did .. germany and its residents could sue MS in german courts and MS would either have to appear and defend their actions, or lose the case and be compelled to pay fines/etc (whatever the local law allows.. usually a judgement that can be attached to assets owned by the person/company in question. spamhaus cannot ignore US court's either unless they want to be held responsible for doing so.

The screwy part of all of this, is that this was political (on spamhaus part) rather than anything else.. they see themselves as internet vigilantes, much the way that the idiots on the boats attacking international ships on the high seas in defense of whales think they are not pirates, and do not think that sooner or later japan will pressure the US into seizing the ship and sending all parties involved to japan to be put on trial for piracy.

that your out with your girlfriend.. you deserve what you get in a divorce proceeding.. not sure how thats a privacy issue tbh... Hell just having an iphone and your wife knowing how to do "find my iphone" is more than enough for you to get caught?

Besides a civil suit is still a legal proceeding and is really no different from having coworkers or others subpoenaed for a civil case? It just seems to me this is more an issue of "use your tools and toys in an aware/responsible manner" than any inherent privacy issue?

Quick question there.. do you think that the word establishment means a "religious location such as a church" or do you think that it means "creating a church of the united states" ?

You see your reading is implying that you believe the former, when the document is referring to the latter.

Given your statement about the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it implies that you are attempting a revisionist read of the document.. Unfortunately for you in our system of government, the words do not change meaning over time.. the document has to change via amendment to change the meaning of the words.

Pay attention buddy, the idiot user of the system installed a MS branded toolbar.. which when installed will install an extension in firefox if it is installed.. understand? Lemme spell it out in BIG GIANT LETTERS

Person decides he wants the bing toolbar from MS.. he happens to have firefox and IE8 on his system..

The bing toolbar being a toolbar.. that is a bloody browser extension

Now it has to add itself to both IE and Firefox..

So when that toolbar gets updated

Still following along? GOOD

Yep thats right.. when the original toolbar which installs both IE and firefox extensions is updated...

SO ARE THE FIREFOX AND IE EXTENSIONS



This is not news, this is dumb people who forget that they clicked download installed something in IE a year or more ago, and now suddenly get emo that they restarted firefox and see a new extension (or updated extension)

For some reason this triggers them to go into a frenzy of posting on slashdot and elsewhere about how evil MS is for updating the product that the dumb user installed and forgot about.

The problem with Doom was that they tried to turn it into something it is not..

Doom is about 1 guy alone going rambo on some aliens.. and trying to get out alive... NOT about a group of people getting saved along tthe way by a heroic soldier.. which is what they tried to turn the movie into.

The funny thing is.. for as bad as game to movie conversions are (generally speaking), the movie to game conversions are far worse (perhaps its because there are so many more movies to game than the reverse?)

I disagree that the director/author need to play the game, the problem is often that hollywood wants to take a HUGE hit that has little to no story, and convert it into something it is not (such as doom) or worse, they don't add anything at all to it.. and leave it as a special effects set piece..

this is also prolly caused by the fact that most games have plots that are essentially ripped off from 1 scene in a movie from 20 years ago.. its kinda hard to stretch "that cool scene with the zombies and the dude with the chainsaw" into a game.. its even harder to then stretch that back into a 90 minute movie.

That depends entirely on the reason why you are getting the new car, which one is older, which one is in better shape, which one gets driven more etc..

You cannot replace a yukon with a rav4, nor can you replace a prius with .. well anything atm. In short the article mistakes patterns for failure to be able to read/do math.

Heres an example.. you drive to work in your sedan that gets 25 miles per gallon, every day 30 mile commute each way.. you also own a big honkin truck gets 11 mpg, that you only drive to take the boat out once a month or so (or for special occasions such as sporting events, etc) Now you can replace your sedan with just about anything that will get from point a to point b in moderate comfort without getting you killed along the way.. the suv is another issue entirely .. we are not talking about being able to "upgrade" from a 11mpg truck to a rav4.. (gonna totally ignore the other major factor in this which is price to upgrade) Which do you upgrade? the truck from 11mpg to the "hybrid" version which gets 18? or the sedan to a 33mpg version? Clearly you upgrade the sedan as you will use less gas overall.. but more importantly these decisions just dont happen in the real world..

If the wife owns a 2000 corolla and wants a camry.. and you have a 2000 pickup.. even if you could use 1/3 the gas overall by replacing your truck.. the decision was not to "buy a car to save on gas" it was to "buy a new car for the wife"

Nearly every "buying decision" is made on factors outside of the article's premise.. and in that real world it is perfectly useful and acceptable to compare option a @22 mpg with option b@28 mpg and option C@27mpg but even then that number will *never* make the whole decision (if it even factors in will be a minor miracle).

actually the amount saved is always gonna be more dependent on driving patterns of the driver than any stat of the car..

If the 10mpg car drive only goes from home to work and back 5 days a week a distance of 5 miles round trip.. and the driver who has the 33mpg car drives 100 miles a day.. the roughly 50% savings in gas on the 33-50mpg upgrade is gonna save way more fuel and money despite being LESS by % of efficiency.