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Comment Re:That's war. We Americans are no better. (Score 1) 359

Actually, the fighting words doctrine, in the limited context in which it still exists, is only a limitation on your First Amendment protections. In other words, the government may prohibit and punish fighting words. This is an entirely separate issue from whether fighting words give rise to a right of retaliation by private actors against the speaker. In nearly every context, violence undertaken in response to fighting words is illegal, and may subject the one committing the violence to criminal penalties and a civil suit.

Comment Re:Serious Problems With Central Claim (Score 1) 238

The Model Penal Code disagrees.

Model Penal Code 223.2 Theft by Unlawful Taking or Disposition.

(1) Movable Property.
A person is guilty of theft if he unlawfully takes, or exercises unlawful control over, movable property of another with purpose to deprive him thereof. Section 223.3 deals with obtaining property by deception, specifying in some detail the forms of deception that may constitute the offense. Section 223.4 similarly specifies the forms of threat that may constitute theft by extortion.

(2) Immovable Property.
A person is guilty of theft if he unlawfully transfers immovable property of another or any interest therein with purpose to benefit himself or another not entitled thereto.

The comments to immovable property say that "[i]mmovable property, principally real estate, is stolen if one unlawfully transfers the property of another, or an interest therein, with purpose to benefit himself or another not entitled thereto. The major purpose of the distinction is to avoid theft liability for such conduct as trespass or occupying real property beyond the terms of a lease." Copyright infringement is not theft. It is copyright infringement.

Comment Re:Solar Power to the Rescue? (Score 0) 344

If you increase the use of solar energy, wouldn't you expect that the Sun's energy that is converted to electricity would lessen the heat generated by sun light entering our atmosphere and heating the objects it strikes?

The laws of thermodynamics would like to have a word with you.

Those solar panels trap energy.

House analogy. If you want to cool your house, do you trap the energy inside of it, or do you systematically pump it out with an air conditioner?

Why do warmers never understand the laws of thermodynamics?

Comment Re:Pulp paper should die! (Score 3, Informative) 446

Because, I hear you think, they can then also harvest the tetrahydrocannabinol-rich flowers and smoke themselves into a stupor.

Not so, unfortunately. First off, only the unfertilised flowers produce plenty of THC. This means you have to keep the male plants far away. Doable, there's even something called 'feminised' seeds, but still a bother.
A bigger hurdle, however, is that the smokey stuff is Cannabis Sativa. The stuff used to make paper, rope and other hemp products, is Cannabis Indica, which doesn't make a particularly good smoke.

Comment Re:Much more primitive than we expect (Score 1) 648

1200 years, its entirely possible culture and religion has shifted to such an extent that the simple fact such a mission was launched could be considered aberration. There's also the complete possibility that such a mission was completely forgotten, and the technology also completely forgotten, so when the alien arrives home, its treated as an alien by its own culture.

Assuming technological advances, it might be shot out of orbit long before reaching its own home. Assuming worse case, it might return home to nearly no life (apocalyptic war aftermath).

However, the real likelyhood is that a newer, better craft was launched 400 years later, beat them to some other much more viable planet that the mere closest one, and the original mission was not only considered lost, but considdered a waste, and the new data available by the time he returned meant all the data collected on the mission to that planet was essentially useless.

Comment Re:Working Perfectly (Score 1) 246

Competition, like voting, should be a means to a desirable outcome, not an end state to be achieved for its own sake. I struggle to see the benefit of applying public funds to promote sub-standard products without also supporting the manufacturers of those currently sub-standard products in their efforts to make useful and desirable products.

I also do not look forward to six months from now when new browser exploits need to be patched in 12 silos instead of four via naive software update mechanisms. If browsers are important enough to the public interest to be regulated, such regulation should be based on objective standards and market information _which offers equal opportunity to all competitors who meet the minimum standard_, not just an arbitrary set of those who do and do not. To do otherwise only shifts the frictions and barriers from places such as Opera's budget to develop competent marketing and software to enter and stay in the market, to Brand X's political lobbying budget to become one of the chosen 12 participants in the government sanctioned oligopoly, with the net result that quality of the commodity of web browsers decreases overall.

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