WoW, horde black dragon flight.

My nose is cold.

You know a child is dead as a result of the actions of this adult woman.

But for her actions the child would be alive.

Fanta...you accuse others of all sorts of things and I am not going to waste my time with you on this any longer. You are clearly either deliberately ignoring the facts of this case or just plain trolling to get a reaction. Either way it's insulting to your fellow posters and the readers of this thread.

I am sure many men, comfortable in the reality that they will never be pregnant, will assert that they would never abort if they themselves were pregnant.

HA HA HA

This quote stolen from fark.com my favorite website!

"Bill Clinton to be named special UN envoy to Haiti. Presumably, Hillary wanted him sent somewhere he'd be deathly afraid to have sex with anyone"

Had to get clarification...sorry....there is a substantial difference between "black male" and "blackmail" and although I thought you meant to say blackmail I didn't want to assume.

Free Republic maybe?

Well well our 50's loving friend Gio is back.

Welcome back Gio.

So, beyond yearning for the 50's, saying poopy things and name calling I have to wonder...do you have any solutions to offer?

Oh, and I dare say, the idealized version of the 50's you seem to so happily cling to is an illusion but...we've been over that before.

She is very funny.

Much as I dislike Rush I do think her humor went a little far and fell flat when she said she wished his kidneys would fail.

Many people in that room both republicans and democrats were laughing.

Want to see some interesting humor? Check out what was said during eight years of Bush during the correspondence dinners.

but you can not force some one to do something over the internet

unless there is black male involved



Excuse me but what are you trying to say in that post please?

My sympathies to your pet.

Why do you have an almost pathological need to reply to every post I make Fanta?

Sorry but...I am not interested Fanta...I'd be bored and you'd be confused.

Oh and perhaps you should review the facts of the case.

Ah..yes...you contend that the minute Roe was announced women in every part of the country had instant legal access to abortions?

Sorry pal but that just isn't true.

You say this despite the fact that twenty plus years after the decision women still don't have access to abortion in all parts of the nation. Funny...

I have said this for a long time and I will say it again.

If men had a 50% shot of getting pregnant instead of the women when ever they had sex there would be no need for abortion because birth control that worked would be available to all.

Women have been aborting for thousands of years.

Heck if you want to get technical...the IUD a device, known to and used by the ancient Egyptians in their camels, works by not allowing a fertilized egg to implant and thrive and is in fact a form of abortion.

It even functions as a sort of morning after device and can be used to prevent pregnancy up to five days after conception.

The IUD is the most used method of reversible family planning in the world.

Should anti-choice people succeed in giving the cluster of cells created at the moment of fertilization the same rights as that of independent fully formed human being many forms of birth control will be murder too.

Good luck with that.

Okay, if an adult uses the internet to coerce a child into sexual activity with a webcam on...even if there is no physical contact between the child and the adult they have committed a crime.

I think most posters here support the arrest and prosecution of pedophiles who use the internet to exploit children.

Am I right there?

In this case the exploitation was not sexual it was emotional.

It was accomplished in a steady insidious way by a person who was not who they claimed to be. An adult who claimed to be a child preying on a child via the internet. In the same fashion child molesters do.

Instead of suggesting this child take off her clothes the predator suggested she kill herself.

Why is this okay?

Roe v Wade (1973) didn't make abortion legal and available in an instant in all fifty states.

I am not going to even attempt to list state by state what the affect on access to legal abortion was state by state.

I will say though that despite the decision there are states now where it is logistically nearly impossible for poor women to obtain the procedure. North Dakota in fact has only one abortion provider in the entire state despite it being a legal procedure.

So you see Fanta...1973 wasn't a magic date that opened up access to abortion to all women who sought them. To insinuate that Winx is bending the truth when she posts about her personal experiences or observations were or are is insulting to her.

I have been following the RIAA attempts to make an example of individuals who engage in file sharing. I saw some interesting news today.

Legislators (both republican and democrat) appear to be almost wholly in the pocket of the industry so the outcome of cases like this one are extremely important. Especially when the RIAA has chosen to aggressively prosecute individuals selected seemingly at random in order to essentially wage a war of intimidation.

Think it cannot happen to you? According to the RIAA if you buy a CD and put that music on your computer solely for your own use you have committed a crime. How do they know you've done that? RIAA malware and spyware is how. Then the RIAA with it's virtually limitless legal and financial resources goes after the mom in Iowa and or the teen in Florida who don't have a chance.

There have been victors in this fight against these RIAA tactics but the RIAA doesn't appear to be backing down. They are in fact bringing more suits that fit into their view of what copyright laws say.

Think this doesn't apply to you? I don't download music so I don't have a dog in this fight right? Well, these potential precedents go well beyond the issue of music and extend to the use and exchange of information and communication via the internet. Additionally there is the question of how much power are we going to give to corporations that seek to invade our private lives? (They already have too much imo) This is an important issue for all of us.

At any rate...here is an interesting take on fair use from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/harvard-prof-tells-judge-that-p2p-filesharing-is-fair-use.ars

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harvard prof tells judge that P2P filesharing is "fair use"

Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson is headed to federal court this summer to defend an accused file-swapper, and he plans to mount a novel defense: P2P sharing is simply "fair use."
By Nate Anderson | Last updated May 18, 2009 12:11 PM CT


Wholesale copying of music on P2P networks is fair use. Statutory damages can't be applied to P2P users. File-swapping results in no provable harm to rightsholders.

These are just some of the assertions that Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson made last week in his defense of accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum. In court filings, Nesson spelled out his defense strategy, which doesn't appear to involve claims that his client "didn't do it." Instead, Nesson argues that it doesn't matter if Tenenbaum copied music; such noncommercial uses are presumptively "fair" and anyone seeking to squeeze file-swappers for statutory damages is entitled to precisely zero dollars.

The strategy certainly doesn't lack for boldness. In making the case that statutory damages only apply to commercial infringers, Nesson says that his reading of the law is "constitutionally compelled." His most interesting argument is that the law offers rightsholders the chance to seek either statutory or actual damages, but that the two are meant to be equivalent.

"It would be a bizarre statute indeed that offered two completely unrelated remedies," he writes, "one which granted actual damages and lost profits, and the other of which granted plaintiffs the right to drive a flock of sheep across federal property on the third day of each month."

If the two remedies are equivalent, and if "individual noncommercial copying results in no provable actual harm to the copyright harm holder," then actual damages would be zero—and so would statutory damages. "In this context, it would be unreasonable to consider the $150,000 per infringement authorized [by the law] as an appropriate substitute for the zero actual damages."

(The recording industry has not sought $150,000 per infringement in any case, and the statute actually allows a spread that begins at $750 per infringement. In the Jammie Thomas trial, a jury settled on an amount close to $10,000 per song.)
It's all fair use

In any event, all of this statutory damages talk doesn't matter, because Nesson claims that Tenenbaum's use of the songs at issue here was "fair use" and thus not an infringement at all. It's a gutsy move to claim that wholesale downloads of complete copyrighted works for no purpose higher than mere enjoyment of music somehow satisfies the famous "four factor test" for fair use claims, but Nesson believes he can win over a jury.

"Defendant Tenenbaum expects and plans to offer the jury evidence relating to each one of these four factors," Nesson wrote in his court filing, "just as they are articulated in the statute, with the jury to decide their meaning as they apply to the facts of his particular case."

Nesson has been floating this idea to his supporters for some time, but the reception has been frosty. Lawyers like Lawrence Lessig, a huge fan of "free culture," remixing, mashups, and reduced copyright protections, wrote in an e-mail to Nesson that "of course [Tenenbaum's conduct] was against the law, and you do the law too much kindness by trying to pretend (or stretch) 'fair use' excuses what he did. It doesn't."

And Terry Fisher, who heads Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is an expert on fair use, pointed out that P2P filesharing would likely fail the four factors test. "This is not to suggest, of course, that it's sensible for the legal system to be set up in such a way as to enable and encourage the RIAA to go after people like Joel," he wrote. "I devoted much of a book to arguing that it’s not—and I'm happy to testify to that effect. But the fair use doctrine does not, in my view, provide a plausible vehicle for reform."

But last week's court filings indicate that this is precisely how Nesson intends to argue the case. As for the "four factors," he plans to address them... but also to go far beyond them. Nesson will introduce "other factors" that the jury should consider in the case, which include "the copyright holder's knowledge of and assumption of risk when it published the copyrighted work that work would be ripped and shared on P2P networks."

Should Nesson win, he will essentially legalize the sharing of all digital goods, copyrighted or not, by noncommercial users. Given that he wants to make the case about big principles like fair use and the applicability of statutory damages—and not about whether Joel Tenenbaum did what he is accused of doing—the music industry is likely to fight even harder to ensure that Nesson's preferred outcome is not realized. The fireworks are scheduled to begin this summer in Massachusetts federal court.

It bears mentioning as well that the Gallup poll that showed 51% of Americans calling themselves pro-life has a 3% margin of error and was a sampling of a mere 1,015 people.

Not all those describing themselves of pro-life favor making abortion illegal and in fact say abortion should be legal in some cases.

Fifty-three percent of those who responded in fact said that abortion should be legal in some cases. That number is virtually unchanged from ten years ago.

There are wise, caring, faithful,intelligent and responsible people on both sides of the issue who disagree deeply.

Don't believe in abortion?

Don't have one!

Care about life? Demonstrate that in your personal conduct. Don't have an abortion.

Are you pro-life? Do you care about the lives of people already here? If you are pro-life do take care of and educate children, oppose the death penalty and war?

Oh...the names of these camps always bothered me. It real should be pro-choice and anti-choice.

Here's another little peeve of mine. Many of the same people who oppose what they perceive as government intervention in other areas of their lives are the same ones who oppose choice. Don't tell me what kind or how many guns I can own...but I am going to tell you not only what your doctor can talk about in the privacy of their office with you I am also going to limit or eliminate your medical options.

Some people...*sigh*

My personal theory on the shift is this.

There are many of us who are clearly personally pro-life who vote for choice. You know...those of us who believe abortion is wrong but who who would not presume to criminalize the choice for others.

Then there is this...this is the bit that worries me.

Many young people have little or no idea what the reality of illegal abortion is. I clearly remember what it was like when I was a young girl and abortion was illegal.

Women still had abortions...the key difference between then and now is that women with money had medically safe, clean and discrete abortions while poor women took their chances. Don't tell me I am talking poop. I saw it.

So the reality of criminalizing abortion is lost for many because during their life times it has been readily and safely available.

Guess what? If you think abortion is wrong...by all means..don't have one.

Sorry about your luck!

Broken by design?

Sorry...but...teach your children to read...do not expect someone else to do it. Start by reading to them...it's a proven method.

Funny...people howl about sex ed in schools saying that should be a parents area but expect schools to do the whole bit or at least the lions share when it comes to reading.

I was reading before kindergarten and my parents both worked full time.

Shut off the television and the computer...sit the wee one in your lap and read. You might be surprised by what happens.

Oh...think there is a conspiracy to make the citizenry stupid?

You might be right.

There is one sure way to fight it and it isn't pissing and moaning on line...it's education.

Knowledge is power.