Messages

I think the whole discussion in this thread about liberal/conservative paints a good image of what is 'wrong' with this forum.

Jimmy here's the thing ...
In response to SSH's  question I tried to think of a few things that might be factors and posted them.  One of them didn't translate well into Spanish and NACHO asked me to clarify.  We traded a couple of laughs and posts trying to sort out the translation.   DG and others used to post political topics in GENGEN that generated massive interest all the time.  I hardly ever agreed with DG's opinions but I very much enjoyed engaging in those passionate discussions. 

Rui it wasn't my intention to dwell on the right or wrong of a single incident but rather to illustrate my point about how these kinds of things may be seen by newcomers.   In this  particular incident what harm would have come from not locking the thread? 

I think we should all consider what Nightfable has said and evaluate how her comments may apply to ourselves, myself included.  Well said Nightfable. 

Ohhhh, RickJ, I think I am lost in translation! In Spanish, Liberal and Conservative (Liberal and conservador) is the same word!  Cheesy So, in English, a liberal is a word for those who are left oriented?

Yeah, you got it now, more or less. 

Like I said before political labels mean different things in different countries.  When I was in India they have as many as 30 political parties and two of them are communist parties who hate each other.  Imaging if you meet someone who is from one of the communist parties and tell that you are communist also.  Instead of them thinking "You are one of us, lets be friends." you may be surprised that they are instead thinking "You are not one of us,  so you must be one of them and so I hate you." 

I think you must PM me, my friend, for explaining it to me again, or better, post it here for general laugh at the silly Spanish boy  Roll Eyes. Do you mean that before almost everyone would clap "left" opinions and that almost everyone would critic "right" ones?

Exactly.

I agree that that happened before... But that stills happens now, IMO. Anyway, I don' t see how a change in that attitude is wrong, though, since making an enviroment more pleasant to express opinions must be IMO good. (Unless you mean that there is more room now for "extreme right" opinions, that has to be allways censorable...)

I am not talking about extreme right or left.  I don't mean to say that such a change in attitude is wrong.  Only that people perhaps feel more comfortable expressing their opinions knowing that there will be many people who agree with them.   If the peoples opinions are more balanced then there is less of a guarantee of finding support for any given position.   I agree that it ought to make for a more pleasant environment for discussion but some people prefer security.
     
I don't think there is a large change in attitude but every once in a while I get the feeling that things aren't as one sidded as they once seemed.  Perhaps it's just my perception?   

But I don' t understant the first part... Do you mean that it is easier to tell in this forums that you are liberal or conservative now?

Let me try to explain a little better.

It seems to me that before if you expressed a "Liberal" political opinion almost everybody would agree with you and few if any would disagree.  If you expressed a "Conservative" opinion almost everyone would disagree with you and hardly anyone would agree with you.   I think that (or wonder if) it is now more balanced in stead of being all one way

If true then it would have been easier to express a "Liberal" opinion before because you would be assured that everyone would agree with or at least accept what you said.

I think every once in a while poor old Nacho finds that he is that one lone voice who disagrees with the masses.    

I don't really know if politics have changed that much, I just sometimes wonder.  Who can know about that stuff for sure anyway? 

[Political Winds of Change]

I've had similar thoughts off and on for a while now.  I mostly have attributed it to my own interest waxing and waning but have also thought perhaps there may be other factors.   

• Political Winds of Change - I use the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative" here loosely because they mean different things in different countries.  It seems to me that when I first joined the AGS forums "Liberal" opinions went mostly unchallenged and "Conservative" opinions were few and heavily criticized.   I have a sense that this is no longer the case and wonder if true what impact it would have on the forum?
  
  
• Over Moderation - Occasionally I see "You guys run a really tight hip over here ..."  type comments and wonder if perhaps our ship is a little too tight.   I know it's a thankless job being a moderator and I personally have no complaints about how things are being run.  I'm just not sure that everyone, especially our newer members see it that way.   I don't want to single anyone out but I remember a recent example that illustrates my point.
  
  A new member asked something to the effect "I am excited about AGS but don't even know where to start, it's kind of overwhelming.  Would someone be willing to hold my hand a bit to help me get started?"  The response was basically "Read the manual and be more specific." and the thread was locked.   Perhaps it would have been better to explain that such a generic and broad appeal for help is  unlikely to generate much response and then explain that most people begin by following the tutorial in the manual and ask more specific questions as they come up.  Then leave the thread open to die a natural death, who knows someone may have jumped in with encouragement and help?
  
  Anyway it's perhaps something to think about.
  
  
• Linux Brain Drain - Has anyone wondered how many sharp young minds we loose to Linux-ers everyday?   Our method of Checking the fourm stats to see what OS the members are using so as to determine their references is a bit flawed.   If they are using the forum, they are most likely using AGS.  If they are using AGS then they are most certainly doing so in Windows. 
  
  
• Overwhelming, Overbearing Old Farts - such as myself sometimes get carried away participating in discussions, especially GENGEN ones.   I suppose some people are not accustomed to being confronted with opposing points of view and so feel uncomfortable and intimidated when it happens.  I wonder if we (i.e. me) should restrain ourselves more often and to what extent.  Maybe something like a 50 words or less posting limit.      
  
  On a more serious note, maybe we should establish a debating etiquette where in the case where if someone is overwhelmed, offended, intimidated, or looses badly, the winning or offending participant sends a polite PM saying that they enjoyed the discussion and not to take anything said there personally.  Just a thought.
  
  

  
  Not trying to be a dick, but seriously, if you want there to be more activity then why not contribute more relevant posts to encourage others to do so?
  

  You must be joking right?  SSH is one of our most prodigious contributors.  Perhaps we should resolve to follow his example?
  
  

  
  Finally, does it really matter if fewer people are cluttering the threads?  AGS will keep being updated regardless, and the people who like using it will continue to do so.  I see no problem here
  

  Interests change over time and people move on.  How many members do you think we have that are over  30, 40 or 50 years old.   If nobody is interested in AGS then CJ won't be either and it will pass into cyber history along with C/PM and  paper tape. 
  
  P.S. Nacho, thanks for the kind words
  
  [edit]
  I almost forgot, SSH you have plagiarized the great baseball player Yogi Berra who once said
  "The future ain't what it used to be!" 

[linguistcis]

This whole topic seems a bit weird to me, but I just wanted to point out something I noticed in your post. The dates you give for Kenya, The Bahamas, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Bangladesh, The Solomon Islands, Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique, are actually the dates that those countries obtained independence, so the data is a little misleading. Even for the other countries, most of the dates are either very close to the dates they obtained independence, or the date they overthrew some dictatorship, or had some revolution against the king, or communism was removed. I'm not arguing against or for what you are saying, just wishing to point out something.

Interesting point Babar, I wasn't aware of the other events around those dates.  The information is from the Women's History page at About.com.    It's not surprising, however,  that people, including women  , gain rights and freedoms shortly after overthrowing a repressive government.   Also, as I have mentioned in my previous post, there seems to be more details about the US than other countries.  I would suppose this is because the author(s) are from the US and know more about their home country than they do about others.   Perhaps in cases where the actual date is not known but it was known that the change took place under the new government, they took the liberty of using the independence date. 

You are confusing linguistics with everything else.

When Dowland asks "Why does masculine take all?" he is referring to the English Language rules of grammar, and possibly others, that prescribe the use masculine gender forms of pronouns when the sex of the individual(s) to which the pronoun refers is not known.    For example, I don't if Dowland is male or female so the correct way of referring to him in English is to use the masculine gender pronouns he, him, his.   He is upset because he incorrectly equates the default usage of masculine gender pronouns with favoritism or preference for indivduals of the male sex.   It appears the he does not understand that gender and sex are two different things nor does he appear to know which one to use in a given situation. 

Now you assert that this confusion is over linguistcis rather than gender.   Linguistics is the study of the entire language, it's origins, constructs, grammar, etc, so this would obviously include gender.  However, the discussion, Dowland and I are having is only concerned with the English Language's rules regarding the use of gender and whether or not this usage  favors one sex over the other.   The definition of both terms is shown below; anyone can see that "gender" is what the discussion is specifically about and is therefore the more precise and therefore preferable term. 

lin·guis·tics       (lĭng-gwĭs'tĭks)  Pronunciation Key
n.   (used with a sing. verb)
The study of the nature, structure, and variation of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics.

gen·der       (jěn'dər)  Pronunciation Key
n. 
A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.

In the context of discussions like this, "gender" is nowadays often used to mean the distinction between male and females, although focusing more on the psychological and social aspects (as in "gender identity", "gender roles", etc.), ...

While it may be true that "gender" is often used in this way that doesn't make it the correct way.  Why is this important you may ask?   It's an old and common tactic for groups who want to gain power and privilege to redefine the language to gain advantage.  Orwell and Huxley make mention of this in their novel "1984" and "Brave new World"; one of them even coined a term for it "somethingspeak", can't remember what "something" was.   

So in your examples what you are really talking about are "sexual identity" and "sexual roles".    You are correct that these are psychological issues;  they have a word for people who believe they are somebody who they are not.   And if you look at the issues in the light of clear language there isn't much chance groups representing such people to acquire political power or privilege.    Before anyone starts up about how we need to be kind, compassionate,  and  caring about people with problems, let me just say that I don't think exploiting peoples problems to gain political power and privilege is neither kind nor compassionate.

But characterizing the non-linguistic usage of the word "gender" as somehow incorrect is pretty misleading.

Actually just the opposite is true.  It's misleading and cynical to use imprecise terms or to use terms incorrectly so as to obfuscate the facts to persuade the masses to one's point of view.

The other, separate meaning (above) is well-established and standard in the relevant fields. More to the point, the English language lost its grammatical gender system AFAIK almost a millennium ago (Old English has a German-like gender system, whereas Middle English does not), so I can assure you that whatever anyone here is talking about it's probably not grammatical gender.

From my first post ...

The English language is gender neutral except for a hand full of pronouns such as he, she, etc.  It is correct English to use a masculine pronoun when referring to mixed groups or in a gender neutral context.   Feminine pronouns are used when specifically referring to individual(s) who are female while male pronouns are used otherwise.   So when the Declaration of Independence states that "... all men are create equal ..." the term "men" refers to everyone.   This nothing more than the correct usage of the English language.   

   
   
Re: We love to watch women suffer. Being women, they do it so beautifully...
« Reply #32 on: Yesterday at 09:32:38am »    Reply with quote
Quote from: RickJ on November 21, 2007, 07:50:05 PM
Quote
Agreed, about your linguistic point: it similar in other languages where masculin takes all. But this is not a gender neutral language. You have to ask yourself, at one point, why the "neutral" in a language coincides with the male--why are you assuming this rule is purely academic?
I am not assuming anything just stating facts which you also acknowledge.    The writings in question conform to standard usage of the language at the time of the writing.   I'm not an expert on the origins of English grammar but as you say other languages, in addition to English, use masculine pronouns to refer to all.

You are assuming: you are stating a fact without thinking about its basis, or questionning its meaning. My question is double:
* did the founders really mean all mankind when they said "men" (and if so, you have not answered my questions as to why women were only given right to vote in 1920--i.e.: centuries after); ...

Of course they meant the entire human race, they could not have meant anything else.  The word "man" when used in this context means the entire human race.  In fact that's all it meant in any context until about a 1000 years ago when "adult males" was included as an alternative definition (see the Online Etymological Dictionary).   

It is plain for any educated person who reads The Declaration of Independence with an open mind what the writers' purpose and meaning was.  It's basically a letter to the king of England telling him to piss-off.  What purpose would be served making a distinction between men and women as you suggest they did.   Do you really believe that the people who wrote the declaration were willing to let the King continue to rule over their wives and children?   Clearly their purpose was to communicate to the King that all of the people (i.e. men, women, children, etc) of the colonies wanted their independence from the King's rule.  Any other interpretation is just plain silly.   

Just take a look at the first two sentences from  the Declaration of Independence.  The first sentence mentions "the course of human events",  "one people dissolving political bands which have connected them to another", "the Law's of Nature", "Nature's God", and "mankind".   Here is the entire sentence:

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Where is the distinction between male and female members of the human race? It seems to be talking about everyone doesn't it?
This sets the context for at least the next sentence doesn't it?   The very next sentence is where the offending word "men" occurs twice.  The first instance occurs in the phrase "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."    If you are saying that the writers meant men="adult males" then are you also that they believed that God created and gave rights, such as life. liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,  only to adult males.   The context does not support this nor is there any evidence that any of the authors or signers of the Declaration held any such beliefs.   You can look here to read Jefferson's account of the events leading up to the writing and signing of the declaration.   There is no mention anywhere of this issue.  It simply was not part of the discussion.   

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. â€" That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, â€" That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "

The second occurrence admittedly catches one's modern eye when it says "... Governments are instituted among Men ...".   But just because governments of the time consisted primarily of adult males doesn't mean that this phrase is referring to  only adult males.   It is used in the context of everyone  and indeed this is reaffirmed in the same sentence when "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" and the "Right of the People"  are mentioned. 

Again, this was the document sent to King George telling him that the American colonies would no longer accept his rule and  the reasons why.   There was no reason for, or purpose to be served by, making a distinction between adult males and everybody else.  They did not intend that King George continue to rule their wives and children and it is absolutely absurd to think otherwise.   

* did the founders really mean all mankind when they said "men" (and if so, you have not answered my questions as to why women were only given right to vote in 1920--i.e.: centuries after); ...

Why didn't women vote until 1920, Hmm let'seee now.  First of all it's not correct to say that women had no voting rights in the US before 1920.  According to the Women's History Website progress on women's voting rights began in 1776 the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed.  The first progress in Britian who did not subscribe to the US's founding documents seems to have been in 1869, almost a hundred years later.   In all fairness, it should be noted this website seems to have more details about the US than other countries and so it is possible there are other British events pre-dating 1869 that are not listed.  The list below is taken from the Women's History Website at these URLs.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_timeline_1.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_timeline_2.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_timeline_3.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa031600a.htm

1776: US Declaration of Independence
1776: New Jersey gives the vote to women owning more than $250.
1781: US Constitution Ratified
1837: Kentucky gives some women suffrage in school elections. (source)
1861: Kansas enters the Union; the new state gives its women the right to vote in local school elections.
1869: Britain grants unmarried women who are householders the right to vote in local elections
1869: Wyoming territory constitution grants women the right to vote and to hold public office.  (more more)
1870: Utah territory gives full suffrage to women. (more)
1881: Some Scottish women get the right to vote in local elections.
1893: The male electorate in Colorado votes "yes" on woman suffrage. (more more)
1894: Some cities in Kentucky and Ohio give women the vote in school board elections. (more)
1894: The United Kingdom expands women's voting rights to married women in local but not national elections.
1895: Utah amends its constitution to grant women suffrage.  (more)
1896: Idaho adopts a constitutional amendment granting suffrage to women.  (more more)
1902: Kentucky repeals limited school board election voting rights for women. (more)
1910: Washington state votes for woman suffrage.  (more more)
1911: California gives women the vote.  (more more)
1912: Male electorates in Michigan, Kansas, Oregon and Arizona approve state constitutional amendments for woman suffrage.
1912: Kentucky restores limited voting rights for women in school board elections. (more)
1918: The United Kingdom gives a full vote to women of age 30 and older and men age 21 and older.
1920: On August 26, a constitutional amendment is adopted when Tennessee ratifies it, granting full woman suffrage in all states
1928: The United Kingdom grants equal voting rights to women.

Take a look at the URL's above, they have a world wide time line with all countries included.   If what you suggest were true then you would expect that the US progress would be retarded in comparison to other countries who were not hampered by the language in the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution.  However this does not seem to be the case at all.   In fact, if anything the US was the leader of the progress.   Wiki-pedia confirms this notion in it's Women's Suffrage Article which says that "the term women's suffrage refers to the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage â€" the right to vote â€" to women. The movement's origins are usually traced to the United States in the 1820s. In the following century it spread throughout the European and European-colonised ..."

Instead of asking why it took so long in the US, perhaps it would be better to ask why it took so long in other places, especially the ones where the idea that "all men are created equal",  (i.e. "men"="human Beings") is not a widely accepted truth.  Here is the rest of the time line picking up again in the 1960s.   Why did it take these countries soooo long?  And what about places like Saudia Arabia and other Islamic countries who don't even allow women to go out of the house unless they put a bag over their head?   Why are all women's rights groups so silent about this?  The silence is deafening isn't it?   

1962: Australia adopts full woman suffrage (a few restrictions remain)
1963: Women in Morocco, Congo, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kenya gain suffrage. (more)
1964: Sudan adopts woman suffrage. (more)
1964: The Bahamas adopts full suffrage with restrictions. (more)
1965: Women gain full suffrage in Afghanistan, Botswana and Lesotho. (more)
1967: Ecuador adopts full suffrage with a few restrictions. (more)
1968: Full woman suffrage adopted in Swaziland. (more)
1970: Yemen adopts full suffrage. (more)
1970: Andorra permits women to vote. (more)
1971: Switzerland adopts woman suffrage, and the United States lowers the voting age for both men and women to eighteen. (more)
1972: Bangladesh grants woman suffrage. (more)
1973: Full suffrage granted to women in Bahrain. (more)
1973: Women permitted to stand for election in Andover and San Marino. (more)
1974: Jordan and the Solomon Islands extend suffrage to women. (more)
1975: Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique give suffrage to women. (more)
1976: Portugal adopts full woman suffrage with a few restrictions. (more)
1978: The Republic of Moldova adopts full suffrage with a few restrictions. (more)
1978: Women in Zimbabwe are able to stand for election. (more
1980: Iran gives women the vote. (more)
1984: Full suffrage granted to women of Liechtenstein. (more)
1986: Central African Republic adopts woman suffrage. (more)
1990: Samoan women gain full suffrage. (more)
1994: Kazakhstan grants women full suffrage. (more)
2005: Kuwaiti Parliament grants women of Kuwait full suffrage.

My point was not with really with the language though ... although "men" is often times used to mean mankind, my point was that in the founding documents, while the founding fathers might have meant "mankind" (I was not there so I cannot tell), the documents were subsequently used and interpreted as though they had said "men" as in "males". This is not merely linguistics; this is what has shaped America for the next few centuries

I'm glad you concede my point regarding the language of the Declaration of independence.   Now you assert that the Declaration of Independence  was used and interpreted as thought it had said "men" as in "adult males" but you don't mention used by whom and how they used them to shape the US for the first few centuries?   With regard to women's voting rights this is clearly not the case.    The status quo when the US was founded was that women did not vote anywhere in the world.   The wiki-pedia says that that notion started here in the US a few decades after the US Constitution was ratified.   

Your assertion is also very curious because the word "men" or any other reference or distinction between male and female individuals only occurs twice in the Declaration of Independence and nowhere in the US Constitution, except the 19th amendment which states that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.".  The US constitution begins with the phrase "We the people" and uses the word "person" or "persons" when referring to individuals.  You keep referring to "the founding documents" so I wonder what documents other than the declaration are you referring to???     

With regard to the idea of people interpreting things to fit their own agenda and to achieve their own ends... The world is full of gullible people and scoundrels who will take advantage of them by twisting language and facts.       

* if they did, and if "men" is, as you say, used to refer to "men and women" (why not say "men and women"?), why is "men" the take all; why is it not "women" ... that is a choice that was made with intent (rather than randomly), as the fact that this rule also extends to many languages suggests.

You are confusing gender and sex  .   Sex is the distinction between male and female members of a given species.   Gender refers to the way a given language classifies and uses nouns.  The number of genders in different languages varies from 2 to more than 20.   Although there is some correlation between gender and sex in some languages they are not the same thing.   

In the case of the word "man" one only need to consult an authority on  etymology to find the answer.  The origin of the word "man" comes from Old English and meant "human beings".   In Late Old English, c1000, wer and wif were used to distinguish between the sexes.  So you would have had man, werman, and wifman (I believe).  "Wer" began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by "man".   Wifman morphed into wimman and the into woman.   The plural, women, is still pronounced as "wimmen" in some places.   See here and here.

It doesn't make much sense to me to whine about a language's rules of grammar,  if you don't like it choose another language and get on with your life.   It's silly to pretend that there is/was some kind of political motivation behind the origin of a language's grammar, as these rules came into practice many centuries before our current political issues came into being or were even contemplated.   IMHO, invaders, conquerors, foreign trade, popular culture, and human quirky-ness are the genesis of languages and their rules.  To attribute the origin of languages to any kind of systematic and well thought out process, quite frankly, gives humanity far more credit than it deserves.

[edit]fix link & spelling

Agreed, about your linguistic point: it similar in other languages where masculin takes all. But this is not a gender neutral language. You have to ask yourself, at one point, why the "neutral" in a language coincides with the male--why are you assuming this rule is purely academic?

I am not assuming anything just stating facts which you also acknowledge.    The writings in question conform to standard usage of the language at the time of the writing.   I'm not an expert on the origins of English grammar but as you say other languages, in addition to English, use masculine pronouns to refer to all.

Beside, on the choice of words, why choose men, instead of people?

man1      /mæn/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[man] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, plural men, verb, manned, man·ning, interjection
-noun
1.   an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman.
2.   a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man.
3.   the human individual as representing the species, without reference to sex; the human race; humankind: Man hopes for peace, but prepares for war.
4.   a human being; person: to give a man a chance; When the audience smelled the smoke, it was every man for himself.

peo·ple      /ˈpipəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pee-puhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, plural -ples for 4, verb, -pled, -pling.
â€"noun
1.   persons indefinitely or collectively; persons in general: to find it easy to talk to people; What will people think?
2.   persons, whether men, women, or children, considered as numerable individuals forming a group: Twenty people volunteered to help.
3.   human beings, as distinguished from animals or other beings.
4.   the entire body of persons who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, religion, or the like: the people of Australia; the Jewish people.

It would either usage would be correct, and so the author would be free to choose.    However if you read the definitions of both words above you will see that "people" is commonly used to refer to subsets of the human race whereas  "man or men"  cannot be used to refer to a subset of the human race (except of course when used to refer to one or more adult males).    Had the word "people" been used then one could ask "Which people?"  After all at the time women didn't vote and blacks were enslaved, so clearly they would not have been the people referred to in the document?    When they said "men", if they had meant only white adult males then they could have easily said "all white adult males are created equal".  Since women and slaves didn't vote or have any political power at the time and if what you say was true then there would have been no opposition.

In the context of "all men are created equal",  which implies a creator and which is explicitly acknowledged in the subsequent phrase "endowed by their creator ...", IMHO, "God created man" is a more appropriate choice than "God created all the people".   For those who don't know the significance of  The Declaration of Independence, this was the document sent to the King of England stating that the American colonies would no longer accept his rule.  They justified their actions by invoking a higher authority, God.  In short "God created us and gave us certain rights and nobody, not even a king can take them away".   

I'm trying to think of an example where "God" and "man" are used together to refer to adult males but curiously I can't think of any.   

It is not normal, that important founding documents throughout the world state laws in terms of men (the declaration of independence says "all men are created equal", etc., etc.)

The English language is gender neutral except for a hand full of pronouns such as he, she, etc.  It is correct English to use a masculine pronoun when referring to mixed groups or in a gender neutral context.   Feminine pronouns are used when specifically referring to individual(s) who are female while male pronouns are used otherwise.   So when the Declaration of Independence states that "... all men are create equal ..." the term "men" refers to everyone.   This nothing more than the correct usage of the English language.   

Also, it is on this basis, i.e. that the founding documents refer to everyone, that "progress has been made".   

I would suppose posting a video on YouTube,  MySpace, the like is a good (or at least fashionable) way of promoting one's game.

I found a bunch of freeware ones at the link below but don't know how good or bad they are.

[url]http://www.swftools.com/tools-category.php?cat=929[url]

[edit] fix link

Ad hominem personal attacks are usually not considered to be very funny and have only a very narrow appeal, if any at all. 

It's supposed to make fun of stereotyping in society, ...

It's a difficult subject and anyone taking it on is, with all due respect, either courageous or foolhardy or perhaps a bit of both.  However you admit in the same sentence that this is just an excuse for a presentation of ...

... a bunch of insensitive jokes and every day prejudices put together in a very retarded way just to make you laugh.

Unfortunately, I don't think you will make many people laugh with this kind of approach.  To do that you will need to put more thought in to your project and use your own humor instead of depending upon lame cliches.   I encourage you not to abandon the subject but rather take a more thoughtful approach.   

For example, suppose the main character was a space alien who just crashed landed on earth and has no idea about blacks, lesbians, the KKK,  southern baptists, or other political stuff.   The poor guy's space suit just happens to look like a KKK outfit (thinking conehead type character).  He tries to be an inconspicuous  member of society but can't figure out why he is having trouble fitting in.  Can't get a date, rent apartment, get a job, or even donate sperm.    This makes for endless opportunities to poke fun at all kinds of things without inflaming the masses.   Feel free to use this idea or invent another of your own.  Best of luck with this.

Yeah, I saw the bit in our local paper.  My wife's family live in Bolivia where Chavez is causing many problems.  So three cheers for the king.

[edit]
The King was right.  Gratuitous name calling is a tactic of the ignorant and foolish, not worthy of national leaders.  In the end only the ignorant and foolish are influenced by this kind of stuff.  When you are speaking for yourself you can say whatever you like and as coarsely as you like, however, national leaders, speak for all the people in their entire country and so have an obligation to speak the mind of the people with respect, dignity, and clarity.  Gratuitous name calling is best left to late night comedians and the humble masses , IMHO.           

Interesting talk about the copyright, technology, and everything by Larry Lessig founder of the Creative Commons and Stanfrod law professor.  he makes a compelling case for fair use rights of copyrighted works.  Enjoy! 

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187

My first reaction to this whole thing was "let's ban all guns", while my parents' reaction was "video games, music, movies, internet - all bad". Though after calming down a bit and learning that the gun was purchased completely legally and with a recommendation from his resident gun club (gun permits are generally very difficult to acquire here), I realized that guns are hardly a main cause of something like this, nor are violent media as we all would probably argue. ...

I think it's most a case of the well-being of youths in our country and around the world, and as the authorities are now emphasizing, without pointing any fingers, a case of social service. People are now asking ... and what's pushing young people to do things like this ...

I whole heartedly agree with you on these points.  To answer the  question "What's pushing young people to do things like this?", IMHO, at least in the US, kids are sheltered from failure experiences from an early age.  Everything is structured and arranged so that every kid will succeed.  Even when they fail they are told that they have succeeded.  In US schools it's fashionable to build self esteem, deserved or not, at all costs.  Unfortunately this can be done for only so long.  Eventually kids grow up and begin to experience the harsh realities of life and are totally unprepared.  So now ask yourself what's the most traumatic thing that happens to nearly everyone at this guy's age?   How much do you want to bet this guy doesn't have a girlfriend? 

I not an expert on this subject but I have been following the SCO vs IBM litigation closely for the past several years on the Gorklaw blog and have learned a bit.  They are very professional over there and give careful and thoughtful analysis of the events.  The analysis and much of the commentary comes from former paralegals, attorneys, and technology professionals rather than disgruntled teenagers. 

I don't condone blatant copyright infringement and I am sorry if my last post give that impression.  My passion lies with the preservation of the public's fair use rights and sane public policy regrading copyright, the internet, and emerging technologies.  Blatant copyright infringement only exacerbates the problems.

I've been following very closely, with my own personal correspondance to UE the IMSLP.org case. IMSLP is quite clear that they want to be legal, and have done no harm and yet were foolishly attacked. On the other hand tv-links.co.uk is also clear that they don't mind being illegal, but are bassed on a mere legality to stand their ground (which didn't hold btw). For me these 2 different situations are quite clear to what they are.

I don't know anything about tv-links.co.uk except what I have read in this thread.  It would seem to me that tv-links crossed the line by the it's links were maintained.  From reading this thread I surmise that webmaster was knowingly posting links to infringing materials and therefore actively encouraging and facilitating copyright infringement activities by others. 

The industry is in huge trouble actually, and now that Radiohead (there were others before them btw), are contract free and went the reasonable way, everyone else is following, even NIN (there was a comment from Reznor...)

I firmly believe the real motivation behind the RIAA lawsuits is fear of becoming obsolete rather than fear of losing sales to file sharing.  The reason recording companies exist is that historically individual artists did not have the capitol required to produce, promote, and distribute their products.  With current PC technology, the internet, a paper route, and a little bit of talent a 16 year old kid could afford to produce an album, promote it, and distribute it to the entire planet.  CD manufacturing facilities, recording studios, distribution channels, etc, etc all as useful as buggy whips.

The reason I posted earlier is that many comments seemed to me to be based on greatly oversimplified notions of copyright law and I wanted explain that with copyright things are not as simple as our intuition tells us that they ought to be.  A great number of cases are making hteir way through the US court system and many unanswered questions will get answered on way or another.  It will be interesting to watch what happens and in the end I think a lot off the mess will get sorted out. 

Also Rick, you are talking about copyright, but copyright in Europe (and I do think that in Canada+USA) is automatic, and happens the minute the art piece is concived. This is all nice and dandy, and is no problem really.

It's also automatic in the US.  However you have to register the copyright before you can file an infringement lawsuit.   The problem with the automatic protection is that without registration it's not possible to know which works are orphaned and which are not.   The result is that orphaned works will eventually be lost to the rubbish bin of history.   I would be in favor of a system where you get automatic protection for the first 16 or so years and then be required to register after that. 

I wouldn't like to see the loss of copyright for any living artist. But holding the copyright for 50-70 years after the death of the composer, is an insult to any intelligent human being, as well as donkeys, monkeys and anything else, who would also understand the idiocy of that system.

I can understand this point of view especially from someone working in the UK.  I am not exactly clear on this but isn't there something in British law about copyrights staying with the author?   In the US the copyrights are usually assigned by the author to the author's employer.   Since corporate entities end up being the rights holders over here extending the term to the life of the author doesn't have much meaning.  It's also not really fair to old people who produce their greatest works near the ends of their lives.  They ought to be able to leave something behind for their families.   In the little table I suggested the amount of  the initial registration fee and initial term length could be adjusted to get results closer to what you would consider to be fair or acceptable. 

I remember playing a little game called "Wompus: Spelunking for a Monster" on IMB main frames in the late 70's.   Ah, what memories "I feel a draft...  Bats are near... I smell Wompus...".   

We also had a text adventure running on an Intel MDS which was a big blue box housing a feeble microprocessor, by today's standards, used to compile programs that could be burnt to EPROM chips and plugged into microcomputers, mostly of the home brew genre.

It was moved, I'd imagine, on the back of the discussion about cleaning up RaT. Having both seemed a bit redundant, so one had to go - and instead of deleting it entirely and losing all the active offers, it was moved somewhere it would still be visible, but not visible enough to compete with RaT. That's my interpretation, anyway. The tone of the discussion (when I read it, at least) sounded like RaT should be the one to 'go', but what the heck.

I don't know that I stayed with that discussion to it's conclusion or if I am thinking about another related one;  but what I remember is that we were talking about having a proper want ads kind of thing rather than forum threads.  The idea was that old ads would be automatically deleted after some period of time. 

I'd say just perodically start new OYS and RAT threads and lock the old ones.  IMHO that's all thats needed to keep them a bit more tidy.  A clever PHP person could probably even automate the process.

Radiant is right that they are complimentary to each other.   

[Copyright]

First of all I would like to say that Nikolas should be commended for his forward thinking, his openness to unconventional ideas regarding his profession, and his willingness to actually try some of those ideas out.   It's quite easy to talk about what someone else should do to make a living but it's quite another thing to do it yourself.  Things are usually not as easy as they sound and especially so if the thing is new, unconventional, and unproven. 

It's not really that complicated.  You get something without paying for it when you should have, it is stealing ....

Many things can be said about copyright but "uncomplicated" is not one of them.   So when should you have to pay?

Recently a recording industry executive, who was asked under oath which of a list of downloadable mp3 files were infringing copyrights and which were legally offered for free download by the industry, testified that he would have to consult with an expert to make that determination.

Another recording industry executive recently, testified under oath, that copying a song from a legally bought CD to an MP3 player is a copyright infringement, meaning that you should have to pay for it.  Knowledgeable attorneys will tell you this is not mentioned anywhere in the copyright law nor supported by any case law.

Copyright
Copyright is a limited monopoly privilege granted to authors of creative works for the  purpose of promoting the creation of such works for the public good.   This is enshrined in case law and  the legislative history of copyright law from it's beginning in the US.  It's my understanding that it's been a long standing doctrine/opinion in the US court system that a  balance between the extent of privileges given to rights holders and the public good should be maintained.   Like a contract both parties agree to do (or not do) certain things in return for some benefit(s).

Length of Term - Copyright has a time limit which was originally 18 years.  This has been continually extended by US congress because of heavy lobbying (i.e. big $$ contributions) by rights holders to the point where it is now virtually unlimited.    I object to this for a number of reasons.  First of all creative works are not created in a vacuum, they draw upon popular culture which is in turn is influenced by other creative works.  So to some extent or other,  creative works contain public contributions, giving the public a stake in the final disposition of the work.   It is not unreasonable for the public to expect to be able to freely access such works at some point in time.

Orphan Works - Orphan works are those that have been abandoned by the rights holders to the public domain.  Until recently copyrighted works had to be registered with the government and periodically re-registered.  This made it easy to know if a work was copyrighted or not. Since it is no longer necessary to register a work to get copyright protection it is nearly impossible to know which works have been abandoned to the public domain by the rights holders and which have not.  The end result is that a huge number of works will not be preserved and will be lost over time.  To me this is unacceptable.  These things represent a snapshot of our culture, our history, and who we are/were at specific points in time.   Google for OTR or Old Time Radio programs and you will find a wealth of MP3s available.  Why?  Most, if not all, of these programs were never copyrighted because there was no perceived commercial value left after the initial broadcast.   If it had not been possible/legal for enthusiasts and collectors to make and share recordings of these shows would have been lost forever (actually many have been).  If you take the time to listen to some of these programs, after awhile you get a real feel of what life was like during the 1930s and 40s.  It's the closest thing to being able to travel back in time there is.    Many, many silent films have been lost as well as a number of Doctor Who episodes because of the rights holders lack of interest and care.  Had these been in the public domain it is likely they would have been preserved.  Actually many of the lost Doctor Who episodes have been reconstructed from materials that were "illegally" copied from TV by individual fans or film distributions "illegally" retained by broadcasters. 

Copyright Abuse - Abuse of the monopoly position to form cartels and fix prices is not allowed and anyone doing so can lose their copyright protection.  In rergard to the discussion about CD prices, I would ask why is it that when you go into a record store all CD's have exactly the same price?   Ok I will conceed that that there is usually a higher price for double CDs and boxed sets and a lower price for "Slim Whitman" and other similar acts.  Usually there are perhaps three price points A - new releases, B - Oldies, C - Crap,  and all, except for special editions etc, are labeled A, B, or C.  Go to a different store and the prices are the same.  How does this happen if there is no cartel, no abuse of copyright?   Imagine you went into a computer store and they had computers of every conceivable manufacturer and that no matter which manufacturer or model you looked at the price was either $600, $800, or $1200.  Wouldn't you be a little suspicious?  What if you went to another store and saw the same thing except their prices were $595, $795, and $1195, and another and another, etc.    In a free and open market where there is healthy competition there are as many different prices (of equivalent models/products) as there are suppliers.   When I hear people say that CD prices are too high, it means to me that they perceive the asking price to be far above the fair market price (the price set by a free market were it allowed to operate).   I suppose the question of whether this perception is reality could be a debate in of itself.  I tend to agree that there appears to be collusion in the music industry to limit competition and maintain prices and believe there is ample evidence to support this notion.  As in nearly all cases where a free market is not allowed to operate black markets quickly develop to fill the vaccum and that's all this "illegal downloading" really is.

Fair Use - Fair use of copyrighted works by the public is specifically allowed in the copyright laws.   What constitutes fair use is unfortunately vaguely defined.  The courts have some guidelines but no one really knows until a specific practice or act is brought to court and a judge applies the guidelines.  In the past this has been adequate because the public have not had the technological means available to them to fully exercise their fair use rights and until recently nobody ever filed copyright infringement lawsuits against individuals singled out from the general public.   Now there is a battle over our fair use rights.  On one side is the industry with their $$ politicians who want to usurp as much as our fair use rights as possible (preferably all of them) and us who want to preserve our fair use rights so that we can use whatever wizz bang technology that may come along to exercise those rights without permission or interference from the content industry.   

- DRM, this is an attempt to control how and how long a consumer can use legally purchased content.  I believe this is a particularly egregious violation of fair use rights because in many instances it causes harm to the consumers equipment (Sony rootkit for example) and foisted upon the consumer without his consent or knowledge.   I also provides a means of built-in obsolence.  Since MP3 files don't wear out or melt like CDs and cassettes there has to be another reason why the consume will want to buy the same content again and again.   To do this you only allow the consumer to make a couple of copies and then when MP3 is no longer all the rage or when he buys his fourth MP3 player he will have to buy the same content all over again.   Some DRM goes even one better and put an expiration date on the files themselves.

- EULA End User License Agreements, Usually these come with software and force the consumer to agree to them.  They generally have the effect giving rights to the content provider far in excess of what they are given via copyright protection.   "So what !" you may say, "I never read them and who gives a shit anyway? Nothing bad ever happens if people don't so what it says!".  That may have been true in the past but may not be true in the future.  If you are a Vista user you have given M$ the right to change they software on your computer whenever they want, stop your computer from working whenever they want, and spy on you whenever they want to check for license compliance or whatever else they want to check.   I think much is the same with Windows Genuine Advantage users as well and Windows Updates to a lesser extent.

- Backup Copies or copying to another device for playback, as mentioned above the content industry thinks this is not covered by fair use and is illegal.

- Time Shifting, It was established in the Sony Beta Max case that recording from TV or radio to playback at a later time is covered under fair use.   However, the content industry is trying to roll back this decision and have gotten at least one ruling from a lower court that can be interpreted to contradict the Beta Max ruling.   The are also trying to get congress to pass laws requiring all consumer electronics to include technology that will allow the content producer to disable parts of the equipments functionality while their content is being processed by the equipment.   I of course object most strenously to this because because I will have to pay the added cost of the technology and don't see why I should have to subsidize an already lucrative industry and because this restricts my fair use rights.   

- Transformative Usage, Copyrighted works can be used if the usage is transformative.  The best way to explain this is by example I guess.  I read a case about a guy who wrote a book that was more or less a historical or biographical account of (can't remember specifics) a musical group.  He gave a chronological account of their rise to fame and later decline.   As part of this account he gave thumbnail reproductions of album covers and concert posters.   There was a lawsuit over this and the judge ruled that the usage of the album and poster art was to document the historical facts while the original usage was artistic in nature and was therefore transformative and a non-infringing use of the material.   

- Free Speech,  Under fair use the public has the right to critique, satirize, or comment on or about copyrighted works and to reproduce portions of said works for these purposes.  However free speech issues go deeper than this.  Suppose you wanted to comment on something in a past time period.   For your commentary to be received in the way you intend you must first give the audience a context and a familiarity of the popular culture of the times.   Art, music, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc are both inspired by and reflect the popular culture at any given point in time.  Using these kinds of materials in a new work would be one of the most effective means of illustrating the popular culture of the subject time period.  Although I think this should be covered under fair use it is not clear that the courts would agree.  There are also some pretty good arguments that copyright is incompatible with freedom and free speech.  The founder of the freenet project has a pretty good essay on the topic here: http://freenetproject.org/philosophy.html.   He essentially makes the case that in order to enforce copyright on the internet you have to be able to monitor who is saying what to whom and that this is exactly what is needed to censor free speech.   If they don't like what you are saying and they know who you are they can shut you up.   Conversely, if they can't find out who you are they can't stop you from talking but they won't be able to enforce copyright either.

Is it stealing?
o Is it stealing if I download a file from the internet containing copyrighted material without paying for it?  If you have read my above comments you will understand that the question is unanswerable from the information given.   The answer depends upon a lot of things and it's not as simple as it seems on the surface to sort out.   The file may have been downloaded for any number of non-infringing uses of copyrighted works in which case the answer is no.  There are also many uses that are probably or ought to be non-infringing under fair use and/or transformitive use.  For example what if the person already owns the copyrighted material and  downloaded it because it was more conveint than ripping the CD?  What if I am studying music composition on the Phd level like Nikolas and I am doing research on the musical style of the Beatles (i.e. Why do the Beatles sound like the Beatles?)?  In this case the songs are downloaded so that they can be critically analysed to find some kind of recurring patterns, themes, chords, or other charistics that determine musical style. What if I now publish my thesis and include some excerpts of the songs so as to illustrate my findings?   Asking if this is this or that stealing is kind of like asking your accountant if you can deduct this or that from your taxes; there is no simple answer.   Is it stealing if I put family photos on a DVD slide show for my mom with some background music from CD which I legally purchased?

Btw accountants, at least the clever ones, have a clever way of answering this question "You can deduct almost anything you want as long as the total amount of deductions isn't too much!"  How much is too much?  Nobody knows but the IRS and they don't tell.  So what is commonly done is to keep deducting a little more each year to see how much you can get away with.  Keep enough money in the bank so that you can pay any additional taxes and penalties quickly and always make a couple errors not in your favor.

Here are some follow up "Is it stealing" questions for your contemplation ...

o Is it stealing if I give $$ to the legislature to change the law so that what used to be yours is now mine?   You have a cute little on house and some land on the beach.  I give some money to the mayor and the city council and they condem your property by right of eminent domain and give you the value of a cute little house.  They sell it to me for the same amount and I bulldoze the cute little house and build luxury condo's and sell the whole thing for 10 times the cost of the land and construction.  (re copyright term extensions and fair use restrictions)

o Is it stealing if I violate the law in such a way that forces people to give me more money?  I want to sell you some bananas for $5.00 per pound and you say but bananas only cost $0.50 a pound.  I tell you that if you don't pay $5.00 per pound Luigi will get angry and break your knees.  Or alternatively I tell Luigi to follow you around and if someone sells you bananas for less than $5.00 per pound to break their knees.  (re copyright abuse and price fixing)

o Is it stealing if I sell you something and then come back a couple years later and take it back or break it so you can't use it?  For example I sell you a car.  A couple of years later I would like to sell you another car so I come over one night and melt your engine.
(re DRM and root kits)

o Is it stealing if I sell you something that uses your stuff for my benefit without your knowledge or consent?  For example I sell you a car radio and install it for you.  I don't tell you but it's wired up so that whenever you are not using your car I can unlock it and drive it around for awhile.  (re DRM and root kits)

o Is it stealing if I force you to agree to a contract that only benefits me and obligates you?  I am the only person that sells cars.  You want to buy a car.  I say Ok but you have to sign this contract that says that I can come over and drive whenever I want, that I can add, remove, or change car parts whenever I want and not tell you, and if do anything to/with the car I don't like I can come over and melt the engine.  (re EULA, Vista, etc)   Not only that you can only drive on certain roads that I give you permission for.  (re DRM, fair use restrictions).

Conclusions
If top recording industry executives don't know if it is stealing or not without the help of expert legal counsel, children (and Darth )  can hardly be expected to know either.  Nor can anyone claim it is a simple matter to determine, IMHO.  But what really squishes my tookie is the fact that the content industry is using their clout $$ to erode the public's rights to use copyrighted materials in non-infringing ways.  Here is my wish list of things I would like to see changed.

Copyright Terms - Reduce the initial copyright term to 16 years.  Allow copyright to be extended to additional terms where each successive term is one half the length of the previous term and where the registration fee is twice the amount of the previous fee adjusted for inflation etc.  The minimum term would be for one year but the fee would continue to double year after year.  This would allow someone to extend their copyright as long as they were making a profit. The exponential nature of the registration fee structure tends to equalize the burdens placed on the small guy as compared to corporate monsters.  Everyone can get into the game for $10 and if they are still turning a profit after34 years the registration fee is still affordable at $1280.  Eventually everyone has to get out of the game and put their stuff back in the public domain.  I think this goes a long way to solving solving many of the issues surrounding orphan works, historical commentary, etc. 

Length of Copyright (yr)	Length of Term (yr)	Registration Cost ($)
16	16	$10
24	8	$20
28	4	$40
30	2	$80
31	1	$160
32	1	$320
33	1	$640
34	1	$1,280
:	:	:
40	1	$81,920
50	1	$83,886,080
60	1	$85,899,345,920

 
Fair Use and Transformitive Use - I would like to see fair use rights enumerated and include the following activities

- Allow the recording of any information transmitted over public infrastructure for personal or family use.  Public infrastructure to include airwaves, internet, public performances (not private performances).  This is currently the case law for TV and radio transmissions.

- Allow the the use of copyrighted materials for use in personal productions such as home movies, family photo slide shows, etc. 

- Allow incidental use of copyrighted material.  For example you make a documentary film  "What I did Last Thursday"  and so you film yourself walking downtown last thursday.   You walk through a park and there are a bunch of  kids singing happy birthday in the background. You walk by a pop machine an buy a can of coke.  You walk by the movie theather and ask some people, who are standing outside in front of the a bunch of movie posters, which movie they are going to see.  The posters, the song, and the art on the coke can are all copyrighted but have you should not have to pay for their use because you were simply recoding things routinely encountered in everyday life.   

- Allow the lending of materials by the general public.  Currently there are specific privelages given to public libraries.  The problem is that you and I cannot qualify as a public library and so are prohibited from lending content that we own on a large scale basis.  This is important because the internet is quickly becoming the largest library on the planet.  I see no justification in preventing people from lending content to one person at a time just like lending someone a book.  Only one person can read it at a time.  No matter how many people borrow your book you still haven't infringed anyone's copyright.  I would like to see the see the same concept applied to the internet. 

- Require "Medium Neutrality" in accessing broadcast royalties.  Currently royalties for internet broadcasts are prohibitedly expensive even for large companies.  Why should the internet be discriminated against. 

- Disallow DRM, EULAs, and other evil crap.

- Allow online card catalogs like the one Google is currently doing and getting sued over.

- Allow search engines and other websites to link to news and other stories published on the internet.  Damm those northern EU countries that sued Google because the search engine returned links to their news stories.  If I was Google I would have blacklisted them from their search and then charge them advertising rates to get off of it. 

- Allow individuals to record content for the purpose of review and analysis.  For example, got a coupon for $96 the other day from Sears.   It told us what a good customer we were and how they wanted to reward us.  They invited us to check off up to 12 crappy gifts to which we could apply the $96 coupon.  My wife wanted to do it for Christmas presents and thought that she would just have to pay the shipping.  I knew that this was not the case but I took me 20 minutes of reading this post card sized thing to finally find the one little sentence that said that they were going to charge her credit card the price listed for each and every item she selected.   My point is that it's easy to be fooled by clever language.  So when you hear or see something on the news on in a movie you really don't have an opportunity to go back to see and question what they really said.  You are only left with whatever reaction they wanted to provoke but can't really remember their reasoning or facts.  I think it's a good thing to be able to document what this politician or that news anchor said this year as compared to last year or last month. 

Summary
This post is far too long but is by no means comprehensive or complete.  I'm sure I could think of more things to say about it but I am just as tired of writing as you are of reading.  IMHO all the P2P file sharing shinola is simply a black market response to a cartel's obstruction of the free market.  The same cartel seeks to usurp fair use and other rights given  to the public by copyright but which have rarely been exercised due to lack of technological means.   I urge everyone to vigilent about your fair use rights and write to your legislators about your concerns.  You can bet the content industry is busy writing wining and dinning them.

P.S. I don't consider Darth to be a pirate but rather consider him to be engaging in civil disobedience.  Besides Matey, Err! Ye be no pirate if Ye be not talkin like a pirate.  Rrrrr! Only thems what is pirates be pirates and thems what ain't, ain't!   

[edit]
Here is where I get most of my news about copyright, etc
Recording Industry vs People
Groklaw

Hehe, for a second I thought Gilbot said "tities" instead of "kitties".   Maybe we should have both? 

I'm with Radiant on the question of why the "Offer Your Service" was moved there.   It doesn't seem to make sense to me at all, since the "Recruit a Team" thread was left alone in the Chat forum? 

I wasn't paying attention when it was first instituted but it always seemed to me to be the forum equivalent of the windows recycle bin that provided a way for moderators to dispose of annoying threads without provoking the wrath of the masses.