It's official! The Register is fake news… according to .uk overlord Nominet. Just a few problems with that claim, though Nominet, which runs the .uk domain-name registry, has taken a leaf out of Donald Trump's playbook, and called our report this week into its sale of up to £100m worth of domain names "fake news." "The Trouble with Fake News," a blog post from Nominet CEO Russell Haworth on Wednesday is titled. It begins: "Unfortunately, we’ve …
"When watching Have I Got News For You, I note that the PE editor, Ian Hislop, is not stressed about being unaware of technology."
He's playing a bit of a role there, hence running jokes about his butler, his claim to not know any pop culture since the 70s etc
Based on the gossip I've heard, he's about as techy as you'd expect in an editor of a magazine that gets sued for libel* on a fairly constant basis. So a bit more than jo public generally, a lot more on security, and gets decent advice.
This sort of story is exactly their remit, and it's not that complex technically. Well, other than why the registrars get to run nominet, but that's a political observation.
Hislop is one of the few people who give me faith in media. He genuinely believes in telling truth to power. He might have a little too much fun sticking it to politicians, but that's the nearest he gets to a vice.
* they usually win, on account of telling the truth
they usually win, on account of telling the truth.
It's worth pointing out that the fact that what you said is the truth is not a valid libel defence (although it may contribute toward a valid defence).
The English libel court's historical verdicts offer many examples of publishers being stiffed for telling the truth. Just one of the reasons why scumbag lawyers move heaven and earth to squirrel out a tenuous reason to bring their crooked client's case in England rather than anywhere else.
Although the amounts of money touted will never be realised.
The laws of supply and demand also apply in the digital economy. Tripling the supply of domain names should reduce the value of any single domain to almost zero due to oversupply.
Combined with the fact that no one types in a domain name any more. If I want to get to the FedEx website Iclick on the link in thier e-mail, or, just google FedEx. So if anyone does fork out for FedEx.uk FedEx will probably let them keep it; after sending a "cease and desist" letter warning them that any attempt to fraudulently represent it as a FedEx owned website or otherwise confuse FedEx customers will result in criminal prosecution.
Err no. If I want my hair cut, I can, broadly speaking, go to any hairdressers. The "laws of supply and demand" would indeed tend to apply in terms of the price of the haircut and the number of hairdressers close to me.
But if I want a domain name, I'm not after ANY domain name, I'm after a name from a specific subset of names. Sure I can come up with variations upon variations but for decreasing appeal (for some value of "appeal").
And yes, FedEx may well not bother with FedEx.uk. They may well not care about someone grabbing that and using it fraudulently. They may well not care about someone manipulating the search engines so it appears above the real domain on doing a search. They may well be happy to have their lawyers send a "cease and desist" letter, or to go through the available appeals/arbitration process to get the domain back...
... but all of those options are likely to end up costing FedEx a whole load more than simply buying the domain for relative peanuts and sitting on it.
That's where Nominet et al have a nice racket going - big companies want to protect their brands so they buy up the possible domain names... and then once all the money from those have come in to the registrars from that, a new extension is announced (for no real benefit to anyone else), leading them to having to buy yet another batch of domains for their brand names!
It's not even a question of maybe wanting to protect their brands. If those brands are registered trademarks they *must* pay to protect them against being lost.
Domain name registration is little more than a shakedown racket without the baseball bats and suggestions of how fire accidents can happen in the nicest of places.
" If those brands are registered trademarks they *must* pay to protect them against being lost."
It's a _little_ bit more complicated than that.
Trademarks are field-specific
I am perfectly entitled to use FedEx as a trading name as long as it is not in any field that Fedex holds their trademark registration in.
ie: I can be Fedex plumbing and heating, there's zero problem with that at all, and FedEx attempting to bring a trademark dispute or "passing off" action would have a hell off a job doing so unless I was using their logos - in fact, attempting to do so may well find them branded as vexatious if they kept bringing actions against businesses with similar names in unrelated fields.
I can be Fedex plumbing and heating, there's zero problem with that at all, and FedEx attempting to bring a trademark dispute or "passing off" action would have a hell off a job doing so
In principle this might be true, in practice, I reckon you'd be in trouble as soon as you put your company name on the side of a van. Especially considering the availability of high-priced lawyers to large companies.
And what sort of assholes run those companies, as Uzi Nissan discovered.
"Trademarks are field-specific
I am perfectly entitled to use FedEx as a trading name as long as it is not in any field that Fedex holds their trademark registration in.
ie: I can be Fedex plumbing and heating, there's zero problem with that at all, and FedEx attempting to bring a trademark dispute or "passing off" action would have a hell off a job doing so unless I was using their logos - in fact, attempting to do so may well find them branded as vexatious if they kept bringing actions against businesses with similar names in unrelated fields."
I don't think Stelios/EasyGroup got that memo.
It's a _little_ bit more complicated than that.
To add to this, it is even a bit more complex than that.
You don't have to sue every use of your trademark.
One of the things with trademarks, is that a trademark becoming a common, every day generic term can invalidate it. For example, Google do not want people to use "Google" as a term for searching, e.g. "I'll Google it". Because if it becomes a generic, common term that, say, replaces "I'll do an Internet search" entirely in common vocabulary, then the trademark can be invalidated even though no-one else is using it in business.
So no, a trademark owner doesn't have to sue anyone who uses it, or blindly 'defend' the trademark. The goal is to prevent the trademarked term from becoming a generic term that is no longer eligible to be a trademark. Knee-jerk suing activity is merely the implementation detail. It is how lawyers see it as the method of preventing a term from becoming generic. And which, by the way, earns the lawyers lots of money by just defaulting to "sue someone using my clients mark in any way." Even if the trademark owners lose the case, they get the chilling effect of people knowing that they'll probably get sued if they use the trademark innocently, therefore the cost of even a lost trial can be acceptable to the trademark holders.
re: " and FedEx attempting to bring a trademark dispute or 'passing off' action would have a hell off a job doing so".
True up to a point but a small business can't afford the court costs of fighting. An example is KFC attempting to strong-arm the Tan Hill Inn for trademark infringement because they called their Christmas Dinner a "Family Feast", a term KFC use to describe a meal conveniently delivered in a bucket (that one might later find useful as a receptacle for vomit). Tan Hill fixed the problem by getting national news coverage and shaming KFC into backing down, in the face of legal threats, however spurious, many others would just comply.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551113/KFCs-legal-threat-to-Englands-highest-pub.html
a meal conveniently delivered in a bucket (that one might later find useful as a receptacle for vomit)
Ooh, I wouldn't recommend it. For KFC vomit you really want something deeper, to cut down on overspray. I'd also want something tougher than coated paper.
Then some panicy exec decides they need to register all the close typos of their brand name, such as tehregister.uk and thereegister.uk etc. and the registars make even more money.
Anon, because my employer is one of the smaller Nominet members...
We had people calling us saying that ourdomain.com and .net etc were available and someone wanted to buy them, and we needed to act FAST to protect our ourdomain.other and buy these ASAP, call before midnight tonight! Deal expires today!
Haar, je keneet scam me, I've had 5 calls this week from M$ support alerting me to problems with my system, fun times! I'm not buying lots of look-a-like domain names. If anything, I've got parts of a bridge in Russia you might be interested in...
"Then some panicy exec decides they need to register all the close typos of their brand name [...]"
Many years a go a customer explained why they were offering us packs of free cigarettes when we did a support visit. The packs were labelled with names confusingly similar to their main products. In order to maintain these as variant trademarks they had to have them on sale every so often in a few tobacconists in the UK.
It’s much easier than that - I once got an email (to hostmaster@mydomain) from a domain squatter who offered to sell me a domain that was extremely similar to my employers main domain, the implied threat was that if I didn’t enter into negotiations to buy the domain for a few thousand pounds, it would be sold to someone else.
It was pretty easy to reply with a specific threat of litigation for trademark infringement, which could be easily remedied by the domain squatter transferring the domain for free. Which he did.
I can’t see that the likes of Asda, Audi or anyone else would deal with it any differently.
"the implied threat was that if I didn’t enter into negotiations to buy the domain for a few thousand pounds, it would be sold to someone else."
Yup, that's the point about those kinds of offers.
They rely on suckers not realising that they can sue the infringer's pants off and then pour napalm all over the bare arse for good measure.
I thought that - that the value of Audi.uk is not great if you're not Audi, and Audi probably can stop you. Especially if you're Honda.
On the other hand, a careful... blackmailer?... will take longer to trace and punish. And not every case of a domain name resembling yours will be pursuable. Look at the long weary story of s e x dot com.
The laws of supply and demand also apply in the digital economy. Tripling the supply of domain names should reduce the value of any single domain to almost zero due to oversupply.
Not true.
The value of $a_very_long_name_that_is_not_very_memorable_or_relatable_to_a_commercial_or_other_entity.uk
will indeed -> cost of provision
but
$a_short_very_memorable_name_commercially_useful.uk
will -> lots
not quite a veblen good, but sort of.
"not quite a veblen good, but sort of."
UK car registration numbers are of varying value - often depending on context. I knew a GP in the 1960s who was rather pleased when his new car happened to be delivered with "999"*** as the number part.
The Austin's Funeral Services company has custom number plates like D 6 AFS - as well as some rather surprising vehicle options for hearses.
***that was the only UK emergency services phone number in those days.
Yes, what is it about the people that these kinds of organisation attract? You have the likes of ICANN making things up to suit themselves and enriching the employees of supposedly "non-profit" companies. Non-profit for who I wonder.
It seems as if NOMINET has been watching ICANN drive a coach and horses through the regulations and thought "Hang on a minute, I'll have some of that!"
Greedy, manipulative bastards who could not even spell integrity if their lives depended upon it.
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"Yes, what is it about the people that these kinds of organisation attract?"
IP lawyers who saw how much $$PROFIT$$ could be made and whose eyes went CHA-CHING!
One of whom managed to be elected chair of ICANN after some _distinctly_ dodgy shit went on back in his home country.
Honestly... do these vanity-plate domains generate money for anyone other than the registrar?
Who's going to "food.uk" instead of waitrose.co.uk? Which search engine is up-ranking sites because their domain name is "rare" even though they're just a bunch of ads? What typo-squatter is actually doing anything with their domain except put up a boring page of almost-links that don't actually even link to the domain they're typosquatting (for obvious "passing off" reasons)... why, yes, I did mean to go to theregsiter.co.uk, and click an advert for Nike trainers, rather than the tech news website...
I knew someone many years ago who used to "snap up" domains they consider valuable... I'll change the name slightly with synonyms but do you really think student-flat-search.co.uk is a valuable domain? What about financetohelpyoubuy2let.com? Now, that was the 2000's, so they actually made a small profit by selling those domains to other mugs who thought they were valuable, but they also got lumbered with a bunch of unsaleable domains that they had to keep registration on for years and then just dumped.
Who's buying these things, what are they doing with them, why, and are they actually making any profit whatsoever? I hold a bunch of domains that the kind of sites that sell them keep contacting me about. Because they were just... "Oh, that sounds nice, I'll use that for my site", not because I wanted to profiteer. They *claim* my domains are worth thousands. Not once has anyone offered anything even approaching that. Still, today, if I put them on that big domain auction site, they get high valuations and *zero offers* at any price.
The only one I "kinda" get is buying up the misspellings of facebook.com if you're Facebook, but even that seems a bit of a pointless exercise and will only encourage people to register even more misspellings in the hope of a payout. I imagine most of those are actually the result of a court case where Facebook sued the backside off someone who was passing off, and won the domain as part of the settlement.
Every company in the world is going to try and make sure they own as many TLD-variants of their name as possible. So if I work for companyA inc, I'm going to try and get CompanyA.com, CompanyA.co.uk, and now I also need to own CompanyA.uk.
That's all this is tbh, a meas for some registrar to tax me an extra 8 quid a year so that CompanyA.uk doesn't get bought up by a bestiality porn site.
Every company in the world is going to try and make sure they own as many TLD-variants of their name as possible.
I used to work for a small IT services which is also a small registrar (for .uk domains). One of our customers was in fact doing that - it was "interesting" keeping on top of all the renewals which for various reasons* had to be with several resellers. IIRC they were up to 40+ when I left.
* Mostly to do with various registries' requirements such as having a "business address" in the country - which was usually dealt with by a reseller having an "office" there that all their clients used the address of.
... is it allows any idiot to respond to a fact-checked article by bleating a two word response, the hard of thinking stay in their comfort zone and blindly believe them, and it means a reasoned argument is no better or worse than an opinion or just some made-up shit. It's the worst thing that's happened in the past decade, it's rolling back evidence-based decision-making and debate which is responsible for most advances over the past 500 years.
So Nominet deserve it with both barrels.
Although in a sense the plague is self-correcting. I, like most people of good sense, notice the tell-tale phrase "fake news" and prepare to learn that the writer of that phrase is himself trying to con me.
Normal people prefer the old-fashioned word "lies".
<quote>Normal people prefer the old-fashioned word "lies".</quote >
Exactly this. The only thing new about “fake news” in the last decade is the label. Lies have been a part of public statements and yes, even journalism, for as long as we’ve been able to print.
No disrespect at El Reg - I trust you guys more than most sources. But in general, any wise reader should always keep their cynicism handy on the internet.
It seems to me that if an article was referred to as 'lies' it would be taken a whole lot more seriously by it's author and m'learned friends in the public domain.
Using the phrase 'fake news' is almost childish, playground banter-ish and so much less likely to be taken seriously, but ultimately devaluing the discourse.
Well said sir.
Shouting 'Fake News' - the current defence for the indefensible, helpfully identifying individuals & companies you shouldn't touch with a bargepole. One does wonder if Nominet is doing anything the Competition & Markets Authority should be looking at?
There is always the .GB TLD, owned by Jisc Services (JANET of times past), resurrecting that seems like a good idea, at least the registration money raised could be going to some educational use.
Well, of course, JANET used to own .UK, too. Indeed I have a .co.uk domain name that predates the existence of Nominet. I suspect if .GB were to be commercially exploited by a Quango they'd be overwhelmed by expensive lawsuits from deep-pocketed registrars complaining about state-subsidised competition depriving them of their effective monopoly legitimate income.
There is always the .GB TLD
Since we seem to be heading for a hard Brexit, which will almost certainly result in another Scottish independence referendum and the break-up of the United Kingdom, Jisc could be sitting on gold. Selling .gb registrations may be the only way to fund the UK HE/FE network, given how intent the government is on cutting education spending yet further, even before they dole out yet another unnecessary punishment beating to the economy in a vain attempt to hold the Tory party together.
Great Britain includes England, Wales & Scotland but not Northern Ireland, which is on the island of Ireland (together with the Republic of Ireland).
If Scotland left the UK, then it would remain part of GB - but would want it's own (.sco?) TLD.
If NI & Scotland left the UK, the UK would still exist - albeit smaller - it would then comprise of England & Wales.
So Brexit worst case scenario, the UK would still exist - .gb would be the TLD that was fragmented - but not .uk (apart from for people in Scotland).
"Great Britain includes England, Wales & Scotland but not Northern Ireland, which is on the island of Ireland (together with the Republic of Ireland)."
I guess that depends on whether - in this context - Great Britain is used geographically to refer to the island, or politically to refer to the entity formerly known as the Kingdom of Great Britain, but officially Great Britain.
If Scotland leaves the UK, then politically it would no longer be a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However the United Kingdom would still exist, albeit as the United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland. As for poor old Wales, their existence as an independent kingdom effectively came to an end when Edward I defeated Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282.
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It wont be a Scottish independence referendum, SNP are not looking for independence, they just hate the English (feeling is often mutual I expect). Sturgeon already wants to bend over and let Scotland take it again from the EU (or should we say Scotlands old buddies the French with their new German allies).
"[...] at least the registration money raised could be going to some educational use."
Unfortunately there have been several cases of the administrative heads of some UK state schools and universities paying themselves apparently unwarranted eye-watering salaries.
So Nominet deserve it with both barrels.
I wouldn't phrase it like that (incitement to violence and all) but they do deserve a sky burial. Engage every Vulture Central turbo-props (--->)!
... that allows Nominet to revoke theregister.co.uk with no notice at all.
That will sort out this story...
ONCE ...
AND ...
FOR ...
Error: The server at theregister.co.uk can't be found, because the DNS lookup failed. DNS is the network service that translates a website's name to its Internet address. This error is most often caused by having no connection to the Internet or a misconfigured network.
by providing no evidence to the contrary.
btw, it was quite painful to see the beeb reporters on air, squirming not to say in plain English, that Trump lied (in reference to his lies about what he said-didn't-say about this dutchess of york or winchester or whatever), despite taped evidence that he lied.
They have at least dispensed with "alternative facts" which was another doublespeak variation for a while.
This is yet another example though of laws not evolving quickly enough to deal with technology. What Nominet are doing would be insider trading if it was stocks and shares, yet they are publicly announcing that they are doing it and even trying to defend it.
There was never any good reason to flatten the .uk hierarchy. Obviously it was just a money grab from ths start.
After all, if those who made the decision thought it actually worthwhile, they'd have automatically mapped *.co.uk --> *.uk, and stopped selling new domains under .co.uk, .org.uk etc.
Just like the opening up of the top level domains, it's a technically bad decision, made by non-technical money grabbers.
and nobody can do fuck about it, that's Nominet's position, and I'm pretty sure they paid good money to good lawyers to make sure. There's more than one way to skin a cat, some start-ups scream "AI" when they have neither - but big, stupid fish bite anyway), others give away FREE soft and pimp users' data, others run "non-profit" companies that are very profitable thankyouverymuch because they have no oversight. All scummy - but all legal.
...others give away FREE soft and pimp users' data...
...All scummy - but all legal.
That particular one is no longer legal (at least not on this side of the Atlantic) thanks to GDPR, brought to us by none other than the "evil undemocratic federalist blah blah SOVRINTY etc. etc." EU.
Considering the influence of Scandinavian languages on English, it's highly likely that byfåne is the origon of the English Bufoon. As we Geordies might say after a night out, "Ahm gan Hyem" which is phonetically at least, understandable in Norway as I'm going home. (at least I've been told that!)
The English buffoon is actually from the French (bouffon), who got it from the Italians (buffone), from the Latin buffo, meaning clown. All in the 16th century, or thereabouts. Or so sez my Big Dic.
I suspect the Swedish/Norwegian version is a happy, yet purely coincidental soundalike.
""Ahm gan Hyem" which is phonetically at least, understandable in Norway as I'm going home."
Not sure about that. Google Translate gives the expected "Jeg går hjem" (I go home) - and supplies an audio pronunciation.
The "Jag" will be "Yar"
"går" is "gawr" or "gore"
The "hjem" would indeed sound like "hyem"
Regional vocabulary and pronunciations will probably vary as modern Norwegian is a national construct.
The spycatcher effect is great fun for those of us that live in Scotland, as injunctions obtained in an English and Welsh court don't apply under Scots law. Same thing more recently with the super injunction fad, most of them were reported in the media here too.
Has anyone at the Register considered reviewing their articles of association to see if there is anything in there that conflicts with what they are doing. For example "The objects of the Company are to undertake activities, particularly (without limitation) as were formerly set out in the Company’s Memorandum of Association, and to do so for the public benefit." which indicates an enforceable obligation for the Nominet board to consider the public benefit of whatever they decide to do and, since it is covered by standard company law, this is enforceable in the courts. They could be obliged to release their board minutes to prove their discussion of how they decided the current plan was of public benefit.
They may
1. Undertake activities without limitation as were formerly set out in the company's memorandum of association
2. Undertake those activities for the public benefit
"And" in lawyerspeak is equivalent to "Or" in boolean algebra
So, it doesn't have to be for public benefit, it can instead be activities without limitation.
Also, check what the memorandum says:
It allows them to do a load of things on a commercial basis
To set up funds for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their wives (but not husbands), children, and other relatives (that will include husbands)
Anything else that is likely to benefit or assist the company (that's a catch-all that includes everything)
There is a lot of fake news out there. Just check out the BBC's review of the horror movie Ma. One of the most absurd "fake news" statements is that Ma is short for (Black) Mammy. No it's not. If you don't want to take the word of someone who grew up in the South during the Civil rights movement you can look it up on the OED. She also made the claim that Mammies never existed. Just look up Plessy v. Ferguson.
One of my favorite fake news stories the one that claimed Antifa is a black organization. You can look it up for yourself, I don't have the energy.
I am not even sure that Trump coined the term. Your site would have a lot more credibly if you left your Trump hating out of your articles.
There's no doubt that Trump can claim at least one thing, i.e. that he's made "fake news", leading by his own example, from day one.
Sorry, actually two things: also by his own example he's sanctioned every little dick-politician to lie in public and carry on regardless, rather than lie and, in shame, hang himself on the nearest suitably thick branch. Not many politicians can claim to have achieved so much in so little time.
I can't see a single positive thing he's done for the humanity.
"he's sanctioned every little dick-politician to lie in public"
Robin Cook for a home-grown example, and Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton for the American crowd. I don't recall either of them apologising for their misbehaving as much as apologising for getting caught.
I'm not sure if promising to wipe out student debt to (try to) win an election then backtracking *even though he didn't win* should get Jeremy Corbyn on this list or not...
"I'm not sure if promising to wipe out student debt to (try to) win an election then backtracking *even though he didn't win* should get Jeremy Corbyn on this list or not..."
Maybe not, but THAT train journey puts him on this list...along with pretending he isn't an IRA sympathiser.
"Robin Cook for a home-grown example, [...]"
You are forgetting his anti-Iraq war speech in Parliament after he resigned as Foreign Secretary.
"I can't see a single positive thing he's done for the humanity."
As long as he stays as POTUS he prevents the automatic promotion of Mike Pence. At least Trump is a loose cannon that often erratically upsets the alt-rights intentions. Pence is far more dangerous.
How is a movie review "news", fake or otherwise?
If a reviewer is wrong about the origin of a term, then they could be genuinely mistaken or perhaps a bit dim (I don't know who wrote the review you mentioned, so no accusations).
In any case a review is opinion and I don't see much scope for being fake unless it outright lies about what the movie depicts.
You're replying to someone who used the phrase "fake news" three times in one post.
Even ignoring the dubious validity of the phrase in the first place, as you point out, in at least 2 of the times, he still used in out of context.
I don't think he'll understand your post.
You misuse the phrase "fake news", and then come out with racist bullshit.
As the review you mention (http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190530-rom-mammy-to-ma-hollywoods-favourite-racist-stereotype says, the "happy fat mammy" was a southern white propaganda stereotype to attempt to make slavery look less evil.
I suggest you read https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/mammies/
As for Plessy v. Ferguson, from memory, it was related to discrimination hiding under the banner "equal but seperate" - nothing to do with Mammies. You can look it up yourself - I don't have the energy.
You seem to be confused on all fronts dear fellow.
You do realise that you're replying to an anonymous coward? The troll face is there for a reason.
And, in this case, if a person wishes to make such assertions and not have the integrity to put their name to it, then it's not something worth bothering with.
It really is amazing how many tech people drink the "hate Trump" KoolAid. You would think tech people rely more on logic vs. emotion/peer pressure/group think. Trump is the first Republican president (since Reagan) that actually has a spine and fights back. If the leftist world politicians get their way, the freedoms we (i.e. non-ruling class) currently enjoy will be gone. To a large extent, they already have succeeded in many ways--LOTS of people lose their jobs because they dare to challenge the "politically correct" mantra with posts on FaceBook, etc. Put a pro Trump bumper sticker on your car? Expect your car to get vandalized--many, many examples of in-your-face, violent and criminal acts continue to happen from the "woke" crowd/mobs. The fact that so many don't even know these acts happen so frequently is proof of the media's full-on, anti-right/anti-conservative/anti-free-speech agenda--the media do, and will continue to do, everything in their power to silence those that dare to have a different viewpoint. Looking forward to all the down-votes I'll get that helps prove my point--if my post makes it...
@NantucketClipper:
I'm going to suggest a visit to the sailmaker. You seem to have some terrible holes in your sails. And Im guessing your rudder could use an overhaul.
You seem to suggest that Regan was someone to emulate. So, I'll guess your ballast is on the loose in the lower holds.
You suggest that the left wing is responsible for the patriot act. You might want to check that. It was the single greatest loss of freedom published since WWI.
Overall, I'll have to insist that you keep your clipper in the harbour, tied up at the maintenance slip, prepared for dry dock.
Yes. I absolutely believe Reagan was someone to emulate: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." January 20, 1981
Margaret Thatcher as well: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Indeed, government, in so many ways, is not the solution to our problems. The more people become dependent on government, the more the society will degrade--where's the purpose behind achieving something, if it is only to satisfy the requirements/demands of the government? If I work my ass off to make some decent money, only to have it taken away by the government and given to someone who refuses to work (i.e. contribute to the society), where's my incentive? If I work my ass off to make some decent money and I CHOOSE to give it to someone in need, then I have an incentive of feeling good that I have personally helped someone.
Trump is an outsider--he is not a lifelong government politician/bureaucrat. He is not part of the elite government "club". That alone disqualifies him in the eyes of many of the DC establishment. How dare he shake the tree of our cushy, free-from-being-fired, non-accountable, government jobs?
While the private sector looks to find ways to be more efficient, including cutting costs, the government does just the opposite. Ever hear of any government entity, no matter how bad it performs, suggest that it can actually reduce its costs? Of course not--their "solution" is always "we need more money". Ever hear of a tax that is actually rescinded after it is no longer needed? Doesn't happen.
No. I do not have holes in my sails. FYI, the patriot act was not created under Reagan--it was created in response to 9/11. And, btw, Obama renewed key parts of the patriot act, including section 215.
And No. I never did, and never will, support something like the patriot act, that gives the government power to spy on its citizens. Which, btw, is EXACTLY what Obama/Clinton did to Trump--before and after he was elected and inaugurated.
The Bill of Rights was created to LIMIT the powers of the government. The left-wing politicians all have one thing very much in common: limit the power of the people, and give it to the government--the government will decide what's good for you, and take care of everything for you, from cradle to grave. Thanks, but no thanks--I don't need, nor want, a government telling me how to make my living, live my life.
But you're happy with a President who acts like a dictator, overriding Congress and the Senate to implement unconstitutional actions.
"Small Government" doesn't normally mean "one man decides everything".
Methinks you simply agree with some of the things he says he's doing, and don't care that it's trampling all over the protections the constitution was intended to provide.
Remember that there will be a different President in the future, whose policies you may not agree with. Set the precedent now, and they will also do the same - and you really won't like that at all.
And this is *precisely* why someone should have put a bullet into Trump, preferably several.
Because Trump has been elected to the position of president of Inbredistan everything he espouses is OK, because President.
Racism is now ok
Homophobic & transphobic murders and attacks - knock yourself out.
Attacking the truth because you don't like it - practically mandatory.
Every day that grinning fucktard isn't impeached makes the collective human race just that little bit worse. Why? Because the sociopaths and psychopaths can turn round and say "Trump does it so I can do it" while they're filming "Matthew Shepard II: the search for another Gay Jesus".
It's spreading through the retard ratio exponentially and even infecting nominally intelligent humans.
Isn't it strange too, if this mindless idiot was in control of Iran or say the DRC he'd be a pariah and up to his neck in sanctions and radar guided bombs - but he's getting a collective blowjob from the Royals and the Government.
And kindly cut the "free speech" bollocks - it's an excuse and always has been. For example even basic population theory (in this case, pressure of an extreme environment) can be applied to the "Shoah" and the result is what you would expect. The luckiest and strongest and (sadly) most devious survived. So what we ended up with was a population hardwired to survive ELE conditions - who have had no issues with the situations they've found since. Oh wait - I can't say that - despite it being verifiable fact - because nasty to dead people - odd how you never hear about the LGBT people who were murdered or those pesky travellers. Did you happen to hear about the 10-30* million massacred in Congo - I thought not.
Trump isn't so much dangerous for his overt existence - even if he's the living embodiment of someone who would drop kick puppies into bonfires** if he could get away with it. He's dangerous because he encourages the scum of society to think they're in charge and abuse and attacks on media, private individuals and actual reality are the result.
*No one is actually quite sure how many Congolese got slaughtered or died as a result of torture but that it's more than the entire wartime population of the Jews (including the luckier ones, in '38 it would have been kicking around the 12-14 million mark collectively) is pretty much agreed (PS don't look up the Mufti of Jerusalem, we Brits really cocked that up, although he did look like a young Obi Wan Kenobi, so that's all right then).
** The derivation is "bane" fire - hence the regular drop-kicking of things that you don't like into fires (Arian Bibles (brilliant name for a band, drop-kick bibles), Blacks, Catholics, Government ministers (generally in effigy) and the odd Guido Fawkes*** doll). A bane was the banishment and total erasing of an individual or group from the society in which it was part. Fire destroys most utterly. Has a long history - the ancient Egyptians had it down to a fine art.
*** and possibly the odd local busybody and health & safety drone.
Your post may have contained several accurate and insightful points. However, I stopped reading as soon as I saw you were advocating murder (however vile the supposed target).
Going round suggesting someone kill people you don't agree with makes you a fascist, even if the person you want killed is also a fascist. Fascism is bad, mmmkay?
Hmm let's see. Topping one deranged racist sociopathic fantasist or letting him go on his merry way and his ideas and supporters pushing us right over the edge of uncontrollable climate shift that we're already teetering on?
Someone hand me the GAU-8. Just to make sure you understand. There used to be solar panels on the white house - they've disappeared under the Shitgibbons watch. There used to be a semblance of women controlling their bodies in the US -womens rights in the states have been tumbling like ninepins since the Shitgibbon got elected. LGBT rights? Going down quicker than a Clinton intern.
And you think that's a good thing?
I am the most peaceful person on the planet - but the worldwide effects this mindless thug is having would make the delegates of the Wannsee Conference (that one, yes) stand up and suggest he might tone it down a scoch.. What's the betting that if Greta Thunburg starts to have an effect on American youth and the Shitgibbon is in charge she won't end up in a mysterious car accident - it wouldn't be the first time or the last.
Let me say it slowly and clearly. There is only one other person IN HISTORY that did as much damage as Trump is doing and has the potential to do. Thomas Midgley Jr (leaded petrol & cfcs singlehandedly). Trump being in a position of power is inherently dangerous not because of what he does per se, but because his continued power and indeed existence gives credibility and confidence to the retard ratio who think that bigfoot is real and climate change isn't. All they have to do is say "The Shitgibbon says..." and most people will lack the wherewithal or the spine to argue.
To paraphrase
"It would be well for you to consider, that having Twitter and the Shitgibbon, or a microphone and the Shitgibbon, in close proximity, is inherently dangerous; mass extinctions have started that way Mr Ambassador..."
This isn't murder, it's more like pest control, it's like the excision of an aggressive cancer - and to be brutally blunt - the sooner the better because we might just be able to repair the collective damage. Four more years of the Caped Cretin and we are royally screwed.
"This isn't murder, it's more like pest control, [...] Four more years of the Caped Cretin and we are royally screwed."
He was elected. If you murder him, those same people will elect someone else. If you want to excise your aggressive cancer, you are going to have to persuade rather-a-lot-of-millions of people that you are a smart person looking to put them right on an important point. Putting bullets into your enemy, or inviting others to do so, is not a good start to your PR campaign.
Oh ... and describing other people as "pests" is disturbingly similar to something that some other guys did sometime back when. That's not a good look either.
Oh ... and describing other people as "pests" is disturbingly similar to something that some other guys did sometime back when. That's not a good look either.
Would you be meaning the British Government describing the Amerindians (more smallpox than bullets), or the Indians or the Indians & the Pakistanis, or possibly the Mahdists or the Americans, and then there's the French, Germans and all the others. Or carefully looking the other way when Jews begged for asylum and were told kindly and politely to "fuck off and die" as official foreign office policy? Or where we said that if the Nazis deported the Jews to English controlled Palestine by boat "you do, and they'll get a torpedo from below"?
Or do you mean the US government VS practically everyone - pretty much since Woodrow "14 points that everyone ignored" Wilson kicked the bucket?
See I can cherry pick too.
And yes, it isn't all that hard to build a list of pre requisites that have to be actioned before we have a chance of fighting climate change. But why waste my time - since the biggest prerequisite of the 4 is the abolition of profit by the abolition of money.
We are not in a position where the bad situation should be in any way up for debate. It is an unpleasant fact. We should merely be debating how and whether we can solve the problem. Instead the Caped Cretin and his supporters and apologists (guess which one you come under) have stalled things at the "is it really happening" stage in the general consciousness.
We can't afford luxuries (for a given value of the word) such as the Shitgibbon. Lead times to solve this problem successfully might be as low as months before the damage is irrecoverable (because of the lag between action and effects in such a large complex system).
Some of you probably don't get the link between the Shitgibbon and Nominet - it's simply this - Nominet are trying to use Trumpian tactics to get what they want - and you see no inherent danger to that?
I'm going to have to hire one hell of a warehouse for all the "I told you so's" I'm going to get to use.
And I'm sure you'll do well when your time comes to get cancer and you decide to be nice to it and give it hugs and a name so you can introduce it to your friends... Instead of treating it with the proper fear, respect and medication it requires. I've got a name for you. Jade Goody. Here's another one, Sasha Charoensub, although in her case it was a doctoral fuck up.
I would prefer he be removed from power while still standing upright - but if not a few hollow points (in like a penny, out like a pizza(tm)) are another, somewhat less appealing, option.
As I said we are not in a position to play games with life right now, and that's what we'll be doing if the Shitgibbon gets another term in office.
Be sure to correct me in a few years time when you are up to your waist in sea water. You didn't know? 2-5m sea level rise is already inevitable. You have fun with that, ya hear? The Spinosaurs* did...oh wait
Too soon?
*These were mid cretaceous Estuarine fish eating dinosaurs, including the 17m long Spinosaurus (Rudi from the Ice Age movie, favourite food onchoprististis - an 8m long sawfish) and Baryonyx the smaller British version. When the sea level rose the environment changed and the Spinosaurs went bye byes - it's hard to hunt in a terrestrial riverine environment when it's just been submerged in 30m of sea water.
I wonder if Chicago Town Pizzas will float?
> All they have to do is say "The Shitgibbon says..." and most people will lack the wherewithal or the spine to argue.
Reading a few different news sources, it's the other way around. OrangeMan could say "the sky is blue", you would find people say he's wrong and it's an attack on migrants/trans/climate change/others countries/… depending on the inclination of the writer
Sorry, but there is one massive flaw in your post.
I doubt that any sane rational person would perceive Trump as anything better than a racist delusional sociopathic misogynistic asshole, however sticking a bullet in his head is pointless.
Why? Because Trump being... well, Trump... It's not a surprise to anybody. A decade ago The Simpsons had Trump as President because he was the absolute worst person they could think of.
The problem, and the flaw, lies not in the miserable excuse for humanity that is currently being fawned over by our so-called leadership. The problem and the flaw lie in the 62 million who voted for him, and the millions who still seem to think he's a good guy. Yes, he is enabling scum and yes, he is making this world a darker place with every international treaty he tears up because America Fuck Yeah.
But is the problem really Trump? I don't believe it is. The problem is the ones who voted him in, who may well vote him in again, and it's pretty much the same sort of mentality that has paralysed Britain with the wishful thinking known as "Brexit". That's where the problem lies. Not in the baboon that is temporarily elected leader.
The USA was ripe for an alt-right POTUS - in the same way that countries in Europe are sprouting the same populist swings. It is reasonable to draw comparisons with the underlying economic and political circumstances of the 1930s.
The GOP and alt-right made sure they had their preferred back-up in VP Mike Pence. If Trump starts to be an unacceptable loose cannon for their aims - then the 25th Amendment can promote the more compliant Pence with his own chilling vision.
You have gone so far to the left that you have met up with the far right ... and are trading tips & tricks with them. In other words, you have become a part of the problem.
Wingnuts are wingnuts, regardless of which part of the political spectrum they claim to espouse.
While I've got the Big Dic out[0] ...
Bonfire is actually from "bane fyre", "bane" in Middle English means "bone". It was a 14th century translation of the Latin ignis ossium ... Seems that early Brits (and other European Pagans) spent the year collecting bones from slaughtered animals and burned them somewhere around the Summer Solstice, to give nourishment to the Sun (the days were getting shorter, so the sun must be getting weaker). Or so the conjecture goes. There is no doubt that by the 1300s, the date for bone burning was set to June 24, or St. John's Day, by the Christians.
[0] Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean the OED, second dead tree edition.
If this is true, and I have no reason to believe El Reg made it up out of thin air, wouldn't those involved be in danger of some sort of Insider Trading prosecution. I know Insider Trading is about stocks, but there must be anti-Gitface laws on the books to prevent such Victorian Railroad Magnate behaviour, surely?
"In this case, the elected members had potential conflicts, and therefore were not involved in the design of the system we decided upon."
Nominet CEO: "Boy, go away and come up with 3 ways we can offload these domains"
Office Jr: "Sir, I came up with these 3:
System 1: Fair and equitable distribution of domains
System 2: All affected companies given first shout on domains
System 3: Hoover up all the domain names and sell them on at vastly inflated prices"
Nominet CEO: "Excellent, WE will have system 3, off back to your desk with you!"
These slimy POS's must have been looking closely at how 'sir' philip green does business.
I know that many things from the earlier days of the internet came into being mainly because a relatively small bunch of people came up with ideas, and then fine-tuned them with RFCs, and then eventually trivialities such as formal rules came into being rather later, but how does Nominet actually get its authority?
Has it been designated as the UK NIC under some kind of permission or licence from the UK Government, or is it what it is simply by dint of having always been there in some form or another and then the rules and regulations gradually caught up with it?
Sadly, it does sound as though the people currently running Nominet (I know that they used to be rather more internet-community-minded in the past) seem to be far more interested in printing money than in simply providing a professional and sustainable public service (nobody begrudges them covering their costs and making perhaps a little, but not excessive, profit).
Is it perhaps now time for Nominet's licence, actual or implied, to be withdrawn and the position of UK NIC to be re-tendered and then offered to a new operator whose principles are more in line with the original community spirit of the internet?
Top-level domains should represent the country - the only one I know of is bl.uk, there must be more. I was a registrar with Nominet from 1998 to 2005 when I sold off. I watched as the older JANET types were eased out. This latest is a scam pure and simple.
What a change from the idealistic decades of such as Jon Postel (SMTP, RFC), Paul Mockapetris (DNS), Vint Cerf (TCP/IP), Whit Diffie (PKI), Tim Berners-Lee (HTTP/HTML). Phil Zimmerman (PGP), Bill Joy (UNIX),
What connects these individuals for me is their idealistic benevolent conceptions of improved communication and the preferment of human knowledge over commercial interests. None of them were in it for the money.
Greedy Nominet, shame on you!
You can find that situation every day in the business world. As soon as you have a marketing guy overhearing a conversation at lunch or dinner and thinking of a way to benefit from it, there you go.
If that were illegal, there would be no business.
Besides, insider trading exclusively concerns the buying or selling of shares before some important news which will make the share price change in an important way. So it's only a Stock Market thing.
Nominet did not write to customers using the post office ..they simply sent one email.which was caught in as spam by virtually all spam software..
The email was never received by many domain name owners..
For something so important to a business how can you give the business one weeks notice especially as .uk was the ccTLD that the domain owners in the uk should have had on the first place.
It’s a real sad affair
I believe nominet got this wrong.
Regards
jira.domain.com, now offers something.jira.domain.com The Register 
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