Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract? To : comp.programming From : Richard Heathfield Date : Mon Aug 22 2005 08:39 pm Randy Howard wrote: > Richard Heathfield wrote > (in article > ): > >>> They basically have the entire space >>> covered, and you are, simply be existing, guilty of something. >>> I wish I was joking, but I suspect it is far more true than I >>> like to contemplate. >> >> I, too, wish you were joking and know that you are not. Whatever happened >> to "government for the people by the people"? > > Television. Ah. I never watch it. It is entirely possible that I am breaking a new law by so doing but that they announced the new law on TV, which I never watch. >>> I doubt he was arrested for what he said while speaking at a >>> conference. If you can point to a copy of the arrest paperwork, >>> let me know. >> >> If that is so (and you do seem to be correct), then I don't see how the >> US could point to any single act he performed whilst under US >> jurisdiction that could reasonably construed as criminal (modulo the >> crime of breathing, of course - the "everyone's guilty of something" >> ethos). > > Conspiracy charges don't require you to even be present at the > commission of a crime. If I'm not mistaken, that was what > happened in this case. Consider someone hiring a hitman. They > didn't commit the crime of murder, but they get filleted anyway > if caught. They do, surely, require you to be present in the /country/ ? Otherwise, consider this scenario: Country X passes a new law making it illegal to gather in groups of more than ten people - de facto conspiracy, if you like. They then wait for the US president to travel to their country on a State visit. He eventually does this, and is promptly arrested on a conspiracy charge because he had been present in a large meeting in the USA. Stupid? Yes, of course. After all, the "conspiracy" had not even occurred in Country X, and Country X has no jurisdiction in the USA. Similarly, the USA has no jurisdiction in Russia, where the /alleged/ conspiracy took place. > BTW, you are a Pollyanna. A brief snippet from Wikipedia... > > "... the term "pollyanna" entered the language to describe > someone who is cheerfully optimistic. That's me. > It then became by > extension (and contrary to the spirit of the book) a somewhat > derogatory term for a naïve person who always expects people to > act decently, despite strong evidence to the contrary." Ah, I suppose I'm a pollya, then. About 75% optimist, 25% cynic. -- Richard Heathfield "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999 http://www.cpax.org.uk mail: rjh at above domain .