• SPAM...Cooked the Wrong Way
  
• FYI...
  
• A Bad Choice of Title
  
• SPAM Patrol
  
• Um...Ouch
  
• No Thanks
  
• Shock Spam Advertising
  
• Adventures in Spam
  
• I Declare Fraud!
  
• Wisdom in SPAM
  
• Who's Behind Stupid Spam?
  
• Integrated Insanity

But I've got two new ones now!

From: "Ferral" deam_1962@gulfpackaging.com
To: Drizzten
Subject: God Destroys Boise For Not Being Gay Enough

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:50:54 +0900

Bush 'Troubled' by Gay Marriages. Declares San Francisco Part of 'Axis of Evil'
http://sugar-dreams.it/viewmovie.html

C'mon, be creative!

6 / 10
Points for trying, but ultimately a failure for lack of cohesiveness.

From: "Susumu" Susumu-koolvis@gscomm.com
To: Drizzten
Subject: Nigger slang derails McCain's campaign

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:36:20 +0200

New cheaper drugs in store for HIV patients http://gotharestaurant.it/start.html

*delete*

To get my trusty TDI Golf back up to roadtripping spec, I'm dropping over $500 on it today. That's not exactly money I have sittin' around, but if it was, I'd soooo much rather spend it on something cool and unique.

Like this.

I've read this sucker's availability is one of those once-every-few-years sorta things.

"Bargain" 70-79% of original condition. Shows more than average wear. May have dents, dings and a goodly amount of brassing and finish loss. Glass may have marks that should not affect picture quality.

Gawddamn it.

People are not required to take Social Security payments, according to B.J. Jarrett, a spokesman with the Social Security Administration.

"An individual does have the right to refuse his/her Social Security retirement benefit. However, Social Security is an entitlement program and an individual would essentially be forfeiting a benefit based upon contributions during his/her working lifetime," Jarrett said.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Since 1996, the feds have threatened law enforcement violence my employers and I unless we paid them some arbitrary percentage of my income. Not counting 2007, their coercion has netted them over $14,000.

Ideally, I'd get all that back, with interest. Not involuntary participation in some scheme that, while it's a "compact between generations," I have to be aware that "the law governing benefits may change."

Yeah.

I'll tell you right now, I'm willing to forget that small fortune was ever stolen from me via administrative proxy. Keep it. Probably reeks of bureaucrat.

But in exchange, I want you motherfuckers to leave me alone. I want nothing to do with your "program." You do not have my consent. Refrain from harassing my employers. I don't trust you. Cancel my account. You're fired on general principles.

And by the way, stop calling these microrobberies "contributions." It's insulting to those remaining Americans who can think clearly.

McCain isn't about to stop the systemic, unjust, coerced transfer of wealth from the young to the old. But it is nice to hear someone accidentally imply they're against it.

1. Cops will set up roadblocks to check for DWI.
2. Cops will determine "probable cause" to order a breath sample.
3. If refused, the cops will get a warrant for the blood sample.
4. The government now has the right to take your blood by force, without permission.
5. If you resist, the cops will be justified in escalating the situation with further force.

For further insult, check out this:

"Wes, I have a search warrant program that is going great. Had one judge who was reluctant to participate. Just happened to be a justice of the peace. So I just told him great, we will just let the county judge be the person who participates in this important program to keep drunk drivers off the road and you can explain to the constituents at the next election why you don't have time to help. He came around. In any event, if an officer presents a warrant to a judge whether he wants it or not, what's he gonna do? It's his job. Make him do it even if he doesn't want to."

Public pressure against a perfectly legitimate concern (drunken driving) is all the justification these people need to trample your rights.

$4 a gallon is the best news this country has had in a very long time. Here's to $5. It's the only way Americans will ever learn.

-Andrew Sullivan

The substance (such as it is) of Sullivan's comments amount to social engineering on a scale no less massive than the New Deal, accomplished through a method that appears market-oriented to the gullible and the ignorant.

Your collectivism is on display, dude.

You will be missed, Mr. Carlin. I remain honored I had a chance to see you perform live.

I'll be pulling out The Little David Years when I get home this evening.

The central idea behind Pandora Radio is the utilization of an extensive music categorization effort called the Music Genome Project:

Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, the most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected. It represents over eight years of analysis by our trained team of musicologists, and spans everything from this past Tuesday's new releases all the way back to the Renaissance and Classical music.

Each song in the Music Genome Project is analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. These attributes capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also the many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of listeners. The typical music analyst working on the Music Genome Project has a four-year degree in music theory, composition or performance, has passed through a selective screening process and has completed intensive training in the Music Genome's rigorous and precise methodology. To qualify for the work, analysts must have a firm grounding in music theory, including familiarity with a wide range of styles and sounds.

I liked everything I heard for the next half hour! Granted, about a third of it was stuff I either already owned or was from artists I knew of, but I was thoroughly impressed. After marking down the musicians whose acquaintance I had just made, I tried another "station," entering Explosions in the Sky into the Create New Station form.

Boom. Tons of bands that were completely new to me and were very comparable to EITS. More bookmarking of cool music. I'm beginning to grasp the possibilities.

The next station I created was Mastodon. Given their unique combination of guitar playing, drumming, and song structure I was hoping for a gold mine of new metal. Alas, so far it hasn't put out anything special. And frankly, though I can see why Pandora picked them, Slayer really doesn't belong in the same category as Mastodon, Lamb of God, or Gojira. Might need to give it more time to sort out.

I moved towards an entirely different subgenre and created a Cinematic Orchestra station. Ah, bliss. Pandora nailed this one well. I look forward to hearing what else they'll toss my way.

Next up was Philip Glass. So far it's mixed. On one hand, I now know I need to buy the Donnie Darko film score, look into Glass's The Hours score, and check out more material from Arvo Pärt. On the other, I think classical music's general format will make it harder to understand the abilities of the composers and performers. The andante con moto movement in Beethoven's 5th Symphony doesn't reveal much about the allegro con brio that preceded it and I bet most people would have no idea that second movement is part of the 5th's famous opening. Need to experiment further with this on Pandora.

The Led Zeppelin station I created has so far been the biggest disappointment, even though I like everything it has played for me. It's just been, for lack of a better way of putting it, too cliché. Jimi Hendrix and Cream? I gave up after 30 minutes. I'm in this for new music, dammit. It's a weird feeling to find myself both liking the music and wanting something different.

After mentioning this to my friend, he noted that he gets better results with more obscure and less-known acts. Therefore, the next station I created was Laika and The Cosmonauts. Nothing but fun surf rock for the next hour. Awesome. Good bookmarking potential here.

These stations accumulate, by the way. It looks like you can create as many as you want. There's also a QuickMix station that will take all or selected stations you've created and randomize songs through a temporary station for you. Haven't tried it yet, but that's a neat feature.

You have some control over what the system sends you through your named stations. You have the option of marking a song as liked, unliked, or just not marked. The system will attempt to tailor future songs according to what you like and dislike. Once I realized this wasn't just a way to approve of Pandora's choices, I decided to give it an acid test.

I created a "Fresh Tendrils" station, named after the 12th track on Soundgarden's Superunknown. For me, that's one of those songs I'd need on a deserted island after the apocalypse wipes everyone else out. If Pandora could deliver songs like that, then I'd be super-happy.

Well, it didn't. Here's what the system played for me:

1. "5 Year Winter" by Zao
   
2. "Storm of Swords" by The Classic Struggle
   
3. "Disaster of Decay" by Burden of Grief
   
4. "Second Awakening (Live)" by Kreator
   
5. "Pre-Supermodel" by Angel Hair
   
6. "Distance is Darkness" by As I Lay Dying
   
7. "Relentless" by Soldiers

This is just one test and admittedly, this is a song that doesn't sound much like the rest of Soundgarden's catalogue. I need to give the system more tracks to see what it can do. But I vetoed everything except the Angel Hair track and the system kept sending me the same kind of stuff. It may be missing a crucial subjective component to its music categorizing system.

Anyway, just passing this along. I'm overall very thrilled with the possibilities and I've bookmarked more than ten albums for future purchase through my eMusic subscription. That's a lot more new music to look forward to than I had on Monday.

And, for those interested, here is my Pandora profile.

Is living up to your word too hard? Walk away!
Is fullfilling your obligations just not interesting anymore? Walk away!
Having trouble just caring about your promise to uphold your end of an economic exchange? Walk away!

What rotten fucking bastards.

In a just, coherent world, the people behind this scheme would be publicly shamed and lenders would be suing their asses for accessory.

Michael Arrington

Mr. Arrington apparently thinks that property rights magically evaporate once said property is placed online. How novel! Must be one of the side benefits to the new business model everyone keeps talking about where if it ain't gawddamned free and instant for everyone, it's a fucking kick in the nuts to What The Net Was Intended To Be.

The golden-haired fox he'd been chasing through the æther had finally given up and playfully collapsed on a bed so fluffy the coffee-colored comforter and red flannel sheets took an eternity to flare out and settle back down from her impact. Charles recognized something about this bed, but pushed it aside as he drew closer. She was on her back, legs dangling over the bed's edge, squirming in a way that indicated she wanted one very special thing and wanted it soon. Charles was close enough to smell her as he--

Dawn's arrival struck an unpleasant note, waking up Charles from a dreamy slumber that had just reached a critical moment.

"Beeepbeeep...beeepbeeep," said the alarm clock.

"You bastard," he groaned. His right arm instinctively shot out from under the covers, seeking the magical switch that would end the electronic misery broadcasting two feet from his ears. Suddenly, the darkness was shattered by an intense cobalt light aimed straight at his eyes. Confused and disoriented, Charles sat up to locate his attacker. Just before his environment began to take on a shape, another sound erupted nearby, the sound of a hard rock guitarist strumming intently for something big.

"Oh, no! Whoever's playing this is about to shove fiery-hot modern rock down my consciousness if I don't act fast!"

With a sixth of him still left under the warm protective covers of the bed, Charles began a frantic sweep for the device. The note progression was reaching a critical point. Within seconds, not only would the main riff kick off, but the accompanying percussion, bass line, and singer as well! Still shocked by the sapphire explosion (now taking on a distinctly square shape), he had to spend precious moments seeking out some evidence there was a device making this accelerating noise, needing to convince himself this wasn't some elaborate prank - or worse - a nightmarish dream-within-a-dream scenario from which he may never wake.

There!

Pushing through the unnaturally calm glow of the evil rectangle was a dot of steady green light. His vile sapphire tormentor blinked out. He lunged.

DEAD BULL WITH THE LIFE FROM THE LOW!
I'LL BE MASSIVE CONQUISTADOR!!
GIVE ME SOUL AND SHOW ME THE DOOR!!!
METAL HEAVY!, SOFT AT THE CORE!
GIMME TORO!, GIMME SOME MORE!!!

"Shit."

The Queens of the Stone Age had won the battle. The room stopped vibrating as Charles realized what was going on. He returned to the bed with a thud and a sigh. It was 6:30 in the morning and he wanted back in his dream.

"Beeepbeeep...beeepbeeep," said the alarm clock.

"You're next, you lousy motherfu-"

Wait! --- was that a giggle he heard near the door…?

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

I can't believe how I could have not seen this when I was a supporter of the invasion.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said.

1. There is no such thing as objective morality and concepts such as right and wrong behavior are more the result of cultural preferences than anything else.
   
2. Tolerance for other cultures' differences will lead to greater harmony among our diverse humanity.

It says people ought to be treated as individuals and regarded by their own actions. Otherwise, it would be OK to simply stereotype swaths of people.

It says people ought to be respected as human - a unique status from which we ought to derive special value when considering our actions. Otherwise, there'd be no prohibition against treating others as means for our ends.

It says people ought to use our rational faculties when evaluating someone's actions or life. Otherwise, lying about someone's nature or misrepresenting one's own would be acceptable.

Hopefully you can spot the problem. The first premise denies the existence of universal standards of human conduct while the second assumes them. This hair-tearing schizophrenia surfaced again and again in the class as the teacher tried her best to get the students to think outside the American framework. She'd warn us to avoid rushing to judgment against others on the basis of superficial knowledge within minutes of condemning current American culture...all within minutes of hinting that there really is no logical way to compare the value of one culture to another.

The folly of it all was heightened during our assignment to form into groups and select a foreign movie no one within the group had seen and answer several cultural questions about it.

'I don't have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign solider, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman. 'People from western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies.

'I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,' he said, his voice swelling with pride. 'My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.'

Abdel-Qader, a Shia, says he was released from the police station 'because everyone knows that honour killings sometimes are impossible not to commit'. Chillingly, he said: 'The officers were by my side during all the time I was there, congratulating me on what I had done.' It's a statement that, if true, provides an insight into how vast the gulf remains between cultures in Iraq and between the Basra police the British army that trains them.

I could see it in every group when it was their turn to discuss their answers to the rest of the class: how do we talk about how horrible some of the characters were without being judgmental?

I just wanted to scream.

Sources have indicated that Abdel-Qader, who works in the health department, has been asked to leave because of the bad publicity, yet he will continue to draw a salary.

And it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support by a local politician to enable him to 'disappear' to Jordan for a few weeks, 'until the story has been forgotten' - the usual practice in the 30-plus cases of 'honour' killings that have been registered since January alone.

Such treatment seems common in Basra, where militias have partial control, especially in the districts on the outskirts where Abdel-Qader lives.

While government security forces and British troops have control over the centre, around the fringes militants can still be seen everywhere on the streets or at the checkpoints they have erected. And they have imposed strict laws of behaviour for all the local people, including what clothing should be worn and what religious practices should be observed. There are reports of men having their hands cut off for looting and women being killed for prostitution.

Homosexuality is punishable by death, a sentence Abdel-Qader approves of with a passion. 'I have alerted my two sons. They will have the same end [as Rand] if they become contaminated with any gay relationship. These crimes deserve death - death in the name of God,' he said.

One of my guiding lights in any analysis of others is to try and separate the signal from the noise. Someone who lives inside the geographic boundaries of a dominant culture isn't necessarily someone who believes in and supports that culture. Some people are mentally incapable of honestly agreeing with something that abstract. Others, because they are unable to immediately leave, find themselves aping or mimicking that culture in order to not draw attention to oneself and maintain an existence for the time being. Still others may be an active cultural participant, but are secretly disturbed by what they see and host doubts about the culture within, who might not participate if it weren't for the bullying social pressure from others.

Despite their increasing degree of culpability, I'd never write off anyone from the above categories. While some may indeed be guilty of individual crimes, they aren't real believers. Forgiveness is possible.

He said his daughter's 'bad genes were passed on from her mother'. Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. 'They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin's home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,' she said.

'She was killed by animals. Every night when go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,' she said, tears streaming down her face.

She was nervous, clearly terrified of being found, and her eyes constantly turned towards the window as she spoke.

Two men ran from their homes to help. They rushed Leila to hospital and a passing taxi took the other two. But Leila died at 3.20pm, despite several operations to save her. As she lay in her own hospital bed receiving treatment, Mariam said that she heard someone saying that Leila had been shot in the head. But there were other mutterings that were clearly audible. 'I could hear people talking on the corridors and the only thing that they had to say was that Leila was wrong for defending her daughter's mistakes and that her death was God's punishment.'

[...]

Police said the incident was a sectarian attack and that there was nothing to link Leila's death to her family. 'Her ex-husband was not in Basra when it happened. We found out he was visiting relatives in Nassiriya with his two sons,' said Hassan Alaa, a senior officer at the local police station in Basra. 'We believe the target was the women activists, rather than Mrs Hussein, and that she was unlucky to be in that place at that time.'

It is plausible. Campaigners for women's' rights are not acceptable to many sections of Iraqi society...

Since February 2006, two other activists from the same women's organisation have been killed in the city. One of them was reportedly raped before being shot. The other, the only man working for the non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a father of five who was responsible for the organisation's finances, was shot five months ago.

The Observer visited Rand's father and two brothers at their Basra home, but they refused to talk beyond Hassan proclaiming his father's innocence. When asked if he would be visiting his mother's grave, he shrugged: 'Maybe in the future.'

Mariam has moved out of her home. But within hours of speaking to The Observer a close friend went to her new address to deliver a message that had been left for her at her front door. It read: 'Death to betrayers of Islam who don't deserve God's forgiveness. Speaking less you will live more.' She believes it was sent by Leila's killers.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

Via John Derbyshire.

Americans have a healthy aversion to telling other people how to live.

Americans are utterly schizophrenic on this issue. Utterly.

On one hand, you'll hear us say things like "as long as I'm minding my own business," "it's their life and their choice," and "this is the land of the free."

On the other, you can grab any American newspaper and open the news section at random and find not just people telling others how to live, but advocating the use of police violence to enforce those orders. Go to any local news website and read the stories posted. It's absolutely sickening to see the flat drudgery of economic and social regulation taking its toll on individuals and their production of values. Smoking bans, socialized health care, and business licensing.

Oh, business licensing. Anyone who claims Americans are averse to telling others what to do ought to have this rubbed in their faces until they acknowledge reality. I posted that list of required Texas licenses, permits and registrations in 2005. It came to 437 entries. I just looked at the list again, and it's grown to 506 entries^*

Excuse me while I gag on the hypocrisy and the lies.

I could waste days demonstrating the concrete examples of Americans demanding other Americans how to live their lives. The same can be said about Americans demanding foreigners how to live their lives. There are whole industries focused on how to market and develop various plans to coercively order the lives of others.

Manzi is wrong, and it in no small part stems from his assertion that "[u]ltimately, any view of morality must inevitably rely on axioms which are based on intuition, and not subject to rational debate."

That's the fucking problem, accepted by nonthinkers all over the world.

Manzi ends asking "[w]hy don’t we try letting people live how they want to live, and let others try to impose uniform national rules on a heterogeneous population of 300 million people?"

I agree. Unfortunately for statists, that means dumping the entire federal government into the shitter where it belongs. Even more unfortunately for the statists, it also applies to the "lesser" levels of government as well. Are the differences between myself and the homeschooled 28 year old in Lubbock any less different than the that homeschooler and some random person on the street in San Francisco? What about the thugs who live a few blocks down from me? What about the weird bastards I call my friends?

That last question of Manzi's, if answered honestly as he rhetorically wants, requires anarchism. But, then again, we're talking about schizophrenia here, so don't expect him to acknowledge the liberty principle's logical endpoint.

Hardly anyone else does.

UPDATED 6/18/2008 10:54am
It seems TexasOnline.com has changed their links. Go to get to the revamped Licenses, Permits, and Registrations page. They've made it far harder to count the total because the Excel spreadsheet doesn't have one line per discreet permit/license. However, this page says there are 506 in the "A-Z" category.

An Australian doctor proposed Monday that the government pay up to $47,000 for kidney donations to overcome a chronic shortage.

Kidney specialist Gavin Carney said allowing the sale of organs would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in care for patients on transplant waiting lists.

He also said it would stop people from buying organs on the black market in developing countries, where they pursue risky, unregulated surgeries.

Carney's proposal was immediately criticized by transplant groups, who fear it would exploit poor people.

The idea was dismissed by Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who said Australians would not be allowed to market their organs. "But we do know that we need urgent action in this area of organ donation," Roxon told Australia Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Rather than paying people for organs, Roxon said her ministry would act on some of the recommendations of a federal task force that recently completed a review of the organ donation system. She did not specify its recommendations.

[...]

Transplant Australia, a national charity and organ support group, said the average wait for a kidney transplant is four years.

The group's chief executive Chris Thomas said his organization rejects paying for organs and instead is working with the government to change the donation system.

[...]

"In my opinion it is inappropriate for the Australian medical system to consider, and is counter to the Australian culture which promises an equitable approach in all things," [Kidney Health Australia] medical director Tim Mathew told The Associated Press. "The commercial trade in organs is not something we can support."

Selling or buying organs is illegal in Australia, as in most countries, and carries a penalty of six months in jail and a fine of up to $4,130.

Carney said the suggestion that paid donation would exploit poor people was "a red herring," telling ABC radio that government regulation of organ commercialization would ensure high ethical standards and medical safeguards.

But, as with anything else in life that involves human action, it would also be at a cost. Something as complex and challenging as an organ transplant probably will be quite expensive, especially as long as the state continues to regulate the shit out of the medical industry.

"I don't support (illegal trade)," Carney said. "But I also do not agree with the fact that we should let people just rot on dialysis until they have been on dialysis so long they are untransplantable."

Last week, health officials in the Philippines announced that foreigners will be banned from receiving kidneys for transplant there in an attempt to crack down on a thriving black market in organs sold by poor people.

"Score one for Obama," wrote Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. "In light of the side effects associated with driving ... gasoline taxes should be higher than they are, not lower."

Of course, he's a decent guy and notes that "higher gas taxes are unattractive."

Sure, paying an additional amount determined arbitrarily by politicians and value-free economists above and beyond the legitimate market price of a good I depend on could be called aesthetically unpleasant. I'd rather call it vicious stupidity.

This is the number one reason why I'm hesitant to get into economics as a profession and as a line of college study. It's all about figuring out which group of people to fuck over in order to - in theory - marginally improve the lives of 50.1+% of everyone else. It seems nearly the entire industry has signed on to coercive social engineering. If the demand for fuel is generally inelastic and doesn't respond significantly to price increases, then the only way to force consumers to consume less fuel is a BIG increase. It can't be too gradual otherwise we'll just absorb and adapt to it and hum along. No, to be effective it has to sting, it has to hurt.

How is that anything less than a completely gawddamn rotten thing to desire?

No, I don't support McCain's or Clinton's gas tax holiday idea. It doesn't go far enough. For one thing, Clinton wants to slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies to make up the "lost" revenue.

I don't want gasoline and diesel taxes eliminated because I want a temporary blip upwards in disposable income (a blip that Mankiw and other economists rightly question as unlikely). I want them abolished because they are taxes and therefore just another form of institutionalized theft. Just because the robbery happens at the business level doesn't mean it loses its essential character. Just because your heart bleeds for clean air, shorter commutes, and peace overseas doesn't make the theft right.