[Buddha-l] NYT article apropos our recent discussion of redwoods, meat and values.

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 18, 2011, at 18:39 , Timothy Smith wrote:

> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/the-sacred-and-the-humane/?hp

Interesting essay. Somewhat similar ideas to some expressed in that article appeared in the July 4 blog on the Green Tea Party (a libertarian socialist environmentalist party on whose ticket I am running for president of the USA in 2012, my hope being to be the first president elected without setting foot outside my home town and without raising so much as a nickel in campaign funds). As with everything I write, I have no idea whether I really believe any of it. 

http://dayamati.blogspot.com/2011/07/green-tea-party-policy-on-national.html

On another matter of practical reason, do any of you have any unfounded emotion-based convictions to share on the matter of whether it is acceptable to download books from a website registered on the Polynesian Island state of Niue? The site http://library.nu/ has some 65000 electronic reproductions of books, including quite a number of academic titles that are too expensive for anyone living on an academic salary to buy. The claim is that the site is legal (because apparently almost everything is legal in Niue). But is it moral? For that matter, is commercial publishing moral? Is placing any restrictions on the dissemination of intellectual property moral? Should all writing be available for free on the Internet?

Just wondering.

Name withheld by request