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The Presidents Technical Advisor
T.Hobbes writes "There's an interview with the president's advisor on technology, Floyd Kvamme, at news.com. Some of it is just general political pr, though he does touch on (and dodge, at times) touchy tech issues (privacy, copyright, censorware, carnivore, ..). " He doesn't seem to be as mentally broken as the man he advises. But (and I know you liberatarians will scream) his stance on to many issues is that "The Industry Will Sort it Out". Of course they will. And then we will all have to go start a new planet just to prevent the the glorious self regulated industry from implanting chips in our asses to know where we are, what we are doing, and with who.
Quick question: what is more profitable, controlling your 'customer' completely, or letting them do things like not pay you? Thank you, drive through...
You see, there seems to be no _practical_ basis for such a belief. It arises only as a logical conclusion of your value system and other axioms which you have taken on faith, but which are not ubitiquous.
When you _do_ have a chip in your ass and are marked to be made into Soylent Green because you have the creeping troll plague and it's not economically viable to produce medicine for poor bastards like you, I will concede that you will go to your death waving tiny flags and cheering, 'hooray for the free market!'. However, would it be okay if those of us with a clue choose to consider you a dangerous lunatic rather than a libertarian prophet? ;)
You are, however, right about Clinton, and you're correct that either Bush or the Democrats are turning the reins of global power over to, as you put it, the 'mega-corps'. Your only failing is in failing to realise that this _makes_ the mega-corps into Government.
As amusing as it would be to see the look on your face when you realise what's happened, I think it would be better to keep fighting this tooth and nail.
Oh yeah, right- Congress sat around going, "Gee, what should we do now? Well, we could give ourselves another pay raise, but wait, for no reason at all let's make up some laws to allow big corporations to throw our own constituents in prison for years! That might be good."
What on earth is in your brain, that you can characterize this as an act of Congress? _Abuse_ of Congress might be a more appropriate term. "Puppet Congress" would also be suitable, though in fairness the poor saps are so buried in 700-page papers and proposals and bills that it's hardly surprising they tend not to care anymore.
I cannot comprehend the mentality that encourages corporations to do this sort of thing, and then turns around and blames the Government. You are insane if you think Congress gives a rat's ass about this sort of thing- they mostly want more money and long vacations, and sometimes to represent their constituencies. Get rid of them, get rid of Government, and you will have _nothing_ but the corporations making more and more DMCAs (how about prison sentences for possession of computer hacking tools, like, oh, decompilers?) with no intermediary at all.
I really _hate_ economic libertarians sometimes... anarchocapitalists don't deserve the name of anarchist, fascist is more the size of it.. :P
Thankfully, it is the conservatives who tend to oppose gun control- so once they have turned power completely over to the multinationals and the whole world is like Santiago, Chile, we may not be able to shoot the boards of the multinationals (private police security forces, don't you know) but we CAN at least shoot the conservatives :)
Which will not help, but it'll make some people feel better ;)
The difference is, Bush is every bit as corrupt and possibly more shameless about it- not that Clinton has any shame either, but Clinton is corrupt like a criminal, and Bush is corrupt like a disease culture- there is nothing else to the man but corruption, where at least Clinton has lust and vanity to make him vaguely human.
I voted Nader. If he wasn't available, I would have voted Socialist. I'm sorry, _both_ the Democrats and Republicans are hopeless at this point. It's time to take stock of what humans are still left in the Senate and House, in case they can do anything- and failing that, buy guns. _Nobody_ is willing to give a damn about society anymore, and when we're stuck in a dystopia that's a weird combination of corpocracy and traditional government lossage, with the wishes of the corporations backed up by the guns of the puppet government, it's going to be a little bit perplexing figuring out where to point the Arms we theoretically still get to Bear.
I wouldn't wish times this 'interesting' on anyone- just hope I can look back on it in my old age and go 'My God, was that a mess!' rather than 'And that was how it all started'...
Fiduciary duty is not about _feelings_. It is impassive and rational. If a corporation can more cheaply lobby for legislation to relax any requirements (like not being allowed to have more than a certain amount of poisonous byproducts in their food products) than to remove the poison, by law it MUST lobby to be allowed to have more poisonous byproducts, and of course does so. This is not exactly through malice- it's just the way the program runs.
I think it is axiomatic that for an _individual_ it's always more beneficial to steal, cheat, and murder to get what you want. That is why we have _society_ in the first place, because the good of the whole outweighs the will of the individual, and because cooperative effort accomplishes more than 10 million rugged individualists trying to smelt copper to build PCs and house wiring by themselves, only to go 'darn it!' when there's no electricity to run through the wiring.
The trick is, for a corporation that's legally an individual which has _no_ rule but fiduciary duty but also has the capacity to alter and suggest legislation, the only possible outcome is stealing, cheating, and murder. There _are_ no other constraints on the corp, it has the capacity to amend or veto the laws that apply to it through lobbying and soft-money bribes, and it does so because unlike bipedal organisms IT DOES NOT HAVE FREE WILL.
If corporations had free will, we wouldn't have this problem, but they don't. They don't have the capacity to go 'but that would be wrong'. If it's technically illegal they're formally blocked from that course of action. If it's legal and earns more money they have to do it- and if they can lobby and _make_ things legal in order to earn more money, they are compelled to do _that_. They are like computer programs or viruses, not like people.
Maybe what we need is corporate suffrage- give 'em the right to not earn money? "Here you go- fiduciary duty no longer applies to you, now your shareholders must prove criminality to fire your board of directors- merely failing to profit isn't enough to get you in trouble anymore"? How interestingly socialist and yet weirdly libertarian or something- by what right do we legally give companies the death penalty for _failing_ to profit? If we are to give them freedom shouldn't we also be giving them security, freedom from fear? >:)
While I partially agree with you, I don't think there's any way either side could have legitimately won. The vote totals in Florida were so close as to be within any reasonable margin of error, so giving the victory to one side or the other is arbitrary. But since one side or the other did have to be given the victory, I don't particularly object to the way things turned out; if Gore had "won" the election there, it would've been just as fraudulent (take a look at a lot of the suppressed evidence of generously counting Gore ballots when any reasonable observer would see that the ballot was completely blank).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And Gore didn't either. Unless you could a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court as an election of sorts.
What did you want to happen - give Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan the presidency?
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Sure, Gore received more votes in the US overall, but that's irrelevant as elections in the US are done on a state-by-state basis. All the states except Florida were pretty well-decided, and in Florida the vote totals were too close to accurately pick a winner. In the end Bush was pretty much arbitrarily picked, but if Gore had won, he'd have been arbitrarily picked as well.
As for his policies, it depends on what policy you're talking about. Of course I partially agree with them - any reasonable person would agree with some things and disagree with other things. It'd be the height of partisan stupidity to say "I agree with everything X does" or "I disagree with everything X does."
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Well yes, elections in theory do not have margins of error. But elections in practice do. Florida used a great deal of old vote-counting machines which are less than perfect. They might provide a highly-accurate count, but they don't provide a perfectly accurate count. With hand-counting you have the same problems. You say to apply one definition across the board, but such subtleties and slight differences between ballots come into play that the only way to do this would be to have one person actually hand-count every vote in the state, and this is obviously not feasible. Failing that, we're left with a machine count with its attendant margin of error, or a hand-count by many different people, and the error there cause by different interpretations or evaluations of standards by different counters (even if there were a clearly written standard).
In the future hopefully computerized vote machines will be used, which will count the vote as the voter votes, and allow them to see what was counted, and tally things electronically. Then, there should be no question about how many votes were cast for each candidate.
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Yes, perhaps "margin of error" was a poor choice of words, as that seems to be a statistics term that only applies when you're doing things like sampling a population. What I meant was more akin to the "uncertainties" in experimental science. Just as you measure something to 80.25 +/- 0.01 microamperes, the election as currently designed can only really measure vote totals to +/- 100 at best.
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Sure, it was a total disaster of an election. I fully support making sure it doesn't happen again by installing modern voting machines and implementing more uniform standards.
The point is that the election did happen, and neither Gore nor Bush won it, yet one of them had to become the President (since the other candidates weren't even in the running at this point, having won exactly zero electoral votes). In the end it turned out Bush became president, which gets all the Gore supporters angry, but if Gore had become president, all the Bush supporters would've been angry. It might be "illegitimate" but it's as legitimate as is possible under the circumstances - it was impossible for either candidate to be a legitimate president, and yet we needed one of them to become president anyway. So Bush it was.
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Taco, your extreme bias and general incomprehension of political issues is getting a bit annoying. It's ok to be completely ignorant about politics, but not when you constantly talk about them on a large site that purports to disseminate "news."
Oh, and while I'm not a big fan of Mr. Bush's and usually vote Democrat, I'm glad he won this election - I shudder to think of what it'd be like if Joseph "ban movies and music" Liebermann and Tipper "parental advisory label" Gore had any power.
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Only because of bureaucratic capture. The problem is easily solved by forcing individuals to be responsible for their own actions regardless of whether they were committed on behalf of a corporation. I don't see a conflict between this approach and libertarianism - people may still assemble freely, form corporate bodies for financial consolidation and efficiency, and buy and sell with no additional transaction costs. The only difference is that incorporation no longer protects the individuals comprising it from legal action, including criminal action. In other words, if Microsoft is found guilty of anticompetitive business practices, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and the rest of the people who were responsible for the decisions go to prison. I think such a system would be very fair, no?
Yes, corporations are people, just like you and me! From Adbusters' history of the corporation :
So by virtue of this VC being Bush's advisor, all the corporate ``persons'' his company funded get to have lunch with the president every day. But non-billionaire ``persons'' made of flesh and blood will never be heard.
"`I have great access,' said Kvamme."
I know it's your habit to knock Bush, but were things really that much better when it was a pretend liberal (Clinton) pushing things like Carnivore and the Clipper Chip? I'd rather have someone with a hands-off approach than an administration that was looking into giving the Clipper Chip Backdoors to China so they'd have incentive to use it too... all the governments ganging up on all the citizens?
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Well let's see...
The Republican party is hardly unified under Bush. Rather they don't seem to pay much attention to him at all.
His popularity rating is pretty much because people don't expect much out of the chump.
The 1.35 trillion tax cut is going to happen as he would like, it'll be reduced by the moderate Republicans who aren't enthralled by his worshipness.
The opposition was talking about a small tax cut well before six months ago. Not sure whose ass you pulled that one out of.
He will likely fail with the missile defense. It's a bad idea we can't afford either economically or politically.
I hope to God that we don't end up with the Texas education plan across the country. We is alredy dum enuf.
Bush is an interesting temporary president. It'll be interesting to see how well he does with "bipartisanship" when he no longer has Congress in his back pocket. I guess we'll see in 2003.
I did make one mistake, I thought the $1.35 was what Bush had proposed.
That's actually what the moderate Republicans pared it down to. The original Bush plan was $1.6 trillion.
The fact that you didn't know this makes your other comments about ignorance all the more funny.
P.S. The Star Wars program has a 70% disapproval rating in the US. It will never happen.
There have certainly been better educated presidents than Dubya with his MBA -- Hell, Woodrow Wilson had a PhD in history and Herbert Hoover had a masters in engineering. However, neither Wilson nor Hoover would make the the top ten list of US presidents, so perhaps degrees aren't the issue.
I believe it is the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC), which interacts with various IP organizations like ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers).
But that isn't the point. It's just trivia for me to know this stuff -- but a technology advisor to the president should know this stuff without hesitation -- it's his job, after all.
Gotta love this quote from the interview.
Napster believes there is a legal precedent that has something to do with how radio...I guess when radio started to play songs, they had exactly the same problem. So this thing was set up. I can't even remember what the acronym is...this organization that now keeps track of which disc jockey plays which song
I thought this guy was supposed to *advise* Dubya -- not sound just like him!
>With companies, you can avoid doing business >with them.
It is the goal of all corporations to make themselves so ubiquitous so as to make avoiding them impossible. Take a look at Microsoft -- in their own words they want "Windows Everywhere".
>...whereas a corrupt government can *control* >the judicial system,
And corporations can't? Money controls everything ultimately, and many corps already have more money than some nations.
> People like you
What an enlightened viewpoint.. Thanks for telling me who and I and where I grew up.. Of course, as only you can clearly see any metasocial phenomenon, without your insight we would be lost.
So, in your future, it's a big facist goverment which keeps corperations out of our asses? That's *so* much better..
Nothing like more laws to solve a problem..
Oddly, I'm a democrat, but this kind of thinking is so luddite.. Corperations are made of people who are remarkable like you and I, and run by people who actually grew up pretty much the same as you did.. Don't hate me for what you can't do..
Can you do one single Political story without letting us know that you think Bush is an ass? I know this is your site, but is it really appropriate to make it so painfully clear that you hate another human as much as you do Bush?
Megadeth - Hook in Mouth (1987)
Dave Mustaine - always one step beyond the politicians, and bright enough to get the fuck out of Metallica in the early days!
If the consumer stops buying their products, the corporation must change their business model to meet their needs or go out of business.
Or they can try to change the laws (a la DCMA) through paying off politicians, so that thier business model is unaffected.
An entity can not be accountable to another if no framework exists by which it can be accountable. That modern framework is the law. Where the entity can alter the law, so that it avoids punishment, that entity is no longer accountable. Also where an entity does not have the same access to the law, as another, no accountability can exist.
--locust
...whereupon you take your business to some other insurance company who has terms more to your liking.
;)
Next issue?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
As soon as a politician is elected to office, they already have to worry about getting re-elected. Their party has to worry about getting re-elected, and getting more of their member elected into offices held by their opponents.
That is how our government is bought and paid for by big business.
That's certainly the politicians' reasoning behind campaign finance reform, anyway. Except that a corporation can't buy something (like a politician) that isn't for sale in the first place.
Don't you wonder, just a little bit, about the character and moral fortitude of a group of people (like, say, politicians) whose reasoning for finance reform is essentially "We'd be good, if only we weren't faced with all this temptation"?
That'll be my reasoning if I'm ever in court.
"Your Honor, I wouldn't have gotten drunk and run over those children if I hadn't been faced with the awful, awful temptation of the beer aisle of the supermarket."
"I wouldn't have taken his car, except he tempted me by leaving the keys in the ignition."
Or, the all time classic:
"Hey, it's not my fault she was dressed all sexy like that - she was tempting me...."
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
What other insurance company? The other one who wants the chip in your baby, or the OTHER, other one who wants the chip in your baby? Oh, you mean the one out of state that wants the chip in your baby?
Come on. If an ass-chipless (?) insurance policy is really important to enough people, why wouldn't someone step up to provide that service? If masses of people are demanding an end to ass-chips being required for insurance, I'll make a KILLING being the only one to provide that service. And the banks'll see that as well.
Or, alternately, if you're the one-in-a-million customer who cares about, and is offended by ass-chips, whereas the rest of use, as evidenced by our inaction, are perfectly content with ass-chips, you can simply do without insurance.
As an aside, I think I deserve some extra mod points just for multiple creative uses of the phrase "ass-chip"....
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Hey, minorities could just "do without" riding in the front of the bus, or vote with their dollars, but believe it or not markets aren't always as perfectly efficient as the Libertarian party would have us believe.
;)
From time to time, economic interests and "social justice" do coincide, though. Look at Plessy v. Ferguson, for example. That case was an attempt to end the legal principle of separate-but-equal, brought at the behest of local railway companies. Why? Having separate facilities cost them more money. And who insured that separate-but-equal would continue for another 60 years? The government, in the form of the Supreme Court.
Are markets perfectly efficient? Of course not. But neither are cartels, be they oil, diamonds, or insurance. After all, if they were, the price of oil over the last 30 years would ALWAYS be EXACTLY what OPEC wanted. They haven't been, largely because in any cartel, there is an enormous incentive for the members to cheat at the expense of their co-conspirators.
The question, I think, is what will we decide are rights that must be available to all, and thereby provided by society at large, versus what should simply be opportunities for people to have (or provide for themselves) things they might *want*. Just because I think I have a natural right to daily handjobs doesn't mean that the 6 billion people who don't think it's my God-given right must provide it for me. If you're the only one with the belief that ass-chips are an affront, sorry, but you're SOL.
Does the free market solve all human problems? I think not (there goes my LP card), but more often than not, I think, we all benefit from it. Surely, as a general rule, more freedom is better than less....
I think the best post in this whole topic was the one about ass-chips
Seconded
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Now, why would I flame that? You and I, I think, are mostly in agreement. All I'm saying (well, in other posts, not necessarily this one), generally, is that allowing politicians to pitch finance reform as a cure for all the political evils of this country is sort of like allowing the hookers to blame the johns for their choice of careers - you can't buy someone who isn't for sale, as I said.
As it is, if you want to waste lots of money on politics you have to be either (loser) Michael Huffington-rich or (winner, the bankers she borrowed from are probably gonna be losers, though) Maria Cantwell-rich to do it.
I suspect that one of the things to come out of campaign finance reform will be some serious restrictions on how people spend their own money - after all, the incumbents have largely nailed down any money from third-parties out there, so the only real threat to them is the multi-millionaire population.
So, they heavily restrict third-party spending, favoring themselves, and then restrict how people spend their own money running for office, thus insuring that Congress becomes a sinecure for those lucky enough to already be there. Cute, huh?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Oooo, I love it when slapdash gets all warm and fuzzy. I'm sure you and I disagree about what's a "right", but for now I'll settle for a group hug ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Lay down the basic tenets: no murder, no/minimal pollution, no stealing (of money, anyhow--industrial espionage will never stop...). Yeah, maybe that's a dreamworld, but the less government interference, the better. IMO, this would definitely give consumers a more even chance in courts--right now, we have none or little, with respect to technology. Other industries vary some (witness McDonald's and hot coffee). Overall, however, fighting corporations (where we have a certain amount of choice) is much easier to do than fighting the government (and yes, I've called and dealt with tech support before...).
Matthew Vanecek For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting i
Hey, the only reason you're feeling any real pressure to put a crypto chip up your ass, is the government, not the industry. None of the industry's bad decisions really start to have a severe effect until the government backs them up, by passing laws like DMCA and FCC directives.
The libertarian approach works great, but only when you don't mix it with fascism.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And try defying either. A business is likely to merely be annoyed if you ignore its ads and don't buy its products. A government is likely to eventually send heavily armed people after you if you ignore ITS dictats.
See: Company Town; Unionization; 20th Century History
People who love ubiquitous corporations are all under the age of 75, and have never bothered to learn history or what companies can and have done to people for such crimes as "not working for us" and "not buying our products".
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All you have to do is just automatically accept everything the party tells you, no matter how outlandish or untrue. No thinking is required -- just listen to the rhetoric and let your blood boil about 'them'
And most Republicans spend much more time examining the facts?
Look, Democrats dislike Bush, but you simply cannot compare it to the unabashed, vitriolic, mindless HATRED republicans had for Clinton. I mean, I can't count the number of times he was basically acused in public of high treason against the nation, with little or no factual basis to back it up.
Yet Democrats say "Hmm, Bush doesn't seem that bright" and all of a sudden THEY are the ones blinded by unthinking party loyalty? Please. Maybe he really just isn't that bright -- it's no crime. And it certainly doesn't indicate hatred so much as a lack of respect.
Both party members play the same game, you have no high horse to ride on...
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None of the industry's bad decisions really start to have a severe effect until the government backs them up
Well, that's true. Without governments to uphold property rights, or imbue them to artificial persons, there wouldn't be any corporations.
So now we're back to the same place we were before -- deciding where in the vast gray area the government starts and stops regulating the actions of business. There is not a clear dividing line between industry and government, no matter how much the libertarian ideal says so.
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what corporation will legally be able to do that?
Your insurance company. After all, they can't very well extend coverage to the child without being able to monitor his vital signs remotely, now, could they? Its simply economics, Ma'am, nothing personal.
Next question?
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Also, the Bhopal incident was an accident that was the fault of a company already following government safety measures
Ah, so its not their fault because the government regulations should have been stricter, thanks for clearing up how that was all the government's fault.
Now, back to the discussion about how great industry self-regulation is...
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Yeah, and people who love their government...
I never claimed governments were harmless, either. Only that believing corporations have "no power but selling to you" flies completely in the face of the reality that this country (and most others) have lived through already. Lets make new mistakes, not repeat the ones of the past -- at least that way we can say we tried.
Good ol' American public schools saving the world for democracy, one epsilon-minus Slashdotter at a time.
Maybe if you study harder you can rise above this hindrance?
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The difference is that Clinton really was corrupt
Really? And what pray tell did he do that was corrupt? I mean, he lied about having sex (many times, with many different women, including in court testimony) but that's not corruption (it's either a virtuous lie or a damn lie with perjury, depending how you feel about him and infidelity).
As far as I know, thats the only thing that was ever really proven, despite, as I said, many, many, MANY people spending the better part of a decade examining every strand of hair he had ever come into contact with.
Sure, he killed Vincent Foster, sold nuclear weapons to China, performed pagan rites in the Lincoln bedroom and sodomized babies, but what I'm asking is why -- really, and truthfully -- do so many Republicans believe he, as you say, "really was corrupt" despite no actual evidence of corruption (or at least of corruption with any significant devation for a president).
He was involved in some sort of bizarre land deal that he lost money on, unlike Bush who was involved in some bizarre CIA/oil deals, and GW, involved in some bizarre baseball team and oil deals, and Reagan, who was actually *provably* involved in some highly illegal arms deals.
because at least Nixon had thought about the best interests of the country on occasion.
See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You've just stated that Clinton, in fact, never once considered the nation when making a decision (which I personally consider to be a charge tantamount to treason, at least philosophically). The worst that Democrats say about Bush is that he's greedy and dumb. And yet, somehow, the Democrats are the only ones being relentless and unreasonable?
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...whereupon you take your business to some other insurance company who has terms more to your liking
What other insurance company? The other one who wants the chip in your baby, or the OTHER, other one who wants the chip in your baby? Oh, you mean the one out of state that wants the chip in your baby?
Oh, no, I know the answer to this one -- start your own insurance company, right? But the bank won't finance an insurance company that doesn't put chips in babies, because the financial risk is too great compared to all those other companies that have more accurate medical info (thanks to the chips).
Oh, right, I need to start my own bank...
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And the banks'll see that as well.
:(
...you can simply do without insurance
Hey, minorities could just "do without" riding in the front of the bus, or vote with their dollars, but believe it or not markets aren't always as perfectly efficient as the Libertarian party would have us believe.
Sometimes people are refused seating at the lunch counter, even though "economically" it doesn't make sense, and "economically" the bank should give them a loan.
When all the star-bellied sneetches are refused medical insurance for being chipless, you can't count on economic theory to defend them, and when the hospitals refuse to admit them without insurance, you'll wind up with a lot of star-bellied corpses.
Want to see a free market in healthcare? Go to any third-world country and go to the hospital. Try to get treatment without a big wad of cash in your hand. The free market doesn't care if you live or die, but thankfully we don't have a free market in the US, and an emergency room has to treat you whether you can pay or not. Hopefully that will still be the case after the ass-chips come!
As an aside, I think I deserve some extra mod points just for multiple creative uses of the phrase "ass-chip"....
I think the best post in this whole topic was the one about ass-chips -- "damn, Doritos is going overboard with all the new flavors". Alas, it doesn't seem to have been modded up much
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the democrat attacks frequently stink of intellectual elitism
I don't disagree with you at all -- that was definitely a lot of what people didn't like about Gore (he seems snobbish).
The government needs more power and your money, because it of course can do better with it than you can.
This must be a test of some kind, because I don't see that at all. The message isn't "we can do better with it than you can" but rather "there are some things that can only be accomplished collectively".
I mean, you're not giving your money to Bill Clinton to spend "better", you're giving it to agencies that employ hundreds of thousands of people to handle details of life that would quickly overwhelm us if we had to do them individually. Who wants to build a road by getting together with their neighbors and buying paving equipment? Why not just give all that responsibility to one group and all they do is build roads all over the [geographic region]?
I should note that conservatives/republicans don't disagree with this notion at all -- what they disagree on is WHICH things are better done collectively. We should, for example, provide funding to faith-based charities.
The difference between attacking Clinton for scandals and other political issues (yes, some of us think perjury in a high court IS a big deal!)
But that's just it -- there seemed to be very few "political" issues involved in the attacks. It was all "he murdered Vince Foster!", "He was in shady business deals" "he had sex with ______". Those aren't political issues.
Perjury most definitely is a big deal (but its not "corruption", which is all I said). And it didn't come out until AFTER a decade was spent demonizing the man. So that has always been my question -- what was it about him that made the desire so great to brand him as Evil, long before Foster died, long before he even met Lewinsky, etc. These events were not causes, they were effects.
And FWIW, i view the Republican party as being elitism of a different kind -- economic and moral elitism (and plenty of intellectual as well). I've always had the feeling that the Republican party felt Clinton didn't "deserve" to be in the White House because he wasn't of a high enough rank. He was white trash. And he certainly had the kinds of scandals unbecoming of the social elite -- they tended to be more soap opera than international arms deal. But I'm not sure why that would be WORSE.
Again, if Bush is so dumb, and you're so smart, lets see _you_ actually do something with your life that affects other people
Well, ignoring the fact that this is a complete red herring (what do the accomplishments of a critic have to do with the validity of the criticism?), what did Bush do to affect people's lives before he was "crowned" by the people who surrounded him. He had money, fame, and influence thrust upon him by virtue of being born and having a father in the White House. If he had been born a poor nobody, could he have achieved any of this? I really don't think so -- he's no Bob Dole or John McCain. He's certainly no Rockefeller or Gates.
just go back to work, sit in your cubicle, and smirk at Bush's stupidity. I hope it makes you feel better at least
Not sure if you're just using the collective "you" here, but I never claimed Bush was stupid. He's President of my country, i hope to hell he's a genius and will guide us well.
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The question, I think, is what will we decide are rights that must be available to all, and thereby provided by society at large, versus what should simply be opportunities for people to have
Then we're in perfect agreement! We should stop while we're ahead. Ultimately, that was my only point -- there are some things that transcend the freedom of the marketplace (and of course those "things" are ultimately where the disagreements come into play).
I have a natural right to daily handjobs doesn't mean that the 6 billion people who don't think it's my God-given right must provide it for me
watch out for chafing!
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i think i would prefer just to invest the money myself and not have to pay the government SS.
:)
The issue i see with this is that we're not willing to throw people on the streets to die in their old age. So we're going to get stuck with SOME bill (whether large or small) based on taking care of people who didn't plan. Initially SS was just the answer to that problem -- it has grown in scope and size (and each growth was perfectly logical) but I don't know that there is a solution to the problem of it being too big.
The money goes to pay for things, and has to come from somewhere. So either we tax people to get the money, or we tell people we can no longer pay to keep them from starving to death, we refuse medical care to the poor, etc. We're in a pickle because we aren't willing to say "no" to people as a society, but we don't like paying for it.
The flip side of that is that if we provide *too much* to "fall back" on, it will encourage people to ignore planning for retirement. Which makes it even more critical for us to either get more money (from taxes) to support those people, or start refusing services right when the largest population of people who HAVE paid into the system their whole lives comes to expect something back.
Hmm, come to think of it, we're screwed
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Please restrain yourself from blaming the victims whom Wall Street robbed
You misinterpreted what i said -- I wasn't blaming anyone, or even talking about any specific time or group.
I was just getting across the conundrum that the SS plan was created to solve: there are people who, for whatever reason, have no capability to pay their own medical/food expenses, and we are unwilling as a society to simply let them perish.
So we have SS, but we're possibly running the risk that we're hurting others by creating an incentive, as it were, to not be concerned about saving for those very expenses because they know they won't be allowed to simply perish. (of course, most people don't realize how little SS pays, but they're not thinking of the details, only the general concept)
I was speaking more of OUR generations, not the ones getting SS now or previously, who never "expected" it.
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Make up your mind: are you supporting the Second Amendment or voting liberal? In this country, the two really are mutually exclusive
Unfortunately there are only two "sides" in politics that you can realistically vote for, so if you are concerned about more than one issue, your voting theory kinda falls flat.
What if I want to support gun rights, and abortion? Which side do I pick, then? Which one is mutually exclusive?
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As natural persons, corporations are being denied their inalienable right to vote in US elections. Those that came before us silenced the voices of women and non-european races. How much longer can we continue to deny our fellow corporate citizens their voice? Today, these corporations must spend millions and millions of dollars on inefficient lobbying, contributions, and bribes. This inefficient, indirect "voting" wastes money that rightly belongs in the pockets of CEOs and their politicians. Demand corporate suffrage now!
cpeterso
You mean like when we buy an OS that's bundled with a machine? Or how about those millions of people who refuse to change operating systems because, dispite the hell they go through using what they use, they refuse to change because its THEIR operating system, and it what they're used to. This was one of Linus Torvald's big points when he went on Charlie Rose last Friday.
First off, if you don't pay your taxes, the IRS is VERY soft on you these days. Second, if you go to jail for tax related issues you are probably a fucking moron. Everything you are taxed on is money you HAD at one point. Besided that, federal tax rates are relatively low in the U.S. I am so tired of conservative crybabies going on about how bad taxes are... Its not like the Turks, who cut Armenians open to take the coins they swallowed to hide from government agents before their people got forced on a death march through the desert (1916-1923).Okay that was just a rant. The real point here is that the federal government is far more accountable to the public will than any corporation in a noncompetitive olligopoly; the gov. is run by politicians of two competing parties who LISTEN in the hope of improving things for constituants so they can get your votes. Here YOU have the upper hand. Meanwhile, for many companies, the position is opposite; they have something you want, and they will rape you for as much as they can get to further their own self interest.
"Except that a corporation can't buy something (like a politician) that isn't for sale in the first place."
no matter how honorable the politician needs to raise millions of dollars just to stay in office. The system is corrupt there are no two ways about it. If a politician could not be bought then he would be a one term politician.
War is necrophilia.
He could do a billion things he is the freking president of the united states the most powerful human on the planet. The US bailed out Mexico by giving them billions of dollars, US gives Israel billions so they can buy fighter jets so they can bomb palestenian villages but when it comes time to help California it's "screw them they didn't vote for me anyways".
War is necrophilia.
California used less energy this year then they did less year.
Less demand should mean lower rates no?
Also how does drilling for oil increase the supply of electricity? What percentage of electricity in the US is generated from oil?
War is necrophilia.
"I am not going to be suprised if he even helps Microsoft some how with their split."
When the state of Idaho sued to stop the roadless wildreness initiative the Bush justice Dept filed a TWO SENTENCE BRIEF with the court and USED FOUR OF THEIR ALLOCATED THIRTY MINUTES to argue in front of the judge. The judge (a republican of course) was able to stop the initiative with a clear conscience.
Now the road building into the wilderness can continue as if nothing happened.
This is exactly how the Bush justice dept will prosecute MS. File a two sentence brief and get your worst lawyers to make a brief appearance in court. MS will of course spend a billion on lawyers and will win handily. The fix is in.
War is necrophilia.
"The government has no such concern. Are you aware that over 95% of our country's pollution takes place on government property?"
you are mistaken on many points but...
This statistic is misleading. Of course the pollution occurs on govt property the business is not going to dump toxic waste on it's own property is it? In NJ trucks full of toxic sludge were routinely driven into public lands and emptied. The pollution may have occured on public lands but it was put there by the corporations.
Also if liberterians are for holding corporations responsible perhaps you can take this opportunity to explain just exacly how this would occur withoout some big bad govt to wield a stick? While you are at it perhaps you can provide some example of where a CEO was actually jailed for some crime his corporation committed.
War is necrophilia.
Oh yea those two shares will really get the attention of the CEO of GM. At least with the govt it's one person one vote. With the corp it's I have a majority of the stock ya'll can screw yourselves.
War is necrophilia.
He has a republican senate and a republican house. He should be able to pass every single bill he wants. It takes no skill when the entire congress agrees with you on everything.
War is necrophilia.
Maybe you could get away with it once but the corpies would be on to you soon enough. These people are unethical not stupid. They are not spending money on politicians cos they have nothing better to do with their money they are spending it because they get something out fo the deal. Once your ethical politician lies to them the money will dry out. Worse yet the corpies will fund their own candidate and defeat your honest politician.
Now you might say "voters are smarter then that" but really they are not. If the corpies can make you care about brown sugar water they can make you care about anything.
War is necrophilia.
The humans that wrote the program all ate, drank and breathed natural resources. The software was most likely packaged, burned on to CDs, delivered via trucks, stocked on shelves inside stores all of which require immense amount of natural resources to build and sustain.
Software is the closest to a "low impact" product you can find because it requires so little to make but it still takes computers, buildings, heat, electricity, air, water, food, transportation etc to make it happen. Even delivery via the internet requires natural resources.
Sorry no such thing as a free lunch.
War is necrophilia.
Building more plants would not help. California used less energy this year then last year yet the prices keep climbing. It's not a supply problem.
War is necrophilia.
At $2.00 the gasolie is pretty cheap. I have a small car and I fill it once a month for about $20.00. The gas prices can double or triple and it would not affect me all that much and it would still cost less then starbucks coffee which I buy by the bucket. It cost more to get a gallon of water then a gallon of gasoline.
As for Anwar there is maybe a couple of months worth of oil up there not that much. It's a nice present to oil companies from bush for the bribes but it is not a long term solution to the so called gas crunch even if they find natural gas. You would save more gas then they will ever pull out of anwar if you simply got one or two miles per gallon better mileage out of the SUVs.
War is necrophilia.
One can only hope.
War is necrophilia.
"The government allows them to pollute without repercussions, so pollute they do."
Man that's convoluted. The government does not allow them it's illegal. The corporations pollute because the govt does not have the resources to police it's property properly. Besides to suggest that the govt is evil and the polluters are good because the govt is unable to stop them from poisoning the land and water is just sick!. The sick fucks who put profits above public health are the real sickos in this equation.
" Natural resources--even ones held by mills, logging companies, etc.--tend to be in much better condition than government-owned properties"
Well this is a flat out lie. If you don't believe me watch how much the logging companies will scream when you suggest an end to logging on govt lands. They are already screaming bloody murder because the wood yield from federal lands is going down. The typical cyle for lumber company land is to cut most fo the trees down and then subdivide and sell the land. As long as they can cut taxpayer subsidized timber from the the federal lands they don't have to practice sustainable forestry. Go look into what plum creek is doing with their lands.
All companies are capitalists when they are making money and communists when they are losing it. The privately held timber lands have already been pretty much logged out. The timber companies are now desparate for trees from public lands.
Same with ranchers and grazing. Most ranchers use federal land for grazing their cattle. They pay way below market rates and scream bloody murder if anybody suggests otherwise.
If the ranchers and the loggers took care of their own land they would not need public lands would they?
War is necrophilia.
None of the above can be cured by drilling for more oil.
If you have no water drilling for oil won't help.
If you have bad power plants drilling for oil won't help.
If you have bad infrastructure drilling for oil won't help.
War is necrophilia.
"All I can say is have fun at the supermarket. Almost every good you buy was hauled via truck and the extra gas costs are being passed on in higher prices."
Fine I really don't mind that much. I realize that some people will hike up their prices but most will not. Look at the midwest or the west where gasoline is significantly higher then on the east cost. They are not paying more for food or toilet paper. Most companies will absorb the cost no big deal.
As for ANWAR it's just an apple in the fruit basket that Bush is giving to his masters. Mark Richie got a pardon for his bribes but the oil companies are going to get billions in profits from their bribes. Bush is definately going to treat his bribees much better then Clinton did. Amongst the other goodies in this basket.
1) Relaxed air quality rules so that they can burn more coal and burn it cheaper because they won't have to clean the exhaust.
2) Drilling on all public lands and offshore preserves. Literally they have been handed the keys to public lands. When this kind of thing happens in the third world we point and say corruption but Bush has sunk to the level of Argentina and Equador it's disgusting.
3) Tax subsidies to upgrade refineries because the oil companies just don't make enough money to fix their own damned plants (all business are communists when it comes to suckling on uncle sams teat).
4) Expanded Eminent Domain powers to seize private land for power lines.
The people who bribed Bush got a much better deal then the people who bribed clinton. Too bad Dan Burton does not have the integrity to call hearings into this chicanery. Even I could make a case for quid-pro-quo on this crap.
Dan Burton, Larry Claymen they are oddly silent when a member of their own party accepts bribes and gives away national lands.
War is necrophilia.
The timber companies have nottaken good care of their lands. They have cut all the trees off and now need more trees. Of course the only trees left are on govt land (because the govt actually took care of those lands instead of turning all the trees into profit). So after depleting theri own lands now they want to deplete the public lands.
You must have a different meaning of what "taking care of the land" is. It's not to cut down all the trees and sell them and then sell the land to developers so they can subdivide it and build suburbia. Govt is the only entitiy that has to try and balance all the uses for the land, timber, recreation, wildlife. Private companies only care about profits.
The same with ranching. Ranchers have no more grazing lands. Their cows have stripped all the grass, trampled all the river beds and covered their acres with shit. Having ruined their lands now they are screaming bloody murder to ruin the public lands too.
I agree with your last statement. We can not allow these companies to ruin our public lands like they have ruined their own. We must not let them log, mine, graze, or drain the water from the land that belongs to all Americans. Let them practice sustainable agriculture and forestry or go bankrupt.
War is necrophilia.
"Now, that simply is not true, as anyone who takes any time to look around can see."
I live out west where I can go see what they have done to their lands. So yes please go see for yourself which lands you'd rather spend time gazing at or hiking in.
"It's the government land that's in terrible shape."
This is an absolute bullshit claim which of course you can not back up. To say that glacier national park is in terrible shape (especially compared to plum creek land in the same state) is just a out and out lie. Once again go check it out for yourself.
"And this new claim of yours contradicts what you said earlier when you agreed that 95% of pollution takes place on government land."
You said that not me. My position is that the private ranch and forests are all depleted of their natural resources. This point is indisputable. The ranchers in the west are absolutely dependent on public lands to graze on. Their land is ruined and unsuitable for rasing cattle anymore. Same with the timber companies. They have all overcut their lands and now are raiding the public forests for profits.
BTW the nature Conservancy is a non profit organization. It tries to rescue a miniscule percentage of the earth that is being raped by the corporations of the world. I hope to god you have the intelligence to distunguish what they are doing from what golden sunshine (what an orwellian name for a mining company!) are doing. Perhaps you really think that there is absolutely no difference between the Nature Conservancy and exxon who knows.
War is necrophilia.
Um, the Love Canal was a dump, sanctioned by the government for use by that company. When they were done with it, they sealed it up and covered it over, and kept people off of it. Then, the local government decided they wanted to build a school there, and forced the company to sell the property, over its protests. The company kept saying that it was a waste dump site, and nothing -- especially not a school -- should be built there. Waht did they get for their efforts? Blamed for the actions of the government that did the stupid thing anyway.
Love Canal is a bad example if you're looking to villanize business and lift up government.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Industry just wants to take our money, and in so doing will end up raping our planet.
Q: Why is it that most pollution comes from governments directly, and/or happens on government lands?
Q: why are forests the straddle a public-private boundary in better condition on the private side? Including forests owned by paper companies?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ROFLMAO
Haven't you been following the weather reports? There's not enough water to go through the dams up in the NW. Supply didn't stay static because no new plants were built, it dropped. Lower supply means higher prices. There is also this nasty thing called wear and tear. When you run a plant hard, like during last years electricity crisis, you get more of it. More wear and tear means more maintenance, another cause of reduced supply which CA has suffered due to bad infrastructure planning.
DB
All I can say is have fun at the supermarket. Almost every good you buy was hauled via truck and the extra gas costs are being passed on in higher prices. It might not make you suffer since you talk like you make a bunch of money but it certainly makes the average family suffer.
As for ANWAR, I doubt that the oil companies are going to shoot their political influence to hell just over a lousy few months of oil. It doesn't make sense for them to spend so much on Bush and waste that influence over such a small prize. If what you say were true (which I don't buy) they would have made a better use of their bribe money getting us to influence the Caucuses states to run their massive oil pools through US oil companies instead of LUKOIL and the Iranians. Since instead they've picked ANWAR as a major goal of theirs, I would guess that there's a lot of oil there.
DB
You cannot be a tax-exempt charity without being a corporation. The FSF is a corporation. It just happens to be a corporation with a specialized charter (non-profit, tax-exempt) that changes its accounting statement. In any case, I would expect that the FSF has shareholders and that the will of these owners guides the policy of the FSF.
I think that when a company sells its assets and merges with another company, especially when it changes its name and management, that company ceases to exist. You seem to be of a different opinion. If a company is badly managed, screws its customers, and gets bought by the number one firm in that market, I would say that the former customers who had been burned by the old entity should give the new company a fair shot at winning their business.
The reason that states are more stable than companies is that they keep large numbers of armed men around for when there is a threat to that stability and then shoot those who want to eliminate the state. Corporations do not have this power (violence is generally reserved as a monopoly of the state) in the normal course of events and that is what makes them less stable and, from a libertarian perspective, less threatening.
DB
The last 'rightish' democrat to hold the presidency was Carter. He certainly wasn't demonized in any way like Clinton was. He was made to look a hapless fool but that was the cardigan sweaters bit and maybe the killer rabbit thing. I'd suggest that you're the one doing the demonizing... of Republicans.
DB
I believe that the Clinton ambassador to France was a huge Dem. fundraiser and party leader. That kind of thing isn't just legal, it's centuries old American political tradition.
DB
Two things, there are oil fired powerplants around (not a lot in the west, true but they do exist) and second, you may have noticed that gasoline is a separate price shock that Bush is simultaneously trying to fix. ANWAR and offshore drilling will keep us away from $4 gas and higher grocery bills due to food having higher shipping costs.
DB
""All I can say is have fun at the supermarket. Almost every good you buy was hauled via truck and the extra gas costs are being passed on in higher prices."
Fine I really don't mind that much. I realize that some people will hike up their prices but most will not. Look at the midwest or the west where gasoline is significantly higher then on the east cost. They are not paying more for food or toilet paper. Most companies will absorb the cost no big deal."
Man, you *don't* shop for yourself do you? Everything is priced higher nowadays. The days of absorbing price hikes because you're price competing to get marketshare are over for now.
DB
"To be honest I am not sure how relevant it is. If you imagine a dictatorship for instance, is an environment where the dictatorship is deposed regularly necessarily better than a single long standing dictatorship. Surely it is the dictatorship itself that is bad, not the particular incumbent. I feel pretty much the same about governments and corporations. The fact the decisions affecting the many are in the hands of the few is what is wrong. Which few is a subsidiary issue to me anyway."
You are mistaken because it is during the changeovers which give the opportunity for freedom to grow. The german free towns all grew up around cracks and no-mans lands between feudal jurisdictions. When a dictatorship is stable over a long period of time (think USSR) it does much more damage to the ability to be free than when it is overthrown relatively quickly (Nazi Germany). Libertarians, if you get them on the subject, are quite against corporate welfare because it stabilizes corrupt and powerful incumbents against their more efficient upstart consumers.
Very few successful businesses start out being evil and corrupt, they sort of grow into that. Making bad corporate behavior translate into a fall in share and bankruptcy is a proper wall against such and quite libertarian.
DB
The Industry WILL sort it out if we excercise our rights and don't buy things from industries that have practices we don't believe in.
For example, The whole DVD issue isn't one we can hardly complain about, since we brought it on ourselves and it's somewhat stuck with it for now.
But what about Operating Systems with ACTIVATION SCHEMES? If we don't like them, we vote them out of existance by NOT BUYING THEM.
I'd rather have companies telling me what to do than the Government, because at least with a COMPANY, I can refuse to pay them. Try not paying your taxes and see how far you get!
(Just something to think about!)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
You're talking about Social Security:
Oh, they planned all right. In the twenties, there was no government pension in U.S.A. so no one relied on such a thing. Millions of hard-working Americans, our great and great-great grandparents, thinking ahead of retirement, invested a good fraction of their modest incomes in bank savings accounts and sound securities and worst of all the booming late twenties Stock Market.
Then ten-twentyfour-twentynine, along came this bad thing and it made all their money go away, not just the daring speculative margin bids but also even those straight 2% savings accounts at the solid downtown National Bank. Gone, gone, all gone, irretrievably gone. Exactly as though one had hoarded dollar bills against old age in a sack under the mattress, went out one day for groceries, came home to find the house burned to ashes. All gone.
By 1931 unemployment topped twenty-five percent. You've never seen anything like it in your lifetime; millions of hard-working Americans who had been employed all their lives, having been fired due to no fault of their own but only Wall Street's bubble's collapse, millions of these Americans suffered chronic physical hunger, and that was adults of working age! Imagine what it was like for a retiree, particularly if he'd seen a life's savings evaporate as a side-effect of Wall Street's speculative failure...
That's how Social Security came about. Please restrain yourself from blaming the victims whom Wall Street robbed.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Bush may trip up in public speaking a lot, but the man isn't an idiot. He's a Harvard MBA, a pilot and he's bilingual. In addition, political experts, like Clinton, are saying that the man really connects on a personal level and that it's a mistake to underestimate him.
But then, CmdrTaco can probably write Perl code and chew gum at the same time, so I guess that qualifies him to judge.
Besides, Clinton was the best friend big business ever had... Witness the HUGE consolidation in Petrochemicals that occurred during the Clinton administration. If the Oil Companies are actually gouging now, you can blame the merger of Exxon/Mobil, BP/Amoco and the marketing/refining organizations of Shell/Texaco. This all happened during Clinton's watch.
Lastly, only the Government could force me to wear a chip. If we are to be enslaved, it won't be the mega-corps that dictate it. It might be a collaboration between the mega-corps and Government that dictates it, but I don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that Bush is any more likely to usher this in than a Democrat (see above).
There are lots of things the government can do to help privacy, but the first step has to be reducing the number of ways that the government is harming privacy. It's a slow process, and there are some regulatory steps they can take that may help while they're getting their act together on the real issues. I personally expect most of those regulations to cause some harm along with any good they cause, and the good parts of the regulations can be repealed while leaving the harmful parts as legal precedent, but hey, that's cynicism for you.
* Harassing the Europeans is a job for a separate posting. They've got similar problems with common identification numbers and the economics of computers, and while European Data Privacy Laws may be slightly larger bandages, they also provide government visibility into privately held databases (your pocket organizer or mobile phone's number list are databases, and they can go fishing in your machines for other data you might be suspected of having), they've decently demonstrated a continuing
Willingness to Throw Them Over When Their Police Ask Nicely.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This whole "fearless leader" bit is just out of the worship exalted by the elitist media (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN).
Initially the US government didn't have parties. The Founding Fathers saw the evils in it and strongly urged people to stay away from it but they couldn't outright ban political parties. Go and read some stuff by Jefferson, Madison and Washington.
Ok Bush may be stupid, he flunked out of college once. But I never see you bash Al Gump who flunked out of college twice.
You're just another one of those conformist rebels who love to hate capitalism yet love the life it is providing you. You hate capitalists but love capital.
I think it's more likely our government that will plant chips in our asses to keep track of us.
Industry just wants to take our money, and in so doing will end up raping our planet.
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
Are you even listening to what you're saying? Doesn't it SORTA go without saying that if they're polluting those sites, then they ARE NOT RECYCLING?
DUH.
You're not going to start saying things like, "Facts are stupid things," and that "trees are the biggest polluters on the planet" now, are you? :-)
Rich..
Ignore Alien Orders
And for those of you that think the government has all the makings of being the great champion of privacy remember that it started the war on drugs, and created wiretapping
Love the steely dan sig :)
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I'm not sure how smart he really is -- or, more importantly, how well he chooses to use his intelligence. He admits to being uninformed, by choice, on the Napster case, which is surely one of the major intersections of law and technology in our time. And he cites an MBA as proof of Dubya Bush's intelligence, which is sort of like citing a drunk driving conviction as proof of an interest in addiction-related issues. He also seems blind to the enormous role government played in the early growth of Silicon Valley; I suspect that in this case his political ideology has overridden his common sense.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
So, in your future, it's a big facist goverment which keeps corperations out of our asses? That's *so* much better..
It's infinitely better. The government must at least follow the pretense of examination by a free press. Ultimately we get a chance to throw them all out if we don't like what we're doing.
Contrast that with corporations, which are accountable only to their shareholders. If you're not one of them, you're shit out of luck.
Government also has to weigh the total good of the people when it makes policy. This includes public health and the environment. A corporation isn't bound to consider any of these things. They'll cheerfully put more mercury in your food if it makes them an extra dollar. You'd really prefer to put your fate in the hands of such people?
If you're one of these "free market is all" people, perhaps you should consider the United States of America as a corporation where we're all shareholders.
I'm not bashing business. It's a businessman's job to maximize profit. But it's the government's job to make sure that the population as a whole isn't screwed by corporations, because the government is the only institution which has the power and resources to stop a corporation which is out of line.
We can argue about the yardstick a government should use when considering intervention in a corporation's affairs if you wish, but don't try to tell me that government shouldn't have the controlling interest here. I'd much rather be ruled by politicians, even ones I despise like George Bush, than be ruled by GE, Ford, Coke, etc.
And the matter gets even worse when you consider multinational corporations. Would you expect a foreign corp to look out for your interests better your own elected representives?
Individuals are answerable to the government, and we call that "the rule of law". Yet when someone says that corporations should answer to the goverment too, people like yourself gleefully throw themselves down the slippery slope and start tossing around words like "fascism". It's tiresome, it's contrary to your own interests, and it sure as hell isn't "insightful".
Frankly, I'd rather have the indistry regulate itself. When the government makes mistakes in their policy, the flawed policy is still law. Not going along with the policy will result in your entry into a judicial system that's rather futile to prove "The law is wrong, not my actions".
- --------
When you rely on industry self-regulation, if a corporation decides to try to be god, you simply refuse to buy their services, and use an alternative instead.
Don't like Microsoft? Use Linux, BSD or Solaris Intel. Don't like the US Government because they try to force you to behave a certain way? Move to another country (unless they won't give you a visa).
-----------------------------------------
You may or may not disagree with his politics, and that's your choice. But thankfully he at least seems intelligent. He got his start as a venture capitalist in 1996, and then spearheaded various pro-republican-tech movements for Bob Dole and such, and now he's working for Dubya. Yes he trusts the companies a bit too much. But thank god he has a brain. It's actually reassuring to me to see a guy like him working for the government, because I'd rather have a smart disagreeable government then a stupid agreeable government. If they control so much of my life I at least want them to know *what* they're doing, even if I don't agree with the why....
We've already given industry the chance to "sort it out themselves," and it wasn't exactly paradise. In England, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, there were no real restrictions on the behaviour of industry. Ever heard of chimney sweeps?
Contrary to what you've seen in Mary Poppins, chimney sweeps were not happy little boys and girls singing in the streets. They were sold to chimney sweeping companies by their poor parents for less than a month's wages. Older, bigger kids couldn't fit in chimneys, so they had to use little ones (often as young as 2). If a child got stuck inside a chimney they'd just turn the furnace on. Children were cheap, and the poor kept having more. Don't believe me? Here's one source; a Google search turns up more.
This is industry unchecked: a machine with no regard for humanity. Corporations are smarter now, but don't believe for a second that they're any more concerned about human welfare. Nor are they obligated to be. Only one organization has a publicly and legally recognized obligation in this arena, and that's a government.
Most reading this in the US had an opportunity to vote several months ago. Maybe half of you did. If you don't like the President's technical advisor, get off your ass and vote next time
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Re:Recording Industry vs. Napster:
>>I would tend to say that I would hope they could come to some accommodation without more legislation, more regulation.
A lovely sentiment. Unfortunately I am now at the point where I don't believe anything said by a politician (particularly when it agrees with me) It looks simply like rhetoric and that it's designed to shut me up while they do whatever they want. I may not be right but I sure as hell feel that way.
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
I really try to laugh when Republicans bash Democrats for being tools. I try to laugh when Democrats bash Repubicans, too. I try to laugh, but it really just makes me sad. We've got a nation full of fat morons, who treat the political process with all the intelligence and nuance of a WWF Smackdown.
I'm constantly amazed, saddened, and ashamed that anyone that I share a species with really believes that any political party (including the Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, or whatever) has all the answers, while the misguided fools who listen to the propaganda of some other political party (Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, or whatever) are a bunch of brainwashed tools.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Katz would have rambled incoherently for 12 paragraphs, and then linked to some site claiming that Bush harassed geeks to suicide while in high school.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
The US political parties are certainly not the same, bit I don't believe that "the amount of corruption" is an any way a useful metric for descriminating between them. But your insinuation that more Democrat politicians and voters than Republican politicians and voters are willing to lie to preserve their own personal power is an interesting one. (Unless you mean that somehow the power and actions of the parties is seperate from the individuals that make up those parties.)
Interesting, but unsupported, possibly untrue, and mostly irrelevant anyway. It's little more than an ideology to allow you to dismiss belief without thought.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Upon reading the summary here, I was astonished to see it wasn't Katz that posted this.
Yes, the Bushes cajole, kiss ass, and finagle quite effectively, and they're rewarded. Is this how you want to be
That's the real problem you have, isn't it -- class envy. Whenever somebody is successful, they're evil. In that case, you're right. Everybody in power or with money is a bad bad man.
Personally, I like to think that in America, if you work hard, you can become successful. You're not guaranteed anything, but you've got a shot at the big time. I came from a very poor family. I grew up with nothing. But today, I make a lot of money. I didn't sit at home and cry that "the man is holding me back." I gave up my days, nights, and weekends working hard, studying, and taking risks. It paid off. So don't start your "But he's had it easy!" argument. I had it hard, and I made it happen.
Many Democrats like tax cuts as much as Republicans. What's the difference btw. Breaux/Zell Miller & Jeffords/Chaffee. Everyone was wondering if GWB would be truly bipartisan or just pick off a few Democrats. Can you tell me what he's chosen?
For the majority of the tax cut debate, Zell Miller was the only Democrat to break ranks. Jeffords, Chaffee, and Specter were the only Republicans. The OVERWHELMING majority of Republicans were for it, the OVERWHELMING majority of Democrats were against it.
And quite frankly, the overrated "bipartisanship" is what minority parties cry for. I didn't vote for Bush to have Tom Daschle make policy.
Clinton wanted to build a missile shield, but dumped it when the tests failed. GWB is not letting anything like science or technology stop him from spending money.
We didn't stop making space shuttles after the initial rockets blew up. We proceeded until it was successful. Recent tests indicate successful probabilities for a missile defense shield. http://www.security-policy.org/missile.html
MOST IMPORTANT--GWB's education package is largely smoke & mirrors. He takes credit for part of last year's budget that had to be paid out this year due to the balanced budget amendment. Also, if you consider all of the money it will take to implement mandatory testing, there's actually less money available for actual education than there currently is.
Uncontrolled flows of money != better education. If that were the case, the USA would have the finest education system in the world. We don't. Mandatory testing forces schools to improve if they want precious cash.
GenChalupa
Y'know, it's one thing that this guy lied about what I said and pretended my argument was something different entirely...but he got MODDED UP???? WTF????????
1) I never said "government-less." 2) Most of the things you mentioned are being taken care of by private companies much more efficiently than government; in fact, government is just making them worse. The rest are legitimate functions of government.
Taco, corporations cannot force anything on an unwilling person. Only the force of law can do that.
We complain about the problems "big corporations" are causing by trying to prohibit P2P sharing, DeCSS, etc., yet the thing that makes this possible--the DMCA--was an act of Congress.
Big corporations can intrude on our rights only if the government passes laws allowing them to, or giving them loopholes to wriggle through so that they can get away with it. The solution is to elect a Libertarian government. Libertarians would remove the laws that enable them to do harm while restoring the barriers preventing them from inflicting force or fraud on the public.
Along with this article and the Aimster article that the Slashdot population seems to be getting a lot more clued in? There is not nearly as much knee-jerk, automatic Slashbot "coporations are always bad", "patents are always bad", "copyrights are always bad", "Microsoft is always evil", "Capitalism is evil", etc, etc, on and on?
Of course, the irony is that the exception to this are the people who actually run Slashdot. :)
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"But not all of this falls into the administration's responsibility. Clearly, the Federal Reserve has a role to play here in terms of the amount of money in circulation and the interest rates."
Let's review the Fed's tech record....
H1-B, el cheapo imported tech labor program, (currently set at 250K+ new bodies per year), is federal subsidy for corporations at the expense of U.S. tech workers. DCMA is a federal law protecting corporations lame ass IP implementations at the expense of the consumers. A Patent Office which does NOT know the difference, between a hole in a ground and a flush toilet, (subsidy for lawyers/big corporations). IRS 1776 tax code change, which forced most independant workers into cheaper W2 (employee) positions. The 1986 labor ruling which decided employees making more than ~27 dollars and hour are not entitled to over time pay multipliers. Do you see the pattern yet!
Yes, the Fed's have been screwing around the tech industry for a LONG.... time.
Each time they act, you can bet, the U.S. worker will get screwed.
The worst of the lot, is the current "H1-B" program, which is corrosively destroying our tech industry infrastructure from the inside out. Do you think it was an accident? That the tech industry started collapsing at an ever increasing rate, after the FED's more than doubled the yearly H1-B quotas? When you answer the question, who really drove U.S. tech sales forward, and who are the same people getting displaced by the H1-B's, then you will have found enlightenment about the current tech crash.
Yep, great job..NOT!! I think we would be better off, if monkey's ran the U.S. government, at least they would be a little more consistent.
Oh.. one last thought.. Greenspan's attempt to boost what remains of our economy, is going to trigger a serious bout of stagflation. Have a nice day..
I know this is a troll but I couldn't help myself.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I assure you I agree with each of your points 100% and that I am not the kind of asshole who would give up liberty to a corporation for minor convenience.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Until your side gets over its tendency to construct alternate realities, you're going to continue to lose to the man. Even Clinton has warned people not to underestimate Bush, that he's intelligent and wiley. The "he's dumb" ploy has been used against every Republican since Reagan because it makes you feel better. Why don't you just say that you detest conservatives, Bush is one, and therefore he's not entitled to draw breath. It's a lot more honest than this "he couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the sole" schtick.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
But there's a darker side. Several government agencies are claiming that the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act lets them use this technology to track you legally, without a warrant or even probable cause, in what it deems "emergencies." Do you trust these clowns?
They're talking about a requirement that phone companies be able to geolocate wireless phones, not just to find you when your car has run off the road, but for 'tracking' purposes. Now who's doing the ass-chipping?
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Ok, so he has profoundly republican views. What shouldn't be suprising, considering that he is a politicap appointment.
His view of 'Let the indistry sort it out' isn't the msot desirable, but so far the indistries in question, not to ention the government hasn't had much luck sorting any of this stuff out.
The Clipper Chip, SDMI, DeCSS; have any one of these come out the way the government or the relevent industries had intended. I'm still waiting to see if DeCSS can be reigned in (unlikely at this point). SDMI is floundering...
IF you take a holistic view, the Independant Software Developer hasn't fared that badly... (yet).
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
What did you expect? He's Born-Again, believes all of us non-Born Again people are going to Hell, doesn't believe Evolution, thinks the world is 6000 years old, and is generally hostile to intellectuals. Scientists are quite antithetical to his 'vision' of the world.
It'd be like Microsoft sharing their source code ;)
Got my Flaming Rod in hand and my Flaming Boat gassed up. All I need is some flamebait.
- Dan I.
Damn straight. Some things I know I'll never be able to do that Bush Jr. has pulled off:
There's plenty more, of course, but you can just follow the link and browse.
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That must be a great comfort to the residents of such places as Love Canal and Bhopal.
Do you think that if I committed an "oopsie" that killed several thousand people that I would be let off with a fine equivalent to a few percent of my net worth and a stern "Don't do it again!" from the government?
The problem is not that the government can send jackbooted thugs to arrest you and the corporation can't. The problem is that the government faces the consequences of its actions at the ballot box (or via revolution) while the corporation weasels out, either by fading away with assets safely transferred elsewhere or by simply buying the government and getting privileges passed for itself which ordinary people can only dream of.
Look at our laws regarding drunk driving and drug dealing, and compare that with what we do to corporations that regularly kill and injure people, and tell me there isn't a problem there.
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Actually their marksmanship was pretty good, but their bomb-making skills were definitely in the C- / D+ range. They were apparently depending on the gadgets to dispense the coup de grace after their Viking-funeral-style exit from the scene, but many of them failed.
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You know, if you replace "Democrat" with "Republican" in your post it becomes an on-target criticism of yourself. You replied to a list of specific charges with an ad hominem attack.
I gave a link to a clearinghouse site that in turn links to many more sites, some of which have very good documentation of the things I mentioned. If you don't believe the charges, why don't you supply some counter-evidence?
P.S. I am not a Democrat. Clinton was even worse, because he supported the same corporate agenda in faux liberal drag. One good thing about Bush Jr. having stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hwon the election is that labor and environmental groups, who generally played lapdog for Clinton, are waking up and getting ready to do battle again.
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All through the interview I got the general feeling this guy doesn't know anything about any of the major issues in the tech world right now. Don't confuse this with avoidance, because it's complete ignorance.
He may hold two engineering degrees, but he stumbled over all the major questions in the interview, without adding any information either way and basically not saying anything.
Like my Grandfather always said, politicains are all the same, they say: "Some people are for [it] and some are against [it], and I'm for the people.". Absolutly nothing.
I guess you have to realize politics is a profession, and to keep your job you gotta have the most people that like you...so don't do anything. Don't agree, disagree, and when an interviewing asks you questions, go into rhetorical mode. This will keep people on either side happy because you're technically not for the other guy, and people like me who realize what's going on (e.g. 1%) just don't know what to think.
This guy also seems to think just by providing power to an industry you're going to get results. Someone should explain the difference between an economic industry and a vacuume cleaner to him. Industries need monitoring, they need guidance just like a three year old around a cookie jar. You can't let an industry self-regulate...this is what's happening in California right now, which ironically doesn't even have power.
I also love the fact he thinks privacy isn't important and giving up some of our privacy can be a good thing. Well, it can be good in that it saves lives and it saves money, but it also decreases the value of human life as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But what is the inverse? Does such a system of complete non-privacy impact the citizens as having privacy at the cost of loss of information? People will always be killed and people will always kill people. It's the human way. We're violent and destructive. You can try to buffer all that by spying on everyone on the off-chance they might do something in hopes of preventing it, but at what cost overall. You have to look at the big picture and not just one output.
I hope we get a tech advisor who at least does more than read the news paper clippings on the subject he is advising the nation in. Maybe someone with real interest in something who is not just doing the job because the country's been good to him, someone who has a vested interest in the safe progression of technology in such a way as to benefit people and not just corporations. We need someone who recognizes people are and own the country, not large corporations and ideas should be the medium of transaction, not money. Here's hoping for a better future ~
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Rob, why would they need to put a chip in your ass to know what you're doing? What exactly ARE you doing? Oh and the last sentence should read "with whom".
Somebody set up us the bomb!!
Berk Watkins
when did it become the role of the industries to monitor our activities and disregard privacy of the average citizen? Isn't it the role of our law enforcement and government?
Shouldn't all of microsoft (for example) be forced to take a degree in policing and become a branch of the government in order to track and report our activities?