Hey, since you're into trends, you would probably be interested in the trend of how average global surface temperature has risen as Russian meteorological measurement stations close down. It's on page six.
Seems like a trend that as the temperature measuring stations that measure the coldest areas on the planet close down, the average global temperature seems to increase.
(Or is that not the kind of trend you were looking for?)
It's just another part of this country's attitude of "make hard rules" but don't really provide the means for anyone to follow them easily.
It's not the role of government to "provide" any such thing. You are saying that the government ought to provide us with a consequence-free environment for the sole purpose of driving a car to a place where we intend to become intoxicated, with no alternate plan of getting home that doesn't involve abandoning our car for the night?
How, exactly, would government "provide" us our "right" to enjoy consequence-free irresponsibility when we don't plan ahead before we go out? I assume you have some combination of legislation, enforced weird zoning, taxation, etc in mind. So what is it?
You hit the nail on the head with your last comment: "A little planning can go a long way." What's so hard about that? Why do you consider "this country's attitude" that we expect people to behave responsibly so unreasonable that you're willing to pass more laws, levy more taxes, and overall create a burden on the citizenry in order to permit irresponsible behavior? I don't get it.
LOL. I get your point. I guess the real question is this: What, exactly, is the "badness" we have to go through to allow the "AA's" to either die, or figure out a rational business model? I mean, it's not as dramatic as letting people be murdered by a serial killer, but you make a good point.
Assume that we don't regulate their royalty-collecting B.S.. What would happen? Let's consider the effect of the RIAA's webcasting royalty scheme:
1) Only those webcasting companies big enough to afford the royalties will survive. Marginally smaller, less-efficient competing companies will not.
2) Through free market competition, catalyzed by the RIAA's royalty fees, only a few webcasting corporations will establish a dominant market presence as their competitors go out of business.
3) Corporate multimedia giants buy those corporations and add them to their for-fee media distribution repertoire.
Crap.
OK, I love free-market capitalism. I really do. I also believe that the entertainment industry's revenue model is fucked up. But I kind of now (thanks, AC) think that this fight over webcasting, if it comes to fisticuffs, won't change anything. Yet, I abhor the idea Congress regulating them.
What will always derail the desired effects of a free market is a monopoly with the RIAA definitely has. I don't think the answer to this is legislation. Eventually, the current business model for the music industry will have to undergo a dramatic shift, or even a catastrophic collapse.
It's obvious that those running the various media "AA's" aren't thinking more than a few moves ahead at this point - and why would they? There's too much money to be made by introducing weird, stupid royalty schemes on new technology.
Efforts to legislate them into sanity are just prolonging the inevitable collapse of their retarded house-of-cards money-grubbing.
Indeed. My girlfriend grew up in Japan (Japanese mom, American dad (Air Force)), and she's talked about how you just don't look other people in the eyes in Japan. It's a vestige of samurai-days, but it's a biological imperative.
You don't stare down a feral dog unless you're prepared to either kill a dog, or be maimed by one.
It's part human psychology, part animal behavior, and part traditional common sense.
When were men not pussies, when they walked freely on earth armed and dangerous, people were very polite to each other.
I assume you're referring to cultures that have historically valued honor and respect. The reason that people were polite and courteous in those societies is due to a lack of rule of law. In feudal Japan, if you looked at a samurai cross-eyed, you'd get your head cut off. Likewise, if you were to "disrespect" a lawless gangster in America today, you could get shot.
The consequences of such honor- and respect-bound cultures are, indeed, politeness and deference, as a result of unchecked violence. However, I think you're confused. Do you suggest that we allow people to commit murder so that we're all a little more polite?
May be we, Americans, should learn self-respect in those countries.
What countries are you talking about? Any country who cannot govern its citizens so that you could be murdered for being sassy? No thanks, buddy! I learned about the concepts of respect and honor from my parents as a child. The added bonus was that I didn't ever have to risk getting shot or duelled-to-death for my mistakes. Worst I ever got was a spanking.
If the 2 possible answers for raising polite, respectful children are a semi-lawless society that enforces respect through murder, and the other is a strong family, I'll take the family-oriented one.
I disagree, if the atm gives you an extra 100$ when you make a withdrawl, then you have a leagle, and moral, obligation to report it and return the extra money within a resonable amount of time. Just because the bank is a big company, doesn't make it accaptable to keep money that you know isn't yours.
This is the only post I've seen in this thread that actually makes sense.
Why are we quibbling over a person's "rights" to retain wealth that he or she don't actually belong? While we argue over the legal ramifications of faulty ATM transactions, we're ignoring the underlying truth of the matter.
Assuming an honest person, here's how this plays out:
OK, so my second transaction after the withdrawal would have been a balance inquiry to see how much was actually taken from my account. Regardless of the answer, my third action would have been to let the people responsible for the ATM machine know about the faulty transaction/machine error.
I'm sorry, but all these arguments about how "banks are eeeevil" and "banks rip you off!" are distractors from the true issue.
Since when is it OK for you to possess wealth you don't really own? And anyone who wants to provide counter-examples of other people/governments/corporations doing just that, please don't bother. I'm asking about *you*, personally.
Do you believe that keeping wealth that's not yours is OK?
And they make up money, and give it to you so that they can charge even more for you to give them money. And they make up money to give to the government so that they can charge you for the money that you put in the bank. And they make up money for you to owe them.
Actually, it's the U.S. Department of Treasury that does the "making up" of money, not the banks. People demonize the middleman without understanding the role he plays in commerce. Banks are just another form of a free market middleman. Next time you rail against the merchants or bankers, first consider how your life would be changed if every time you wanted a Pepsi you had to drive to the Pepsi factory (in... Mars? I don't know...) for it. Or that if you wanted fresh vegetables, you either had to grow them, or drive to a farm. Or you had to keep all your money under your mattress... Forever. Or you could never buy a house or car, unless you had the cash on hand to do so.
Those things are just a few examples of the concrete benefits that middlemen bring to the world. Next time you rant about how evil they are, please, at least first think about what life would be like without them.
Deadly... semi-circle. That's American capitalism for you.
Soo.... You don't have banks where you come from?
If you rely on your underpants in protecting your family jewels, you are feeding your childhood illusions.
Underpants as protection?!?! Please. My underpants are merely a convenient place to store my dignities.
My *fists* protect them.
Anyway, you said some things that are funny to me:
Valid criticism in any democratic state should not be done with insult to the human dignity.
and...
Not at other people's expense.
Oh my freaking god. And when I fall asleep, I think that other people ought to spoon strawberry frosting into my open, drooling sleep-mouth. I mean, It sure would be *nice*, which is the same criterion you're using to criticize public debate.
My Word! Imagine people being *rude* to one another!
Next time when government will step right on either of your dignities (left or right), think about it.
I usually keep both of my dignities (left or right) inside my underpants.
OK, so describing OO and alternatives as "clunky" and lacking functionality is provocative. But think about this from the perspective of the School District: How much do you think they know about installing and using open source software?
The issue isn't the relative goodness or badness of non MS alternatives to Office.
I mean, seriously, imagine you've got the knowledge and experience of the average computer user, and then think about which solution *you* would feel most comfortable with, and would minimize the number of frustrated parents complaining.
I think it's a matter of convenience for the school board decision makers.
Also, consider this! Who, from the open source community would be willing to "sell" their solution as aggressively as MS would, to an entire city? MS has profit motive to make their products look as attractive as possible, while open source advocates don't really have any sort of motive to spend their time selling their solution to the school board (or anyone, for that matter).
The solution, (if this is really a problem) is a not-for-profit FOSS marketing group to spread awareness of the benefits of FOSS (um... free, anybody? and reliable and high-quality!) I mean, we can bitch and complain on slashdot all we want, but until we decide to actually reach out to average-joe-and-jane-computer-user, we can't really complain about MS's market dominance.
It's hard to base an argument about the Iraq war on personal experience (your own, or that of your friends).
You were questioning the patriotism of others on this list who you know NOTHING about. I have known a few officers who have been to Iraq and they tell me that we need to pull out. These guys were in the thick of things (trees ), but also had access to other information (the forest).
I'm active duty Army, and I know a lot of my friends who are there now (I'm not there now, of course) who feel otherwise. In my current assignment, I've been privy to a lot of "forest"-type information that suggests we're doing the right thing.
I'm not asking anyone to accept my vague proclamations as proof of what I assert. I know better than that. I would just like to add my two cents to this argument. Civilians don't get to see the faces and names behind the specific threats. They certainly don't get to hear about the close calls and ongoing operations to prevent acts of state-sponsored (or inspired) terrorism in Europe. In my experience, it's very real, it's current, and what we're doing in Iraq is worth it.
Your questioning other's patriotism is no different than Bush's "you are either with us or against us" crap. Most of those who want us out of Iraq are JUST as patriotic AND just as American as you or I.
But most in the military who want us out of Iraq are just fucking tired. There's.... what, maybe a 1 or 2 million of us, who are being rotated in and out of the ME?
I agree completely with what we're trying to do in the ME. I think our success there is crucial to defending our freedom in the US. But, as a servicemember, I'm freaking tired of it! I don't want to go back anymore! I've had sergeants (yes, more than one!) (with family and kids, both!) who are on their fourth back-to-back(-to-back) rotation there, doing their job with no complaints, because they believe in it.
I guess my points are as follows:
1) What we're trying to accomplish in the ME (Iraq and Afghanistan) is, truly, the decisive point of our battle to keep civilized humans safe, and free to go about their lives.
2) But I wish it were over, because I hate that fucking place, and Afghanistan too (never been, but my buddy there now says it fucking sucks WORSE).
I want to say that well over 2/3 of all the junior enlisted in my unit were taking courses in pursuit of a degree. Honestly, I can't tell you how many times I was approached by E-3's and E-4's asking about OCS, Green-to-Gold, Warrant school, (Medical School, even!!!), etc. These kids have goals, just like any other American - they're just working a full-time job while pursuing them, instead of going to college on their parents and the taxpayers' bill.
The dumb country bumpkin stereotype for enlisted folk just isn't true anymore. And even if it were, the Army takes those young people and very explicitly teaches them a system of values that acts as a moral compass that, quite frankly, a lot of Americans never get exposed to. I'm getting out of the military next year - I'm in Germany now - and I realized something a few months back:
I was walking home from the bar in my little German town with a couple of my buddies when a large group of rowdy "youths" approached - you know, obviously drunk, loud, obnoxious, mean-looking guys. I immediately knew they were American soldiers - you know, the haircuts, they were actually in good physical condition (not the typical emaciated-looking European), etc. As they approached us, they recognized us, quieted down a little, said hi (Sir), and kept on going.
It dawned on me that had this been America, and those *not* been Soldiers, I would have been really, really nervous about me and 2 other friends walking past a group of 8-10 rowdy youths. But since I knew they were Soldiers, I knew that they, regardless of their ebullience, would be overall, well-behaved.
Now, that's not to say that Soldiers don't get in trouble: they do! (And the media is somehow always right there, eager to point it out. Imagine if they paid as close attention to the behavior of similarly aged kids in college! That would be eye-opening!) It's just that, in general, I happen to trust young Soldiers to do the right thing in any given situation. I don't have that level of confidence in a random youth plucked out of the civilian US population, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Army culture instills a very definite sense of right and wrong, and gives these kids a way to make sound, rational judgements that I think the typical American lacks.
The vast majority of non-officers have never been to college.
See, this is an interesting thing to say.
In my platoon of 32, there were 30 enlisted. My platoon sergeant and 2 of my 3 squad leaders had degrees. The vast majority of my soldiers were actually going to college (UMUC, online). A significant segment of them did not reenlist in order to pursue higher education.
Outside of my platoon, I knew other platoon leaders whose soldiers were doing the same. In fact, our squadron CSM made civilian education a priority for our soldiers. In our squadron (battalion), the soldier who did not have his degree, or who was not pursuing one, was far less common than the ones who were.
Now, anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything, of course, but that's not my point.
Many barely finished high school. Another large percentage did ok in high school, but can't afford college and are in it for the GI bill. The number of recruits from the middle and upper class are vanishingly small.
So, enlisted folk are just plain dumb poor people who don't know any better! (right? It sounded better when you said it, of course, but that's essentially your point.) Problem is, you just can't prove it to be true. Now, I don't claim that you're wrong. I just know my small part of the Army.
Can you provide anything to back up your claims? Probably not. (by the way, don't trot out stuff regarding initial enlistment - I'm talking about those people who have actually been in the Army for a minute.) I mean, my own personal experience only involves 600 or so soldiers in an Army of hundreds of thousands, so it's very limited. But it's more than you gave us.
I mean, I get it - you believe that the Army is a horrible class-ruled organization that discriminates horribly against the poor and downtrodden. How trite and naive. Go back to the dorm and read more Bertrand Russell.
So if drug research produces a bunch of pharmaceutical agents that are nicotine based, then all of a sudden the whole tobacco production market changes. Drugs are expensive due to high R&D costs, so that cost gets passed on to consumers *and* suppliers of the raw materials. The value (and therefore price) of tobacco rises, smokes get more expensive, and tobacco companies shift their production to drugs, not smokes.
So who gives a rat's ass who funds the research? The end result ought to be applauded as good by anti-smoking advocates!
The only way to make this out to be a bad thing is if you happen to consider the people who work for tobacco companies as "evil" in some cosmic sense, and therefore demonize anything that could possibly benefit them (regardless of the benefits to everyone else - less smoking, more effective drugs, less debilitating disease).
That sort of interpretation of this article would just be plain nonsense.
I'm not exactly sure why parent is a troll. S/he basically said the following:
0) The two-party system is what we've got right now, and it's not going away any time soon.
1) Of the 2 parties, Libertarians are most closely ideologically aligned with Republicans.
2) In order to influence the Republicans to behave in a manner more consistent with Libertarian principles, the libertarian base should pull the rug of their support out from under the Republican party and vote Democrat in the hopes that the Republicans will realize that libertarians are, first, a non-trivial part of their voting base, and second, opposed to the way they've been handling things lately....so parent is a troll because he believes that Libertarianism is most closely aligned with Republican ideals? Or because he implicitly supports Libertarianism? Or maybe because he said that libertarians would have to "hold their noses" when voting Democrat?
I'm always mystified why people don't think that the laws of economics applies to healthcare. The argument for socialized medicine is fundamentally flawed, I think...
Free market economies work best when prices are elastic; that is, where changes in price affect the demand for the product. This allows price to signal the level of available supply and prevent shortages of goods.
I agree with this part. Price ensures that demand equals supply. It does this 2 ways: Higher prices decrease demand from consumers. They also increase supply by giving added incentive to producers by giving them increased potential profit. But if we keep prices artificially low (or non-existent), what's the incentive for hospitals to hire more docs and nurses? For drug companies to research more drugs? For people to go to medical school and incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and dedicate their lives to a very demanding career?
The easy solution is to have the government throw money at it. But that's a finite pool of resources, and if you set the direct cost of healthcare at zero, you have essentially unlimited demand.
The problem with healthcare is that it is not elastic. If I have cancer, a broken leg or some other ailment I have to get it fixed - regardless of the cost.
For things that threaten life, limb and eyesight, yes, I agree that care is perfectly inelastic. But what about all the other stuff? There are plenty of healthcare decisions that are subject to economic principles:
Do I wait to take my sniffly kid to the doctor to see if it'll clear up on its own, or do I go the first day after he cries all night? Do I go to the doc with a bad ankle sprain, or do I wait a few days to see if it'll clear up? If I keep getting bronchitis a few times every year, do I decide to quit smoking? If I'm overweight and having health problems, do I make an effort to improve my health because my high-BP and cholesterol meds cost a lot?
If your allow price to regulate supply and demand in the smaller healthcare decisions that use up the majority of doctor's time and resources, then you free up a whole lot of resources to cope with the price-inelastic major health problems.
It also pays because you can remove the inefficent insurance companies. If everybody is covered then there is no need to have a bureaucracy to decide if a person is covered.
Insurance is a good thing. It allows many people to share the cost of risk, and it works exceedingly well! And do you mean to claim that the government bureaucracy that will need to exist to administer a system of socialized medicine (that will have absolutely no incentive to be efficient, like all government bureaucracies) will be more efficient that the admin overhead of private corporations who must be mindful of the bottom line? This doesn't make sense.
Socialised health care is not evil communism
No, it's a naive, misinformed solution to a difficult problem.
When you trust the security of your nation to the government, why do you not trust your healthcare to them too?
And if we trust them with that, then why shouldn't we entrust them with food production and entertainment and clothing and... Well, everything?
Government should do what only government can do. I don't like the idea of law enforcement and international armed conflict left up to mercenaries. But as far as anything else, you ought to take a long hard look at why you think the government is "best" equipped to take care of it.
I fear that had he born in the United States, he would not have been able to continue with his studies, in fact, he probably would have been bankrupt
Yeah, and had he lived in the UK, he'd be dead. The NHS in the UK
I give. Why? I observe it to be true, but I don't know why.
My take on it that "both" sides have the same ends in mind - basically, happiest citizenry possible. But they have different fundamental philosophies behind them - American liberals believe that this can only be brought about by specific, deliberate governmental involvement to provide things for the people. American conservatives believe that people, if minimally protected from force and fraud, will be able to work out on their own what's best.
The way that both sides are represented in the U.S. Government by our two major political parties makes it easy to portray either side as bad, evil, indifferent, greedy, power-hungry, etc. So I go on the soundness of their fundamental underlying ideas, regardless of the momentary perversions of influence that their current figureheads are perpetrating.
So I guess if we don't care enough to keep the idiots from electing people who don't have our best interests at heart that's the kind of government we get.
Hey! I don't think you were condescending enough!
Why is it that conservatives aren't just "mistaken" or "misguided," or just "wrong," but idiots who can't be trusted to know what's in their own best interests?
Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent.
I'm going to have to look into the law in question, but it seems that the intent of the prohibition on wiretapping is to protect the privacy of citizens.
So what's odd is that the policemen were acting in a public capacity, yet Kelly is being charged with a law intended to protect the privacy of private citizens. Don't get me wrong, cops are private citizens when they're off-duty.
But when on-duty, they're instruments of Government, who are employees of the taxpayer.
Your hitting him with facts, thats so cruel. How is he going to keep his little box void of any reality if you keep shining the light down on him.
He he. True. People who ignore facts will continue to ignore facts, regardless of the content or context. Like Creationists, but with a different set of dogmatic "truths."
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, since you're into trends, you would probably be interested in the trend of how average global surface temperature has risen as Russian meteorological measurement stations close down. It's on page six.
Seems like a trend that as the temperature measuring stations that measure the coldest areas on the planet close down, the average global temperature seems to increase.
(Or is that not the kind of trend you were looking for?)
It's not the role of government to "provide" any such thing. You are saying that the government ought to provide us with a consequence-free environment for the sole purpose of driving a car to a place where we intend to become intoxicated, with no alternate plan of getting home that doesn't involve abandoning our car for the night?
How, exactly, would government "provide" us our "right" to enjoy consequence-free irresponsibility when we don't plan ahead before we go out? I assume you have some combination of legislation, enforced weird zoning, taxation, etc in mind. So what is it?
You hit the nail on the head with your last comment: "A little planning can go a long way." What's so hard about that? Why do you consider "this country's attitude" that we expect people to behave responsibly so unreasonable that you're willing to pass more laws, levy more taxes, and overall create a burden on the citizenry in order to permit irresponsible behavior? I don't get it.
LOL. I get your point. I guess the real question is this: What, exactly, is the "badness" we have to go through to allow the "AA's" to either die, or figure out a rational business model? I mean, it's not as dramatic as letting people be murdered by a serial killer, but you make a good point.
Assume that we don't regulate their royalty-collecting B.S.. What would happen? Let's consider the effect of the RIAA's webcasting royalty scheme:
1) Only those webcasting companies big enough to afford the royalties will survive. Marginally smaller, less-efficient competing companies will not.
2) Through free market competition, catalyzed by the RIAA's royalty fees, only a few webcasting corporations will establish a dominant market presence as their competitors go out of business.
3) Corporate multimedia giants buy those corporations and add them to their for-fee media distribution repertoire.
Crap.
OK, I love free-market capitalism. I really do. I also believe that the entertainment industry's revenue model is fucked up. But I kind of now (thanks, AC) think that this fight over webcasting, if it comes to fisticuffs, won't change anything. Yet, I abhor the idea Congress regulating them.
Crap. I gotta think about this more.
It's obvious that those running the various media "AA's" aren't thinking more than a few moves ahead at this point - and why would they? There's too much money to be made by introducing weird, stupid royalty schemes on new technology.
Efforts to legislate them into sanity are just prolonging the inevitable collapse of their retarded house-of-cards money-grubbing.
Indeed. My girlfriend grew up in Japan (Japanese mom, American dad (Air Force)), and she's talked about how you just don't look other people in the eyes in Japan. It's a vestige of samurai-days, but it's a biological imperative.
You don't stare down a feral dog unless you're prepared to either kill a dog, or be maimed by one.
It's part human psychology, part animal behavior, and part traditional common sense.
But at least it's honest.
I think it is alright for people to be murdered for being sassy.
I assume you're referring to cultures that have historically valued honor and respect. The reason that people were polite and courteous in those societies is due to a lack of rule of law. In feudal Japan, if you looked at a samurai cross-eyed, you'd get your head cut off. Likewise, if you were to "disrespect" a lawless gangster in America today, you could get shot.
The consequences of such honor- and respect-bound cultures are, indeed, politeness and deference, as a result of unchecked violence. However, I think you're confused. Do you suggest that we allow people to commit murder so that we're all a little more polite? May be we, Americans, should learn self-respect in those countries.
What countries are you talking about? Any country who cannot govern its citizens so that you could be murdered for being sassy? No thanks, buddy! I learned about the concepts of respect and honor from my parents as a child. The added bonus was that I didn't ever have to risk getting shot or duelled-to-death for my mistakes. Worst I ever got was a spanking.
If the 2 possible answers for raising polite, respectful children are a semi-lawless society that enforces respect through murder, and the other is a strong family, I'll take the family-oriented one.
This is the only post I've seen in this thread that actually makes sense.
Why are we quibbling over a person's "rights" to retain wealth that he or she don't actually belong? While we argue over the legal ramifications of faulty ATM transactions, we're ignoring the underlying truth of the matter.
Assuming an honest person, here's how this plays out:
OK, so my second transaction after the withdrawal would have been a balance inquiry to see how much was actually taken from my account. Regardless of the answer, my third action would have been to let the people responsible for the ATM machine know about the faulty transaction/machine error.
I'm sorry, but all these arguments about how "banks are eeeevil" and "banks rip you off!" are distractors from the true issue.
Since when is it OK for you to possess wealth you don't really own? And anyone who wants to provide counter-examples of other people/governments/corporations doing just that, please don't bother. I'm asking about *you*, personally.
Do you believe that keeping wealth that's not yours is OK?
Actually, it's the U.S. Department of Treasury that does the "making up" of money, not the banks. People demonize the middleman without understanding the role he plays in commerce. Banks are just another form of a free market middleman. Next time you rail against the merchants or bankers, first consider how your life would be changed if every time you wanted a Pepsi you had to drive to the Pepsi factory (in... Mars? I don't know...) for it. Or that if you wanted fresh vegetables, you either had to grow them, or drive to a farm. Or you had to keep all your money under your mattress... Forever. Or you could never buy a house or car, unless you had the cash on hand to do so.
Those things are just a few examples of the concrete benefits that middlemen bring to the world. Next time you rant about how evil they are, please, at least first think about what life would be like without them.
Deadly... semi-circle. That's American capitalism for you.
Soo.... You don't have banks where you come from?
Underpants as protection?!?! Please. My underpants are merely a convenient place to store my dignities.
My *fists* protect them.
Anyway, you said some things that are funny to me:
Valid criticism in any democratic state should not be done with insult to the human dignity.
and...
Not at other people's expense.
Oh my freaking god. And when I fall asleep, I think that other people ought to spoon strawberry frosting into my open, drooling sleep-mouth. I mean, It sure would be *nice*, which is the same criterion you're using to criticize public debate.
My Word! Imagine people being *rude* to one another!
I usually keep both of my dignities (left or right) inside my underpants.
OK, so describing OO and alternatives as "clunky" and lacking functionality is provocative. But think about this from the perspective of the School District: How much do you think they know about installing and using open source software? The issue isn't the relative goodness or badness of non MS alternatives to Office. I mean, seriously, imagine you've got the knowledge and experience of the average computer user, and then think about which solution *you* would feel most comfortable with, and would minimize the number of frustrated parents complaining. I think it's a matter of convenience for the school board decision makers. Also, consider this! Who, from the open source community would be willing to "sell" their solution as aggressively as MS would, to an entire city? MS has profit motive to make their products look as attractive as possible, while open source advocates don't really have any sort of motive to spend their time selling their solution to the school board (or anyone, for that matter). The solution, (if this is really a problem) is a not-for-profit FOSS marketing group to spread awareness of the benefits of FOSS (um... free, anybody? and reliable and high-quality!) I mean, we can bitch and complain on slashdot all we want, but until we decide to actually reach out to average-joe-and-jane-computer-user, we can't really complain about MS's market dominance.
You were questioning the patriotism of others on this list who you know NOTHING about. I have known a few officers who have been to Iraq and they tell me that we need to pull out. These guys were in the thick of things (trees ), but also had access to other information (the forest).
I'm active duty Army, and I know a lot of my friends who are there now (I'm not there now, of course) who feel otherwise. In my current assignment, I've been privy to a lot of "forest"-type information that suggests we're doing the right thing.
I'm not asking anyone to accept my vague proclamations as proof of what I assert. I know better than that. I would just like to add my two cents to this argument. Civilians don't get to see the faces and names behind the specific threats. They certainly don't get to hear about the close calls and ongoing operations to prevent acts of state-sponsored (or inspired) terrorism in Europe. In my experience, it's very real, it's current, and what we're doing in Iraq is worth it.
Your questioning other's patriotism is no different than Bush's "you are either with us or against us" crap. Most of those who want us out of Iraq are JUST as patriotic AND just as American as you or I.
But most in the military who want us out of Iraq are just fucking tired. There's.... what, maybe a 1 or 2 million of us, who are being rotated in and out of the ME?
I agree completely with what we're trying to do in the ME. I think our success there is crucial to defending our freedom in the US. But, as a servicemember, I'm freaking tired of it! I don't want to go back anymore! I've had sergeants (yes, more than one!) (with family and kids, both!) who are on their fourth back-to-back(-to-back) rotation there, doing their job with no complaints, because they believe in it.
I guess my points are as follows:
1) What we're trying to accomplish in the ME (Iraq and Afghanistan) is, truly, the decisive point of our battle to keep civilized humans safe, and free to go about their lives.
2) But I wish it were over, because I hate that fucking place, and Afghanistan too (never been, but my buddy there now says it fucking sucks WORSE).
I guess that's all.
I want to say that well over 2/3 of all the junior enlisted in my unit were taking courses in pursuit of a degree. Honestly, I can't tell you how many times I was approached by E-3's and E-4's asking about OCS, Green-to-Gold, Warrant school, (Medical School, even!!!), etc. These kids have goals, just like any other American - they're just working a full-time job while pursuing them, instead of going to college on their parents and the taxpayers' bill.
The dumb country bumpkin stereotype for enlisted folk just isn't true anymore. And even if it were, the Army takes those young people and very explicitly teaches them a system of values that acts as a moral compass that, quite frankly, a lot of Americans never get exposed to. I'm getting out of the military next year - I'm in Germany now - and I realized something a few months back:
I was walking home from the bar in my little German town with a couple of my buddies when a large group of rowdy "youths" approached - you know, obviously drunk, loud, obnoxious, mean-looking guys. I immediately knew they were American soldiers - you know, the haircuts, they were actually in good physical condition (not the typical emaciated-looking European), etc. As they approached us, they recognized us, quieted down a little, said hi (Sir), and kept on going.
It dawned on me that had this been America, and those *not* been Soldiers, I would have been really, really nervous about me and 2 other friends walking past a group of 8-10 rowdy youths. But since I knew they were Soldiers, I knew that they, regardless of their ebullience, would be overall, well-behaved.
Now, that's not to say that Soldiers don't get in trouble: they do! (And the media is somehow always right there, eager to point it out. Imagine if they paid as close attention to the behavior of similarly aged kids in college! That would be eye-opening!) It's just that, in general, I happen to trust young Soldiers to do the right thing in any given situation. I don't have that level of confidence in a random youth plucked out of the civilian US population, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Army culture instills a very definite sense of right and wrong, and gives these kids a way to make sound, rational judgements that I think the typical American lacks.
Just my 2 cents.
Hey, that's a good read - thanks!
See, this is an interesting thing to say.
In my platoon of 32, there were 30 enlisted. My platoon sergeant and 2 of my 3 squad leaders had degrees. The vast majority of my soldiers were actually going to college (UMUC, online). A significant segment of them did not reenlist in order to pursue higher education.
Outside of my platoon, I knew other platoon leaders whose soldiers were doing the same. In fact, our squadron CSM made civilian education a priority for our soldiers. In our squadron (battalion), the soldier who did not have his degree, or who was not pursuing one, was far less common than the ones who were.
Now, anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything, of course, but that's not my point.
Many barely finished high school. Another large percentage did ok in high school, but can't afford college and are in it for the GI bill. The number of recruits from the middle and upper class are vanishingly small.
So, enlisted folk are just plain dumb poor people who don't know any better! (right? It sounded better when you said it, of course, but that's essentially your point.) Problem is, you just can't prove it to be true. Now, I don't claim that you're wrong. I just know my small part of the Army.
Can you provide anything to back up your claims? Probably not. (by the way, don't trot out stuff regarding initial enlistment - I'm talking about those people who have actually been in the Army for a minute.) I mean, my own personal experience only involves 600 or so soldiers in an Army of hundreds of thousands, so it's very limited. But it's more than you gave us.
I mean, I get it - you believe that the Army is a horrible class-ruled organization that discriminates horribly against the poor and downtrodden. How trite and naive. Go back to the dorm and read more Bertrand Russell.
And once the Navy starts using it, they'll be after your Seamen...
Good God.
So if drug research produces a bunch of pharmaceutical agents that are nicotine based, then all of a sudden the whole tobacco production market changes. Drugs are expensive due to high R&D costs, so that cost gets passed on to consumers *and* suppliers of the raw materials. The value (and therefore price) of tobacco rises, smokes get more expensive, and tobacco companies shift their production to drugs, not smokes.
So who gives a rat's ass who funds the research? The end result ought to be applauded as good by anti-smoking advocates!
The only way to make this out to be a bad thing is if you happen to consider the people who work for tobacco companies as "evil" in some cosmic sense, and therefore demonize anything that could possibly benefit them (regardless of the benefits to everyone else - less smoking, more effective drugs, less debilitating disease).
That sort of interpretation of this article would just be plain nonsense.
So... Nobody wants to tell this opponent of Socialized Medicine how wrong he is?
Facts and reason are stubborn things, I guess.
I'm not exactly sure why parent is a troll. S/he basically said the following:
...so parent is a troll because he believes that Libertarianism is most closely aligned with Republican ideals? Or because he implicitly supports Libertarianism? Or maybe because he said that libertarians would have to "hold their noses" when voting Democrat?
0) The two-party system is what we've got right now, and it's not going away any time soon.
1) Of the 2 parties, Libertarians are most closely ideologically aligned with Republicans.
2) In order to influence the Republicans to behave in a manner more consistent with Libertarian principles, the libertarian base should pull the rug of their support out from under the Republican party and vote Democrat in the hopes that the Republicans will realize that libertarians are, first, a non-trivial part of their voting base, and second, opposed to the way they've been handling things lately.
Seriously, why?
Free market economies work best when prices are elastic; that is, where changes in price affect the demand for the product. This allows price to signal the level of available supply and prevent shortages of goods.
I agree with this part. Price ensures that demand equals supply. It does this 2 ways: Higher prices decrease demand from consumers. They also increase supply by giving added incentive to producers by giving them increased potential profit. But if we keep prices artificially low (or non-existent), what's the incentive for hospitals to hire more docs and nurses? For drug companies to research more drugs? For people to go to medical school and incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and dedicate their lives to a very demanding career?
The easy solution is to have the government throw money at it. But that's a finite pool of resources, and if you set the direct cost of healthcare at zero, you have essentially unlimited demand.
The problem with healthcare is that it is not elastic. If I have cancer, a broken leg or some other ailment I have to get it fixed - regardless of the cost.
For things that threaten life, limb and eyesight, yes, I agree that care is perfectly inelastic. But what about all the other stuff? There are plenty of healthcare decisions that are subject to economic principles:
Do I wait to take my sniffly kid to the doctor to see if it'll clear up on its own, or do I go the first day after he cries all night? Do I go to the doc with a bad ankle sprain, or do I wait a few days to see if it'll clear up? If I keep getting bronchitis a few times every year, do I decide to quit smoking? If I'm overweight and having health problems, do I make an effort to improve my health because my high-BP and cholesterol meds cost a lot?
If your allow price to regulate supply and demand in the smaller healthcare decisions that use up the majority of doctor's time and resources, then you free up a whole lot of resources to cope with the price-inelastic major health problems.
It also pays because you can remove the inefficent insurance companies. If everybody is covered then there is no need to have a bureaucracy to decide if a person is covered.
Insurance is a good thing. It allows many people to share the cost of risk, and it works exceedingly well! And do you mean to claim that the government bureaucracy that will need to exist to administer a system of socialized medicine (that will have absolutely no incentive to be efficient, like all government bureaucracies) will be more efficient that the admin overhead of private corporations who must be mindful of the bottom line? This doesn't make sense.
Socialised health care is not evil communism
No, it's a naive, misinformed solution to a difficult problem.
When you trust the security of your nation to the government, why do you not trust your healthcare to them too?
And if we trust them with that, then why shouldn't we entrust them with food production and entertainment and clothing and... Well, everything?
Government should do what only government can do. I don't like the idea of law enforcement and international armed conflict left up to mercenaries. But as far as anything else, you ought to take a long hard look at why you think the government is "best" equipped to take care of it.
I fear that had he born in the United States, he would not have been able to continue with his studies, in fact, he probably would have been bankrupt
Yeah, and had he lived in the UK, he'd be dead. The NHS in the UK
My take on it that "both" sides have the same ends in mind - basically, happiest citizenry possible. But they have different fundamental philosophies behind them - American liberals believe that this can only be brought about by specific, deliberate governmental involvement to provide things for the people. American conservatives believe that people, if minimally protected from force and fraud, will be able to work out on their own what's best.
The way that both sides are represented in the U.S. Government by our two major political parties makes it easy to portray either side as bad, evil, indifferent, greedy, power-hungry, etc. So I go on the soundness of their fundamental underlying ideas, regardless of the momentary perversions of influence that their current figureheads are perpetrating.
Hey! I don't think you were condescending enough!
Why is it that conservatives aren't just "mistaken" or "misguided," or just "wrong," but idiots who can't be trusted to know what's in their own best interests?
*le sigh.*
I'm going to have to look into the law in question, but it seems that the intent of the prohibition on wiretapping is to protect the privacy of citizens.
So what's odd is that the policemen were acting in a public capacity, yet Kelly is being charged with a law intended to protect the privacy of private citizens. Don't get me wrong, cops are private citizens when they're off-duty.
But when on-duty, they're instruments of Government, who are employees of the taxpayer.
He he. True. People who ignore facts will continue to ignore facts, regardless of the content or context. Like Creationists, but with a different set of dogmatic "truths."