For some of us, particularly those of us who have been or are in the military, or the medical field, or first responders, the red cross means, in general, not a particular branding, nor the United States Red Cross nor the Red Cross International -- it means that in an emergency, when lives are on the line and blood and pain are at hand, that there is help. It's a beacon in the darkness that there is still hope.
Hey man, no matter the outcome of this retarded Corp-Fight, my FLAs are still going to have big fat red crosses on big fat white backgrounds on them, and the Soldiers who need medical care will always know where to come.
Your argument that this retarded conflict between two Companies might somehow negatively affect American Soldiers and prevent them from obtaining needed medical care is absurd. Let those two fight it out. F your "sacred symbology" tirade. Nobody who's getting shot at, and shot, gives one shit about it.
A leader who fails to remove unjust laws isn't as guilt the one who allowed them to come into existence, but close, no?
Hey, it's close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and the press: Not signing the Kyoto Protocol, promoting offshoring, promoting the advancement of terrorist states, destroying Magnequench, etc. It's all Bush's fault, except for the fact that Clinton actually did it all.
But let's condemn the guy who inherited the mess because he hasn't fixed it, and then also condemn his methods for fixing the mess he inherited. That makes so much sense, and I'm so super serial about that.
Bodily integrity is a basic human right. If you want a particular example, try the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3
I'm sorry. You'll have to help me out with that one. Where do I find that in the U.S. Constitution?
I Said:
Would *you* accept the counter argument of, "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!" as a response to your arguments?
You Said:
Um, I don't have to since the law is squarely on my side.:)
So, in other words: "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!"
Brah-Voh! You win the circular argument contest! Top Score!
Same as there's no right to steal, there is no need for a "right not to be stolen from."
Ignorance is not a bad thing, no matter how egregious. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're ignorant, and not stupid or dishonest. There actually *is* a "right not to be stolen from" written in the very pages of our Constitution:
"No person shall be deprived of property, without due process of law;"
Your argument fails.
In fact, it's a case of "too-good" guys in some ways. But the situation needs to be resolved in a way that makes it harder to happen again and bailouts is not going to do that.
No doubt. Lenders have been caught in a Catch-22-esque trap here. They chose not to lend money to people with poor credit ratings and insufficient assets, because those people probably wouldn't be able to pay off their debt. All based on actuarial calculations. But since minorities tended to fall into the "do not lend to" category more frequently, this was viewed as racist.
So they (subsidized by the Government and pressured by public opinion) started lending to bad risks. And then those people who they thought couldn't pay off their debt, *gasp*... Couldn't pay off their debt. Which is, of course, the fault of the lender, since they *knew* the elevated risk of lending to such individuals.
On one hand, we chastise lenders for not lending money to people who shouldn't be lent that quantity of money, and then we also criticize them for lending money to those same people, when they can't keep up with payments.
You're a racist if you don't, and you're a predator if you do.
How about this? Let lenders decide who's a good risk and who's not, based solely on their credit history? I think that would probably work.
If you add up all the people who chose to strap themselves with explosives and then blow those same explosives up in order to kill Jews, and then also those people who died when a cheap-ass ballistic rocket they were trying to launch to kill Jews, instead blew up in their faces and killed them, and also the people who chose to try to kill Jews more directly with guns and stuff, but then ended up being shot or blown up by that damn Jew military...
Those Jews are just *butchers*! If they would just freaking *die* when people try to kill them, then there would be no suffering in the Middle East!
I like your style.
I like your style, too!
Later,
baboo_jackal
P.S.:
I'm not the poop-thieving first-posts guy
Really? Well, those posts are really similar to what you've been saying in *this* thread. Huh. Well, rest-assured that the things you've so far had to say are at least as amusing to read as your prior accounts of eating shit out of public toilets.
I thought of what I wanted to say after seeing my first post opportunity and let loose another one of my signature first posts.
I knew it! *You're* the poo-hoarder! Well, I for one prefer your poop-thieving first-posts. Those at least make sense. You're really losing your touch, First-Post-Guy. Don't lose your coprophiliac base with this blah-blah-blah-tedious nonsense about Jews!
You're tired of Jews? Well, I'm tired of that dude who always steals the best pieces of poop out of public restrooms and keeps them all to himself (he posts here to Slashdot more than you'd expect). (About as much as you do, apparently).
And why is it that people motivated by irrational hatred and coprophilia always seem to post first?
There's no such thing as a "right to smoke" despite all the attempts to rally people under the "smoker's rights" banner. The "right" just doesn't exist.
Actually, there's also no such thing as a "right to not be exposed to smoke," either. Despite all the attempts to rally people under the "non-smoker's rights" banner, it just doesn't exist. Despite this fact, this fictitious "right" has been made into law. Just because you agree with it does not prove its rightness.
I'm sure you can come up with a few laws that you don't agree with, and that you have legitimate rational arguments against. Would *you* accept the counter argument of, "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!" as a response to your arguments?
The simple fact is that smokers have lost their "battle."
This does not obviate my counter argument. But if you don't want to engage in a rational discussion, where we evaluate your assertions versus my assertions, using rational, fact-based analysis, then that's OK.
I also generally don't engage Jehovah's Witnesses in long conversations, either.
I said: "Why do you object to allowing businesses to choose for themselves if they allow smoking indoors or not?"
You replied:
For the same reason that I object to allowing a business to decide for itself whether to follow other OSHA safety laws for its workers. For the same reason that I object to allowing a business to decide for itself what lead content is acceptable in their product. For the same reason that I would object to allowing a business to decide for itself whether it would allow blind customers to bring in their seeing eye dogs.
OK, but you still didn't answer the question. Why? Why do you object to my question, or any of the examples you brought up?
But fortunately I don't have to. [snip] You may as well give up and start working on solving your addiction problem.
Uhm. Yeah. Agrument-from-Government-Authority does *not* make your argument correct.
"You may as well give up [on Blacks-as-Equals] and start working on solving your [not-having-any-Black-slaves] problem."
Seriously, do you want your kids to smoke?
No, of course not. But I can't *compel* them to make that choice. It's something they have to make on their own. You can't be everywhere your kids are, all the time, so what you can do is tell them what *you* think (as a parent), and try to inculcate in them a good rational and moral basis that they can use to make decisions about their own lives.
Your kid's life is not your life, no matter how much you want it to be.
How about smoke-friendly grade schools and kindergartens?
You incorrectly assume that I like the idea of public school. Maybe there are parents who think that second-hand smoke is OK, and they're fine with sending their kids to school where the teachers can smoke in class. (Dunno who those parents are. I'd guess there probably aren't any. So your example of "smoke-friendly schools" probably wouldn't exist, even if it were possible.)
Sometimes the greater good comes into the calculus
Hey man, you brought in the idea of "my children." And then you brought up "the greater good." That's two separate problems. In fact, let me be more precise: In your case, "The greater good," means "what other people do with themselves, and their children."
How would you like it if I forced you to raise your kids in a certain way that you didn't agree with?
Actually, it will probably come to that, both for smoking, and for places that promote binge eating ("all you can eat" restaurants).
Man, I'm with you on that. And why stop there? What about gambling? I think we ought to outlaw compulsive gamblers. Maybe put limits on the amount of money they wager.
And also compulsive shopping. (It's Real!) You know what? We ought to establish limit on the amount of money people can spend on clothes on a given day. And the Government probably ought to monitor how much a citizen buys over time, to ensure they don't harm themselves, and the community at large with their irresponsible purchasing habits.
And also compulsive exercising (It's Real, too!). We should probably establish a Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising to make sure our citizens aren't exercising too much. I mean, the consequences impact their health negatively, which impacts *all* of our health negatively, once we have National Health Care.
But on the other hand, if they don't exercise enough, and we all know the risks of *that*, the Government should probably also mandate a minimum amount of time we spend exercising, too (I'm sure the Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising can handle this responsibility).
In addition, we should recognize (Governmentally) the real, proven dangers of compulsive working (It's also Real!), and probably manage the amount of hours per week that our citizens should be permitted to work. Maybe through the Ministry of Safe Work Hours. Of course, they'd have to be able to talk to the Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising to ensure that our citizens were spending the approved number of hours exercising (but not *too* much), compared to the hours they spent working, and it'd also probably be useful to monitor, in whole, the amount of time we spend shopping, working, exercising, eating (and the quantities we eat), and engaging in leisure activities (gotta establish another Governmental Agency to track that, too).
Oh, wait - you know what? This is easy! There's already an existing system that provides all that for us. We can just adapt its methods of tracking and enforcement for use in the general population.
So by your same logic, if you don't like me taking a dump in your coffee, don't go to a coffee shop where I decide to take a dump.
Why do you object to allowing businesses to choose for themselves if they allow smoking indoors or not? I'd agree to the stipulation that any smoking establishment would have to post a Government-Mandated sign on the front door saying whatever you wanted about smoking and the potential negative effects, etc. But no fees taken with the threat of violence behind them (i.e., taxes) to disincentivise smoker-friendly enterprises should be allowed.
If there was a law allowing smocking in establishments that had to pass a high bar (high fees, licensing) so that it would be available but rare, I would be OK with that.
How about you just don't go to places that you don't want to go to? Too much smoke for you? Don't go there!
a business should be accessible to everyone, including people with asthma like me.
OK, quick question: If I wanted to start a business that provided a place where people could come to smoke cigars, how could I possibly make that accessible to people who are allergic to smoke?
In the time before smoking bans in restaurants and bars, it was unusual to see a restaurant or bar that was completely smoke free.
But what about now? We're aware of the risks of smoking, and we all have our preferences about being around it. I enjoy smoking occasionally, but I would not eat lunch at a restaurant that allowed smoking inside. It smells gross, and it ruins my appetite. Likewise, I would probably not work at a company that allowed its employees to smoke inside - I don't like my clothes smelling like smoke.
But later that evening, maybe I'd like to go to a bar where I could drink a couple beers and smoke a few cigarettes (without having to go outside). In fact, given the choice to go to a bar that did allow smoking indoors versus one that didn't, I'd choose the one that did.
It's no different than individual homeowners deciding whether or not they allow smoking inside their homes.
Owners want the most customers possible, so they don't ban smoking knowing that non-smokers will often choose to suffer the bad smell to get what they otherwise want.
It's all about free choice. If there's something you "want" inside a bar filled with smoke that overrides your concern for your health, then, by all means, go get it! If, instead, you value your pulmonary health more than going in that bar, then don't!
Here's a big secret: There's nothing that great in bars anyways. Belligerent meatnecks, drunk skanks, fights, debauchery in the bathrooms... But it *MUST* be all smoke free so asthmatics can degrade themselves, too!
Look - a device like this would bring us closer to living the reality of Snow Crash. I'm all for it. I mean, burbclaves already exist nowadays (basically anything called "The {Commons, Greens} on the __________.")
We're not that far from Neal Stephenson's vision. Why are we fighting it? It'll be awesome.
He he - +1 Funny, if I had mod points. (not in a bad way Funny, either - I thought "steal an Egg McMuffin because that's what I like and not everything on their menu is an Egg McMuffin" was funny).
But GP had a point - record companies/iTunes/whoever are not actually providing what consumers want. I don't pretend to speak for all consumers, but I'm making this guess based on what people are stealing:
Non-copy-protected audio files of arbitrary quality (i.e., file size and quality for however fast your tubes are and how much time you want to spend downloading files). IOW, consumers are stealing mp3's. Currently, record companies don't sell those. In fact, don't they maintain that the very existence of mp3s (and any non-protected format) of their artist's music is illegal?
I mean, at some point, does the RIAA figure out that their member companies would actually be able to make money selling non-DRMed versions of their artists' music? They're missing out on a potentially big stream of revenue here - I mean, how many adults, with actual money, would pay $1 (or $.50, or whatever the going rate is) to quickly download a high-quality, DRM-free version of a song, with minimal hassle (and I don't mean "minimal hassle" for a typical Slashdotter, (which is to say Usenet over a 56K modem) - I mean even stupid Limewire, and messing around with torrents is a pain in the ass sometimes for technically-inclined people, let alone others.) - i.e., just go to Columbia Records' site, a few clicks, and you've got the song.
Hell, I would even use it, if the price were right. There's a price point at which it becomes worth it just to not have to go through the few extra steps required to download a song for free. Maybe it's $.10, maybe it's $.25. Who knows. Point is, they're just plain missing out.
And we *all* know exactly how honest the average journalist in the mainstream mass American media is these days.
Actually, Time magazine's Managing Editor, Richard Stengel was recently very honest about the nature of modern journalism during a speech at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.:
"I didn't go to journalism school," Stengel said. "But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me - because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don't know that there is as such a thing as objectivity." "[F]rom the time I came back, I have felt that we have to actually say, 'We have a point of view about something and we feel strongly about it, we just have to be assertive about it and say it positively,'" Stengel said. "I don't think people are looking for us to ask questions, I think they're looking for us to answer questions."
He made his remarks to defend the Time magazine cover image of Marines raising an American flag at Iwo Jima with the flag replaced by a tree. He told the audience it was an attention ploy.
"My feeling is you have to grab people by the lapels and say, 'Hey, pay attention' and that was the idea of doing this," Stengel said. "[I] just think you can't be squeamish about trying to get people's attention."
Anyways, this bit from TFA is especially outrageous, in light of Stengel's comment:
The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition propaganda. How is this any different than, say, American media outlets using stories reported by Reuters and AP stringers who have been known to submit fake images to support false statements in their articles?
Anyway, the claim that the Pentagon's effort are "subverting traditional journalism" is hilarious. According to Stengel, the point of "journalism" is to provide ready-made "answers," and to shape the news that gets reported according to the individual journalist's beliefs and opinions. Somebody else already said it better than I'd be able to:
it's no secret that the Pentagon-and every other branch of government-routinely provides background briefings to journalists (including columnists and other purveyors of opinion), and tries to influence their coverage by carefully doling out access. It is hardly unheard of for cabinet members-or even the President and Vice President-to woo selected journalists deemed to be friendly while cutting off those deemed hostile. Nor is it exactly a scandal for government agencies to hire public relations firms to track coverage of them and try to suggest ways in which they might be cast in a more positive light. All this is part and parcel of the daily grind of Washington journalism in which the Times is, of course, a leading participant.
Bottom line? The media is not objective. Everyone has an agenda. Just so happens that most mainstream media outlets have a leftist bias. Also just so happens that most successful talk radio has a conservative bias. Anyone claiming to be "impartial" is not telling the truth.
This is more about Russian national pride. They felt humiliated at the state of desperation they had sunk to, so now that their economy is doing better, they're looking to restore some of the prestige and remove the "Filene's Basement" aura now attached to their space program.
If you were to replace all the "they/their" with "Putin/Putin's," you'd be spot-on correct.
Anthropomorphizing nations and their macroscopic behavior as if "all citizens" were behind it, and that a given nation "feels/thinks/believes" one particular thing in unanimity (or even on the balance) is a common basis of flawed statements and arguments about "national policy."
We're most likely not doing it because the people invested in making something like that happen are more invested on Oil Dollars.
No "Big Oil Dollars Conspiracy" is preventing you, me, or anyone else, from buying solar panels and windmills and using them to provide for all of our energy needs.
If your contention is that solar power can provide all our energy requirements, then why are you still paying an electric bill and arguing with people about how "other people" ought to provide themselves with energy? Just go out and buy the solar panels! Do you have a credit card? Then you can buy them, right now, over the internet! So buy some! Install them, and sit back and just laugh at all the suckers still paying gas and electric bills!
...
I guess my point is this: If solar power can't provide *you* and *me*, as individuals, with energy that's less costly, then why would you assume that it would work on a larger scale? Again, there's nothing magical about having a million solar panels clumped in the same place - they still collect the same amount of energy as one solar panel, in a million different places.
It doesn't pay yet because it's new technology
It's not exactly "new" technology, actually. Windmills have been around for, what, thousands of years? And I'm 30, and I had a solar-powered calculator in like second grade.
I think that's the fiction here - "If we could just give Solar energy the start it needs, it could take off!"
That kind of brings me back to my original point (the grandfather post of this): One solar panel optimally collects a finite amount of energy - right? So, x solar panels can only optimally collect that amount, times x. No "stunning breakthroughs" in solar panel technology can alter the laws of physics to make the sun output more energy, or to make more of that energy arrive at Earth. So we're limited in the optimal energy production that's possible using solar power.
Clearly, it *doesn't* work on a small scale, otherwise we'd all provide all the power we needed with solar panels on our houses! And before you say, "But we could put them all on the equator!" you need to answer this - why, then, do people living in sun-rich areas still require fossil fuels to provide their energy needs?
If solar power doesn't work on a small scale, any money we throw at this problem on a large scale might as well be thrown down the toilet.
You bring up an interesting point... If solar power (and other renewable energy sources) are truly as cheap and effective as supporters say they are, then why aren't we using them?
This comment not directed at parent - it's to the world in general: Just shut up and do it already!
If it works so well, why aren't you already paying $0 for your energy bills?!? Here: BUY SOME! Install them, and then (and only then), come back to slashdot and tell us how well they work, and how you don't pay anything for electricity anymore!
I understand our concern about the larger issue of how "everyone else" gets their energy. The discussion about large-scale renewable energy sources is an important and worthy conversation. But what better way to further that goal than to be an example of how this can succeed by just doing it for yourself?
I'm going to price out some solar panels for my house and see if I can make this work right now. In fact, if it *does* work out, maybe I'll look into buying a patch of land and installing a bunch of solar panels and selling the energy. But here's my concern: I'm not the first person to have thought of this. And solar panels aren't exactly a new invention. So why don't we see a bunch of little, private wind and/or solar energy farms? Is it because it doesn't work on a small scale, but does work on a larger scale? I don't buy that - the relationship between the amount of energy collected and the most significant resource that solar energy collection requires (land) is perfectly linear: One 10x10 solar panel optimally collects x KW/h of energy. y 10x10 solar panels optimally collect x*y KW/h of energy. If it's going to work on a large scale, it *must* necessarily also work on all smaller scales.
Like I said, I'm going to look into doing it for myself, but my suspicion is that the reason we're not all already doing this is because it just doesn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey man, no matter the outcome of this retarded Corp-Fight, my FLAs are still going to have big fat red crosses on big fat white backgrounds on them, and the Soldiers who need medical care will always know where to come.
Your argument that this retarded conflict between two Companies might somehow negatively affect American Soldiers and prevent them from obtaining needed medical care is absurd. Let those two fight it out. F your "sacred symbology" tirade. Nobody who's getting shot at, and shot, gives one shit about it.
Hey, it's close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and the press: Not signing the Kyoto Protocol, promoting offshoring, promoting the advancement of terrorist states, destroying Magnequench, etc. It's all Bush's fault, except for the fact that Clinton actually did it all.
But let's condemn the guy who inherited the mess because he hasn't fixed it, and then also condemn his methods for fixing the mess he inherited. That makes so much sense, and I'm so super serial about that.
I'm sorry. You'll have to help me out with that one. Where do I find that in the U.S. Constitution?
I Said:
Would *you* accept the counter argument of, "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!" as a response to your arguments?
You Said:
Um, I don't have to since the law is squarely on my side.
So, in other words: "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!"
Brah-Voh! You win the circular argument contest! Top Score!
Ignorance is not a bad thing, no matter how egregious. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're ignorant, and not stupid or dishonest. There actually *is* a "right not to be stolen from" written in the very pages of our Constitution:
"No person shall be deprived of property, without due process of law;"
Your argument fails.
No doubt. Lenders have been caught in a Catch-22-esque trap here. They chose not to lend money to people with poor credit ratings and insufficient assets, because those people probably wouldn't be able to pay off their debt. All based on actuarial calculations. But since minorities tended to fall into the "do not lend to" category more frequently, this was viewed as racist.
So they (subsidized by the Government and pressured by public opinion) started lending to bad risks. And then those people who they thought couldn't pay off their debt, *gasp*... Couldn't pay off their debt. Which is, of course, the fault of the lender, since they *knew* the elevated risk of lending to such individuals.
On one hand, we chastise lenders for not lending money to people who shouldn't be lent that quantity of money, and then we also criticize them for lending money to those same people, when they can't keep up with payments.
You're a racist if you don't, and you're a predator if you do.
How about this? Let lenders decide who's a good risk and who's not, based solely on their credit history? I think that would probably work.
Dude, I totally *know*.
If you add up all the people who chose to strap themselves with explosives and then blow those same explosives up in order to kill Jews, and then also those people who died when a cheap-ass ballistic rocket they were trying to launch to kill Jews, instead blew up in their faces and killed them, and also the people who chose to try to kill Jews more directly with guns and stuff, but then ended up being shot or blown up by that damn Jew military...
Those Jews are just *butchers*! If they would just freaking *die* when people try to kill them, then there would be no suffering in the Middle East!
I like your style.
I like your style, too!
Later,
baboo_jackal
P.S.: I'm not the poop-thieving first-posts guy
Really? Well, those posts are really similar to what you've been saying in *this* thread. Huh. Well, rest-assured that the things you've so far had to say are at least as amusing to read as your prior accounts of eating shit out of public toilets.
I knew it! *You're* the poo-hoarder! Well, I for one prefer your poop-thieving first-posts. Those at least make sense. You're really losing your touch, First-Post-Guy. Don't lose your coprophiliac base with this blah-blah-blah-tedious nonsense about Jews!
You're tired of Jews? Well, I'm tired of that dude who always steals the best pieces of poop out of public restrooms and keeps them all to himself (he posts here to Slashdot more than you'd expect). (About as much as you do, apparently).
And why is it that people motivated by irrational hatred and coprophilia always seem to post first?
Actually, there's also no such thing as a "right to not be exposed to smoke," either. Despite all the attempts to rally people under the "non-smoker's rights" banner, it just doesn't exist. Despite this fact, this fictitious "right" has been made into law. Just because you agree with it does not prove its rightness.
I'm sure you can come up with a few laws that you don't agree with, and that you have legitimate rational arguments against. Would *you* accept the counter argument of, "Well, it's the law, so... HA HA, Suck it!" as a response to your arguments?
This does not obviate my counter argument. But if you don't want to engage in a rational discussion, where we evaluate your assertions versus my assertions, using rational, fact-based analysis, then that's OK.
I also generally don't engage Jehovah's Witnesses in long conversations, either.
For the same reason that I object to allowing a business to decide for itself whether to follow other OSHA safety laws for its workers. For the same reason that I object to allowing a business to decide for itself what lead content is acceptable in their product. For the same reason that I would object to allowing a business to decide for itself whether it would allow blind customers to bring in their seeing eye dogs.
OK, but you still didn't answer the question. Why? Why do you object to my question, or any of the examples you brought up?
But fortunately I don't have to. [snip] You may as well give up and start working on solving your addiction problem.
Uhm. Yeah. Agrument-from-Government-Authority does *not* make your argument correct.
"You may as well give up [on Blacks-as-Equals] and start working on solving your [not-having-any-Black-slaves] problem."
(I intentionally dodged Godwin here...
No, of course not. But I can't *compel* them to make that choice. It's something they have to make on their own. You can't be everywhere your kids are, all the time, so what you can do is tell them what *you* think (as a parent), and try to inculcate in them a good rational and moral basis that they can use to make decisions about their own lives.
Your kid's life is not your life, no matter how much you want it to be.
How about smoke-friendly grade schools and kindergartens?
You incorrectly assume that I like the idea of public school. Maybe there are parents who think that second-hand smoke is OK, and they're fine with sending their kids to school where the teachers can smoke in class. (Dunno who those parents are. I'd guess there probably aren't any. So your example of "smoke-friendly schools" probably wouldn't exist, even if it were possible.) Sometimes the greater good comes into the calculus
Hey man, you brought in the idea of "my children." And then you brought up "the greater good." That's two separate problems. In fact, let me be more precise: In your case, "The greater good," means "what other people do with themselves, and their children."
How would you like it if I forced you to raise your kids in a certain way that you didn't agree with?
Man, I'm with you on that. And why stop there? What about gambling? I think we ought to outlaw compulsive gamblers. Maybe put limits on the amount of money they wager.
And also compulsive shopping. (It's Real!) You know what? We ought to establish limit on the amount of money people can spend on clothes on a given day. And the Government probably ought to monitor how much a citizen buys over time, to ensure they don't harm themselves, and the community at large with their irresponsible purchasing habits.
And also compulsive exercising (It's Real, too!). We should probably establish a Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising to make sure our citizens aren't exercising too much. I mean, the consequences impact their health negatively, which impacts *all* of our health negatively, once we have National Health Care.
But on the other hand, if they don't exercise enough, and we all know the risks of *that*, the Government should probably also mandate a minimum amount of time we spend exercising, too (I'm sure the Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising can handle this responsibility).
In addition, we should recognize (Governmentally) the real, proven dangers of compulsive working (It's also Real!), and probably manage the amount of hours per week that our citizens should be permitted to work. Maybe through the Ministry of Safe Work Hours. Of course, they'd have to be able to talk to the Government Registry of Hours Spent Exercising to ensure that our citizens were spending the approved number of hours exercising (but not *too* much), compared to the hours they spent working, and it'd also probably be useful to monitor, in whole, the amount of time we spend shopping, working, exercising, eating (and the quantities we eat), and engaging in leisure activities (gotta establish another Governmental Agency to track that, too).
Oh, wait - you know what? This is easy! There's already an existing system that provides all that for us. We can just adapt its methods of tracking and enforcement for use in the general population.
It's called Prison.
Why do you object to allowing businesses to choose for themselves if they allow smoking indoors or not? I'd agree to the stipulation that any smoking establishment would have to post a Government-Mandated sign on the front door saying whatever you wanted about smoking and the potential negative effects, etc. But no fees taken with the threat of violence behind them (i.e., taxes) to disincentivise smoker-friendly enterprises should be allowed.
Could you agree to that?
How about you just don't go to places that you don't want to go to? Too much smoke for you? Don't go there!
OK, quick question: If I wanted to start a business that provided a place where people could come to smoke cigars, how could I possibly make that accessible to people who are allergic to smoke?
In the time before smoking bans in restaurants and bars, it was unusual to see a restaurant or bar that was completely smoke free.
But what about now? We're aware of the risks of smoking, and we all have our preferences about being around it. I enjoy smoking occasionally, but I would not eat lunch at a restaurant that allowed smoking inside. It smells gross, and it ruins my appetite. Likewise, I would probably not work at a company that allowed its employees to smoke inside - I don't like my clothes smelling like smoke.
But later that evening, maybe I'd like to go to a bar where I could drink a couple beers and smoke a few cigarettes (without having to go outside). In fact, given the choice to go to a bar that did allow smoking indoors versus one that didn't, I'd choose the one that did.
It's no different than individual homeowners deciding whether or not they allow smoking inside their homes.
Owners want the most customers possible, so they don't ban smoking knowing that non-smokers will often choose to suffer the bad smell to get what they otherwise want.
It's all about free choice. If there's something you "want" inside a bar filled with smoke that overrides your concern for your health, then, by all means, go get it! If, instead, you value your pulmonary health more than going in that bar, then don't!
Here's a big secret: There's nothing that great in bars anyways. Belligerent meatnecks, drunk skanks, fights, debauchery in the bathrooms... But it *MUST* be all smoke free so asthmatics can degrade themselves, too!
Yeah, it's definitely a win for the non-smokers.
Damn. Who knew used car salesmen had mod points?
Blah, blah, hippie crap, blah, conspiracy theory, blah, blah, blah.
No wonder you posted AC.
Look - a device like this would bring us closer to living the reality of Snow Crash. I'm all for it. I mean, burbclaves already exist nowadays (basically anything called "The {Commons, Greens} on the __________.")
We're not that far from Neal Stephenson's vision. Why are we fighting it? It'll be awesome.
He he - +1 Funny, if I had mod points. (not in a bad way Funny, either - I thought "steal an Egg McMuffin because that's what I like and not everything on their menu is an Egg McMuffin" was funny).
But GP had a point - record companies/iTunes/whoever are not actually providing what consumers want. I don't pretend to speak for all consumers, but I'm making this guess based on what people are stealing:
Non-copy-protected audio files of arbitrary quality (i.e., file size and quality for however fast your tubes are and how much time you want to spend downloading files). IOW, consumers are stealing mp3's. Currently, record companies don't sell those. In fact, don't they maintain that the very existence of mp3s (and any non-protected format) of their artist's music is illegal?
I mean, at some point, does the RIAA figure out that their member companies would actually be able to make money selling non-DRMed versions of their artists' music? They're missing out on a potentially big stream of revenue here - I mean, how many adults, with actual money, would pay $1 (or $.50, or whatever the going rate is) to quickly download a high-quality, DRM-free version of a song, with minimal hassle (and I don't mean "minimal hassle" for a typical Slashdotter, (which is to say Usenet over a 56K modem) - I mean even stupid Limewire, and messing around with torrents is a pain in the ass sometimes for technically-inclined people, let alone others.) - i.e., just go to Columbia Records' site, a few clicks, and you've got the song.
Hell, I would even use it, if the price were right. There's a price point at which it becomes worth it just to not have to go through the few extra steps required to download a song for free. Maybe it's $.10, maybe it's $.25. Who knows. Point is, they're just plain missing out.
Actually, Time magazine's Managing Editor, Richard Stengel was recently very honest about the nature of modern journalism during a speech at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.: "I didn't go to journalism school," Stengel said. "But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me - because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don't know that there is as such a thing as objectivity." "[F]rom the time I came back, I have felt that we have to actually say, 'We have a point of view about something and we feel strongly about it, we just have to be assertive about it and say it positively,'" Stengel said. "I don't think people are looking for us to ask questions, I think they're looking for us to answer questions."
He made his remarks to defend the Time magazine cover image of Marines raising an American flag at Iwo Jima with the flag replaced by a tree. He told the audience it was an attention ploy.
"My feeling is you have to grab people by the lapels and say, 'Hey, pay attention' and that was the idea of doing this," Stengel said. "[I] just think you can't be squeamish about trying to get people's attention."
Anyways, this bit from TFA is especially outrageous, in light of Stengel's comment:
The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition propaganda. How is this any different than, say, American media outlets using stories reported by Reuters and AP stringers who have been known to submit fake images to support false statements in their articles?
Anyway, the claim that the Pentagon's effort are "subverting traditional journalism" is hilarious. According to Stengel, the point of "journalism" is to provide ready-made "answers," and to shape the news that gets reported according to the individual journalist's beliefs and opinions. Somebody else already said it better than I'd be able to:
it's no secret that the Pentagon-and every other branch of government-routinely provides background briefings to journalists (including columnists and other purveyors of opinion), and tries to influence their coverage by carefully doling out access. It is hardly unheard of for cabinet members-or even the President and Vice President-to woo selected journalists deemed to be friendly while cutting off those deemed hostile. Nor is it exactly a scandal for government agencies to hire public relations firms to track coverage of them and try to suggest ways in which they might be cast in a more positive light. All this is part and parcel of the daily grind of Washington journalism in which the Times is, of course, a leading participant.
Bottom line? The media is not objective. Everyone has an agenda. Just so happens that most mainstream media outlets have a leftist bias. Also just so happens that most successful talk radio has a conservative bias. Anyone claiming to be "impartial" is not telling the truth.
If you were to replace all the "they/their" with "Putin/Putin's," you'd be spot-on correct.
Anthropomorphizing nations and their macroscopic behavior as if "all citizens" were behind it, and that a given nation "feels/thinks/believes" one particular thing in unanimity (or even on the balance) is a common basis of flawed statements and arguments about "national policy."
No "Big Oil Dollars Conspiracy" is preventing you, me, or anyone else, from buying solar panels and windmills and using them to provide for all of our energy needs.
If your contention is that solar power can provide all our energy requirements, then why are you still paying an electric bill and arguing with people about how "other people" ought to provide themselves with energy? Just go out and buy the solar panels! Do you have a credit card? Then you can buy them, right now, over the internet! So buy some! Install them, and sit back and just laugh at all the suckers still paying gas and electric bills!
I guess my point is this: If solar power can't provide *you* and *me*, as individuals, with energy that's less costly, then why would you assume that it would work on a larger scale? Again, there's nothing magical about having a million solar panels clumped in the same place - they still collect the same amount of energy as one solar panel, in a million different places.
It's not exactly "new" technology, actually. Windmills have been around for, what, thousands of years? And I'm 30, and I had a solar-powered calculator in like second grade.
I think that's the fiction here - "If we could just give Solar energy the start it needs, it could take off!"
That kind of brings me back to my original point (the grandfather post of this): One solar panel optimally collects a finite amount of energy - right? So, x solar panels can only optimally collect that amount, times x. No "stunning breakthroughs" in solar panel technology can alter the laws of physics to make the sun output more energy, or to make more of that energy arrive at Earth. So we're limited in the optimal energy production that's possible using solar power.
Clearly, it *doesn't* work on a small scale, otherwise we'd all provide all the power we needed with solar panels on our houses! And before you say, "But we could put them all on the equator!" you need to answer this - why, then, do people living in sun-rich areas still require fossil fuels to provide their energy needs?
If solar power doesn't work on a small scale, any money we throw at this problem on a large scale might as well be thrown down the toilet.
You bring up an interesting point... If solar power (and other renewable energy sources) are truly as cheap and effective as supporters say they are, then why aren't we using them?
This comment not directed at parent - it's to the world in general: Just shut up and do it already!
If it works so well, why aren't you already paying $0 for your energy bills?!? Here: BUY SOME! Install them, and then (and only then), come back to slashdot and tell us how well they work, and how you don't pay anything for electricity anymore!
I understand our concern about the larger issue of how "everyone else" gets their energy. The discussion about large-scale renewable energy sources is an important and worthy conversation. But what better way to further that goal than to be an example of how this can succeed by just doing it for yourself?
I'm going to price out some solar panels for my house and see if I can make this work right now. In fact, if it *does* work out, maybe I'll look into buying a patch of land and installing a bunch of solar panels and selling the energy. But here's my concern: I'm not the first person to have thought of this. And solar panels aren't exactly a new invention. So why don't we see a bunch of little, private wind and/or solar energy farms? Is it because it doesn't work on a small scale, but does work on a larger scale? I don't buy that - the relationship between the amount of energy collected and the most significant resource that solar energy collection requires (land) is perfectly linear: One 10x10 solar panel optimally collects x KW/h of energy. y 10x10 solar panels optimally collect x*y KW/h of energy. If it's going to work on a large scale, it *must* necessarily also work on all smaller scales.
Like I said, I'm going to look into doing it for myself, but my suspicion is that the reason we're not all already doing this is because it just doesn't work.