Of course it is, it's just another "all you people living in rich countries (especially those in the U.S.) should feel guilty for living, look how these people are willing to sacrifice" piece.
Most people do not consider India, China and Brazil as the major industrial powers of the world (although you could certainly make the argument that they are).
It does not require funding a large number of lobbyists to change things. If you could convince 100 million U.S. citizens that making this change was a reason to vote for someone (and against someone who opposed it) you could get the change made. Actually, if you seriously wanted to change copyright and were willing to dedicate the rest of your life to the campaign, you could probably get it changed to something close to what you suggested.
Mor importantly, does he really think that out of the millions of websites that 430 is a significant number? The Shadow Communications Minister Malcom Turnbull should point out that Conroy wants to spend millions to create a filter to ostensibly block approximately 0.0002% of the web. This is a conservative estimate, 430 is probably a much smaller percent of the total number of webpages than that (I based it on Netcrafts estimate from January 2009), however, since Conroy would probably claim that 430 is only a fraction of the child porn sites on the web, it should be close enough for argument. Turnbull should then point out a handful of the risks that are greater than this (such as drowning while taking a bath--.01%) and ask if Conroy wants to outlaw taking a bath next.
As I responded to someone else, do you really think there are a bunch of poor people living in West Chester County, New York? Check out what housing costs are there. How about the Hamptons? Or Martha's Vineyard?
I have yet to see a conservative site where such a claim is made. The people who have pushed the strongest for e-voting have, by my experience, been Democrats. However, more importantly, I find that promoters of e-voting fall into two classes, the technophiles and the statists. The technophiles are those who tend to view a technologically more advanced solution as superior to a non-technological solution in most cases (they are early adopters). The statists are those who tend to view more government regulation as the solution to most problems. It is not that these people are neccessarily wrong, it is just that they almost always favor their type of solution even when they are inferior to the other options available.
Not to mention if you coerced enough people to actually have an influence on the vote, I really doubt you could keep it from leaking to the authorities.
What if it was the authorities who were doing the coercing?
Al Gore was announced as the winner in 2000 by CBS long before Florida was done counting.
Al Gore was announced as the winner in 2000 in Flordia by CBS(I think it was CBS, one of the networks anyway) long before Florida was done voting, let alone counting. It doesn't matter how fast you count the votes if people announce the winner before the voting is done.
Actually, there is reason to believe that the announcement that Gore had won Florida before Florida was done voting contributed to the closeness of the actual votes. The reason that the announcement was made before the voting was finished is that most of Florida is in the Eastern Time Zone, while the Pennsacola area is in the Central Time Zone. The Pennsacola area is much more heavily Republican than the rest of Florida. There is reason to believe that some people chose not to vote because they thought that the outcome was already decided and their choice had lost (this has been documented to happen in other elections).
I like your suggested system. It doesn't really have any of the advantages that are touted for electronic voting, but it does allow for easy checking of the accuracy of the ballot results in a manner that is as understandable to, and checkable by, the average voter as the ballot systems that were being used before the 2000 election. However, it is still a paper ballot system (which is fine by me).
I see some benefit to your proposal, but I would suggest a much more basic change that would help. Let's stop with "motor-voter" and other ways for people to register without having to go out of their way. If you want to vote, you have to go down to the county courthouse (or other designated location) as a special trip and register. Let's stop with making registering to vote something that is so easy that you don't have to think about it and then make at least some effort to do so. If people can't be bothered to find out how to register to vote and then to take the effort to do so, what makes anyone think that they will take the effort to make an informed vote?
Right, because they can't do the same by holding your family hostage while you paper-vote.
Because, if I go to the voting booth and vote with a paper ballot, they have no way to know how I voted. If I am voting over the Internet from my home computer they can look over my shoulder to see how I voted.
Do, they count the paper ballots? or the electronic one? If they count only the electronic one, how do you know there is any relationship between the paper ballots and the electronic ballots? If they count both, what have we gained?
First, relative to per capita income, do you really believe that the reason that West Chester County in New York votes Democrat every election is because it has a couple of rich guys who vote Republican and a majority of poor people who vote Democratic? Do you really believe that anybody poor can afford to live in West Chester County New York? How about the Hamptons?
The other thing is when Bill Gates dies, very little of his wealth will be available to be taxed. Most of his money will be in various trusts (such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), those trusts will likely pay some kind of allowance to his heirs. The truly wealthy don't pay estate tax. The people who pay estate tax are the heirs of small businessmen and farmers, especially when those guys die suddenly.
You make two errors. The first is that you think the wealthy are Republicans, check the voting stats for the 20 counties with the highest per captia income. All but one of them is a safe Democratic district. The second is that you didn't look very closely at how the head of the PA Department of Homeland Security gets his job. He is appointed by the Governor of PA. The current head was appointed in 2006. In 2006, the Governor of Pennsylvania was Ed Rendell, who is as partisan a Democrat as there is. Therefore, James Powers is clearly a Democrat.
I, also, forgot to mention that the Republicans are not fighting to keep tax cuts for the "richest" 2.5% of our population. They are fighting to keep the tax cuts for all, including those who earn in the top 2.5% of income. There is a difference between those with the highest income and those who are the wealthiest. Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the country, but he has nowhere near the highest income. The other point on this issue is that most of the top 2.5% of income according to the IRS are S corporations, not actual individuals.
Excuse me, I am unaware of any group that has a problem with legal immigrants. Most of the people I have seen who have a problem with illegal immigrants favor reducing the difficulty of legally immigrating into this country while increasing the enforcement against illegal immigration.
How is throwing things out rather than recycling them "stupid". Lazy, yes, but I just don't see stupid. In what way am I impacted by whether or not people recycle? My children possibly, my great grandchildren likely, but me?
Well, incandescent bulbs have not been banned in the US, yet (the law doesn't go into force for until 2012). However, because standard incandescents do not meet the laws requirements (and thus will be essentially banned come 2012) there are fewer and fewer available.
The biggest problem with selling the $6000 car in the US is that it will not pass the safety and emissions regulations that a car must pass to be sold in the US. I am pretty sure that if they could sell the car in the US it would pretty well (although I know nothing about its reliability, so if it is not very reliable, maybe not).
Because there isn't enough profit in incandescents to be worth the bother of finding/building a plant overseas to make them. It was much more profitable for GE to lobby the government to outlaw standard incandescents. Now they can switch to light bulbs that they hold a patent on and they will only have to compete with other companies that hold patents on differing light bulb technology. The patents on standard incandescents expired many years ago, so there are/were many manufacturers of them who were willing to operate on much tighter margins than GE wants.
You call storing them until you go to buy more and then having to remember to take them with you easy. It may not be hard, bit it is a hassle. Most people will just throw them in the trash.
Because GE was one of the big lobbyists for the bill which outlawed the bulbs made at this plant. Now whether the law was a good one or not is another question, but GE wanted this law. GE will make more profits on the light bulbs they will sell under this law than they could have under any circumstances on regular incandescent bulbs (especially when you can't buy regular incandescent anymore and they can raise their prices).
Slashdot Mirror
Has all the appearance of a "puff piece."
Of course it is, it's just another "all you people living in rich countries (especially those in the U.S.) should feel guilty for living, look how these people are willing to sacrifice" piece.
Most people do not consider India, China and Brazil as the major industrial powers of the world (although you could certainly make the argument that they are).
It does not require funding a large number of lobbyists to change things. If you could convince 100 million U.S. citizens that making this change was a reason to vote for someone (and against someone who opposed it) you could get the change made. Actually, if you seriously wanted to change copyright and were willing to dedicate the rest of your life to the campaign, you could probably get it changed to something close to what you suggested.
Haven't you heard the talk about geolocation specific ads?
Mor importantly, does he really think that out of the millions of websites that 430 is a significant number? The Shadow Communications Minister Malcom Turnbull should point out that Conroy wants to spend millions to create a filter to ostensibly block approximately 0.0002% of the web. This is a conservative estimate, 430 is probably a much smaller percent of the total number of webpages than that (I based it on Netcrafts estimate from January 2009), however, since Conroy would probably claim that 430 is only a fraction of the child porn sites on the web, it should be close enough for argument. Turnbull should then point out a handful of the risks that are greater than this (such as drowning while taking a bath--.01%) and ask if Conroy wants to outlaw taking a bath next.
As I responded to someone else, do you really think there are a bunch of poor people living in West Chester County, New York? Check out what housing costs are there. How about the Hamptons? Or Martha's Vineyard?
The right wing claims this leads to voter fraud
I have yet to see a conservative site where such a claim is made. The people who have pushed the strongest for e-voting have, by my experience, been Democrats. However, more importantly, I find that promoters of e-voting fall into two classes, the technophiles and the statists. The technophiles are those who tend to view a technologically more advanced solution as superior to a non-technological solution in most cases (they are early adopters). The statists are those who tend to view more government regulation as the solution to most problems. It is not that these people are neccessarily wrong, it is just that they almost always favor their type of solution even when they are inferior to the other options available.
Not to mention if you coerced enough people to actually have an influence on the vote, I really doubt you could keep it from leaking to the authorities.
What if it was the authorities who were doing the coercing?
Al Gore was announced as the winner in 2000 by CBS long before Florida was done counting.
Al Gore was announced as the winner in 2000 in Flordia by CBS(I think it was CBS, one of the networks anyway) long before Florida was done voting, let alone counting. It doesn't matter how fast you count the votes if people announce the winner before the voting is done.
Actually, there is reason to believe that the announcement that Gore had won Florida before Florida was done voting contributed to the closeness of the actual votes. The reason that the announcement was made before the voting was finished is that most of Florida is in the Eastern Time Zone, while the Pennsacola area is in the Central Time Zone. The Pennsacola area is much more heavily Republican than the rest of Florida. There is reason to believe that some people chose not to vote because they thought that the outcome was already decided and their choice had lost (this has been documented to happen in other elections).
I like your suggested system. It doesn't really have any of the advantages that are touted for electronic voting, but it does allow for easy checking of the accuracy of the ballot results in a manner that is as understandable to, and checkable by, the average voter as the ballot systems that were being used before the 2000 election. However, it is still a paper ballot system (which is fine by me).
I see some benefit to your proposal, but I would suggest a much more basic change that would help. Let's stop with "motor-voter" and other ways for people to register without having to go out of their way. If you want to vote, you have to go down to the county courthouse (or other designated location) as a special trip and register. Let's stop with making registering to vote something that is so easy that you don't have to think about it and then make at least some effort to do so. If people can't be bothered to find out how to register to vote and then to take the effort to do so, what makes anyone think that they will take the effort to make an informed vote?
Right, because they can't do the same by holding your family hostage while you paper-vote.
Because, if I go to the voting booth and vote with a paper ballot, they have no way to know how I voted. If I am voting over the Internet from my home computer they can look over my shoulder to see how I voted.
Do, they count the paper ballots? or the electronic one? If they count only the electronic one, how do you know there is any relationship between the paper ballots and the electronic ballots? If they count both, what have we gained?
The most important function for citizens is to pay tax.
Correction: The most important function for subjects is to pay tax.
First, relative to per capita income, do you really believe that the reason that West Chester County in New York votes Democrat every election is because it has a couple of rich guys who vote Republican and a majority of poor people who vote Democratic? Do you really believe that anybody poor can afford to live in West Chester County New York? How about the Hamptons?
The other thing is when Bill Gates dies, very little of his wealth will be available to be taxed. Most of his money will be in various trusts (such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), those trusts will likely pay some kind of allowance to his heirs. The truly wealthy don't pay estate tax. The people who pay estate tax are the heirs of small businessmen and farmers, especially when those guys die suddenly.
Actually, more often they call him "teacher" at school.
You make two errors. The first is that you think the wealthy are Republicans, check the voting stats for the 20 counties with the highest per captia income. All but one of them is a safe Democratic district. The second is that you didn't look very closely at how the head of the PA Department of Homeland Security gets his job. He is appointed by the Governor of PA. The current head was appointed in 2006. In 2006, the Governor of Pennsylvania was Ed Rendell, who is as partisan a Democrat as there is. Therefore, James Powers is clearly a Democrat.
I, also, forgot to mention that the Republicans are not fighting to keep tax cuts for the "richest" 2.5% of our population. They are fighting to keep the tax cuts for all, including those who earn in the top 2.5% of income. There is a difference between those with the highest income and those who are the wealthiest. Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the country, but he has nowhere near the highest income. The other point on this issue is that most of the top 2.5% of income according to the IRS are S corporations, not actual individuals.
Excuse me, I am unaware of any group that has a problem with legal immigrants. Most of the people I have seen who have a problem with illegal immigrants favor reducing the difficulty of legally immigrating into this country while increasing the enforcement against illegal immigration.
How is throwing things out rather than recycling them "stupid". Lazy, yes, but I just don't see stupid. In what way am I impacted by whether or not people recycle? My children possibly, my great grandchildren likely, but me?
Well, incandescent bulbs have not been banned in the US, yet (the law doesn't go into force for until 2012). However, because standard incandescents do not meet the laws requirements (and thus will be essentially banned come 2012) there are fewer and fewer available.
The biggest problem with selling the $6000 car in the US is that it will not pass the safety and emissions regulations that a car must pass to be sold in the US. I am pretty sure that if they could sell the car in the US it would pretty well (although I know nothing about its reliability, so if it is not very reliable, maybe not).
Because there isn't enough profit in incandescents to be worth the bother of finding/building a plant overseas to make them. It was much more profitable for GE to lobby the government to outlaw standard incandescents. Now they can switch to light bulbs that they hold a patent on and they will only have to compete with other companies that hold patents on differing light bulb technology. The patents on standard incandescents expired many years ago, so there are/were many manufacturers of them who were willing to operate on much tighter margins than GE wants.
You call storing them until you go to buy more and then having to remember to take them with you easy. It may not be hard, bit it is a hassle. Most people will just throw them in the trash.
In other news GE has sold their buggy whip division
Except that buggy whips went away because of consumer choice, not government mandate.
OK, how exactly were they "sold out by GE"?
Because GE was one of the big lobbyists for the bill which outlawed the bulbs made at this plant. Now whether the law was a good one or not is another question, but GE wanted this law. GE will make more profits on the light bulbs they will sell under this law than they could have under any circumstances on regular incandescent bulbs (especially when you can't buy regular incandescent anymore and they can raise their prices).