An outright ban on lobbying would be nice in any case.
Except for the fact that lobbying is protected explicitly by the US Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In the U.S., in every jurisdiction I am aware of, slot machines are by law fixed to pay out a certain percentage of the amount that is put into them. I do not know the numbers, but a slot machine, by law, may not pay out more than a certain percentage or less than a certain lower percentage of the money played in it.
The thing that Barlow fails to understand is that the country was never well run from the center, even before the Internet. Most of the problems in this country are a result of attempting to run nationally things that are best run locally.
Please stay out of other's ppl's way of life. What makes you think you know best for the rest of the US, and by extension, the world?
I agree with that until I start thinking about what people might think is 'best'. Would it be fine with you if some city, country, or state allowed genital mutilation or slavery?
There are of countries that allow genital mutilation and slavery.
The problem is, we can either say that AGW is a crisis that requires drastic action or we can say that we need to be fair and allow the developing world to expand its CO2 generation at whatever rate it wants. If AGW is the critical problem that those who propose massive change in the first world claim it is, then we don't have the luxury of being fair.
Sounds like an excellent way to spread disinformation.....even better than say.....the New York Times.
You know, even as recently as the salad days of my youth, I could have labeled you a troll for writing that about the NYT.
Now, alas, all I can do is nod my head sadly in agreement.
Of course, you would have been wrong. I would be surprised if there is anybody on this forum old enough to have a childhood before the NYT won a Pulitzer for its reports that the famine in the Ukraine under Stalin was not happening.
I'm sorry, I do not believe that happy place's comment is even close enough to the topic in the article to be orthogonal to it. I guess you could take that view since doctors and lawyers are mentioned in both the article and happy place's comment. I believe that is the only thing those two have in common.
Supporters of a national language generally do so because of the expense of having ballots printed in multiple languages (A county near where I live was required by the courts to publish their ballots in something like 80 languages, most of which had at most one speaker in the county in question), there are also other issues similar to this that are connected to the effort to establish English as the national language of the US. While it is possible that many of the people who support making English the official language of the US do so because they are offended by other languages being considered equal to English, they find it necessary to come up with another reason to justify the course of action they wish taken, even when speaking to those who are part of or sympathetic to their movement.
You give examples that you assert are examples of the right wanting to make it illegal to offend them, but you fail to demonstrate that is the actual motivation of those pushing for the position you are using as your example. If you wish I will give examples of those on the left taking positions calling for making offending them illegal.
I was unaware of anyone who wanted there to be a law against the Piss Christ. I know that a lot of people protested that their tax dollars were used to fund "art" that they considered offensive. I'm not sure how instituting an official national language (even if fluency in it is required for residency) is an attempt to make it a crime to offend someone.
Can you give me an example where religious fundies(non-Muslim) attempted to limit free speech in the same vein as the Taliban? You do understand that the left in the US has actually instituted limits on speech in areas where they have institutional control.
No, they aren't. Theo Van Gogh was killed in Denmark by someone who shares their view. The people who put up the website that led Comedy Central to censor South Park are in the US. So they aren't "half a world away", odds are pretty good that there are those who share their views attending the mosque that you attend.
Please don't let the vocal minority dominate the debate.
Then you (and other like-minded Muslims), need to confront that vocal minority and shut them up (or at least drown out their voices with your own). You need to let your elected representatives know that you oppose sharia being made the law of the land.
I don't know about where you live, but in the US it is the left that wants to make it a crime to offend someone. In the US the left advocates free speech, but then when they are in positions of authority they limit freedom of speech to those they agree with.
Do you really believe that Apple's future profits will be enough greater than their last three years in the next three years to significantly change the number of years of profit it will take to pay back the cost of all of its stock? And that a Fortune 50 company in the health care industry will have its profits drop by enough in the next three years to extend the length of time it will take to pay back the cost of all of its stock by a significant amount?
Once upon a time, almost all stocks in profitable companies paid dividends. Those that didn't were special cases facing certain market changes that led them to reinvest that profit into the company for a short time. Then things changed and people got the idea that the best way to make money was to gamble on the future price of the stocks of a company and not worry about getting a share of the profits.
Many of the problems in current corporate governance are a result of the fact that the owners of most companies (the stockholders) no longer want a share of the profits. Instead of stockholders expecting to make money from the profits of the company they invest in, they expect to make money by selling their stake in the company to somebody else for more than they paid for it. That means that most stockholders are investing in a ponzi scheme. For example, if next week the overwhelming majority of people decide that Apple has no value and they continue to believe that to be true for the indefinite future to such a degree that current Apple share holders are unable to sell their stock, it will take somewhere close to 30 years for Apple share holders to get their money back (and actually probably much longer since Apple has never issued a dividend). On the other hand, if the same situation were to occur to the company the original poster mentioned, it would take a much shorter time for the stock holders to get their money back (especially considering that historically most major companies in the health care fields, do issue dividends).
The problem is that we have allowed the left to define the political continuum. The left declared that fascism was the opposite of communism. When in fact, they are right next to each other on the continuum. The real political continuum is from those who say that the good of the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the group (fascism and communism) to those who say that the right of the individual to make their own decisions takes precedence over the good of the group (although most of them hold that the best good of the group results from individual sovereignty).
How are communism and fascism opposite in philosophy? They both hold that the good of the individual should be sacrificed for the good of the group. In practice, both end up being "rule by edict" rather than "rule of law".
You are correct that China is more of a fascist state than a communist one. Of course the difference between a fascist state and a capitalist one is much greater than the difference between a fascist state and a communist one. Of course, when it comes to governments, the important distinction is whether the government is "rule of law" or "rule of edict".
When faced with contradictory studies you don't ignore the science but rank the studies based on quality. Ignore the poor studies and weight the rest best on quality and derive your conclusion. And one of those conclusions may be that no conclusion can be made with the existing data.
Which leads to the same result as that of the poster you replied to: the person is left to his own beliefs to decide what is the best action to take relative to the problem the study addresses (in this case whether or not to consume food products with high fructose corn syrup).
Additionally there is another problem with your suggestion, what do I do when there are two or more contradictory studies that are on a subject that I do not have enough knowledge of to be able to rank the studies?
I just went back and looked at the article, it tells us nothing about what people do about science because they did a study on a subject that is not a real science. They studied students' reactions to papers on whether or not homosexuality is a mental illness. Since there is no objective definition of what "mental illness" is, how can you do a sientific paper on whether a particular behavior is evidnece of mental illness?
This is actually part of the problem, people working in many scientific disciplines attempt to reach scientific conclusions on things that are not subject to objective analysis.
Slashdot Mirror
An outright ban on lobbying would be nice in any case.
Except for the fact that lobbying is protected explicitly by the US Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In the U.S., in every jurisdiction I am aware of, slot machines are by law fixed to pay out a certain percentage of the amount that is put into them. I do not know the numbers, but a slot machine, by law, may not pay out more than a certain percentage or less than a certain lower percentage of the money played in it.
The thing that Barlow fails to understand is that the country was never well run from the center, even before the Internet. Most of the problems in this country are a result of attempting to run nationally things that are best run locally.
Please stay out of other's ppl's way of life. What makes you think you know best for the rest of the US, and by extension, the world?
I agree with that until I start thinking about what people might think is 'best'. Would it be fine with you if some city, country, or state allowed genital mutilation or slavery?
There are of countries that allow genital mutilation and slavery.
As opposed to most of the signers of Kyoto who said, "we will do x and Y," and then didn't?
The problem is, we can either say that AGW is a crisis that requires drastic action or we can say that we need to be fair and allow the developing world to expand its CO2 generation at whatever rate it wants. If AGW is the critical problem that those who propose massive change in the first world claim it is, then we don't have the luxury of being fair.
Sounds like an excellent way to spread disinformation.....even better than say.....the New York Times.
You know, even as recently as the salad days of my youth, I could have labeled you a troll for writing that about the NYT.
Now, alas, all I can do is nod my head sadly in agreement.
Of course, you would have been wrong. I would be surprised if there is anybody on this forum old enough to have a childhood before the NYT won a Pulitzer for its reports that the famine in the Ukraine under Stalin was not happening.
I'm sorry, I do not believe that happy place's comment is even close enough to the topic in the article to be orthogonal to it. I guess you could take that view since doctors and lawyers are mentioned in both the article and happy place's comment. I believe that is the only thing those two have in common.
Supporters of a national language generally do so because of the expense of having ballots printed in multiple languages (A county near where I live was required by the courts to publish their ballots in something like 80 languages, most of which had at most one speaker in the county in question), there are also other issues similar to this that are connected to the effort to establish English as the national language of the US. While it is possible that many of the people who support making English the official language of the US do so because they are offended by other languages being considered equal to English, they find it necessary to come up with another reason to justify the course of action they wish taken, even when speaking to those who are part of or sympathetic to their movement.
You give examples that you assert are examples of the right wanting to make it illegal to offend them, but you fail to demonstrate that is the actual motivation of those pushing for the position you are using as your example. If you wish I will give examples of those on the left taking positions calling for making offending them illegal.
It is improbable that stem cell research will in any way contribute to a cure for Alzheimer's.
I was unaware of anyone who wanted there to be a law against the Piss Christ. I know that a lot of people protested that their tax dollars were used to fund "art" that they considered offensive. I'm not sure how instituting an official national language (even if fluency in it is required for residency) is an attempt to make it a crime to offend someone.
Can you give me an example where religious fundies(non-Muslim) attempted to limit free speech in the same vein as the Taliban? You do understand that the left in the US has actually instituted limits on speech in areas where they have institutional control.
They're a half a world away,...
No, they aren't. Theo Van Gogh was killed in Denmark by someone who shares their view. The people who put up the website that led Comedy Central to censor South Park are in the US. So they aren't "half a world away", odds are pretty good that there are those who share their views attending the mosque that you attend.
Please don't let the vocal minority dominate the debate.
Then you (and other like-minded Muslims), need to confront that vocal minority and shut them up (or at least drown out their voices with your own). You need to let your elected representatives know that you oppose sharia being made the law of the land.
They aren't concerned with being perceived as fair, they are concerned with not being the target of violence.
You misunderstand, they will only ban all mockery of a religion whose adherents kill those who offend them.
I don't know about where you live, but in the US it is the left that wants to make it a crime to offend someone. In the US the left advocates free speech, but then when they are in positions of authority they limit freedom of speech to those they agree with.
Do you really believe that Apple's future profits will be enough greater than their last three years in the next three years to significantly change the number of years of profit it will take to pay back the cost of all of its stock? And that a Fortune 50 company in the health care industry will have its profits drop by enough in the next three years to extend the length of time it will take to pay back the cost of all of its stock by a significant amount?
Once upon a time, almost all stocks in profitable companies paid dividends. Those that didn't were special cases facing certain market changes that led them to reinvest that profit into the company for a short time. Then things changed and people got the idea that the best way to make money was to gamble on the future price of the stocks of a company and not worry about getting a share of the profits.
Many of the problems in current corporate governance are a result of the fact that the owners of most companies (the stockholders) no longer want a share of the profits. Instead of stockholders expecting to make money from the profits of the company they invest in, they expect to make money by selling their stake in the company to somebody else for more than they paid for it. That means that most stockholders are investing in a ponzi scheme. For example, if next week the overwhelming majority of people decide that Apple has no value and they continue to believe that to be true for the indefinite future to such a degree that current Apple share holders are unable to sell their stock, it will take somewhere close to 30 years for Apple share holders to get their money back (and actually probably much longer since Apple has never issued a dividend). On the other hand, if the same situation were to occur to the company the original poster mentioned, it would take a much shorter time for the stock holders to get their money back (especially considering that historically most major companies in the health care fields, do issue dividends).
As opposed to the Democrats who don't support individual decision on anything.
The problem is that we have allowed the left to define the political continuum. The left declared that fascism was the opposite of communism. When in fact, they are right next to each other on the continuum. The real political continuum is from those who say that the good of the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the group (fascism and communism) to those who say that the right of the individual to make their own decisions takes precedence over the good of the group (although most of them hold that the best good of the group results from individual sovereignty).
How are communism and fascism opposite in philosophy? They both hold that the good of the individual should be sacrificed for the good of the group. In practice, both end up being "rule by edict" rather than "rule of law".
Obviously, Brin, Page and Zuckerberg obviously haven't been giving as much to Conyers re-election campaign as he would like.
So, in other words, it wouldn't work in Communism either, because Communism doesn't work in real life.
Please give an example of where Communism actually worked according to theory.
You are correct that China is more of a fascist state than a communist one. Of course the difference between a fascist state and a capitalist one is much greater than the difference between a fascist state and a communist one. Of course, when it comes to governments, the important distinction is whether the government is "rule of law" or "rule of edict".
When faced with contradictory studies you don't ignore the science but rank the studies based on quality. Ignore the poor studies and weight the rest best on quality and derive your conclusion. And one of those conclusions may be that no conclusion can be made with the existing data.
Which leads to the same result as that of the poster you replied to: the person is left to his own beliefs to decide what is the best action to take relative to the problem the study addresses (in this case whether or not to consume food products with high fructose corn syrup).
Additionally there is another problem with your suggestion, what do I do when there are two or more contradictory studies that are on a subject that I do not have enough knowledge of to be able to rank the studies?
I just went back and looked at the article, it tells us nothing about what people do about science because they did a study on a subject that is not a real science. They studied students' reactions to papers on whether or not homosexuality is a mental illness. Since there is no objective definition of what "mental illness" is, how can you do a sientific paper on whether a particular behavior is evidnece of mental illness?
This is actually part of the problem, people working in many scientific disciplines attempt to reach scientific conclusions on things that are not subject to objective analysis.