Apparently you did not hear about the case of the campaign operative who was PROUD of voting for Obama multiple times in the same election.
Generally, most people consider "voter fraud" and "election rigging" to be interchangeable terms.
I love how you connect the election fraud to Republicans when all of the cases I know of involve Democrats. I know that I am more likely to remember Democratic election fraud because they are the Party which insists that it is an insignificant problem. However, I also know that there have been more cases of election fraud involving Democrats than Republicans.
Well, I cannot speak for your country, but in the U.S. voter fraud is pretty significant. In the last Presidential election there were numerous voting precincts where more people voted than there were people living in the precinct. Of course, there is no way to know how much voter fraud actually happens, since the government rarely looks for it.
ID is not necessarily required.
e.g. in Australia, you turn up to the polling station (usually a local school or whatever), go to the desk and tell them your name.
In the U.S., you have plenty to choose from in the first round. However, most Americans who do vote don't bother to vote until the final round. At which point everyone knows that one of two people is going to win (although there are often many more on the ballot). They than complain about the fact that they only have two choices.
Of course, if they would bother to vote in the primaries, they would have more choices. In addition, because so few people actually vote in the primaries, they could easily tip the vote at that stage to someone different.
It is a long step from saying that people will promote "solutions" they think will make things worse because they cannot get people to agree to their preferred "solution" to saying that those people are running things.
I am saying that if the Senate can remove the entire contents of a bill (including the title) and replace them with completely different contents, on a completely different subject, and it still meets the "originated in the House" provision of the Constitution, the Constitution no longer means anything at all.
Of course, considering many other things that have happened since 2012, I don't think the U.S. Constitution actually matters as far as what the U.S. government does any longer.
Since when have government run schools been "free market". In a free market, those who benefit from the purchase choose what to purchase and how much of their money to spend on it.
You can argue that those who are choosing to spend this money are the ones benefiting from it, but if you make that argument do not try to argue that the purpose is education.
The theory behind public education is that everyone benefits from a well educated population, therefore everyone should pay. The problem with that theory is that we then turn around and say that we should let experts decide how to spend the money. The "experts" can gain a lot more value for themselves from that money by allocating it in ways which do not improve educational results. So they do so.
Those of us who oppose the death penalty see no reason to "fix" the system, and instead prefer to keep it as dysfunctional as possible until there is enough popular will to abolish it.
Revealing a typical left wing tactic. When popular opinion opposes what you want, rather than argue the case and convince people to do things the way you would prefer introduce "improvements" to the current system which actually make it worse, then use the results of these "improvements" to argue that the system is hopelessly flawed and must be replaced.
are also big enough to go through the processes to properly train their people to ensure they're not causing disasters.
Well, I will point out that, in a different area of government regulation, ALL of the cases of food poisoning from USDA regulated companies have come from large companies, none of them from the small companies.
The reason for this is simple. In big companies the guy who makes the rules about how to comply with the regulations does not actually see the workers doing the work day in and day out. As a result, he is unaware when what they are doing does not meet standards for the procedure. Those who do see what the workers are doing have other priorities. As a result of these priorities, they either let the workers get away with not quite following the procedures because it would interfere with productivity, or they miss that the workers are not following the procedure because they are not watching for that.
OK, your comprehension of economics is pathetic. I hope no one ever relies on your money advice or any other economic advice.
As I said, you failed to explain where they were supposed to get money that did not come from their customers.
And where does that profit come from?
Whether they roll the amount of the universal service charge into the rest of what they charge you, or split it out as a separate line item on the bill does not change the fact that YOU are paying it. They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers.
The amount of their profit is a completely separate calculation which is determined by how much more than their costs they can charge their customers. When costs go up for an individual company, that company is likely to need to reduce its profit margin. However, when costs go up for an entire industry, the cost to the consumer goes up.
The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business. They have to get the money to pay it from somewhere. That somewhere is their customers. Yes, they could roll the universal service charge into the other charges rather than break it out as a separate item, but you would be paying it nonetheless.
The Iphone did not present a threat to Blackberry. What killed Blackberry was bad management. They abandoned their market to pursue the market opened by the Iphone. When Blackberry made this decision their sales were still growing but they were losing market share in the "smart phone" segment. What they failed to realize was that they were not in the "smart phone" business. They were in the "secure business phone" segment (secure may not quite be the right term, but it is probably how they should have viewed their market and represents the types of innovation they should have pursued).
Just yesterday on another thread someone asked "Wow, who is making the argument that we should 'sacrifice free speech for a better society'?" and today you come along and make that very argument.`
I think the real debate is not so much about freedom of speech - I would hope that everyone basically agrees with that to a large extent...
Except if you read the article I linked you discover that the author of that article does NOT agree with that. They appear to feel that no one should be allowed to express ideas which they find unacceptable.
Actually, yes it is. Censorship can indeed apply even if there is no government action involved. What does not come into play if there is no government action involved is the First Amendment
The FCC is trying to gather power for itself. My bet is that "net neutrality" will be like the Fairness Doctrine. It will be used to marginalize viewpoints, positions, and organizations which go against the government enforced orthodoxy.
If these rules were really what everyone believes net neutrality to be, why did the FCC Chairman insist on keeping the actual rules secret until they are actually passed?
That government granted monopoly was a federal law ALLOWING local government to interfere in the market and forbid other companies from competing with their ISP of choice. My understanding is that the courts had found against such arrangements until the federal law allowing them was passed.
So your answer to a problem created by the federal government is to give the federal government more power?
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently you did not hear about the case of the campaign operative who was PROUD of voting for Obama multiple times in the same election.
Generally, most people consider "voter fraud" and "election rigging" to be interchangeable terms.
I love how you connect the election fraud to Republicans when all of the cases I know of involve Democrats. I know that I am more likely to remember Democratic election fraud because they are the Party which insists that it is an insignificant problem. However, I also know that there have been more cases of election fraud involving Democrats than Republicans.
Well, I cannot speak for your country, but in the U.S. voter fraud is pretty significant. In the last Presidential election there were numerous voting precincts where more people voted than there were people living in the precinct. Of course, there is no way to know how much voter fraud actually happens, since the government rarely looks for it.
ID is not necessarily required. e.g. in Australia, you turn up to the polling station (usually a local school or whatever), go to the desk and tell them your name.
Or someone else's, how would they know?
If you use the honour system, how do you that the incidence rate of voter fraud is statistically insignificant?
In the U.S., you have plenty to choose from in the first round. However, most Americans who do vote don't bother to vote until the final round. At which point everyone knows that one of two people is going to win (although there are often many more on the ballot). They than complain about the fact that they only have two choices.
Of course, if they would bother to vote in the primaries, they would have more choices. In addition, because so few people actually vote in the primaries, they could easily tip the vote at that stage to someone different.
You are wrong, ecology theater has been around MUCH longer than security theater.
It is a long step from saying that people will promote "solutions" they think will make things worse because they cannot get people to agree to their preferred "solution" to saying that those people are running things.
I am saying that if the Senate can remove the entire contents of a bill (including the title) and replace them with completely different contents, on a completely different subject, and it still meets the "originated in the House" provision of the Constitution, the Constitution no longer means anything at all. Of course, considering many other things that have happened since 2012, I don't think the U.S. Constitution actually matters as far as what the U.S. government does any longer.
If that technicality is good enough to meet the Constitutional provision, then that Constitutional provision has no meaning.
Since when have government run schools been "free market". In a free market, those who benefit from the purchase choose what to purchase and how much of their money to spend on it.
You can argue that those who are choosing to spend this money are the ones benefiting from it, but if you make that argument do not try to argue that the purpose is education.
The theory behind public education is that everyone benefits from a well educated population, therefore everyone should pay. The problem with that theory is that we then turn around and say that we should let experts decide how to spend the money. The "experts" can gain a lot more value for themselves from that money by allocating it in ways which do not improve educational results. So they do so.
Those of us who oppose the death penalty see no reason to "fix" the system, and instead prefer to keep it as dysfunctional as possible until there is enough popular will to abolish it.
Revealing a typical left wing tactic. When popular opinion opposes what you want, rather than argue the case and convince people to do things the way you would prefer introduce "improvements" to the current system which actually make it worse, then use the results of these "improvements" to argue that the system is hopelessly flawed and must be replaced.
What would it take for a connected device, whether a wallet or a smoke detector, to gain mass appeal?
For it to only be connected to devices I own. I am sorry, but I just do not get the "Internet of things".
are also big enough to go through the processes to properly train their people to ensure they're not causing disasters.
Well, I will point out that, in a different area of government regulation, ALL of the cases of food poisoning from USDA regulated companies have come from large companies, none of them from the small companies.
The reason for this is simple. In big companies the guy who makes the rules about how to comply with the regulations does not actually see the workers doing the work day in and day out. As a result, he is unaware when what they are doing does not meet standards for the procedure. Those who do see what the workers are doing have other priorities. As a result of these priorities, they either let the workers get away with not quite following the procedures because it would interfere with productivity, or they miss that the workers are not following the procedure because they are not watching for that.
OK, your comprehension of economics is pathetic. I hope no one ever relies on your money advice or any other economic advice. As I said, you failed to explain where they were supposed to get money that did not come from their customers.
And where does that profit come from? Whether they roll the amount of the universal service charge into the rest of what they charge you, or split it out as a separate line item on the bill does not change the fact that YOU are paying it. They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers. The amount of their profit is a completely separate calculation which is determined by how much more than their costs they can charge their customers. When costs go up for an individual company, that company is likely to need to reduce its profit margin. However, when costs go up for an entire industry, the cost to the consumer goes up.
Really? Where do you suggest they get the money to pay it, if not from their customers?
In other words the provision in the Constitution where the Framers wrote that tax bills MUST originate in the House does not actually mean anything.
The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business. They have to get the money to pay it from somewhere. That somewhere is their customers. Yes, they could roll the universal service charge into the other charges rather than break it out as a separate item, but you would be paying it nonetheless.
The Iphone did not present a threat to Blackberry. What killed Blackberry was bad management. They abandoned their market to pursue the market opened by the Iphone. When Blackberry made this decision their sales were still growing but they were losing market share in the "smart phone" segment. What they failed to realize was that they were not in the "smart phone" business. They were in the "secure business phone" segment (secure may not quite be the right term, but it is probably how they should have viewed their market and represents the types of innovation they should have pursued).
Just yesterday on another thread someone asked "Wow, who is making the argument that we should 'sacrifice free speech for a better society'?" and today you come along and make that very argument.`
I think the real debate is not so much about freedom of speech - I would hope that everyone basically agrees with that to a large extent...
Except if you read the article I linked you discover that the author of that article does NOT agree with that. They appear to feel that no one should be allowed to express ideas which they find unacceptable.
Actually, yes it is. Censorship can indeed apply even if there is no government action involved. What does not come into play if there is no government action involved is the First Amendment
Wow, who is making the argument that we should "sacrifice free speech for a better society"?
The answer is this person, among others: http://www.thecrimson.com/colu...
The FCC is trying to gather power for itself. My bet is that "net neutrality" will be like the Fairness Doctrine. It will be used to marginalize viewpoints, positions, and organizations which go against the government enforced orthodoxy.
If these rules were really what everyone believes net neutrality to be, why did the FCC Chairman insist on keeping the actual rules secret until they are actually passed?
That government granted monopoly was a federal law ALLOWING local government to interfere in the market and forbid other companies from competing with their ISP of choice. My understanding is that the courts had found against such arrangements until the federal law allowing them was passed.
So your answer to a problem created by the federal government is to give the federal government more power?