There is absolutely no reason to thing that President Obama has ever smoked crack.
Glad I'm not the only one who makes this typo. I think that our fingers get so used to "ing" that we automatically type it. But why don't we mis-type "pink" as "ping", "link" as "ling", or "fink" as "fing"?
Maybe it is the "th" part. "Something", "Everything", "Nothing".
I'm not sure how to break this habit either. Word 2007 seems to pick this up, but none of the browser spell checks will.... anyway, back on topic I suppose.
That is all nice, but the byproduct of that process is that it is a bitch to write drivers for the kernel. Since the kernel development process is seen as a role model for how to develop open source projects, others follow suit. Result? There is no consistent application stack to build against--thus supporting the amorphous pool of code that comprises your average linux distro is a very, very expensive process.
The only way out is to open source your code. Some companies are cool with that, but many are not. Clearly the WoW guys are not. If you want the WoW guys back, you'd make it easy to sell profitable applications that run on linux. However, that would require a shift in the culture and values of the entire linux ecosystem and I'm fairly positive that such a shift would never, ever, happen.
Just because somebody things GIMP blows chunks compared to Photoshop doesn't make them a paid Microsoft shill. If anything it would make them a paid Adobe shill, wouldn't it? I mean, why would Microsoft try to promote Adobe products when it is trying to compete with them (MS Blend, Silverlight, etc..)? Kinda silly assumption, you think?
So really, who are you shilling for? The FSF? I wouldn't put it past them.
But the by product of the kernel developers actions does two things:
1) Establishes a tone and attitude that one should randomize your API to fight off proprietary software. 2) Actually works... see also this article.
If you you agree with that attitude, that is fine and I respect that. However, this article is an example of that attitude working. You cannot be for things like binary games like WoW running on Linux and still promote an attitude of actively making their life difficult. If you are doing it under the idea that it will encourage them to open-source, you will have to accept when companies choose to abandon Linux instead--as in this case.
So, how do we permit plugins while prohibiting proprietary plugins, and how do we do it while staying within the bounds of copyright law which is the basis of the GPL?......most people participating in the related discussions on the gcc mailing list, suggested already that an unstable plugin API would bring all major advantages of plugins in gcc, while complicating the scenario of proprietary plugins.
That is the first that comes to mind. I believe Linus himself has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "We don't promise a stable kernel ABI and if that means breaking binary drivers, oh well, in fact we might change the ABI just to break them on purpose!". Can't find the quote though.
And if you still aren't convinced, just browse the comments right here at Slashdot every time there is a story about some driver somewhere. There indeed exists a group of people who want to purposefully mix shit up hoping to scare certain kinds of developers away.
Yes, but by standardizing API's and kernel goo it would make it easy for so-called proprietary vendors like CCP to support Linux. According to som in the Linux community it is fact better to provide random API's that change all the time--that way proprietary vendors get scared off.
The fact that Linux is so hard for vendors like CCP is seen by some in the Linux community as a feature, not a bug. Hopefully, those very same people in the community are cheering CCP pulling out of native Linux support, as it clearly shows their plan is working as intended.
As weird as this sounds... I can't help but to wonder if there isn't some "reset button" we could press. Like just say "fuck it.. we all screwed the pooch on this housing business and we will just magically print money or do some slight of hand to make the problem go away. Nobody will get punished, just promise to never do it again:-)". I mean, could such a thing work if everybody on the globe agreed to some kind of "reset button"?
Like I said, it sounds weird, but I can't help but to tease such ideas.
The nation can't compete in the global economy unless we are well educated or we all take huge reductions in our lifestyles.
So what is your solution? Given I am quite happy with my lifestyle, I think I'll pick the door behind "education". The solution is really just the gradual refinement of our education system.
For example, we need to totally change how we teach math. It wasn't I took calculus that I really understand why I was learning all that bullshit-seeming stuff in grade school. Math is a language. It has syntax and rules. You speak "math" instead of "spanish" or "french" when you need to describe behavior in the world. Math needs to be taught from the ground up as "you are learning to speak a new and useful language... and for the next 12 year time we will show you all the rules. We will be covering all the places you want to speak math too--like when talking about population growth we speak math instead of English because English lacks the rules and syntax to describe exponential growth or decay."
There will always be problems in any solution. "Screw it all" isn't a very productive way to improving both child and adult education.
So we could all buy HDTV's and new hubcaps for our cars. I mean, we partially got into this mess by treating our homes as credit cards and then foreclosing on the house, why not re-fi the country and go buy more of the same, right?
Really though... writing a check to all of us is a really, really bad idea. Sure it would stimulate the economy, but once the buzz wore off we'd have have nothing to show for it but some new plasma screens and some new bling for our cars. Really, it would be doing *exactly the same thing* that got us into this mess in the first place.
If we are gonna stimulate the economy, lets *not* do what we've been doing. Lets actually use the loan to build *long term investments that last hundreds of years* instead of fucking spinnaz for the jeep, okay?
The "You get $X per kid" mentality is part of why school districts pad their numbers and school administrations make it so difficult to get rid of problem kid
Public universities and community colleges get their state funding based on how many students are enrolled.
The problem you describe is a real one. It is a byproduct of how educational institutions are currently getting funding. However, I can't really think of a better way to fund them. Giving them a fixed check every quarter regardless of head count would have just as much problems--the institutions would shift their behavior to discourage enrollment.
Besides "flat funding" or "funding per head", I can't really think of any other way to give them money. If I had to pick one, I'd pick "funding per head" as it would seem to be less prone to problems. The question then becomes, given my funding model, how to solve your set of problems. I dunno... you tell me!
When has the federal government ever done a good job of doing this?
If you accept my premise that it isn't "fair" or "just" that a kid born in "poorville, USA" can't get a comparable education dollar-wise as a kid born in "yuppietown, USA", you'd see that some level of the government has to level things. I think the feds are the best as you have "poorstate, USA" and "richstate, USA". Now the question becomes "okay, given the feds get to do this, lets make sure they do it right". I think we can do that, but I don't expect perfection either... government is a tricky business that can never be as efficient as private industry--they have a different set of constraints that pretty much necessitate them being less-efficient.
But what about those who are unemployed right now? The states don't have enough money to cover their asses until your plan (or anybodies) gets a foothold. And if they are unemployed, maybe you can make them a little more happy by giving them a job, even if it isn't ideal so instead of handing them an unemployment check every month you hand them a paycheck. If they are happy, maybe they'll go take their spouse to dinner or go buy that bike so they can get to work. Then the bikeshop can make payroll and their employees can go take their lovely significant others out for a dinner and maybe buy that new couch. Beats cutting them all a bunch of unemployment checks, doesn't it?
Hmmm... Sounds like the idea behind this stimulus thingy, doesn't it? Gotta do something in the short term for the long-term stuff to take effect. your corporate tax idea might work, but it won't happen overnight. Neither will any other long-term "get us all moving in the right direction" plan.
I am a bit hyper-sensitive to semantic-wars. Fair enough.
The crux of my original argument (or question, really) is...
How to you ensure every child has a fair go at things regardless of where they live in our country? I'm not looking for perfection, it would be impossible. I'm looking for anything. My chip at the solution is simply that the federal government ensures a level financial playing field (and I dare you to define what I'm talking about without using "level" *and* without typing more words then this parenthetical note:-). The problem with my idea is of course the same as what happened with highway funding--strings get attached.
There is no perfect solution. But I believe it is fair to say that it the fact that schools funded by communities with "rich parents" and a big tax base are at an advantage over those with a small tax-base and "poor parents". I believe that, yes, wont somebody please think of the children. I also believe that the federal government is probably the best, most efficient way to level the financial aspect of education. States can't do it because even their tax-base varies per-capita.
And to cover my ass with the classic "but $PORK and $WASTEFULL_SPENDING"... I say: so what? Yeah some rich school piss away money like candy, but that is a different problem and doesn't negate the fact there *is* a problem. Maybe the solution sucked. Maybe the legislation sucked. But that doesn't mean the problem isn't a real one. Just because there is abuse or even the potential for abuse doesn't mean we should never try solving a problem. I mean, if we never tried solving problems, you wouldn't be coding Slash because $TROLLS, $SQL_INJECTION, $BUFFER_OVERFLOW, $COMMENT_SPAMERS and whatnot.
As far as constitutionality, that is somewhat of a separate debate. I don't believe the solution is say "the feds can't do anything, see also: the constitution". And besides, anything you cook up against me I'll label "but this is for the general welfare" and from there we go back and forth without ever trying to solve the damn problem:-)
Dude. You know what I meant by level funding and I'm not going to bother defining my terms to make pedants happy. If you want to take "level" to mean literally "the same fucking dollar value everywhere" and tear into your nice happy definition, suit yourself. Keep in mind you are wasting your time because we are talking abstract stuff here, not programming. Politics, economics, and life in general are fuzzy, abstract things.
Seriously. Semantic wars are boring, useless and really just a way to show off. It is one of the worst traits found in some otherwise very smart people.
Hah, you picked apart a single word tacked on the front of funding--"level" and decided to go on a rant about cost-of-living even though that really has *nothing* to do with the broad concept being discussed. We call that kind of thing semantics and while a alot of smart people I know love to play silly semantic games, quite frankly I find it very boring and useless. It leads to discussions where you have to define every single word you type.
Why don't we try solving problems instead of partisan bickering. We all want the same damn thing--a good education for our kids, right?
Pretty much everything you said is right on. My main argument was (at least I hoped), that the federal government can ensure that everybody gets the same funding (and please dont play the "OMG different cost of living" semantic game that pudge did, you know what I mean... sheesh;-).
I'd argue very strongly that a child born in po-dunk USA with a tiny tax base gets the ability to access the same learning materials and brainpower (i.e. teachers) as somebody living in some rich suburb full of software engineers. As to how that funding is actually managed, that is up to the neighborhood or city.
This is a bit off track, but seriously? You think teaching intelligent design is something a taxpayer funded school should be doing? Good sir, I beg to differ. Ain't that a violation of another one of those pesky lines in the constitution--you know, the one about separation of church and state?
The only way to determine what IS a good education is for the COMMUNITY to determine it.
What if the community doesn't have a large enough tax base to pay for it? What if they barely have any tax base to pay for a quality eduation? Fuck 'em? Move to a place with rich parents who generate a more substantial tax base?
we [Americans] value providing a fair chance to anybody regardless of socio-economic status
You agree with this, yet you cannot see how letting communities or even states be entirely responsible for school funding can lead to huge disparity in education between geographic regions?
Level per-student funding for every school district in the nation will ENSURE INEQUITY, because different school districts are in different areas where costs are different! This is a no-brainer.
This is a cop-out to avoid solving problems. Obviously different areas cost less. You either adjust the payout based on geography or do something. You dont bury your head in the sand over silly semantics.
That said, there is no way in hell you could give different dollar amounts based on cost-of-living. Politically, it would never work. If it were possible, the IRS would have forked over a larger rebate check last year for us in Seattle because our cost of living is higher then in Po-dunk, USA. Sucks, but that is life...
You really don't understand the law, the concept of rights, or the education system.
You dont seem understand why these systems exist and why they might have evolved into what they are now. The world is more complex then when George Washington was president.
I agree with you 100%. Which is why pretty much the only thing the feds can legislate is bills that level the financial playing field. The *can* however, say words that have no legal impact. Words like "read to your children instead of park them in front of the TV".
Have another kid and you get no extra money.
This sounds good on the surface, but I'm not sure it is "correct" and you'd have to tack on things that would make some uncomfortable. I'm thinking things like sex-ed, contraceptives, abortion, adoption... that kind of thing. People are gonna do the nasty no matter what it does to their tax status--you best provide people options to both prevent pregnancy and help them out in case they do get pregnant. There is probably a reason nobody proposes what you say, even if it might a workable solution. It would be a mess politically--but I think if somebody was bold enough we could pull something off--it wouldn't be exactly what you want though.
Offer tax rebates for volenteer hours spent at your own child's public school
Better yet, make hours spend doing volunteer work with non-profits (and schools) something you can deduct the same way as other charitable donations. As always though... how do you value the hourly wage? I can see a million ways to exploit either of our plans if not careful.
One wants to spend it here, the other wants to spend it offshore by "investing" in the spread of democracy. I'd say the offshore "investors" kinda got a negative return on their investment, wouldn't you?
I'd even go so far as to say part of this mess is because we choose to "liberate their freedoms" instead of fixing our fucking busted ass infrastructure and building new infrastructure like a modern electric grid. Had we done that instead of freedom fighting, we might be in a place were we wouldn't be dependent on those evil terrorists who hate our freedoms (but not our fries).
In short, Nader is an idiot. The two parties, in fact, are not at all the same and if one doesn't see that after eight years of the freedom-fighter crowd, said person is a fool. You think we'd be in Iraq right now if the other guy won 8 years ago?
There is a big fucking difference in how democrats vs republicans spend. Huge, in fact.
Build new trains. Keeps the steelworkers employed, improves our transit... you know. Smart investment.
How does extending unemployment benefits create jobs?
It doesn't. But it keeps the people unemployeed from moving into one of these. Or fuckem, right?... you know those were named hoovervilles for a reason.
I'll agree about birth control though. Even though the number is small compared to everything else--politically it was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to put into a bill like this. Why provide ammo.
That is basically turning the government into a credit card. People would go buy HDTV's that last 5 years. We would go pay off debt with new debt (or are you assuming this money is magic money that we never repay?). We would blow it on hookers and booze (those last 1 day). But we would *not* buy an energy grid that would enable us to invest heavily in distributed power tech like wind or solar--those would give us returns for hundreds of years. We would not go repair a road and keep it around for another 40 years. We would not go build a light rail to keep our children's children moving around our cities. Nope. Hookers, booze and HDTV's--none of that lasts more then 10 years. We just flushed a couple trillion down the drain... nice.
What you propose is refinancing your house to buy new spinnaz to bling out your Escalade. Your plan basically has us refinancing our damn country to buy more bling. Haven't we dont that already? Isn't that a good part of the reason we are in this damn mess now? You think doing more of it will help?
You dont refinance your damn house to buy a fucking boat or a new car! You refinance your damn house to build a kitchen or put another floor on it. You know, something that will increase the value of the house. If we are gonna refinance our country, lets spend the money in a way that improves the value of the country... not go spend it on hookers and booze.
And while we are at it, lets dump Brown vs. Board of Education too while we are at it, eh? After all, if a state wants to start segregating schools you can just move to another state, right? Or if the state wants all their public schools to teach intelligent design, you should either hold your nose or move--under no circumstance should you appeal to those pesky activist judges in the the federal courts, right?
Want to improve education? Operate at the neighborhood level. The community can figure out the best way to educate their kids. But the devil is in the details and here in America, we value providing a fair chance to anybody regardless of socio-economic status. That means the federal government has an obligation to make sure a child in one state has as good of an education as in another. That means that regardless of what crazy sounding idea the neighborhood comes up with, a student there should graduate with the same knowledge as from some other place. One of the easiest roles the federal government can play in ensuring equity is leveling the playing field so all school districts get the same funding.
PS: good luck with killing the teachers union--you wouldn't win an election on that platform.
And corporal punishment? Seriously? I've been trolled, haven't I:-)
You know, the congressional budget office is just one group. And most people bitching are bitching about the items in the bill, now the general concept of a stimulus package.
The fact we are in a recession isn't up for debate. If you want to bitch, you should offer a solution. If you think there should be no solution, well, sorry buddy but that is just not right.
1 billion seems like a lot. That said, there is probably a justification for it. Who uses census data? I bet it isn't just the government, but private industry as well. Having good stats about your citizens might make it easier for private industry to forecast things. It might provide better population growth models for cities that use them (hint: if you've ever read the EIS for any kind of mass transit, they make heavy use of population growth to figure out ridership, tax revenue to pay back bonds, etc).
Some things seem kind of boring. Kind of like a water heater. It costs a bit of money and you might be tempted to get a cheap-ass one, but if you invest in a better one it will pay back over the long term. 1 billion to the census guys might be something like that.
IANCE (i am no census expert)
Lastly... converter boxes = people go out to cash in on said converter box at Best Buy / Frys and maybe buy some other shit while they are at it. Plus those fuckers owe us these coupons anyway--dont forget they sold that spectrum for a bazillion bux, so they better damn well fork over the cash for converter boxes.
Slashdot Mirror
Glad I'm not the only one who makes this typo. I think that our fingers get so used to "ing" that we automatically type it. But why don't we mis-type "pink" as "ping", "link" as "ling", or "fink" as "fing"?
Maybe it is the "th" part. "Something", "Everything", "Nothing".
I'm not sure how to break this habit either. Word 2007 seems to pick this up, but none of the browser spell checks will. ... anyway, back on topic I suppose.
er, the EVE online guys. not the WoW guys. Apologies :-)
That is all nice, but the byproduct of that process is that it is a bitch to write drivers for the kernel. Since the kernel development process is seen as a role model for how to develop open source projects, others follow suit. Result? There is no consistent application stack to build against--thus supporting the amorphous pool of code that comprises your average linux distro is a very, very expensive process.
The only way out is to open source your code. Some companies are cool with that, but many are not. Clearly the WoW guys are not. If you want the WoW guys back, you'd make it easy to sell profitable applications that run on linux. However, that would require a shift in the culture and values of the entire linux ecosystem and I'm fairly positive that such a shift would never, ever, happen.
Just because somebody things GIMP blows chunks compared to Photoshop doesn't make them a paid Microsoft shill. If anything it would make them a paid Adobe shill, wouldn't it? I mean, why would Microsoft try to promote Adobe products when it is trying to compete with them (MS Blend, Silverlight, etc..)? Kinda silly assumption, you think?
So really, who are you shilling for? The FSF? I wouldn't put it past them.
But the by product of the kernel developers actions does two things:
1) Establishes a tone and attitude that one should randomize your API to fight off proprietary software.
2) Actually works... see also this article.
If you you agree with that attitude, that is fine and I respect that. However, this article is an example of that attitude working. You cannot be for things like binary games like WoW running on Linux and still promote an attitude of actively making their life difficult. If you are doing it under the idea that it will encourage them to open-source, you will have to accept when companies choose to abandon Linux instead--as in this case.
- GCC Plugin Wiki
That is the first that comes to mind. I believe Linus himself has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "We don't promise a stable kernel ABI and if that means breaking binary drivers, oh well, in fact we might change the ABI just to break them on purpose!". Can't find the quote though.
And if you still aren't convinced, just browse the comments right here at Slashdot every time there is a story about some driver somewhere. There indeed exists a group of people who want to purposefully mix shit up hoping to scare certain kinds of developers away.
Yes, but by standardizing API's and kernel goo it would make it easy for so-called proprietary vendors like CCP to support Linux. According to som in the Linux community it is fact better to provide random API's that change all the time--that way proprietary vendors get scared off.
The fact that Linux is so hard for vendors like CCP is seen by some in the Linux community as a feature, not a bug. Hopefully, those very same people in the community are cheering CCP pulling out of native Linux support, as it clearly shows their plan is working as intended.
As weird as this sounds... I can't help but to wonder if there isn't some "reset button" we could press. Like just say "fuck it.. we all screwed the pooch on this housing business and we will just magically print money or do some slight of hand to make the problem go away. Nobody will get punished, just promise to never do it again :-)". I mean, could such a thing work if everybody on the globe agreed to some kind of "reset button"?
Like I said, it sounds weird, but I can't help but to tease such ideas.
The nation can't compete in the global economy unless we are well educated or we all take huge reductions in our lifestyles.
So what is your solution? Given I am quite happy with my lifestyle, I think I'll pick the door behind "education". The solution is really just the gradual refinement of our education system.
For example, we need to totally change how we teach math. It wasn't I took calculus that I really understand why I was learning all that bullshit-seeming stuff in grade school. Math is a language. It has syntax and rules. You speak "math" instead of "spanish" or "french" when you need to describe behavior in the world. Math needs to be taught from the ground up as "you are learning to speak a new and useful language... and for the next 12 year time we will show you all the rules. We will be covering all the places you want to speak math too--like when talking about population growth we speak math instead of English because English lacks the rules and syntax to describe exponential growth or decay."
There will always be problems in any solution. "Screw it all" isn't a very productive way to improving both child and adult education.
So we could all buy HDTV's and new hubcaps for our cars. I mean, we partially got into this mess by treating our homes as credit cards and then foreclosing on the house, why not re-fi the country and go buy more of the same, right?
Really though... writing a check to all of us is a really, really bad idea. Sure it would stimulate the economy, but once the buzz wore off we'd have have nothing to show for it but some new plasma screens and some new bling for our cars. Really, it would be doing *exactly the same thing* that got us into this mess in the first place.
If we are gonna stimulate the economy, lets *not* do what we've been doing. Lets actually use the loan to build *long term investments that last hundreds of years* instead of fucking spinnaz for the jeep, okay?
Public universities and community colleges get their state funding based on how many students are enrolled.
The problem you describe is a real one. It is a byproduct of how educational institutions are currently getting funding. However, I can't really think of a better way to fund them. Giving them a fixed check every quarter regardless of head count would have just as much problems--the institutions would shift their behavior to discourage enrollment.
Besides "flat funding" or "funding per head", I can't really think of any other way to give them money. If I had to pick one, I'd pick "funding per head" as it would seem to be less prone to problems. The question then becomes, given my funding model, how to solve your set of problems. I dunno... you tell me!
If you accept my premise that it isn't "fair" or "just" that a kid born in "poorville, USA" can't get a comparable education dollar-wise as a kid born in "yuppietown, USA", you'd see that some level of the government has to level things. I think the feds are the best as you have "poorstate, USA" and "richstate, USA". Now the question becomes "okay, given the feds get to do this, lets make sure they do it right". I think we can do that, but I don't expect perfection either... government is a tricky business that can never be as efficient as private industry--they have a different set of constraints that pretty much necessitate them being less-efficient.
But what about those who are unemployed right now? The states don't have enough money to cover their asses until your plan (or anybodies) gets a foothold. And if they are unemployed, maybe you can make them a little more happy by giving them a job, even if it isn't ideal so instead of handing them an unemployment check every month you hand them a paycheck. If they are happy, maybe they'll go take their spouse to dinner or go buy that bike so they can get to work. Then the bikeshop can make payroll and their employees can go take their lovely significant others out for a dinner and maybe buy that new couch. Beats cutting them all a bunch of unemployment checks, doesn't it?
Hmmm... Sounds like the idea behind this stimulus thingy, doesn't it? Gotta do something in the short term for the long-term stuff to take effect. your corporate tax idea might work, but it won't happen overnight. Neither will any other long-term "get us all moving in the right direction" plan.
I am a bit hyper-sensitive to semantic-wars. Fair enough.
The crux of my original argument (or question, really) is...
How to you ensure every child has a fair go at things regardless of where they live in our country? I'm not looking for perfection, it would be impossible. I'm looking for anything. My chip at the solution is simply that the federal government ensures a level financial playing field (and I dare you to define what I'm talking about without using "level" *and* without typing more words then this parenthetical note :-). The problem with my idea is of course the same as what happened with highway funding--strings get attached.
There is no perfect solution. But I believe it is fair to say that it the fact that schools funded by communities with "rich parents" and a big tax base are at an advantage over those with a small tax-base and "poor parents". I believe that, yes, wont somebody please think of the children. I also believe that the federal government is probably the best, most efficient way to level the financial aspect of education. States can't do it because even their tax-base varies per-capita.
And to cover my ass with the classic "but $PORK and $WASTEFULL_SPENDING"... I say: so what? Yeah some rich school piss away money like candy, but that is a different problem and doesn't negate the fact there *is* a problem. Maybe the solution sucked. Maybe the legislation sucked. But that doesn't mean the problem isn't a real one. Just because there is abuse or even the potential for abuse doesn't mean we should never try solving a problem. I mean, if we never tried solving problems, you wouldn't be coding Slash because $TROLLS, $SQL_INJECTION, $BUFFER_OVERFLOW, $COMMENT_SPAMERS and whatnot.
As far as constitutionality, that is somewhat of a separate debate. I don't believe the solution is say "the feds can't do anything, see also: the constitution". And besides, anything you cook up against me I'll label "but this is for the general welfare" and from there we go back and forth without ever trying to solve the damn problem :-)
Dude. You know what I meant by level funding and I'm not going to bother defining my terms to make pedants happy. If you want to take "level" to mean literally "the same fucking dollar value everywhere" and tear into your nice happy definition, suit yourself. Keep in mind you are wasting your time because we are talking abstract stuff here, not programming. Politics, economics, and life in general are fuzzy, abstract things.
Seriously. Semantic wars are boring, useless and really just a way to show off. It is one of the worst traits found in some otherwise very smart people.
Who else would it be :-)
(PS: Texans amuse me, they are also the best drivers in the country :-)
Hah, you picked apart a single word tacked on the front of funding--"level" and decided to go on a rant about cost-of-living even though that really has *nothing* to do with the broad concept being discussed. We call that kind of thing semantics and while a alot of smart people I know love to play silly semantic games, quite frankly I find it very boring and useless. It leads to discussions where you have to define every single word you type.
Dont take what you read so literally, ass ;-)
Why don't we try solving problems instead of partisan bickering. We all want the same damn thing--a good education for our kids, right?
Pretty much everything you said is right on. My main argument was (at least I hoped), that the federal government can ensure that everybody gets the same funding (and please dont play the "OMG different cost of living" semantic game that pudge did, you know what I mean... sheesh ;-).
I'd argue very strongly that a child born in po-dunk USA with a tiny tax base gets the ability to access the same learning materials and brainpower (i.e. teachers) as somebody living in some rich suburb full of software engineers. As to how that funding is actually managed, that is up to the neighborhood or city.
This is a bit off track, but seriously? You think teaching intelligent design is something a taxpayer funded school should be doing? Good sir, I beg to differ. Ain't that a violation of another one of those pesky lines in the constitution--you know, the one about separation of church and state?
What if the community doesn't have a large enough tax base to pay for it? What if they barely have any tax base to pay for a quality eduation? Fuck 'em? Move to a place with rich parents who generate a more substantial tax base?
You agree with this, yet you cannot see how letting communities or even states be entirely responsible for school funding can lead to huge disparity in education between geographic regions?
This is a cop-out to avoid solving problems. Obviously different areas cost less. You either adjust the payout based on geography or do something. You dont bury your head in the sand over silly semantics.
That said, there is no way in hell you could give different dollar amounts based on cost-of-living. Politically, it would never work. If it were possible, the IRS would have forked over a larger rebate check last year for us in Seattle because our cost of living is higher then in Po-dunk, USA. Sucks, but that is life...
You dont seem understand why these systems exist and why they might have evolved into what they are now. The world is more complex then when George Washington was president.
I agree with you 100%. Which is why pretty much the only thing the feds can legislate is bills that level the financial playing field. The *can* however, say words that have no legal impact. Words like "read to your children instead of park them in front of the TV".
This sounds good on the surface, but I'm not sure it is "correct" and you'd have to tack on things that would make some uncomfortable. I'm thinking things like sex-ed, contraceptives, abortion, adoption... that kind of thing. People are gonna do the nasty no matter what it does to their tax status--you best provide people options to both prevent pregnancy and help them out in case they do get pregnant. There is probably a reason nobody proposes what you say, even if it might a workable solution. It would be a mess politically--but I think if somebody was bold enough we could pull something off--it wouldn't be exactly what you want though.
Better yet, make hours spend doing volunteer work with non-profits (and schools) something you can deduct the same way as other charitable donations. As always though... how do you value the hourly wage? I can see a million ways to exploit either of our plans if not careful.
One wants to spend it here, the other wants to spend it offshore by "investing" in the spread of democracy. I'd say the offshore "investors" kinda got a negative return on their investment, wouldn't you?
I'd even go so far as to say part of this mess is because we choose to "liberate their freedoms" instead of fixing our fucking busted ass infrastructure and building new infrastructure like a modern electric grid. Had we done that instead of freedom fighting, we might be in a place were we wouldn't be dependent on those evil terrorists who hate our freedoms (but not our fries).
In short, Nader is an idiot. The two parties, in fact, are not at all the same and if one doesn't see that after eight years of the freedom-fighter crowd, said person is a fool. You think we'd be in Iraq right now if the other guy won 8 years ago?
There is a big fucking difference in how democrats vs republicans spend. Huge, in fact.
Build new trains. Keeps the steelworkers employed, improves our transit... you know. Smart investment.
It doesn't. But it keeps the people unemployeed from moving into one of these. Or fuckem, right? ... you know those were named hoovervilles for a reason.
Ah yes, ACORN, the freeper boogy man. Booh!!! ACORN!!! BOOO!!! ...scared yet?
I'll agree about birth control though. Even though the number is small compared to everything else--politically it was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to put into a bill like this. Why provide ammo.
That is basically turning the government into a credit card. People would go buy HDTV's that last 5 years. We would go pay off debt with new debt (or are you assuming this money is magic money that we never repay?). We would blow it on hookers and booze (those last 1 day). But we would *not* buy an energy grid that would enable us to invest heavily in distributed power tech like wind or solar--those would give us returns for hundreds of years. We would not go repair a road and keep it around for another 40 years. We would not go build a light rail to keep our children's children moving around our cities. Nope. Hookers, booze and HDTV's--none of that lasts more then 10 years. We just flushed a couple trillion down the drain... nice.
What you propose is refinancing your house to buy new spinnaz to bling out your Escalade. Your plan basically has us refinancing our damn country to buy more bling. Haven't we dont that already? Isn't that a good part of the reason we are in this damn mess now? You think doing more of it will help?
You dont refinance your damn house to buy a fucking boat or a new car! You refinance your damn house to build a kitchen or put another floor on it. You know, something that will increase the value of the house. If we are gonna refinance our country, lets spend the money in a way that improves the value of the country... not go spend it on hookers and booze.
And while we are at it, lets dump Brown vs. Board of Education too while we are at it, eh? After all, if a state wants to start segregating schools you can just move to another state, right? Or if the state wants all their public schools to teach intelligent design, you should either hold your nose or move--under no circumstance should you appeal to those pesky activist judges in the the federal courts, right?
Want to improve education? Operate at the neighborhood level. The community can figure out the best way to educate their kids. But the devil is in the details and here in America, we value providing a fair chance to anybody regardless of socio-economic status. That means the federal government has an obligation to make sure a child in one state has as good of an education as in another. That means that regardless of what crazy sounding idea the neighborhood comes up with, a student there should graduate with the same knowledge as from some other place. One of the easiest roles the federal government can play in ensuring equity is leveling the playing field so all school districts get the same funding.
PS: good luck with killing the teachers union--you wouldn't win an election on that platform.
And corporal punishment? Seriously? I've been trolled, haven't I :-)
You know, the congressional budget office is just one group. And most people bitching are bitching about the items in the bill, now the general concept of a stimulus package.
The fact we are in a recession isn't up for debate. If you want to bitch, you should offer a solution. If you think there should be no solution, well, sorry buddy but that is just not right.
1 billion seems like a lot. That said, there is probably a justification for it. Who uses census data? I bet it isn't just the government, but private industry as well. Having good stats about your citizens might make it easier for private industry to forecast things. It might provide better population growth models for cities that use them (hint: if you've ever read the EIS for any kind of mass transit, they make heavy use of population growth to figure out ridership, tax revenue to pay back bonds, etc).
Some things seem kind of boring. Kind of like a water heater. It costs a bit of money and you might be tempted to get a cheap-ass one, but if you invest in a better one it will pay back over the long term. 1 billion to the census guys might be something like that.
IANCE (i am no census expert)
Lastly... converter boxes = people go out to cash in on said converter box at Best Buy / Frys and maybe buy some other shit while they are at it. Plus those fuckers owe us these coupons anyway--dont forget they sold that spectrum for a bazillion bux, so they better damn well fork over the cash for converter boxes.