wow, if I were you I'd be begging for a "Delete Post" function to be "magic'd" into existence. You show a complete lack of understanding about the way the banking system actually works. I mean, it's so bad that one could easily assume you posted these things just for the amusement of your fellow slashdotters, as there's no way a "nerd" could be this retarded about such things.
As somebody else said, NOTHING IS MAGIC.
1. The money that you claim they "created" actually comes from the promissory notes from the loans they give out. Loans are usually secured in some way, either by collateral or real property. Even with credit cards: many of the things you buy can and will be repo'd if the bank needs to. This is why negative equity is such a bad thing in our economy. If you have a $500k mortgage on a home that is now only worth $400k, the bank just has to HOPE that you pay it back (Well, not really, they just have to hope that EVERYONE doesn't stop paying, because they could easily foreclose your home and hold on to it until the market is better. The real problem would be if this happened enough to harm the liquidity of the bank)
2. Your little scenario assumes that there is basically only one bank, where everyone in the world banks, and that every dollar they lend out goes back into the bank as a deposit into someone elses account. Needless to say, this is not exactly how things work.
You do realize that you can port prepaid numbers, right? I'm assuming you're in the USA, and if you are, you can go buy a prepaid phone today from any carrier, and, at any time, port that number to any other carrier, be it another prepaid account or whatever.
That would only work if EVERYONE had an iPhone. If I were you, and I wanted to write that app, I'd just support Windows Mobile and whatever OS that blackberrys and palms run (do palms still run palmOS? for some reason i think i heard they abandoned it..). That would be loads more accurate than an iPhone-based solution.
Well said. You're exactly right about the oil crises. It just so happened that huge oil reserves were found in Siberia at the same time as global increases in oil prices. This kept them going for a while.
And you're also right about the huge ratio of military spending to the GDP. And about the T72. I believe this was said best by Stalin: "Quantity has a quality all its own."
But one thing that you didn't touch on that led to their crippled industrial production is just a horribly inefficient system. For example, steel mills were graded only on their output tonnage, and the commanders of these factories were promoted up the party ranks if they did well. (And you can only imagine what happened to them if they didn't). So you had a common problem of every steel mill creating only 1/2" or 1/4" thick sheeting despite the fact that what the downstream factories really needed was much thinner more pliable steel. So their auto factories, for example, had to mill down the thick steel into a workable dimension before they could use it. (Which also led to cars that were MUCH heavier than their US counterparts, which creates scores of problems in itself).
Anyone interested in this stuff (and the Soviet collapse in particular) should read Armageddon Averted by Steven Kotkin which looks at the collapse as happening between 1970 and 1990.
Another interesting tidbit that I remember from the book: In the Soviet Union typewriters were more closely regulated than handguns. You had to register each typewriter with your local government. Just in case anyone ever doubted that the pen is, indeed, mightier than the sword
That wasn't a Video Player. It was a VIDEO EDITOR.
Assuming that you could even write that app in ActionScript it would KILL your browser. But more on point, the real power there is that you have the entire.Net technology stack available to you. That's the largest library ever shipped with a language.
When it comes down to it, ActionScript is an ECMA variation. I, for one, would not want to write a f'in VIDEO EDITOR in what amounts to JavaScript with an integrated UI layer.
I don't think Echelon is in use any more. No, that's not a good thing. IIRC, the new system is far more powerful.
And I'm curious why you think a Democratic president would declare martial law.. every one of the problem we're talking about have been created by the current Repuglican administration.
Pre-Watergate the press corps actually respected boundaries in the lives of public officials. I mean, practically nobody in the entire nation knew that FDR couldn't walk! But Nixon changed everything. People lost significant amounts of trust in their government, so there was no longer any backlash against newspapers for digging deeper. And since the people demanded it, politicians could no longer seek "retribution" against adversarial press outlets by threatening to withhold access.
Couple this with the advent of the 24 hour news cycle at virtually the same time, and a new type of journalism was born. In my opinion, the only people that benefit from this are the editors watching their Circ./rating numbers go up. Running for President now is such a degrading experience. You're not treated like the statesmen you probably are if you're actually in contention for the office. You're treated with about as much dignity as we give criminals and suspects, maybe even less!
Could Kennedy be elected today? Would he even try?
I stand by my top-10 argument. It's worth noting that top 10 only means top 25 percentile. That's a "C." it's not exactly the most stellar endorsement. There is a lot of intersection between our two lists, though. Some comments:
1. I disagree with Jefferson. He was a far better "founding father" than President. Yes, he had maybe the best innagural address ever ("We are all federalists. We are all republicans") but he dramatically increased the powers of the executive in ways that I, personally, don't think are good. As a F.F., though, he was an advocate of a legally-mandated constitutional convention every 20 years because every generation is as free as the one before it to chose the type of government they prefer.
2. Madison? I'm not exactly sure what Madison did that was so special. He started an ill-fated war that we ended up losing. Again, he was more important as a F.F. During his years in the White House his wife made more of a contribution to our modern history books than he himself did, it seems.
3. I agree with you on T.R. I love so much about his story. The way he was put in the Veep slot so he couldn't cause more trouble for others. His beginnings as police commissioner in new york. He had vision and guts and charisma and embodies everything we now call "Presidential."
4. I seriously disagree with Eisenhower. I can think of 2 contributions he made to our society. First was the interstate highway system. But that wasn't his idea. It just so happened that he was President while it happened. Second was his farewell address to the nation where he coined the term "Military Industrial Complex." Once again, he did far more for our country BEFORE he became President.
5. I agree whole heartedly with Lincoln, Washington & FDR. But, IMO, Washington should be ommitted from every "Best Prez's" list because he's a given. He was the first, he set a great precedent, etc etc etc. It's impossible to judge him on his relative merits because there's nobody to judge him against.
6. I love Wilson. Most people don't. He was tarnished by the unfortunate stroke. He was the only Prez w/ a PhD and the only one, AFAIK, to travel abroad while still President. The notion that Edith Wilson ran the country for all those months is similarly intriguing to me.
7. I love Kennedy and I respect Reagan (and both of their speech writers ["We will never forget them, or the last time we saw them. This morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god"] -- PRICELESS). I wonder, though: is it that they had more vision or is it that they were just better at communicating it?
8. Nixon.. Nixon, Nixon, Nixon. See, this one is hard.
First, domestically. He had a decent domestic policy. Created the EPA & OSHA and passed Affirmative Action laws. (AA laws get a lot of flak now but no question they were needed when they were passed. Perhaps they're not needed now--I can't say for sure--but they went a long way towards closing the income gap between whites & minorities) Yet, at the same time, there was his kludge of a response to the riots, etc, and, of course, watergate.
And regarding foreign policy, he showed similar genius. His adversarial relationship w/ Kissinger seemed to create a perfect storm of foreign policy. Triangulating China & the USSR was genius. Opening China's 750,000,000 citizens to US markets, helping usher in the changes that led to todays modern Chinese economy, was similarly inspired. Yet again it was tainted by an absolute BUNGLING of Vietnam. He ran in '68 on ending the war. He ran again in '72 on ENDING THE SAME WAR. During that time an add'l 30,000 Americans were KIA.
I consider him an enigma.
In Summary, my top 10 would include (in no particular order):
Lincoln Wilson TR FDR Truman Kennedy Reagan (begrudgingly. I am not a fan of his policies but he was a NATURAL at the job) Clinton Jackson
Look at the choices Hillary has made going all the way back to her days in University. Her role in student body leadership against Watergate and Vietnam were unquestionably liberal. Her role as a staffer for the House Judiciary committee during Watergate: Liberal. Her choice to serve on the boards of the New World Foundation and Children's Defense Fund: Liberal.
She was given EXCELLENT scores by:
-American Civil Liberties Union -Americans for Democratic Action -Children's Defense Fund -League of Conservation Voters -National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League -National Parent-Teacher Associationet. -Service Employees International Union
A recent Rasmussen survey found a pluarality of voters consider her "liberal:"
"Forty-seven percent (47%) of Americans now see New York's junior Senator as politically liberal. Thirty-four percent (34%) see her as a moderate, up 4 points from the last Hillary Meter survey."
Hillary has grasped uber-liberal issues with both hands, including pro-choice, pro universal healthcare, anti vouchers, pro Kyoto, pro gun control, etc.
Hillary is not Dukakis liberal, but she's also more liberal that her husband.
It's funny to me that you paint both Clintons with the same brush. Anyone that's spent any time listening to their positions can see that hey share common ground but they're approaching politics from different parts of the spectrum.
Bill is a centrist with liberal tendencies. Hillary is a liberal with centrist tendencies.
1. Those bombings of "factories in Africa" were blown SO OUT OF PROPORTION that it's laughable. First, I don't recall that there was ever any PROOF that the factories were EXCLUSIVELY baby-food factories and didn't also house the nefarious types that Clinton was targeting. Second, he said afterwards that there was an intelligence failure. Nobody could believe this. We have THE BEST intelligence. There are MILLIONS OF PAGES, fiction and non-fiction, written about the CIA. Surely the intelligence wasn't faulty, it was just clinton trying to distract from the Lewinsky mess, right? Right? Right?
Wrong. The "intelligence failure" looks a lot more plausible now after Iraq2.0, doesn't it?
2. By "to the right of Nixon" I assume you're talking about welfare reform and free trade? It should be noted that Clinton came into office at the heyday of free trade. He was sworn in while the ink was drying on the NAFTA bill. In hindsight he should've passed aid to help business and workers adjust, but that wasn't CW in 1993 like it is today. Yes, some were visionary on the subject (H.R. Perot) but I really doubt that Clinton thought it would be as damaging in the SHORT TERM to our economy as it was. But other than aid packages, free trade deals are generally good ideas. If for no other reason than trade stops wars and does more to improve the quality of life of average foreigners than all the Aid packages in the world.
3. Don't underestimate the effect of the 1993 Economic package on the 90's boom. He raised taxes and cut spending which, against the conventional supply-side wisdom, shored up the federal balance sheet. This lowered interest rates, because the less money the Government borrows the more that's left for business to borrow. Without the health of the federal budget the interest rates would never have gotten that low. Those rates produced the LOADS of cash that served as the lubrication of the economy. Yes, much of the boom was fueled by technology-related productivity increases but without the lubrication of cheap capital, the machine would've seized up far earlier than the 2000-ish recession.
4. It should be noted that the "real world human effects" of free trade, while hurtful to middle class Americans, were probably very positive for the citizens of the countries that now have our jobs.
5. The "Don't As Don't Tell" policy was progressive for 1993. It was his first month as President and he made the calculation that he shouldn't completely alienate the Joint Chiefs. It should be noted, too, that Colin Powell was the loudest advocate of DADT. He's since said that the policy had unintended consequences. Most people respect Powells judgement (even moreso before that fated UN Presentation on WMDs). Clinton had basically no military experience. One month on the job a career soldier, a highly respected Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of the most respected military minds this side of WWII told a young President that openly gay soldiers would disrupt unit cohesion and reduce the effectiveness of the US Military. Clinton was one month on the job. He made the right call. Maybe he should've looked closer at the policy 5, 6, 7 years later, but there's a lot of things vying for Presidential attention. Furthermore, DADT was an incremental improvement for the gay community, even if they didn't see it that way at the time.
6. Clinton was a good steward of his office. His personal issues were overblown and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the Oval Office saw a great deal of blow jobs long before Bill Clinton. We just didn't hear about them.
7. You overlook so many of his incremental domestic policy improvements. No, he didn't start the next great American Revolution. But he did give us the EITC. He did give us the FMLA. He did give us a minimum wage increase. He did expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more children. He did put 100,000 new police officers on the streets. He did raise CAFE and Environmental standards. He did balance the budget. He did attempt to save social security without cutt
1. I currently have DSL w/ AT&T. Part of this is the mandatory phone line. Mine has no long distance carrier, and I'd have to pay for every call I make thru it (3.5cents/min @ peak hrs), but it's only $12.00 a month even after all the 911 and franchise fees and such. The 3Mb/s dsl is $28 with fees and taxes. The $40 bill is inline with the local cable company.
2. Part of this settlement with the Gov't over the BellSouth acquisition is that they have to let you get DSL without making you subscribe to a phone line. I'm not sure when this goes into effect, and when it does i'm sure they'll be hush about it, but check into it.
3. I've had nothing but easy-going w/ my DSL. I live in an apartment building Downtown, which may contribute to the solid service I receive as I'm certain they've got good infrastructure in the neighborhood, but all they had to do is hook up something in the Telco room and send me a modem via UPS. I plugged it in, plugged in the filters, put the TCP/IP configuration disk in, and 3 minutes later I had DSL. No trouble at all. It stays connected and the speeds are fairly consistent.
4. I used to think DSL was inferior to Cable. I had these notions of people having to sign in and having PPP problems and what not. But it works perfect for me. I've got no "DSL CLient" installed on my PC, the Belkin router seems to take care of all that.
1. I didn't bring up chinese sweatshops. The person I REPLIED TO brought them up. So you've directed your ire at the wrong post, bro. Go back and re-read the thread.
2. Are you actually suggesting that it's not the official position of Bejing that Taiwan is part of China? You don't have to be Taiwaneese to understand the veryclearlanguage they've used.
What part of me saying "I wish firefox was the dominate browser" made you think I had an attachment to IE?.... The problem for you is that it's a lot easier to dimiss what I say by just labeling me some MSFT fanboy that isn't objective.
That's interesting because it's so blatently obvious that YOU'RE the one that left his objectivity at the door. YOU'RE the one with deeply entrenched feelings, one way or the other, for a web browser.
So I didn't read much past the first sentence of your (hideously long) post. It's clear that if you were so incredibly wrong in your very sentence it probably wasn't going to get much better after that.
1. I think CHINA would disagree with your opinion that Taiwan isn't part of China. I support your intrepretation (also shared by the US Govt) but it's worth mentioning that it's not quite as cut and dry as you alluded to.
2. I didn't say anything about Taiwan. In fact, I was addressing the other factories that make our shiny trinkets, not the one featured in the story. I said that.
3. Taiwan offers a lot better opportunities than the main land does, but you're making it out to sound like Japan. Maybe someday, but not yet. Taiwan still has a lot of the same problems that China has, which is not entirely unexpected.
4. The only reason any business locates in Taiwan and not the main land is the PR value. For that reason I imagine a company would have a lot of incentive to build 9 main land factories and plop one in Taiwan so they can look like a Company That Cares.
5. Of course sweatshops have to do with large labor pools. THAT WAS MY POINT. Once you put thse people to work (in sweatshops) and the labor pool dries up a bit, it's going to put upward pressure on wages.
6. We see eye to eye on most this, it seems, so I'm a little confused by your adversarial tone.
You're so far entrenched into this thinking that it's almost comical to me.
"help cement MSFT dominance by building broken web sites" you say....... To me, a "broken website" is one where only 15% of my users can use it. I think the people that sign my checks would agree. Which is, as I said, the whole point. If I'm developing for 85% of the world, it seems awfully standard to me..... And you miss my point. You label me some microsoft fanboy because you've bought into the notion that any thinking man must HATE MSFT SO FAR that you can't fathom it not being true. I don't like MSFT products. if I had my choice, Firefox would be the dominate browser. But what I do love is developing software for a living, eating surf & turf, comfortable apartments and new cars. And for that stuff, I have to DEVELOP WHERE THE USERS ARE. And that, my friend, is IE.... You and the W3C are playing house. You're making imaginary plans that people in the real world just don't care about. Your "standard" is a sheet of paper. In the real world, the "standard" is where ever 300 Million people are...
This is in reply to another thread where you mentioned "78% of all drivers consider themselves above average"
I couldn't reply there because I moderated in that thread.
Anyway..
I've heard others make fun of that. But people (you?) seem to overlook that it's entirely possible that 78% of people are, in fact, above average drivers. People (you?) often confuse "average" with "median."
I mean, it's simple: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 = average of 1.8. 80% are above average.
What you miss, though, is that Microsoft is already setting the standard. You just don't call it the standard. You call it the hack. But in my book, if "the hack" is what allows 85% of the world to use my web application, it starts looking a lot more standard.
In reality, standards compliance is just adversarial. A way to skewer Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, as a developer I have a lot of reason to want to skewer them, and I understand you probably do too, but the whole standards thing is still just bullshit.
I mean, look at when you scoffed at the idea of adopting IE settings as the new standard. You said something like "You want to screw over the people that followed the standard?!" Well... why is it better to screw over the MUCH MUCH LARGER GROUP OF PEOPLE that chose to develop against IE?... See, it's not the developers you care about. It's not the users--they don't really care much about rendering differences as long as they can do what they want to. It's just a stick that can be used by "OSS Snobs"* to bash people with.
*Note: I consider myself among this group. Call me flamebait if you want, but you know as well as I do that OSS Snobs exist.
You make it sound as though you found yourself at a breakfast table, croissant in one hand, Le Monde in another, with a stunned expression on your face having just learned that all the cheap clothing and shoes and furniture and electronics that we in the first-world just LOVE were manufactured by a bevy of tiny little hands in sweatshops.
I'm sorry, but wasn't that entirely obvious? Hasn't this issue been on the tip of our humanitarian tongues for at least twenty years? And when you went on to say "One has to wonder what conditions exist in factories where people don't get guided tours" all I could think is "NO! One does NOT have to wonder" because one should already KNOW.
These conditions are deplorable.
But the GP said that it's "sad" that human labor like this is cheaper than machinery. Well, perhaps, but I disagree slightly. Until we put all those people to work, until we bring them into the global economy, their situations will never improve. Only after we hire these people will we begin to see upward pressure on wages. Only after this generation--and perhaps the next--work painstaking hours to produce our shiny toys will you begin to see what more closely resembles a living wage in these countries.
My then-girlfriend did her Graduate thesis in Ecomonics on this 2 years ago and her research led her to believe that in 25 years you'll see the average Chinese worker making $2/hr in 2005 dollars. That would be a stunning change in the world economy, in terms of both cost-of-production and consumer markets.
which will hopefully prompt Web developers to, at last, respect the standards as the basics for any Web development
You don't think that developers would like to be able to develop against concrete standards today? We have to develop where the users are. And if the users are on IE, as unfortunate as it is, we have to develop there.
In a perfect world I'd prefer everyone was on Firefox, but that's just my pref. If I could count on a critical mass having XUL and SVG, etc, it would free my hand up considerably. But when it really comes down to it, standards compliance isn't keeping me up at night. Any good JS framework is abstracting away the issue of browser compatibility.
And while I might get flamed for saying this, I don't really care: If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard. I mean, why not? We can, in theory, set any standard we want. If FireFox used IE as the standard, and rendered like IE, BAM, we have easy web development and standard compliance. Unfortunately this is more about being adversarial. In some ways, I think, you have those in MSFT saying "We have 80% mindshare. *WE* are the standard" and you have those in other camps looking derisively at IE for being the Goliath that has a tendency to paint everything with a heavy brush.
Slashdot Mirror
wow, if I were you I'd be begging for a "Delete Post" function to be "magic'd" into existence. You show a complete lack of understanding about the way the banking system actually works. I mean, it's so bad that one could easily assume you posted these things just for the amusement of your fellow slashdotters, as there's no way a "nerd" could be this retarded about such things.
As somebody else said, NOTHING IS MAGIC.
1. The money that you claim they "created" actually comes from the promissory notes from the loans they give out. Loans are usually secured in some way, either by collateral or real property. Even with credit cards: many of the things you buy can and will be repo'd if the bank needs to. This is why negative equity is such a bad thing in our economy. If you have a $500k mortgage on a home that is now only worth $400k, the bank just has to HOPE that you pay it back (Well, not really, they just have to hope that EVERYONE doesn't stop paying, because they could easily foreclose your home and hold on to it until the market is better. The real problem would be if this happened enough to harm the liquidity of the bank)
2. Your little scenario assumes that there is basically only one bank, where everyone in the world banks, and that every dollar they lend out goes back into the bank as a deposit into someone elses account. Needless to say, this is not exactly how things work.
You do realize that you can port prepaid numbers, right? I'm assuming you're in the USA, and if you are, you can go buy a prepaid phone today from any carrier, and, at any time, port that number to any other carrier, be it another prepaid account or whatever.
Informative?!
Hahahaa
I assume the OP meant to be modded funny... only on slashdot....
That would only work if EVERYONE had an iPhone. If I were you, and I wanted to write that app, I'd just support Windows Mobile and whatever OS that blackberrys and palms run (do palms still run palmOS? for some reason i think i heard they abandoned it..). That would be loads more accurate than an iPhone-based solution.
Who is Prince CD?
Well said. You're exactly right about the oil crises. It just so happened that huge oil reserves were found in Siberia at the same time as global increases in oil prices. This kept them going for a while.
And you're also right about the huge ratio of military spending to the GDP. And about the T72. I believe this was said best by Stalin: "Quantity has a quality all its own."
But one thing that you didn't touch on that led to their crippled industrial production is just a horribly inefficient system. For example, steel mills were graded only on their output tonnage, and the commanders of these factories were promoted up the party ranks if they did well. (And you can only imagine what happened to them if they didn't). So you had a common problem of every steel mill creating only 1/2" or 1/4" thick sheeting despite the fact that what the downstream factories really needed was much thinner more pliable steel. So their auto factories, for example, had to mill down the thick steel into a workable dimension before they could use it. (Which also led to cars that were MUCH heavier than their US counterparts, which creates scores of problems in itself).
Anyone interested in this stuff (and the Soviet collapse in particular) should read Armageddon Averted by Steven Kotkin which looks at the collapse as happening between 1970 and 1990.
Another interesting tidbit that I remember from the book: In the Soviet Union typewriters were more closely regulated than handguns. You had to register each typewriter with your local government. Just in case anyone ever doubted that the pen is, indeed, mightier than the sword
I didn't say "even if you could write a VIDEO EDITOR" ... I said "even if you could write THAT APP"
Sorry.. try again!
That wasn't a Video Player. It was a VIDEO EDITOR.
.Net technology stack available to you. That's the largest library ever shipped with a language.
Assuming that you could even write that app in ActionScript it would KILL your browser. But more on point, the real power there is that you have the entire
When it comes down to it, ActionScript is an ECMA variation. I, for one, would not want to write a f'in VIDEO EDITOR in what amounts to JavaScript with an integrated UI layer.
Aahhh!
;)
Well, naturally
After all... in a post september 11th world.....
I don't think Echelon is in use any more. No, that's not a good thing. IIRC, the new system is far more powerful.
And I'm curious why you think a Democratic president would declare martial law.. every one of the problem we're talking about have been created by the current Repuglican administration.
One word: Watergate.
Pre-Watergate the press corps actually respected boundaries in the lives of public officials. I mean, practically nobody in the entire nation knew that FDR couldn't walk! But Nixon changed everything. People lost significant amounts of trust in their government, so there was no longer any backlash against newspapers for digging deeper. And since the people demanded it, politicians could no longer seek "retribution" against adversarial press outlets by threatening to withhold access.
Couple this with the advent of the 24 hour news cycle at virtually the same time, and a new type of journalism was born. In my opinion, the only people that benefit from this are the editors watching their Circ./rating numbers go up. Running for President now is such a degrading experience. You're not treated like the statesmen you probably are if you're actually in contention for the office. You're treated with about as much dignity as we give criminals and suspects, maybe even less!
Could Kennedy be elected today? Would he even try?
I stand by my top-10 argument. It's worth noting that top 10 only means top 25 percentile. That's a "C." it's not exactly the most stellar endorsement. There is a lot of intersection between our two lists, though. Some comments:
1. I disagree with Jefferson. He was a far better "founding father" than President. Yes, he had maybe the best innagural address ever ("We are all federalists. We are all republicans") but he dramatically increased the powers of the executive in ways that I, personally, don't think are good. As a F.F., though, he was an advocate of a legally-mandated constitutional convention every 20 years because every generation is as free as the one before it to chose the type of government they prefer.
2. Madison? I'm not exactly sure what Madison did that was so special. He started an ill-fated war that we ended up losing. Again, he was more important as a F.F. During his years in the White House his wife made more of a contribution to our modern history books than he himself did, it seems.
3. I agree with you on T.R. I love so much about his story. The way he was put in the Veep slot so he couldn't cause more trouble for others. His beginnings as police commissioner in new york. He had vision and guts and charisma and embodies everything we now call "Presidential."
4. I seriously disagree with Eisenhower. I can think of 2 contributions he made to our society. First was the interstate highway system. But that wasn't his idea. It just so happened that he was President while it happened. Second was his farewell address to the nation where he coined the term "Military Industrial Complex." Once again, he did far more for our country BEFORE he became President.
5. I agree whole heartedly with Lincoln, Washington & FDR. But, IMO, Washington should be ommitted from every "Best Prez's" list because he's a given. He was the first, he set a great precedent, etc etc etc. It's impossible to judge him on his relative merits because there's nobody to judge him against.
6. I love Wilson. Most people don't. He was tarnished by the unfortunate stroke. He was the only Prez w/ a PhD and the only one, AFAIK, to travel abroad while still President. The notion that Edith Wilson ran the country for all those months is similarly intriguing to me.
7. I love Kennedy and I respect Reagan (and both of their speech writers ["We will never forget them, or the last time we saw them. This morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god"] -- PRICELESS). I wonder, though: is it that they had more vision or is it that they were just better at communicating it?
8. Nixon.. Nixon, Nixon, Nixon. See, this one is hard.
First, domestically. He had a decent domestic policy. Created the EPA & OSHA and passed Affirmative Action laws. (AA laws get a lot of flak now but no question they were needed when they were passed. Perhaps they're not needed now--I can't say for sure--but they went a long way towards closing the income gap between whites & minorities) Yet, at the same time, there was his kludge of a response to the riots, etc, and, of course, watergate.
And regarding foreign policy, he showed similar genius. His adversarial relationship w/ Kissinger seemed to create a perfect storm of foreign policy. Triangulating China & the USSR was genius. Opening China's 750,000,000 citizens to US markets, helping usher in the changes that led to todays modern Chinese economy, was similarly inspired. Yet again it was tainted by an absolute BUNGLING of Vietnam. He ran in '68 on ending the war. He ran again in '72 on ENDING THE SAME WAR. During that time an add'l 30,000 Americans were KIA.
I consider him an enigma.
In Summary, my top 10 would include (in no particular order):
Lincoln
Wilson
TR
FDR
Truman
Kennedy
Reagan (begrudgingly. I am not a fan of his policies but he was a NATURAL at the job)
Clinton
Jackson
If Washington is included, he goes o
Look at the choices Hillary has made going all the way back to her days in University. Her role in student body leadership against Watergate and Vietnam were unquestionably liberal. Her role as a staffer for the House Judiciary committee during Watergate: Liberal. Her choice to serve on the boards of the New World Foundation and Children's Defense Fund: Liberal.
She was given EXCELLENT scores by:
-American Civil Liberties Union
-Americans for Democratic Action
-Children's Defense Fund
-League of Conservation Voters
-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
-National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League
-National Parent-Teacher Associationet.
-Service Employees International Union
A recent Rasmussen survey found a pluarality of voters consider her "liberal:"
"Forty-seven percent (47%) of Americans now see New York's junior Senator as politically liberal. Thirty-four percent (34%) see her as a moderate, up 4 points from the last Hillary Meter survey."
Hillary has grasped uber-liberal issues with both hands, including pro-choice, pro universal healthcare, anti vouchers, pro Kyoto, pro gun control, etc.
Hillary is not Dukakis liberal, but she's also more liberal that her husband.
It's funny to me that you paint both Clintons with the same brush. Anyone that's spent any time listening to their positions can see that hey share common ground but they're approaching politics from different parts of the spectrum.
Bill is a centrist with liberal tendencies. Hillary is a liberal with centrist tendencies.
1. Those bombings of "factories in Africa" were blown SO OUT OF PROPORTION that it's laughable. First, I don't recall that there was ever any PROOF that the factories were EXCLUSIVELY baby-food factories and didn't also house the nefarious types that Clinton was targeting. Second, he said afterwards that there was an intelligence failure. Nobody could believe this. We have THE BEST intelligence. There are MILLIONS OF PAGES, fiction and non-fiction, written about the CIA. Surely the intelligence wasn't faulty, it was just clinton trying to distract from the Lewinsky mess, right? Right? Right?
Wrong. The "intelligence failure" looks a lot more plausible now after Iraq2.0, doesn't it?
2. By "to the right of Nixon" I assume you're talking about welfare reform and free trade? It should be noted that Clinton came into office at the heyday of free trade. He was sworn in while the ink was drying on the NAFTA bill. In hindsight he should've passed aid to help business and workers adjust, but that wasn't CW in 1993 like it is today. Yes, some were visionary on the subject (H.R. Perot) but I really doubt that Clinton thought it would be as damaging in the SHORT TERM to our economy as it was. But other than aid packages, free trade deals are generally good ideas. If for no other reason than trade stops wars and does more to improve the quality of life of average foreigners than all the Aid packages in the world.
3. Don't underestimate the effect of the 1993 Economic package on the 90's boom. He raised taxes and cut spending which, against the conventional supply-side wisdom, shored up the federal balance sheet. This lowered interest rates, because the less money the Government borrows the more that's left for business to borrow. Without the health of the federal budget the interest rates would never have gotten that low. Those rates produced the LOADS of cash that served as the lubrication of the economy. Yes, much of the boom was fueled by technology-related productivity increases but without the lubrication of cheap capital, the machine would've seized up far earlier than the 2000-ish recession.
4. It should be noted that the "real world human effects" of free trade, while hurtful to middle class Americans, were probably very positive for the citizens of the countries that now have our jobs.
5. The "Don't As Don't Tell" policy was progressive for 1993. It was his first month as President and he made the calculation that he shouldn't completely alienate the Joint Chiefs. It should be noted, too, that Colin Powell was the loudest advocate of DADT. He's since said that the policy had unintended consequences. Most people respect Powells judgement (even moreso before that fated UN Presentation on WMDs). Clinton had basically no military experience. One month on the job a career soldier, a highly respected Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of the most respected military minds this side of WWII told a young President that openly gay soldiers would disrupt unit cohesion and reduce the effectiveness of the US Military. Clinton was one month on the job. He made the right call. Maybe he should've looked closer at the policy 5, 6, 7 years later, but there's a lot of things vying for Presidential attention. Furthermore, DADT was an incremental improvement for the gay community, even if they didn't see it that way at the time.
6. Clinton was a good steward of his office. His personal issues were overblown and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the Oval Office saw a great deal of blow jobs long before Bill Clinton. We just didn't hear about them.
7. You overlook so many of his incremental domestic policy improvements. No, he didn't start the next great American Revolution. But he did give us the EITC. He did give us the FMLA. He did give us a minimum wage increase. He did expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more children. He did put 100,000 new police officers on the streets. He did raise CAFE and Environmental standards. He did balance the budget. He did attempt to save social security without cutt
1. I currently have DSL w/ AT&T. Part of this is the mandatory phone line. Mine has no long distance carrier, and I'd have to pay for every call I make thru it (3.5cents/min @ peak hrs), but it's only $12.00 a month even after all the 911 and franchise fees and such. The 3Mb/s dsl is $28 with fees and taxes. The $40 bill is inline with the local cable company.
2. Part of this settlement with the Gov't over the BellSouth acquisition is that they have to let you get DSL without making you subscribe to a phone line. I'm not sure when this goes into effect, and when it does i'm sure they'll be hush about it, but check into it.
3. I've had nothing but easy-going w/ my DSL. I live in an apartment building Downtown, which may contribute to the solid service I receive as I'm certain they've got good infrastructure in the neighborhood, but all they had to do is hook up something in the Telco room and send me a modem via UPS. I plugged it in, plugged in the filters, put the TCP/IP configuration disk in, and 3 minutes later I had DSL. No trouble at all. It stays connected and the speeds are fairly consistent.
4. I used to think DSL was inferior to Cable. I had these notions of people having to sign in and having PPP problems and what not. But it works perfect for me. I've got no "DSL CLient" installed on my PC, the Belkin router seems to take care of all that.
5. I'm a software developer. I don't do hardware.
1. I didn't bring up chinese sweatshops. The person I REPLIED TO brought them up. So you've directed your ire at the wrong post, bro. Go back and re-read the thread.
2. Are you actually suggesting that it's not the official position of Bejing that Taiwan is part of China? You don't have to be Taiwaneese to understand the very clear language they've used.
What part of me saying "I wish firefox was the dominate browser" made you think I had an attachment to IE? .... The problem for you is that it's a lot easier to dimiss what I say by just labeling me some MSFT fanboy that isn't objective.
That's interesting because it's so blatently obvious that YOU'RE the one that left his objectivity at the door. YOU'RE the one with deeply entrenched feelings, one way or the other, for a web browser.
So I didn't read much past the first sentence of your (hideously long) post. It's clear that if you were so incredibly wrong in your very sentence it probably wasn't going to get much better after that.
PS. I'm writing this on FireFox.
1. I think CHINA would disagree with your opinion that Taiwan isn't part of China. I support your intrepretation (also shared by the US Govt) but it's worth mentioning that it's not quite as cut and dry as you alluded to.
2. I didn't say anything about Taiwan. In fact, I was addressing the other factories that make our shiny trinkets, not the one featured in the story. I said that.
3. Taiwan offers a lot better opportunities than the main land does, but you're making it out to sound like Japan. Maybe someday, but not yet. Taiwan still has a lot of the same problems that China has, which is not entirely unexpected.
4. The only reason any business locates in Taiwan and not the main land is the PR value. For that reason I imagine a company would have a lot of incentive to build 9 main land factories and plop one in Taiwan so they can look like a Company That Cares.
5. Of course sweatshops have to do with large labor pools. THAT WAS MY POINT. Once you put thse people to work (in sweatshops) and the labor pool dries up a bit, it's going to put upward pressure on wages.
6. We see eye to eye on most this, it seems, so I'm a little confused by your adversarial tone.
it was an example. The point is that it's entirely possible that 78% of drivers _ARE_ above average....
You're so far entrenched into this thinking that it's almost comical to me.
... To me, a "broken website" is one where only 15% of my users can use it. I think the people that sign my checks would agree. Which is, as I said, the whole point. If I'm developing for 85% of the world, it seems awfully standard to me.. ... And you miss my point. You label me some microsoft fanboy because you've bought into the notion that any thinking man must HATE MSFT SO FAR that you can't fathom it not being true. I don't like MSFT products. if I had my choice, Firefox would be the dominate browser. But what I do love is developing software for a living, eating surf & turf, comfortable apartments and new cars. And for that stuff, I have to DEVELOP WHERE THE USERS ARE. And that, my friend, is IE. ... You and the W3C are playing house. You're making imaginary plans that people in the real world just don't care about. Your "standard" is a sheet of paper. In the real world, the "standard" is where ever 300 Million people are...
"help cement MSFT dominance by building broken web sites" you say....
This is in reply to another thread where you mentioned "78% of all drivers consider themselves above average"
I couldn't reply there because I moderated in that thread.
Anyway..
I've heard others make fun of that. But people (you?) seem to overlook that it's entirely possible that 78% of people are, in fact, above average drivers. People (you?) often confuse "average" with "median."
I mean, it's simple: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 = average of 1.8. 80% are above average.
What you miss, though, is that Microsoft is already setting the standard. You just don't call it the standard. You call it the hack. But in my book, if "the hack" is what allows 85% of the world to use my web application, it starts looking a lot more standard.
... See, it's not the developers you care about. It's not the users--they don't really care much about rendering differences as long as they can do what they want to. It's just a stick that can be used by "OSS Snobs"* to bash people with.
In reality, standards compliance is just adversarial. A way to skewer Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, as a developer I have a lot of reason to want to skewer them, and I understand you probably do too, but the whole standards thing is still just bullshit.
I mean, look at when you scoffed at the idea of adopting IE settings as the new standard. You said something like "You want to screw over the people that followed the standard?!" Well... why is it better to screw over the MUCH MUCH LARGER GROUP OF PEOPLE that chose to develop against IE?
*Note: I consider myself among this group. Call me flamebait if you want, but you know as well as I do that OSS Snobs exist.
In light of the current expose of child labor?
You make it sound as though you found yourself at a breakfast table, croissant in one hand, Le Monde in another, with a stunned expression on your face having just learned that all the cheap clothing and shoes and furniture and electronics that we in the first-world just LOVE were manufactured by a bevy of tiny little hands in sweatshops.
I'm sorry, but wasn't that entirely obvious? Hasn't this issue been on the tip of our humanitarian tongues for at least twenty years? And when you went on to say "One has to wonder what conditions exist in factories where people don't get guided tours" all I could think is "NO! One does NOT have to wonder" because one should already KNOW.
These conditions are deplorable.
But the GP said that it's "sad" that human labor like this is cheaper than machinery. Well, perhaps, but I disagree slightly. Until we put all those people to work, until we bring them into the global economy, their situations will never improve. Only after we hire these people will we begin to see upward pressure on wages. Only after this generation--and perhaps the next--work painstaking hours to produce our shiny toys will you begin to see what more closely resembles a living wage in these countries.
My then-girlfriend did her Graduate thesis in Ecomonics on this 2 years ago and her research led her to believe that in 25 years you'll see the average Chinese worker making $2/hr in 2005 dollars. That would be a stunning change in the world economy, in terms of both cost-of-production and consumer markets.
which will hopefully prompt Web developers to, at last, respect the standards as the basics for any Web development
You don't think that developers would like to be able to develop against concrete standards today? We have to develop where the users are. And if the users are on IE, as unfortunate as it is, we have to develop there.
In a perfect world I'd prefer everyone was on Firefox, but that's just my pref. If I could count on a critical mass having XUL and SVG, etc, it would free my hand up considerably. But when it really comes down to it, standards compliance isn't keeping me up at night. Any good JS framework is abstracting away the issue of browser compatibility.
And while I might get flamed for saying this, I don't really care: If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard. I mean, why not? We can, in theory, set any standard we want. If FireFox used IE as the standard, and rendered like IE, BAM, we have easy web development and standard compliance. Unfortunately this is more about being adversarial. In some ways, I think, you have those in MSFT saying "We have 80% mindshare. *WE* are the standard" and you have those in other camps looking derisively at IE for being the Goliath that has a tendency to paint everything with a heavy brush.