Well, welcome to the real world, chief. Yes, WalMart does get things changed, through market leverage and such. But it's still the choice of the publisher of the content to do the actual changing. The only reason that things get changed is because the publisher determines that it's in their best interest to do so.
The point is, WalMart is not pointing a gun at their head and forcing them to change their product. WalMart is simply telling the publisher, "we will not sell your product as it is in its current form", which is completely within their rights. Take it or leave it. The publishers can always choose to give WalMart nothing more than the middle finger.
I wouldn't exactly call this a monopolistic position, either. I can buy CDs at any number of outlets. I can buy just about anything available from WalMart at Target or (for now) KMart. Smells like consumer choice to me. And your argument smells suspiciously like anti-capitalism (the use of the "it's just not fair" phrase was a big red flag).
Web browsing? How about just dialing a number into the damn thing?
I can see it now: it will use some sort of gyroscopic system that will detect combinations of head movements that will correspond to numeric digits. You'll then see all these people that appear to be having seizures, who are actually just trying to dial home.
Of course, you have to say "Klaatu Barata Nikto" loudly three times to toggle between activating it and hanging it up.
Someone turns a fuel-cell discussion into a Bush-bashing party, uses an obviously biased web site as a reference, and it gets modded as 'Insightful' on/.
She advances "careerism" as the reason that the warning signs were deliberately overlooked. While this may be true, I tend to think that the part that NOBODY wants to admit is that FBI didn't want to be accused of racial profiling.
As a former Tucson resident, I can say with all certainty, sir, that the monsoon season is the very reason that I said "usually" in my post. Also, I don't know if monsoon season applies to Nevada or not, as I'm not familiar with the weather patterns there.
Those swamp coolers should be working great right about now, though. Last I checked, the humidity was about 8% or so around TUS.
Correction: You still don't usually need AC in Arizona or Nevada when the temperatures are that hot. The humidity is so low that you can just use a swamp cooler, which is much more efficient, instead.
Yes, the subject is a troll, but I've actually been waiting for an opportunity to get opinions from the/. community on the Biefield-Brown Effect. Surely some of you have heard of this:
IANAPhysicist, so maybe some more enlightened opinions will prevail. It just sounds intriguing.
Correct you are! I sure as hell wouldn't want to send a kid to a public school in this day and age. Not when the schools are more concerned with teaching Political Correctness than anything else.
Nice points, to be sure. No, it's not necessarily the *job*, so to speak, of employers to provide health care coverage, either. It usually is an incentive to get someone to work for them. However, there is no obligation on their part to provide this for you from the outset, and lots of times, they don't. Trust me. I worked a restaurant job for far too long when I was younger.
But your reply kind of skirts my original point (which was *not* meant to be a troll, BTW. Nice job, moderators!<cough>). No matter how flawed the current system is, I stand by my original argument that it is simply not the government's job to provide health care for us. I don't have a problem at all if there are regulations to help curtail abuses by the private sector, but I certainly do not want a government-administered system where you get your government-appointed doctor to care for you at your government-appointed hospital, et cetera, et cetera. Socialist and statist issues aside, the beauracracy alone would be enough to cause the system to collapse. If you need an example, look no further than the, ahem, "wonderful" job that the government is doing with Social Security.
Personally, I think that I could do a better job of investing money for my retirement than some government worker who doesn't know or doesn't particularly care about the job that he/she is doing.
Maybe, just maybe, because it's not the *job* of the government (well, the US government, anyway) to provide/administer/control health care to the masses? See, the funny thing is, when you don't live in a socialist country, you don't just get everything handed to you on a silver platter. You do, however, get the freedom to choose what you want and don't want.
Besides, the government does a bad enough job with what it's already responsible for, why should we trust it to manage health care?
So far, I've been called a bigot, an idiot, ignorant, and smug. I've been told I cannot reason, and been told that I cannot distinguish bias from simple logic.
All this, because I DARED question the motives of the media.
And, all this from a AC who has chosen to hide behind his/her anonymity.
Well, I guess that we all know how this liberal "compassion" works now.
...on the Star Wars thing. I watched The Empire Strikes Back on TV the other night, and I have to admit that a lot of the effects used there looked, well, pretty bad. Of course, that's easy to say now that we have today's standards as a frame of reference.
The cool thing is that you can watch a movie like that, and even though some things may look cheesy or fake now, you can still appreciate it for what it is and enjoy it just as much as you ever did.
And, of course, the requisite goatse.cx post, the "Stephen King is Dead" post, the "Dirty GNU Hippie" post, and a post that claims to be the text of the story, but is actually rewritten in spots to make it appear that the whole damn thing is screwed because of Linux....
No, this is not quite on a par with the W. Bush dealings with Enron [thenation.com]. But it's getting close.
Such as? Funny how there's supposedly all these "allegations" of Enron "ties" to the Bush administration, but not one shred of proof when it comes to any improper dealings by Bush, et.al. And, somehow, the fact that Bush did *not* bail out Enron, but let them twist in the wind, always gets swept under the rug.
Then again, that is The Nation that you are referencing. Yeah, a fine source of "objective" reporting, that.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm whining because things arnt fair.
Well, welcome to the real world, chief. Yes, WalMart does get things changed, through market leverage and such. But it's still the choice of the publisher of the content to do the actual changing. The only reason that things get changed is because the publisher determines that it's in their best interest to do so.
The point is, WalMart is not pointing a gun at their head and forcing them to change their product. WalMart is simply telling the publisher, "we will not sell your product as it is in its current form", which is completely within their rights. Take it or leave it. The publishers can always choose to give WalMart nothing more than the middle finger.
I wouldn't exactly call this a monopolistic position, either. I can buy CDs at any number of outlets. I can buy just about anything available from WalMart at Target or (for now) KMart. Smells like consumer choice to me. And your argument smells suspiciously like anti-capitalism (the use of the "it's just not fair" phrase was a big red flag).
Web browsing? How about just dialing a number into the damn thing?
I can see it now: it will use some sort of gyroscopic system that will detect combinations of head movements that will correspond to numeric digits. You'll then see all these people that appear to be having seizures, who are actually just trying to dial home.
Of course, you have to say "Klaatu Barata Nikto" loudly three times to toggle between activating it and hanging it up.
What happens when these things start interfering with the alien implants?
Worst State to Live In: Mississippi. With Alabama not too far behind. Trust me. It sucks.
You could just forget about going up to the nice high point, stay down in LA, and let the smog be your filter. That oughta work.
Actually, I'd love to see a webserver on an "electronic pleasure toy" that can "handle the load".
Someone turns a fuel-cell discussion into a Bush-bashing party, uses an obviously biased web site as a reference, and it gets modded as 'Insightful' on /.
Oh, the shock.
She advances "careerism" as the reason that the warning signs were deliberately overlooked. While this may be true, I tend to think that the part that NOBODY wants to admit is that FBI didn't want to be accused of racial profiling.
Good ol' Political Correctness strikes again....
As a former Tucson resident, I can say with all certainty, sir, that the monsoon season is the very reason that I said "usually" in my post. Also, I don't know if monsoon season applies to Nevada or not, as I'm not familiar with the weather patterns there.
Those swamp coolers should be working great right about now, though. Last I checked, the humidity was about 8% or so around TUS.
Correction: You still don't usually need AC in Arizona or Nevada when the temperatures are that hot. The humidity is so low that you can just use a swamp cooler, which is much more efficient, instead.
Yes, the subject is a troll, but I've actually been waiting for an opportunity to get opinions from the /. community on the Biefield-Brown Effect. Surely some of you have heard of this:
IANAPhysicist, so maybe some more enlightened opinions will prevail. It just sounds intriguing.
Correct you are! I sure as hell wouldn't want to send a kid to a public school in this day and age. Not when the schools are more concerned with teaching Political Correctness than anything else.
Nice points, to be sure. No, it's not necessarily the *job*, so to speak, of employers to provide health care coverage, either. It usually is an incentive to get someone to work for them. However, there is no obligation on their part to provide this for you from the outset, and lots of times, they don't. Trust me. I worked a restaurant job for far too long when I was younger.
But your reply kind of skirts my original point (which was *not* meant to be a troll, BTW. Nice job, moderators!<cough>). No matter how flawed the current system is, I stand by my original argument that it is simply not the government's job to provide health care for us. I don't have a problem at all if there are regulations to help curtail abuses by the private sector, but I certainly do not want a government-administered system where you get your government-appointed doctor to care for you at your government-appointed hospital, et cetera, et cetera. Socialist and statist issues aside, the beauracracy alone would be enough to cause the system to collapse. If you need an example, look no further than the, ahem, "wonderful" job that the government is doing with Social Security.
Personally, I think that I could do a better job of investing money for my retirement than some government worker who doesn't know or doesn't particularly care about the job that he/she is doing.
Maybe, just maybe, because it's not the *job* of the government (well, the US government, anyway) to provide/administer/control health care to the masses? See, the funny thing is, when you don't live in a socialist country, you don't just get everything handed to you on a silver platter. You do, however, get the freedom to choose what you want and don't want.
Besides, the government does a bad enough job with what it's already responsible for, why should we trust it to manage health care?
Gee, aren't these guys supposed to be looking out for the artists? Why are they so strangely silent about all this?
Oh, fuck off. I don't *need* any compassion, and I'm not whining about anything. I was just trying to point out what a fucking hypocrite you are.
But, why should I bother even arguing with an AC who doesn't even have the balls to post under his real name? I really don't know, so....
Have a nice life. Or not. I don't care. Whatever. Goodbye.
Well, for those of you keeping score-
So far, I've been called a bigot, an idiot, ignorant, and smug. I've been told I cannot reason, and been told that I cannot distinguish bias from simple logic.
All this, because I DARED question the motives of the media.
And, all this from a AC who has chosen to hide behind his/her anonymity.
Well, I guess that we all know how this liberal "compassion" works now.
OK, nice troll. Seeing as how you don't know Thing One about me, I must laugh at the irony of *you* calling *me* ignorant.
Nice job. You're done now.
...on the Star Wars thing. I watched The Empire Strikes Back on TV the other night, and I have to admit that a lot of the effects used there looked, well, pretty bad. Of course, that's easy to say now that we have today's standards as a frame of reference.
The cool thing is that you can watch a movie like that, and even though some things may look cheesy or fake now, you can still appreciate it for what it is and enjoy it just as much as you ever did.
Umm, exactly what the hell do you THINK I'm arguing? That's what I was talking about in my reference to The Nation, The NYT, and the rest.
I love how I'm suddenly "bigoted", though. Nice touch, there.
So which paper did you get this from? The New York Times? The Washington Post? Or did you just see it on the Clinton News Network?
And, of course, the requisite goatse.cx post, the "Stephen King is Dead" post, the "Dirty GNU Hippie" post, and a post that claims to be the text of the story, but is actually rewritten in spots to make it appear that the whole damn thing is screwed because of Linux....
No, this is not quite on a par with the W. Bush dealings with Enron [thenation.com]. But it's getting close.
Such as? Funny how there's supposedly all these "allegations" of Enron "ties" to the Bush administration, but not one shred of proof when it comes to any improper dealings by Bush, et.al. And, somehow, the fact that Bush did *not* bail out Enron, but let them twist in the wind, always gets swept under the rug.
Then again, that is The Nation that you are referencing. Yeah, a fine source of "objective" reporting, that.
...a beowulf...ah, forget it.
...will we begin to not give a remote-controlled rat's ass about this?