Sure. And I am also allowed to say that the NPR was wrong here and to wonder why on Earth is a politically biased media organization receiving public funding and what is the new Republican congress going to do about it.
Actually I was on a transatlantic flight two seats away from a guy who was reading Koran out loud the entire damn flight. If you are prepared to say that this wouldn't scare you more than a guy reading the bible I think you are lying. This has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with the knowledge of the fact that he probably comes from a country where his Imam at a local mosque is filling his head with glories that await kafir killers in the afterlife and the many examples of those who acted on such beliefs. By the way, agree or disagree with Williams, why is he not allowed to say that? I am an atheist but even I notice how much more the American liberals rise in anger at any comment against Muslims than at a comment against Christians. I can't believe that it's some kind of suicidal self hate, I think it's a simpler 'support the underdog' instinct which we all have, but it doesn't make it any less stupid.
First of all, my previous comment is certainly not a troll (do you know what a troll is?) but it has been modded as such because it mentions the simple and obvious truth that rich people tend to get rich by working harder and poor people tend to stay poor because they are lazier, which doesn't agree with the pc attitudes of the modders.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare.
Please, say it again if it makes you feel good but it doesn't change the fact that it is completely untrue. Many tea party candidates are in favor of (reforming/privatizing/making optional) SS which all amounts to abolishing. I am not going to go searching for quotes, just google "tea party candidate social security".
I personally very much support eliminating these programs. I want to see them GONE. Do you? If yes, then good, but in that case, how do you reconcile this with the "no compromises" attitude of the Tea Party, which is clearly compromising on this issue? If no, then you're just being hypocritical, since you evidently support socialist "insurance" programs.
It is in the 10 points voted in by the Tea Party supporters Contract From America ( http://www.thecontract.org/the-contract-from-america/ ) to examine all government programs for constitutionality and a number of prominent Tea Party people have called SS unconstitutional. BTW, are you applying the same criteria for what you call hypocrisy to other parties as well? For example, all Democrat senators voted FOR Patriot act, except for one, Russ Faingold. Does that mean that Democrats are being hypocritical or inconsistent? No, it means that Democrat party as a whole supports PATRIOT act strongly, even though there are some dissenters as is always the case. Same with the Tea Party. As any most political movements, it is directed by the broad areas of agreement, not by blind following of a precise dogma. Less government, lowed taxes, free market. As it happens, I am in favor of abolishing SS and Medicare but I can support candidates who are broadly in favor of reducing the scope of the federal government even if they compromise on specific programs.
As many others have pointed out, the top 10% own far more than 70% of the wealth. Paying only 70% of the taxes is not even a fair share, let alone "far more than enough."
And what is the relation between how much someone has and how much they are due to pay in taxes? Someone who saves more (even after paying their income taxes) is supposed to be taxed again more than someone else who spent more of their money? Why?
Attacking the Making Work Pay credit on the grounds that it is "once off" is a very strange accusation. Does that mean you would support it more if it were permanent? And if the "once off" nature of the tax credit is a major objection, why aren't you lobbying to make the credit permanent, rather than opposing it bitterly?
No, if you read my reply again you will see that my opposition was with equating one of the hundreds of obscure government programs ( http://funding-programs.idilogic.aidpage.com/) with income tax cuts.
They have 90% of the money, they should pay 90% of the taxes.
First, as a matter of principle, why? In what way are you and I part of a some borg like organism that means I have some kind of duty to support you just because I have more money than you? Secondly, as a practical matter, who do you think will provide investments that create jobs if you tax the rich at 90%? Government? Who will you go to for financing when you want to start a company? For that matter, who will provide the funding for any kind of opposition to the government? Government itself? You do realize that just about every liberal cause that made any success was financed by billionaires: Vandebilts, some Rockefellers (not the ones who created the wealth) etc in the past, more recently Soros.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare
Ha, ha, I thought those were not taxes but "insurance". Get on the message, comrade.
These represent a far bigger proportion of a poor person's income than a rich person's income.
So what? The top 10% are already supplying 70% of the income tax receipts and benefit less from that money than the poor do. Why in your opinion do the hard working have a duty to carry the lazy on their shoulders? They are doing far more than enough already.
Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit disproportionately benefited the poor. That tax credit is now expired, and (unlike with the Bush tax cuts) there is absolutely zero discussion in Washington about extending it.
Maybe there is zero discussion because people forgot about it. A completely random once off $400 tax credit based on a million conditions is hardly in the same league as tax cuts of several % across the board.
I hope you realize that taxes on corporations are also taxes on individuals, namely shareholders, employees and customers. What are the pros and cons?
Pros: government gets more money for its spending programs. Some poor people get a handout, some unemployed get an unemployment check, some perfectly good road gets resurfaced because the contractor's wife has a cousin in the local government etc etc. Government bureaucrats in charge of that extra money don't really have an incentive to be as careful as with their own money, hence the legendary government inefficiency and corruption, so a lot of the money gets wasted.
Cons: there is less money for the shareholders so there is less investment money available overall (fewer jobs), there is less money for the employees so some of them get laid off (fewer jobs) and customers have to pay more for goods, which means inflation, which ultimately means fewer jobs as well.
Poor people currently pay either no taxes at all or very low taxes as proportion of their income. Bottom half pays no income tax at all: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0 How does calling for less taxes overall in your opinion translate to "wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes"? It doesn't make any sense at all.
Not true. Only middle class and moderately rich pay the taxes. The bottom 47% don't pay any income taxes. The top 1-2% are rich enough to hire lawyers to work out these kind of loopholes (and to afford a residence in Cayman Islands or whatever).
I think this is all a conspiracy to cover up the strange government experiments that are going on there. For example I see a headless body of a cop and another one apparently still alive but with no legs.
A great example of the way public officials form a "blue [pinstriped] wall" has just come up in the news again, Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas. A right-wing bloc in the all-male Senate of the day tore into every minor aspect of Hill's own sex life to try to discredit her in the eyes of the American public.
What a weird way to look at it. You mean, the way a left-wing block in the Senate used completely unproven and by now mostly discredited allegation of sexual harassment in order to discredit a supreme court nominee in the eyes of the American public?
Well I am a libertarian (with a small l) and even though I disagree with some of the Republican policies (mainly to do with war and religion, but hey see where Democrats stand on those issues) I am sure that the Republican party represents those ideas you listed in your last sentence far better than the Democrat party. As I see it, the Republican party in the USA has two distinct camps that coexist uneasily: 1) classical liberalism (individual liberty, less government) which has a lot in common with Libertarians, and 2) religious conservative (church-family-military) which ultimately comes from European nobility. Fortunately, these days seems like the former is getting more traction but the latter is necessary to get the votes. As for the Libertarian party, well without meaning to sound too patronizing, I wish it well and I hope some day it becomes relevant but in the meantime you are welcome to help push the Republican party in the right direction and actually make a difference.
hell, I'd even accept Chinese dialects since they're the most spoken already.
Mandarin is the most spoken language by the number of native speakers. English is the most spoken language when you take into account the second language and the foreign language speakers. Plus, English is a hell of a lot more practical.
We also don't know that on an Earth in a parallel universe there aren't even longer tunnels. I personally qualify all statement about biggest such and such with: built by humans, on a planet humans who speak English call Earth, in the universe we can perceive, if our senses are to be trusted.
Not so fast. Looks like the main sources of data are MS security tools like Windows Defender, MSRT, Microsoft Security Essentials etc which are available only if you have a licenced copy of Windows. As far as I know there is no such thing as a legal copy of Windows in China.
He may have been stabbing in the dark, but he was sort of right. TV ownership according to wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_North_Korea ) is 55 in 1000 households, while radio is more widespread. However all TV and radio sets are pre-tuned to government channels and sealed so the tuning cannot be changed (which carries sever penalties if you did manage it). And in any case foreign radio stations that can be picked up in NK are jammed.
Regardless of whether North Korea is a signatory or not its leaders can still be tried and convicted as criminals in the International Criminal Court. The court statute allows it to try cases even when the accused is not a national of a country that accepts the court's jurisdiction, if the case is referred to it by the UN Security Council. Not that this would even happen in case of North Korea.
Oh I see, so when a group of people armed and financed from abroad (USSR) exploit the post war chaos to seize power by force or arms, brutally wipe out all the leaders and intellectuals and cultural values of the previous order, and then stay in power for the next 50 years by imprisoning and/or killing anybody who disagrees with them that is is exactly the same thing as having a vote.
Frankly I think that's a bunch of bs. First of all, how do you know what Chinese people want? Have they perhaps had a referendum to decide that they would prefer to live under a one party dictatorship rather than democracy? As an experiment, ask Chinese people in Hong Kong would they prefer to give up their relative freedom and exchange it for the "stability" in mainland and see what they tell you. How many Chinese people moved to mainland China from Hong Kong over the last few decades, especially before the transfer to China, because they preferred the stability there?
most Chinese are aware of the award. Honestly, most of them don't care that much.
So a Chinese man is kept in prison purely because his opinions disagree with the government and he gets a Nobel prize and now the government will censor your website, email and even deactivate your cellphone if you as much as mention his name. If they really don't care they most definitely should.
I think the problem is too much power given to a single mod to bury a post, especially in case of anonymous posts which start from 0 anyway. If you read at -1 you will find plenty of interesting posts that are in no way trolls or flamebaits but were modded as such because just one or two mods disagreed with them, and once its at -1 most readers and mods don't see it anymore.
Leave modding up as it is but make it a bit more difficult to mod down to below the default threshold. For example make it so that a -1 mod requires agreement of at least several more readers (including non-mods) before it actually lowers the score. In case of obvious trolls, spam, etc this will still happen fairly quickly but it will force a bit more review before good posts are hidden.
Funny, I read it immediately as herbal viagra. I guess different people's brains may be handling the job of reading differently. Reminds me of Richard Feynman's "experiments" with reading and counting at the same time etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y
My guess is that the economy will improve pretty quickly after November elections if Republicans win. Not because they will do anything major but because the businesses will start spending and hiring more once the prospects of more oppressive regulation and higher taxes are diminished. So if you want some easy money, buy stocks now and hope for a Republican win.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. And I am also allowed to say that the NPR was wrong here and to wonder why on Earth is a politically biased media organization receiving public funding and what is the new Republican congress going to do about it.
Actually I was on a transatlantic flight two seats away from a guy who was reading Koran out loud the entire damn flight. If you are prepared to say that this wouldn't scare you more than a guy reading the bible I think you are lying. This has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with the knowledge of the fact that he probably comes from a country where his Imam at a local mosque is filling his head with glories that await kafir killers in the afterlife and the many examples of those who acted on such beliefs. By the way, agree or disagree with Williams, why is he not allowed to say that? I am an atheist but even I notice how much more the American liberals rise in anger at any comment against Muslims than at a comment against Christians. I can't believe that it's some kind of suicidal self hate, I think it's a simpler 'support the underdog' instinct which we all have, but it doesn't make it any less stupid.
First of all, my previous comment is certainly not a troll (do you know what a troll is?) but it has been modded as such because it mentions the simple and obvious truth that rich people tend to get rich by working harder and poor people tend to stay poor because they are lazier, which doesn't agree with the pc attitudes of the modders.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare.
Please, say it again if it makes you feel good but it doesn't change the fact that it is completely untrue. Many tea party candidates are in favor of (reforming/privatizing/making optional) SS which all amounts to abolishing. I am not going to go searching for quotes, just google "tea party candidate social security".
I personally very much support eliminating these programs. I want to see them GONE. Do you? If yes, then good, but in that case, how do you reconcile this with the "no compromises" attitude of the Tea Party, which is clearly compromising on this issue? If no, then you're just being hypocritical, since you evidently support socialist "insurance" programs.
It is in the 10 points voted in by the Tea Party supporters Contract From America ( http://www.thecontract.org/the-contract-from-america/ ) to examine all government programs for constitutionality and a number of prominent Tea Party people have called SS unconstitutional. BTW, are you applying the same criteria for what you call hypocrisy to other parties as well? For example, all Democrat senators voted FOR Patriot act, except for one, Russ Faingold. Does that mean that Democrats are being hypocritical or inconsistent? No, it means that Democrat party as a whole supports PATRIOT act strongly, even though there are some dissenters as is always the case. Same with the Tea Party. As any most political movements, it is directed by the broad areas of agreement, not by blind following of a precise dogma. Less government, lowed taxes, free market. As it happens, I am in favor of abolishing SS and Medicare but I can support candidates who are broadly in favor of reducing the scope of the federal government even if they compromise on specific programs.
As many others have pointed out, the top 10% own far more than 70% of the wealth. Paying only 70% of the taxes is not even a fair share, let alone "far more than enough."
And what is the relation between how much someone has and how much they are due to pay in taxes? Someone who saves more (even after paying their income taxes) is supposed to be taxed again more than someone else who spent more of their money? Why?
Attacking the Making Work Pay credit on the grounds that it is "once off" is a very strange accusation. Does that mean you would support it more if it were permanent? And if the "once off" nature of the tax credit is a major objection, why aren't you lobbying to make the credit permanent, rather than opposing it bitterly?
No, if you read my reply again you will see that my opposition was with equating one of the hundreds of obscure government programs ( http://funding-programs.idilogic.aidpage.com/) with income tax cuts.
They have 90% of the money, they should pay 90% of the taxes.
First, as a matter of principle, why? In what way are you and I part of a some borg like organism that means I have some kind of duty to support you just because I have more money than you? Secondly, as a practical matter, who do you think will provide investments that create jobs if you tax the rich at 90%? Government? Who will you go to for financing when you want to start a company? For that matter, who will provide the funding for any kind of opposition to the government? Government itself? You do realize that just about every liberal cause that made any success was financed by billionaires: Vandebilts, some Rockefellers (not the ones who created the wealth) etc in the past, more recently Soros.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare
Ha, ha, I thought those were not taxes but "insurance". Get on the message, comrade.
These represent a far bigger proportion of a poor person's income than a rich person's income.
So what? The top 10% are already supplying 70% of the income tax receipts and benefit less from that money than the poor do. Why in your opinion do the hard working have a duty to carry the lazy on their shoulders? They are doing far more than enough already.
Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit disproportionately benefited the poor. That tax credit is now expired, and (unlike with the Bush tax cuts) there is absolutely zero discussion in Washington about extending it.
Maybe there is zero discussion because people forgot about it. A completely random once off $400 tax credit based on a million conditions is hardly in the same league as tax cuts of several % across the board.
I hope you realize that taxes on corporations are also taxes on individuals, namely shareholders, employees and customers. What are the pros and cons?
Pros: government gets more money for its spending programs. Some poor people get a handout, some unemployed get an unemployment check, some perfectly good road gets resurfaced because the contractor's wife has a cousin in the local government etc etc. Government bureaucrats in charge of that extra money don't really have an incentive to be as careful as with their own money, hence the legendary government inefficiency and corruption, so a lot of the money gets wasted.
Cons: there is less money for the shareholders so there is less investment money available overall (fewer jobs), there is less money for the employees so some of them get laid off (fewer jobs) and customers have to pay more for goods, which means inflation, which ultimately means fewer jobs as well.
Poor people currently pay either no taxes at all or very low taxes as proportion of their income. Bottom half pays no income tax at all: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0 How does calling for less taxes overall in your opinion translate to "wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes"? It doesn't make any sense at all.
Who rallies in the street to keep poor people paying taxes? This has to be one of the most ridiculous comments ever modded 5 Insightful.
Not true. Only middle class and moderately rich pay the taxes. The bottom 47% don't pay any income taxes. The top 1-2% are rich enough to hire lawyers to work out these kind of loopholes (and to afford a residence in Cayman Islands or whatever).
I think this is all a conspiracy to cover up the strange government experiments that are going on there. For example I see a headless body of a cop and another one apparently still alive but with no legs.
A great example of the way public officials form a "blue [pinstriped] wall" has just come up in the news again, Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas. A right-wing bloc in the all-male Senate of the day tore into every minor aspect of Hill's own sex life to try to discredit her in the eyes of the American public.
What a weird way to look at it. You mean, the way a left-wing block in the Senate used completely unproven and by now mostly discredited allegation of sexual harassment in order to discredit a supreme court nominee in the eyes of the American public?
Well I am a libertarian (with a small l) and even though I disagree with some of the Republican policies (mainly to do with war and religion, but hey see where Democrats stand on those issues) I am sure that the Republican party represents those ideas you listed in your last sentence far better than the Democrat party. As I see it, the Republican party in the USA has two distinct camps that coexist uneasily: 1) classical liberalism (individual liberty, less government) which has a lot in common with Libertarians, and 2) religious conservative (church-family-military) which ultimately comes from European nobility. Fortunately, these days seems like the former is getting more traction but the latter is necessary to get the votes. As for the Libertarian party, well without meaning to sound too patronizing, I wish it well and I hope some day it becomes relevant but in the meantime you are welcome to help push the Republican party in the right direction and actually make a difference.
hell, I'd even accept Chinese dialects since they're the most spoken already.
Mandarin is the most spoken language by the number of native speakers. English is the most spoken language when you take into account the second language and the foreign language speakers. Plus, English is a hell of a lot more practical.
We also don't know that on an Earth in a parallel universe there aren't even longer tunnels. I personally qualify all statement about biggest such and such with: built by humans, on a planet humans who speak English call Earth, in the universe we can perceive, if our senses are to be trusted.
Not so fast. Looks like the main sources of data are MS security tools like Windows Defender, MSRT, Microsoft Security Essentials etc which are available only if you have a licenced copy of Windows. As far as I know there is no such thing as a legal copy of Windows in China.
He may have been stabbing in the dark, but he was sort of right. TV ownership according to wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_North_Korea ) is 55 in 1000 households, while radio is more widespread. However all TV and radio sets are pre-tuned to government channels and sealed so the tuning cannot be changed (which carries sever penalties if you did manage it). And in any case foreign radio stations that can be picked up in NK are jammed.
Regardless of whether North Korea is a signatory or not its leaders can still be tried and convicted as criminals in the International Criminal Court. The court statute allows it to try cases even when the accused is not a national of a country that accepts the court's jurisdiction, if the case is referred to it by the UN Security Council. Not that this would even happen in case of North Korea.
A fake steelworker is nothing compared to a fake candidate from a fake party: http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20101007/NEWS01/101007081/Democrats-Adler-campaign-backed-Tea-Party-candidate There are other similar attempts except nobody from Reid's team is spilling the beans yet.
Oh I see, so when a group of people armed and financed from abroad (USSR) exploit the post war chaos to seize power by force or arms, brutally wipe out all the leaders and intellectuals and cultural values of the previous order, and then stay in power for the next 50 years by imprisoning and/or killing anybody who disagrees with them that is is exactly the same thing as having a vote.
Frankly I think that's a bunch of bs. First of all, how do you know what Chinese people want? Have they perhaps had a referendum to decide that they would prefer to live under a one party dictatorship rather than democracy? As an experiment, ask Chinese people in Hong Kong would they prefer to give up their relative freedom and exchange it for the "stability" in mainland and see what they tell you. How many Chinese people moved to mainland China from Hong Kong over the last few decades, especially before the transfer to China, because they preferred the stability there?
most Chinese are aware of the award. Honestly, most of them don't care that much.
So a Chinese man is kept in prison purely because his opinions disagree with the government and he gets a Nobel prize and now the government will censor your website, email and even deactivate your cellphone if you as much as mention his name. If they really don't care they most definitely should.
I think the problem is too much power given to a single mod to bury a post, especially in case of anonymous posts which start from 0 anyway. If you read at -1 you will find plenty of interesting posts that are in no way trolls or flamebaits but were modded as such because just one or two mods disagreed with them, and once its at -1 most readers and mods don't see it anymore.
Leave modding up as it is but make it a bit more difficult to mod down to below the default threshold. For example make it so that a -1 mod requires agreement of at least several more readers (including non-mods) before it actually lowers the score. In case of obvious trolls, spam, etc this will still happen fairly quickly but it will force a bit more review before good posts are hidden.
Funny, I read it immediately as herbal viagra. I guess different people's brains may be handling the job of reading differently. Reminds me of Richard Feynman's "experiments" with reading and counting at the same time etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y
One thing they didn't get to keep is their jobs: http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr/2010/spring/images/auto_fig3.gif
My guess is that the economy will improve pretty quickly after November elections if Republicans win. Not because they will do anything major but because the businesses will start spending and hiring more once the prospects of more oppressive regulation and higher taxes are diminished. So if you want some easy money, buy stocks now and hope for a Republican win.