Local utilities are very often private corporations (with some state level public oversight commission usually). A municipal utility refers to one that's operated by the city itself. Many of these came into effect because the larger utility gave such bad service that the voters decided to dump them.
Of course these are a bit cheaper in that the cities are taking over existing infrastructure rather than building out their own, but they do still need to maintain them. Sometimes it's expensive to improve on the crap that they inherited.
Actually I wish real estate agents would start to include internet services available in their listings, along side access to good schools. Similarly local governments doing property assessments should take into account quality of internet (they'll never do that though as it will hurt tax revenue). Then you'll start to see a lot of political pressure to improve the quality of internet as the housing valuations start to drop.
I agree. The US has never been an anti-tax country, not even from the founding fathers. What we were against was taxation without representation. That is, the local citizens must have a say in the process, which we do. We've had taxes in the US from the start.
It is true that the value of benefits we get from the government(s) for each dollar spent in taxes goes up and down, and we may be at a relatively low point by many arguments. But the argument to abolish taxes for everything is just ridiculously stupid and not very American.
Governments are enacting the will of the people to counter a monopolistic corporation. No other corporation can effectively come in, and the existin monopoly is abusing the citizens of that town with unjustified high prices. Sounds like what we want governments to do.
What if a corporation built some toll roads, would the local government be exceeding its authority by building its own roads using tax money?
Would it be better for you if the local government just utterly outlaws Time Warner and Comcast as an enemy of the people and then waits for competition to arrive?
So even water and sewer systems should be built on loans and not taxes? That's a somewhat extreme viewpoint and certainly different from most of the history of US infrastructure.
The US founding fathers were never anti-tax, they were anti tax-without-representation. If the voters in the town approved the taxes then it's not the damn business of outside libertarian agitators to try and block it.
The ones I have been to, even in Silicon Valley, did not have this stuff. The online store has DIY stuff but I rarely see it in the physical stores. Though it's probably true that individual stores have leeway about what to stock up on.
Most Radio Shacks don't sell that stuff. A few do, but the majority do not. There are other stores that sell this stuff on the side, ie Fry's has a nice supply of items if you hunt around, but those are relatively rare stores as well.
The important thing about the early Radio Shack stores was that they were all over the country, not just major population centers like Fry's is. So even people from rural areas would be able to buy the 100-in-1 electronics kit and get the grandkids interested in learning about electronics, buy a hobbyist compuer, buy some extra cables to rewire the TV antenna, get some basic TTL parts, etc. Then that changed when Radio Shack went with a more mass market appeal, and at the same time society changed to be less nerdy (with people proudly proclaiming their ignorance in math and science).
Hmm, the real eggheads were using S100 bus computers, Heathkits, etc. The TRS-80 was rather ho hum, the only advantage it had (and a big one) was the mass market appeal of being close to most people who weren't in large cities and who didn't want to do mail order.
So we should give up our discrete components toys and play with what? Golf? Everyone's got toys, young or old. They're usually different toys, but not always especially if the kids are playing with toys meant for older ages (like discrete components). Better to be playing with electronics than to veg in front of the tv for a 6 hour binge.
I went before Christmas to by a battery for a present I was giving. The present already had a battery and it was a strange size I would never use, so I went to return the part and the salesperson said "we don't take returns on batteries". Which I think was complete bullshit as nothing on the return policy mentioned that, I think she just didn't want to bother with the effort.
Thing was, it was January, the Radio Shack bankruptcy rumors are going very strong, the store was nearly empty, and there were *three* cashiers hanging around not doing much of anything. And the person didn't want to deal with the hassle of returning a battery? It felt like the just stopped trying.
If we can't be mandated to pay taxes, then there is no government. Including no army for self defense (and in my view, the army is far less important than education). No roads to get to work except toll roads controlled by corporations, no sewers or clean water systems, no police except for self appointed vigilante gangs, no legal system except for self appointed judges that you have to pay (if you can afford it). And so on.
If you receive benefits from the government then you need to pay your fair share of taxes for that. Sure it's fine to complain that the return on that investment is bad but to insist that eliminating it altogether is naive extremism.
Also note that it is strongly in the state's interest to protect people when the alternative is a great expense to the state to provide medical care. Ie, requiring vaccinations isn't about heavy handed paternalism but is more about a pragmatic protection of its own finances and responsible use of tax revenue. Which is why even some of the most cold hearted anti government sorts still back vaccinations.
Didn't ebay have rules for this? If the seller never pays the second person in line in the auction gets it instead? I though money had to pass through ebay's hands now and not be direct (thus their stupid rule of paypal only).
Free to play has helped some things out though. I know people hate it but much of that is knee jerk; they're angry at the fact that old school subscription models are leaving or that the hardcore players are a minority now. I've seen games that migrated to F2P and all the hysterical predictions of doom did not happen.
Agreed that tips are there to underpay the staff. However the customer is still not obligated to leave a fixed amount as a tip regardless of how bad the service is. Be polite and the tips go up.
Gosh, then we'd have to also go to the European taxi model where they're trained professionals. I've seen taxi drivers in the states who don't want to give out receipts, or who get lost on the way to the freeway that's next to the airport.
If the servers and staff can give bad service, then the owners can fire the staff as well. Yes it's sucky to be a poorly paid person who depends on tips to pay the rent, but in order to keep that job they're generally required to be polite to the customers. Servers can and do get fired on the spot for being rude.
What's crappy buyer behavior? As long as payment arrives then what goes wrong other than a bad review? If I win the bid then I want the item and not to have the buyer renege on the deal because of some review.
Then they should put a sign up that says "we reserve to right to serve you for petty reasons". Taxis aren't allowed to do this in many places, they have to pick up the passengers that call (as opposed to just waving from the sidewalk).
This is a major redefinition of the term "ride sharing". This used to meant that two people going to the same area could ride together, as in two commuters, or a friend taking you along where he was going anyway. To redefine this as "the same thing a taxi does" is just intentionally muddying the waters.
What, really? The libertarians (lower case L) outnumber the liberals here by a wide margin. Add in all the tea party wingnuts too, and add in all those who get downmodded to invisibility (racists, sexists, homophobes, etc) and liberals are pretty much a minority.
Slashdot Mirror
Local utilities are very often private corporations (with some state level public oversight commission usually). A municipal utility refers to one that's operated by the city itself. Many of these came into effect because the larger utility gave such bad service that the voters decided to dump them.
Of course these are a bit cheaper in that the cities are taking over existing infrastructure rather than building out their own, but they do still need to maintain them. Sometimes it's expensive to improve on the crap that they inherited.
Actually I wish real estate agents would start to include internet services available in their listings, along side access to good schools. Similarly local governments doing property assessments should take into account quality of internet (they'll never do that though as it will hurt tax revenue). Then you'll start to see a lot of political pressure to improve the quality of internet as the housing valuations start to drop.
I agree. The US has never been an anti-tax country, not even from the founding fathers. What we were against was taxation without representation. That is, the local citizens must have a say in the process, which we do. We've had taxes in the US from the start.
It is true that the value of benefits we get from the government(s) for each dollar spent in taxes goes up and down, and we may be at a relatively low point by many arguments. But the argument to abolish taxes for everything is just ridiculously stupid and not very American.
Governments are enacting the will of the people to counter a monopolistic corporation. No other corporation can effectively come in, and the existin monopoly is abusing the citizens of that town with unjustified high prices. Sounds like what we want governments to do.
What if a corporation built some toll roads, would the local government be exceeding its authority by building its own roads using tax money?
Would it be better for you if the local government just utterly outlaws Time Warner and Comcast as an enemy of the people and then waits for competition to arrive?
Compare to corporations where the relative price never goes down after the infrastructure is paid for.
So even water and sewer systems should be built on loans and not taxes? That's a somewhat extreme viewpoint and certainly different from most of the history of US infrastructure.
The US founding fathers were never anti-tax, they were anti tax-without-representation. If the voters in the town approved the taxes then it's not the damn business of outside libertarian agitators to try and block it.
The ones I have been to, even in Silicon Valley, did not have this stuff. The online store has DIY stuff but I rarely see it in the physical stores. Though it's probably true that individual stores have leeway about what to stock up on.
Most Radio Shacks don't sell that stuff. A few do, but the majority do not. There are other stores that sell this stuff on the side, ie Fry's has a nice supply of items if you hunt around, but those are relatively rare stores as well.
The important thing about the early Radio Shack stores was that they were all over the country, not just major population centers like Fry's is. So even people from rural areas would be able to buy the 100-in-1 electronics kit and get the grandkids interested in learning about electronics, buy a hobbyist compuer, buy some extra cables to rewire the TV antenna, get some basic TTL parts, etc. Then that changed when Radio Shack went with a more mass market appeal, and at the same time society changed to be less nerdy (with people proudly proclaiming their ignorance in math and science).
Hmm, the real eggheads were using S100 bus computers, Heathkits, etc. The TRS-80 was rather ho hum, the only advantage it had (and a big one) was the mass market appeal of being close to most people who weren't in large cities and who didn't want to do mail order.
So we should give up our discrete components toys and play with what? Golf? Everyone's got toys, young or old. They're usually different toys, but not always especially if the kids are playing with toys meant for older ages (like discrete components). Better to be playing with electronics than to veg in front of the tv for a 6 hour binge.
I went before Christmas to by a battery for a present I was giving. The present already had a battery and it was a strange size I would never use, so I went to return the part and the salesperson said "we don't take returns on batteries". Which I think was complete bullshit as nothing on the return policy mentioned that, I think she just didn't want to bother with the effort.
Thing was, it was January, the Radio Shack bankruptcy rumors are going very strong, the store was nearly empty, and there were *three* cashiers hanging around not doing much of anything. And the person didn't want to deal with the hassle of returning a battery? It felt like the just stopped trying.
If we can't be mandated to pay taxes, then there is no government. Including no army for self defense (and in my view, the army is far less important than education). No roads to get to work except toll roads controlled by corporations, no sewers or clean water systems, no police except for self appointed vigilante gangs, no legal system except for self appointed judges that you have to pay (if you can afford it). And so on.
If you receive benefits from the government then you need to pay your fair share of taxes for that. Sure it's fine to complain that the return on that investment is bad but to insist that eliminating it altogether is naive extremism.
Also note that it is strongly in the state's interest to protect people when the alternative is a great expense to the state to provide medical care. Ie, requiring vaccinations isn't about heavy handed paternalism but is more about a pragmatic protection of its own finances and responsible use of tax revenue. Which is why even some of the most cold hearted anti government sorts still back vaccinations.
But then they'll try to fund a pipeline from Europa to American refineries so that they can sell the gasoline to China.
Didn't ebay have rules for this? If the seller never pays the second person in line in the auction gets it instead? I though money had to pass through ebay's hands now and not be direct (thus their stupid rule of paypal only).
So call up the local regulatory commision, probably a part of the city government.
Free to play has helped some things out though. I know people hate it but much of that is knee jerk; they're angry at the fact that old school subscription models are leaving or that the hardcore players are a minority now. I've seen games that migrated to F2P and all the hysterical predictions of doom did not happen.
Agreed that tips are there to underpay the staff. However the customer is still not obligated to leave a fixed amount as a tip regardless of how bad the service is. Be polite and the tips go up.
Gosh, then we'd have to also go to the European taxi model where they're trained professionals. I've seen taxi drivers in the states who don't want to give out receipts, or who get lost on the way to the freeway that's next to the airport.
If the servers and staff can give bad service, then the owners can fire the staff as well. Yes it's sucky to be a poorly paid person who depends on tips to pay the rent, but in order to keep that job they're generally required to be polite to the customers. Servers can and do get fired on the spot for being rude.
Best behavior is in the mind of the beholder. People get downgraded by being quiet and not saying anything, which to me should be good behavior.
What's crappy buyer behavior? As long as payment arrives then what goes wrong other than a bad review? If I win the bid then I want the item and not to have the buyer renege on the deal because of some review.
Then they should put a sign up that says "we reserve to right to serve you for petty reasons". Taxis aren't allowed to do this in many places, they have to pick up the passengers that call (as opposed to just waving from the sidewalk).
This is a major redefinition of the term "ride sharing". This used to meant that two people going to the same area could ride together, as in two commuters, or a friend taking you along where he was going anyway. To redefine this as "the same thing a taxi does" is just intentionally muddying the waters.
What, really? The libertarians (lower case L) outnumber the liberals here by a wide margin. Add in all the tea party wingnuts too, and add in all those who get downmodded to invisibility (racists, sexists, homophobes, etc) and liberals are pretty much a minority.