A few hundred? Try $800/month which is the cheapest plan the ACA offers where I live. And that plan was total garbage, didn't cover half of what you'd expect and had huge co-pays.
The problem with ACA is that it MANDATED HMO's... Not health insurance. Some people don't need an HMO... if you're running a moderately successful home business you're usually making enough money to cover your families medical expenses out of pocket. What you couldn't afford is catastrophic injuries like car accidents, cancer, heart attacks, etc... So you'd get a very limited policy for that. It wouldn't pay for prescriptions and such but if you started getting $200k hospital bills it would kick in. Those plans were pretty cheap... in the $200/range.
ACA made those kinds of plans illegal. Now you have to buy plans that cover all those things you didn't need... and they cost a fortune. If I tried to get the plan I have with my employer through the ACA exchange it would be over $1600/month. That's insane! And yes, I actually looked it up.
Ironically, one type of small business is flourishing because of all of this. My best friends father is an insurance salesman. When the ACA passed he was terrified... he'd go out of business. He's an older, cranky, eastern European man and hates democrats so that made it even worse. But when the reality finally dawned on him and everyone's insurance policies got canceled, he suddenly LOVES Obama. You see, he makes a commission on insurance sales. Because all of his clients now have to re-sign up for their insurance, he's basically making back all the money he already made off all of his clients the first time he signed them up.
For those that are not aware how this works... Every time there is a new budget proposal, NASA first suggests axing its most popular projects... usually Hubble, but sometimes other things... and they send that up to the hill... Congress panics "They can't shut down Hubble! It's the only sciencey thing we do anymore!!!" and they give NASA a bit more money. It's all part of the game. BTW, you're supposed to write into your congressman angry about how NASA doesn't get enough money right about now. I'm not saying you shouldn't... they really don't get enough money... but you should at least know the game that's getting played.
I'm used to the dupes being weeks or months old... maybe Days for really bad ones. But this was like 12hrs ago? Do the editors even read slashdot anymore?
It very much depends on what you're listening to. If you're listing to Michael Buble, this is probably not something you want on your album. If you're listening to Xerath, the album would sound like crap without it.
The problem is when you got people bitching about the way you record rather than getting off their ass to come see you in person.
No. The modem can write to your OS. Anyone can communicate with your modem, even Ham radio operators. Granted, exploiting this would be a huge technological challenge... unless of course this was placed there intentionally and they know exactly what to send to your modem to get it to do what they want.
The coal mines don't own the coal. The states do. The mines buy permits to mine it. As soon as one mine is gone, that permit is open for whomever wants to show up and take over.
What are all the families that heat their homes with coal going to do? Are you going to buy them all new furnaces and pipe natural gas up the mountain to them? Oh, but natural gas isn't green is it? So you're going to install solar panels on their land? where does it end?
Lastly, do you think Virginia is going to allow this at all? Shuttering their biggest industry? Not a chance in hell.
That's assuming those 3 letter agencies don't have pictures of every single congressman on the hill in bed with every prostitute in Singapore. Given the assets of the NSA/CIA how long would it take you to invent blackmail on any particular congressman? I'm pretty sure I'd be done in about 10min.
They pay more by percentage or by dollar amount than you can I combined. This idea they the rich are under taxed is ridiculous. The question is, are we OVER taxing them enough. Do we want to take their rate to 75%?
I believe that you would refer to the tax breaks they get... and claim they are getting a free ride. But the government doesn't just give free money even to the rich. Tax breaks, loopholes, and every other evil trick the rich use to avoid taxes exist because our federal government wants to manipulate how they spend their money.
"Invest (spend) your money and we'll not tax you on it" The governments getting you to increase cash in the market, they will make more money taxing what other people do with it as it passes from hand to hand...
"Put your money in the bank and not only will we tax the interest but we'll deflate the value of the dollar so your money will lose value every day that it's there!" The government can only tax your money once if you don't spend it. So they make it a doosy. They want your money out in the marketplace.
"We'll give you free sewer and water if you put your plant here!" The government then collects income taxes from the 100 employees you just hired and makes 10x the cost of the water and sewer.
So now those businesses have incentive to try and manipulate government. If the governments goals are in-line with that businesses strategy the tax breaks and loopholes are a boon. You want to put the plant in Chicago, so you want them to start courting you and offering you tax breaks... So you start lobbying, donating to campaigns...
Do you see where this leads? All the corporate boot licking they do is precisely because they try to manipulate the markets. If the government taxed at a flat rate... maybe different for individuals and corporations, but none-the-less, if it got out of the business of manipulating corporations. Corporations would not longer have a need to try to manipulate the government.
Progressive taxation corrupts both the Corporations that are taxed as well as the government doing the taxing.
Ah, no. The vast majority of people get back far more in social security payments than they ever payed into it. It's the same ponzi scheme pensions relied on (except pensions require the corporation to grow forever rather than the population of the country) and why they to are failing. The only way our social programs can work is if the population of the united states continues to grow at the rate it did in the first half of this century, forever. Currently it is not, and that is why we have a problem. It's very simple math... if you think the US population will increase at a constant rate forever, then our social safety nets are good and there is no problem. If you think our population will go into decline, or even if you just think it will fluctuate back and forth, then our social programs are doomed and they will inevitably bankrupt us.
Right, but shouting "TOLD YOU SO" so loud that everyone gets distracted while the NSA slips out the back isn't in our best interest either. Let's focus on the real problem here... Politicians being Politicians is the least of our problems.
Exactly, if the phones encrypted they're going to have to wipe it to use it. Ok, yea, if the NSA gets the phone, I'm sure they could guess the password eventually, but I doubt you're a political dissident or whatever. You could also get one of many programs that let you remotely control or locate your phone. Yes, if they turn it off you're not going to find it but at least you have a decent chance. The number of criminals that are smart enough to plan for such things are few and far between.
They just transfer the info to England and viola, They're no longer retaining it.
The problem with government agencies that work in secret is that they can make any justification they want, for any activity they want and there's no way anyone will know. It currently appears that the NSA is operating under the belief that: A. Their mission is righteous. They are the good guys. B. The law and constitution are another obstacle, like any other piece of hardware or software they have to deal with. As with all obstacles they probe them for weakness and exploit those weaknesses in as much secret as possible. C. They are not looking forward... who will the next director of the agency? President? Congress? They are not considering what will happen when the powers they have given themselves are under the control of a different generation.
There are STILL party lines. I work for a phone company, they are fairly common on farms. (Think of the elderly parents still living in the farmhouse and the kids living in a new house on the same lot, running the farm and taking car of their parents.
But the problem with Chicago is the causes of violent crime are fairly obvious and relatively easily remedied, but local politics are so horrible the governments in almost total gridlock. Combine that with rampant corruption, that's willful and obvious and you have a real problem.
Close, but you're kind of going into the area of "after" is declared "Settled" which most would take to mean we're 100% sure... which is not possible. I take it to mean we're 99.99% or whatever sure this is true. We're so sure, if you want to present evidence against it, it better be pretty darn good evidence.
Yea, but it's not worth being in court over. Usually these things work in the same way I got my "Speeding on the sidewalk" ticket...
So I was a Pizza delivery driver in college. I had a special permit to park on the "service" roads that lead to the front of the dorms. Well, the local police decided for some reason that 1 dorm was off limits. I was given a ticket despite my permit. The DA wanted me to settle for $50 but I'm a man of principle. In the end, they added a charge of "Speeding on a sidewalk" which I lost in court because sidewalks have a 5mph speed limit (how the hell you're supposed to know that I'm not sure) So I won the parking bit... I had a permit... but the DA refused to lose so I got the other ticket and lost on that. Mt defence in court was "I had no idea if I was breaking the limit, my speedometer starts at 15" which didn't go over well with the judge.
I'm sure they went to this guy, tried to give him some minor ticket to "teach him a lesson" and make a point... he refused, and something that should have been relatively minor turned into a full blow case like mine.
Actually... remember his "Shovel Ready projects"? How much you want to bet road construction is up this year due to those stimulus programs? I know the main clover leaf near me is getting torn up this year due to stimulus so at least that bit is Obamas fault.:-)
Yes, GDP, unemployment and pretty much every other measurement the government puts out is made up from whole cloth and has very little to do with reality.
Over the past couple of years however, Oracle has purchased a boat load of software products. None of the software I administer were Oracle products 3 years ago... now they all are. Then the new Oracle sales people come in and tell me it all integrates together perfectly... and I'm in the meeting "How can you say that? You just bought it?!?!" They all have API's but they're certainly not out of the box integrated. It's a strait up lie and the sales guys know it.
I can. It shuts down the part of your brain that rationalizes things. You can't make complex thoughts to justify your actions. You just do what you normally would do, like eat some cake... but instead of "I'm eating this because it's the weekend and I'm hungry" you think "Cake... taste good... me eat... I LIKE SUGAR!" As a result you usually end up finding out some truths about yourself you rather would not have admitted to. In the end it's almost always a good thing, and you end up being a better person because of it. My use of it decades ago lead me to therapy, not directly because of the drug, but instead because the drug made me realize I had some psychological issues that needed to be addressed.
On the downside it makes it difficult for you to tell the difference between your imagination and reality. This is why it can have different effects on different people. I was pretty neurotic and anxiety ridden back then so I had a difficult time knowing that concerns were unfounded, people weren't hating on me, etc... Also, it seems like it doesn't do any long term damage, but I knew some people back then that seemed drawn into it... I wouldn't say addiction, but maybe they had some problems they were trying to escape... they ended up doing it A LOT... Like once or twice a day. Their lives did not turn out well at all. I know for a fact one is mentally disabled now. So there's that risk as well.
I would not recommend Acid to anyone. I'd say you have a very good chance that it will do you some good if you do it once or twice. But the risks are high, and dependence is a real concern and very dangerous. Also, if you were going to take it, it's best to have someone experienced along with you and be in a safe secluded location. Having sober people show up is about the worse thing that can happen... especially if they are police or other authority figures.
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A few hundred? Try $800/month which is the cheapest plan the ACA offers where I live. And that plan was total garbage, didn't cover half of what you'd expect and had huge co-pays.
The problem with ACA is that it MANDATED HMO's... Not health insurance. Some people don't need an HMO... if you're running a moderately successful home business you're usually making enough money to cover your families medical expenses out of pocket. What you couldn't afford is catastrophic injuries like car accidents, cancer, heart attacks, etc... So you'd get a very limited policy for that. It wouldn't pay for prescriptions and such but if you started getting $200k hospital bills it would kick in. Those plans were pretty cheap... in the $200/range.
ACA made those kinds of plans illegal. Now you have to buy plans that cover all those things you didn't need... and they cost a fortune. If I tried to get the plan I have with my employer through the ACA exchange it would be over $1600/month. That's insane! And yes, I actually looked it up.
Ironically, one type of small business is flourishing because of all of this. My best friends father is an insurance salesman. When the ACA passed he was terrified... he'd go out of business. He's an older, cranky, eastern European man and hates democrats so that made it even worse. But when the reality finally dawned on him and everyone's insurance policies got canceled, he suddenly LOVES Obama. You see, he makes a commission on insurance sales. Because all of his clients now have to re-sign up for their insurance, he's basically making back all the money he already made off all of his clients the first time he signed them up.
For those that are not aware how this works... Every time there is a new budget proposal, NASA first suggests axing its most popular projects... usually Hubble, but sometimes other things... and they send that up to the hill... Congress panics "They can't shut down Hubble! It's the only sciencey thing we do anymore!!!" and they give NASA a bit more money. It's all part of the game. BTW, you're supposed to write into your congressman angry about how NASA doesn't get enough money right about now. I'm not saying you shouldn't... they really don't get enough money... but you should at least know the game that's getting played.
I'm used to the dupes being weeks or months old... maybe Days for really bad ones. But this was like 12hrs ago? Do the editors even read slashdot anymore?
It very much depends on what you're listening to.
If you're listing to Michael Buble, this is probably not something you want on your album.
If you're listening to Xerath, the album would sound like crap without it.
The problem is when you got people bitching about the way you record rather than getting off their ass to come see you in person.
No. The modem can write to your OS. Anyone can communicate with your modem, even Ham radio operators. Granted, exploiting this would be a huge technological challenge... unless of course this was placed there intentionally and they know exactly what to send to your modem to get it to do what they want.
The coal mines don't own the coal. The states do. The mines buy permits to mine it. As soon as one mine is gone, that permit is open for whomever wants to show up and take over.
What are all the families that heat their homes with coal going to do? Are you going to buy them all new furnaces and pipe natural gas up the mountain to them? Oh, but natural gas isn't green is it? So you're going to install solar panels on their land? where does it end?
Lastly, do you think Virginia is going to allow this at all? Shuttering their biggest industry? Not a chance in hell.
Agreed. First person to touch the crater gets naming rights. I think we can all agree on that.
That's assuming those 3 letter agencies don't have pictures of every single congressman on the hill in bed with every prostitute in Singapore. Given the assets of the NSA/CIA how long would it take you to invent blackmail on any particular congressman? I'm pretty sure I'd be done in about 10min.
They pay more by percentage or by dollar amount than you can I combined. This idea they the rich are under taxed is ridiculous. The question is, are we OVER taxing them enough. Do we want to take their rate to 75%?
I believe that you would refer to the tax breaks they get... and claim they are getting a free ride. But the government doesn't just give free money even to the rich. Tax breaks, loopholes, and every other evil trick the rich use to avoid taxes exist because our federal government wants to manipulate how they spend their money.
"Invest (spend) your money and we'll not tax you on it" The governments getting you to increase cash in the market, they will make more money taxing what other people do with it as it passes from hand to hand...
"Put your money in the bank and not only will we tax the interest but we'll deflate the value of the dollar so your money will lose value every day that it's there!" The government can only tax your money once if you don't spend it. So they make it a doosy. They want your money out in the marketplace.
"We'll give you free sewer and water if you put your plant here!" The government then collects income taxes from the 100 employees you just hired and makes 10x the cost of the water and sewer.
So now those businesses have incentive to try and manipulate government. If the governments goals are in-line with that businesses strategy the tax breaks and loopholes are a boon. You want to put the plant in Chicago, so you want them to start courting you and offering you tax breaks... So you start lobbying, donating to campaigns...
Do you see where this leads? All the corporate boot licking they do is precisely because they try to manipulate the markets. If the government taxed at a flat rate... maybe different for individuals and corporations, but none-the-less, if it got out of the business of manipulating corporations. Corporations would not longer have a need to try to manipulate the government.
Progressive taxation corrupts both the Corporations that are taxed as well as the government doing the taxing.
Ah, no. The vast majority of people get back far more in social security payments than they ever payed into it. It's the same ponzi scheme pensions relied on (except pensions require the corporation to grow forever rather than the population of the country) and why they to are failing. The only way our social programs can work is if the population of the united states continues to grow at the rate it did in the first half of this century, forever. Currently it is not, and that is why we have a problem. It's very simple math... if you think the US population will increase at a constant rate forever, then our social safety nets are good and there is no problem. If you think our population will go into decline, or even if you just think it will fluctuate back and forth, then our social programs are doomed and they will inevitably bankrupt us.
No we are not being unfair to Feinstein.
Right, but shouting "TOLD YOU SO" so loud that everyone gets distracted while the NSA slips out the back isn't in our best interest either. Let's focus on the real problem here... Politicians being Politicians is the least of our problems.
Exactly, if the phones encrypted they're going to have to wipe it to use it. Ok, yea, if the NSA gets the phone, I'm sure they could guess the password eventually, but I doubt you're a political dissident or whatever. You could also get one of many programs that let you remotely control or locate your phone. Yes, if they turn it off you're not going to find it but at least you have a decent chance. The number of criminals that are smart enough to plan for such things are few and far between.
They just transfer the info to England and viola, They're no longer retaining it.
The problem with government agencies that work in secret is that they can make any justification they want, for any activity they want and there's no way anyone will know.
It currently appears that the NSA is operating under the belief that:
A. Their mission is righteous. They are the good guys.
B. The law and constitution are another obstacle, like any other piece of hardware or software they have to deal with. As with all obstacles they probe them for weakness and exploit those weaknesses in as much secret as possible.
C. They are not looking forward... who will the next director of the agency? President? Congress? They are not considering what will happen when the powers they have given themselves are under the control of a different generation.
There are STILL party lines. I work for a phone company, they are fairly common on farms. (Think of the elderly parents still living in the farmhouse and the kids living in a new house on the same lot, running the farm and taking car of their parents.
But the problem with Chicago is the causes of violent crime are fairly obvious and relatively easily remedied, but local politics are so horrible the governments in almost total gridlock. Combine that with rampant corruption, that's willful and obvious and you have a real problem.
What's a pension and where do I get one?
It wasn't even remotely Google. It's a different company entirely.
Close, but you're kind of going into the area of "after" is declared "Settled" which most would take to mean we're 100% sure... which is not possible. I take it to mean we're 99.99% or whatever sure this is true. We're so sure, if you want to present evidence against it, it better be pretty darn good evidence.
Because none of the other cases resulted in reporters getting into a car chase with an elderly Japanese man?
Yea, but it's not worth being in court over. Usually these things work in the same way I got my "Speeding on the sidewalk" ticket...
So I was a Pizza delivery driver in college. I had a special permit to park on the "service" roads that lead to the front of the dorms. Well, the local police decided for some reason that 1 dorm was off limits. I was given a ticket despite my permit. The DA wanted me to settle for $50 but I'm a man of principle. In the end, they added a charge of "Speeding on a sidewalk" which I lost in court because sidewalks have a 5mph speed limit (how the hell you're supposed to know that I'm not sure) So I won the parking bit... I had a permit... but the DA refused to lose so I got the other ticket and lost on that. Mt defence in court was "I had no idea if I was breaking the limit, my speedometer starts at 15" which didn't go over well with the judge.
I'm sure they went to this guy, tried to give him some minor ticket to "teach him a lesson" and make a point... he refused, and something that should have been relatively minor turned into a full blow case like mine.
Actually... remember his "Shovel Ready projects"? How much you want to bet road construction is up this year due to those stimulus programs? I know the main clover leaf near me is getting torn up this year due to stimulus so at least that bit is Obamas fault. :-)
Ok, what do I win?
Yes, GDP, unemployment and pretty much every other measurement the government puts out is made up from whole cloth and has very little to do with reality.
Over the past couple of years however, Oracle has purchased a boat load of software products. None of the software I administer were Oracle products 3 years ago... now they all are. Then the new Oracle sales people come in and tell me it all integrates together perfectly... and I'm in the meeting "How can you say that? You just bought it?!?!" They all have API's but they're certainly not out of the box integrated. It's a strait up lie and the sales guys know it.
I can. It shuts down the part of your brain that rationalizes things. You can't make complex thoughts to justify your actions. You just do what you normally would do, like eat some cake... but instead of "I'm eating this because it's the weekend and I'm hungry" you think "Cake... taste good... me eat... I LIKE SUGAR!" As a result you usually end up finding out some truths about yourself you rather would not have admitted to. In the end it's almost always a good thing, and you end up being a better person because of it. My use of it decades ago lead me to therapy, not directly because of the drug, but instead because the drug made me realize I had some psychological issues that needed to be addressed.
On the downside it makes it difficult for you to tell the difference between your imagination and reality. This is why it can have different effects on different people. I was pretty neurotic and anxiety ridden back then so I had a difficult time knowing that concerns were unfounded, people weren't hating on me, etc... Also, it seems like it doesn't do any long term damage, but I knew some people back then that seemed drawn into it... I wouldn't say addiction, but maybe they had some problems they were trying to escape... they ended up doing it A LOT... Like once or twice a day. Their lives did not turn out well at all. I know for a fact one is mentally disabled now. So there's that risk as well.
I would not recommend Acid to anyone. I'd say you have a very good chance that it will do you some good if you do it once or twice. But the risks are high, and dependence is a real concern and very dangerous. Also, if you were going to take it, it's best to have someone experienced along with you and be in a safe secluded location. Having sober people show up is about the worse thing that can happen... especially if they are police or other authority figures.
I can confirm that after the last time I took LSD I was DEFINITELY prepared for death. Hence why that was 20 years ago.