When the government forces you to do it, there's no "free".
In a "free country", the people still have the choice to do it or not.
In a free country, the people can tell their government "NO!", and the government will listen.
The US Government became a tyranny when the reigning political party ran roughshod over the American people to get as much of their agenda through as they could before the next election.
There are also governments that will take your money at gunpoint and give it to other people on the condition that you are more productive than they are.
That huge mistake that the House and Obama managed to force through is a "law", and laws can be easily repealed. Laws in and of themselves cannot grant "rights", any more than a politician repeating the same old rhetoric makes what s/he is saying "honest".
The bits enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Constitution? Those are "rights", and cannot be (easily) repealed.
The "car insurance" story to justify what Congress just passed is a lie. Nobody is forcing you to use the public roadways, but if you do, the required level of insurance protects the other guy, not yourself. If you are driving on your own property, you aren't required to have insurance.
This "law", on the other hand, requires citizens to buy into a contract with a non-government agency (aka the health insurance company), something that has never been done before. If you fail to buy insurance for yourself, the IRS is authorized to penalize you. Call it what you will, but it is still "socialized medicine". It is not something that Congress is authorized to put into law, according to the Tenth Amendment.
At this writing, more than a dozen states are suing to challenge this bill, and if the SCotUS has any legitimacy left in it, they will pay attention and do something about it. If they allow this to remain in place, there will be hell to pay, and it won't be pretty.
With this argument, we could say that the Democrat-controlled Congress has done almost nothing in the past year or so, especially in regards to healthcare reform...
Phantomfive said it right: officers of the law are not our enemies. I just hope that Blizzard's response wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to a request that "looked" official... I hope they took some time to verify the request before sending that sort of information out. I would hate to think that ANYONE could get that kind of detail just by writing up a "polite request".
Re:Speaking for myself as a Swedish brick driver,
on
A Requiem For Saab
·
· Score: 1
Which especially for a car tells you nothing. If it says "Made in Mexico" (for arguments sake) it only means that final assembly happened there. The engine could be put together in Korea and the brakes coming from Portugal.
This is true of most things in America.
Most manufacturers will also have something about that listed-- something like "Parts made in [country list] and assembled in [another country]".
It's a crap shoot, really.
Re:Speaking for myself as a Swedish brick driver,
on
A Requiem For Saab
·
· Score: 1
Toyota/Honda, I suppose. Something reliable and of reasonable quality. Certainly not American.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but....
The biggest problem with trying to "buy American" or not buying American is that many of the dealers' goods are made in so many places that it isn't funny. Toyota, generally a Japanese company, assembles cars in the US or Canada as a way to cut costs. Traditionally "American" names like Ford or Chevrolet aren't guaranteed to have been made in the US, again because of costs. (The apparent contradiction here is not lost on me.)
In the end, I find the best way to figure out where something is made is to look for the "Made in XXXXXX" statement.
Re:Let's just be clear on what they mean here
on
A Requiem For Saab
·
· Score: 1
it's worth noting here that my 1996 Chevrolet Corsica had about 220,000 miles on it when the engine finally died.
The BBC has an article about the resubmitted bid. If GM is looking at closing SAAB down, perhaps they would be better off selling it off to an interested party after all.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
Or Switzerland. Funny how conservatives drag that place up as an example of small government.
I only mentioned Massachusetts because that's where I live. Interestingly enough, Massachusetts also has a chronic financial problem AND it's run by Liberal Democrats.
Interestingly, few of the critics of the bill have any realistic alternatives. The Republicans had eight years and didn't do jack shit.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the health care issues that are being bantered about are anything BUT "new". One of the reasons for Medicare when it was passed was to address the problem.
Social Security? It's been "near broke" for at least 40 years.
Don't try to pin ALL the blame for this nation's troubles on one party, when it's BOTH Democrats and Republicans to blame for the overall problem.
The Democrats just get the blame TODAY because they're the ones that are in power at the moment.
Well, apparently at least one of your broken automakers is actually profitable this quarter, in no small part because of "cash for clunkers." That was the point of that program, wasn't it?
That doesn't help me or anyone I know. I'm still unemployed. Unemployment is till on the rise in my part of the country. I still have a "clunker" because I can't afford anything newer.
Also, quite a few of your broken banks are once again raking in profits. That was the purpose of the "stimulus package" no?
Which ones? I have only been reading about banks across this country being closed down by federal regulators.
Your spending programs all see to work pretty well. Spending some money on health care seems like a pretty worthy goal compared to what you guys have been using it for.
No. The problem is that the money has to come from somewhere. The current Congress seems completely oblivious to that simple fact.
It's as though they are working on the premise that if they need more money, all they have to do is raise taxes from that bottomless well that is the American People. The reality is that the pockets of the American People are not as deep as they might like to imagine.
Congress has been drawing near mud, and they are (collectively) too stupid to figure it out for themselves. People are trying to tell them, and Congress has their fingers in their ears.
I live in Massachusetts and I did not have insurance for several months this year. I know how it all works, thank you.
Granted, it's not enforced as a "tax" in the Commonwealth, but if you do not have health insurance, you DO forfeit any state income tax return you might have had coming AND you might even be subject to a $3,000 fine.
The Federal bill, by comparison, basically levies more taxes under the guise of "health care reform". If you refuse to pay it, you are then subject to penalties set forth under laws already in place for tax evaders. THAT is the "...or go to jail" tie-in that many seem to be missing.
Wait, so the right was protesting G.W. Bush when we bailed out the banks? Last I checked, the bailout happened under his watch, and no one really cared.
It was a political gamble.
A Democrat-run Congress assembled a bill that had the full support of "president-elect" Obama.
Bush knew that outgoing presidents always get blamed for any economic problems faced by the incoming president, despite the fact that it's Congress that is supposed to control the nation's purse strings. On the chance that the stimulus worked, Bush the Younger dared to hope that he would get some Good Karma by signing it into law.
Had Bush failed to sign it (or if he had VETOed it), there was a real possibility that Congress would override his VETO.
The fact is that Bush was a lame-duck president looking at something that stood to gain a lot of credibility to the Liberal Democratic Machine if the stimulus package actually did what it was purported to do.
Had the Democrats been solely responsible for its passing (and if it worked), the GOP would not be seeing another shot at the White House or Congress for a long time.
Of course looking back at it, we all can plainly see that it was like watching a train wreck in the making, and we should be able to plainly see that Bush's only real involvement was due to his trying to steal some of the "glory" that he thought might be coming down the pike.
These programs help no on who actually needs help, and are only there to support company incompetent executives and shareholders who made bad investments.
This is how Liberal Democrats work[1]. They get to feel warm-fuzzies because they think they're doing something useful, but they only cause more problems than they pretend to solve.
[1] Well, most government really, regardless of their political leaning...
What if I chose to go without health care, simply because the choice is pay for that or eat? I don't get sick all that often (and when I do, it's usually something treatable with OTC meds), so I don't "gamble" with health care payments.
Under the House's bill, I would be required to pay, whether I can afford it or not.
In Massachusetts, they have taken the same brain-dead approach: if you do not have health care, then you lose any state tax refund you might have been entitled to for that year.
"Fixing" a problem by penalizing people that already cannot afford it is no solution at all.
My complaint has nothing to do with willful failure to pay taxes. It's about the forced increase in taxes to pay for something that really, really, REALLY is a Bad Idea(tm).
When the British pulled this sort of thing 233 years ago, the Colonies told King George III and the British parliament exactly what they could do with their taxes. I wonder if the American people today have the same sort of backbone, or if they'll lick the boots of Pelosi and her ilk?
A friend of mine once pointed out to me that the best Microsoft products weren't actually made by them: mice, keyboards, etc. They are all (according to him) all products made by someone else with Microsoft's name on it.
This was about ten years ago. I doubt that much has changed since then.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
How would this get paid for, I wonder? It's written by the same people that brought you "Cash for Clunkers" and the "Stimulus Package", and we know what came of THEM.
The Senate isn't expecting to make a vote on their version until next year. Hopefully it will die a horrible death. This bill has no business at ALL being the Law of the Land.
You're "knowledge" appears to come from nothing more than biases and stereotypes. You don't sound qualified or informed enough to operate anything more sophisticated than the buttons on a soda vending machine, much less make enterprise platform decisions.
This only shows your level of ignorance. My experiences are the same as FireFury03's, in every point he made.
Linux is free. If you want support from a vendor, you pay for it. Fine. I can download Linux in any of a hundred different distros, each of which cater to a particular set of needs.
There are three Windows OS versions that are worth considering: XP, Vista, and Win7. Except for the period MS made Win7 available for download (and a self-destructive version at that), which of these can you download and use for free as long as you want, without Microsoft's lawyers having a conniption fit?
How about the nauseating amateur camera-man imitating camera shaker machine.. barf. Windows 7 parties, guaranteed to make you puke.
Well, they DID have to make it APPEAR to be somewhat "homegrown", to add that "We're really sincere about this... Honest!" touch. It's almost a shame that it didn't work.
I watched about 1 minute and 20 seconds of the video before I had to move on to something more interesting, like watching paint dry.
Whoever produced the video really needs to learn about how to do it properly: un-versed in production as I am, I still picked out several major errors in continuity, and it distracted me from the "message" they were trying to push.
I agree with you completely on the party idea, though. Who CARES about Win7 enough to bother with celebrating its release? MS Staff, sure. Outside of that? Nobody.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the beauty of a free country.
When the government forces you to do it, there's no "free".
In a "free country", the people still have the choice to do it or not.
In a free country, the people can tell their government "NO!", and the government will listen.
The US Government became a tyranny when the reigning political party ran roughshod over the American people to get as much of their agenda through as they could before the next election.
There are also governments that will take your money at gunpoint and give it to other people on the condition that you are more productive than they are.
You mean like the US?
You just got the right to healthcare
Completely false.
That huge mistake that the House and Obama managed to force through is a "law", and laws can be easily repealed. Laws in and of themselves cannot grant "rights", any more than a politician repeating the same old rhetoric makes what s/he is saying "honest".
The bits enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Constitution? Those are "rights", and cannot be (easily) repealed.
The "car insurance" story to justify what Congress just passed is a lie. Nobody is forcing you to use the public roadways, but if you do, the required level of insurance protects the other guy, not yourself. If you are driving on your own property, you aren't required to have insurance.
This "law", on the other hand, requires citizens to buy into a contract with a non-government agency (aka the health insurance company), something that has never been done before. If you fail to buy insurance for yourself, the IRS is authorized to penalize you. Call it what you will, but it is still "socialized medicine". It is not something that Congress is authorized to put into law, according to the Tenth Amendment.
At this writing, more than a dozen states are suing to challenge this bill, and if the SCotUS has any legitimacy left in it, they will pay attention and do something about it. If they allow this to remain in place, there will be hell to pay, and it won't be pretty.
Let's not kid ourselves. Half of the front page stories aren't "good enough" for Slashdot, but there they are.
When my oldest son watches the Star Wars films, he says it's "research" for his Lego Star Wars game.
We have the first three films (Episodes 4-6) and Episode 1 on DVD. I still haven't decided if I want to bother with Episodes 2 and 3.
That's great that you can count. Now lets see if you can subtract ;-)
Number of users between me and binarylarry: 1186880
Number of users between me and binarylarry: 1326989
Number of users between you and me: 140,109
See the difference?
Ummm... Check your data again. You got two different numbers between yourself and BL... :D
(I think you meant the second line to be between ME [Timex] and BL.)
....and YOUR Slash number has six digits. Mine has five. See? I can count backwards! :)
I've been using Linux since kernel version 0.99pl10, when Slackware ruled on a couple dozen floppies.... ...and get off my lawn!
Pics or it didn't happen.
With this argument, we could say that the Democrat-controlled Congress has done almost nothing in the past year or so, especially in regards to healthcare reform...
Phantomfive said it right: officers of the law are not our enemies. I just hope that Blizzard's response wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to a request that "looked" official... I hope they took some time to verify the request before sending that sort of information out. I would hate to think that ANYONE could get that kind of detail just by writing up a "polite request".
Which especially for a car tells you nothing. If it says "Made in Mexico" (for arguments sake) it only means that final assembly happened there. The engine could be put together in Korea and the brakes coming from Portugal.
This is true of most things in America.
Most manufacturers will also have something about that listed-- something like "Parts made in [country list] and assembled in [another country]".
It's a crap shoot, really.
Toyota/Honda, I suppose. Something reliable and of reasonable quality. Certainly not American.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but....
The biggest problem with trying to "buy American" or not buying American is that many of the dealers' goods are made in so many places that it isn't funny. Toyota, generally a Japanese company, assembles cars in the US or Canada as a way to cut costs. Traditionally "American" names like Ford or Chevrolet aren't guaranteed to have been made in the US, again because of costs. (The apparent contradiction here is not lost on me.)
In the end, I find the best way to figure out where something is made is to look for the "Made in XXXXXX" statement.
it's worth noting here that my 1996 Chevrolet Corsica had about 220,000 miles on it when the engine finally died.
The BBC has an article about the resubmitted bid. If GM is looking at closing SAAB down, perhaps they would be better off selling it off to an interested party after all.
Or Switzerland. Funny how conservatives drag that place up as an example of small government.
I only mentioned Massachusetts because that's where I live. Interestingly enough, Massachusetts also has a chronic financial problem AND it's run by Liberal Democrats.
Interestingly, few of the critics of the bill have any realistic alternatives. The Republicans had eight years and didn't do jack shit.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the health care issues that are being bantered about are anything BUT "new". One of the reasons for Medicare when it was passed was to address the problem.
Social Security? It's been "near broke" for at least 40 years.
Don't try to pin ALL the blame for this nation's troubles on one party, when it's BOTH Democrats and Republicans to blame for the overall problem.
The Democrats just get the blame TODAY because they're the ones that are in power at the moment.
Well, apparently at least one of your broken automakers is actually profitable this quarter, in no small part because of "cash for clunkers." That was the point of that program, wasn't it?
That doesn't help me or anyone I know. I'm still unemployed. Unemployment is till on the rise in my part of the country. I still have a "clunker" because I can't afford anything newer.
Also, quite a few of your broken banks are once again raking in profits. That was the purpose of the "stimulus package" no?
Which ones? I have only been reading about banks across this country being closed down by federal regulators.
Your spending programs all see to work pretty well. Spending some money on health care seems like a pretty worthy goal compared to what you guys have been using it for.
No. The problem is that the money has to come from somewhere. The current Congress seems completely oblivious to that simple fact.
It's as though they are working on the premise that if they need more money, all they have to do is raise taxes from that bottomless well that is the American People. The reality is that the pockets of the American People are not as deep as they might like to imagine.
Congress has been drawing near mud, and they are (collectively) too stupid to figure it out for themselves. People are trying to tell them, and Congress has their fingers in their ears.
I live in Massachusetts and I did not have insurance for several months this year. I know how it all works, thank you.
Granted, it's not enforced as a "tax" in the Commonwealth, but if you do not have health insurance, you DO forfeit any state income tax return you might have had coming AND you might even be subject to a $3,000 fine.
The Federal bill, by comparison, basically levies more taxes under the guise of "health care reform". If you refuse to pay it, you are then subject to penalties set forth under laws already in place for tax evaders. THAT is the "...or go to jail" tie-in that many seem to be missing.
Wait, so the right was protesting G.W. Bush when we bailed out the banks? Last I checked, the bailout happened under his watch, and no one really cared.
It was a political gamble.
The fact is that Bush was a lame-duck president looking at something that stood to gain a lot of credibility to the Liberal Democratic Machine if the stimulus package actually did what it was purported to do.
Had the Democrats been solely responsible for its passing (and if it worked), the GOP would not be seeing another shot at the White House or Congress for a long time.
Of course looking back at it, we all can plainly see that it was like watching a train wreck in the making, and we should be able to plainly see that Bush's only real involvement was due to his trying to steal some of the "glory" that he thought might be coming down the pike.
These programs help no on who actually needs help, and are only there to support company incompetent executives and shareholders who made bad investments.
This is how Liberal Democrats work[1]. They get to feel warm-fuzzies because they think they're doing something useful, but they only cause more problems than they pretend to solve.
[1] Well, most government really, regardless of their political leaning...
What if I chose to go without health care, simply because the choice is pay for that or eat? I don't get sick all that often (and when I do, it's usually something treatable with OTC meds), so I don't "gamble" with health care payments.
Under the House's bill, I would be required to pay, whether I can afford it or not.
In Massachusetts, they have taken the same brain-dead approach: if you do not have health care, then you lose any state tax refund you might have been entitled to for that year.
"Fixing" a problem by penalizing people that already cannot afford it is no solution at all.
My complaint has nothing to do with willful failure to pay taxes. It's about the forced increase in taxes to pay for something that really, really, REALLY is a Bad Idea(tm).
When the British pulled this sort of thing 233 years ago, the Colonies told King George III and the British parliament exactly what they could do with their taxes. I wonder if the American people today have the same sort of backbone, or if they'll lick the boots of Pelosi and her ilk?
As I recall, IBM sort of invited their own competition by making the schematics for the IBM PC openly available.
Microsoft never made a computer of their own (that I know of). Their efforts have largely been aimed at software.
A friend of mine once pointed out to me that the best Microsoft products weren't actually made by them: mice, keyboards, etc. They are all (according to him) all products made by someone else with Microsoft's name on it.
This was about ten years ago. I doubt that much has changed since then.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
How would this get paid for, I wonder? It's written by the same people that brought you "Cash for Clunkers" and the "Stimulus Package", and we know what came of THEM.
The Senate isn't expecting to make a vote on their version until next year. Hopefully it will die a horrible death. This bill has no business at ALL being the Law of the Land.
You're "knowledge" appears to come from nothing more than biases and stereotypes. You don't sound qualified or informed enough to operate anything more sophisticated than the buttons on a soda vending machine, much less make enterprise platform decisions.
This only shows your level of ignorance. My experiences are the same as FireFury03's, in every point he made.
Linux is free. If you want support from a vendor, you pay for it. Fine. I can download Linux in any of a hundred different distros, each of which cater to a particular set of needs.
There are three Windows OS versions that are worth considering: XP, Vista, and Win7. Except for the period MS made Win7 available for download (and a self-destructive version at that), which of these can you download and use for free as long as you want, without Microsoft's lawyers having a conniption fit?
How about the nauseating amateur camera-man imitating camera shaker machine.. barf. Windows 7 parties, guaranteed to make you puke.
Well, they DID have to make it APPEAR to be somewhat "homegrown", to add that "We're really sincere about this... Honest!" touch. It's almost a shame that it didn't work.
I watched about 1 minute and 20 seconds of the video before I had to move on to something more interesting, like watching paint dry.
Whoever produced the video really needs to learn about how to do it properly: un-versed in production as I am, I still picked out several major errors in continuity, and it distracted me from the "message" they were trying to push.
I agree with you completely on the party idea, though. Who CARES about Win7 enough to bother with celebrating its release? MS Staff, sure. Outside of that? Nobody.