Given that the civil liberties you speak about really comes from the legislative branch of Government and not the Executive (as laid out in the Constitution), and given that Republican's absolute disdain for Obama and their totally, historically unprecedented use of tactics in the Senate to stop any governance or legislation. I think we can give Obama a pass on this. You should define what you think Obama could do given the intransigence and morally and ethically reprehensible behavior towards their sworn elected duties as the representatives of the people given the job of running the government for the people.
Nor do we require toll boths to prevent drugs from being transported, or cigarettes of booze that have not had the proper State taxes collected. Basically its not their job, nor should it be.
Maybe if the Media companies used the free market and the capitalist system, and paid those companies for each pirating they stopped, maybe that incentive would work to stop the flow.. Oh wait, then that would probably cost as much as the profits that would have incurred.. Oh yeh , thats why they went after the law route, so they could externalize the cost of collecting their money. I say repeal the bad law, make them find a new business model that works in this new environment rather than trying to keep the horse shoe buisness making money.
I have always hated the name. It smacks of Nazi Germany and the father land. I see it as an attempt to start people identifying with the land and not the democracy and freedom. It is the next step (as in the Patriot Act..) that you try to get people to give up the country and our constitutional rights to protect the "HomeLand" as if the land and whatever form of autocratic government would evolve would be OK because what was important was the "Homeland" not the country, not America, not our freedoms and liberties. You notice its the Republicans that wave the flag, name things "Homeland", push forward the Patriot act and other simiar "streamling" of removal of our protections and freedoms in the name of God and the constitution. Of course the real agenda is to lock down profits, copyrights, patents, eliminate bankrupcies, eliminate restrictions that would have prevented most all the economic disasters in recent history, all from preservation of the top profits.
Snake oil salesmen are not dead, they just joined the party.
Well you are in complete agreement with generations of the Bush family which has been making profits from wars for a century or so. Even wars against us. It was a Bush that was helping build the labor camps at Auschwitz. Preston Bush, a former U.S. Senator and director of a firm that helped and backed Nazi Germany which continued until their records were siezed in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Companies do have a moral and ethical responsibility as well as a legal one not to support the enemies of your own country for profit. There is a limit and there are people that cross that limit and even some that get caught. Companies are not blameless for making any profit in any way.
Besides not having a clue about Education, how it works or whats going on in a University. The idea that shoving people in a room and thinking that $1 per student for "rental" costs makes any real sense.
As for the purpose of an Instructor neigh Educator in the class, if showing the material, in written or video form was effective then you would find those institutions that are for profit and run by business men, implementing that years ago. They haven't because it is not as effective a teaching tool as having someone there to answer your questions, on the spot and to clarify things not understood through example, analogy. Everyone comes to the classroom from a different background. All disciplines have their own sub-dialect. The Educator translates that sub-dialect for the un-initiated so they can understand and adopt that sub-dialect going forward in their studies. I have yet to pick up a book on material that spoke exactly my sub-dialect, causing me to miss-understand or do extensive work tracking down the problem. So having an Educator there is the most efficient, I would estimate about 500% more efficient than the material alone. Then there are the aspects of focus and the synergy of the group of questions fielded answering questions you did not even know you had.
Having a $20/hr temporary worker cheapens that whole idea of an Educator and comes from a missunderstanding of what is really going on, what its value is and what its long term effects are.
No, Governments can and in many cases are more efficient than private industry. Why you ask, they do not skim off profits. Efficiency happens in business only if there is competition, there is not always competition. Often a monopoly due to collusion or patent protection kicks in that other dynamic of business, charge what the market will bear.
Examples of places business should not be allowed to make a profit. Hospitals and prisons. Because the economic forces work against the common good, and the individual good. We have seen prisons that foster extending sentences or are in collusion with judges to make sure their enterprises turn a profit. They are not invested in rehabilitation. As for Hospitals, their best interest is served when people are sick and the more sick the more profit. So when, as you would admit that a business is charged only with making a profit then these are two instances at least that clearly point out places where for profit business should be excluded.
Government are charged quite differently, they are charged with serving the common good (at least in the US) and do so as efficiently as possible. So prisons should not be revenue centers or Hospitals, nor-orphanages, nor Social Security, nor the use of public lands. We have to recognize that there are some area's business in not suited for, by its very nature. One size does not fit all.
Business should not be able to touch those public funds, because they are only interested in the funds and not the services they are suppose to provide.
Actually efficiency is short term thinking. That is why we have research done and supported by the government because with all the MBA's out there no science or technology will get done because they want to make a profit this quarter and every quarter, and they will fire 10,000 scientists and researchers to make their numbers. So efficiency is not the grand god nor always the wisest philosophy.
But I think this work is scary and should be stopped on grounds that in a free society, freedom comes a the price of not only vigilance but also anonymity and privacy.
You have been listening to too much Fox noise. The Occupy Wall street movement is just looking for an even playing field, not punishment. Rolling back the decade long Bush Tax cuts for instance is not punishing the rich, its getting back to a more fair taxation policy. The rich want all they can get. The Occupy wall street rallies are orderly event with marching chanting and reasonable signage, no Hitler mustaches or bones through the nose that we have seen from the tea party. The Occupy Wall Street movement is for orderly change not building up from the ashes of society. Of course it may feel that way to a rich person who might be asked to pay another 5% or 10% in taxes, or more if they are tuning their tax situation to they pay little or no taxes.
I was downtown Chicago last night and saw the demonstrators there. No problems, just the 99% trying to get their voices heard over the din of right wing talking points, right wing talk radio, and fox noise.
"They are also willing to collpase the economy in order to get the welfare system they want. And neither group sees compromise as an option"
I think not. I think you are referring mostly to the Social Security system which is an insurance/pension system independent of the Budget and solvent for the next 40 years or so (unless the government defaults, because various congresses have raided the funds and left government i.o.u's, not the SS fault or design).
That system is not a welfare system, you don't pay in, you don't get out. The right hates it because it is so efficient and they are not making a dime off it. They want to privatize it and make money off it (or steal it, oh right that never happens). It SS case no one is willing to shut down the government to keep SS, it is solvent and with a few tweaks will get over the baby boom bump that is coming up. After that with reduced birth rates we are seeing that system should be fine.
Smaller military? well that seems reasonable. Its a wonder that the right wing is so for large military spending. Oh that's right, they are the military industrial complex that that Republican President warned us all about (Ike). Thats why they want to spend money that pours down the drain. You may a bullet, that is material and wealth lost, because it is now out of the system. Corporate bailouts. that has nothing to do with big government. It has to do with revenue source, which is the problem the government has. Enron , large subisdies, no taxes, record profits, whats wrong with that picture. They should pay the government back before the investors I think. That's what companies do to your salary with a lean isn't it. Should not the government share it the profits they helped create?
You have it wrong , only the Tea Party folk are willing to slash and burn. On the other side it is only the non-government individuals and companies that think that things are going to burn down because they are talking about pulling the plug on their special tax breaks. But the government would only get stronger, not destroyed.
"The Occupy Wall Street folk want big government, high taxes and high spending. High regulation, lots of social security."
I don't think so, I think they want less greed sucking the value from their lifetime earnings. More government regulation for sure but that is not larger government, its just more involvement in controling greed. You probably would not say that passing a law to say require back seat passengers in cars as meaning larger police forces. No, that is just specification of more things that people are required to do, not larger police departments.
"They're find with the government defaulting on its debt and and the economy completely inploding because the pain is worth gain at the end. " as to the tea party and thinking they think the pain is worth it. Those that think it is worth it are the rich people. The poor ones haven't a clue that they are being manipulated into that talking point. It would be like the people in Japan saying they think they should have a tsunami to get rid of some old buidlings. The one that would say that are the ones inland and in high ground. The very idea that imploding government would be good for the country is patently false, would lead to hundreds of thousands if not hundreds of millions of lives devastated. For what? someones who has an different idea of the way things are or should be. These obviously are patriots and have true empathy for history, the people of the country, a firm grasp on the realty of possible outcomes and fallout of that suggestion, true Christians and above all, real nice loving, caring thoughtful people, and have respect for the decisions that the people of this country have made through their legislation for the past 100 year, as well as a true respect for our founding fathers and the system of government that was designed for thoughtful, considered, stable moves in the governance of this country. I think not.
some good points. For tax equality, I believe in a progressive tax as that puts more of a burden on those that receive more value from what government does. I think that everyone in this country should be able to eat well and have a roof over their head if they work a full time job and be able to raise a family that same way there is a full time wage earner in the home (I don't think that 2 wage earners should be necesarry for a decent life). This idea that jobs for companies with fat cat executives have to work multiple jobs just to make it by shows that there is no equity in the job market. Why then should there be equity in the tax scheme? Wouldn't those executives praise the government for following the practices that they themselves follow?
I think the golden parachute that the government should re-claim is a substantial inheritance tax. Let them work for it.
Good point, but really its greed. Look at the last time before the big populous slap down (and a stock market crash) that gave birth to the unions to start out with, with the large industrialists with the child labor and unsafe working conditions (like in so many, many mines). This is long term greed and was entreched until the voting public started saying, no, that is not in our best interests, we need clean water, clean air, no children pressed into labor, literacy, and the right to let labor have a voice in the process not just owners. Unions and voters were the only counterbalance to greed. We are seeing that ugly head of greed get big and now had gone for long-term growth and planning. Its time for the electorate to re-evaluate the wisdom of the right wing direction against their own best interests.
I suspect that that is not really the case. At least in the first such case several months ago with the the group that sent a ballon up there was no mention in the press certainly that there was notification. In the Commercial (which may be fiction) the claim was that the fellow bought his weather ballon with point from his checking account I believe. If the practice goes viral I suspect that few of those people jumping on the band wagon will even know that there is a thing like controlled air space over 14k feet or the controlled air spaces around airports. Being in Chicago those spaces are pretty busy. Planes go down from flocks of birds sucked into the engines, sucking in a ballon and electronics I suspect would do some damage. I don't know if planes today have internal radar that could detect objects so small.
Your argument is about statistics. Won't happen because of the probability. I just worry about the viral stick all the stuff in a shoe box with a balloon crowd wanting to do neat cluesless copy cat stuff with a pretty big down side.
Haven't had time to deconstruct the claims on that blog, but it is true the the country is owned by us people and the government has to employ a lot of people, and of course as a big institution (not company) it had insurance and pension plans for its workers, just like some (not all ) companies. We, of course own the common lands in our country, not the government, they are public lands. It may seem like a subtle difference but its not. I would venture to say that the ultra rich, those 'job creators' who have been finding very creative ways of sucking the life out of our economy and pulling themselves into gated communities where they don't have to deal with the impacts of their greed. There is no cluelessness in the protests, they are not pro-government, they are not socialist as you seem to suggest. They are about regulation of greed and patriotism (that would be defined as those things that benefit the country as a whole, its people as a whole) . We had regulations in place and higher taxes in place and had unparalleled periods of prosperity, and even government surpluses. So the clueless part is those that think the deregulation (Enron, World-Com, Savings and Loan crisis, Madoff , the lastest crash from the Derivatives....) and tax breaks for the 'job creators' (they have had them for the last 10 years and we have not seen any evidence that giving them those breaks created job one), will have any positive effects except for those at the top of the economic pyramid scheme.
Yes a conundrum, will supporting jobs in other countries benefit us? Well it benefits the owners of companies but not the ones thrown out of a job. And all those innovations, productivity is up but people are fired, so technology can be a double edged sword (but not for the owners). The Union friendly pace, well with the extending out of the upper end of the economic spectrum in this country (300 to 400 times the salary of the lowest paid for the highest paid). Unions will naturally become popular again when people figure out that they have been being screwed and cheated and sold a bill of goods for decades and as Lincoln once said, you can't fool all the people all the time. The inevitable pendulum is starting to gravitate back in the other direction. The protests by the 99% are the first creaking of the gears changing direction.
I'm sorry but "these white-collar crimes which bankrupted many innocent people. If they focus on the tax evasion, insider trading, blatant abuse of trust, and so forth," are all examples of greed. You are just enumerating the ways that we are aware of for greed to steal from the rest of us. Then there are the people that buy companies and fire a lot of people and sell the carcase or move jobs overseas and fire workers and get tax breaks, bonuses and high salaries for it.
They have cogent talking points, tax equity for individuals and corporations. One person, one vote ( minimize the power of money from the top to influence elections and elected officials). There message is simple and close to the message of the original Tea Party which came out against Wall Street before the Koch brothers and Fox took over that group and steered them to be anti-government instead of anti-wall street.
After having just flown between Las Vegas and Chicago. The idea of a commercial plane running into an "amateur" ballon or rocket and the subsequent catastrophy has me wondering when this "viral" activity will end up going terribly wrong. I guess it will continue untill that point. It has even been in commercials on TV as a wonderful activity that companies are using to sell product.
But then I am a compputer programmer and we look at these sorts of failures.
We used to think that electricity was magic. But now we have been able to image electrons. Religion is just an explaination for the currently unexplainable. What make you think that sprititual things can not be explained. Religion is just the ritual and conceptual trappings around one explaination of spirtitual things. And the Church persecuted those that thought the world was not flat because the Religion held a different view and would not suffer that view being challenged by the facts of reality.
To say that the scientific method, or science can not be applied toward spiritual things is to say the those spiritual things are not part of reality, which is not what I think you want to say.
Even science now talks about alternative universes and realities. Faith is just a wall that stops questioning and investigation because we are lazy, afraid or someone is telling us to be lazy or afraid because they want to control us.
There is another category of course. One that recognizes that there are forces in existance that are not currently explainable by science (from empirical and personal experience), but understand because of all the different theologies that claim to be correct and part of an equivalence class, that the premise that the equivalence class exists at all is obviously false, or that each explaination is false. Or more correctly, subject explaination for unexplained pheonomena. The result is wars and people with hands chopped off and heads chopped off and whatever power/control framework you want in place justified. But that is not God, a more naturalist or Taoist view seems to make more sense as a filter on real experience.
So the great evil in this world is Attribution and labels which peg you to some attribution.
Stop the evil. Open the eyes and just enjoy life and what it has to offer.
"The current telcos need more wireless spectrum to continue expanding and operating efficiently so they have resorted to acquiring other companies."
Or give them all the same restrictions do they can battle it out on price and not on coverage. A level playing field would let competition work better.
"they couldn't win the argument at te ballot box or in the legislature by logical persuasion."
Two points about this, This week Scott Walker's aids were raided by the FBI, computures taken, even computers were tracked down that were sold at garage sales. So the "Winning at the Ballot Box" may not be accurate, the results may not be in yet.
Also the agenda about killing the Unions was a hidden agenda and not revealed in the campaign. Everyone except the Koch brothers supported legistators were aware of what was going to happen. So the electoriate had just cause to protest the bait and switch that went on. It would be refreshing if the Republicans would actually come out and tell the people who are voting what they plan on doing or not doing. Then the voters would have a fair chance of expressing their will at the ballot box.
So the ultra right wing is learning from the peacenik playbook that really got its start with Gandhi. What if the Democrats stated to learn from Karl Rove's playbook, dirty tricks, defamation of character, election fraud, maybe that would level the playing field. I like the way the right wing talk show hosts have been commenting on the Presidents wife. It seems like this is the first example of the Presidents wife being defamed as fair game. First CIA operatives now the Presidents wife, certainly not ethical, moral, patriotic or relying on the strength of your message or agenda. But then maybe thats why the dirty tricks and wedge issues are used, they would not see the hid side of power without those tactics.
As to coverage, we should see what people are angry enough to protest and our news media should cover those stories and bring any side to light, but fairly and objectively.
The media did the same thing with the demonstrations in Wisconsin against the Anti-Union law that was hastily passed. Thousands of demonstrators but little coverage, but how strange, any little Tea Party gathering of 20-30 people got national coverage. I guess the rarity of that type of demonstration makes it News (or for the racist and defamatory signs)., whereas large demonstrations against corporate greed are more commonplace and not worthy of note. Or the liberal media really is now the corporate media.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that the civil liberties you speak about really comes from the legislative branch of Government and not the Executive (as laid out in the Constitution), and given that Republican's absolute disdain for Obama and their totally, historically unprecedented use of tactics in the Senate to stop any governance or legislation. I think we can give Obama a pass on this. You should define what you think Obama could do given the intransigence and morally and ethically reprehensible behavior towards their sworn elected duties as the representatives of the people given the job of running the government for the people.
Nor do we require toll boths to prevent drugs from being transported, or cigarettes of booze that have not had the proper State taxes collected. Basically its not their job, nor should it be.
Maybe if the Media companies used the free market and the capitalist system, and paid those companies for each pirating they stopped, maybe that incentive would work to stop the flow.. Oh wait, then that would probably cost as much as the profits that would have incurred.. Oh yeh , thats why they went after the law route, so they could externalize the cost of collecting their money. I say repeal the bad law, make them find a new business model that works in this new environment rather than trying to keep the horse shoe buisness making money.
I have always hated the name. It smacks of Nazi Germany and the father land. I see it as an attempt to start people identifying with the land and not the democracy and freedom. It is the next step (as in the Patriot Act ..) that you try to get people to give up the country and our constitutional rights to protect the "HomeLand" as if the land and whatever form of autocratic government would evolve would be OK because what was important was the "Homeland" not the country, not America, not our freedoms and liberties. You notice its the Republicans that wave the flag, name things "Homeland", push forward the Patriot act and other simiar "streamling" of removal of our protections and freedoms in the name of God and the constitution. Of course the real agenda is to lock down profits, copyrights, patents, eliminate bankrupcies, eliminate restrictions that would have prevented most all the economic disasters in recent history, all from preservation of the top profits.
Snake oil salesmen are not dead, they just joined the party.
Well you are in complete agreement with generations of the Bush family which has been making profits from wars for a century or so. Even wars against us. It was a Bush that was helping build the labor camps at Auschwitz. Preston Bush, a former U.S. Senator and director of a firm that helped and backed Nazi Germany which continued until their records were siezed in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Companies do have a moral and ethical responsibility as well as a legal one not to support the enemies of your own country for profit. There is a limit and there are people that cross that limit and even some that get caught. Companies are not blameless for making any profit in any way.
Actually, 'If all you have is a Hammer, everything looks like your Thumb'
Besides not having a clue about Education, how it works or whats going on in a University. The idea that shoving people in a room and thinking that $1 per student for "rental" costs makes any real sense.
As for the purpose of an Instructor neigh Educator in the class, if showing the material, in written or video form was effective then you would find those institutions that are for profit and run by business men, implementing that years ago. They haven't because it is not as effective a teaching tool as having someone there to answer your questions, on the spot and to clarify things not understood through example, analogy.
Everyone comes to the classroom from a different background. All disciplines have their own sub-dialect. The Educator translates that sub-dialect for the un-initiated so they can understand and adopt that sub-dialect going forward in their studies. I have yet to pick up a book on material that spoke exactly my sub-dialect, causing me to miss-understand or do extensive work tracking down the problem. So having an Educator there is the most efficient, I would estimate about 500% more efficient than the material alone. Then there are the aspects of focus and the synergy of the group of questions fielded answering questions you did not even know you had.
Having a $20/hr temporary worker cheapens that whole idea of an Educator and comes from a missunderstanding of what is really going on, what its value is and what its long term effects are.
What
No, Governments can and in many cases are more efficient than private industry. Why you ask, they do not skim off profits. Efficiency happens in business only if there is competition, there is not always competition. Often a monopoly due to collusion or patent protection kicks in that other dynamic of business, charge what the market will bear.
Examples of places business should not be allowed to make a profit. Hospitals and prisons. Because the economic forces work against the common good, and the individual good. We have seen prisons that foster extending sentences or are in collusion with judges to make sure their enterprises turn a profit. They are not invested in rehabilitation. As for Hospitals, their best interest is served when people are sick and the more sick the more profit. So when, as you would admit that a business is charged only with making a profit then these are two instances at least that clearly point out places where for profit business should be excluded.
Government are charged quite differently, they are charged with serving the common good (at least in the US) and do so as efficiently as possible. So prisons should not be revenue centers or Hospitals, nor-orphanages, nor Social Security, nor the use of public lands. We have to recognize that there are some area's business in not suited for, by its very nature. One size does not fit all.
Business should not be able to touch those public funds, because they are only interested in the funds and not the services they are suppose to provide.
Actually efficiency is short term thinking. That is why we have research done and supported by the government because with all the MBA's out there no science or technology will get done because they want to make a profit this quarter and every quarter, and they will fire 10,000 scientists and researchers to make their numbers. So efficiency is not the grand god nor always the wisest philosophy.
But I think this work is scary and should be stopped on grounds that in a free society, freedom comes a the price of not only vigilance but also anonymity and privacy.
You have been listening to too much Fox noise. The Occupy Wall street movement is just looking for an even playing field, not punishment. Rolling back the decade long Bush Tax cuts for instance is not punishing the rich, its getting back to a more fair taxation policy. The rich want all they can get. The Occupy wall street rallies are orderly event with marching chanting and reasonable signage, no Hitler mustaches or bones through the nose that we have seen from the tea party. The Occupy Wall Street movement is for orderly change not building up from the ashes of society. Of course it may feel that way to a rich person who might be asked to pay another 5% or 10% in taxes, or more if they are tuning their tax situation to they pay little or no taxes.
I was downtown Chicago last night and saw the demonstrators there. No problems, just the 99% trying to get their voices heard over the din of right wing talking points, right wing talk radio, and fox noise.
"They are also willing to collpase the economy in order to get the welfare system they want. And neither group sees compromise as an option"
I think not. I think you are referring mostly to the Social Security system which is an insurance/pension system independent of the Budget and solvent for the next 40 years or so (unless the government defaults, because various congresses have raided the funds and left government i.o.u's, not the SS fault or design).
That system is not a welfare system, you don't pay in, you don't get out. The right hates it because it is so efficient and they are not making a dime off it. They want to privatize it and make money off it (or steal it, oh right that never happens). It SS case no one is willing to shut down the government to keep SS, it is solvent and with a few tweaks will get over the baby boom bump that is coming up. After that with reduced birth rates we are seeing that system should be fine.
Smaller military? well that seems reasonable. Its a wonder that the right wing is so for large military spending. Oh that's right, they are the military industrial complex that that Republican President warned us all about (Ike). Thats why they want to spend money that pours down the drain. You may a bullet, that is material and wealth lost, because it is now out of the system. Corporate bailouts. that has nothing to do with big government. It has to do with revenue source, which is the problem the government has. Enron , large subisdies, no taxes, record profits, whats wrong with that picture. They should pay the government back before the investors I think. That's what companies do to your salary with a lean isn't it. Should not the government share it the profits they helped create?
You have it wrong , only the Tea Party folk are willing to slash and burn. On the other side it is only the non-government individuals and companies that think that things are going to burn down because they are talking about pulling the plug on their special tax breaks. But the government would only get stronger, not destroyed.
"The Occupy Wall Street folk want big government, high taxes and high spending. High regulation, lots of social security."
I don't think so, I think they want less greed sucking the value from their lifetime earnings. More government regulation for sure but that is not larger government, its just more involvement in controling greed. You probably would not say that passing a law to say require back seat passengers in cars as meaning larger police forces. No, that is just specification of more things that people are required to do, not larger police departments.
"They're find with the government defaulting on its debt and and the economy completely inploding because the pain is worth gain at the end. " as to the tea party and thinking they think the pain is worth it. Those that think it is worth it are the rich people. The poor ones haven't a clue that they are being manipulated into that talking point. It would be like the people in Japan saying they think they should have a tsunami to get rid of some old buidlings. The one that would say that are the ones inland and in high ground. The very idea that imploding government would be good for the country is patently false, would lead to hundreds of thousands if not hundreds of millions of lives devastated. For what? someones who has an different idea of the way things are or should be. These obviously are patriots and have true empathy for history, the people of the country, a firm grasp on the realty of possible outcomes and fallout of that suggestion, true Christians and above all, real nice loving, caring thoughtful people, and have respect for the decisions that the people of this country have made through their legislation for the past 100 year, as well as a true respect for our founding fathers and the system of government that was designed for thoughtful, considered, stable moves in the governance of this country. I think not.
some good points. For tax equality, I believe in a progressive tax as that puts more of a burden on those that receive more value from what government does. I think that everyone in this country should be able to eat well and have a roof over their head if they work a full time job and be able to raise a family that same way there is a full time wage earner in the home (I don't think that 2 wage earners should be necesarry for a decent life). This idea that jobs for companies with fat cat executives have to work multiple jobs just to make it by shows that there is no equity in the job market. Why then should there be equity in the tax scheme? Wouldn't those executives praise the government for following the practices that they themselves follow?
I think the golden parachute that the government should re-claim is a substantial inheritance tax. Let them work for it.
Good point, but really its greed. Look at the last time before the big populous slap down (and a stock market crash) that gave birth to the unions to start out with, with the large industrialists with the child labor and unsafe working conditions (like in so many, many mines). This is long term greed and was entreched until the voting public started saying, no, that is not in our best interests, we need clean water, clean air, no children pressed into labor, literacy, and the right to let labor have a voice in the process not just owners. Unions and voters were the only counterbalance to greed. We are seeing that ugly head of greed get big and now had gone for long-term growth and planning. Its time for the electorate to re-evaluate the wisdom of the right wing direction against their own best interests.
I suspect that that is not really the case. At least in the first such case several months ago with the the group that sent a ballon up there was no mention in the press certainly that there was notification. In the Commercial (which may be fiction) the claim was that the fellow bought his weather ballon with point from his checking account I believe. If the practice goes viral I suspect that few of those people jumping on the band wagon will even know that there is a thing like controlled air space over 14k feet or the controlled air spaces around airports. Being in Chicago those spaces are pretty busy. Planes go down from flocks of birds sucked into the engines, sucking in a ballon and electronics I suspect would do some damage. I don't know if planes today have internal radar that could detect objects so small.
Your argument is about statistics. Won't happen because of the probability. I just worry about the viral stick all the stuff in a shoe box with a balloon crowd wanting to do neat cluesless copy cat stuff with a pretty big down side.
Haven't had time to deconstruct the claims on that blog, but it is true the the country is owned by us people and the government has to employ a lot of people, and of course as a big institution (not company) it had insurance and pension plans for its workers, just like some (not all ) companies. We, of course own the common lands in our country, not the government, they are public lands. It may seem like a subtle difference but its not. I would venture to say that the ultra rich, those 'job creators' who have been finding very creative ways of sucking the life out of our economy and pulling themselves into gated communities where they don't have to deal with the impacts of their greed. There is no cluelessness in the protests, they are not pro-government, they are not socialist as you seem to suggest. They are about regulation of greed and patriotism (that would be defined as those things that benefit the country as a whole, its people as a whole) . We had regulations in place and higher taxes in place and had unparalleled periods of prosperity, and even government surpluses. So the clueless part is those that think the deregulation (Enron, World-Com, Savings and Loan crisis, Madoff , the lastest crash from the Derivatives ....) and tax breaks for the 'job creators' (they have had them for the last 10 years and we have not seen any evidence that giving them those breaks created job one), will have any positive effects except for those at the top of the economic pyramid scheme.
Yes a conundrum, will supporting jobs in other countries benefit us? Well it benefits the owners of companies but not the ones thrown out of a job. And all those innovations, productivity is up but people are fired, so technology can be a double edged sword (but not for the owners). The Union friendly pace, well with the extending out of the upper end of the economic spectrum in this country (300 to 400 times the salary of the lowest paid for the highest paid). Unions will naturally become popular again when people figure out that they have been being screwed and cheated and sold a bill of goods for decades and as Lincoln once said, you can't fool all the people all the time. The inevitable pendulum is starting to gravitate back in the other direction. The protests by the 99% are the first creaking of the gears changing direction.
I'm sorry but "these white-collar crimes which bankrupted many innocent people. If they focus on the tax evasion, insider trading, blatant abuse of trust, and so forth," are all examples of greed. You are just enumerating the ways that we are aware of for greed to steal from the rest of us. Then there are the people that buy companies and fire a lot of people and sell the carcase or move jobs overseas and fire workers and get tax breaks, bonuses and high salaries for it.
They have cogent talking points, tax equity for individuals and corporations. One person, one vote ( minimize the power of money from the top to influence elections and elected officials). There message is simple and close to the message of the original Tea Party which came out against Wall Street before the Koch brothers and Fox took over that group and steered them to be anti-government instead of anti-wall street.
After having just flown between Las Vegas and Chicago. The idea of a commercial plane running into an "amateur" ballon or rocket and the subsequent catastrophy has me wondering when this "viral" activity will end up going terribly wrong. I guess it will continue untill that point. It has even been in commercials on TV as a wonderful activity that companies are using to sell product.
But then I am a compputer programmer and we look at these sorts of failures.
Watch the skys.
We used to think that electricity was magic. But now we have been able to image electrons. Religion is just an explaination for the currently unexplainable. What make you think that sprititual things can not be explained. Religion is just the ritual and conceptual trappings around one explaination of spirtitual things. And the Church persecuted those that thought the world was not flat because the Religion held a different view and would not suffer that view being challenged by the facts of reality.
To say that the scientific method, or science can not be applied toward spiritual things is to say the those spiritual things are not part of reality, which is not what I think you want to say.
Even science now talks about alternative universes and realities. Faith is just a wall that stops questioning and investigation because we are lazy, afraid or someone is telling us to be lazy or afraid because they want to control us.
There is another category of course. One that recognizes that there are forces in existance that are not currently explainable by science (from empirical and personal experience), but understand because of all the different theologies that claim to be correct and part of an equivalence class, that the premise that the equivalence class exists at all is obviously false, or that each explaination is false. Or more correctly, subject explaination for unexplained pheonomena. The result is wars and people with hands chopped off and heads chopped off and whatever power/control framework you want in place justified. But that is not God, a more naturalist or Taoist view seems to make more sense as a filter on real experience.
So the great evil in this world is Attribution and labels which peg you to some attribution.
Stop the evil. Open the eyes and just enjoy life and what it has to offer.
"The current telcos need more wireless spectrum to continue expanding and operating efficiently so they have resorted to acquiring other companies."
Or give them all the same restrictions do they can battle it out on price and not on coverage. A level playing field would let competition work better.
Interesting story.
"they couldn't win the argument at te ballot box or in the legislature by logical persuasion."
Two points about this, This week Scott Walker's aids were raided by the FBI, computures taken, even computers were tracked down that were sold at garage sales. So the "Winning at the Ballot Box" may not be accurate, the results may not be in yet.
Also the agenda about killing the Unions was a hidden agenda and not revealed in the campaign. Everyone except the Koch brothers supported legistators were aware of what was going to happen. So the electoriate had just cause to protest the bait and switch that went on. It would be refreshing if the Republicans would actually come out and tell the people who are voting what they plan on doing or not doing. Then the voters would have a fair chance of expressing their will at the ballot box.
So the ultra right wing is learning from the peacenik playbook that really got its start with Gandhi. What if the Democrats stated to learn from Karl Rove's playbook, dirty tricks, defamation of character, election fraud, maybe that would level the playing field. I like the way the right wing talk show hosts have been commenting on the Presidents wife. It seems like this is the first example of the Presidents wife being defamed as fair game. First CIA operatives now the Presidents wife, certainly not ethical, moral, patriotic or relying on the strength of your message or agenda. But then maybe thats why the dirty tricks and wedge issues are used, they would not see the hid side of power without those tactics.
As to coverage, we should see what people are angry enough to protest and our news media should cover those stories and bring any side to light, but fairly and objectively.
Lets bring back the fairness doctrine.
The media did the same thing with the demonstrations in Wisconsin against the Anti-Union law that was hastily passed. Thousands of demonstrators but little coverage, but how strange, any little Tea Party gathering of 20-30 people got national coverage. I guess the rarity of that type of demonstration makes it News (or for the racist and defamatory signs)., whereas large demonstrations against corporate greed are more commonplace and not worthy of note. Or the liberal media really is now the corporate media.