And what if humans are better off with a tropical planet, where even Northern Canada and Russian Siberia are filled with flowering fruits and vegetables? What if the scientists are wrong? Earth's been cooling since the 90s.
In either scenario we will have carbon-taxed ourselves with no good reason.
Another strawman argument. I never said that. OF COURSE people should have to pay for the damage they cause to the environment, and try to minimize it as much as possible. That's why I drive a 70MPG Honda Hybrid
BTW we should probably impose a water tax too. There are areas of the South and southwest where rivers have no water in them, since it was all diverted to feed cities. Time to discourage water consumption.
It appears the American public has already rejected trains. It's why almost every time I step on one, it's running near-empty. Buses seem to be more viable solution. Though I still prefer to have a trunk to carry my 10 bags of groceries, so I use a car.
I propose we set up trains and buses in a "swim or sink" situation. Either they survive without any tax assistance (other than the initial investment), surviving completely-and-totally upon customer ticket purchases, or they go bankrupt. Like UPS and FedEx do.
Why do you believe that you have an inherent right to not have to pay for damage that your actions cause?
Strawman argument. I never said I believed that. And I don't believe that. If I have to pay a carbon tax, then I will - I was just pointing-out the consequences.
Scientists also claimed nuclear bombs would burn-off the Earth's atmosphere. Well, Russia set off a 50 megaton bomb and while it did produce a 5 mile wide fireball, it did not destroy Earth's atmosphere. The scientists were wrong.... as they often are. (Another example is that they claimed space was filled with a gaslike ether... wrong again.)
Gas tax should be used for one purpose only - to repair the roads. I don't want to see the US copy the EU model where drivers are taxed to death to fund all kinds of non-related projects like military or welfare or food stamps, while the nondrivers pay zero taxes but get the free handouts. Gasoline tax should be as close to a use tax as possible - like a road toll.
That said I do think we need to double the gasoline tax. Our roads are falling apart, and need the extra money.
Trains are a backwards 1800s technology that lacks flexibility. Heck I can't even ride a train if I wanted to, because it's a 10 mile walk to the station..... and even if the station were right next door, it takes twice as long (1 hour) as a car to reach my job. Plus what if I need to make a sudden trip in the middle of night? No trains run after 10pm around here. So I'd be stuck.
Cars offer flexibility. And they are modular, such that they can scale up from minimal operation (a few cars running at 3am) to full deployment (rush hour). Trains can't do that. I see a lot of trains running almost completely empty, and therefore wasting fuel. Cars are more flexible.
Double my electric bill from $400 to $800 each month? Okay.
Well I guess I could tear down my house and rebuild a new one based on the PassivHaus model, and thereby hope to burn less electricity. I certainly can't afford to be socked with ~$10,000 a year in electricity + carbon taxes.
It hasn't been okay to pollute the air for several decades now. That's why cars have catalytic converters to scrub-out human-damaging pollutants like NOx and HC (produce ozone) and CO (poison). Power plants have scrubbers to eliminate the same things, plus soot, so you no longer see black smoke but white stream coming from their towers.
>>>Obama looks pretty powerless at this point too to do anything about it.
He could have ended the war and saved ~100 billion per year. He could have pushed through legislation to raise SS and Medicare minimum age from 68 to 78 (gradually over time), and then fixed it to the Life Expectancy. It's supposed to be a last-resort safety net, not an entitlement. ----- He also could have converted these programs to "needs based" systems where only people with life incomes below 10 million would be eligible to receive the checks (rich people can take care of themselves). These simple changes would have saved between 1 and 2 trillion per year.
If I were president I'd also direct my cabinet to lay-off half the staff in their respective areas of influence. Yeah it sucks, but we have a ~13 trillion dollar debt, the economy is shit, and now's the time to make the tough choices. Besides in my experience with government work, half the staff just surfs the net all day anyway. That's what I did when I worked for the FAA (and then eventually left because it was boring). Lay them off.
Rand Paul? Why pick on him? He's one of the good guys (like Ron Paul) who will fight against the Corporations and bankers. Remember it was Rand's dad who pushed through the "Audit the Fed" bill, so we can find out what's really happening to your money.
>>>Trades faster than a day should be simply outlawed
You just bought Ford stock an hour ago, and now you just learned that the company is declaring bankruptcy effective 5 o'clock today. Do you really want to be forced to keep that stock until 23 hours from now (when it will be worthless)? Of course not. You want to dump it as fast as possible while the price is still high and you can recover some of your money.
A market needs to be free to operate so it can respond instantly to changing circumstances. I agree with your idea of 1 second intervals, but not 24 hours. A lot can change during that time.
You think child porn is protected by freedom of expression?
Yes. Just as I think looking at photos of a grisly murder is ALSO protected by freedom of expression. I didn't commit the crime - I'm only looking at light captured on paper, so I've done nothing wrong. (BUT the person who committed the crime should be arrested and jailed for a long, long time.)
This is also why I don't think possession of marijuana should be a crime. If you are driving while smoking, then yes you should be arrested, but if you're just sitting at home enjoying the psychedelic colors of Star Trek 1, then you've done nothing wrong. Mere possession is not a crime.
It is called freedom of speech not freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression is protected by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, as well as more State Constitutions than I can list here, AND the supreme court which declared flag burning to be non-speech but still protected. So yes photographs (and art in general) is protected.
That's because you didn't read the article. They were getting the US version of Donkey Kong to launch, the arcade game. They decided to name the char Mario
He didn't RTFA but I did, and you're still wrong. Mario's original name was "Jumpman" in Donkey Kong. He did not acquire a name until the sequel one year later.
google and the wiki are your friends.
Yeah they are so I'm slightly surprised you didn't read them. Wiki confirms C64_love's comments. Mario originally had no name. He was just Jumpman (a name chosen for its similarity to "Walkman" and "Pac-Man") and his job was as a carpenter (hence the hammer).
He did not stop being a carpenter until Mario Bros, when he suddenly mutated into a plumber, and gained a brother named Luigi.
That and commorode_love sucks ass. I have a Foe list for a reason.:)
So you're the one going around and modding people's karma down. Why? Simply because you don't like them ("foes"). That's not why the moderation exists on slashdot.
As for broken promises, I think the "I will end the war before end of 2009" and "We will have a public option for healthcare" and "I will not sign a law until it sits on whitehouse.gov for ten days" trump all the little tiny promises he managed to keep.
While I might be able to excuse the broken healthcare promise due to the stubborn Conservative Democrats in Congress, I really can't excuse the first broken promise. That decision was completely wihtin Obama's control and he went the opposite direction (sent more troops). This war should have ended long ago.
It's so easy. All we have to do is give up our remaining freedom (because it would require a police state to protect us from this form of terrorism)
Americans don't have to give up freedom. Just the people trying to cross the border.
I don't think that's too much to ask. No different than telling my neighbors "No you may not enter, unless you're invited. If not invited, you'll get arrested as soon as you cross the threshold." Apply the same principles at the northern and southern borders, and incoming boats/airplanes from foreign sources.
- Loss or representative Democracy, which had given the masses a "stake" in Rome's success but after the Senate became an essentially powerless entity, the People no longer cared if Rome survived or not.
- Exclusions from the army. Rome had been strong because of required duty by the citizens in the army, but eventually most of Italy was exempt from that duty, thereby forcing the army to come from non-Romans in the surrounding provinces. These non-Romans had a bad habit of turning against their masters. ----- The army also degenerated in the quality of its armor, its swords, and its training. It was no longer a professional army, which is why it started losing battles.
- Devolution from a free market economy into a Feudal economy circa 300-400 A.D., such that citizens were essentially serfs of the manor lord. Non-free serfs tend not to be as productive as free citizens working for their own wealth. Rome's treasury slowly-but-surely became empty. And then it fell to invasion.
Yeah that planned worked really well for the British. The funny thing is that they never learned their lesson, and just keep pissing-off the colonists.
If you put your trash out on the curb, and a neighbor helps himself to the iPhone you accidentally dropped inside the bag, you can't later turn-round and sue your neighbor for stolen property in order to get it back. Abandoned property belongs to nobody.
This is illegal in my state. Both the carthief and me the owner would be arrested, so maybe if we follow your analogy to its logical conclusion: The government should arrest BOTH the journalist and the Owner for leaving the iPhone unlocked with passwords in the ignition... I mean memory.
Slashdot Mirror
And what if humans are better off with a tropical planet, where even Northern Canada and Russian Siberia are filled with flowering fruits and vegetables? What if the scientists are wrong? Earth's been cooling since the 90s.
In either scenario we will have carbon-taxed ourselves with no good reason.
Another strawman argument. I never said that. OF COURSE people should have to pay for the damage they cause to the environment, and try to minimize it as much as possible. That's why I drive a 70MPG Honda Hybrid
BTW we should probably impose a water tax too. There are areas of the South and southwest where rivers have no water in them, since it was all diverted to feed cities. Time to discourage water consumption.
It appears the American public has already rejected trains. It's why almost every time I step on one, it's running near-empty.
Buses seem to be more viable solution. Though I still prefer to have a trunk to carry my 10 bags of groceries, so I use a car.
I propose we set up trains and buses in a "swim or sink" situation. Either they survive without any tax assistance (other than the initial investment), surviving completely-and-totally upon customer ticket purchases, or they go bankrupt. Like UPS and FedEx do.
Why do you believe that you have an inherent right to not have to pay for damage that your actions cause?
Strawman argument. I never said I believed that. And I don't believe that. If I have to pay a carbon tax, then I will - I was just pointing-out the consequences.
Scientists also claimed nuclear bombs would burn-off the Earth's atmosphere. Well, Russia set off a 50 megaton bomb and while it did produce a 5 mile wide fireball, it did not destroy Earth's atmosphere. The scientists were wrong.... as they often are. (Another example is that they claimed space was filled with a gaslike ether... wrong again.)
Gas tax should be used for one purpose only - to repair the roads. I don't want to see the US copy the EU model where drivers are taxed to death to fund all kinds of non-related projects like military or welfare or food stamps, while the nondrivers pay zero taxes but get the free handouts. Gasoline tax should be as close to a use tax as possible - like a road toll.
That said I do think we need to double the gasoline tax. Our roads are falling apart, and need the extra money.
Trains are a backwards 1800s technology that lacks flexibility. Heck I can't even ride a train if I wanted to, because it's a 10 mile walk to the station..... and even if the station were right next door, it takes twice as long (1 hour) as a car to reach my job. Plus what if I need to make a sudden trip in the middle of night? No trains run after 10pm around here. So I'd be stuck.
Cars offer flexibility. And they are modular, such that they can scale up from minimal operation (a few cars running at 3am) to full deployment (rush hour). Trains can't do that. I see a lot of trains running almost completely empty, and therefore wasting fuel. Cars are more flexible.
Double my electric bill from $400 to $800 each month? Okay.
Well I guess I could tear down my house and rebuild a new one based on the PassivHaus model, and thereby hope to burn less electricity. I certainly can't afford to be socked with ~$10,000 a year in electricity + carbon taxes.
It hasn't been okay to pollute the air for several decades now. That's why cars have catalytic converters to scrub-out human-damaging pollutants like NOx and HC (produce ozone) and CO (poison). Power plants have scrubbers to eliminate the same things, plus soot, so you no longer see black smoke but white stream coming from their towers.
>>>Obama looks pretty powerless at this point too to do anything about it.
He could have ended the war and saved ~100 billion per year. He could have pushed through legislation to raise SS and Medicare minimum age from 68 to 78 (gradually over time), and then fixed it to the Life Expectancy. It's supposed to be a last-resort safety net, not an entitlement. ----- He also could have converted these programs to "needs based" systems where only people with life incomes below 10 million would be eligible to receive the checks (rich people can take care of themselves). These simple changes would have saved between 1 and 2 trillion per year.
If I were president I'd also direct my cabinet to lay-off half the staff in their respective areas of influence. Yeah it sucks, but we have a ~13 trillion dollar debt, the economy is shit, and now's the time to make the tough choices. Besides in my experience with government work, half the staff just surfs the net all day anyway. That's what I did when I worked for the FAA (and then eventually left because it was boring). Lay them off.
Rand Paul? Why pick on him? He's one of the good guys (like Ron Paul) who will fight against the Corporations and bankers. Remember it was Rand's dad who pushed through the "Audit the Fed" bill, so we can find out what's really happening to your money.
>>>Trades faster than a day should be simply outlawed
You just bought Ford stock an hour ago, and now you just learned that the company is declaring bankruptcy effective 5 o'clock today. Do you really want to be forced to keep that stock until 23 hours from now (when it will be worthless)? Of course not. You want to dump it as fast as possible while the price is still high and you can recover some of your money.
A market needs to be free to operate so it can respond instantly to changing circumstances. I agree with your idea of 1 second intervals, but not 24 hours. A lot can change during that time.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
Well, you're a fucking moron, and generally deserve any downmodding you get, jackass.
I dare you to post those comments while logged-in. Stop hiding. Let us mod you -1 flamebait like you deserve.
That's because there's no actual *news* on fox, fuckface.
CherryPal? Is that like the PearPods on iCarly? i.e. non-existent
I think you misunderstood. He was saying a US channel was showing nudity illegally. If caught they'd be fined severely by Prudish FCC.
I was thinking the same thing.
Also why would I pay $380 for an OS-free netbook when hhgregg has one for sale at just $275, and Windows Seven is included free.
You think child porn is protected by freedom of expression?
Yes. Just as I think looking at photos of a grisly murder is ALSO protected by freedom of expression. I didn't commit the crime - I'm only looking at light captured on paper, so I've done nothing wrong. (BUT the person who committed the crime should be arrested and jailed for a long, long time.)
This is also why I don't think possession of marijuana should be a crime. If you are driving while smoking, then yes you should be arrested, but if you're just sitting at home enjoying the psychedelic colors of Star Trek 1, then you've done nothing wrong. Mere possession is not a crime.
It is called freedom of speech not freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression is protected by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, as well as more State Constitutions than I can list here, AND the supreme court which declared flag burning to be non-speech but still protected. So yes photographs (and art in general) is protected.
That's because you didn't read the article. They were getting the US version of Donkey Kong to launch, the arcade game. They decided to name the char Mario
He didn't RTFA but I did, and you're still wrong. Mario's original name was "Jumpman" in Donkey Kong. He did not acquire a name until the sequel one year later.
google and the wiki are your friends.
Yeah they are so I'm slightly surprised you didn't read them. Wiki confirms C64_love's comments. Mario originally had no name. He was just Jumpman (a name chosen for its similarity to "Walkman" and "Pac-Man") and his job was as a carpenter (hence the hammer).
He did not stop being a carpenter until Mario Bros, when he suddenly mutated into a plumber, and gained a brother named Luigi.
.
That and commorode_love sucks ass. I have a Foe list for a reason. :)
So you're the one going around and modding people's karma down. Why? Simply because you don't like them ("foes"). That's not why the moderation exists on slashdot.
As for broken promises, I think the "I will end the war before end of 2009" and "We will have a public option for healthcare" and "I will not sign a law until it sits on whitehouse.gov for ten days" trump all the little tiny promises he managed to keep.
While I might be able to excuse the broken healthcare promise due to the stubborn Conservative Democrats in Congress, I really can't excuse the first broken promise. That decision was completely wihtin Obama's control and he went the opposite direction (sent more troops). This war should have ended long ago.
It's so easy. All we have to do is give up our remaining freedom (because it would require a police state to protect us from this form of terrorism)
Americans don't have to give up freedom.
Just the people trying to cross the border.
I don't think that's too much to ask. No different than telling my neighbors "No you may not enter, unless you're invited. If not invited, you'll get arrested as soon as you cross the threshold." Apply the same principles at the northern and southern borders, and incoming boats/airplanes from foreign sources.
A few other things:
- Loss or representative Democracy, which had given the masses a "stake" in Rome's success but after the Senate became an essentially powerless entity, the People no longer cared if Rome survived or not.
- Exclusions from the army. Rome had been strong because of required duty by the citizens in the army, but eventually most of Italy was exempt from that duty, thereby forcing the army to come from non-Romans in the surrounding provinces. These non-Romans had a bad habit of turning against their masters. ----- The army also degenerated in the quality of its armor, its swords, and its training. It was no longer a professional army, which is why it started losing battles.
- Devolution from a free market economy into a Feudal economy circa 300-400 A.D., such that citizens were essentially serfs of the manor lord. Non-free serfs tend not to be as productive as free citizens working for their own wealth. Rome's treasury slowly-but-surely became empty. And then it fell to invasion.
America
Canada
Australia
India
Yeah that planned worked really well for the British. The funny thing is that they never learned their lesson, and just keep pissing-off the colonists.
If you put your trash out on the curb, and a neighbor helps himself to the iPhone you accidentally dropped inside the bag, you can't later turn-round and sue your neighbor for stolen property in order to get it back. Abandoned property belongs to nobody.
Ooops... didn't finish my sentence....
after you forgot your keys in it?
This is illegal in my state. Both the carthief and me the owner would be arrested, so maybe if we follow your analogy to its logical conclusion: The government should arrest BOTH the journalist and the Owner for leaving the iPhone unlocked with passwords in the ignition... I mean memory.