Wealth and paper is not the same thing. If you have a $1000 chunk of gold, and you print 1000 greenbacks, you have a direct 1-to-1 relationship. But if you print 2000 greenbacks, well you still have the same amount of gold.... you're not any richer, but now you're paper is only worth half as much.
If a greenback bought a loaf of bread previously, now thanks to devaluation of the paper, it will only buy half a loaf of bread.
>>>It's also a loss of the productive work the person was being hired to do.
In my experience at various government jobs, over half the workers are not doing any work - they just surf the net from 8 to 5. So you can lay them off and still get the same amount of "productive work" accomplished as you did previously.
>>>Only if you assume the government (its citizens) gets nothing of value for the $100k salary
When I was working at the FAA, I noticed that half the workers don't work at all (they just surf the net).* So yes I'd say those people should get laid-off because the citizens are not getting anything of value.
While there might be a SMALL danger of vigilante justice, I consider that a small inconvenience compared to the great harm of the People's government keeping secrets & covering-up abuses.
"U.S. Government announces it will layoff 50% of its staff and use the excess money to payoff the national debt & eventually lower income taxes." Of course that will never happen; either in a bad economy or a good economy. Politicians don't know how to reduce spending.
That's the problem right there. Business ALWAYS over-extends itself. In good times, they open tons of new factories and rather than hire some Americans who are ought of work, these businesses insist upon brining-in foreign labor.
Then they turn-around and lay them all off, and what's left are foreigners living off the dole. I think when the economy is booming, the government should say, "No imported workers. Hire some of the unemployed Americans and get them off the government's payroll."
ASIDE:
I was recently laid-off. I had a phone interview for a temporary job, and now they want to interview me in person which is an unusual move for a temp job. The catch: I have to drive 14 hours from PA to NH without any kind of reimbursement, and frankly it's unlikely I'll get the job anyway. Would you be willing to go to an interview w/o reimbursement, for a temporary 6-9 month job?
I don't understand how one can say, "No laws apply". There are laws against stalking, and laws against libel/slander of other individuals. The mom might only spend a year in jail for these minor crimes, but that's still better than nothing.
Also there's vigilante justice.
If my daughter was killed by a bunch of bullies that's bad enough, but another parent? Who should know better than to gang-up on an underage teen??? I'm afraid I'd suffer a case of "temporary insanity" against said parent.
Whatever. "I am the head of the Executive Branch. I will use my crackberry, and you will find a way to make me untraceable just the same as you found a way for me to walk down a D.C. street without getting shot. Is that clear?" "Yes Mr. President."
The end.
Probably the solution is as simple as, "Don't use your Blackberry's wireless connection." But I don't know; that's what security experts are for. Everyday I see Congressmen using cellphones; if those can be secure enough to carry day-to-day government business, why not other wireless devices?
>>>"Oopsie! Locked you up for a decade even though you didn't do anything wrong. Sorry, we'll take that off your record!" Yeah, thanks.
If I spent 10 years in jail for a crime I did not commit, or a non-law that was declared unconstitutional, I would expect some kind of compensation. Like the 1 million dollars I lost in wages; even half that amount would be acceptable. But no compensation??? Some politician or DA would pay the ultimate price for their unconstitutional act. Yeah sure I'd go back to jail but at least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing it was deserved jailtime, not just wasted years, and the government tyrant would not be able to unjustly jail a citizen again.
In the EU there's a council of ministers that meets regularly. Perhaps a similar "council of governors" should exist to review U.S. Congressional law, as it passes, to verify if the law is constitutional or not. After all the States are part of the contract - surely they have a right to review and accept, or reject, all acts passed by the U.S.
>>>Those people had a choice. They could comply with the law until it was overturned.
But a law that violates the U.S. Constitution is NOT a law. The Supreme Court made that determination as far back as circa 1810. We the People are not obligated to obey laws that are not laws. On the contrary, our employees in the government are required by oath to follow Constitutional rules - they are the ones who made a poor choice by disobeying their oath.
>>>you don't see say a member country of the EU "claiming ownership" of a gambling website
No. Instead you see states of the EU arresting people for displaying Nazi artifacts (Germany) or 3-strike loss of internet without trial (France) or blocking the wikipedia (UK). Um. Remind me again how the state of Kentucky is "worse" than these EU states? Hmmm.
>>>Low VHF channels, the ones that could carry 200 miles are gon
They still exist but the FCC tried to convince station owners to not use Lo-VHF. Anyway the people most likely to be hurt are those who live in the midwest 100-200 miles away from a center city. As you stated digital won't carry that far, so they'll be left with nothing.
But that's okay. According to our new Democrat masters, the flyover people don't matter anyway. We can safely ignore their complaints when they lose TV come February 18.
And then there's channel 11 in Baltimore which will be going to a *lower* signal that just barely covers the city.
Also it's not mere transmission. The fact of the matter is this: I can watch an Orioles game, even if it's degraded to black-and-white with fuzzy static. My brain can extract the image and I can still enjoy the game. DTV receivers lack that ability; they'll just show a blank screen. (QED analog travels further than digital.)
It doesn't take that long to enumerate channels, even if not at home. Let's see. I get 6,8,15,17,33,35,43,49,57,61. That may sound like a lot, but it's only HALF what I got with analog (which also included 10,11,12,13,21.27.29,45,48,65).
As for FOX News:
I was stuck in front of a TV on Monday (car repair), and CNN wasted the entire day talking about MLK/Obama. i.e. A Democrat-leaning biased cheerfest. Finally I got fed-up and asked if I could change the channel to FOX News. I didn't expect it would be any better but as it turned-out, FOX was covering actual news stories like the Gaza strip war, the peanut butter recall, the economic fallout, the gasoline shortage in the EU, and so on.
So on this past Monday, I have to give FOX News credit for actually reporting the news, whereas CNN seriously dropped the ball.
I watch Family Guy on WPHL-17. The analog captions are in perfect sync. The digital captions lag 5 seconds behind. I suspect what's happening is that WPHL is running A-to-D conversion on the analog captions and that introduces a large delay.
Very annoying.
Another annoyance is when my local stations run school closings, the picture goes from letterbox to 4:3 mode and becomes blurry, since they are still using the old analog equipment.
>>>I'm betting the tuner in these "converter boxes" are utter crap and will not tune in most anything.
Actually most tests by videophiles show these converter boxes have the best tuners you can buy. This is due to the FCC forcing the boxes to submit to testing - many of them failed the first time, due to the FCC setting very high standards, but the end result is that the coupon-eligible boxes are now the best on the market.
>>>which will affect (generally, improve) reception
Unless it's WBAL in Baltimore, which will be even harder to receive after it moves from 56 to 11. WPVI in Philly is moving from UHF to Lo-VHF (67 to 6) which most home antennas can not receive. You shouldn't mislead people with statements like "it will get more power" or "it will improve". The fact is we don't know what will happen until it happens. Some get better, some get worse (I'm losing DTV channels 11 and 6), but most stations will not be changed at all.
Besides since we're discussing temporal laws, the punishment should be temporal too. Remove any Congressman from office if three of their laws are declared unconstitutional by the Judicial branch. ("Constitutional Oath - Three Strikes Gauaranteed")
>>>It's absolutely NOT an analogous situation: Kentucky is a tiny little redneck state...
True. Let me rephrase my previous post with a more-accurate comparison. "If Kentucky wants to ban gambling within its border, its certainly within its right to do so, just the same as Greece can ban gambling inside its border."
-- the idea that a TV show should be able to disable parts of your home theater (for example, if MTV is worried that your Dolby sound outputs might be used to record the audio portion of music videos, they could shut down those outputs and only allow you to hear sound via the speakers in your TV).
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to engage in "selective output control" (SOC). If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to "turn off" any output plug they choose,
If I am unable to use my expensive surround sound speakers, and I'm stuck with the cheap speakers in my TV, I'm going to be very pissed.
Slashdot Mirror
Wealth and paper is not the same thing. If you have a $1000 chunk of gold, and you print 1000 greenbacks, you have a direct 1-to-1 relationship. But if you print 2000 greenbacks, well you still have the same amount of gold.... you're not any richer, but now you're paper is only worth half as much.
If a greenback bought a loaf of bread previously, now thanks to devaluation of the paper, it will only buy half a loaf of bread.
>>>It's also a loss of the productive work the person was being hired to do.
In my experience at various government jobs, over half the workers are not doing any work - they just surf the net from 8 to 5. So you can lay them off and still get the same amount of "productive work" accomplished as you did previously.
>>>Only if you assume the government (its citizens) gets nothing of value for the $100k salary
When I was working at the FAA, I noticed that half the workers don't work at all (they just surf the net).* So yes I'd say those people should get laid-off because the citizens are not getting anything of value.
I wonder if the European Union is hiring Americans?
I speak English, German, and Old Italian (Latin). Where do I apply for my H1b-equivalent EU visa?
While there might be a SMALL danger of vigilante justice, I consider that a small inconvenience compared to the great harm of the People's government keeping secrets & covering-up abuses.
Indians/Argentinians may not always meet the schedule, but I bet they're happier than we are. Fewer ulcers too.
I'm looking forward to this line:
"U.S. Government announces it will layoff 50% of its staff and use the excess money to payoff the national debt & eventually lower income taxes." Of course that will never happen; either in a bad economy or a good economy. Politicians don't know how to reduce spending.
That's the problem right there. Business ALWAYS over-extends itself. In good times, they open tons of new factories and rather than hire some Americans who are ought of work, these businesses insist upon brining-in foreign labor.
Then they turn-around and lay them all off, and what's left are foreigners living off the dole. I think when the economy is booming, the government should say, "No imported workers. Hire some of the unemployed Americans and get them off the government's payroll."
ASIDE:
I was recently laid-off. I had a phone interview for a temporary job, and now they want to interview me in person which is an unusual move for a temp job. The catch: I have to drive 14 hours from PA to NH without any kind of reimbursement, and frankly it's unlikely I'll get the job anyway. Would you be willing to go to an interview w/o reimbursement, for a temporary 6-9 month job?
I don't understand how one can say, "No laws apply". There are laws against stalking, and laws against libel/slander of other individuals. The mom might only spend a year in jail for these minor crimes, but that's still better than nothing.
Also there's vigilante justice.
If my daughter was killed by a bunch of bullies that's bad enough, but another parent? Who should know better than to gang-up on an underage teen??? I'm afraid I'd suffer a case of "temporary insanity" against said parent.
Whatever. "I am the head of the Executive Branch. I will use my crackberry, and you will find a way to make me untraceable just the same as you found a way for me to walk down a D.C. street without getting shot. Is that clear?" "Yes Mr. President."
The end.
Probably the solution is as simple as, "Don't use your Blackberry's wireless connection." But I don't know; that's what security experts are for. Everyday I see Congressmen using cellphones; if those can be secure enough to carry day-to-day government business, why not other wireless devices?
>>>At least they have some "time served" banked against any future offenses.
Is that true? If I'm imprisoned by mistake for ten years, any future sentences will automatically be reduced by 10??? Hmmm.
P.S.
>>>"Oopsie! Locked you up for a decade even though you didn't do anything wrong. Sorry, we'll take that off your record!" Yeah, thanks.
If I spent 10 years in jail for a crime I did not commit, or a non-law that was declared unconstitutional, I would expect some kind of compensation. Like the 1 million dollars I lost in wages; even half that amount would be acceptable. But no compensation??? Some politician or DA would pay the ultimate price for their unconstitutional act. Yeah sure I'd go back to jail but at least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing it was deserved jailtime, not just wasted years, and the government tyrant would not be able to unjustly jail a citizen again.
In the EU there's a council of ministers that meets regularly. Perhaps a similar "council of governors" should exist to review U.S. Congressional law, as it passes, to verify if the law is constitutional or not. After all the States are part of the contract - surely they have a right to review and accept, or reject, all acts passed by the U.S.
>>>Those people had a choice. They could comply with the law until it was overturned.
But a law that violates the U.S. Constitution is NOT a law. The Supreme Court made that determination as far back as circa 1810. We the People are not obligated to obey laws that are not laws. On the contrary, our employees in the government are required by oath to follow Constitutional rules - they are the ones who made a poor choice by disobeying their oath.
>>>you don't see say a member country of the EU "claiming ownership" of a gambling website
No. Instead you see states of the EU arresting people for displaying Nazi artifacts (Germany) or 3-strike loss of internet without trial (France) or blocking the wikipedia (UK). Um. Remind me again how the state of Kentucky is "worse" than these EU states? Hmmm.
>>>Low VHF channels, the ones that could carry 200 miles are gon
They still exist but the FCC tried to convince station owners to not use Lo-VHF. Anyway the people most likely to be hurt are those who live in the midwest 100-200 miles away from a center city. As you stated digital won't carry that far, so they'll be left with nothing.
But that's okay. According to our new Democrat masters, the flyover people don't matter anyway. We can safely ignore their complaints when they lose TV come February 18.
And then there's channel 11 in Baltimore which will be going to a *lower* signal that just barely covers the city.
Also it's not mere transmission. The fact of the matter is this: I can watch an Orioles game, even if it's degraded to black-and-white with fuzzy static. My brain can extract the image and I can still enjoy the game. DTV receivers lack that ability; they'll just show a blank screen. (QED analog travels further than digital.)
It doesn't take that long to enumerate channels, even if not at home. Let's see. I get 6,8,15,17,33,35,43,49,57,61. That may sound like a lot, but it's only HALF what I got with analog (which also included 10,11,12,13,21.27.29,45,48,65).
As for FOX News:
I was stuck in front of a TV on Monday (car repair), and CNN wasted the entire day talking about MLK/Obama. i.e. A Democrat-leaning biased cheerfest. Finally I got fed-up and asked if I could change the channel to FOX News. I didn't expect it would be any better but as it turned-out, FOX was covering actual news stories like the Gaza strip war, the peanut butter recall, the economic fallout, the gasoline shortage in the EU, and so on.
So on this past Monday, I have to give FOX News credit for actually reporting the news, whereas CNN seriously dropped the ball.
I watch Family Guy on WPHL-17. The analog captions are in perfect sync. The digital captions lag 5 seconds behind. I suspect what's happening is that WPHL is running A-to-D conversion on the analog captions and that introduces a large delay.
Very annoying.
Another annoyance is when my local stations run school closings, the picture goes from letterbox to 4:3 mode and becomes blurry, since they are still using the old analog equipment.
>>>I'm betting the tuner in these "converter boxes" are utter crap and will not tune in most anything.
Actually most tests by videophiles show these converter boxes have the best tuners you can buy. This is due to the FCC forcing the boxes to submit to testing - many of them failed the first time, due to the FCC setting very high standards, but the end result is that the coupon-eligible boxes are now the best on the market.
>>>which will affect (generally, improve) reception
Unless it's WBAL in Baltimore, which will be even harder to receive after it moves from 56 to 11. WPVI in Philly is moving from UHF to Lo-VHF (67 to 6) which most home antennas can not receive. You shouldn't mislead people with statements like "it will get more power" or "it will improve". The fact is we don't know what will happen until it happens. Some get better, some get worse (I'm losing DTV channels 11 and 6), but most stations will not be changed at all.
>>>the 4:3 signal output by the converter box has black bars on all four sides for almost every channel on my TV.
It sounds like you have the box set to 16:9 or letterbox mode. Push the Zoom button to make the imaage fill the screen.
"So help me God" is NOT part of the oath.
Besides since we're discussing temporal laws, the punishment should be temporal too. Remove any Congressman from office if three of their laws are declared unconstitutional by the Judicial branch. ("Constitutional Oath - Three Strikes Gauaranteed")
>>>It's absolutely NOT an analogous situation: Kentucky is a tiny little redneck state...
True. Let me rephrase my previous post with a more-accurate comparison. "If Kentucky wants to ban gambling within its border, its certainly within its right to do so, just the same as Greece can ban gambling inside its border."
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/selectable-output-control-mpaa-s-new-control-tactic-t354786.html
-- the idea that a TV show should be able to disable parts of your home theater (for example, if MTV is worried that your Dolby sound outputs might be used to record the audio portion of music videos, they could shut down those outputs and only allow you to hear sound via the speakers in your TV).
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to engage in "selective output control" (SOC). If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to "turn off" any output plug they choose,
If I am unable to use my expensive surround sound speakers, and I'm stuck with the cheap speakers in my TV, I'm going to be very pissed.