If you actually believe that the government has collected LESS over the last 13 years, then you are on crack. If we passed the 2000 budget today, government would be running at a comfortable surplus.
-jcr
Assuming you can buy everything at 2000 prices. You don't mind taking a paycut to what you made 14 years ago, right?
$16.7 trillion is not a partisan issue. Toss the lot of them for not knowing the difference between deficit and debt. The deficit could be zero and we'd still be screwed. We need 50 years of surpluses.
Not necessarily - debt/interest payments are generally part of the budget. So if you're balanced, you *are* paying down your debt. (Slowly, but surely). The trick is to keep it balanced.
Really, America - this isn't hard. Surplus (or deficit) = Taxes - Spending. You can either reduce your spending (say, maybe you don't need to be fighting *quite* so many wars at the same time?) or you can increase taxes (just a thought - maybe all those business taxes that were supposed to spur innovation and just ended up making rich people richer). Or you can do a bit of both, but eventually you are going to have to balance that equation. Sooner is preferable to later.
We the people just gave a bunch of politicians a blank check.
Not really - they'll still have to pass a bill to spend $X; they (like the rest of the civilized world) just don't have to pass a separate bill to pay for it.
Think of it this way - the current US system lets you vote to buy a hamburger but vote not to pay for it (because we can't *nomnom* afford it).
Geeks do tend to be too cute about names and I find that to be asinine, but that's up to the project owner.
And y'know, various copyright and trademark laws - not like you'll ever see a web-browser with "Internet" or "Explorer" in it's name anytime soon. (At least not without some deep pockets and tapdancing to keep Redmond off their backs.)
Yeah, geeks tend to pick cute names, but it's not like product names have had much relation to the product in some time. (Camry, to pick the first example that came to mind.)
If the goalposts have moved from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until convinced innocent", I'd say you have bigger problems in your justice system.
Professor Duane said "It CANNOT help if you talk to the police". Officer Bruch gave multiple real-life examples from his own career of people who helped themselves by talking to the police. Either Officer Bruch was lying or was Professor Duane wrong.
How did it "help"? They left in no worse condition (still innocent and free), but their situation didn't improve. (Unless the cops gave them a cup of coffee?)
* Don't invite them into your home. Once they've got their foot in the door, it can be difficult to get them back out. All they have to do is to declare your residence as some sort of crime scene. Your best bet is to meet in the establishment of some (friendly) third party. You can sit down over a cup of coffee and answer all the questions you want. But if the interview seems to go against you, you give your buddy a sign and he withdraws the invitation for the police officer to be on his premises. The cops leaves or he gets charged with trespassing.
Why would you subject a friend to this? Wouldn't your local coffee shop be just as suitable (in the sense you can just walk away), and perhaps *more* suitable (in being a public place which should temper any... excessive questioning techniques?)
Heck, since every dollar (excepting whatever the Mint generates each year) has already been taxed, we shouldn't have to pay taxes on *anything* anymore, right?
Police look at every single civilian as an enemy first. Remember that.
I disagree... there's certainly bad apples, and there's even entire forces that are in desperate need of a sharp kick in the ass, but I do still choose to think that the majority of people who go into police work are doing it because, fundamentally, they want to make a positive difference.
I'll spot you that, but then you need to consider that it's entirely possible for a cop to consider busting *you* to be "making a positive difference".
Of course, what the Senate is passing is a Continuing Resolution, where everything just stays the way it was for another year
Right, which constitutes "What the senate wants". Republicans want to cut spending to deal with a debt that is in excess of 100% GDP, and it is perfectly reasonable to do so in the main yearly "budget" discussion.
I may be mistaken, but isn't the CR levels *at* what the Republicans wanted? (Or below their wish-list numbers last year?)
Ah, here's the quote:
The continuing resolution that the White House and congressional Democrats have agreed to funds the government at sequestration levels. And even some members of Cantor's own caucus admit that they got the good end of that deal.
“It is a concession, I acknowledge that,” Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told The Huffington Post on Saturday. “I was glad to see that lower number. It didn’t take defense spending into account. We still have a big discrepancy between the House and Senate version. But there has been some compromise and I acknowledge that.”
Thats their prerogative. The Senate doesnt get to demand that everything they want funded gets funded, and say that anything else is stonewalling.
Of course, what the Senate is passing is a Continuing Resolution, where everything just stays the way it was for another year. So the Dems are proposing to fund everything (whether they support it or not). Better comparison would be if the Senate was planning to defund some Republican-stronghold items.
Thats a fair point, except it exposes that BOTH parties are willing to shut the government down over their own ideals.
Here's another point - is there any expectation that there would be tit-for-tat on these a la carte bills? It doesn't take a genius to notice that the parts of the government the Republicans want to fund just happen to be areas relating to their core constituency...
That's not a compromise, that's just another way of moving the goalposts.
Depends on the school. Some places treat fighting back as a crime (apparently it's OK to beat the hell out of kids as long as you do it *regularly* - but heaven forbid you fight back for the first time!), and some places have a head on their shoulders and can differentiate instigator from defender. (You still get the lecture, but they don't make a federal case out of it.)
But I'll be giving my kid the same advice my father gave me - fair fights are for people who want to fight. If someone picks a fight with you and you can't walk away, then fight dirty and end it fast.
Let's face facts - "bullying" is a bit of a BS term anyway. Once you get out into the real world "gimme your money or I'm gonna hit you" is robbery (up to nine years in California). You haven't been bullied, you've been mugged.
Teasing and all that? You try that in your workplace and let us know how long before HR wants a few words with you. If you won't put up with it in your workplace, why do you expect your kids to put up with it in theirs?
Irrelevant. Everything that is on facebook was put there by somebody who chose to put it there. If they put it on public display, then they chose to put it on public display. It's published, therefore it is public. This public information is available to anybody and everybody. As long as the school does not require the students to friend them or turn over passwords, what's the issue?
The article seems to tapdance around that angle (particularly on how they know which accounts are tied to which student), so it may be as innocent as "show me all postings from people who list "SchoolX" as their school (and countermeasures might be as simple as changing security settings and blocking "Geo Listening"). Quick search of the school board site only says that they block social media at school.
So really, some local hacker-space needs to put out a quick "how to keep your school from snooping all over your shite" primer as a good-will measure.
That said, this could teach students two very important things: reputation management and subterfuge. These are good things to know in an emergent surveillance state.
I'll also be amused to see how long it takes for someone to successfully troll the monitors. Get to work kids!
Which is the entire point of autotune. Fix the rare slip. Unfortunately, far too many talentless hacks pushed by record executives because they have "the right look" can only perform with autotune turned up to eleven.
A certain amount of blame has to be put on audience here, for insisting that the live performance sounds *exactly* like the album track. Used to be, small mistakes were part of the live experience. Now that autotune prevents mistakes, what matter does it make if you're fixing one note or every other note?
I mean, if you aren't even practicing your material to create segments you can play back basically the same way multiple times, upon request -- aren't you conveniently skipping over a standard prerequisite of being a musician?
Actually sounds a fair bit like jazz or blues improv to me.
Not making a funny - you get a bunch of jazz musicians together, and you'll get about what you describe - the bare minimum of chord structure and a whole lot of people doing their own thing. (I've heard a song opened by "OK, twelve-bar blues in A - two three four").
My argument is that there are at least as many reasons for wanting to compel a defendant to testify. And I don't see the argument for why there should be a sacred right of the defendant not to answer questions, but not for third-party witnesses. (Some people on these boards keep saying things like "Because that's self-incrimination!", as if repeating the definition somehow amounts to an argument.)
As an example, let's put you on the stand - question #1 is "What crimes have you committed?"
Remember, perjury is a crime in itself, so don't forget anything...
So paying someone not to testify would be illegal. Now, if witnesses had the option of not testifying, you might be worried that they would illegally take cash under the table to refuse to testify. That's true, but we already have the equivalent problem in the existing system, where witnesses can be forced to testify but you could just as easily bribe them to lie on the stand.
Except that under the current plan, we're both committing a crime (one is bribing, the other is perjury). If a person can choose whether to testify or not, I don't see how that's bribery rather than just ol' fashioned lobbying. (And we haven't touched the more obvious underhanded "Hey, I'd like to hire you for $$$$ money for this job starting out of state" methods - if you aren't compelled to testify, it's a lot easier to just make it too inconvenient to bother coming back.)
Well, here's a difference: there is a cost to the defendant if they're forced to testify (self-incrimination). What is the equivalent cost to the witness?
And a more interesting question - what happens if the witness is forced to the stand and declines to take the oath? Can the government force you to take the oath under duress?
Well yes if the defendant is guilty and they're forced to testify, they might get caught, but is that a bad thing? Unless a law is really unjust, dont' we want guilty people to get caught?
If you're worried that someone innocent will be put on the stand, declare their innocence, and then get railroaded anyway, I already responded to this in the original article -- if the court is corrupt or incompetent enough to railroad you without sufficient evidence, they can do that with or without your testimony.
I think you're sidestepping a couple points here. It's entirely possible that there are any number of reasons I don't want the guilty person to get caught. You mention "unjust law". Let's add "close friend/family member" and "I don't want to get involved" as the obvious reasons why a person may want an *accused* person to go free, but society at a whole doesn't.
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If you actually believe that the government has collected LESS over the last 13 years, then you are on crack. If we passed the 2000 budget today, government would be running at a comfortable surplus.
-jcr
Assuming you can buy everything at 2000 prices. You don't mind taking a paycut to what you made 14 years ago, right?
$16.7 trillion is not a partisan issue. Toss the lot of them for not knowing the difference between deficit and debt. The deficit could be zero and we'd still be screwed. We need 50 years of surpluses.
Not necessarily - debt/interest payments are generally part of the budget. So if you're balanced, you *are* paying down your debt. (Slowly, but surely). The trick is to keep it balanced.
Really, America - this isn't hard. Surplus (or deficit) = Taxes - Spending. You can either reduce your spending (say, maybe you don't need to be fighting *quite* so many wars at the same time?) or you can increase taxes (just a thought - maybe all those business taxes that were supposed to spur innovation and just ended up making rich people richer). Or you can do a bit of both, but eventually you are going to have to balance that equation. Sooner is preferable to later.
We the people just gave a bunch of politicians a blank check.
Not really - they'll still have to pass a bill to spend $X; they (like the rest of the civilized world) just don't have to pass a separate bill to pay for it.
Think of it this way - the current US system lets you vote to buy a hamburger but vote not to pay for it (because we can't *nomnom* afford it).
You got PASCAL? You're so lucky. My U was stuck on TURING
I'll see your TURING and raise you a Modula-2. A language that I've never heard of in any context beyond those two intro classes.
Geeks do tend to be too cute about names and I find that to be asinine, but that's up to the project owner.
And y'know, various copyright and trademark laws - not like you'll ever see a web-browser with "Internet" or "Explorer" in it's name anytime soon. (At least not without some deep pockets and tapdancing to keep Redmond off their backs.)
Yeah, geeks tend to pick cute names, but it's not like product names have had much relation to the product in some time. (Camry, to pick the first example that came to mind.)
Your typical open source project is indisputably lacking on documentation.
As opposed to your typical software project? It's a joyous day when I can find useful documentation at all for commercial software.
If the goalposts have moved from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until convinced innocent", I'd say you have bigger problems in your justice system.
Professor Duane said "It CANNOT help if you talk to the police". Officer Bruch gave multiple real-life examples from his own career of people who helped themselves by talking to the police. Either Officer Bruch was lying or was Professor Duane wrong.
How did it "help"? They left in no worse condition (still innocent and free), but their situation didn't improve. (Unless the cops gave them a cup of coffee?)
* Don't invite them into your home. Once they've got their foot in the door, it can be difficult to get them back out. All they have to do is to declare your residence as some sort of crime scene. Your best bet is to meet in the establishment of some (friendly) third party. You can sit down over a cup of coffee and answer all the questions you want. But if the interview seems to go against you, you give your buddy a sign and he withdraws the invitation for the police officer to be on his premises. The cops leaves or he gets charged with trespassing.
Why would you subject a friend to this? Wouldn't your local coffee shop be just as suitable (in the sense you can just walk away), and perhaps *more* suitable (in being a public place which should temper any... excessive questioning techniques?)
Heck, since every dollar (excepting whatever the Mint generates each year) has already been taxed, we shouldn't have to pay taxes on *anything* anymore, right?
Police look at every single civilian as an enemy first. Remember that.
I disagree... there's certainly bad apples, and there's even entire forces that are in desperate need of a sharp kick in the ass, but I do still choose to think that the majority of people who go into police work are doing it because, fundamentally, they want to make a positive difference.
I'll spot you that, but then you need to consider that it's entirely possible for a cop to consider busting *you* to be "making a positive difference".
Of course, what the Senate is passing is a Continuing Resolution, where everything just stays the way it was for another year
Right, which constitutes "What the senate wants". Republicans want to cut spending to deal with a debt that is in excess of 100% GDP, and it is perfectly reasonable to do so in the main yearly "budget" discussion.
I may be mistaken, but isn't the CR levels *at* what the Republicans wanted? (Or below their wish-list numbers last year?)
Ah, here's the quote:
Thats their prerogative. The Senate doesnt get to demand that everything they want funded gets funded, and say that anything else is stonewalling.
Of course, what the Senate is passing is a Continuing Resolution, where everything just stays the way it was for another year. So the Dems are proposing to fund everything (whether they support it or not). Better comparison would be if the Senate was planning to defund some Republican-stronghold items.
As another non-American, I'm mostly affected because the Astronomy Picture of the Day isn't auto-updating the background on my phone :(
I've been looking at Filaments of the Vela Supernove Remnant for days now...
My wife's been affected for work, since so many reference materials are hosted on *.gov websites (and are thus "closed").
Luckily, Google remembers all, so she can still be productive.
Beyond that, us Canadians are just waiting for the military to furlough so we can begin our invasion...
So why do they expect the Dems to buckle?
Because until now, Obama has been pretty reliable on that front?
Thats a fair point, except it exposes that BOTH parties are willing to shut the government down over their own ideals.
Here's another point - is there any expectation that there would be tit-for-tat on these a la carte bills? It doesn't take a genius to notice that the parts of the government the Republicans want to fund just happen to be areas relating to their core constituency...
That's not a compromise, that's just another way of moving the goalposts.
Depends on the school. Some places treat fighting back as a crime (apparently it's OK to beat the hell out of kids as long as you do it *regularly* - but heaven forbid you fight back for the first time!), and some places have a head on their shoulders and can differentiate instigator from defender. (You still get the lecture, but they don't make a federal case out of it.)
But I'll be giving my kid the same advice my father gave me - fair fights are for people who want to fight. If someone picks a fight with you and you can't walk away, then fight dirty and end it fast.
Let's face facts - "bullying" is a bit of a BS term anyway. Once you get out into the real world "gimme your money or I'm gonna hit you" is robbery (up to nine years in California). You haven't been bullied, you've been mugged.
Teasing and all that? You try that in your workplace and let us know how long before HR wants a few words with you. If you won't put up with it in your workplace, why do you expect your kids to put up with it in theirs?
Irrelevant. Everything that is on facebook was put there by somebody who chose to put it there. If they put it on public display, then they chose to put it on public display. It's published, therefore it is public. This public information is available to anybody and everybody. As long as the school does not require the students to friend them or turn over passwords, what's the issue?
The article seems to tapdance around that angle (particularly on how they know which accounts are tied to which student), so it may be as innocent as "show me all postings from people who list "SchoolX" as their school (and countermeasures might be as simple as changing security settings and blocking "Geo Listening"). Quick search of the school board site only says that they block social media at school.
So really, some local hacker-space needs to put out a quick "how to keep your school from snooping all over your shite" primer as a good-will measure.
That said, this could teach students two very important things: reputation management and subterfuge. These are good things to know in an emergent surveillance state.
I'll also be amused to see how long it takes for someone to successfully troll the monitors. Get to work kids!
Which is the entire point of autotune. Fix the rare slip. Unfortunately, far too many talentless hacks pushed by record executives because they have "the right look" can only perform with autotune turned up to eleven.
A certain amount of blame has to be put on audience here, for insisting that the live performance sounds *exactly* like the album track. Used to be, small mistakes were part of the live experience. Now that autotune prevents mistakes, what matter does it make if you're fixing one note or every other note?
My question is this- why should musicians (or athletes, etc.) make millions of dollars for making music?
The same reason sports stars make millions of dollars.
Also, don't confuse "musician" with "performer".
I mean, if you aren't even practicing your material to create segments you can play back basically the same way multiple times, upon request -- aren't you conveniently skipping over a standard prerequisite of being a musician?
Actually sounds a fair bit like jazz or blues improv to me.
Not making a funny - you get a bunch of jazz musicians together, and you'll get about what you describe - the bare minimum of chord structure and a whole lot of people doing their own thing. (I've heard a song opened by "OK, twelve-bar blues in A - two three four").
My argument is that there are at least as many reasons for wanting to compel a defendant to testify. And I don't see the argument for why there should be a sacred right of the defendant not to answer questions, but not for third-party witnesses. (Some people on these boards keep saying things like "Because that's self-incrimination!", as if repeating the definition somehow amounts to an argument.)
As an example, let's put you on the stand - question #1 is "What crimes have you committed?"
Remember, perjury is a crime in itself, so don't forget anything...
So paying someone not to testify would be illegal. Now, if witnesses had the option of not testifying, you might be worried that they would illegally take cash under the table to refuse to testify. That's true, but we already have the equivalent problem in the existing system, where witnesses can be forced to testify but you could just as easily bribe them to lie on the stand.
Except that under the current plan, we're both committing a crime (one is bribing, the other is perjury). If a person can choose whether to testify or not, I don't see how that's bribery rather than just ol' fashioned lobbying. (And we haven't touched the more obvious underhanded "Hey, I'd like to hire you for $$$$ money for this job starting out of state" methods - if you aren't compelled to testify, it's a lot easier to just make it too inconvenient to bother coming back.)
Well, here's a difference: there is a cost to the defendant if they're forced to testify (self-incrimination). What is the equivalent cost to the witness?
And a more interesting question - what happens if the witness is forced to the stand and declines to take the oath? Can the government force you to take the oath under duress?
Well yes if the defendant is guilty and they're forced to testify, they might get caught, but is that a bad thing? Unless a law is really unjust, dont' we want guilty people to get caught? If you're worried that someone innocent will be put on the stand, declare their innocence, and then get railroaded anyway, I already responded to this in the original article -- if the court is corrupt or incompetent enough to railroad you without sufficient evidence, they can do that with or without your testimony.
I think you're sidestepping a couple points here. It's entirely possible that there are any number of reasons I don't want the guilty person to get caught. You mention "unjust law". Let's add "close friend/family member" and "I don't want to get involved" as the obvious reasons why a person may want an *accused* person to go free, but society at a whole doesn't.