How is that raising the question? The governor has visibly demonstrated a desire to destroy unions and punish those unions that sided against him. You may have missed it but a prankster recently called the governor pretending to be a billionaire Koch brother. They made large donations to Mr. Walker, in return, Republicans just changed the law making it legal to sell off public utilities without any bids, so they can basically give away all infrastructure to the Koch brothers. Wisconsin has single party consent recording, so the prankster recorded his conversation with the governor. It was very educational. The governor is not only intent on crushing unions, he believes himself to be part of a group of people who were elected specifically to do that very thing.
Let me tell you about my friend Dean, who works in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, and has for decades. He complained to management about this fellow "Phil" who had been doing some pretty disgusting stuff, but Phil was the manager's nephew. Well, Dean reported him to the union and the union got that bastard fired. Unions do not act as your fantasy anecdote suggests, sorry to burst your bubble, but we have far more problems with cronyism than with unions protecting undeserving workers. I've yet to see a single documented case of a union protecting someone who was undeserving of protection. I am guessing you will not present such evidence, just as I'm guessing your friend "Phil" isn't real.
Looking up "rubber rooms" as you suggest shows they are not so nefarious, but serve a vital purpose. Teachers accused of wrongdoing should be removed from classrooms, but not fired until such wrongdoing can be proved. That is what these "rubber rooms" are for. However, the policy was always a matter decided on by each state board of education, and is being phased out in most places: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/education/29rubber.html , yeah that is from last year.
In closing, may I suggest that if you are not being paid to spread propaganda for the ultra-wealthy, you should look into it. I hear they have hired tens of thousands of bloggers and writers to parrot the opinions of the ultra-wealthy to the public, making it seem as though there is grass roots support for said opinions. I hear it is quite lucrative, and if you already hold those same opinions, you wouldn't even be compromising any beliefs.
If this was a new website, and all new websites are blocked, how come this website was accessible until last Friday? State IT workers have also said this was a deliberate block, not anything automatic.
Yes, it is what happened. Try understanding what you read, it might help. I assume you refer to this:
In a statement Tuesday, Walker's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, called the claim a "lie."
"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them. Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible," the statement said.
"Well, that doesn't explain why the website was fully accessible for the entire time it was up, up until they started blocking it on Friday," Tate countered.
Former Capitol tech worker Sachen Chheda examined a screen image of the error said that the that blockage appeared to be intentional.
The state under Republican management is strongly tilted against the employee's interests, as visibly demonstrated. Opting out of the union is not "considerable trouble." The unions have the same rights as any other entity, to support politicians that favor their members interests. The Supreme Court, in Citizens United, said that corporations (and unions are a type of corporation) have the same rights to political expression (i.e. donations) as anyone else. Why do you consider it unfair that an organization dedicated to protecting worker's rights might have a say in who gets elected? Do you consider it unfair when, say, Target gives donations to Republicans? To me, large corporations giving money to Republican politicians and getting sweet deals in return is corruption. Average workers standing up collectively for their rights is not.
Again, how is it "corruption" for workers to attempt to get representation in government, but it is not corruption when the wealthy do it? I'm all for taking money completely out of politics, but until then, we have billionaires "donating" obscene amounts of money to have their point of view represented in government. Why shouldn't groups of average citizens band together to get their interests represented? That is not corruption, that is how democracy works when huge sums of money are involved.
Perhaps you don't think that the average person is as important as a billionaire, or as deserving of a say in how they are governed?
"The state" does not want this. Public service workers unions almost always support Democrats. Republicans no longer want to simply win, they want to utterly and permanently cripple or destroy the Democratic party. By destroying unions, they deny their opponents an important source of funding.
But "We, the people" ARE the government. If the government sets up a public service, that service needs to adhere to stated policies. The service should not be a plaything of public officials. Not providing access to playboy.com because there is a policy not to show porn is one thing, and certainly not real censorship, but the government should never block specific sites for political reasons, unless those reasons are stated in policy, for instance, most people would accept blocking access to sites promoting terrorism or showing people how to produce ricin or anthrax.
But this public Internet service is not the government's plaything to do as they please, we are their employers and their customers, and anything they do, they do for us, with our consent. A least, that is how government SHOULD work. Public servant does not mean public master.
It seems as though you are letting ideology cloud your views. You do not like unions, and you are probably a republican, or libertarian, or tea party member or hold some other right wing affiliation and I'm sure if I bothered to look, your comment history would bear this out. That is fine. What is not fine, is accepting this sort of behavior because you want a certain outcome. This is a democracy, and your favorites will not be in power forever. Do you want this as a precedent when Democrats control things?
Because, based on your logic, it would be perfectly fair for a democratic governor to limit access to, say, Fox News. You would not be able to argue coherently against that, without making yourself appear to be an utter hypocrite.
So what? The question isn't "is it ever okay to limit freedom of expression." The question is "Is it okay in this instance that the government block access to a pro-union website from a public hotspot, during a large public protest, for the express purpose of stifling political debate and participation?"
No, real estate is not non-rival (I was using the wrong term, excludability means being able to exclude non-purchasers from use, for instance, you can't keep people from using a lighthouse.) You don't seem to understand the concept. It is not a problem of physical use or occupation. Of course more than one person can use a physical object or piece of land. It is that you can not replicate it, it is finite and limited. You can replicate a piece of intellectual property over and over again, perfectly. If two people are using a piece of land, each can only obtain half the benefit. If two people listen to a song, both hear the whole song.
Economists have defined these words. You can choose to redefine them for rhetorical purposes, but then you are not speaking the same language as the rest of us.
You are flat out wrong about the constitution, too. In no other case is property protection clearly spelled out as being only for the benefit of society. We do not, as many European countries do, acknowledge any moral right an author has to their creations. We do acknowledge the moral right of a person to their own real property.
You can keep on declaring yourself the winner in anything you like, but don't you think the real measure of success in a debate is how well you convince your audience? I don't think you've convinced anyone but yourself, and being snide, condescending, and full of self-importance does not win an audience over to your side. You can keep arguing if you like, but I have determined that you are not debating me, so I will not debate you. You are merely engaged in cock-waving, which is crude and unattractive. Good day.
Okay, the take away is "This is the way it is because it is the way it is?" Really? Seems silly to me. Okay, we get that intellectual property is property because the law says it is, but you have not proved that there is no difference between intellectual property and physical property. In fact, there is a huge difference: intellectual property is not exclusionary! You can make infinite perfect copies of it. Ignore that huge, blatant, glaring fact and your whole argument just looks ill-considered. The question was never "does the law treat intellectual property the same as physical property," it was always "SHOULD the law treat intellectual property the same as physical property." and based on the fact the one is exclusionary while the other isn't, I would say the law should not treat them the same way at all.
The other issue is the reason we have intellectual property. We do not protect intellectual property to benefit the creator. We do it to benefit society, that part is written into the constitution. So, not only are intellectual and tangible property very different, the reasons we protect each are very different as well. In short, your argument is rubbish.
Unless you compare it to gold, platinum, prescription drugs, silicon chips, rare earths, truffles, or caviar. It just doesn't seem like silver is the, ah, gold standard of expensive things. As you say, many processed and finished products (such as tablets) are more expensive than silver bullion, which is what the article compares it to. It seems nonsensical to compare tablets to silver bullion and conclude that tablets are too expensive.
Doubtful. Silver is pretty cheap. Even if it doubles in price, lots of things will still be more expensive than silver, by weight. Heck, a good kitchen knife is more expensive than silver by weight.
No you did not respond to my response to that post. You responded to "therealkevenkretz." We're both a bit confused as to sequence here, I think. And with that I'm going to suggest we both just back away and nobody looks any sillier than they already do.
Not as I read it, he is saying Mormons are polytheistic, right? That wasn't the post I responded to, though, that was the one you responded to. I don't understand what you think was settled by presumption, heck, I don't even know what you think that comment was presuming. All I know is that we were talking about the difference between polytheism and monotheism, and you think the first is crazy if you already believe in the second.
It was confusing for me because your original post did not mention that:
well, which is easier for you to accept as a reality, I have 1 dollar in my pocket or I have unlimited dollars in my pocket.
Yes, some people can believe you might have one dollar in your pocket. Even if there is nothing but rumor and hearsay suggesting it. Although they have a harder time believing I have unlimited dollars in my pocket under the same situation. One is crazy, the other, while maybe not well supported, isn't nearly as crazy.
To me, that sounds as if you are claiming that everyone would find the concept of multiple gods crazy. I mean, you say "One is crazy, the other, while maybe not well supported, isn't nearly as crazy." without qualification. To me, that is saying "Polytheism is crazy, monotheism is not." As I am agnostic bordering on atheistic, it all sounds crazy to me. I was raised to respect and understand everyone's religious beliefs. I was also taught ancient mythology from a very young age. To me, Thor and Zeus don't sound any more crazy than Yahweh. They also don't sound any less.
"Popular support" usually implies a majority, I guess that was what threw me. But it appears you are saying that a dictator requires a certain amount of popular support, and a certain amount of apathy or lack of imagination. That I can agree with. I believe the real reason for this recent slew of revolts is the recent string of crop failures driving up food prices. Poorer people who are apathetic when bread is 50 cents a loaf can suddenly become very motivated when the price tops two dollars.
>>>When times are tight, they hate ambiguity in their heroes
And yet Spiderman 3 was the best-selling of the whole franchise, and Peter Parker was very ambiguous in that flick.
Not at all. He was the victim of a villainous alien suite. That is not nearly the same thing as being a real anti-hero. His real character never changed. He is still one of the more goody-two-shoes heroes ever invented. Nice try though.
Oh, all you are saying is that people who believe in one god believe in one god? Uh, okay. Got it. If I had realized that that was all you were saying, I wouldn't have wasted our time, sorry.
So you are saying, if a country has a dictator, that country deserves to have a dictator? Can you explain what factors make a populace acquiesce to a dictator, and what make them revolt? That would be more helpful than stopping your analysis at "They support it or are too apathetic to revolt."
My girlfriend managed 20 minutes of Watchman before finding something better to do and I wish I'd done the same; I had a hard time finding any motivation to keep watching it past half-way.
Good, it's not just me.
No, it was not just you, his girlfriend did a bunch of us in the lobby.
Slashdot Mirror
How is that raising the question? The governor has visibly demonstrated a desire to destroy unions and punish those unions that sided against him. You may have missed it but a prankster recently called the governor pretending to be a billionaire Koch brother. They made large donations to Mr. Walker, in return, Republicans just changed the law making it legal to sell off public utilities without any bids, so they can basically give away all infrastructure to the Koch brothers. Wisconsin has single party consent recording, so the prankster recorded his conversation with the governor. It was very educational. The governor is not only intent on crushing unions, he believes himself to be part of a group of people who were elected specifically to do that very thing.
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/politics&id=7975464
Let me tell you about my friend Dean, who works in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, and has for decades. He complained to management about this fellow "Phil" who had been doing some pretty disgusting stuff, but Phil was the manager's nephew. Well, Dean reported him to the union and the union got that bastard fired. Unions do not act as your fantasy anecdote suggests, sorry to burst your bubble, but we have far more problems with cronyism than with unions protecting undeserving workers. I've yet to see a single documented case of a union protecting someone who was undeserving of protection. I am guessing you will not present such evidence, just as I'm guessing your friend "Phil" isn't real.
Looking up "rubber rooms" as you suggest shows they are not so nefarious, but serve a vital purpose. Teachers accused of wrongdoing should be removed from classrooms, but not fired until such wrongdoing can be proved. That is what these "rubber rooms" are for. However, the policy was always a matter decided on by each state board of education, and is being phased out in most places: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/education/29rubber.html , yeah that is from last year.
In closing, may I suggest that if you are not being paid to spread propaganda for the ultra-wealthy, you should look into it. I hear they have hired tens of thousands of bloggers and writers to parrot the opinions of the ultra-wealthy to the public, making it seem as though there is grass roots support for said opinions. I hear it is quite lucrative, and if you already hold those same opinions, you wouldn't even be compromising any beliefs.
If this was a new website, and all new websites are blocked, how come this website was accessible until last Friday? State IT workers have also said this was a deliberate block, not anything automatic.
Yes, it is what happened. Try understanding what you read, it might help. I assume you refer to this:
In a statement Tuesday, Walker's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, called the claim a "lie."
"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them. Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible," the statement said.
"Well, that doesn't explain why the website was fully accessible for the entire time it was up, up until they started blocking it on Friday," Tate countered.
Former Capitol tech worker Sachen Chheda examined a screen image of the error said that the that blockage appeared to be intentional.
Eagerly awaiting your rebuttal!
The state under Republican management is strongly tilted against the employee's interests, as visibly demonstrated. Opting out of the union is not "considerable trouble." The unions have the same rights as any other entity, to support politicians that favor their members interests. The Supreme Court, in Citizens United, said that corporations (and unions are a type of corporation) have the same rights to political expression (i.e. donations) as anyone else. Why do you consider it unfair that an organization dedicated to protecting worker's rights might have a say in who gets elected? Do you consider it unfair when, say, Target gives donations to Republicans? To me, large corporations giving money to Republican politicians and getting sweet deals in return is corruption. Average workers standing up collectively for their rights is not.
Again, how is it "corruption" for workers to attempt to get representation in government, but it is not corruption when the wealthy do it? I'm all for taking money completely out of politics, but until then, we have billionaires "donating" obscene amounts of money to have their point of view represented in government. Why shouldn't groups of average citizens band together to get their interests represented? That is not corruption, that is how democracy works when huge sums of money are involved.
Perhaps you don't think that the average person is as important as a billionaire, or as deserving of a say in how they are governed?
"The state" does not want this. Public service workers unions almost always support Democrats. Republicans no longer want to simply win, they want to utterly and permanently cripple or destroy the Democratic party. By destroying unions, they deny their opponents an important source of funding.
But "We, the people" ARE the government. If the government sets up a public service, that service needs to adhere to stated policies. The service should not be a plaything of public officials. Not providing access to playboy.com because there is a policy not to show porn is one thing, and certainly not real censorship, but the government should never block specific sites for political reasons, unless those reasons are stated in policy, for instance, most people would accept blocking access to sites promoting terrorism or showing people how to produce ricin or anthrax.
But this public Internet service is not the government's plaything to do as they please, we are their employers and their customers, and anything they do, they do for us, with our consent. A least, that is how government SHOULD work. Public servant does not mean public master.
It seems as though you are letting ideology cloud your views. You do not like unions, and you are probably a republican, or libertarian, or tea party member or hold some other right wing affiliation and I'm sure if I bothered to look, your comment history would bear this out. That is fine. What is not fine, is accepting this sort of behavior because you want a certain outcome. This is a democracy, and your favorites will not be in power forever. Do you want this as a precedent when Democrats control things?
Because, based on your logic, it would be perfectly fair for a democratic governor to limit access to, say, Fox News. You would not be able to argue coherently against that, without making yourself appear to be an utter hypocrite.
So what? The question isn't "is it ever okay to limit freedom of expression." The question is "Is it okay in this instance that the government block access to a pro-union website from a public hotspot, during a large public protest, for the express purpose of stifling political debate and participation?"
No, she's just trolling all the desperate lonely guys out there. Looks like it worked.
No, real estate is not non-rival (I was using the wrong term, excludability means being able to exclude non-purchasers from use, for instance, you can't keep people from using a lighthouse.) You don't seem to understand the concept. It is not a problem of physical use or occupation. Of course more than one person can use a physical object or piece of land. It is that you can not replicate it, it is finite and limited. You can replicate a piece of intellectual property over and over again, perfectly. If two people are using a piece of land, each can only obtain half the benefit. If two people listen to a song, both hear the whole song.
Economists have defined these words. You can choose to redefine them for rhetorical purposes, but then you are not speaking the same language as the rest of us.
You are flat out wrong about the constitution, too. In no other case is property protection clearly spelled out as being only for the benefit of society. We do not, as many European countries do, acknowledge any moral right an author has to their creations. We do acknowledge the moral right of a person to their own real property.
You can keep on declaring yourself the winner in anything you like, but don't you think the real measure of success in a debate is how well you convince your audience? I don't think you've convinced anyone but yourself, and being snide, condescending, and full of self-importance does not win an audience over to your side. You can keep arguing if you like, but I have determined that you are not debating me, so I will not debate you. You are merely engaged in cock-waving, which is crude and unattractive. Good day.
Wafers. I tried him once, at a friend's cannibalistic Sunday religious ceremony, and God tastes like cardboard wafers.
I dinnae say we wuren't crazy!
Okay, the take away is "This is the way it is because it is the way it is?" Really? Seems silly to me. Okay, we get that intellectual property is property because the law says it is, but you have not proved that there is no difference between intellectual property and physical property. In fact, there is a huge difference: intellectual property is not exclusionary! You can make infinite perfect copies of it. Ignore that huge, blatant, glaring fact and your whole argument just looks ill-considered. The question was never "does the law treat intellectual property the same as physical property," it was always "SHOULD the law treat intellectual property the same as physical property." and based on the fact the one is exclusionary while the other isn't, I would say the law should not treat them the same way at all.
The other issue is the reason we have intellectual property. We do not protect intellectual property to benefit the creator. We do it to benefit society, that part is written into the constitution. So, not only are intellectual and tangible property very different, the reasons we protect each are very different as well. In short, your argument is rubbish.
I'm surprised you haven't been subjected to redicule for your title yet.
6. Do not allow portable CD players.
7. Always have someone watch over the shoulder of your employees, less they pull an USB stick out of their anus.
Anyone allowing high security work to take place on a computer with removable media drives is an idiot.
Unless you compare it to gold, platinum, prescription drugs, silicon chips, rare earths, truffles, or caviar. It just doesn't seem like silver is the, ah, gold standard of expensive things. As you say, many processed and finished products (such as tablets) are more expensive than silver bullion, which is what the article compares it to. It seems nonsensical to compare tablets to silver bullion and conclude that tablets are too expensive.
Doubtful. Silver is pretty cheap. Even if it doubles in price, lots of things will still be more expensive than silver, by weight. Heck, a good kitchen knife is more expensive than silver by weight.
No you did not respond to my response to that post. You responded to "therealkevenkretz." We're both a bit confused as to sequence here, I think. And with that I'm going to suggest we both just back away and nobody looks any sillier than they already do.
Not as I read it, he is saying Mormons are polytheistic, right? That wasn't the post I responded to, though, that was the one you responded to. I don't understand what you think was settled by presumption, heck, I don't even know what you think that comment was presuming. All I know is that we were talking about the difference between polytheism and monotheism, and you think the first is crazy if you already believe in the second.
It was confusing for me because your original post did not mention that:
well, which is easier for you to accept as a reality, I have 1 dollar in my pocket or I have unlimited dollars in my pocket.
Yes, some people can believe you might have one dollar in your pocket. Even if there is nothing but rumor and hearsay suggesting it. Although they have a harder time believing I have unlimited dollars in my pocket under the same situation. One is crazy, the other, while maybe not well supported, isn't nearly as crazy.
To me, that sounds as if you are claiming that everyone would find the concept of multiple gods crazy. I mean, you say "One is crazy, the other, while maybe not well supported, isn't nearly as crazy." without qualification. To me, that is saying "Polytheism is crazy, monotheism is not." As I am agnostic bordering on atheistic, it all sounds crazy to me. I was raised to respect and understand everyone's religious beliefs. I was also taught ancient mythology from a very young age. To me, Thor and Zeus don't sound any more crazy than Yahweh. They also don't sound any less.
"Popular support" usually implies a majority, I guess that was what threw me. But it appears you are saying that a dictator requires a certain amount of popular support, and a certain amount of apathy or lack of imagination. That I can agree with. I believe the real reason for this recent slew of revolts is the recent string of crop failures driving up food prices. Poorer people who are apathetic when bread is 50 cents a loaf can suddenly become very motivated when the price tops two dollars.
What, you don't paint yours blue, then go out to bars and ask women if they want to meet Papa Smurf? It's super effective!
>>>When times are tight, they hate ambiguity in their heroes
And yet Spiderman 3 was the best-selling of the whole franchise, and Peter Parker was very ambiguous in that flick.
Not at all. He was the victim of a villainous alien suite. That is not nearly the same thing as being a real anti-hero. His real character never changed. He is still one of the more goody-two-shoes heroes ever invented. Nice try though.
Oh, all you are saying is that people who believe in one god believe in one god? Uh, okay. Got it. If I had realized that that was all you were saying, I wouldn't have wasted our time, sorry.
So you are saying, if a country has a dictator, that country deserves to have a dictator? Can you explain what factors make a populace acquiesce to a dictator, and what make them revolt? That would be more helpful than stopping your analysis at "They support it or are too apathetic to revolt."
My girlfriend managed 20 minutes of Watchman before finding something better to do and I wish I'd done the same; I had a hard time finding any motivation to keep watching it past half-way.
Good, it's not just me.
No, it was not just you, his girlfriend did a bunch of us in the lobby.