You know, I give my republican family and friends a lot of shit for not self-policing their party, for allowing the wingers to control the party. So I have to give you a tip of the hat. Good luck holding back the tide.
Are we pre-preemptively invading nations?
Are we declaring war without congress?
Are we giving tax breaks to the rich?
Are we legitimizing young earth creationists?
Are we performing illegal wholesale wiretaps on everyone? Oh wait, yeah, we're still doing that one. You got me there. But the rest? Naw. So he's way better in that regard. He's no second coming, but he's really not that bad. It'd be nice if he brought the troops home, and stopped being a dick with the wiretaps, but most of the rage people direct at the guy is just generated out of nothing at foxnews. Their biggest complaint seems to be that he's a Nazi socialist, which is just silly.
Don't worry about the English, but you could get Firefox, switch languages, and use the spelling/grammer checker. I'm surprised the grammar Nazis haven't descended yet.
But anyway, you bring up a good point about the differences in culture between the USA and Chile. In part, it does depend on who you talk to, but the media makes a living by keeping people scared. Chile, on the other hand, has a more recent memory of what there is to really fear, and wouldn't buy this sort of bullshit.
BUT, you're a female foreigner that would get confused for an illegal immigrant. People were probably just looking after you. In any city, if you know where not to be at what times, then you can be fairly safe. But out of your area, you don't have that knowledge. If you saw a confused white guy wandering around Chile, you'd help him too right?
Oh aye, it might be a nice site. And it's not a bad thing that the kids enjoy it. We're fine with that.
It's the "they never bother to try to find the rest of the net." part that utterly disgusts us. Well, me anyway. They're so attuned to disney.com that they won't go anywhere else?
It's like you bring your kids to the library, and for some reason they have an infatuation with poems. And you're proud that they don't try to read a novel or something crazy like that.
I went into debt to get my degree. That was paid off before I went into debt again to get my house. We were going to double-up the payments to get it cleared off in 7 years, but then we found we could get a rate in a checking account that is better then rate of the loan. (but we do have to make like 15 transactions, and there's a cap on the good rate, so we've got three accounts. It's actually pretty annoying). I also have a positive net-worth. I have debt, but I got a house in exchange. And no, the house doesn't have to be constructed of gold-bars to have value.
So your ability as a financial soothsayer is about as shitty as mine. That's probably why neither of us are working in finances. Relax Paul, it's not all doom and gloom. There WAS a financial apocalypse a couple years ago. We're past that. It still hurts, but the worst is over.
Anonymous votes (and petitions are the same in this case)
Well no, a petition is not a vote. There is the important difference in that a vote is open to all, scheduled, and is usually a periodic or reactionary thing. A petition is pro-active, and self-selective. A vote shows you the will of the majority. A petition shows you the voice of the minority. You don't need a petition if you can get more then half the populace to sign it.
It didn't make sense to me at first, but secret voting does seem to be a good idea. It fixes some of the problems we've had in the past. Secret petitions would simply undermine the whatever legitimacy that petitions have.
Yeah, pft, who needs to know how to use a computer? I mean it's not like the majority of mankind's knowledge is online for free...
All these naysayers are kind of depressing, but I guess it balances out the dreamers who thought it would magically let the third world pull itself up by their bootstraps. Still though, it was nice to dream.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Adjusting the value of currency (monetary policy) is needed so we can grease the wheels of the economy or put the brakes on it. And it does need to be slowed down when fools start to play the stock market. Ok, more fools.
Inflation encourages investment, period. If you think that all investing is mal, and it's done by stupid people, then you should not be trusted to give economic advice. But hey, you're probably over fifty and lost your shirt in latest depression. That sucks, it really does. Your stance is understandable, but biased.
As a young man with debts, inflation is a good thing. When I'm as old as you, sitting on a stack of cash and fretting about what to do with it, I'll probably share your sentiment, but I'll try to remember back when I was young.
I mean, sure it traditionally attracts the bottom scum of society, but so does the military, construction work, truckers, bars, the dollar store, goodwills, walmart, tattoos, booze, gambling, etc. etc. Where the lower-class are involved you have to keep an eye our for abuse, as it's so fun and easy to abuse the desperate, but there's nothing inherently unethical about it.
Yes, I understand that the latest windows distro REALLY bring itself into the arena with smash hits like:
Solitaire (card game)
MineSweeper (puzzle)
Other games of course will require additional installations. Now, if you look at the games available to Linux and WINE with additional installs and tweaks, then the list becomes more or less identical.
in Microsoft Internet Explorer, mailbox and identity passwords in all versions of Microsoft Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail."
Yeah, pretty much. A wise man once said, "reality has a well known liberal bias", but I think he was just trying to be funny.
When did I EVER state that that would be the case?
You didn't. And neither did I. But that would be foxnews and Rush, and we all know how atrocious that is.
Is it too much to ask for a little HONESTY out of reporters?
They're not lying. It's bias. Some might not even know they're doing it. Others get memos from Murdoch. It's the slight spin that stories get. Labeling a guy with a gun as an "insurgent" as opposed to "local militia". So you ARE getting a little honesty, but it's be nice to have more.
Really, I'm just responding to:
Rationality and human compassion argue against most of the things liberals do today.
It shows you to be a partisan hack. Blind support of the two parties is tearing this country apart. You appear to be ludicrously biased against liberals. Are you lying? No, not really. Can I trust you to tell me anything insightful about politics? Equally no.
I'm not so fond of people who take home an income that is 10,000 times more then their workers do even after a 60% tax rate based on gross income.
Taxes need to be progressive because otherwise people will use their wealth to control markets and essentially "win" the business game. Free markets don't work after there is a winner. They only work with competition. And so there needs to be a diminishing return for income. Now, it should never be reduced to zero, but if you thought that even for a moment, then you don't know what "diminish returns" mean. I'm fairly confident that we can trust the wealthy to be greedy enough to try and make a buck, even if they'll have to earn two bucks to do so.
The reason that most people would call me liberal is because my politically formative years aligned with the Bush administration. Ideally, I guess I'm libertarian, but we hardly live in an ideal world (and indeed, if we're dreaming, the mythical ideal society wouldn't need a government). But the over-riding reason that I'm "liberal" is because of the atrocities that Bush enacted and the culture of the religious right. Their complete lack of rationality and compassion pushed me into the democratic party. So while I wasn't so hip on some of they're ideologies, at least they're weren't as evil as the republicans.
Now, if you think that "dem ebil liberal" are being irrational and not compassionate, the reason is probably because they're in power right now.
If you think that yon blessed conservatives are rational and lovingly compassionate at the moment, the reason is that they're not in power right now.
You're excused for your party affiliation. Do try to work past it though.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I give my republican family and friends a lot of shit for not self-policing their party, for allowing the wingers to control the party. So I have to give you a tip of the hat. Good luck holding back the tide.
Are we pre-preemptively invading nations?
Are we declaring war without congress?
Are we giving tax breaks to the rich?
Are we legitimizing young earth creationists?
Are we performing illegal wholesale wiretaps on everyone? Oh wait, yeah, we're still doing that one. You got me there. But the rest? Naw. So he's way better in that regard. He's no second coming, but he's really not that bad. It'd be nice if he brought the troops home, and stopped being a dick with the wiretaps, but most of the rage people direct at the guy is just generated out of nothing at foxnews. Their biggest complaint seems to be that he's a Nazi socialist, which is just silly.
Don't worry about the English, but you could get Firefox, switch languages, and use the spelling/grammer checker. I'm surprised the grammar Nazis haven't descended yet.
But anyway, you bring up a good point about the differences in culture between the USA and Chile. In part, it does depend on who you talk to, but the media makes a living by keeping people scared. Chile, on the other hand, has a more recent memory of what there is to really fear, and wouldn't buy this sort of bullshit.
BUT, you're a female foreigner that would get confused for an illegal immigrant. People were probably just looking after you. In any city, if you know where not to be at what times, then you can be fairly safe. But out of your area, you don't have that knowledge. If you saw a confused white guy wandering around Chile, you'd help him too right?
Oh aye, it might be a nice site. And it's not a bad thing that the kids enjoy it. We're fine with that.
It's the "they never bother to try to find the rest of the net." part that utterly disgusts us. Well, me anyway. They're so attuned to disney.com that they won't go anywhere else?
It's like you bring your kids to the library, and for some reason they have an infatuation with poems. And you're proud that they don't try to read a novel or something crazy like that.
Aye, Huxley would tear GP a new one.
Pointing out that newspeak is newspeak is double plus bad. Assume the party submission position and await for miniLove to bring you delicious cake.
I went into debt to get my degree. That was paid off before I went into debt again to get my house. We were going to double-up the payments to get it cleared off in 7 years, but then we found we could get a rate in a checking account that is better then rate of the loan. (but we do have to make like 15 transactions, and there's a cap on the good rate, so we've got three accounts. It's actually pretty annoying). I also have a positive net-worth. I have debt, but I got a house in exchange. And no, the house doesn't have to be constructed of gold-bars to have value.
So your ability as a financial soothsayer is about as shitty as mine. That's probably why neither of us are working in finances.
Relax Paul, it's not all doom and gloom. There WAS a financial apocalypse a couple years ago. We're past that. It still hurts, but the worst is over.
Anonymous votes (and petitions are the same in this case)
Well no, a petition is not a vote. There is the important difference in that a vote is open to all, scheduled, and is usually a periodic or reactionary thing. A petition is pro-active, and self-selective. A vote shows you the will of the majority. A petition shows you the voice of the minority. You don't need a petition if you can get more then half the populace to sign it.
It didn't make sense to me at first, but secret voting does seem to be a good idea. It fixes some of the problems we've had in the past. Secret petitions would simply undermine the whatever legitimacy that petitions have.
You're a technologist, but you consider a computer to be "media"? Now, it CAN bring in media, but, you know, it does other stuff.
Yeah, pft, who needs to know how to use a computer? I mean it's not like the majority of mankind's knowledge is online for free...
All these naysayers are kind of depressing, but I guess it balances out the dreamers who thought it would magically let the third world pull itself up by their bootstraps. Still though, it was nice to dream.
Dude, what?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Adjusting the value of currency (monetary policy) is needed so we can grease the wheels of the economy or put the brakes on it. And it does need to be slowed down when fools start to play the stock market. Ok, more fools.
Inflation encourages investment, period. If you think that all investing is mal, and it's done by stupid people, then you should not be trusted to give economic advice. But hey, you're probably over fifty and lost your shirt in latest depression. That sucks, it really does. Your stance is understandable, but biased.
As a young man with debts, inflation is a good thing. When I'm as old as you, sitting on a stack of cash and fretting about what to do with it, I'll probably share your sentiment, but I'll try to remember back when I was young.
TosterMonkey also believes in a meritocracy, but the only merit that counts is "daddy has lots of money".
Wait, what's unethical about the sex business?
I mean, sure it traditionally attracts the bottom scum of society, but so does the military, construction work, truckers, bars, the dollar store, goodwills, walmart, tattoos, booze, gambling, etc. etc. Where the lower-class are involved you have to keep an eye our for abuse, as it's so fun and easy to abuse the desperate, but there's nothing inherently unethical about it.
Yes, I understand that the latest windows distro REALLY bring itself into the arena with smash hits like:
Solitaire (card game)
MineSweeper (puzzle)
Other games of course will require additional installations.
Now, if you look at the games available to Linux and WINE with additional installs and tweaks, then the list becomes more or less identical.
in Microsoft Internet Explorer, mailbox and identity passwords in all versions of Microsoft Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail."
...But how does this effect me?
The newsmedia has a liberal bias
Yeah, pretty much. A wise man once said, "reality has a well known liberal bias", but I think he was just trying to be funny.
When did I EVER state that that would be the case?
You didn't. And neither did I. But that would be foxnews and Rush, and we all know how atrocious that is.
Is it too much to ask for a little HONESTY out of reporters?
They're not lying. It's bias. Some might not even know they're doing it. Others get memos from Murdoch. It's the slight spin that stories get. Labeling a guy with a gun as an "insurgent" as opposed to "local militia". So you ARE getting a little honesty, but it's be nice to have more.
Really, I'm just responding to:
Rationality and human compassion argue against most of the things liberals do today.
It shows you to be a partisan hack. Blind support of the two parties is tearing this country apart. You appear to be ludicrously biased against liberals. Are you lying? No, not really. Can I trust you to tell me anything insightful about politics? Equally no.
Little high, little low,
I'm not so fond of people who take home an income that is 10,000 times more then their workers do even after a 60% tax rate based on gross income.
Taxes need to be progressive because otherwise people will use their wealth to control markets and essentially "win" the business game. Free markets don't work after there is a winner. They only work with competition. And so there needs to be a diminishing return for income. Now, it should never be reduced to zero, but if you thought that even for a moment, then you don't know what "diminish returns" mean. I'm fairly confident that we can trust the wealthy to be greedy enough to try and make a buck, even if they'll have to earn two bucks to do so.
The reason that most people would call me liberal is because my politically formative years aligned with the Bush administration. Ideally, I guess I'm libertarian, but we hardly live in an ideal world (and indeed, if we're dreaming, the mythical ideal society wouldn't need a government). But the over-riding reason that I'm "liberal" is because of the atrocities that Bush enacted and the culture of the religious right. Their complete lack of rationality and compassion pushed me into the democratic party. So while I wasn't so hip on some of they're ideologies, at least they're weren't as evil as the republicans.
Now, if you think that "dem ebil liberal" are being irrational and not compassionate, the reason is probably because they're in power right now.
If you think that yon blessed conservatives are rational and lovingly compassionate at the moment, the reason is that they're not in power right now.
You're excused for your party affiliation. Do try to work past it though.
eh, they're just a bunch of asshats.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and stupidity.
It was just a cheap crack at the cost of manufacturing in America.
Aren't all the best geniuses?
Well shit, they're gonna need a bigger IPO.