I predict that many Republicans will oppose this bill, not because they are opposed to the idea of protecting an industry legislatively, but, becuase the industry that they would be tasked to protect is one that generally opposses them. I mean, what happens to the big bad liberal media if it goes belly up because it is obsolete? Kinda hard to make pro-socialist stuff, if your target audience doesn't want to pay for it...
So what you're basically saying is that things haven't changed much in the US since 1776
Well, why should they? Look at your line of reasoning, as well. You have this view that citizens should have to be able to demonstrate a need for something, in order to get government approval for it. Have we Americans taught you anything about freedom? You don't have to justify what you do. If you don't intend to hurt anyone else, you should theoretically be allowed to have anything.
Yes, it sucks that some few thousand people get shot to death in America every year, but, when you weigh that against the notion of some 80 million Americans (if not more), actually owning a gun, then, you can see that gunowership itself is safer than walking down the stairs or going for a swim.
We actually have 1600 people in Afghanistan that will be there at least until 2010, defending 3 square kilometres of bare desert
And, its stupid too, because, everyone in America knows that these troops really aren't allowed to fight, and that, what all these troops are just tokens to try and deceive the American people into thinking that NATO actually means something. I think we should take reality for what it is. Europe isn't going to fight for anything, and that, while, we should remain firm friends and have good and open trade, that NATO should be dissolved, except for a military alliance with the British, and let the Europeans fend for themselves.
Either way, we're screwed as long as we depend on something that will eventually run out. Switching energy sources only postpones the inevitable.
There's no such thing as renewable energy. All conceivable forms of energy will eventually run out. Even if we could turn our sun into the earth's generator, it too, will eventually run out. At the end of the line, for humanity, is a lonely death, frozen to death in a cold universe. Just imagine, a few billion years from now, we won't even be able to see very many stars.
SO, there's no planet to save, no universe to save... its all going to end. Whether we like it or not, humanity is ultimately doomed. Of course, all that work you do protecting all of the species on earth will be thrown away when the sun expands to the size of mar's orbit, and incinerates the earth in the process. And that assumes that nothing happens with the sun, like a minor nova or something. Or, there's no local gamma ray burst, or no local supernovae, or even something terrestrially unpreventable like a yellow stone eruption or a re-emergence of the siberian traps, or, a comet smacking into the earth.
Thinking guns protect your civil rights is outright insane.
Seemed to work pretty well in 1776, but then again, the Netherlands is generally cannon fodder for other European powers. Maybe you should try an armed citizenry sometimes.
This is another example of why the medical system is so ridiculously expensive. Yes, it sucks that 1600 people a year get something left inside them. However, considering all of the surgeries that take place in the USA, statistically, this is darn near perfect already. It has to be close to a one in a million chance that you get something left inside you, and so, the question is, will the RFID improve the process enough to close that gap, and if so, how much does it cost everyone to have it everywhere all the time. I think that, given, the choice, most patients would rather roll the dice and pay less to get the same surgery, then, have that added safety tax, that honestly, won't accomplish anything. Think about it, if you have doctors that can't even keep an accurate count of what went into the body, versus, what went out, then you have more problems than barcodding can help.
Only the great are merciful. Not condescending, not paternal or egotistical. Merciful. Your nation may possibly under some assumptions be the best, but the evidence of the USA's greatness is only in the past
Which past was that? World War II? Yoda says : Wars make not one great.
It would make more sense for you Americans to simply expect your politicians to be selfish like everybody, and not despise them for that, and instead despise your system if it doesn't provide suitable checks and balances. Which I think it doesn't
We despise our politicians, becuase, we can. We despise our system, because we can. We in America are always searching for better, in our goods and in ourselves and above all, in our leaders.
Our system provides for more checks and balances than any parliamentry system, simply by virtue of having the executive branch be genuinely separate from that of the legislative. Finally, as a practical matter, our system is the only system that exists genuinly by the consent of its governed. The vast majority of Americans own a gun of some kind, and to own a gun is to have -real- power, far more than even our mighty military has.
In every conceivable way, one can make the argument that the USA is the greatest country in the world. Taken as a whole, the American race is the genetic best from around the world, combined into one super citizenry body. But, despite that, we are not the type of people to sit by and think that we are happy. We have to do better, have to have more, and we will. And then, when we get sick of that, we'll bitch about that too.
There's no need to expect extraordinary idealism and then be surprised and despise them for being just like everybody. Expect them to be selfish and work with it. I still wonder what you'd prefer instead
Bitching about politicians is patriotic and an American birthright. If Jesus Christ were President, we would bitch about him too, and he'd never make it over 50% in the polls unless He bombed someone.
We know our form of government is the best and our country is the best, but, if we don't keep bitching about it, or trying to improve ourselves, then, we'll wind up as yet another nation that lost its purpose. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or Liberal, alike, are all trying to put forth ideas to improve our country. If they didn't, and didn't fight about it, then, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of Democracy?
Also, doesn't the US DMCA make it illegal to remove the infamous Sony Root Kit trojan hack that Sony used as an extremely poorly designed DRM scheme?
I agree that the DMCA is total crap, but its really becuase the guys that are pushing for it are in the same sort of boat as the old steam engine fireman trying to get a job on a diesel engine. You just don't need someone to shovel coal. It's just an artificial thing that isn't there. Copyright is about keeping someone with a printing press from printing the same thing that you are printing, but now, everyone has a printing press, and its sorta academic. May as well try and ban breathing.
But, the quickest way to break down the old media is to just not support it. Don't buy from them, not at all. Hit them where it hurts. I mean, come on, don't we have kernels to hack or something, that we could do besides giving money to a bunch of jackasses? Just, don't support old media, period.
Seriously, everyone is in a tizzy because movies, music and more are all copyrighted, and so you can't copy them.
Just don't buy any copyrighted stuff. Period. Just don't buy it. I rarely buy music. I don't pay for shows on TV and I don't go to the movies. It's not worth the aggravation and honestly, the product isn't all that great any more anyway.
Regardless of your views on the wisdom and practicality of maintaining a national manned space flight program, one fact is indisputable. Bush decided that the shuttles should stop flying after 2010, and if Bush decided it you can bet your ass it was the wrong decision for any number of reasons.
Actually, no, it's not Bush's fault. After the Columbia Accident, for safety considerations, NASA was directed to recertify the space shuttles for flight worthiness after 2010. This is a hugely expensive proposition, and it seemed to make more sense to just terminate the program, and proceed as fast as possible with Constellation.
Sure, a new President could appoint a new NASA Administrator, who could theoretically, ignore the recommendations of the safety board. However, if an accident did happen, then, the first thing that would happen would be that the board would say, "hah, we told you so", and the result would be an enormous embarrassment for the new administration.
Or, Congress could appropriate the additional money needed to NASA to do this certification, and fly the shuttle concurrently, or longer. However, it could turn out that, as a result of certification, that, the shuttles need a lot of new parts, etc, and, gasp, maybe things that are pushing 20-30 years old should not be flying at Mach 17.
Honestly, I think NASA would have been better off if Bush had stuck to his guns and gone for nucleared powered spaceflight and the prometheus project. The current MARS stack is all chemical based. Had we funded Prometheus, and JIMO, then, it would have been much better off for space. However, there's absolutely no way the left wing of the Democratic Party would stand for it, for three reasons. a) They don't like nuclear power, b) Putting a nuclear reactor on a space craft they like even less, and c) hard core lefties see space flight in general, and NASA in particular, as an unnecessary expense and would rather feed the homeless first.
To be fair, the far right would cut NASA as a federal subsidy of something that should be privatized. Really, NASA exists largely because of the imperial aspirations of Neocon Republicans coinciding with the scientific wishes of the moderate Republicans and Democdrats. But yeah, politics makes strange bedfellows, and you could see far left congressman getting a bill to kill NASA being cosigned by far right congresssman.
Ford has a problem in that, buggies are a "traditional" thing
I'm no tree hugging earth worshipping f-g, but, arguing that the car is better than the horse and buggy isn't going to help you much these days. Its not like everyone having a car would do something like screw up the atmosphere of the planet earth, or induce an invasion of the richest oil nation on the planet that results in a trillion or so dollars spent and thousands dead, but hey, you go ahead and say the car is -better-.
The whole point of an e-book is portability. But, its less portable than a book. I can drop a book pretty far, and still be able to read it. I guarantee that if I put a book into a fire, and I pulled it out, it might be singed or even burnt around the edges, but an e-book would be toast. An e-book needs batteries or a charge. A book doesn't. Can I put a cup of coffee on my e-book or write on the back of it as if a notebook? No.
One of these days mankind is going to have to forgo the luxury of killing trees because they smell nice. Why not today
Trees are evil. They are always taller than we are, which means, they always look down on us. They hard and practically unbending, meaning they are inflexible.
They stand before humanity, and mock them, continually. And yet, you support these things?
I enjoy chopping down trees. The mighty axe puts any in its place, and I enjoy wood furniture and flooring as a symbol of my domination over nature.
Amazon has a problem in that, books are a "traditional" thing. Most of the books that Amazon sells are for personal enrichment and entertainment. I mean, there's more to a book than its content. Sure, if we're working and doing techy stuff, Google is good for finding things, but, if you want to just relax and unplug, a book is a beautiful thing. You hold in your hand a tradition of printing that goes back hundreds of years, of writing that goes back thousands. There's a whole literary culture floating out there, waiting for you to join it. For a brief time, when you do read a book, you do.
Yes, you could argue, that an e-book could hold 10 million books. But, what of it? A book by itself is something that holds more than enough for you to read for a few hours, and you get the smell and feel of the paper, the binding, the immediacy, history and intimacy. An e-book is just another plastic appliance, lacking in craft.
It's deregulation. All utilities were basically "split" into generation and delivery. Generation owns the generators, and delivery is the wires and the customer base. The generation people sell their power to the grid - which there is the PJM power pool, and in turn the delivery side buys, for spot needs, from the grid at what's called location marginal price. The LMP is a calculated thing, it is designed to be a public price so that its transparent to all players.
What happens though, particularly in the east coast, is that, thanks to NIMBY, there's simply not enough electricity being generated for this to work. Particularly in Maryland, no one wants to build enough generation, and so, Constellation goes and buys the electricity from somewhere else across the country. Right now, this is commonly in Texas, because Texas seems to have no problem with building big coal plants, and so Texas makes a lot of money exporting electricity to the rest of the country.
So yes, Constellation is, in a sense, buying electricity from itself, but, it also has to pay a ton of middle men along the way, from ISO operators, energy traders, and even the rights to move transmission between ISOs.
The moral of the story is, if you want the cheapest possible electrity and best possible service, support legislation to recombine generation and transmission entities of various utilities, then, support the eminent domain and deregulation needed to allow these reconstituted utilities to construct enough coal plants to meet demand. If you want windmills, rats on treadmills, or other environmentally friendly generation, then be prepared to pay a premium on it.
I think its because advanced aliens are against file sharing. If we don't have good copyrights, then the planet will be vaporized, as advanced civilizations basically sell travel books to each other. Piracy threatens the Galactic economy. You do know that the original Cylon - Human dispute was over DRM?
All of "open" and reward based programming schemes are merely ways to avoid hiring programmers. "Let's find someone to do it for free." Only morons would do it.
Those machines have been proven time and again that they're insecure, not reliable and that it takes special knowledge to even start verifying their results. Now we add ease of manipulation to the fold
The problem is, a lot of people don't trust the human counters.
If Yoda ran IBM, he would miss an emerging trend, a new force that is seemingly allied to him would rise up and betray him, and he would lose a pitched conflict. Not that I was thinking about Microsoft and the OS/2 divorce and following Warp v W95 battle, but it seems like maybe Yoda already did run IBM...
Bush has been against abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage (what possible reason is there to object?) and just about every moral issue that I feel strongly about. He wants to make sure that the government is highly involved in your private life.
The fact of the matter is, ALL of these issues, and others that you are so worked up about, are edge issues.
Bush's opposition to abortion has largely been token. Really, I don't think its unreasonable to say that a woman can make up her mind by the third trimester, and also, geopolitically, the USA needs its population to increase to stay with the Chinese, fund social security, and other entitlements.
Embryonic stem cells, too, is an edge issue. If they had so much commercial potential, then, private businesses can fund them. There's nothing Bush has done to stop Merck or Glaxo from researching embryonic stem cells. All he has done is oppose federal research money for that. If big pharma doesn't see the commercial potential, then maybe there isn't any. This is an edge issue: "the government must fund this..", and I'm afraid you've fallen for it.
Gay marriage is a joke on both sides of the coin. I don't think its marriage in the real sense of the word, but I also don't buy that it somehow threatens my marriage, and above all I think proposing a constitutional amendment to explicitly ban gay marriage is the most absurd proposition since the Alien and Sedition acts.
The thing with Bush is, that, he tried to move the party to the left a bit. That was a dubious proposition at best, but even if it could work, Bush's not well spoken or eloquent enough to capture the imagination of the left. You need a different sort of Republican that can attract the left - a manly kind of guy that likes his guns and cars, yes, but is also capable of competently discussing the latest in science and Bush just isn't the guy.
You also need someone to argue that the war is a bipartisan effort, genuinely a crusade, and to get a crusade, you have to make the kinds of bipartisan deals to do it. Bush didn't. Attempting to reform social security during a war was about the dumbest and most confrontational thing he could. He would have been better served by sticking a few Dems in his cabinet and forming a wartime government, from the get-go.
Falling dollar Is caused by the dollar being overvalued to begin with as a consequence of the asian currency crisis. Bush's devaluing the dollar is starting to work wonders for American manufacturing. In fact, our rising exports is the reason why the economy is still moving along despite high energy prices.
For normal people, it just doesn't work that way.
I'm not normal. I'm not even the fighting type - most of the time, I just walk away, because I enjoy it too much. If someone punches me, my first instinct is to try and kill the guy, but I walk away, because its more right to just take the punch than it is to smash someone's head in with a stick in retaliation. I remember someone once tried to take my lunch money, so I loaded up a pretzel with razor blades and gave it to him. I still remember him, saying, "I was just playing with you... and you tried to kill me". Well, I always kept my lunch money, after that, for sure.
With that said, your making threats online is completely wrong. I've seen people time and time again trying to bully their way on the internet and intimidate people who would disagree with them. The only way to deal with them is to confront them, and let them know that they cannot bully people around. What you did was wrong, and that you continue to defend your actions remains wrong. You either choose to use violence to further a political point, or you don't. And you chose the former, and still do so.
We all need to choose to walk away.
Kerry
Kerry would have been a disaster. It's not just that Kerry "flip flopped" on the war, it was that, he made a crass political decision to support the invasion of Iraq
And, let's see Democrats match my New Bill of Rights that I will introduce, if elected to the US Senate. (actually, I'd have to have someone in the House introduce, then support it in the Senate, but, here goes)...
This bill of rights is a set of amendments to the Constitution that gives power to the people.
1) Treaties.
Purpose: Presently, the Senate ratifies treaties. Because a treaty is the law of the land, treaties subvert the rest of the constitution. This amendment would require a general election to ratify a treaty, and so restore power to the people.
Text : No treaty signed by the President and ratified by the Senate will be in force until the majority of the American people vote its approval within one year of ratification by the Senate.
2) No more undeclared wars.
Purpose : This whole idea of the President being allowed to invade or bomb other people for the hell of it is a crock of shit.
Text : The President shall not use military force against another nation unless approved by the Congress. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this law through appropriate legislation.
3) Search and seizure.
Purpose : People cannot be eavesdropped, or searched, without being served with a warrant. Also, police can't come in and bust up your house and damage your personal effects, and call it a search, and can't seize your possesions for a long period of time. Like, they can't take your computers and hold them for six months.
Text : No citizen shall be subject to search or interception of communications without being served by a warrant. No search shall take place that damages or destroys the materials being searched, or is otherwise compensated, and no items siezed in the process of that search shall be held for more than one month.
4) Popular citizenship. Why does the federal government have the power to decide who is a citizen and who is not? Shouldn't that be up to the states?
Text : States shall have the right to declare immigrants to that state to be citizens of that state.
The great secret about America is that there is judicial check. Juries can do whatever they want, and frequently do. I submit for evidence the case of Orenthal James Simpson. But also, plaintiffs and defendents do their best, really, to routinely avoid going to court because both sides are terrified at what a jury can do.
Sure, a judge can instruct a jury all he or she wants. But, at the end of the day, when a jury makes a decision, it is the jury's wishes that generally stand in criminal law, and are frequently damning in civil law. Seriously, if you were summoned for jury duty, would you really listen to the judge's instructions, or the lawyer's instructions. I can't see anyone on slashdot, regardless of political affiliation, that would.
Slashdot Mirror
I predict that many Republicans will oppose this bill, not because they are opposed to the idea of protecting an industry legislatively, but, becuase the industry that they would be tasked to protect is one that generally opposses them. I mean, what happens to the big bad liberal media if it goes belly up because it is obsolete? Kinda hard to make pro-socialist stuff, if your target audience doesn't want to pay for it...
So what you're basically saying is that things haven't changed much in the US since 1776
Well, why should they? Look at your line of reasoning, as well. You have this view that citizens should have to be able to demonstrate a need for something, in order to get government approval for it. Have we Americans taught you anything about freedom? You don't have to justify what you do. If you don't intend to hurt anyone else, you should theoretically be allowed to have anything.
Yes, it sucks that some few thousand people get shot to death in America every year, but, when you weigh that against the notion of some 80 million Americans (if not more), actually owning a gun, then, you can see that gunowership itself is safer than walking down the stairs or going for a swim.
We actually have 1600 people in Afghanistan that will be there at least until 2010, defending 3 square kilometres of bare desert
And, its stupid too, because, everyone in America knows that these troops really aren't allowed to fight, and that, what all these troops are just tokens to try and deceive the American people into thinking that NATO actually means something. I think we should take reality for what it is. Europe isn't going to fight for anything, and that, while, we should remain firm friends and have good and open trade, that NATO should be dissolved, except for a military alliance with the British, and let the Europeans fend for themselves.
The whole "upload the day to the PC" part seems a bit contrived. Why can't you just watch this life movie wherever you are?
Either way, we're screwed as long as we depend on something that will eventually run out. Switching energy sources only postpones the inevitable.
There's no such thing as renewable energy. All conceivable forms of energy will eventually run out. Even if we could turn our sun into the earth's generator, it too, will eventually run out. At the end of the line, for humanity, is a lonely death, frozen to death in a cold universe. Just imagine, a few billion years from now, we won't even be able to see very many stars.
SO, there's no planet to save, no universe to save... its all going to end. Whether we like it or not, humanity is ultimately doomed. Of course, all that work you do protecting all of the species on earth will be thrown away when the sun expands to the size of mar's orbit, and incinerates the earth in the process. And that assumes that nothing happens with the sun, like a minor nova or something. Or, there's no local gamma ray burst, or no local supernovae, or even something terrestrially unpreventable like a yellow stone eruption or a re-emergence of the siberian traps, or, a comet smacking into the earth.
Thinking guns protect your civil rights is outright insane.
Seemed to work pretty well in 1776, but then again, the Netherlands is generally cannon fodder for other European powers. Maybe you should try an armed citizenry sometimes.
Ever rebuilt a smallblock? There's always some bolt or nut or something left over. Why should surgery be any different?
People that rebuild people tend to get paid a bit more than people that rebuild smallblocks, for sure!
This is another example of why the medical system is so ridiculously expensive. Yes, it sucks that 1600 people a year get something left inside them. However, considering all of the surgeries that take place in the USA, statistically, this is darn near perfect already. It has to be close to a one in a million chance that you get something left inside you, and so, the question is, will the RFID improve the process enough to close that gap, and if so, how much does it cost everyone to have it everywhere all the time. I think that, given, the choice, most patients would rather roll the dice and pay less to get the same surgery, then, have that added safety tax, that honestly, won't accomplish anything. Think about it, if you have doctors that can't even keep an accurate count of what went into the body, versus, what went out, then you have more problems than barcodding can help.
Only the great are merciful. Not condescending, not paternal or egotistical. Merciful. Your nation may possibly under some assumptions be the best, but the evidence of the USA's greatness is only in the past
Which past was that? World War II? Yoda says : Wars make not one great.
It would make more sense for you Americans to simply expect your politicians to be selfish like everybody, and not despise them for that, and instead despise your system if it doesn't provide suitable checks and balances. Which I think it doesn't
We despise our politicians, becuase, we can. We despise our system, because we can. We in America are always searching for better, in our goods and in ourselves and above all, in our leaders.
Our system provides for more checks and balances than any parliamentry system, simply by virtue of having the executive branch be genuinely separate from that of the legislative. Finally, as a practical matter, our system is the only system that exists genuinly by the consent of its governed. The vast majority of Americans own a gun of some kind, and to own a gun is to have -real- power, far more than even our mighty military has.
In every conceivable way, one can make the argument that the USA is the greatest country in the world. Taken as a whole, the American race is the genetic best from around the world, combined into one super citizenry body. But, despite that, we are not the type of people to sit by and think that we are happy. We have to do better, have to have more, and we will. And then, when we get sick of that, we'll bitch about that too.
Only losers are reasonable.
There's no need to expect extraordinary idealism and then be surprised and despise them for being just like everybody. Expect them to be selfish and work with it.
I still wonder what you'd prefer instead
Bitching about politicians is patriotic and an American birthright. If Jesus Christ were President, we would bitch about him too, and he'd never make it over 50% in the polls unless He bombed someone.
We know our form of government is the best and our country is the best, but, if we don't keep bitching about it, or trying to improve ourselves, then, we'll wind up as yet another nation that lost its purpose. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or Liberal, alike, are all trying to put forth ideas to improve our country. If they didn't, and didn't fight about it, then, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of Democracy?
Also, doesn't the US DMCA make it illegal to remove the infamous Sony Root Kit trojan hack that Sony used as an extremely poorly designed DRM scheme?
I agree that the DMCA is total crap, but its really becuase the guys that are pushing for it are in the same sort of boat as the old steam engine fireman trying to get a job on a diesel engine. You just don't need someone to shovel coal. It's just an artificial thing that isn't there. Copyright is about keeping someone with a printing press from printing the same thing that you are printing, but now, everyone has a printing press, and its sorta academic. May as well try and ban breathing.
But, the quickest way to break down the old media is to just not support it. Don't buy from them, not at all. Hit them where it hurts. I mean, come on, don't we have kernels to hack or something, that we could do besides giving money to a bunch of jackasses? Just, don't support old media, period.
Seriously, everyone is in a tizzy because movies, music and more are all copyrighted, and so you can't copy them.
Just don't buy any copyrighted stuff. Period. Just don't buy it. I rarely buy music. I don't pay for shows on TV and I don't go to the movies. It's not worth the aggravation and honestly, the product isn't all that great any more anyway.
Find something else to do. There's always booze.
Regardless of your views on the wisdom and practicality of maintaining a national manned space flight program, one fact is indisputable. Bush decided that the shuttles should stop flying after 2010, and if Bush decided it you can bet your ass it was the wrong decision for any number of reasons.
Actually, no, it's not Bush's fault. After the Columbia Accident, for safety considerations, NASA was directed to recertify the space shuttles for flight worthiness after 2010. This is a hugely expensive proposition, and it seemed to make more sense to just terminate the program, and proceed as fast as possible with Constellation.
Sure, a new President could appoint a new NASA Administrator, who could theoretically, ignore the recommendations of the safety board. However, if an accident did happen, then, the first thing that would happen would be that the board would say, "hah, we told you so", and the result would be an enormous embarrassment for the new administration.
Or, Congress could appropriate the additional money needed to NASA to do this certification, and fly the shuttle concurrently, or longer. However, it could turn out that, as a result of certification, that, the shuttles need a lot of new parts, etc, and, gasp, maybe things that are pushing 20-30 years old should not be flying at Mach 17.
Honestly, I think NASA would have been better off if Bush had stuck to his guns and gone for nucleared powered spaceflight and the prometheus project. The current MARS stack is all chemical based. Had we funded Prometheus, and JIMO, then, it would have been much better off for space. However, there's absolutely no way the left wing of the Democratic Party would stand for it, for three reasons. a) They don't like nuclear power, b) Putting a nuclear reactor on a space craft they like even less, and c) hard core lefties see space flight in general, and NASA in particular, as an unnecessary expense and would rather feed the homeless first.
To be fair, the far right would cut NASA as a federal subsidy of something that should be privatized. Really, NASA exists largely because of the imperial aspirations of Neocon Republicans coinciding with the scientific wishes of the moderate Republicans and Democdrats. But yeah, politics makes strange bedfellows, and you could see far left congressman getting a bill to kill NASA being cosigned by far right congresssman.
Ford has a problem in that, buggies are a "traditional" thing
I'm no tree hugging earth worshipping f-g, but, arguing that the car is better than the horse and buggy isn't going to help you much these days. Its not like everyone having a car would do something like screw up the atmosphere of the planet earth, or induce an invasion of the richest oil nation on the planet that results in a trillion or so dollars spent and thousands dead, but hey, you go ahead and say the car is -better-.
The whole point of an e-book is portability. But, its less portable than a book. I can drop a book pretty far, and still be able to read it. I guarantee that if I put a book into a fire, and I pulled it out, it might be singed or even burnt around the edges, but an e-book would be toast. An e-book needs batteries or a charge. A book doesn't. Can I put a cup of coffee on my e-book or write on the back of it as if a notebook? No.
One of these days mankind is going to have to forgo the luxury of killing trees because they smell nice. Why not today
Trees are evil. They are always taller than we are, which means, they always look down on us. They hard and practically unbending, meaning they are inflexible.
They stand before humanity, and mock them, continually. And yet, you support these things?
I enjoy chopping down trees. The mighty axe puts any in its place, and I enjoy wood furniture and flooring as a symbol of my domination over nature.
Amazon has a problem in that, books are a "traditional" thing. Most of the books that Amazon sells are for personal enrichment and entertainment. I mean, there's more to a book than its content. Sure, if we're working and doing techy stuff, Google is good for finding things, but, if you want to just relax and unplug, a book is a beautiful thing. You hold in your hand a tradition of printing that goes back hundreds of years, of writing that goes back thousands. There's a whole literary culture floating out there, waiting for you to join it. For a brief time, when you do read a book, you do.
Yes, you could argue, that an e-book could hold 10 million books. But, what of it? A book by itself is something that holds more than enough for you to read for a few hours, and you get the smell and feel of the paper, the binding, the immediacy, history and intimacy. An e-book is just another plastic appliance, lacking in craft.
Actually, ERCOT (i.e. the Texas NERC region) exports virtually no electricity. Nice story though
It's the peak days that matter.
Actually, they sell electricity to Constellation
It's deregulation. All utilities were basically "split" into generation and delivery. Generation owns the generators, and delivery is the wires and the customer base. The generation people sell their power to the grid - which there is the PJM power pool, and in turn the delivery side buys, for spot needs, from the grid at what's called location marginal price. The LMP is a calculated thing, it is designed to be a public price so that its transparent to all players.
What happens though, particularly in the east coast, is that, thanks to NIMBY, there's simply not enough electricity being generated for this to work. Particularly in Maryland, no one wants to build enough generation, and so, Constellation goes and buys the electricity from somewhere else across the country. Right now, this is commonly in Texas, because Texas seems to have no problem with building big coal plants, and so Texas makes a lot of money exporting electricity to the rest of the country.
So yes, Constellation is, in a sense, buying electricity from itself, but, it also has to pay a ton of middle men along the way, from ISO operators, energy traders, and even the rights to move transmission between ISOs.
The moral of the story is, if you want the cheapest possible electrity and best possible service, support legislation to recombine generation and transmission entities of various utilities, then, support the eminent domain and deregulation needed to allow these reconstituted utilities to construct enough coal plants to meet demand. If you want windmills, rats on treadmills, or other environmentally friendly generation, then be prepared to pay a premium on it.
I think its because advanced aliens are against file sharing. If we don't have good copyrights, then the planet will be vaporized, as advanced civilizations basically sell travel books to each other. Piracy threatens the Galactic economy. You do know that the original Cylon - Human dispute was over DRM?
All of "open" and reward based programming schemes are merely ways to avoid hiring programmers. "Let's find someone to do it for free." Only morons would do it.
Those machines have been proven time and again that they're insecure, not reliable and that it takes special knowledge to even start verifying their results. Now we add ease of manipulation to the fold
The problem is, a lot of people don't trust the human counters.
If Yoda ran IBM, he would miss an emerging trend, a new force that is seemingly allied to him would rise up and betray him, and he would lose a pitched conflict. Not that I was thinking about Microsoft and the OS/2 divorce and following Warp v W95 battle, but it seems like maybe Yoda already did run IBM...
Bush has been against abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage (what possible reason is there to object?) and just about every moral issue that I feel strongly about. He wants to make sure that the government is highly involved in your private life.
The fact of the matter is, ALL of these issues, and others that you are so worked up about, are edge issues.
Bush's opposition to abortion has largely been token. Really, I don't think its unreasonable to say that a woman can make up her mind by the third trimester, and also, geopolitically, the USA needs its population to increase to stay with the Chinese, fund social security, and other entitlements.
Embryonic stem cells, too, is an edge issue. If they had so much commercial potential, then, private businesses can fund them. There's nothing Bush has done to stop Merck or Glaxo from researching embryonic stem cells. All he has done is oppose federal research money for that. If big pharma doesn't see the commercial potential, then maybe there isn't any. This is an edge issue: "the government must fund this..", and I'm afraid you've fallen for it.
Gay marriage is a joke on both sides of the coin. I don't think its marriage in the real sense of the word, but I also don't buy that it somehow threatens my marriage, and above all I think proposing a constitutional amendment to explicitly ban gay marriage is the most absurd proposition since the Alien and Sedition acts.
The thing with Bush is, that, he tried to move the party to the left a bit. That was a dubious proposition at best, but even if it could work, Bush's not well spoken or eloquent enough to capture the imagination of the left. You need a different sort of Republican that can attract the left - a manly kind of guy that likes his guns and cars, yes, but is also capable of competently discussing the latest in science and Bush just isn't the guy.
You also need someone to argue that the war is a bipartisan effort, genuinely a crusade, and to get a crusade, you have to make the kinds of bipartisan deals to do it. Bush didn't. Attempting to reform social security during a war was about the dumbest and most confrontational thing he could. He would have been better served by sticking a few Dems in his cabinet and forming a wartime government, from the get-go.
Falling dollar
Is caused by the dollar being overvalued to begin with as a consequence of the asian currency crisis. Bush's devaluing the dollar is starting to work wonders for American manufacturing. In fact, our rising exports is the reason why the economy is still moving along despite high energy prices.
For normal people, it just doesn't work that way.
I'm not normal. I'm not even the fighting type - most of the time, I just walk away, because I enjoy it too much. If someone punches me, my first instinct is to try and kill the guy, but I walk away, because its more right to just take the punch than it is to smash someone's head in with a stick in retaliation. I remember someone once tried to take my lunch money, so I loaded up a pretzel with razor blades and gave it to him. I still remember him, saying, "I was just playing with you... and you tried to kill me". Well, I always kept my lunch money, after that, for sure.
With that said, your making threats online is completely wrong. I've seen people time and time again trying to bully their way on the internet and intimidate people who would disagree with them. The only way to deal with them is to confront them, and let them know that they cannot bully people around. What you did was wrong, and that you continue to defend your actions remains wrong. You either choose to use violence to further a political point, or you don't. And you chose the former, and still do so.
We all need to choose to walk away.
Kerry
Kerry would have been a disaster. It's not just that Kerry "flip flopped" on the war, it was that, he made a crass political decision to support the invasion of Iraq
And, let's see Democrats match my New Bill of Rights that I will introduce, if elected to the US Senate. (actually, I'd have to have someone in the House introduce, then support it in the Senate, but, here goes)...
This bill of rights is a set of amendments to the Constitution that gives power to the people.
1) Treaties.
Purpose: Presently, the Senate ratifies treaties. Because a treaty is the law of the land, treaties subvert the rest of the constitution. This amendment would require a general election to ratify a treaty, and so restore power to the people.
Text : No treaty signed by the President and ratified by the Senate will be in force until the majority of the American people vote its approval within one year of ratification by the Senate.
2) No more undeclared wars.
Purpose : This whole idea of the President being allowed to invade or bomb other people for the hell of it is a crock of shit.
Text : The President shall not use military force against another nation unless approved by the Congress. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this law through appropriate legislation.
3) Search and seizure.
Purpose : People cannot be eavesdropped, or searched, without being served with a warrant. Also, police can't come in and bust up your house and damage your personal effects, and call it a search, and can't seize your possesions for a long period of time. Like, they can't take your computers and hold them for six months.
Text : No citizen shall be subject to search or interception of communications without being served by a warrant. No search shall take place that damages or destroys the materials being searched, or is otherwise compensated, and no items siezed in the process of that search shall be held for more than one month.
4) Popular citizenship. Why does the federal government have the power to decide who is a citizen and who is not? Shouldn't that be up to the states?
Text : States shall have the right to declare immigrants to that state to be citizens of that state.
You speak as if the jury actually had a choice
The great secret about America is that there is judicial check. Juries can do whatever they want, and frequently do. I submit for evidence the case of Orenthal James Simpson. But also, plaintiffs and defendents do their best, really, to routinely avoid going to court because both sides are terrified at what a jury can do.
Sure, a judge can instruct a jury all he or she wants. But, at the end of the day, when a jury makes a decision, it is the jury's wishes that generally stand in criminal law, and are frequently damning in civil law. Seriously, if you were summoned for jury duty, would you really listen to the judge's instructions, or the lawyer's instructions. I can't see anyone on slashdot, regardless of political affiliation, that would.