By pointing to Wikipedia, you undermine your own argument.
By pointing to nothing, you fail to make an argument. I check the sources.
The budget is published, with certain details redacted for national security purposes.
Here's sworn testimony from the Director of the CIA that contradicts your claims:
Finally, in evaluating whether to release the total intelligence appropriation, I have to consider whether a release could add to information that is already available to hostile individuals in a way that could reasonably be expected to reveal or lead to identification of other information that could damage the national security. Information that is in the public domain is not, in fact, entirely accurate. Where official release of the budget total, even if it does not itself reveal all the sensitivities of the intelligence Community, would provide valuable analytic benchmarks or clues to make our sensitive intelligence activities, sources, or methods more readily and precisely identifiable by hostile services and groups, then official release reasonably could be expected to damage the national security.
No budget is published. There is nothing to redact, and any redaction would be a violation of providing a regular statement of account, notwithstanding the direct violation of taking money out of the treasury for unlawful purposes. Not being aware of the facts undermines your argument pretty seriously, don't you think?
Your Jefferson quote does not support your position.
The word you're missing is context. Medcalf tried to make the assertion that wartime is an excuse for breaking the laws of our country. I demonstrated that this belief was not shared by at least one of our founding fathers.
This ignores the fact that the war on terrorism is just like the war on jealousy - it's never going to end, and it will be an eternal excuse for abuses of power.
A quick glance at the Constitution will show you that Congress controls funding.
Yeah, the Bush White House had no involvement in requesting bad intelligence, leaking the stories to newspapers, and then going on Sunday talk shows holding up the newspapers as evidence. It was all the Republican controlled congress!
as this happened to anyone you know? No? The STFU!
Weee! Let's take a trip down anecdote lane, and throw the constitution out the window on the way there!
As for Katrina itself, that was a major failure of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans
The head of FEMA was appointed by Bush. The guy he appointed - Mike Brown - judged horsies in preparation for running one of the largest and most critical federal agencies in existence. FEMA is responsible for responding to natural disasters. But it's nice that you're trying to pass the buck.
Well, Sonia Sotomayor was not as experienced as she could have been
Sotomayor was a Federal Judge from 1991 until her nomination. Let's see what the Wik has to say about Miers...
Miers's nomination was criticized from people all over the political spectrum based on her never having served as a judge, her perceived lack of intellectual rigor, her close personal ties to Bush, and her lack of a clear record on issues likely to be encountered as a Supreme Court Justice.
You know, for the men and women on that aircraft carrier, the mission was accomplished.
98% of the casualties from the Iraq war happened after he declared an end to major combat operations. He lives in a dreamworld which you seem to share.
For some reason this didn't post in the correct thread.
He's been in office for a year. He hasn't even had the opportunity to appoint all of his cabinet level positions because the congress is half filled with children who can't keep their mouths shut during class. It's going to take him a while to clean up the sad pile of shit that the Bush II Administration left behind. Even still, he passed a conservative health care bill and signed treaties to significantly reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. I think at this point Bush had nearly died eating snacks and allowed the largest terrorist attack in US history.
I'll never understand why Chomsky is held in any sort of high regard.
It's just because you don't have a values system. Don't worry, you're certainly not alone.
A corporation can't force anyone to do anything, without the government, or breaking the law.. Thus, as tyrannical, as it might like to be, it cannot. Government, on the other hand, can, and constantly tries to be. Even though, it's not an intentional thing.
It's an observation on propaganda and institutionalization.
What has been created by this half-century of massive corporate propaganda is called anti-politics. So anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change, the one institution you can affect by participation without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear is directed against the government. The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect, they're pure tyrannies.
You mean like how a local plumber embarrassed him and caused him political grief for years by making him admit things that were politically damaging?
I know. It damaged him so badly that he won the election.
Or are you talking about how he sends world leaders DVDs that they can't play in their home countries? Wait, you must mean the iPod gift of his speeches that he gives to dignitaries, right? Or does bringing any of this up make me a racist?
No, what makes you a racist is that you bring up what is literally gossip in comparison with Bush starting an unwinnable war, illegally suspending constitutional rights, and staffing the federal government with his cronies. Remember the the guy who ran FEMA? Who's job before that was judging ponies? A job from which he was fired?
Your basis of judgement has no correlation to reality, no clear value structure, but does a great job of providing transparency to your prejudices.
What exactly do you think the NSA does? Are you really that credulous?
If you want to make a case that all budgets must be entirely disclosed at some given level of detail, I'd love to hear it.
Article 1, Section 9: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
Are you disputing the government's authority to operate clandestine intelligence agencies? If so, I'd love to hear the argument for that, too.
They have shown repeatedly that they are incapable of controlling themselves when there is no oversight. The NSA and CIA and FBI have repeatedly operated outside the law. We are supposed to be a nation of laws.
But the solution for that is not turning a blind eye while people spill our secrets in wartime.
Do you think you're channelling Thomas Jefferson or Stalin with that kind of outlook?
Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension. -Thomas Jefferson
Oh my god. This is the funniest post I've read in years.
Tell me, which article of the Constitution permits
1) unreasonable searches and seizures by 2) agencies under no or very little congressional oversight 3) which have secret budgets?
I think you and the tea partiers will be slightly disappointed once you get around to understanding the constitution instead of reading it for selective applications of your own biases.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The budget surplus was projected. Half of the 2000 debates were about how to use the projected surplus. Al Gore had the lockbox for social security. Bush said the money should be given back as tax cuts.
Bush won the supreme court ruling saying he was elected, and then he cut taxes for the wealthy and started two wars. Bye bye budget surplus.
He's been in office for a year. He hasn't even had the opportunity to appoint all of his cabinet level positions because the congress is half filled with children who can't keep their mouths shut during class. It's going to take him a while to clean up the sad pile of shit that the Bush II Administration left behind. Even still, he passed a conservative health care bill and signed treaties to significantly reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. I think at this point Bush had nearly died eating snacks and allowed the largest terrorist attack in US history.
I'll never understand why Chomsky is held in any sort of high regard.
It's just because you don't have a values system. Don't worry, you're certainly not alone.
A corporation can't force anyone to do anything, without the government, or breaking the law.. Thus, as tyrannical, as it might like to be, it cannot. Government, on the other hand, can, and constantly tries to be. Even though, it's not an intentional thing.
It's an observation on propaganda and institutionalization.
What has been created by this half-century of massive corporate propaganda is called anti-politics. So anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change, the one institution you can affect by participation without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear is directed against the government. The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect, they're pure tyrannies.
Did he nearly die choking on a pretzel? Is he starting an underfunded, ill conceived war while cutting taxes for the wealthy and destroying a budget surplus? Is he suspending basic rights like habeas corpus and performing searches and seizures without warrants? Is he staffing FEMA with idiots, and then doing nothing while they fuck up a hurricane response? Is he nominating some inexperienced random woman for the Supreme Court? Is he standing on an aircraft carrier during some publicity stunt, claiming mission accomplished and the end of combat operations WEEKS into a war that has now lasted seven years?
Give me a fucking break. I have my issues with Obama, but you're comparing the former editor of the Harvard Law review with a guy who would've flunked out of college if his father wasn't running the CIA.
You can still buy high quality goods and not come up with reasons to throw them away.
Not manufactured in the United States.
From where I stand it's going to be a moot point in a few years anyway -- the Chinese people won't tolerate this forever
Hey, its a fantastic plan. We'll just wait until the whole world has been exploited. I can't imagine there will be any long term consequences.
As the people became better educated and the economy grew they eventually demanded and received better working condictions. It wasn't a painless process by any means but drastic societal change rarely is.
And then the companies found new people to exploit. So they closed up shop, turned large parts of the industrial northeast into a wasteland, and are busy with finishing off what's left of the middle class. By the time they get done with China, the rest of southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America, the companies will be "saving" their next victims in Detroit and other parts of the world where profits are always more important than people.
None of which matters if your products cost so much that few people buy them.
The dollar cost of an item has nothing to do with the true cost of it. If people had to pay the actual costs of their goods, they wouldn't throw them away after using them for a few months. My grandmother has owned the same set of pots, pans, and plates for thirty years, because she bought high quality American made equipment and didn't make up a reason to throw them away.
People buy cheap because they aren't forced to realize the true costs of youth slavery's damage to Chinese society, damage to the Chinese environment, and a host of other costs that have been externalized through exploitation.
It's just like buying an iPod off the street for $100. You know someone is getting screwed, but as long as you don't know them, hey, you're just obeying market forces. So much for the morality of the market.
Because the boss is making 300 times your salary, and can't do 300 times the work. He knows that, and you know that, and you both know him flying first class is a waste of money, as is the expensed dinners, "retreats" in Caribbean, the company Audi, the office remodel that cost the company ten or twenty grand..
Work rules are for the lower rungs of the ladder only, because they are the only ones who actually do anything. The higher you get, the more you get away with, as long as you are playing by the real rules: keep your mouth shut, do what you're told, and don't make any noise about the corruption and waste at the top. If you find yourself making waves at meetings about company waste or using that dirty "ethics" word, you'll quickly find yourself playing by the work rules again.
That's why the whole top of the pyramid is nothing but pimps and hookers.
a spade is still a spade, a collar is still a collar whether it be blue or white it's still around your neck, the silk leash nice and tight your wife helped pick it out the irony is that you worked 3 hours for it you wish you could ignore it: you're a hooker
A major defect of capitalism is that it will tend to cater to the lowest common denominator. If everyone invests in the idea that science (evolutionary bioengineering, alternative energy development, vaccines, space exploration) is bad, then the whole economy and culture is going to go south pretty quickly. When China owns the factories and the intellectual property, things won't be looking so good.
And if Palin and Huckabee end up bickering over which day should be Jesus Day, all I can say is, good game America. It was fun while it lasted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle...in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".
In the corporate world especially, upper level politics and kickbacks and alliances always end up chucking creativity out the door, grinding it into the pavement, and writing off as an R&D expense as it's scooped into the dust bin.
Google avoids this by letting employees work on their own pet projects that get picked up for major development as they gain popularity in their internal culture, which seems to be quite good at picking winners. Apple has so far escaped this only because it's run like North Korea. There's one maniacal prick and marketing genius at the top of the food chain, and everyone else is meaningless.
$2400 will get you the top of the line 15" MacBook Pro. A similarly specced Dell Precision Mobile Workstation will only have a superior video card (Quadro FX 1800M), and maybe a higher def screen, and certainly vastly superior docking options and ports. Battery life and portability are the big drawbacks to the PC side of the aisle.
At the high end of things, the computer you buy depends entirely on your main application. For anyone in digital content creation, you have to have OS X in order to have Logic and Final Cut. If you're making movies, music, or web pages, you're probably going to get a Mac. If you're mainly an engineer or business applications user or developer, you're going to get a PC. If all you do is check Facebook or troll slashdot, the Apple logo is a very expensive brand name, but the MacBook or a used MacBook Pro with the extended warranty is probably worth the money compared to trying to maintain a virus-free windows installation. If you don't need any commercial application support, dual monitor support, etc., a netbook or notebook preinstalled with Linux is a great option.
Personally, I usually have the latest gen MacBook Pro* triple booted with Windows 7 and Ubuntu, since I have clients all over the board. The new terabyte 2.5" 12mm drive from Western Digital fits in the unibody models, so I have a 500G data partition, 250 for OS X (Logic/Final Cut are huge), 150 for 7, and 100 for Ubuntu.
OS X is a great operating system, it's just unfortunately in the hands of perhaps the biggest douchebag in the world. I hope after his reign has passed, the company falls apart and OS X is unshackled from Mac hardware and the black hole that is his ego.
some 120 million killed outside of war over the course of the 20th century
Does your ass hurt from the constant excretion of "facts"?
Sandinistas were also enslaving the populace, silencing newspapers, kidnapping said children from their families to "educate" them, expanding the secret police, creating neighborhood spy networks, forcibly relocating, torturing and murdering Indians for being Indian
Looks like you're confusing the Sandanistas for the US backed Samoza dictatorship, which we left after we occupied the country from 1912 to 1933. The Sandanistas were no saints, but they were Nicaraguans.
People in El Salvador were fighting against the imposition of an alien political ideology and economic system responsible for the deaths of millions and millions, against the clear will of the vast majority of Salvadorans, by those who were armed, funded by, and in the service of the Soviet Union.
Even if what you're saying was remotely true, you'd still be advocating direct material support for one terrorist organization to combat another terrorist organization. I read the declassified "Growth and Prospects of Leftist Extremists in El Salvador", I believe from 1980, and the USSR is not even mentioned (though it may be in a redacted portion.) Leftist support is mentioned from throughout Central America, but that's to be expected. It did tally the death toll of leftist extremists at 450 from 1978 to 1979. After the US got involved in propping up the government against the largely native movement, the death toll eventually reached 75,000.
Notice how after the USSR fell, these wars in Latin America ended, and democracy was restored. That should tell you who caused these wars, and who was keeping them going.
Actually, the timeline of US withdrawal is the one that matches more completely with moves towards peace. Turns out when you aren't having the CIA train every evil shithead at the School of the Americas, and then arming him to the teeth with drug money and weapons sales to sworn enemies in Iran, peace does have a chance.
Mosaddegh came to power after his predecessor was murdered for opposing Mosaddegh's policies. Once in power, Mosaddegh continued to rule without holding elections, as required by the Iranian constitution at the time.
And now, without further explanation, I will say that any political leader of any democratic and sovereign nation accused of anything can be overthrown by the American government because... well, just because.
At least three of those examples during the Cold War are pure bullshit
Does mike know how to accidentally throw in the towel or what? But you still managed to even fuck that one up in three, two, one...
Primary CIA activity in Chile was to conduct spoiling operations against the candidacy of Salvador Allende in the 4 September 1970 elections without, however, supporting either of the two non-Marxist presidential candidates. This effort focused on a propaganda program to alert the Chilean people to the dangers of a Marxist regime under Allende. A total of $425,000 was spent in this endeavor which was approved by the 40 Committee and was carried out in close coordination with Ambassador Korry in Chile and State Department officials in Washington.
A second Agency activity was conducted between 15 September 1970, after the popular plurality won by Allende, and before the election of Allende by the Congress on 24 October and his inauguration on 3 November. A total of $153,000 was spent in
However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.
THAT is why the iPad will be a success.
People just don't understand what happiness is. They'll trade twenty or thirty hours of work for an iPad, but not take that time off to spend with family. And don't think the marketing departments aren't aware of this fact - that's why their job is to make you believe in their narrative and fantasies, by cramming your whole world full of lies and pretty pictures.
The iPad will be a huge success, though. Just like cigarettes, cheeseburgers, and reality television.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain
a device with those specs and 3G would be receiving much more noise than, well... none
Well, clearly it's the wrong story. "Company releases new multi-touch tablet device with accelerometers and 3g capabilities." That thing fizzles at the gate.
"Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features. It will change the future of media and the planet, and it's glory will echo throughout eternity!" Send out the skin tight girl jeans, put on some popular music and a novel graphic overlay. Hey, you just made a billion dollars!
That's why you need marketing departments. They are depraved human beings, but someone has to polish the turds.
Slashdot Mirror
By pointing to Wikipedia, you undermine your own argument.
By pointing to nothing, you fail to make an argument. I check the sources.
The budget is published, with certain details redacted for national security purposes.
Here's sworn testimony from the Director of the CIA that contradicts your claims:
Finally, in evaluating whether to release the total intelligence appropriation, I have to consider whether a release could add to information that is already available to hostile individuals in a way that could reasonably be expected to reveal or lead to identification of other information that could damage the national security. Information that is in the public domain is not, in fact, entirely accurate. Where official release of the budget total, even if it does not itself reveal all the sensitivities of the intelligence Community, would provide valuable analytic benchmarks or clues to make our sensitive intelligence activities, sources, or methods more readily and precisely identifiable by hostile services and groups, then official release reasonably could be expected to damage the national security.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/tenet.html
No budget is published. There is nothing to redact, and any redaction would be a violation of providing a regular statement of account, notwithstanding the direct violation of taking money out of the treasury for unlawful purposes. Not being aware of the facts undermines your argument pretty seriously, don't you think?
Your Jefferson quote does not support your position.
The word you're missing is context. Medcalf tried to make the assertion that wartime is an excuse for breaking the laws of our country. I demonstrated that this belief was not shared by at least one of our founding fathers.
This ignores the fact that the war on terrorism is just like the war on jealousy - it's never going to end, and it will be an eternal excuse for abuses of power.
A quick glance at the Constitution will show you that Congress controls funding.
Yeah, the Bush White House had no involvement in requesting bad intelligence, leaking the stories to newspapers, and then going on Sunday talk shows holding up the newspapers as evidence. It was all the Republican controlled congress!
as this happened to anyone you know? No? The STFU!
Weee! Let's take a trip down anecdote lane, and throw the constitution out the window on the way there!
As for Katrina itself, that was a major failure of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans
The head of FEMA was appointed by Bush. The guy he appointed - Mike Brown - judged horsies in preparation for running one of the largest and most critical federal agencies in existence. FEMA is responsible for responding to natural disasters. But it's nice that you're trying to pass the buck.
Well, Sonia Sotomayor was not as experienced as she could have been
Sotomayor was a Federal Judge from 1991 until her nomination. Let's see what the Wik has to say about Miers...
Miers's nomination was criticized from people all over the political spectrum based on her never having served as a judge, her perceived lack of intellectual rigor, her close personal ties to Bush, and her lack of a clear record on issues likely to be encountered as a Supreme Court Justice.
You know, for the men and women on that aircraft carrier, the mission was accomplished.
98% of the casualties from the Iraq war happened after he declared an end to major combat operations. He lives in a dreamworld which you seem to share.
For some reason this didn't post in the correct thread.
He's been in office for a year. He hasn't even had the opportunity to appoint all of his cabinet level positions because the congress is half filled with children who can't keep their mouths shut during class. It's going to take him a while to clean up the sad pile of shit that the Bush II Administration left behind. Even still, he passed a conservative health care bill and signed treaties to significantly reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. I think at this point Bush had nearly died eating snacks and allowed the largest terrorist attack in US history.
I'll never understand why Chomsky is held in any sort of high regard.
It's just because you don't have a values system. Don't worry, you're certainly not alone.
A corporation can't force anyone to do anything, without the government, or breaking the law.. Thus, as tyrannical, as it might like to be, it cannot. Government, on the other hand, can, and constantly tries to be. Even though, it's not an intentional thing.
It's an observation on propaganda and institutionalization.
What has been created by this half-century of massive corporate propaganda is called anti-politics. So anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change, the one institution you can affect by participation without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear is directed against the government. The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect, they're pure tyrannies.
You mean like how a local plumber embarrassed him and caused him political grief for years by making him admit things that were politically damaging?
I know. It damaged him so badly that he won the election.
Or are you talking about how he sends world leaders DVDs that they can't play in their home countries? Wait, you must mean the iPod gift of his speeches that he gives to dignitaries, right? Or does bringing any of this up make me a racist?
No, what makes you a racist is that you bring up what is literally gossip in comparison with Bush starting an unwinnable war, illegally suspending constitutional rights, and staffing the federal government with his cronies. Remember the the guy who ran FEMA? Who's job before that was judging ponies? A job from which he was fired?
Your basis of judgement has no correlation to reality, no clear value structure, but does a great job of providing transparency to your prejudices.
Your point 1 requires evidence. What unreasonable searches and seizures do you refer to?
Have you read a single newspaper in the last eight years?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
What exactly do you think the NSA does? Are you really that credulous?
If you want to make a case that all budgets must be entirely disclosed at some given level of detail, I'd love to hear it.
Article 1, Section 9: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
Are you disputing the government's authority to operate clandestine intelligence agencies? If so, I'd love to hear the argument for that, too.
They have shown repeatedly that they are incapable of controlling themselves when there is no oversight. The NSA and CIA and FBI have repeatedly operated outside the law. We are supposed to be a nation of laws.
But the solution for that is not turning a blind eye while people spill our secrets in wartime.
Do you think you're channelling Thomas Jefferson or Stalin with that kind of outlook?
Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension. -Thomas Jefferson
Oh my god. This is the funniest post I've read in years.
Tell me, which article of the Constitution permits
1) unreasonable searches and seizures by
2) agencies under no or very little congressional oversight
3) which have secret budgets?
I think you and the tea partiers will be slightly disappointed once you get around to understanding the constitution instead of reading it for selective applications of your own biases.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
if he were exposing state secrets, let him rot in jail
Sweet. Chairman Mao got a slashdot account.
The budget surplus was projected. Half of the 2000 debates were about how to use the projected surplus. Al Gore had the lockbox for social security. Bush said the money should be given back as tax cuts.
Bush won the supreme court ruling saying he was elected, and then he cut taxes for the wealthy and started two wars. Bye bye budget surplus.
He's been in office for a year. He hasn't even had the opportunity to appoint all of his cabinet level positions because the congress is half filled with children who can't keep their mouths shut during class. It's going to take him a while to clean up the sad pile of shit that the Bush II Administration left behind. Even still, he passed a conservative health care bill and signed treaties to significantly reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. I think at this point Bush had nearly died eating snacks and allowed the largest terrorist attack in US history.
I'll never understand why Chomsky is held in any sort of high regard.
It's just because you don't have a values system. Don't worry, you're certainly not alone.
A corporation can't force anyone to do anything, without the government, or breaking the law.. Thus, as tyrannical, as it might like to be, it cannot. Government, on the other hand, can, and constantly tries to be. Even though, it's not an intentional thing.
It's an observation on propaganda and institutionalization.
What has been created by this half-century of massive corporate propaganda is called anti-politics. So anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change, the one institution you can affect by participation without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear is directed against the government. The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect, they're pure tyrannies.
Did he nearly die choking on a pretzel? Is he starting an underfunded, ill conceived war while cutting taxes for the wealthy and destroying a budget surplus? Is he suspending basic rights like habeas corpus and performing searches and seizures without warrants? Is he staffing FEMA with idiots, and then doing nothing while they fuck up a hurricane response? Is he nominating some inexperienced random woman for the Supreme Court? Is he standing on an aircraft carrier during some publicity stunt, claiming mission accomplished and the end of combat operations WEEKS into a war that has now lasted seven years?
Give me a fucking break. I have my issues with Obama, but you're comparing the former editor of the Harvard Law review with a guy who would've flunked out of college if his father wasn't running the CIA.
The military budget is a trillion dollars every year. You could just end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and net over 150 billion in one year.
and then full it with gasoline
You aren't wearing a Revolutionary era costume and chanting, "KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!" are you?
You can still buy high quality goods and not come up with reasons to throw them away.
Not manufactured in the United States.
From where I stand it's going to be a moot point in a few years anyway -- the Chinese people won't tolerate this forever
Hey, its a fantastic plan. We'll just wait until the whole world has been exploited. I can't imagine there will be any long term consequences.
As the people became better educated and the economy grew they eventually demanded and received better working condictions. It wasn't a painless process by any means but drastic societal change rarely is.
And then the companies found new people to exploit. So they closed up shop, turned large parts of the industrial northeast into a wasteland, and are busy with finishing off what's left of the middle class. By the time they get done with China, the rest of southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America, the companies will be "saving" their next victims in Detroit and other parts of the world where profits are always more important than people.
None of which matters if your products cost so much that few people buy them.
The dollar cost of an item has nothing to do with the true cost of it. If people had to pay the actual costs of their goods, they wouldn't throw them away after using them for a few months. My grandmother has owned the same set of pots, pans, and plates for thirty years, because she bought high quality American made equipment and didn't make up a reason to throw them away.
People buy cheap because they aren't forced to realize the true costs of youth slavery's damage to Chinese society, damage to the Chinese environment, and a host of other costs that have been externalized through exploitation.
It's just like buying an iPod off the street for $100. You know someone is getting screwed, but as long as you don't know them, hey, you're just obeying market forces. So much for the morality of the market.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/476438-premiere-cs4-system-requirements-avchd-editing.html#post1512282
For AVCHD I put minimum requirements at:
i7-930 CPU, 6 GB memory, 3 SATA 7200 disks and a decent video card.
For CS5 / MPE the minimum video card is GTX-285.
More memory is better.
I edit AVCHD on a C2D 2.53 with 4GB of memory, 5400 RPM HDD, and a non-discrete video card.
Psshh. Have you ever tried to edit AVCHD in Premiere? It's like dragging an anvil through frozen molasses.
We're all pirating Final Cut on our Hackintoshes. Duhhhhh...
why would an employer be okay about it
Because the boss is making 300 times your salary, and can't do 300 times the work. He knows that, and you know that, and you both know him flying first class is a waste of money, as is the expensed dinners, "retreats" in Caribbean, the company Audi, the office remodel that cost the company ten or twenty grand..
Work rules are for the lower rungs of the ladder only, because they are the only ones who actually do anything. The higher you get, the more you get away with, as long as you are playing by the real rules: keep your mouth shut, do what you're told, and don't make any noise about the corruption and waste at the top. If you find yourself making waves at meetings about company waste or using that dirty "ethics" word, you'll quickly find yourself playing by the work rules again.
That's why the whole top of the pyramid is nothing but pimps and hookers.
a spade is still a spade, a collar is still a collar
whether it be blue or white
it's still around your neck, the silk leash nice and tight
your wife helped pick it out
the irony is that you worked 3 hours for it
you wish you could ignore it:
you're a hooker
A major defect of capitalism is that it will tend to cater to the lowest common denominator. If everyone invests in the idea that science (evolutionary bioengineering, alternative energy development, vaccines, space exploration) is bad, then the whole economy and culture is going to go south pretty quickly. When China owns the factories and the intellectual property, things won't be looking so good.
And if Palin and Huckabee end up bickering over which day should be Jesus Day, all I can say is, good game America. It was fun while it lasted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle ...in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".
In the corporate world especially, upper level politics and kickbacks and alliances always end up chucking creativity out the door, grinding it into the pavement, and writing off as an R&D expense as it's scooped into the dust bin.
Google avoids this by letting employees work on their own pet projects that get picked up for major development as they gain popularity in their internal culture, which seems to be quite good at picking winners. Apple has so far escaped this only because it's run like North Korea. There's one maniacal prick and marketing genius at the top of the food chain, and everyone else is meaningless.
$2400 will get you the top of the line 15" MacBook Pro. A similarly specced Dell Precision Mobile Workstation will only have a superior video card (Quadro FX 1800M), and maybe a higher def screen, and certainly vastly superior docking options and ports. Battery life and portability are the big drawbacks to the PC side of the aisle.
At the high end of things, the computer you buy depends entirely on your main application. For anyone in digital content creation, you have to have OS X in order to have Logic and Final Cut. If you're making movies, music, or web pages, you're probably going to get a Mac. If you're mainly an engineer or business applications user or developer, you're going to get a PC. If all you do is check Facebook or troll slashdot, the Apple logo is a very expensive brand name, but the MacBook or a used MacBook Pro with the extended warranty is probably worth the money compared to trying to maintain a virus-free windows installation. If you don't need any commercial application support, dual monitor support, etc., a netbook or notebook preinstalled with Linux is a great option.
Personally, I usually have the latest gen MacBook Pro* triple booted with Windows 7 and Ubuntu, since I have clients all over the board. The new terabyte 2.5" 12mm drive from Western Digital fits in the unibody models, so I have a 500G data partition, 250 for OS X (Logic/Final Cut are huge), 150 for 7, and 100 for Ubuntu.
OS X is a great operating system, it's just unfortunately in the hands of perhaps the biggest douchebag in the world. I hope after his reign has passed, the company falls apart and OS X is unshackled from Mac hardware and the black hole that is his ego.
*yes, I get it. It's supposed to be funny.
some 120 million killed outside of war over the course of the 20th century
Does your ass hurt from the constant excretion of "facts"?
Sandinistas were also enslaving the populace, silencing newspapers, kidnapping said children from their families to "educate" them, expanding the secret police, creating neighborhood spy networks, forcibly relocating, torturing and murdering Indians for being Indian
Looks like you're confusing the Sandanistas for the US backed Samoza dictatorship, which we left after we occupied the country from 1912 to 1933. The Sandanistas were no saints, but they were Nicaraguans.
People in El Salvador were fighting against the imposition of an alien political ideology and economic system responsible for the deaths of millions and millions, against the clear will of the vast majority of Salvadorans, by those who were armed, funded by, and in the service of the Soviet Union.
Even if what you're saying was remotely true, you'd still be advocating direct material support for one terrorist organization to combat another terrorist organization. I read the declassified "Growth and Prospects of Leftist Extremists in El Salvador", I believe from 1980, and the USSR is not even mentioned (though it may be in a redacted portion.) Leftist support is mentioned from throughout Central America, but that's to be expected. It did tally the death toll of leftist extremists at 450 from 1978 to 1979. After the US got involved in propping up the government against the largely native movement, the death toll eventually reached 75,000.
Notice how after the USSR fell, these wars in Latin America ended, and democracy was restored. That should tell you who caused these wars, and who was keeping them going.
Actually, the timeline of US withdrawal is the one that matches more completely with moves towards peace. Turns out when you aren't having the CIA train every evil shithead at the School of the Americas, and then arming him to the teeth with drug money and weapons sales to sworn enemies in Iran, peace does have a chance.
Mosaddegh came to power after his predecessor was murdered for opposing Mosaddegh's policies. Once in power, Mosaddegh continued to rule without holding elections, as required by the Iranian constitution at the time.
And now, without further explanation, I will say that any political leader of any democratic and sovereign nation accused of anything can be overthrown by the American government because... well, just because.
At least three of those examples during the Cold War are pure bullshit
Does mike know how to accidentally throw in the towel or what? But you still managed to even fuck that one up in three, two, one...
Chile 1973
http://www.faqs.org/cia/docs/56/0000096947/OVERVIEW-STATEMENTS-ON-CIA-INVOLVEMENT-IN-CHILE-IN-1970.html
Primary CIA activity in Chile was to conduct spoiling operations against the candidacy of Salvador Allende in the 4 September 1970 elections without, however, supporting either of the two non-Marxist presidential candidates. This effort focused on a propaganda program to alert the Chilean people to the dangers of a Marxist regime under Allende. A total of $425,000 was spent in this endeavor which was approved by the 40 Committee and was carried out in close coordination with Ambassador Korry in Chile and State Department officials in Washington.
A second Agency activity was conducted between 15 September 1970, after the popular plurality won by Allende, and before the election of Allende by the Congress on 24 October and his inauguration on 3 November. A total of $153,000 was spent in
it's highly unlikely many of the techie spoon-clangers actually run anything besides their mouths.
I think I've seen them running around as ACs on slashdot, pretending to be important.
Whereas I am not anonymous.
However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.
THAT is why the iPad will be a success.
People just don't understand what happiness is. They'll trade twenty or thirty hours of work for an iPad, but not take that time off to spend with family. And don't think the marketing departments aren't aware of this fact - that's why their job is to make you believe in their narrative and fantasies, by cramming your whole world full of lies and pretty pictures.
The iPad will be a huge success, though. Just like cigarettes, cheeseburgers, and reality television.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain
"Magical and revolutionary" I guess doesn't score high on your bullshitometer. Isn't it funny how people develop blinders for brand loyalty?
http://www.apple.com/ipad/
iPad
A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.
Starting at $499
a device with those specs and 3G would be receiving much more noise than, well... none
Well, clearly it's the wrong story. "Company releases new multi-touch tablet device with accelerometers and 3g capabilities." That thing fizzles at the gate.
"Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features. It will change the future of media and the planet, and it's glory will echo throughout eternity!" Send out the skin tight girl jeans, put on some popular music and a novel graphic overlay. Hey, you just made a billion dollars!
That's why you need marketing departments. They are depraved human beings, but someone has to polish the turds.