Just as America predicted before Sputnik that the USSR would be incapable of going into space before it (and was wrong), it seems that the OP is making the same mistake.
They're not pissed about some faceless banker doing something stupid and having the government bail him out. * They're pissed because after years of studying they have tons of debt piled on with a nearly-meaningless degree to show for it. And yes Jimmy, there are too many Psych, Media Relations, etc. majors out there earned from over-priced colleges that don't do much other than pile on debt on young people while deluding them with moronic theories rather than give them skills to better survive and prosper in the new world (Ivory Towers of leftists academics are so much different from what you would expect from your boss in a real job). * They're pissed about the fact that they see their corporate and government entitlements vanish after electing the crooks to power that outsourced this country's industrial base to Mexico, China, etc.
Oh, did I mention that NAFTA flooded the Mexican market with cheap grain/corn thereby forcing millions of Mexicans head north and depress the price of labor? I didn't? * They're pissed about something different and are simply hogging the media coverage. * They have nothing to do.
Now, if you really want to do something, do the following (yes, you'll have to call your Congress rep and yell at them, loudly and often). * Put a cap on how much a college can charge for tuition (with and without * Bring back the post-Depression banking laws that *clearly* separated investment banking from personal banking. Anyone remember these? * Kill NAFTA, CAFTA and other absurdities. Because lets face, free trade isn't exactly some sort of universal leveling trade-barriers. It's a backhanded form of protectionism and economic imperialism. * Kill farm subsidies. * Reform the tax code to increase taxes on those that make more. Jimmy, did you know that during the 50's we've had taxes over 50% and we were less socialist than we are now? No? Well Jimmy, you're a retard, for not paying attention in history class, just like millions of your red-blooded American country men. Getting behind Obama/Perry/Pelosi/Bachmann/other moron and waving the American flag doesn't make you a patriot, it makes you and ideologue. * Reform the tax code to promote industrial growth and industrial exports. Mercantilism, people did it because it *gasp* worked. * Develop a national vision of where you want to be in 20 years, no, not 20 seconds, but actual years. * Scale back military involvement around the globe. * Develop fuels that you can easily, cheaply and frequently replenish.
But in all honesty, I wasn't born in America. The politics is interesting, if quite often bordering on insanity. Good luck in the next 89 years!
Indeed! There was a time when you made decisions and slept in the bed that you made (although we're not at a point where we have completely abandoned these values.)
However, there are other factors. Such as the fact that subsidies (there was also a time when these did not exist and everyone who got into a business was expected to make or lose depending on the market) do in fact shift prices unfairly. Subsidizing corn and soy makes certain products cheaper than others, making these alternatives more attractive to healthier options (we humans will often go for what's most satisfactory in the short-term, heart disease doesn't seem too terribly gruesome and quick way to go.) This is especially the case for those that are poorer (not to blame those folks, but when money is tight, you tend to go for the stuff that will give you more bang for buck, which is why wealthier people tend to have better nutrition.)
Baby carrots are even more awesome. Even better is when you walk that 2.2 miles to and from the store with your backpack carrying a pound or two of those suckers and then munch on them while reading slashdot or playing games.
When was the last time you've seen a family in this country? People are having shorter life-spans, but not because we don't have enough chow. Furthermore, if climate change really does happen that critically affects our food supply, you're just doomed irrespective of how much you produce.
Now, if you want to stock-pile food for a catastrophe, then that's a different story. But then, instead of subsidizing, you could just buy it, driving up prices and demand and yes, people will produce in order to meet the demand.
I would like to add that in order to power our cars using ethanol, we'll need to clear large quantities of land in order to grow all of that stuff. This means we will clear forests and threaten even more environmental habitats (we've already done one of the worst mis allocations of resources in this country by moving into suburbia, lets not do something equally moronic.)
By contrast, fruits and vegetables are considered "specialty crops" by Congress and ineligible for subsidies. The price of produce has continued to rise.
"We need to create an environment where it's easy to eat healthy. Right now, if price is your chief concern, the rational choice is to eat crappy food," says Dr. David Wallinga, director of the food and health program for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.
And as Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," has written, farm subsidies contribute to obesity, rising healthcare costs and early death by subsidizing corn and soy (from which sugars and fats are derived) rather than healthier fruits and vegetables.
Hmm, interesting. I've never heard of this, but am open minded enough to look at it (I've heard the exact opposite based on what I've read.)
Still, this might be a good thing in the long run, even if the bonus or reduced obese people is measured in a few percentiles.
I dunno...
The obese *do* have greater rates of illness. However, if there is a particularly bad flu season, even if you're an Olympian, you're not guaranteed to be save.
Err... lets not do either. Look at Brazil's sugar cane farms and see how many piss-poor agricultural workers are needed to make your ego-pleasing 'green' utopia.
http://www.grist.org/article/slave-ethanol/
I want a nuclear reactor in my back yard (the French deserve accolades for doing this) and a car that I can charge at night (gimme a range of over 300 miles while I have the AC on full blast and not driving 'optimally'.)
Makes you wonder just how much this nations spends annually on corn and soy subsidies and just how much we will pay in the future as more and more people become sickly due to the low price of the poor nutrition that they are often offered.
What if we got rid of those agricultural subsidies? How will that affect the cost of McDonalds', Wendys', etc. foods?
Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities.
It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.
I'd say Python.
I grew up on C++ and Java. VB.NET was the next step. At the moment I'm infatuated with Erlang. I've dabbled in Python, but ever since I discovered Erlang I dropped it.
Python is a nice way to start things off. It's very powerful and yet very easy to build simple applications. It's great to learn new stuff in and has plenty of reference material online and in stores.
I'd recommend you pick something up that teaches you about parallel processing (Erlang or just general message queuing systems.) The reason being is that with even more cores, this will be the next big problem to overcome (on a daily basis) in computing.
Slashdot Mirror
Just as America predicted before Sputnik that the USSR would be incapable of going into space before it (and was wrong), it seems that the OP is making the same mistake.
Morons. Goddamn morons.
They're not pissed about some faceless banker doing something stupid and having the government bail him out.
* They're pissed because after years of studying they have tons of debt piled on with a nearly-meaningless degree to show for it. And yes Jimmy, there are too many Psych, Media Relations, etc. majors out there earned from over-priced colleges that don't do much other than pile on debt on young people while deluding them with moronic theories rather than give them skills to better survive and prosper in the new world (Ivory Towers of leftists academics are so much different from what you would expect from your boss in a real job).
* They're pissed about the fact that they see their corporate and government entitlements vanish after electing the crooks to power that outsourced this country's industrial base to Mexico, China, etc.
Oh, did I mention that NAFTA flooded the Mexican market with cheap grain/corn thereby forcing millions of Mexicans head north and depress the price of labor? I didn't?
* They're pissed about something different and are simply hogging the media coverage.
* They have nothing to do.
Now, if you really want to do something, do the following (yes, you'll have to call your Congress rep and yell at them, loudly and often).
* Put a cap on how much a college can charge for tuition (with and without
* Bring back the post-Depression banking laws that *clearly* separated investment banking from personal banking. Anyone remember these?
* Kill NAFTA, CAFTA and other absurdities. Because lets face, free trade isn't exactly some sort of universal leveling trade-barriers. It's a backhanded form of protectionism and economic imperialism.
* Kill farm subsidies.
* Reform the tax code to increase taxes on those that make more. Jimmy, did you know that during the 50's we've had taxes over 50% and we were less socialist than we are now? No? Well Jimmy, you're a retard, for not paying attention in history class, just like millions of your red-blooded American country men. Getting behind Obama/Perry/Pelosi/Bachmann/other moron and waving the American flag doesn't make you a patriot, it makes you and ideologue.
* Reform the tax code to promote industrial growth and industrial exports. Mercantilism, people did it because it *gasp* worked.
* Develop a national vision of where you want to be in 20 years, no, not 20 seconds, but actual years.
* Scale back military involvement around the globe.
* Develop fuels that you can easily, cheaply and frequently replenish.
But in all honesty, I wasn't born in America. The politics is interesting, if quite often bordering on insanity. Good luck in the next 89 years!
Your job has what? Where do you work?
... yes. What about them? If some lose business since their products are now more expensive and fewer purchase them, then so be it.
Indeed! There was a time when you made decisions and slept in the bed that you made (although we're not at a point where we have completely abandoned these values.)
However, there are other factors. Such as the fact that subsidies (there was also a time when these did not exist and everyone who got into a business was expected to make or lose depending on the market) do in fact shift prices unfairly. Subsidizing corn and soy makes certain products cheaper than others, making these alternatives more attractive to healthier options (we humans will often go for what's most satisfactory in the short-term, heart disease doesn't seem too terribly gruesome and quick way to go.) This is especially the case for those that are poorer (not to blame those folks, but when money is tight, you tend to go for the stuff that will give you more bang for buck, which is why wealthier people tend to have better nutrition.)
Not really. The US actually exports food.
If you can't control your cravings, then by definition that's a self-control problem.
Baby carrots are even more awesome. Even better is when you walk that 2.2 miles to and from the store with your backpack carrying a pound or two of those suckers and then munch on them while reading slashdot or playing games.
family = famine
Ooops.
When was the last time you've seen a family in this country? People are having shorter life-spans, but not because we don't have enough chow. Furthermore, if climate change really does happen that critically affects our food supply, you're just doomed irrespective of how much you produce.
Now, if you want to stock-pile food for a catastrophe, then that's a different story. But then, instead of subsidizing, you could just buy it, driving up prices and demand and yes, people will produce in order to meet the demand.
I would like to add that in order to power our cars using ethanol, we'll need to clear large quantities of land in order to grow all of that stuff. This means we will clear forests and threaten even more environmental habitats (we've already done one of the worst mis allocations of resources in this country by moving into suburbia, lets not do something equally moronic.)
By contrast, fruits and vegetables are considered "specialty crops" by Congress and ineligible for subsidies. The price of produce has continued to rise.
"We need to create an environment where it's easy to eat healthy. Right now, if price is your chief concern, the rational choice is to eat crappy food," says Dr. David Wallinga, director of the food and health program for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/07/farm-bill-will-shape-what-we-eat.html
=====================
And as Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," has written, farm subsidies contribute to obesity, rising healthcare costs and early death by subsidizing corn and soy (from which sugars and fats are derived) rather than healthier fruits and vegetables.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/opinion/oe-riedl24?pg=1
Hmm, interesting. I've never heard of this, but am open minded enough to look at it (I've heard the exact opposite based on what I've read.) Still, this might be a good thing in the long run, even if the bonus or reduced obese people is measured in a few percentiles.
Yeh and big agriculture is the new Osama.
I dunno... The obese *do* have greater rates of illness. However, if there is a particularly bad flu season, even if you're an Olympian, you're not guaranteed to be save.
Err... lets not do either. Look at Brazil's sugar cane farms and see how many piss-poor agricultural workers are needed to make your ego-pleasing 'green' utopia. http://www.grist.org/article/slave-ethanol/ I want a nuclear reactor in my back yard (the French deserve accolades for doing this) and a car that I can charge at night (gimme a range of over 300 miles while I have the AC on full blast and not driving 'optimally'.)
Makes you wonder just how much this nations spends annually on corn and soy subsidies and just how much we will pay in the future as more and more people become sickly due to the low price of the poor nutrition that they are often offered. What if we got rid of those agricultural subsidies? How will that affect the cost of McDonalds', Wendys', etc. foods?
I *ROFLed*. /i got my ticket to hell looooooooooooong ago
Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.
I'd say Python. I grew up on C++ and Java. VB .NET was the next step. At the moment I'm infatuated with Erlang. I've dabbled in Python, but ever since I discovered Erlang I dropped it.
Python is a nice way to start things off. It's very powerful and yet very easy to build simple applications. It's great to learn new stuff in and has plenty of reference material online and in stores.
I'd recommend you pick something up that teaches you about parallel processing (Erlang or just general message queuing systems.) The reason being is that with even more cores, this will be the next big problem to overcome (on a daily basis) in computing.