Ohhhhhh! You're right! Of course! Because every 13yo girl has their mobile phone number in the phone book. Twattering dumbass. Utter fuckwit. They got the number by blagging it from the phone company. It's the modus operandi. It's vile and illegal and just about acceptable if there's a strong public interest (ie exposing corruption) but it is not fucking acceptable to find the fucking phone number of a presumed teenage murder victim. Tosser.
I can't work out if you're being deliberately obtuse. The iPad has not just sold well because of slick marketing, which would be the implication of "they've only really succeeded in showing what the MARKETING for a tablet should be". You have also completely and utterly missed the point if you think that the marketing has been about the iPad being a "big phone" (or indeed a small, general purpose, computer"). The marketing has been about the iPad's ability to help customers with thousands of very specific tasks or desires. It has been benefits-focused, not feature-focused: "you can play music, read a book, watch TV, find an address, look at an x-ray, flick through your photos etc". The whole point about it has been that it makes doing those things super-super easy. And if you think that was a straightforward thing to do, and required no innovation, you need to spend more time with your dictionary, learning to distinguish between simple and simplistic.
Finally, this perception you have of business use is really really weird. I work for an organisation that has lots of very rich, very smart people at the top. They are all getting iPads, because it's easier for them to read and share info that way than on a laptop, which they all also have. The physicians I work with here in the UK are all also getting iPads, which they are using in consultations. So I think you're deluding yourself.
Do you come on every thread with a vaguely green theme and spew horseshit? In case you hadn't noticed, the US gov't has funded and fought wars to maintain stability of oil and other fossil fuel supplies. These wars cost a material percentage of the US's wealth, which is certainly not true for renewables. And of course, this type of subsidy is only one small part of how petrocompanies are subsidised.
Additionally, your point about tax cuts not being subsidies is fundamentally flawed. The issue is not what taxationis charged -- it is about whether there is a level playing field. For energy, there is certainly not.
Also, slightly weird to see you saying that *I'm* the one talking in absolute terms. Technically, it's you that's doing this -- you are making blanket statements about government monopolies and ignoring edge cases. I'm saying that the edge cases exist.
That was a really unfortunate analogy to make -- you have previously argued that taxes are different from other payments because of lack of choice, and now you cite electricity monopolies in aid of your argument!
As for the rest of what you say: many people can and do shift to low-tax jurisdictions. Fewer than 1% of a population, for sure, but still many tens of thousands of people, and usually rich people so the impact on tax takes is disproportionately high. So it's not something that is so rare that it effectively never happens, not by any means.
Eh? Just a reminder that you originally said "You also don't have a choice about which government to pay taxes to." I said you do. Now you say, it can be difficult to get that choice, and it may not be a very meaningful choice because taxation regimes may not differ that much. True, but it's not impossible, which is what you'd originally claimed, and it is some kind of a choice. You have to buy your food from somewhere too, and you may not have very many choices of outlets for that, either, and the variation between those may also be not materially significant.
So I don't see that you've made your case that government taxation is different in kind from other things we must pay for.
On the one hand, we have: Exxon, Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco, Total, Koch, Halliburton and literally dozens of other companies making billions of dollars of profit from oil.
On the other hand, we have: erm.... a few financial houses that are playing with carbon credits as a small fraction of what they do... and often also with a financial stake in oil too. Oh, and mighty Greenpeace. Mustn't forget them and their 3m euro surplus last year.
In case you hadn't noticed, Greenpeace is a *nonprofit*. It had a surplus of a mighty 3m euros in 2009, which went into its reserve fund because of course no money is paid out to shareholders. By contrast, 2009 was a shitty year for Exxon, which made only 20bn dollars of net income (that's profit to you, dipshit). That means they made the same amount of profit as Greenpeace's annual surplus about every two hours.
It's a good job we're talking about profits, isn't it? It's clear now that Greenpeace has *much* more financial skin in the game.
As for the notion that Greenpeace is financed by Exxon et al. What? I mean to say, what? Where on earth did you get that idea? This is the age of the interwebs, ya know. You could do a bit of fucking research before spilling bilge on your keyboard. You could provide evidence for outlandish claims.
I think you're absolutely right. That's why we have oil and other resource wars, costing billions of years. Because big oil has unwarranted influence over lawmakers, and lawmakers spend trillions sending troops off to die.
Why would you move to Canada if you wanted to cut your tax bill? You'd move to a low tax regime, of which there are plenty, and they aren't that fussy about taking you if you're rich. There are tens of thousands of such people living in Monaco, for example. The Caribbean is stuffed silly with them.
Hoo yeah. You stuck it to the man there. Who wants gummint paying scientists to research such alarmist things as water tables and weather patterns and fluid mechanics and oceanography and speciation and all those other stooopid sciencey subjects. We could just give the money back, instead. Only to rich people, obviously. Poor people are undeserving and don't pay any tax anyway.
Greenpeace global revenues in 2010: about 56m euros. Exxon just about pipped Greenpeace there, with an income of 311bn dollars in the same year. So clearly it is Greenpeace who is able to throw money around like billy-o and has an enormous financial stake in the outcome of this debate. Yes, that's absolutely clear.
You really are extraordinarily stupid if you can't understand the problem with this, aren't you? Have you never even heard of the commonplace saying "He who pays the piper calls the tune?"
And you are somewhat correct but not wholly correct.
You do indeed have a choice of government, which includes a choice over what taxation and what level of taxation. In the US, different state governments have different tax regimes. Outside the US, there are many, many other tax regimes to choose from...and lots of people do. The West Indies are full of tax exiles hiding money. It's even more blatant in Europe: Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Jersey, arguably London.
Spot on. I'm sure there are lots of people, like me, who are desperate to have as few boxes as possible, and wanting no-fiddle connectivity between everything, eg play an album from the laptop on the telly without a wire or the need to do anything more than turn both machines on.
"in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines" eh? gravity doesn't exist in space, then? only a *continuously powered* object can travel in a straight line in space.
Weird. You say "nope" but you don't go on to actually refute what I said, which is that corps must think about net costs, not gross costs, and will be willing to see cost A rise if cost B falls by a larger amount ("invest-to-save"). Instead you talk about cost A only ("lost weight due to stress"), ignoring cost B ("labour").
You then say "there's no such thing as a factory farm". That reminds me of a chemistry lecturer I had who used to get outraged about people talking about organic food, because they have appropriated his lovely term for carbon-based chemistry -- you seem to suffer the same delusion of control over the English language. You think the term is pejorative; I think the term is an apt description for chicken sheds with 10,000 birds in them or pig farms producing lakes of slurry etc.
Corps, of course, care more than most individual owners about wasting money. They are also aware that what they should care about is the *net waste*. If stopping workers from abusing pigs involves paying the workers decent money and having them work less hard, then it may be a net cost, despite the small saving of money in terms of unabused pigs who are fatter. After all, this is the basis for most decisions about factory farming in the first place: it makes the animals unhappy but it's cheaper to run.
Slashdot Mirror
Was being dumb and not reading between the lines that this is about support for the computer, not support for the iPhone
... they are the first to call for lynch mobs whenever covering crimes against childre
including the notorious time that they got a crowd sufficiently fired up to attack the office of a paediatrician....
Ohhhhhh! You're right! Of course! Because every 13yo girl has their mobile phone number in the phone book. Twattering dumbass. Utter fuckwit. They got the number by blagging it from the phone company. It's the modus operandi. It's vile and illegal and just about acceptable if there's a strong public interest (ie exposing corruption) but it is not fucking acceptable to find the fucking phone number of a presumed teenage murder victim. Tosser.
That is a truly elegant play on words
How do you do the FaceTime thing? How do you get to see the screen itself?
I can't work out if you're being deliberately obtuse. The iPad has not just sold well because of slick marketing, which would be the implication of "they've only really succeeded in showing what the MARKETING for a tablet should be". You have also completely and utterly missed the point if you think that the marketing has been about the iPad being a "big phone" (or indeed a small, general purpose, computer"). The marketing has been about the iPad's ability to help customers with thousands of very specific tasks or desires. It has been benefits-focused, not feature-focused: "you can play music, read a book, watch TV, find an address, look at an x-ray, flick through your photos etc". The whole point about it has been that it makes doing those things super-super easy. And if you think that was a straightforward thing to do, and required no innovation, you need to spend more time with your dictionary, learning to distinguish between simple and simplistic.
Finally, this perception you have of business use is really really weird. I work for an organisation that has lots of very rich, very smart people at the top. They are all getting iPads, because it's easier for them to read and share info that way than on a laptop, which they all also have. The physicians I work with here in the UK are all also getting iPads, which they are using in consultations. So I think you're deluding yourself.
Do you come on every thread with a vaguely green theme and spew horseshit? In case you hadn't noticed, the US gov't has funded and fought wars to maintain stability of oil and other fossil fuel supplies. These wars cost a material percentage of the US's wealth, which is certainly not true for renewables. And of course, this type of subsidy is only one small part of how petrocompanies are subsidised.
Additionally, your point about tax cuts not being subsidies is fundamentally flawed. The issue is not what taxationis charged -- it is about whether there is a level playing field. For energy, there is certainly not.
Also, slightly weird to see you saying that *I'm* the one talking in absolute terms. Technically, it's you that's doing this -- you are making blanket statements about government monopolies and ignoring edge cases. I'm saying that the edge cases exist.
That was a really unfortunate analogy to make -- you have previously argued that taxes are different from other payments because of lack of choice, and now you cite electricity monopolies in aid of your argument!
As for the rest of what you say: many people can and do shift to low-tax jurisdictions. Fewer than 1% of a population, for sure, but still many tens of thousands of people, and usually rich people so the impact on tax takes is disproportionately high. So it's not something that is so rare that it effectively never happens, not by any means.
Eh? Just a reminder that you originally said "You also don't have a choice about which government to pay taxes to." I said you do. Now you say, it can be difficult to get that choice, and it may not be a very meaningful choice because taxation regimes may not differ that much. True, but it's not impossible, which is what you'd originally claimed, and it is some kind of a choice. You have to buy your food from somewhere too, and you may not have very many choices of outlets for that, either, and the variation between those may also be not materially significant.
So I don't see that you've made your case that government taxation is different in kind from other things we must pay for.
Ooops, was being a dumbass and not reading what you wrote carefully enough. Yes, spot on. "Tax is for the little people" and all that....
I was being sarcastic. Sheesh.
Hmmm, let's have a think about this.
On the one hand, we have: Exxon, Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco, Total, Koch, Halliburton and literally dozens of other companies making billions of dollars of profit from oil.
On the other hand, we have: erm.... a few financial houses that are playing with carbon credits as a small fraction of what they do... and often also with a financial stake in oil too. Oh, and mighty Greenpeace. Mustn't forget them and their 3m euro surplus last year.
Yep, the interests are equally balanced there.
Oh, that is an absolutely priceless rejoinder.
In case you hadn't noticed, Greenpeace is a *nonprofit*. It had a surplus of a mighty 3m euros in 2009, which went into its reserve fund because of course no money is paid out to shareholders. By contrast, 2009 was a shitty year for Exxon, which made only 20bn dollars of net income (that's profit to you, dipshit). That means they made the same amount of profit as Greenpeace's annual surplus about every two hours.
It's a good job we're talking about profits, isn't it? It's clear now that Greenpeace has *much* more financial skin in the game.
As for the notion that Greenpeace is financed by Exxon et al. What? I mean to say, what? Where on earth did you get that idea? This is the age of the interwebs, ya know. You could do a bit of fucking research before spilling bilge on your keyboard. You could provide evidence for outlandish claims.
I think you're absolutely right. That's why we have oil and other resource wars, costing billions of years. Because big oil has unwarranted influence over lawmakers, and lawmakers spend trillions sending troops off to die.
Why would you move to Canada if you wanted to cut your tax bill? You'd move to a low tax regime, of which there are plenty, and they aren't that fussy about taking you if you're rich. There are tens of thousands of such people living in Monaco, for example. The Caribbean is stuffed silly with them.
What an absolute pile of twattery. If funding and other biases didn't matter in science, there'd have been no need for the double-blind RCT.
Hoo yeah. You stuck it to the man there. Who wants gummint paying scientists to research such alarmist things as water tables and weather patterns and fluid mechanics and oceanography and speciation and all those other stooopid sciencey subjects. We could just give the money back, instead. Only to rich people, obviously. Poor people are undeserving and don't pay any tax anyway.
What *is it* with fuckwits like you?
Greenpeace global revenues in 2010: about 56m euros. Exxon just about pipped Greenpeace there, with an income of 311bn dollars in the same year. So clearly it is Greenpeace who is able to throw money around like billy-o and has an enormous financial stake in the outcome of this debate. Yes, that's absolutely clear.
You really are extraordinarily stupid if you can't understand the problem with this, aren't you? Have you never even heard of the commonplace saying "He who pays the piper calls the tune?"
And you are somewhat correct but not wholly correct.
You do indeed have a choice of government, which includes a choice over what taxation and what level of taxation. In the US, different state governments have different tax regimes. Outside the US, there are many, many other tax regimes to choose from...and lots of people do. The West Indies are full of tax exiles hiding money. It's even more blatant in Europe: Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Jersey, arguably London.
Spot on. I'm sure there are lots of people, like me, who are desperate to have as few boxes as possible, and wanting no-fiddle connectivity between everything, eg play an album from the laptop on the telly without a wire or the need to do anything more than turn both machines on.
"in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines"
eh? gravity doesn't exist in space, then?
only a *continuously powered* object can travel in a straight line in space.
don't people read hard SF any more?
Weird. You say "nope" but you don't go on to actually refute what I said, which is that corps must think about net costs, not gross costs, and will be willing to see cost A rise if cost B falls by a larger amount ("invest-to-save"). Instead you talk about cost A only ("lost weight due to stress"), ignoring cost B ("labour").
You then say "there's no such thing as a factory farm". That reminds me of a chemistry lecturer I had who used to get outraged about people talking about organic food, because they have appropriated his lovely term for carbon-based chemistry -- you seem to suffer the same delusion of control over the English language. You think the term is pejorative; I think the term is an apt description for chicken sheds with 10,000 birds in them or pig farms producing lakes of slurry etc.
Corps, of course, care more than most individual owners about wasting money. They are also aware that what they should care about is the *net waste*. If stopping workers from abusing pigs involves paying the workers decent money and having them work less hard, then it may be a net cost, despite the small saving of money in terms of unabused pigs who are fatter. After all, this is the basis for most decisions about factory farming in the first place: it makes the animals unhappy but it's cheaper to run.