To a corporate state sick adults represent a loss of investment,
Not if those sick adults have bank accounts stuffed with cash (like retirement funds).
Then those sick adults are *customers* for costly treatment of their symptoms (not cures for the underlying cause, of course, silly).
Just factor in the brib- er, "campaign contributions" for lawsuit bann- er, "tort reform", and officials looking the other wa- er, "deregulation", and you've got a recipie for: 5) PROFIT!!!!
2. Name one so called "unpleasant truth" that Hubble has revealed. Heck name one "truth" that the Hubble project has persisted in revealing
Every single time Hubble images an object more than 5000 light years away, it PROVES that God did not create the universe 5000 years ago. There are arguments to support this, of course, but none of them form any basis in scripture. The most logical argument, of course, presented pretty much unanimously by Biblical Scholars, is that the absolute accuracy in the depiction of time-periods as documented in the Bible, has been lost to translation or antiquity (take your pick - since ancient Hebrew is, effectively a dead language, though it bears a striking resemblence to modern Hebrew - ancient Hebrew, particularly when dealing with numerical concepts that didn't exist in that time-period, is open for interpretation).
Thus proving Scriptural Inerrency false, Humanity benefits by eliminating the Fundamentalist Religious Forces that have held our race back with ignorance, bigotry, and endless conflict.
And the great thing is - we can all, as individuals, still Love God. If we want to. We just won't be compelled by scripture to hate and war with eachother anymore.
1. Name one discovery that Hubble has made that has benefited humanity or has the potential to in the next 300 hundred years.
By imaging worlds around other planets, Humanity may one day be compelled to try visiting one. Could this be beneficial? I dunno, ask the dead spirit of Christopher Columbus.
By gathering the data used to demonstrate universal expansion, we may one day solve the puzzle of so-called "dark matter" and it's relationship to gravity and expansion of the universe, which might lead to the technical mastery of the Gravitational Force itself. Mastery of the Gravitational Force would have astounding implications for all areas of transportation. To say the least.
"Small Government" Free Market Conservatives are diametrically at odds with the "Pro Morality" Christian Fundamentalist Conservatives.
I'm personally sure that MONEY (Content Morality Deregulation) will win-out in the end. But sooner or later, this conflict is going to have to play out to resolution within the Republican Party. There's only so many Big Lies you can throw at two diametrically opposed ideologies. And the Repubs don't have the Dems to blame for it anymore. Guess who's in power now? Guess who's made themselves a big ol shit sandwich they're gonna have to take a bite of?
Convert NASA into an ideological penis-length enhancement tool for the US.
Cease funding of all activities which: 1. lead to science that lends credibility to the fact the the earth/universe is more than 5000 years old (ie. Hubble).
2. lead to science that proves anthropogenic global warming (NOAA and other weather-type science satellites and probes).
Nope. Can't have any of that. We're going to MARS, bitches. Before the Reds do it!
Grammar/Spelling. Go look at your typical bulletin board (I don't count/. as such). People's grammar, punctuation & spelling has gone to hell. My own has certainly declined over the years since leaving college, but some of the spelling I've seen and sentences -- or should I say non-sentences -- are just horrible.
My wife has found at least one example; a hardcover book about Peter Pan by Dave Barry (and some other hack). Targeted at children - she has found at least one grammatical or typographical error PER PAGE. And she's dyslexic (perhaps more sensitive to these kinds of things, because she HAS to be to keep her own communication in-line).
So you can't assume that all books are going to necessarily teach good spelling and grammar to kids. Sometimes, apparently, publishers find it's cheaper to outsource the proofreading to non-english-speakers.
(on the other hand, maybe this book has served as an excercise to sharpen my wife's proofreading skills?)
While there may be a grain of truth to some of what you say (WRT his INTEGRITY as a scientist; having retracted a theory or two, or having peers shoot them down - NOT about his not being smart) - overall, your post was WAY harsh, and uncalled for.
Okay, first you liberal secular darwinists are trying to cheat me out of my God Given Right to drive a 4mpg 15-ton truck to the end of my driveway to pick up my mail by spreading lies and disinformation about your ridiculous Global Warming Theory.
Now you're trying to trick me into saddling our best and brightest Ultra-Wealthy Enterpreneurs with burdensome and privacy-invading taxation so that elite liberal "scientists" can spend the next 5 billion years milking the system for "research" funds trying to prove Universal Cooling Theory is real, and once again, you'll probably try to pass more laws against my beloved truck to either stop Universal Cooling, or come up with some cockamamie scheme to escape God's Just Wrath on this Universe of Lying Liberal Sinning Scum.
What *IS* it with you damn liberal communists and my truck anyway? Why is your masculinity threatened and impugned every time I pass your puny Geo Metros doing 55 balls out on the freeway? Live and let live, man! Get a cowboy hat and chew some tobacco for God's sake!
You stand back, and laugh like a monkey at the SUCKER who trusted his livelyhood to cheap, outside help.
The lesson to be learned from outsourcing: If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want something done cheap, then ask yourself if you REALLY want it done right.
It was Michael Powell's doing. He claims he got 100 million email messages complaining about the unobscured version. (never mind that 99 million 999 thousand 995 of those had the same From: address.)
Moron. Please throw out some examples of rightwing policy that caused these huge body counts. The simple fact is that the Left has far out-murdered the right in the last century.
Moron, please show where I said "the right". I said "rightwing EXTREMISTS" (emphasized for emphasis on the extremists). Also show where I said ANYTHING about policy.
Also, please cite where I make an issue of left vs right body-count pissing contests.
In this case, I'm talking more precisely about nationalist or totalitarian leanings (or propensity for rightwingers to use nationalism as a tool to manipulate popular opinion in their favor) - examples: Hitler, Pinochet, but yes, even Stalin, etc - but in this context, Stalin, though his policies were of the Leftist sort, his motivational propaganda was very similar to nationalism, and therefore, very rightwing in nature. (even though his policy was opposite of current US conservative policy, his tactics were Authoritarian). Same with your other "communist" examples.
The movement starts with the inevitable: "oh, those people in that other country are a threat to us, because their politics/religion/skin-color is different." leads to "we have to DO something to stop this threat" leads to large numbers of bodies. Along the way they do things like, reward their cronies with huge government contracts (What Hitler did for BMW isn't much different from what Stalin did for MiG, or Bush for Halliburton for that matter), spout fearmongering propaganda ("Jews covertly run our banks" - "Religion enslaves the masses" - "Support our troops or you're a Terrorist" - "say 'Under God' or you're a commie"). . . to get their base of support fired up, and the result quite often is cities in rubble (Berlin, Stalingrad, Fallujah), bodies stacked like cordwood.
It's not really AT ALL about policy. Not at all. It's about blind loyalty to authority who are always happy to abuse it. In the US, our Founding Fathers enshrined civil liberties for this reason. We were all to happy to hand those Essential Liberties over when we got worried about Security. That's how it starts. Now we have detainees being treated in a manner inconsistent with our ideals. Inconsistent with our Constitution. We have folks in the media spouting fear over encroaching communism in places like France and Sweden. And other folks in the media taking money under the table from the gummint.
Go ahead, and keep deluding yourself that "It Can't Happen Here."
We should be reaching out to Europe as allies. Not recoiling in fear and sharpening our fangs.
Loading a 747 already takes forever. I wish that they'd do what they do in disney. Line everybody up outside in order by seat, and have them go in order, window seats first.
That'd be nice too - but you're not going to EVER see an airline split up a family consisting of a father, mother, and 5 year old kid, so that they can board A B C seats more efficiently.
Boeing believes that more people want non-stop service between their regional airports, rather than having to fly to a hub, transfer, and then fly somewhere else.
I think they're largely correct in this. But I still think the 7E7 is too big for this purpose.
In the years where they were still doing Zeppelins, there were MANY tragic accidents. I'm not talking about the Hindenberg. They are VERY sensitive to weather. Technology doesn't really change that.
We (the species) need to slow-down and make better use of the technology we have.
Time is money. Money is food. Slowing down is death. Any questions?
On the way back I had been pre-warned that the queues at LAX for security were horendous and they were. It came out of the door and went down the whole length of the terminal.
The cure for this; If you live sufficiently far from a major airport (50+ miles), book your flight from your closer regional airport instead. Bite the bullet on the connection, and skip the long security queue. Takes about the same amount of time, but instead of waiting in that long line, you spend your time in the terminal reading, sleeping, or ogling hot stewardesses.
The efficiency gain here is miniscule. When peak oil kicks in, there will be so few people who can afford to fly that planes this size will be irrelevant.
Many of your points - the US-side of them, isn't real. It's manufactured propaganda.
Do you think more than 5% of Americans are really dumb enough to ask for "Freedom Fries" at McDonalds?
The Airbus/Boeing rivalry is somewhat silly - but when you look at what it implies: That Boeing has trouble competing in a global market with Airbus. . . "therefore, we must allow Boeing to merge and merge with competitors until it's big enough" - - and soon, there's no more competition in the domestic commercial aerospace industry.
All this is is irrational justification for deregulation, and corporate welfare. And irrational justification for worse things...
I agree, there IS a conflict brewing. But about 90% of it is manufactured propaganda by rightwing extremists in the US. Fearmongering by people who are afraid, or whose grip on reality is tenuous at best to begin with. These are the same people who pulled the strings within the Reagan Administration to forestall our conversion to the Metric system.
Your contention that it adds up to something quite interesting over the next 20-50 years is an understatement. When the rightwing extremists get their way, the outcome is almost always a 6+ figure bodycount. In this case, probably an 8 or 9-figure bodycount.
he fact is, that the two companies merged. With any successful merger the outcome is that overall costs are cut, otherwise what is the point?
Eliminate competition.
A point that most "lazzez faire capitalists" seem to miss.
A *SUCCESSFUL* merger is a purchase of a "good" company, with skilled employees. Such employees can adapt to the new corporate structure, via the guidance of competent management, to remain productive, and not redundant. Unfortunately, such companies are difficult to find, and they are not convenient merger targets, because, more likely than not, they're already doing well on their own thankyouverymuch. Layoffs after such mergers, are usually kept to a minimum.
A *TAKEOVER* merger, is a purchase of another company, and dismantling of it's resources, purely to deprive the market of competition. It costs the buyer a lot of money up front, because they're usually buying an essentially worthless peice of junk, in order to euthanize it. Or, in cases where they're buying a company that's not totally worthless, it soon will be. The only benefit to the purchaser is the destruction of a competitor.
Very few arguments on abolishing patents altogether.
Especially since they're in the Constitution.
But maybe we should roll patent law back to where it was in the constitution.
In order to get a patent the following criteria must be met: 1. It MUST Promote a "useful" Art or Science. Determination of this is entirely independent of any concern towards profitability or ROI. 2. It MUST be for a limited time. 7 years. No longer. Then revert to the Public Domain.
The expansion and encroachment that has happened since the original Patent law, is nothing more than Corporate Welfare.
*sigh* \ You know damn well that if the tax structure were changed like this, then everyone would unload assets, the market would de-value them, and the cronyism that causes wealth to accumulate in the form of assets today, would just adapt and suck up all the high-paying jobs (which, frankly, it's already doing, if you consider the CEO/Corporate Boardsman circle-jerk).
It won't change the fact that when people don't have to answer to anybody - they won't.
Slashdot Mirror
To a corporate state sick adults represent a loss of investment,
Not if those sick adults have bank accounts stuffed with cash (like retirement funds).
Then those sick adults are *customers* for costly treatment of their symptoms (not cures for the underlying cause, of course, silly).
Just factor in the brib- er, "campaign contributions" for lawsuit bann- er, "tort reform", and officials looking the other wa- er, "deregulation", and you've got a recipie for: 5) PROFIT!!!!
From the well-known (on the Internet) "too much time on their hands" category. . .
2. Name one so called "unpleasant truth" that Hubble has revealed. Heck name one "truth" that the Hubble project has persisted in revealing
Every single time Hubble images an object more than 5000 light years away, it PROVES that God did not create the universe 5000 years ago. There are arguments to support this, of course, but none of them form any basis in scripture. The most logical argument, of course, presented pretty much unanimously by Biblical Scholars, is that the absolute accuracy in the depiction of time-periods as documented in the Bible, has been lost to translation or antiquity (take your pick - since ancient Hebrew is, effectively a dead language, though it bears a striking resemblence to modern Hebrew - ancient Hebrew, particularly when dealing with numerical concepts that didn't exist in that time-period, is open for interpretation).
Thus proving Scriptural Inerrency false, Humanity benefits by eliminating the Fundamentalist Religious Forces that have held our race back with ignorance, bigotry, and endless conflict.
And the great thing is - we can all, as individuals, still Love God. If we want to. We just won't be compelled by scripture to hate and war with eachother anymore.
1. Name one discovery that Hubble has made that has benefited humanity or has the potential to in the next 300 hundred years.
By imaging worlds around other planets, Humanity may one day be compelled to try visiting one. Could this be beneficial? I dunno, ask the dead spirit of Christopher Columbus.
By gathering the data used to demonstrate universal expansion, we may one day solve the puzzle of so-called "dark matter" and it's relationship to gravity and expansion of the universe, which might lead to the technical mastery of the Gravitational Force itself. Mastery of the Gravitational Force would have astounding implications for all areas of transportation. To say the least.
"Small Government" Free Market Conservatives are diametrically at odds with the "Pro Morality" Christian Fundamentalist Conservatives.
I'm personally sure that MONEY (Content Morality Deregulation) will win-out in the end. But sooner or later, this conflict is going to have to play out to resolution within the Republican Party. There's only so many Big Lies you can throw at two diametrically opposed ideologies. And the Repubs don't have the Dems to blame for it anymore. Guess who's in power now? Guess who's made themselves a big ol shit sandwich they're gonna have to take a bite of?
Convert NASA into an ideological penis-length enhancement tool for the US.
Cease funding of all activities which:
1. lead to science that lends credibility to the fact the the earth/universe is more than 5000 years old (ie. Hubble).
2. lead to science that proves anthropogenic global warming (NOAA and other weather-type science satellites and probes).
Nope. Can't have any of that. We're going to MARS, bitches. Before the Reds do it!
Grammar/Spelling. Go look at your typical bulletin board (I don't count /. as such). People's grammar, punctuation & spelling has gone to hell. My own has certainly declined over the years since leaving college, but some of the spelling I've seen and sentences -- or should I say non-sentences -- are just horrible.
My wife has found at least one example; a hardcover book about Peter Pan by Dave Barry (and some other hack). Targeted at children - she has found at least one grammatical or typographical error PER PAGE. And she's dyslexic (perhaps more sensitive to these kinds of things, because she HAS to be to keep her own communication in-line).
So you can't assume that all books are going to necessarily teach good spelling and grammar to kids. Sometimes, apparently, publishers find it's cheaper to outsource the proofreading to non-english-speakers.
(on the other hand, maybe this book has served as an excercise to sharpen my wife's proofreading skills?)
While there may be a grain of truth to some of what you say (WRT his INTEGRITY as a scientist; having retracted a theory or two, or having peers shoot them down - NOT about his not being smart) - overall, your post was WAY harsh, and uncalled for.
You lout.
Okay, first you liberal secular darwinists are trying to cheat me out of my God Given Right to drive a 4mpg 15-ton truck to the end of my driveway to pick up my mail by spreading lies and disinformation about your ridiculous Global Warming Theory.
Now you're trying to trick me into saddling our best and brightest Ultra-Wealthy Enterpreneurs with burdensome and privacy-invading taxation so that elite liberal "scientists" can spend the next 5 billion years milking the system for "research" funds trying to prove Universal Cooling Theory is real, and once again, you'll probably try to pass more laws against my beloved truck to either stop Universal Cooling, or come up with some cockamamie scheme to escape God's Just Wrath on this Universe of Lying Liberal Sinning Scum.
What *IS* it with you damn liberal communists and my truck anyway? Why is your masculinity threatened and impugned every time I pass your puny Geo Metros doing 55 balls out on the freeway? Live and let live, man! Get a cowboy hat and chew some tobacco for God's sake!
Can stuff like Apple's ColorSync software effectively correct for and calibrate against such shortcomings?
You stand back, and laugh like a monkey at the SUCKER who trusted his livelyhood to cheap, outside help.
The lesson to be learned from outsourcing:
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
If you want something done cheap, then ask yourself if you REALLY want it done right.
"Never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity"?
I don't see why we should be giving the maliciously stupid a free ride.
whether or not that was on purpose we don't know
It was Michael Powell's doing.
He claims he got 100 million email messages complaining about the unobscured version.
(never mind that 99 million 999 thousand 995 of those had the same From: address.)
Moron. Please throw out some examples of rightwing policy that caused these huge body counts. The simple fact is that the Left has far out-murdered the right in the last century.
Moron, please show where I said "the right". I said "rightwing EXTREMISTS" (emphasized for emphasis on the extremists). Also show where I said ANYTHING about policy.
Also, please cite where I make an issue of left vs right body-count pissing contests.
In this case, I'm talking more precisely about nationalist or totalitarian leanings (or propensity for rightwingers to use nationalism as a tool to manipulate popular opinion in their favor) - examples: Hitler, Pinochet, but yes, even Stalin, etc - but in this context, Stalin, though his policies were of the Leftist sort, his motivational propaganda was very similar to nationalism, and therefore, very rightwing in nature. (even though his policy was opposite of current US conservative policy, his tactics were Authoritarian). Same with your other "communist" examples.
The movement starts with the inevitable: "oh, those people in that other country are a threat to us, because their politics/religion/skin-color is different." leads to "we have to DO something to stop this threat" leads to large numbers of bodies.
Along the way they do things like, reward their cronies with huge government contracts (What Hitler did for BMW isn't much different from what Stalin did for MiG, or Bush for Halliburton for that matter), spout fearmongering propaganda ("Jews covertly run our banks" - "Religion enslaves the masses" - "Support our troops or you're a Terrorist" - "say 'Under God' or you're a commie"). . . to get their base of support fired up, and the result quite often is cities in rubble (Berlin, Stalingrad, Fallujah), bodies stacked like cordwood.
It's not really AT ALL about policy. Not at all. It's about blind loyalty to authority who are always happy to abuse it. In the US, our Founding Fathers enshrined civil liberties for this reason. We were all to happy to hand those Essential Liberties over when we got worried about Security. That's how it starts.
Now we have detainees being treated in a manner inconsistent with our ideals. Inconsistent with our Constitution. We have folks in the media spouting fear over encroaching communism in places like France and Sweden. And other folks in the media taking money under the table from the gummint.
Go ahead, and keep deluding yourself that "It Can't Happen Here."
We should be reaching out to Europe as allies. Not recoiling in fear and sharpening our fangs.
Loading a 747 already takes forever. I wish that they'd do what they do in disney. Line everybody up outside in order by seat, and have them go in order, window seats first.
That'd be nice too - but you're not going to EVER see an airline split up a family consisting of a father, mother, and 5 year old kid, so that they can board A B C seats more efficiently.
Boeing believes that more people want non-stop service between their regional airports, rather than having to fly to a hub, transfer, and then fly somewhere else.
I think they're largely correct in this.
But I still think the 7E7 is too big for this purpose.
In the years where they were still doing Zeppelins, there were MANY tragic accidents. I'm not talking about the Hindenberg. They are VERY sensitive to weather. Technology doesn't really change that.
We (the species) need to slow-down and make better use of the technology we have.
Time is money. Money is food. Slowing down is death. Any questions?
On the way back I had been pre-warned that the queues at LAX for security were horendous and they were. It came out of the door and went down the whole length of the terminal.
The cure for this;
If you live sufficiently far from a major airport (50+ miles), book your flight from your closer regional airport instead. Bite the bullet on the connection, and skip the long security queue. Takes about the same amount of time, but instead of waiting in that long line, you spend your time in the terminal reading, sleeping, or ogling hot stewardesses.
The efficiency gain here is miniscule. When peak oil kicks in, there will be so few people who can afford to fly that planes this size will be irrelevant.
Many of your points - the US-side of them, isn't real. It's manufactured propaganda.
..
Do you think more than 5% of Americans are really dumb enough to ask for "Freedom Fries" at McDonalds?
The Airbus/Boeing rivalry is somewhat silly - but when you look at what it implies: That Boeing has trouble competing in a global market with Airbus. . . "therefore, we must allow Boeing to merge and merge with competitors until it's big enough" - - and soon, there's no more competition in the domestic commercial aerospace industry.
All this is is irrational justification for deregulation, and corporate welfare. And irrational justification for worse things.
I agree, there IS a conflict brewing. But about 90% of it is manufactured propaganda by rightwing extremists in the US. Fearmongering by people who are afraid, or whose grip on reality is tenuous at best to begin with. These are the same people who pulled the strings within the Reagan Administration to forestall our conversion to the Metric system.
Your contention that it adds up to something quite interesting over the next 20-50 years is an understatement. When the rightwing extremists get their way, the outcome is almost always a 6+ figure bodycount. In this case, probably an 8 or 9-figure bodycount.
instead of the left, like almost every windows app out there.
. . . and almost every X-Windows app, and every Mac OS and Mac OS X app.
This one's a real head scratcher it is.
cut me some slack. The it-exemption to the posessive form isn't 101. More like 102. . .
he fact is, that the two companies merged. With any successful merger the outcome is that overall costs are cut, otherwise what is the point?
Eliminate competition.
A point that most "lazzez faire capitalists" seem to miss.
A *SUCCESSFUL* merger is a purchase of a "good" company, with skilled employees. Such employees can adapt to the new corporate structure, via the guidance of competent management, to remain productive, and not redundant.
Unfortunately, such companies are difficult to find, and they are not convenient merger targets, because, more likely than not, they're already doing well on their own thankyouverymuch. Layoffs after such mergers, are usually kept to a minimum.
A *TAKEOVER* merger, is a purchase of another company, and dismantling of it's resources, purely to deprive the market of competition. It costs the buyer a lot of money up front, because they're usually buying an essentially worthless peice of junk, in order to euthanize it. Or, in cases where they're buying a company that's not totally worthless, it soon will be. The only benefit to the purchaser is the destruction of a competitor.
Very few arguments on abolishing patents altogether.
Especially since they're in the Constitution.
But maybe we should roll patent law back to where it was in the constitution.
In order to get a patent the following criteria must be met:
1. It MUST Promote a "useful" Art or Science. Determination of this is entirely independent of any concern towards profitability or ROI.
2. It MUST be for a limited time. 7 years. No longer. Then revert to the Public Domain.
The expansion and encroachment that has happened since the original Patent law, is nothing more than Corporate Welfare.
*sigh*
\
You know damn well that if the tax structure were changed like this, then everyone would unload assets, the market would de-value them, and the cronyism that causes wealth to accumulate in the form of assets today, would just adapt and suck up all the high-paying jobs (which, frankly, it's already doing, if you consider the CEO/Corporate Boardsman circle-jerk).
It won't change the fact that when people don't have to answer to anybody - they won't.
Dude, I've been a Mac Owner for 10 years. And a perpetual Mac Whiner.
Today, I stop with the whining already. Cheap, headless iMac? I'm happy.
Thanks, Steve. FINALLY.