What is "honest labor"?
Anyone who makes less than $100,000/yr.
Who is taxed for sprawl?
Ultimately, the homeowner, because the developer, builder, or officials would view any tax as a cost of doing business, and pass it on to the customer, just like any other cost.
Who is taxed for pollution?
Again, YOU. Tax the manufacturers, and they simply pass on that cost to you. Why are SUV's so popular? Because they are exempt from this tax, and are therefore, dollar-for-horsepower, cheaper than your typical muscle car, which is socked with the gas-guzzler tax. The SUV is exempt through the commercial trucking loophole.
There is NO way that you can take a real estate developer, or car manufacturer, and force them to manipulate their books so that they actually pay these taxes. What can you do, tell them what they can charge for cars based on the cost? Dictate how much executives make (which is probably where the lion's share of corporate profits go)?
Yes, the rich use roads, and defense systems, and many other Government services more than the poor.
For example, Joe Streetperson; will it impact his life significantly if we go to war in Iraq to keep oil below $30/bbl.? Joe Streetperson doesn't have a car, or a heater, does not consume electricity.
Or will it benefit George Oildaddy and his overseas investments and resources?
Will it be a tremendous burden on Joe Streetperson if the street he's sleeping on has an extra pothole or two? Or will it benefit George Oildaddy if that shiny new interstate were constructed so his company's trucks can keep haulin' product?
Does it benefit Joe Streetperson if the president works hard to negotiate an international agreement that allows copyright holders to hold those copyrights for eternity? Or does it make life easier for George Oildaddy so he doesn't have to work anymore to keep his Ferrari collection maintained?
How fair is it when Joe Streetperson gets swept up and drafted (or economically pressured) into the military to fight a war to protect George Oildaddy's interests overseas? George Oildaddy's all for that kind of thing, except when he scammed his way into the Air National Guard using his family contacts so he didn't have to go to 'nam. Yes, Al Gore didn't see combat either, but at least he signed up and went overseas.
That's because Socialism is a nice specification with no workable implementation.
Socialism within a democracy? A democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And even in a totalitarian regime, Socialism just becomes essentially a monarchy, where the prime minister and his cronies dictate policy - within the ideological framework, except in cases where the ideological framework can be perverted, or where the absolute power of the government can provide the necessary secrecy to function with impunity.
personally, I think that the best solution to the whole "flag burning" problem, would be if the President burned a flag as part of the official 4th of July celebration. To celebrate the fact that we are free, free even to burn the flag, and the fact that the flag is a symbol of that freedom, and that that freedom is not destroyed along with that symbol.
First off, people would stop burning the flag as a sign of desecration or protest. Second, I think Americans would start to think a bit more deeply about the freedoms they have, and understand how to think the way the writers of the constitution were thinking when they came up with this whole idea.
You can only get rich by being born rich, or being extremely lucky. A much higher percentage of "rich" people had it fall into their laps, than people who worked hard.
I worked my ass off at my job for 8 years. I know other people who were not as fortunate as I, working for companies that just happened to be not as successful. My company was VERY successful, and now I'm rich, because of stock options. But it had almost nothing to do with how hard I worked. I could have coasted along (like many of my colleagues) doing just what was required to not get fired - and they're just as rich as I am. I don't necessarily feel good about the money I have, but damn, it's great not being poor anymore. I probably could even retire now, and maybe, I don't work as hard as I used to before we got bought, maybe I spend a little more of my own time on my hobbies or family, but I could have done that before. But I have friends working at other companies, still putting in 12-16 hour days, and not getting anywhere financially. When you're paying your bills, you can't necessarily afford $10,000 for playing in the market.
Working hard in this country gets you nothing but tired.
Seriously, Libertarians believe that there should be no government-funded police, and of course, no gun regulations. Therefore, you're either rich enough to hire your own private army for protection from crime, or you're hired in some rich guy's private army, because the only other alternative is funding your own arms race vs. some rich guy's army, who will pretty much be using his private army to kill you and steal all of your belongings, because, frankly, who's going to stop them?
Then all the rich guys' private army's will fight eachother until only one rich guy remains.
So, eventually, I think we'll all be working as security guards for Bill Gates. (who will win, of course, because he has the most money)
The sales tax revenue generated by all the gun sales will fund the missile/asteroid defense.
People who are voting for Nader aren't voting for THIS election, they're worried about the next election.
We realize that THIS election is already a complete waste of time.
You think either Bush OR Gore will do diddly squat for the environment? Look at BOTH of their records. I personally believe that even if Nader were elected, we'd have such an intransigent congress, that he wouldn't get anything done either. In other words, environmentally, we're doomed.
In 50 years, when global warming really takes hold, it won't matter who was aborted and who wasn't. All that will matter is air conditioning, and a place to plug it in.
. . . and then there were numerous other rumored deaths. . .
http://www.mcs.net/~rusaerog/dead_cosmonauts.htm l
Cosmonaut Ledovsky was killed in 1957 on a suborbital space hop from the Kapustin Yar rocket base on the Volga River. [Page
163]
Cosmonaut Shiborin died the following year the same way.
Cosmonaut Mitkov lost his life on a third attempt in 1959.
An unnamed cosmonaut was trapped in space in May 1960, when his orbiting space capsule headed in the wrong direction.
In late September 1960, while Khrushchev pounded his shoe at the United Nations, another cosmonaut (sometimes identified as Pyotr
Dolgov) was killed when his rocket blew up on the launchpad.
On February 4, 1961, a mystery Soviet satellite was heard to be transmitting heartbeats, which soon stopped (some reports even
described it as a two-man capsule, and several "missing cosmonauts" were listed as Belokonev, Kachur, and Grachev).
Early in April 1961 Russian pilot Vladimir Ilyushin circled the earth three times but was badly injured on his return.
In mid-May 1961 weak calls for help were picked up in Europe, evidently from an orbiting spacecraft with two cosmonauts aboard.
On October 14, 1961, a multiman Soviet spacecraft was knocked off course by a solar flare and vanished into deep space .
Radio trackers in Italy detected a fatal space mission in November 1962, and some believe that a cosmonaut named Belokonev died at
that time.
An attempt to launch a second woman into space ended tragically on November 19, 1963.
One or more cosmonauts were killed during an unsuccessful space mission in April 1964, according to radio intercepts by Italian
shortwave listeners.
Following the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 which killed three American astronauts, U.S. intelligence sources reportedly described five fatal
Soviet spaceflights and six fatal ground accidents .
Russian cosmonauts have died from surreptitious depressurisation of their capsule. I also think, but I'm not sure, that another cosmonaut died after his re-entry burn failed, and was unable to reenter the atmosphere, and so, stayed up until oxygen/food/power/heat ran out. Then the capsule burned up on reentry. (can't find a link for that one. ..)
As a parent of a child, (age 7) who is getting to be quite computer savvy - I guess this is probably a rather important question;
If the cops come in and bust my kid, whether or not he did the crime, can they, or do they usually also take the parent's computer(s)? I mean, a guy could lose his job if his company laptop is gone, with all of his data, etc. This is most unsettling.
See, Napster was never about "fair use" or consumer's rights, or "information wants to be free" - none of that. It's always been about extortion.
"Let's scare the record companies shitless". yeah, they probably knew they'd get sued, yeah, maybe they thought they could skank around it with "fair use", (which had nothing to do with Napster making ad banner revenue off of other people's content), but in the end, they knew that the music companies didn't have any technology for this high-demand market, and knew that in the process of the lawsuits, they'd end up being the subcontractors for that technology. I'm betting there's already allowances in Napster's architecture for future versions that provide "secure content". Maybe nothing functional, but I bet it was provided for as a feature down the road.
Microsoft doesn't NEED to make money on XBox. They'll gain market dominance, slowly break the API's so that 3rd party developers can't write effectively anymore, and be the only company that can sell games for the dominant platform that perform well.
Did Microsoft need to make money with IE? No, they gave it away. But who owns the internet? the standards? At least on the client side.
Slashdot Mirror
What is "honest labor"?
Anyone who makes less than $100,000/yr.
Who is taxed for sprawl?
Ultimately, the homeowner, because the developer, builder, or officials would view any tax as a cost of doing business, and pass it on to the customer, just like any other cost.
Who is taxed for pollution?
Again, YOU. Tax the manufacturers, and they simply pass on that cost to you. Why are SUV's so popular? Because they are exempt from this tax, and are therefore, dollar-for-horsepower, cheaper than your typical muscle car, which is socked with the gas-guzzler tax. The SUV is exempt through the commercial trucking loophole.
There is NO way that you can take a real estate developer, or car manufacturer, and force them to manipulate their books so that they actually pay these taxes. What can you do, tell them what they can charge for cars based on the cost? Dictate how much executives make (which is probably where the lion's share of corporate profits go)?
Yes, the rich use roads, and defense systems, and many other Government services more than the poor.
For example, Joe Streetperson; will it impact his life significantly if we go to war in Iraq to keep oil below $30/bbl.? Joe Streetperson doesn't have a car, or a heater, does not consume electricity.
Or will it benefit George Oildaddy and his overseas investments and resources?
Will it be a tremendous burden on Joe Streetperson if the street he's sleeping on has an extra pothole or two? Or will it benefit George Oildaddy if that shiny new interstate were constructed so his company's trucks can keep haulin' product?
Does it benefit Joe Streetperson if the president works hard to negotiate an international agreement that allows copyright holders to hold those copyrights for eternity? Or does it make life easier for George Oildaddy so he doesn't have to work anymore to keep his Ferrari collection maintained?
How fair is it when Joe Streetperson gets swept up and drafted (or economically pressured) into the military to fight a war to protect George Oildaddy's interests overseas? George Oildaddy's all for that kind of thing, except when he scammed his way into the Air National Guard using his family contacts so he didn't have to go to 'nam. Yes, Al Gore didn't see combat either, but at least he signed up and went overseas.
Or maybe it's a typo, and he meant "thank god", not "thank God".
That's because Socialism is a nice specification with no workable implementation.
Socialism within a democracy? A democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And even in a totalitarian regime, Socialism just becomes essentially a monarchy, where the prime minister and his cronies dictate policy - within the ideological framework, except in cases where the ideological framework can be perverted, or where the absolute power of the government can provide the necessary secrecy to function with impunity.
personally, I think that the best solution to the whole "flag burning" problem, would be if the President burned a flag as part of the official 4th of July celebration. To celebrate the fact that we are free, free even to burn the flag, and the fact that the flag is a symbol of that freedom, and that that freedom is not destroyed along with that symbol.
First off, people would stop burning the flag as a sign of desecration or protest. Second, I think Americans would start to think a bit more deeply about the freedoms they have, and understand how to think the way the writers of the constitution were thinking when they came up with this whole idea.
BULLSHIT!
You cannot get rich by working hard.
You can only get rich by being born rich, or being extremely lucky. A much higher percentage of "rich" people had it fall into their laps, than people who worked hard.
I worked my ass off at my job for 8 years. I know other people who were not as fortunate as I, working for companies that just happened to be not as successful. My company was VERY successful, and now I'm rich, because of stock options. But it had almost nothing to do with how hard I worked. I could have coasted along (like many of my colleagues) doing just what was required to not get fired - and they're just as rich as I am. I don't necessarily feel good about the money I have, but damn, it's great not being poor anymore. I probably could even retire now, and maybe, I don't work as hard as I used to before we got bought, maybe I spend a little more of my own time on my hobbies or family, but I could have done that before. But I have friends working at other companies, still putting in 12-16 hour days, and not getting anywhere financially. When you're paying your bills, you can't necessarily afford $10,000 for playing in the market.
Working hard in this country gets you nothing but tired.
If Crack were legal, the CIA would not be in the business of selling it. It would be about as profitable as aspirin.
Seriously, Libertarians believe that there should be no government-funded police, and of course, no gun regulations. Therefore, you're either rich enough to hire your own private army for protection from crime, or you're hired in some rich guy's private army, because the only other alternative is funding your own arms race vs. some rich guy's army, who will pretty much be using his private army to kill you and steal all of your belongings, because, frankly, who's going to stop them?
Then all the rich guys' private army's will fight eachother until only one rich guy remains.
So, eventually, I think we'll all be working as security guards for Bill Gates. (who will win, of course, because he has the most money)
The sales tax revenue generated by all the gun sales will fund the missile/asteroid defense.
come on, Bush isn't so bad. Once you get over the taste. . .
People who are voting for Nader aren't voting for THIS election, they're worried about the next election.
We realize that THIS election is already a complete waste of time.
You think either Bush OR Gore will do diddly squat for the environment? Look at BOTH of their records. I personally believe that even if Nader were elected, we'd have such an intransigent congress, that he wouldn't get anything done either. In other words, environmentally, we're doomed.
There's nothing unconventional or new about Nader's economics. The EU has been languishing under those same policies for decades.
Bush HAS taken out a bunch of pro-Nader ads.
truth can be stranger than fiction. . .
Abortion doesn't matter.
In 50 years, when global warming really takes hold, it won't matter who was aborted and who wasn't. All that will matter is air conditioning, and a place to plug it in.
Pollution is for people who can't afford air conditioning to worry about.
The robber baron's cuelty may sometimes sleep?
Ask Gates when he's going to sleep. He's already the richest man in the world, no sign of nodding off yet.
One man's pollution is another man's "business process".
You're saying you'd paralize the economy and let big brother run my business?
Hell, if I can't get him to wear a helmet when he rides his skateboard. . .
kidding, of course.
. . . and then there were numerous other rumored deaths. . .
http://www.mcs.net/~rusaerog/dead_cosmonauts.ht
Cosmonaut Ledovsky was killed in 1957 on a suborbital space hop from the Kapustin Yar rocket base on the Volga River. [Page
163]
Cosmonaut Shiborin died the following year the same way.
Cosmonaut Mitkov lost his life on a third attempt in 1959.
An unnamed cosmonaut was trapped in space in May 1960, when his orbiting space capsule headed in the wrong direction.
In late September 1960, while Khrushchev pounded his shoe at the United Nations, another cosmonaut (sometimes identified as Pyotr
Dolgov) was killed when his rocket blew up on the launchpad.
On February 4, 1961, a mystery Soviet satellite was heard to be transmitting heartbeats, which soon stopped (some reports even
described it as a two-man capsule, and several "missing cosmonauts" were listed as Belokonev, Kachur, and Grachev).
Early in April 1961 Russian pilot Vladimir Ilyushin circled the earth three times but was badly injured on his return.
In mid-May 1961 weak calls for help were picked up in Europe, evidently from an orbiting spacecraft with two cosmonauts aboard.
On October 14, 1961, a multiman Soviet spacecraft was knocked off course by a solar flare and vanished into deep space .
Radio trackers in Italy detected a fatal space mission in November 1962, and some believe that a cosmonaut named Belokonev died at
that time.
An attempt to launch a second woman into space ended tragically on November 19, 1963.
One or more cosmonauts were killed during an unsuccessful space mission in April 1964, according to radio intercepts by Italian
shortwave listeners.
Following the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 which killed three American astronauts, U.S. intelligence sources reportedly described five fatal
Soviet spaceflights and six fatal ground accidents .
people have died in space.
.)
y News/leonov990218.html
Russian cosmonauts have died from surreptitious depressurisation of their capsule. I also think, but I'm not sure, that another cosmonaut died after his re-entry burn failed, and was unable to reenter the atmosphere, and so, stayed up until oxygen/food/power/heat ran out. Then the capsule burned up on reentry. (can't find a link for that one. .
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/Dail
As a parent of a child, (age 7) who is getting to be quite computer savvy - I guess this is probably a rather important question;
If the cops come in and bust my kid, whether or not he did the crime, can they, or do they usually also take the parent's computer(s)? I mean, a guy could lose his job if his company laptop is gone, with all of his data, etc. This is most unsettling.
See, Napster was never about "fair use" or consumer's rights, or "information wants to be free" - none of that. It's always been about extortion.
"Let's scare the record companies shitless". yeah, they probably knew they'd get sued, yeah, maybe they thought they could skank around it with "fair use", (which had nothing to do with Napster making ad banner revenue off of other people's content), but in the end, they knew that the music companies didn't have any technology for this high-demand market, and knew that in the process of the lawsuits, they'd end up being the subcontractors for that technology. I'm betting there's already allowances in Napster's architecture for future versions that provide "secure content". Maybe nothing functional, but I bet it was provided for as a feature down the road.
y'all have been sold like a sheik's harem.
You hate ATI and you're a PC user?
.
Lucky you aren't one of those miserable Mac users, the crap we've had to put up with from ATI. .
dark green and grey - you - YOU MADE THAT UP!!
Microsoft doesn't NEED to make money on XBox. They'll gain market dominance, slowly break the API's so that 3rd party developers can't write effectively anymore, and be the only company that can sell games for the dominant platform that perform well.
Did Microsoft need to make money with IE? No, they gave it away. But who owns the internet? the standards? At least on the client side.
you're right. PS2 is evil. but it's less evil than XBox. I think that's why most people are voting for Gore. . .