All I hear on this thread is "Bush sux0rz - vote Democrat" or "Dems are just as bad - vote Libertarian/Green"
What I want to know is if anyone has any solutions to the problems at hand?
Democrats, what is YOUR plan to fight the war on terror? How do YOU plan to keep another 9/11 from happening? If the PATRIOT Act was so bad, then why did the majority of Democrats vote for it?
While I'm at it, what is YOUR plan to stimulate the economy? What is YOUR plan to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan?
Quit complaining and start coming up with solutions.
I do see shades of 1984 in recent events. If the Democrats can't come up with anything more than complaining, Bush will beat Dean (or whoever else gets the nomination) in 2004 like Reagan crushed Mondale in 1984.
A system is only as secure as the sysadmin who runs it lets it be.
Both Linux and Windows NT/2K/XP are rather insecure out of the box. A default RedHat install has security holes you could drive a truck through. The big difference is Windows is more vulnerable to macro viruses. It's also worth noting that when something does go massively wrong with Windows, there is lots of press over it. Linux's biggest weakness is that people assume it is secure because it isn't Windows, when there are security holes.
Conversely, a well patched, well configured system (Linux or Windows) is quite secure. I don't know how many Win2k security holes I hear about first from Windows Update, then from Slashdot. Likewise, Linux has similar tools to keep the system properly secure.
Reagan had military service, but it was stateside, making war films for the government. GWB had some military service in the Texas Air National Guard. Not exactly Vietnam. Clinton had no military service.
The People's Republic of China ("China") claims that the island Taiwan is a rebellious provence of China.
The Republic of China ("Taiwan") claims officially to be the legitimate government of all China. Until the 1970's the United States recognized this claim.
Here's where things get confusing:
Currently few (if any) nations recognize Taiwan as being the legitimate government of China. However, it is U.S. policy that what is officially a dispute over the government of China should be resolved peacefully.
If Taiwan renounces it's claim over mainland China and declares independence, China will invade, claiming soverignty over Taiwan. According to generally accepted international principles, they have every right to do so, much like the United States of America invaded the Confederate States of America when it declared independence, and the UK invaded the American Colonies when they declared independence.
Projected outcome of a conflict: United Nations sides with China - It is after all officially a provence of China and an internal affair. United States sides with Taiwan. Although we do not offically recognize Taiwan, Taiwan has been a faithful ally in the region for many years.
There is nothing to charge them with insider trading, it's securities fraud that the SEC needs to look at: a classic Pump 'n' Dump
Note: This is similar to what the SEC is after Martha Stewart for. There is very little evidence of insider trading on the IMClone deal that is all over the news. The charges against Martha Stewart is that she lied about the ImClone deal to artificially boost the price of shares of stock of Martha Stewart, Inc.
The SCO case demonstrates the desparate need for Tort Reform in this country.
SCO has no case. They are all smoke and mirrors. However, the money required to hire the lawyers to fight SCO will probably cost more than paying SCO. Second of all, SCO can do more damage to Linux companies than SCO is worth.
Also, SCO's strategy of suing the end users is pure extortion. Even if SCO was right and Linux did infringe on SCO's IP, there is absolutely no legal precedent for holding the end users liable, especially since SCO will not mention the infringing code. However, the cost of fighting the lawsuit is greater than the cost of paying SCO. Extortion, pure and simple.
The best tort reform (which would also be useful in the DirecTV case) would be to not allow the suit to be filed unless the plaintiff presented evidence of wrong doing and legal liability on the part of the defendant. Unless the plaintiff can show this, the courts shouldn't even give them the time of day.
There are still areas of the country where broadband is not available. I live in a rural area and our local cable company (Northland Cable) has absolutely NO plans to offer internet service. Many people around here do not live within 3 miles of the phone company central office or R-DSLAM.
Before I got DSL, I did set up a Linux gateway with a Lucent 56k Winmodem. Not terribly easy to do, but the hardware is obscenely cheap.
To avoid Peter's Principle the answer is simple: Don't link pay raises to management status.
The best way to get Peter's Principle is to have promotion to management be the only way to get a decent raise. Then everyone wants to be management, whether they are competent or whether they would even like to do it. If money is taken out of the equation, the odds of promoting a skilled techie to an incompetent manager drops dramatically.
?Or we can just use federal taxes to do it, the fact is, we need to pump money into the ghettos, period.
Spending money on foam cowboy hats and the "Providence Slut" classified ads will not magically manifest into a productive local economy. Pumping money in is worthless without a drive. You're a moron.
Pumping more tax money into these areas would do nothing. We've been pumping tax money in there for years and it hasn't worked.
Tax incentives, on the other hand would be a good idea. Most urban areas are notoriously overtaxed. These areas are unfriendly enough for business development without a high tax burden.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for charter schools, public schools, private schools or as many options for an education as are possible.
But throwing money at a school isn't the answer. Washington DC spends more money per student than anywhere in the country and they have the worst schools in the country. Something is wrong with this.
It's not a perfect solution, but more choices would be the first step. Competition is good. The US Postal Service got a lot better when UPS came around.
The US did not help Iraq until 1979. This is ONLY because they went to war with Ayatollah Khomeni's Iran, who took declared the USA the Great Satan.
Before 1979, the US and Iraq were not friends. Our ally was the Shah of Iran, who we supplied with military equipment and aid. The Soviets did the same with Iraq.
In fact, the Reagan Administration wanted to help both sides in the war so basically they would kill each other off. This is what Iran-Contra was all about. (Sell arms to Iran to fight Iraq, then use the proceeds to fund the Contras)
If the US was Saddam's great supporter, then please explain why the Iraqi Army had all Soviet weapons?
Then explain why Asian immigrants, who come to this country with NOTHING, coming from NOTHING, who have been discriminated against as much as any other group, manage to become successful in America. So successful, in fact, that they are considered "overrepresented" by affirmative action standards.
Poverty and social breakdown are related, but you have the arrow backwards. Social breakdown causes poverty, not the other way around.
You have Ann Coulter calling liberals communists, its no different than calling conservatives nazis.
Coulter is famous for exaggerating to make her point. As a conservative, I still no better than to treat what she writes as straight fact. (On the other hand, certain "liberals" really were on Moscow's payroll, but I digress.)
Because racists refuse to bring their businesses to the inner cities.
Pure Horses---! Racism is not the reason for poverty, just a convenient excuse. See above. The reason why is because crime is bad for business. Wherever you are, the majority of the people are fine. It's a powerful minority of the people there that are criminals and the law abiding people are scared. You call 911 in a rich neighborhood, the cops come right away. You call 911 in the ghetto, they put you on hold. Crack down on crime, close the crackhouses, send the message that even minor crimes won't be tolerated, then you will improve life for the vast majority of people in the area and business will return. That's how Giuliani cleaned up New York. That's why Times Square is a much nicer place now than 20 years ago.
Lets also understand that republicans want to under-fund the public school system, so with no decent schools its going to take a genius to survive in south central.
Then why do the Democrats INSIST on keeping the kids in the ghetto in FAILING public schools?
The Republicans do have a solution for that. It's called the No Child Left Behind Act. If your local public school sucks and shows no signs of improvement, then the kids are given vouchers to go elsewhere. More widespread vouchers would be even better (and supported by the poor who have to go to these bad schools), but liberals talk about them ruining the public schools. (I admire every poor parent who fights and strives to give their children the best education possible) Guess what? Those schools can't get much worse. At least let the kids get a decent education.
The problem with the paper is it assumes several falsehoods and forgets a key truth:
1: It assumes that all wealth is constant. On the other hand as manufacturing capacity increases (due to the robots or other automation), wealth will increase as well. While the rich may be richer than they were in 1960, I guarantee that the poor are considerably richer than they were in 1960 as well. The United States must be the only contry in the world where fat people drive to the welfare office. (i.e. not starving and owning an automobile)
2: It assumes the classic "greedy CEO" problem. Yes, there are many greedy CEO's. We usually hear about them when the company goes out of business. I wonder why that is? No CEO with any sense is going to push his own salary above a certain percentage of the company's profits. As far as the corporation is concerned, the CEO is a giant liability with a giant salary. A good CEO would keep his own salary relatively low and have most of his money in investments.
3: "Employees" are also "Consumers" This is the one item that the paper forgets. If all "Employees" are thrown out of work, then there will be no one with any money to sell the products to. (Likewise, "Employees" may also be "Investors")
This is also a weakness that many people forget. Anyone who says "(Legal) Immigrants cost us jobs" is a damn fool. Legal immigrants may compete with us in the job market, but they produce wealth (by their labor) and consume what is produced, contributing to total economic output. Anyone who says that population growth will hurt the economy is an even bigger damn fool because children are pure consumers, and if you have a glut of whatever, then you need more consumers.
I'm sorry, but your posts on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet show that you don't have even the slightest clue how capitalism works.
Gates and Buffet are obscenely wealthy not because they do or do not work hard, but because they are smart. IBM wanted an operating system. Bill Gates saw opportunity. The fact that he didn't have an operating system was irrelevant. He bought an operating system from someone who only wanted $50,000 for it and licensed it to IBM. And the rest is history.
(In the academic world this is called cheating, but in the real world this is perfectly legitimate business.)
Gates dropped out of college because he saw opportunity elsewhere. Buffet makes his money by seeing opportunity and investing in it.
You sound like an underpaid/underappreciated graduate student who has no idea what life is like outside of the educational world. You've been in school for 16+ years, it's time to see how the rest of the world works.
Slashdot Mirror
All I hear on this thread is "Bush sux0rz - vote Democrat" or "Dems are just as bad - vote Libertarian/Green"
What I want to know is if anyone has any solutions to the problems at hand?
Democrats, what is YOUR plan to fight the war on terror? How do YOU plan to keep another 9/11 from happening? If the PATRIOT Act was so bad, then why did the majority of Democrats vote for it?
While I'm at it, what is YOUR plan to stimulate the economy? What is YOUR plan to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan?
Quit complaining and start coming up with solutions.
I do see shades of 1984 in recent events. If the Democrats can't come up with anything more than complaining, Bush will beat Dean (or whoever else gets the nomination) in 2004 like Reagan crushed Mondale in 1984.
Why doesn't Apple Computer create a subsidiary that deals strictly with the music side of the business?
They could call it iMusic Inc.
"Apple" stays out of the music business, (satisfying Apple Records) but iMusic lets the corporation stay in.
A system is only as secure as the sysadmin who runs it lets it be.
Both Linux and Windows NT/2K/XP are rather insecure out of the box. A default RedHat install has security holes you could drive a truck through. The big difference is Windows is more vulnerable to macro viruses. It's also worth noting that when something does go massively wrong with Windows, there is lots of press over it. Linux's biggest weakness is that people assume it is secure because it isn't Windows, when there are security holes.
Conversely, a well patched, well configured system (Linux or Windows) is quite secure. I don't know how many Win2k security holes I hear about first from Windows Update, then from Slashdot. Likewise, Linux has similar tools to keep the system properly secure.
http:\\windowsupdate.microsoft.com
/.
Plus my Critical Updates Notification tells me about the update and downloads it before I can even here about how much Microsoft 5ux0rz on
I love Windows 2000 Professional.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine...
Now THAT's what I call a killer app!
Reagan had military service, but it was stateside, making war films for the government.
GWB had some military service in the Texas Air National Guard. Not exactly Vietnam.
Clinton had no military service.
I don't know about Ford, but you forgot him.
Taiwan is officially the Republic of China.
Officially they are the minority side in the Chinese Civil War, which has been going on since 1945.
Both China and Taiwan agree that Taiwan is a part of China, as is Tibet.
The debate officially is not over what China is doing with the rest of the world, but over who rules China.
The People's Republic of China ("China") claims that the island Taiwan is a rebellious provence of China.
The Republic of China ("Taiwan") claims officially to be the legitimate government of all China. Until the 1970's the United States recognized this claim.
Here's where things get confusing:
Currently few (if any) nations recognize Taiwan as being the legitimate government of China. However, it is U.S. policy that what is officially a dispute over the government of China should be resolved peacefully.
If Taiwan renounces it's claim over mainland China and declares independence, China will invade, claiming soverignty over Taiwan. According to generally accepted international principles, they have every right to do so, much like the United States of America invaded the Confederate States of America when it declared independence, and the UK invaded the American Colonies when they declared independence.
Projected outcome of a conflict:
United Nations sides with China - It is after all officially a provence of China and an internal affair.
United States sides with Taiwan. Although we do not offically recognize Taiwan, Taiwan has been a faithful ally in the region for many years.
Not a good scenerio.
There is nothing to charge them with insider trading, it's securities fraud that the SEC needs to look at: a classic Pump 'n' Dump
Note: This is similar to what the SEC is after Martha Stewart for. There is very little evidence of insider trading on the IMClone deal that is all over the news. The charges against Martha Stewart is that she lied about the ImClone deal to artificially boost the price of shares of stock of Martha Stewart, Inc.
The SCO case demonstrates the desparate need for Tort Reform in this country.
SCO has no case. They are all smoke and mirrors. However, the money required to hire the lawyers to fight SCO will probably cost more than paying SCO. Second of all, SCO can do more damage to Linux companies than SCO is worth.
Also, SCO's strategy of suing the end users is pure extortion. Even if SCO was right and Linux did infringe on SCO's IP, there is absolutely no legal precedent for holding the end users liable, especially since SCO will not mention the infringing code. However, the cost of fighting the lawsuit is greater than the cost of paying SCO. Extortion, pure and simple.
The best tort reform (which would also be useful in the DirecTV case) would be to not allow the suit to be filed unless the plaintiff presented evidence of wrong doing and legal liability on the part of the defendant. Unless the plaintiff can show this, the courts shouldn't even give them the time of day.
SEC investigates SCO - jailarity ensues. /wishful thinking.
Wasn't Boston/Logan where two of the 9/11 planes took off from?
Hopefully they weren't putting too many of their eggs in this basket.
I have a Westell Wirespeed DSL modem/router that BellSouth gave me.
I could be wrong, but I believe it is running some type of embedded Linux.
There are still areas of the country where broadband is not available. I live in a rural area and our local cable company (Northland Cable) has absolutely NO plans to offer internet service. Many people around here do not live within 3 miles of the phone company central office or R-DSLAM.
Before I got DSL, I did set up a Linux gateway with a Lucent 56k Winmodem. Not terribly easy to do, but the hardware is obscenely cheap.
To avoid Peter's Principle the answer is simple: Don't link pay raises to management status.
The best way to get Peter's Principle is to have promotion to management be the only way to get a decent raise. Then everyone wants to be management, whether they are competent or whether they would even like to do it. If money is taken out of the equation, the odds of promoting a skilled techie to an incompetent manager drops dramatically.
Free-market Liberal = Michael Bloomberg, Arnold Schwartzenegger.
They are Republicans because they believe in lower taxes and have faith in the free market. On social positions, they are as liberal as any Democrat.
BTW, I am aware of what the term "Liberal" once meant. These people would be called "Libertarians" today.
?Or we can just use federal taxes to do it, the fact is, we need to pump money into the ghettos, period.
Spending money on foam cowboy hats and the "Providence Slut" classified ads will not magically manifest into a productive local economy. Pumping money in is worthless without a drive. You're a moron.
Pumping more tax money into these areas would do nothing. We've been pumping tax money in there for years and it hasn't worked.
Tax incentives, on the other hand would be a good idea. Most urban areas are notoriously overtaxed. These areas are unfriendly enough for business development without a high tax burden.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for charter schools, public schools, private schools or as many options for an education as are possible.
But throwing money at a school isn't the answer. Washington DC spends more money per student than anywhere in the country and they have the worst schools in the country. Something is wrong with this.
It's not a perfect solution, but more choices would be the first step. Competition is good. The US Postal Service got a lot better when UPS came around.
Forgot about Duke. Fair enough.
I must remind you that David Duke was repudiated by Republican voters, as was Pat Buchanan.
The US did not help Iraq until 1979. This is ONLY because they went to war with Ayatollah Khomeni's Iran, who took declared the USA the Great Satan.
Before 1979, the US and Iraq were not friends. Our ally was the Shah of Iran, who we supplied with military equipment and aid. The Soviets did the same with Iraq.
In fact, the Reagan Administration wanted to help both sides in the war so basically they would kill each other off. This is what Iran-Contra was all about. (Sell arms to Iran to fight Iraq, then use the proceeds to fund the Contras)
If the US was Saddam's great supporter, then please explain why the Iraqi Army had all Soviet weapons?
/puts boots on. It's getting pretty deep in here.
That is famous excuse #1.
Then explain why Asian immigrants, who come to this country with NOTHING, coming from NOTHING, who have been discriminated against as much as any other group, manage to become successful in America. So successful, in fact, that they are considered "overrepresented" by affirmative action standards.
Poverty and social breakdown are related, but you have the arrow backwards. Social breakdown causes poverty, not the other way around.
You have Ann Coulter calling liberals communists, its no different than calling conservatives nazis.
Coulter is famous for exaggerating to make her point. As a conservative, I still no better than to treat what she writes as straight fact. (On the other hand, certain "liberals" really were on Moscow's payroll, but I digress.)
Because racists refuse to bring their businesses to the inner cities.
Pure Horses---! Racism is not the reason for poverty, just a convenient excuse. See above. The reason why is because crime is bad for business. Wherever you are, the majority of the people are fine. It's a powerful minority of the people there that are criminals and the law abiding people are scared. You call 911 in a rich neighborhood, the cops come right away. You call 911 in the ghetto, they put you on hold. Crack down on crime, close the crackhouses, send the message that even minor crimes won't be tolerated, then you will improve life for the vast majority of people in the area and business will return. That's how Giuliani cleaned up New York. That's why Times Square is a much nicer place now than 20 years ago.
Lets also understand that republicans want to under-fund the public school system, so with no decent schools its going to take a genius to survive in south central.
Then why do the Democrats INSIST on keeping the kids in the ghetto in FAILING public schools?
The Republicans do have a solution for that. It's called the No Child Left Behind Act. If your local public school sucks and shows no signs of improvement, then the kids are given vouchers to go elsewhere. More widespread vouchers would be even better (and supported by the poor who have to go to these bad schools), but liberals talk about them ruining the public schools. (I admire every poor parent who fights and strives to give their children the best education possible) Guess what? Those schools can't get much worse. At least let the kids get a decent education.
Republicans =
s ts
Social Conservatives
Religious Conservatives
Libertarians
Moderates
Nationali
Right-to-lifers
and even free-market Liberals
It's a big party!
7-8 billion people are 7-8 billion consumers, only a fraction of whom need jobs (children, the elderly, the disabled and many mothers do not work)
This is 100% pure garbage.
The problem with the paper is it assumes several falsehoods and forgets a key truth:
1: It assumes that all wealth is constant. On the other hand as manufacturing capacity increases (due to the robots or other automation), wealth will increase as well. While the rich may be richer than they were in 1960, I guarantee that the poor are considerably richer than they were in 1960 as well. The United States must be the only contry in the world where fat people drive to the welfare office. (i.e. not starving and owning an automobile)
2: It assumes the classic "greedy CEO" problem. Yes, there are many greedy CEO's. We usually hear about them when the company goes out of business. I wonder why that is?
No CEO with any sense is going to push his own salary above a certain percentage of the company's profits. As far as the corporation is concerned, the CEO is a giant liability with a giant salary. A good CEO would keep his own salary relatively low and have most of his money in investments.
3: "Employees" are also "Consumers" This is the one item that the paper forgets. If all "Employees" are thrown out of work, then there will be no one with any money to sell the products to. (Likewise, "Employees" may also be "Investors")
This is also a weakness that many people forget. Anyone who says "(Legal) Immigrants cost us jobs" is a damn fool. Legal immigrants may compete with us in the job market, but they produce wealth (by their labor) and consume what is produced, contributing to total economic output. Anyone who says that population growth will hurt the economy is an even bigger damn fool because children are pure consumers, and if you have a glut of whatever, then you need more consumers.
I'm sorry, but your posts on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet show that you don't have even the slightest clue how capitalism works.
Gates and Buffet are obscenely wealthy not because they do or do not work hard, but because they are smart. IBM wanted an operating system. Bill Gates saw opportunity. The fact that he didn't have an operating system was irrelevant. He bought an operating system from someone who only wanted $50,000 for it and licensed it to IBM. And the rest is history.
(In the academic world this is called cheating, but in the real world this is perfectly legitimate business.)
Gates dropped out of college because he saw opportunity elsewhere. Buffet makes his money by seeing opportunity and investing in it.
You sound like an underpaid/underappreciated graduate student who has no idea what life is like outside of the educational world. You've been in school for 16+ years, it's time to see how the rest of the world works.