I disagree with your conclusion. We agree that it would be a waste to try to accomplish anything there on this front, but you still think they should raise awareness about the problem? Token efforts just so they could prove it wasn't just a left-wing politics campaign? Who do they need to prove that to?
For that matter, what do you mean by left-wing politics campaign? By getting gay marriage passed in Poland, liberals everywhere are going to suddenly get extra votes? I'm not convinced this is a right vs left issue either.
If anything, there's a high chance that such efforts would backfire. "Hey, the Great Satan is promoting homosexual marriage! The friend of my enemy is my enemy, therefore lets redouble our efforts to purge the country of homosexuals!" There were reports that Al-Qaeda was hoping Obama would win the election which certainly didn't win Obama any support, the reaction would be similar, only it could involve more violence.
So I can choose not to provide any funds to the state if I don't like their actions like I can with a corporation?
Yes. The next CEO or billionaire you meet, ask them how they do it.
Corporate employees can wreak havoc with my life like the police can?
They -can- brutalize you like the police can and do, but being much more clever than the police in general, they realize it's much more satisfying to leech from the public and not break any laws. No expensive legal fees or additional bribery required. They already have the laws nearly exactly how they want to. If you don't pay up, they do ruin your life for far longer than the police would if they broke your legs.
The individual mandate isn't a good example. It is a conservative invention through and through. The only reason many republicans don't like it now is because they weren't the ones who passed it, which is why you didn't have Republicans screaming for Romney's impeachment when he did it. Most democrats weren't "happy" about it either, we would have much preferred government-provided health care similar to the UK.
Uh, no. It's because all they can do is elect a replacement who will treat them just the same, or get out the burning torches, pitchforks and ropes.
That's very optimistic. So few of them vote in the primaries. More than two people to look into and form opinions about? That's more effort than most people are willing to do. If they were just fed up about having poor candidates, you'd think they would actually support reasonable people running for office rather than waiting for big campaign contributors to decide for them.
And replaced by a clone who keeps taxes just as high as they were, because even if he does cut the specific tax that resulted in his election, he sneaks in other stealth tax increases to compensate.
Well yeah, because while we hate taxes, we also hate reducing entitlement programs, defense spending, or government benefits. And the third option of "Do both and run up the debt" is becoming an exhausted option.
That leaves 1. Doing some of both, making a reasoned, rational case for this approach to the voters, and getting thrown out of office by an angry mob, or 2. Doing either and pretending you're not.
The problems with politics in this country are mainly due to the voters themselves. It'd be really nice if there were just a small group of politicians and shadowy figures messing things up, we could pretty easily revolt and lock them up. But that's not the case, it's much worse, it's most voters that are the problem, and educating them is far harder a revolution.
The campaign will focus on countries like Singapore, where certain homosexual activities are illegal, and Poland, which has no legal recognition of same-sex couples.
It sounds like they're doing things wisely and focusing on countries in which the politics are not so turbulent and are not dominated by religious extremists. Poland and Singapore could probably be swayed. Egypt and Afghanistan obviously have bigger issues to contend with, and Afghanistan, that would be pissing money and effort away.
So I'm impressed that they seem to be taking a pragmatic approach and focusing on what they can actually do, rather than slamming their head against the biggest, sturdiest walls.
Yes, I do tech support in a call center for a living. F'ing kill me now. Before Monday, please.
Given that this population of your customers have proven themselves incompetent, couldn't you just hang up on them all day long and reason that they won't figure out how to give you negative feedback?
Then they're more like a lot of FPS I used to play when I was younger: used to be pricey, is now shareware, and kept me from getting laid when I was in high school.
But they'll give you the information for free, unlike scientology, which gives you some only after you pay, and then they have their tentacles in you. So Christianity is sort of like shareware, while scientology is more like microsoft office.
Problem is, he isn't the great HOPE and CHANGE people were expecting. Just more of the same, only worse.
For very specific definitions of "more of the same," maybe yeah.
Eliminating the influence of money over politics, I can't imagine who honestly thought that he would do that no matter what he said, but if you honestly believed that, he did let you down I suppose. If you were convinced he was going to legalize pot, did he say he was going to ever? I know several people assumed he would. Not sure what they were basing that off of, but I could see how such people would be disappointed.
The projected cost did spiral from 4.4 billion in 1987 to 12 billion in 1993 (source). I think rather than not liking Texas, it was a matter of congress at one time being concerned with billions of dollars. Granted, they never would have batted an eye had this been a military expenditure even then, but the costs were significant too.
What I'm saying is that it's not the constitution that's going to protect you in that case. Your home government's diplomats, the press, and various treaties hopefully, but the constitution, I doubt it.
I was under the impression that it only applied to US citizens. This wiki page lists three American citizens of note that the government admits to. Hamdi was held at Guantanamo for a while, but the government claims it didn't know he was a citizen. Lindh was put on trial a few months after his capture, and never went to Cuba. Padilla was held for years before trial, but again not at Guantanamo.
It seems that most of the prisoners there are not citizens and have no reasonable expectation that we'll grant them constitutional rights. While I think the rights listed in the constitution SHOULD be applied universally and should apply to non-citizens we arrest, I'm evidently in the minority there, and it hasn't been applied to everyone.
My point is that Guantanamo is not a simple case of the government ignoring the constitution.
But that's always true of any government on any issue. You need to maintain constant vigilance that they're not going to pass some terrible law.
Is there a government? If yes, then they can pass something you don't like and you need to be sure they don't if at all possible. If no, then you don't have to worry about it, but you have bigger issues that you do need to worry about then.
What he meant is that corporations are made out of people and so corporate taxes are also paid by people.
And yet what he and others actually said was "corporations are people," a statement that makes absolutely no sense even in that context. Corporate income is taxed and, in theory, that means less money to go to real people. Okay, but corporations are still not people.
A little perspective, please. Beer is an acquired taste, so I'm not sure how you can say it's fact that one is bad, let alone everything from one country. There's no such thing as a universal standard for beer since it all tastes like crap the first time. None of us were born liking beer, so if you don't like American beer, it's simply because you convinced yourself that other beers were better. Beer was traditionally much more watered down, to the point where you could drink it to stay hydrated. So even if you're drinking bud light, you're drinking really strong beer compared to most brews throughout history.
If you're savvy enough to recognize bloatware, you should be savvy enough to root your phone and freeze/delete that bloatware with titanium backup. It's not tough.
Also keep in mind that DRINKING water (fish pee smell) is not the big issue. People will pay $4 for 350 mls of brand-name water purified from tap water due to marketing and consumers being illogical. Agriculture is the bigger issue. Increasing water costs a few cents per gallon would have major consequences for agriculture, subsidies from the government would have to be substantially increased. Fortunately, it need not be purified as much as drinking water does. If running it through a graphene filter desalinates water to the point of being useful for agriculture but not pure enough to drink, the problem is still solved.
It's been pointed out that the most efficient way to do things would be to recycle city waste water for drinking water, since it's more free of some contaminants like mercury, and, more to the point, is already at the point where we'd need it. Piping drinking water from the ocean just to piss it into a river is hugely wasteful.
The biggest impediment to that is the ick factor you just brought up: if the idea of drinking water that had fish urine removed from it, people are going to throw a hissy fit before they'll drink water recycled from their own pee.
I suspect it's because of how uncompetitive the market is here. AT&T has no incentive to pass on the savings for people bringing in their own phone because verizon doesn't do it either.
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I disagree with your conclusion. We agree that it would be a waste to try to accomplish anything there on this front, but you still think they should raise awareness about the problem? Token efforts just so they could prove it wasn't just a left-wing politics campaign? Who do they need to prove that to?
For that matter, what do you mean by left-wing politics campaign? By getting gay marriage passed in Poland, liberals everywhere are going to suddenly get extra votes? I'm not convinced this is a right vs left issue either.
If anything, there's a high chance that such efforts would backfire. "Hey, the Great Satan is promoting homosexual marriage! The friend of my enemy is my enemy, therefore lets redouble our efforts to purge the country of homosexuals!" There were reports that Al-Qaeda was hoping Obama would win the election which certainly didn't win Obama any support, the reaction would be similar, only it could involve more violence.
Oops, that second Afghanistan was supposed to be "Iran." Easy type-o to make I suppose.
So I can choose not to provide any funds to the state if I don't like their actions like I can with a corporation?
Yes. The next CEO or billionaire you meet, ask them how they do it.
Corporate employees can wreak havoc with my life like the police can?
They -can- brutalize you like the police can and do, but being much more clever than the police in general, they realize it's much more satisfying to leech from the public and not break any laws. No expensive legal fees or additional bribery required. They already have the laws nearly exactly how they want to. If you don't pay up, they do ruin your life for far longer than the police would if they broke your legs.
The individual mandate isn't a good example. It is a conservative invention through and through. The only reason many republicans don't like it now is because they weren't the ones who passed it, which is why you didn't have Republicans screaming for Romney's impeachment when he did it. Most democrats weren't "happy" about it either, we would have much preferred government-provided health care similar to the UK.
Uh, no. It's because all they can do is elect a replacement who will treat them just the same, or get out the burning torches, pitchforks and ropes.
That's very optimistic. So few of them vote in the primaries. More than two people to look into and form opinions about? That's more effort than most people are willing to do. If they were just fed up about having poor candidates, you'd think they would actually support reasonable people running for office rather than waiting for big campaign contributors to decide for them.
And replaced by a clone who keeps taxes just as high as they were, because even if he does cut the specific tax that resulted in his election, he sneaks in other stealth tax increases to compensate.
Well yeah, because while we hate taxes, we also hate reducing entitlement programs, defense spending, or government benefits. And the third option of "Do both and run up the debt" is becoming an exhausted option.
That leaves 1. Doing some of both, making a reasoned, rational case for this approach to the voters, and getting thrown out of office by an angry mob, or 2. Doing either and pretending you're not.
The problems with politics in this country are mainly due to the voters themselves. It'd be really nice if there were just a small group of politicians and shadowy figures messing things up, we could pretty easily revolt and lock them up. But that's not the case, it's much worse, it's most voters that are the problem, and educating them is far harder a revolution.
The campaign will focus on countries like Singapore, where certain homosexual activities are illegal, and Poland, which has no legal recognition of same-sex couples.
It sounds like they're doing things wisely and focusing on countries in which the politics are not so turbulent and are not dominated by religious extremists. Poland and Singapore could probably be swayed. Egypt and Afghanistan obviously have bigger issues to contend with, and Afghanistan, that would be pissing money and effort away.
So I'm impressed that they seem to be taking a pragmatic approach and focusing on what they can actually do, rather than slamming their head against the biggest, sturdiest walls.
It will be their undoing. Corporations were immortal, but marriage and kids kill anyone.
Yes, I do tech support in a call center for a living. F'ing kill me now. Before Monday, please.
Given that this population of your customers have proven themselves incompetent, couldn't you just hang up on them all day long and reason that they won't figure out how to give you negative feedback?
Then they're more like a lot of FPS I used to play when I was younger: used to be pricey, is now shareware, and kept me from getting laid when I was in high school.
But they'll give you the information for free, unlike scientology, which gives you some only after you pay, and then they have their tentacles in you. So Christianity is sort of like shareware, while scientology is more like microsoft office.
Simpler explanation: someone not connected to MS is trolling. Effectively it seems.
So you're an optimistic one. Also given to excessive verbiage.
I drove my car without using gloves and now I have a little RC car that I have to spend all my money on.
Problem is, he isn't the great HOPE and CHANGE people were expecting. Just more of the same, only worse.
For very specific definitions of "more of the same," maybe yeah.
Eliminating the influence of money over politics, I can't imagine who honestly thought that he would do that no matter what he said, but if you honestly believed that, he did let you down I suppose. If you were convinced he was going to legalize pot, did he say he was going to ever? I know several people assumed he would. Not sure what they were basing that off of, but I could see how such people would be disappointed.
The projected cost did spiral from 4.4 billion in 1987 to 12 billion in 1993 (source). I think rather than not liking Texas, it was a matter of congress at one time being concerned with billions of dollars. Granted, they never would have batted an eye had this been a military expenditure even then, but the costs were significant too.
What I'm saying is that it's not the constitution that's going to protect you in that case. Your home government's diplomats, the press, and various treaties hopefully, but the constitution, I doubt it.
Reminds me of my favorite Dilbert comic.
I was under the impression that it only applied to US citizens. This wiki page lists three American citizens of note that the government admits to. Hamdi was held at Guantanamo for a while, but the government claims it didn't know he was a citizen. Lindh was put on trial a few months after his capture, and never went to Cuba. Padilla was held for years before trial, but again not at Guantanamo.
It seems that most of the prisoners there are not citizens and have no reasonable expectation that we'll grant them constitutional rights. While I think the rights listed in the constitution SHOULD be applied universally and should apply to non-citizens we arrest, I'm evidently in the minority there, and it hasn't been applied to everyone.
My point is that Guantanamo is not a simple case of the government ignoring the constitution.
But that's always true of any government on any issue. You need to maintain constant vigilance that they're not going to pass some terrible law.
Is there a government? If yes, then they can pass something you don't like and you need to be sure they don't if at all possible. If no, then you don't have to worry about it, but you have bigger issues that you do need to worry about then.
What he meant is that corporations are made out of people and so corporate taxes are also paid by people.
And yet what he and others actually said was "corporations are people," a statement that makes absolutely no sense even in that context. Corporate income is taxed and, in theory, that means less money to go to real people. Okay, but corporations are still not people.
A little perspective, please. Beer is an acquired taste, so I'm not sure how you can say it's fact that one is bad, let alone everything from one country. There's no such thing as a universal standard for beer since it all tastes like crap the first time. None of us were born liking beer, so if you don't like American beer, it's simply because you convinced yourself that other beers were better. Beer was traditionally much more watered down, to the point where you could drink it to stay hydrated. So even if you're drinking bud light, you're drinking really strong beer compared to most brews throughout history.
"MY phone operating system has a larger userbase than your phone operating system, therefore my penis is bigger!!!!"
If you're savvy enough to recognize bloatware, you should be savvy enough to root your phone and freeze/delete that bloatware with titanium backup. It's not tough.
Also keep in mind that DRINKING water (fish pee smell) is not the big issue. People will pay $4 for 350 mls of brand-name water purified from tap water due to marketing and consumers being illogical. Agriculture is the bigger issue. Increasing water costs a few cents per gallon would have major consequences for agriculture, subsidies from the government would have to be substantially increased. Fortunately, it need not be purified as much as drinking water does. If running it through a graphene filter desalinates water to the point of being useful for agriculture but not pure enough to drink, the problem is still solved.
It's been pointed out that the most efficient way to do things would be to recycle city waste water for drinking water, since it's more free of some contaminants like mercury, and, more to the point, is already at the point where we'd need it. Piping drinking water from the ocean just to piss it into a river is hugely wasteful.
The biggest impediment to that is the ick factor you just brought up: if the idea of drinking water that had fish urine removed from it, people are going to throw a hissy fit before they'll drink water recycled from their own pee.
I suspect it's because of how uncompetitive the market is here. AT&T has no incentive to pass on the savings for people bringing in their own phone because verizon doesn't do it either.