I recently moved from up around Lamar and Rundberg (still own a house there -- renting it out until the market gets better).
Hopefully your time horizon on the market getting better is greater than a decade.
For the economy to get better banks have to accept their losses but if they do that perhaps 70% will be instantly insolvent (don't believe me? see calculated risk's problem bank list ) so in order to keep their jobs, they kick the can down the road. Japan did it for over a decade before they finally killed their zombies. The US could hang on even longer.
This Anonymous thing, if it is done by teenagers, is the stupidest thing ever, and if done by psy-ops, quite clever
My vote is teenagers, the stupid to signal ratio is too high for psy-ops. Besides Mugabe prefers direct action (gukurahundi, 2008 election violence) and seems to appreciate the simplicity of "one person who annoys me, one bullet." False flagging in order to proclaim that "Tha Foreigners" are out to get Zim is too complex and much less useful, he can just point to Tsvangirai's meeting with western folks if he wants to hype "The Enemies are out to get us."
as journalists seem to continue to report this unaware
I assume you mean the assumption that this is 1) by anonymous 2) related to WikiLeaks, correct?
The same reason you should refuse to provide the police with any information. False positives.
Or you are a flaming asshole who claims to be a sovereign citizen and is aware of the International Jewish Bankers Conspiracy/Bilderberg/Trilateral Commission and will resist this evil with all you are.
Broad strokes? It describes husband of family friend who was stopped, refused field sobriety test, refused brethalyzer, argued with Tha Pigs and was convicted for being an asshole. That wasn't the actual charge but thats why he was in jail, has a criminal record, and still has no license three years later. With the record he can now check "I have been convicted of a crime" on every job application for life, and he is still on probation.
Sometimes it is a principled stand against an unbalanced system, sometimes it is because the person is guilty as hell and wants (vainly) to avoid conviction, sometimes it is because they are feeding a paranoid fantasy of martyrdom, and sometimes they are just assholes.
A few others (finally accepted in the 20th century):
Big Bang-derided as "the loud pop" among physicists the Missoula Floods-a "wild idea" first advanced in the 1920's Germ Theory of Disease-ignored in textbooks as late as 1940's Plate Techtonics-ignored until incontestable evidence was advanced in the 1960's
Assange has no actual interest in the US. Rather what he has is an interest in letting the rest of the world understand its influence upon different citizen's countries and how their governments may have interacted or even been pressured into doing deals with the US to further its own interest, often at the cost of democratic values
So he's not interested in the US but he is interested in talking about the US. Sounds like he IS interested in the US.
The idea that, because some idiots in the US subscribe to the idea that the US is exceptional, anything to "bring 'em down a notch" is acceptable, is just as stupid as the "praise 'em to the skies" brigade.
Did it occur to anyone that Tsvangirai was making request the people he is supposed to represent don't want?
He was making a request the dictator certainly doesn't want made. Tsvangirai heads the Movement for Democratic Change who arguably won the 2008 election (every other result took two days but the second runoff took an entire MONTH? Who's Mugabe kidding). The MDC people were beaten and some killed by thugs of the dictator. Tsvangirai was beaten by those same thugs. A few months after taking office his wife was killed in an "accident" that also injured Tsvangirai.
The power structure certainly doesn't want this, the army doesn't want this, the people are closer to the MDC (first election results: MDC 47%, ZANU-PF 43%).
The problem is that in diplomacy you need to make public statements which are the consensus of the government even if you do not agree with them. Consider the Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament. She does not write it, but she speaks "on the record." Has every sovereign of England supported everything in that speech? By no means. They may well have worked against some of the policies which they said in public.
Interestingly, Tsvangirai is working in the best interest of the people because Mugabe has no problem with shooting people who annoy him and starving anyone who does not adhere to his one party rule. Thus, if Mugabe were forced to accept genuine change by outside pressure, rather than denying it (see the election of 2008 where he used violence and fraud to overturn the vote) then the nation as a whole would be better off rather than the way it is now with one party rule and one party profit.
Think for a second on what Mr. Mannings goal was...
Getting revenge for being demoted to PFC. Getting revenge for Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Oh, and embarrassing the folks who had done him wrong.
He can drape that in the flag and grab for the first amendment, his allies can praise him to the skies for his nobility of purpose; but he is not solely a Noble Martyr to the Cause of Freedom, Justice and Truth.
IOW don't leap for conspiracy without first considering stupidity. Take L33t HaX0r wannabes, add rumor, let simmer in righteous indignation... voila! a lynch mob.
There are too many moving parts for one institution to control, unless you mean the International Jewish Bankers Conspiracy in which case there's no helping you.
Let's watch what happened: 1.Greenspan held interest rates absurdly low after the 2001 recession and said he would continue doing so. 2. international and domestic money wanted better than 1% return. 3. with all that money sloshing around looking for higher but safe return multiple institutions globally started to issue mortgages, MBS, and SIVs to soak up that money. 4. as the business took off, more intermediaries popped in to further separate borrower from lender, and "get their cut" at the same time. 5. borrowers were encouraged to buy too much house because everyone else was bidding with all the easy money and "it will only go up." 6. mortgages are paid with wages and wages did not go up. Less creditworthy borrowers were brought into the pool. fraud was easy because the regulators didn't care/weren't looking. thus boom! All Fall Down
The banks might have done something with 3 but so many brilliant/stupid ideas were popping up after glass steagall was repealed and derivatives were declared outside of all regulation, that to point to one institution as being The Cause is silly
The key word in the opening sentence is "sadly" which indicates that spun opposes exceptionalism. See also the second paragraph. If a "growing number of Americans seem to believe" a thing, the author is standing outside the group to criticize it.
The rest of the post is exceptionalism explained from the point of an adherent. Sometimes it is easier to explain by getting in someone else's shoes. Exceptionalism really does mean that the exception believes it is not in the world as others, thus others opinions do not matter to the exception because it is an exception.
It is in the middle but unless they are EXACTLY at the same position in the middle, one is closer to A than the other.
Dumping everything into the "it's all grey" category and ignoring every difference is just as stupid as assigning the Good/Bad label as if they were absolutes.
On Slashdot, Freedom of Speech is "good" when it protects us, it is "bad" when it protects the people with whom we disagree. Look at all the STFU @$$hole! comments.
Maybe the Swedes just decided "We don't want an attention whore who will fsck up the neighborhood and we don't want to discuss it with all the whiney jerks who think this whore is $Deity."
Hollywood is not exactly a Shining Beacon of Greatness in the World, perhaps Sweden didn't want to follow in H-wood's footsteps.
Nations have a character which shapes their government. This character is conservative, holding on to the old model and making the new structure "fit" that model. In Russia, there were Czars: absolute autocrats. When the communists overthrew the czars, the state they set up also had czars. When the communists were overthrown, the government which arose also had czars. This is why Putin is still czar with the cult of personality and power focused in his hands.
Iran has had shahs longer than there were czars in Russia. With that long history of personal rule, corruption and oppression, a few years of 'elected government' will not change their character. The majlis has functioned under shah and ayatollah but it has no power. A few years of "democracy" doesn't change the nation (see also: the current democratic government in Iraq).
Which is a long way of saying that the root problem of foreign relations with Iran lies in the intersection between centuries of rule by proud, authoritarian, wily people whose public face was a mask; cabals of officials who actually exercised power behind the scenes; and the long history of foreign meddling (see also: Great Game).
The nation was not suddenly a democracy which was horridly overthrown by the evil west, see the talk page on that wiki article you cited. Only puppets, and this means the whole nation, can claim "it is all someone else's fault."
WWI came about in a large part because the French diplomats worked hard to create an anti-German alliance (see Triple Entente) after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans worked to create their own Triple Alliance to counter this. The Germans developed strong relations with the Ottomans in order to break the encirclement. This finely balanced internetwork of Defense Pacts led to the toppling dominoes which sounded the Guns of August.
so yes, diplomats caused WWI (with significant help from the generals)
or simply use Dans Gauradian and Squid to filter content. there is an OSX package [DG Complete] which installs and manages both maintained at Lopata.net
Take a good hard look at the default settings, I found them to be way too locked down. You will want to tweak them. This way the users can work with Safari and you can make sure what is and isn't (likely) to show up.
The kids never seem to mind but the parents are gonna freak. "You're letting my precious on tha innernet? What are you some [insert long string of epithets] freak!" You can wave the filter at them and the parents will settle down.
"To counteract the regressive nature of the sales tax, everybody would receive a fixed dollar amount refund. "
Three problems with this idea:
1. People will be required to actually pay the sales tax before they get the refund. Thus the poverty and sub-poverty level people will go to zero or negative numbers BEFORE the refund shows up.
2. Variance in cost of living. A flat refund will cover a different percentage of actual living expenses based on regional variance. The cost to survive in Yuma, Arizona is very different from Los Angeles, California. So you compound the harsh effect of the "refund afterwards" plan by putting pressure on people to move to other areas.
3. The elimination of business/corporate tax simply shifts the burden. If we assume that only the end purchaser will pay the tax, how do we assure that the actual "end purchaser" is paying the tax? Corporations build inventory and individuals sometimes make custom projects (computers anyone?) for others. Who pays the tax if only the end of the line is supposed to pay it?
Lastly, where did you get the 20% idea? That's higher than Social Security (15%) and three steps up the progressive tax scale (10% & 15%). Is it equitable to increase the tax on all those with an Adjusted Gross Income of under 65,000? (for single tax payer, no dependants, the highest tax rate) Realize that this means increasing tax on at least 60% of US incomes while lowering it on the remaining 40% (as per US Census ( ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032003/hhinc/new06_000.htm ).
It may have a lot to do with hippie pot smoking parents
There is no way there were that many pot smoking hippies!
People like to blame the hippies for a whole lot of things, the only problem is that there were so few of them. Popular fear made them more of a menace than they ever were
That said, wrapping ourselves in a individual 'worlds' is never the way to get high scores in "plays well with others."
Slashdot Mirror
I recently moved from up around Lamar and Rundberg (still own a house there -- renting it out until the market gets better).
Hopefully your time horizon on the market getting better is greater than a decade.
For the economy to get better banks have to accept their losses but if they do that perhaps 70% will be instantly insolvent (don't believe me? see calculated risk's problem bank list ) so in order to keep their jobs, they kick the can down the road. Japan did it for over a decade before they finally killed their zombies. The US could hang on even longer.
This Anonymous thing, if it is done by teenagers, is the stupidest thing ever, and if done by psy-ops, quite clever
My vote is teenagers, the stupid to signal ratio is too high for psy-ops. Besides Mugabe prefers direct action (gukurahundi, 2008 election violence) and seems to appreciate the simplicity of "one person who annoys me, one bullet." False flagging in order to proclaim that "Tha Foreigners" are out to get Zim is too complex and much less useful, he can just point to Tsvangirai's meeting with western folks if he wants to hype "The Enemies are out to get us."
as journalists seem to continue to report this unaware
I assume you mean the assumption that this is 1) by anonymous 2) related to WikiLeaks, correct?
The same reason you should refuse to provide the police with any information. False positives.
Or you are a flaming asshole who claims to be a sovereign citizen and is aware of the International Jewish Bankers Conspiracy/Bilderberg/Trilateral Commission and will resist this evil with all you are.
Broad strokes? It describes husband of family friend who was stopped, refused field sobriety test, refused brethalyzer, argued with Tha Pigs and was convicted for being an asshole. That wasn't the actual charge but thats why he was in jail, has a criminal record, and still has no license three years later. With the record he can now check "I have been convicted of a crime" on every job application for life, and he is still on probation.
Sometimes it is a principled stand against an unbalanced system, sometimes it is because the person is guilty as hell and wants (vainly) to avoid conviction, sometimes it is because they are feeding a paranoid fantasy of martyrdom, and sometimes they are just assholes.
A few others (finally accepted in the 20th century):
Big Bang-derided as "the loud pop" among physicists
the Missoula Floods-a "wild idea" first advanced in the 1920's
Germ Theory of Disease-ignored in textbooks as late as 1940's
Plate Techtonics-ignored until incontestable evidence was advanced in the 1960's
Can. Not. Resist. Perfect. Straight. Line...
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. No one.
Assange has no actual interest in the US. Rather what he has is an interest in letting the rest of the world understand its influence upon different citizen's countries and how their governments may have interacted or even been pressured into doing deals with the US to further its own interest, often at the cost of democratic values
So he's not interested in the US but he is interested in talking about the US. Sounds like he IS interested in the US.
The idea that, because some idiots in the US subscribe to the idea that the US is exceptional, anything to "bring 'em down a notch" is acceptable, is just as stupid as the "praise 'em to the skies" brigade.
Did it occur to anyone that Tsvangirai was making request the people he is supposed to represent don't want?
He was making a request the dictator certainly doesn't want made. Tsvangirai heads the Movement for Democratic Change who arguably won the 2008 election (every other result took two days but the second runoff took an entire MONTH? Who's Mugabe kidding). The MDC people were beaten and some killed by thugs of the dictator. Tsvangirai was beaten by those same thugs. A few months after taking office his wife was killed in an "accident" that also injured Tsvangirai.
The power structure certainly doesn't want this, the army doesn't want this, the people are closer to the MDC (first election results: MDC 47%, ZANU-PF 43%).
quite a few, consider this blast from the past quote
"He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch"
Super extra bonus points for who said it and about whom.
and his opponent is a man of utter integrity?
The problem is that in diplomacy you need to make public statements which are the consensus of the government even if you do not agree with them. Consider the Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament. She does not write it, but she speaks "on the record." Has every sovereign of England supported everything in that speech? By no means. They may well have worked against some of the policies which they said in public.
Interestingly, Tsvangirai is working in the best interest of the people because Mugabe has no problem with shooting people who annoy him and starving anyone who does not adhere to his one party rule. Thus, if Mugabe were forced to accept genuine change by outside pressure, rather than denying it (see the election of 2008 where he used violence and fraud to overturn the vote) then the nation as a whole would be better off rather than the way it is now with one party rule and one party profit.
Think for a second on what Mr. Mannings goal was...
Getting revenge for being demoted to PFC. Getting revenge for Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Oh, and embarrassing the folks who had done him wrong.
He can drape that in the flag and grab for the first amendment, his allies can praise him to the skies for his nobility of purpose; but he is not solely a Noble Martyr to the Cause of Freedom, Justice and Truth.
Maybe harassing me is practice for them. :-(
How long has the world revolved around you and are you seeking counseling for this? :-)
If one person's freedom includes anothers, that person's freedom is superior, as far as freedom goes
This depends on one's definition of "freedom" and "superior" which is my entire point.
To say that group A believes in freedom while group B does not is entirely dependent on who gets to define what freedom actually is.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda.
IOW don't leap for conspiracy without first considering stupidity. Take L33t HaX0r wannabes, add rumor, let simmer in righteous indignation... voila! a lynch mob.
Whether a person loves or hates "freedom" depends on who is defining freedom and how they choose to define it.
After all "homophobe" is a pejorative label given to one group by their detractors.
See also: Gary Hart, 1988 Presidential Campaign, Donna Rice
Powerful people, stupid sex. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
And no, I don't know if he did or didn't, that's for a jury of his peers if a case is mounted.
No.
There are too many moving parts for one institution to control, unless you mean the International Jewish Bankers Conspiracy in which case there's no helping you.
Let's watch what happened:
1.Greenspan held interest rates absurdly low after the 2001 recession and said he would continue doing so.
2. international and domestic money wanted better than 1% return.
3. with all that money sloshing around looking for higher but safe return multiple institutions globally started to issue mortgages, MBS, and SIVs to soak up that money.
4. as the business took off, more intermediaries popped in to further separate borrower from lender, and "get their cut" at the same time.
5. borrowers were encouraged to buy too much house because everyone else was bidding with all the easy money and "it will only go up."
6. mortgages are paid with wages and wages did not go up. Less creditworthy borrowers were brought into the pool. fraud was easy because the regulators didn't care/weren't looking.
thus boom! All Fall Down
The banks might have done something with 3 but so many brilliant/stupid ideas were popping up after glass steagall was repealed and derivatives were declared outside of all regulation, that to point to one institution as being The Cause is silly
Please read the fantastic post again.
The key word in the opening sentence is "sadly" which indicates that spun opposes exceptionalism. See also the second paragraph. If a "growing number of Americans seem to believe" a thing, the author is standing outside the group to criticize it.
The rest of the post is exceptionalism explained from the point of an adherent. Sometimes it is easier to explain by getting in someone else's shoes. Exceptionalism really does mean that the exception believes it is not in the world as others, thus others opinions do not matter to the exception because it is an exception.
It is in the middle but unless they are EXACTLY at the same position in the middle, one is closer to A than the other.
Dumping everything into the "it's all grey" category and ignoring every difference is just as stupid as assigning the Good/Bad label as if they were absolutes.
Actually, it is spelled "Gub'mint" as in "Big Gub'mint" the all purpose bogieman du jour.
On Slashdot, Freedom of Speech is "good" when it protects us, it is "bad" when it protects the people with whom we disagree. Look at all the STFU @$$hole! comments.
Maybe the Swedes just decided "We don't want an attention whore who will fsck up the neighborhood and we don't want to discuss it with all the whiney jerks who think this whore is $Deity."
Hollywood is not exactly a Shining Beacon of Greatness in the World, perhaps Sweden didn't want to follow in H-wood's footsteps.
Nations have a character which shapes their government. This character is conservative, holding on to the old model and making the new structure "fit" that model. In Russia, there were Czars: absolute autocrats. When the communists overthrew the czars, the state they set up also had czars. When the communists were overthrown, the government which arose also had czars. This is why Putin is still czar with the cult of personality and power focused in his hands.
Iran has had shahs longer than there were czars in Russia. With that long history of personal rule, corruption and oppression, a few years of 'elected government' will not change their character. The majlis has functioned under shah and ayatollah but it has no power. A few years of "democracy" doesn't change the nation (see also: the current democratic government in Iraq).
Which is a long way of saying that the root problem of foreign relations with Iran lies in the intersection between centuries of rule by proud, authoritarian, wily people whose public face was a mask; cabals of officials who actually exercised power behind the scenes; and the long history of foreign meddling (see also: Great Game).
The nation was not suddenly a democracy which was horridly overthrown by the evil west, see the talk page on that wiki article you cited. Only puppets, and this means the whole nation, can claim "it is all someone else's fault."
WWI came about in a large part because the French diplomats worked hard to create an anti-German alliance (see Triple Entente) after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans worked to create their own Triple Alliance to counter this. The Germans developed strong relations with the Ottomans in order to break the encirclement. This finely balanced internetwork of Defense Pacts led to the toppling dominoes which sounded the Guns of August.
so yes, diplomats caused WWI (with significant help from the generals)
Take a good hard look at the default settings, I found them to be way too locked down. You will want to tweak them. This way the users can work with Safari and you can make sure what is and isn't (likely) to show up.
The kids never seem to mind but the parents are gonna freak. "You're letting my precious on tha innernet? What are you some [insert long string of epithets] freak!" You can wave the filter at them and the parents will settle down.
"To counteract the regressive nature of the sales tax, everybody would receive a fixed dollar amount refund. "
0 .htm ).
Three problems with this idea:
1. People will be required to actually pay the sales tax before they get the refund. Thus the poverty and sub-poverty level people will go to zero or negative numbers BEFORE the refund shows up.
2. Variance in cost of living. A flat refund will cover a different percentage of actual living expenses based on regional variance. The cost to survive in Yuma, Arizona is very different from Los Angeles, California. So you compound the harsh effect of the "refund afterwards" plan by putting pressure on people to move to other areas.
3. The elimination of business/corporate tax simply shifts the burden. If we assume that only the end purchaser will pay the tax, how do we assure that the actual "end purchaser" is paying the tax? Corporations build inventory and individuals sometimes make custom projects (computers anyone?) for others. Who pays the tax if only the end of the line is supposed to pay it?
Lastly, where did you get the 20% idea? That's higher than Social Security (15%) and three steps up the progressive tax scale (10% & 15%). Is it equitable to increase the tax on all those with an Adjusted Gross Income of under 65,000? (for single tax payer, no dependants, the highest tax rate) Realize that this means increasing tax on at least 60% of US incomes while lowering it on the remaining 40% (as per US Census ( ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032003/hhinc/new06_00
There is no way there were that many pot smoking hippies!
People like to blame the hippies for a whole lot of things, the only problem is that there were so few of them. Popular fear made them more of a menace than they ever were
That said, wrapping ourselves in a individual 'worlds' is never the way to get high scores in "plays well with others."