You have no idea if I support government expenditures or not.
Yes I do. You revealed it when you described a 20% increase as "only."
I'm just pointing out that your figures are flawed,
I suppose by, "your figures are flawed," you mean the figures are accurate. Your argument was not with the figures, but with the interpretation.
and since you are loosing that argument
Not to be pedantic, but that word should be "losing." Well, okay. To be pedantic. More to the point, I am not losing the argument. The original point was made by tompaulco. I am Loyal Opposition. We are not one and the same. So, if anyone were losing the argument it would be him, which it's not.
It's clear you lost,
I know some people believe that if you say something enough times then it must be true. Clearly you are one of those.
you know you lost and you are trying to shift the target by claiming I'm a statist.
I have shifted nothing. You objected to tompaulco's selection of basis year, so fine. I described the entire period of the twentieth century. Was that enough to show that federal spending has increased enormously? If not, then say why not. If it was, then admit it. Don't try to argue that I'm trying to change the discussion to whether or not you're a statist, which you admitted by describing a 20% increase in picayune terms. The argument is whether federal spending has increased, which I have proven through the use of Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics. Now, if I have committed some error in that, then feel free to show me. Don't argue whether I have enough evidence to conclude you're a statist.
Largely because it misses the point. Consider federal spending as a percentage of GDP between 1900 and 1917. For the entire period, federal spending hovered around 3%. Spending as a percentage of GDP leaped upward during WW1, reaching 23% at one point. It fell off after the war, but not to the prior levels. For the first decade after the war levels were at about 6%, rising to 9% for the second decade. (This period includes tompaulco's base year.) Spending as a percentage of GDP leaped upward again during WW2, reaching 45% at one point. It fell off again after the war, but not to prior levels, again. Since WW2 federal spending as a percentage of GDP has hovered around 17%. If we choose the base year you prefer, 1975, then we've disregarded three leaps in spending levels, not including the war years. tompaulco's point is that if the federal government was able to function with 3% of GDP in the first two decades of the twentieth century, why can't they function with those levels today?
The answer is not shifting burden from the states, because state levels of spending as a percentage of GDP have also increased during those years, just not as fast.
In this case government collection is up only 20% over the last forty years.
I can imagine some time in the future when federal spending is 98% of GDP. Statists, such as yourself, will be touting that spending has only increased by 2% over the previous four decades, and celebrating their restraint.
I love seeing this crap in American articles. "Oh Noes! If we pay people more, it will cost businesses more!"
The reason that business costs are lamented is because those costs represent the scarce resources with alternative uses that businesses must use in order to deliver their products. If a business's costs go up then there are a number of things that happen, all of them bad. All else being equal, this means that less of the resource will be used. Thirty years ago this was an uncontroversial tenet, with about 95% of economists holding it. Now, since the Card and Krueger study, it's slightly more controversial, with only 85% of economists holding it. The Card and Krueger study, and subsequent studies, are fatally flawed, and I'm happy to discuss that with you if you wish. (Note, there are rare exceptions to this. Those exceptions are called abnormal goods, of which the potato during the Irish Potato Famine is the most notable.)
To put it simply, if the price of labor is increased then less of it will be used. That means that after a minimum wage increase, assuming the minimum wage is greater than where wages would be if allowed to move freely, more people will be unemployed than there would be in the absence of the minimum wage increase.
Lets look at this for a second.... Who are a businesses customers? Hint: It's the people who get paid a wage.
Some are. Of course, others aren't. Some customers are living on a fixed wage, such as a pension or off of their savings, or from dividends. Some are people who earn more than the minimum wage, either before or after the change. Some customers are on food stamps. Some customers have income to which minimum wage minimums don't apply. (This often happens for small businesses.) It's wildly oversimplifying to say that a business paying minimum wage has customers who all earn minimum wage.
These people get more money, more businesses get more customers. More customers mean more sales.
You would need to make that case. An alternative is that businesses go out of business, so minimum wage earners don't earn any wage, and the former businesses stop making product. Another alternative is that the prices of the businesses goods go up sufficiently to consume the entirety, or more, of the wage increase. Another alternative is that the minimum wage earners save the additional proceeds. Another alternative is that the earners fail to qualify for government largesse after the minimum wage increase, and subsequently have less money to spend.
More sales means more profits.
You remind me of a passage in Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In it, the protagonist remarked that it appeared as though China-men could make a profit starting business in craters on the moon selling rocks to each other and raise large families doing so. They could sell at a loss and make up the difference through volume. More sales means more profits, all else being equal. Of course, one change often begets another, and all else is seldom equal.
Repetitive skill-less tasks that take forever and are required to get to the promised exciting parts of the game.
It's not like that. I will admit to repetitive, but skill helps tremendously. The ban was applied to accounts using a bot that automated PvP...that means one human against another. Or, rather, twenty humans against twenty others. Since humans are so ingenious, it can be quite challenging, particularly against people who are experienced. However, since it was twenty against twenty a bot could be "carried" by nineteen humans and gain honor, which is coin with which to buy armour and weapons. The armour and weapons didn't allow you to get to an exciting part of the game, it made it more difficult for other human-operated characters to kill you. The bot allowed the owner to start it and leave, coming back hours later to spend the coins that it had received.
What's the best example you know of for open-source documentation?
It's not open-source documentation, but the same general principles ought to apply. Years ago I bought an Epson dot matrix printer. The first chapter was called "Quick Start." Quick Start told you how to get up and running with the minimum of fuss. For example, it said, "connect all the cables" instead of saying, "connect plug a (pictured) of cable monster (pictured) to jack b (pictured) of printer 345DEF (pictured), along with all the warnings about what damages and injuries might be caused by improper connections of cables. The manual's author assumed the buyer was fairly knowledgeable and simply wanted to print his first file as quickly as possible. So, with a task at hand, and a knowledgeable user, the chapter because a quick, two page, guide that served as either an introduction or a reminder of how things work.
Chapter 2 did the same as chapter 1, but this time with all of the details. People used it to set their printer up using chapter 1, then, if they had trouble, would go to the corresponding portion of chapter 2.
Chapter 3 introduced seldom-used features by describing a task that required that feature and then describing all of the steps necessary to use that feature. It was only with chapter 4 or subsequent chapters that every detail of every possibility was described.
In short, the manual was task-oriented, tasks being the things the user wanted to accomplish, rather then being function-oriented, functions being the things that various parts of the printer were capable of. Engineers and programmers tend to be function-oriented because they design the various functions. Users tend to be task-oriented because things are tools used to get other things done.
I wrote a manual based on the organization of the Epson manual years later. I heard one story of an operator holding up my manual, and telling the speakers, "that's the way to write a manual." It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
Not sure what your idea of recent is, but I have some pretty old books on mathematical astronomy dating back to the 70's that all refer to the Earth as an oblate spheroid.
Usually, you divide the "recent" time by the lifetime of the object in question. So, if we're talking about Mayflies then recent is anytime within the last 18 minutes. Since we're talking about the Earth, then you divide the time since the very early 70s (45 years) by the age of the earth (6000 years) to get 0.7%, so, yeah. That's recent.
It's pretty obvious to all but the hopelessly deluded that this event had absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Not even those offering that justification actually believe it.
Group A believes something. Group B believes the contrary. Group A threatens to kill group B if they say the contrary. Group B says the contrary. It smells like free speech to me.
That's the level of deliberate stirring we're seeing and it is designed to get a response - bbq in synagogue level squared. If I was in law enforcement in that place I'd make them have their international trollfest way out in the desert so bystanders don't get killed if someone takes the bait.
Really? Do you feel the same way when the shoe's on the other foot? Like when people who subscribe to macro-evolutionary theory take the Ichthys symbol that Christians have used for about twenty centuries, put little footies on it and replace the "Ichthys" with "DARWIN"? Should the guys with that symbol on their cars be forced to drive them out in the desert?
The whole purpose of this contest was to attract a Jihadi to shoot.
Yeah, 'cause there's no way this could have been about free speech! If those Texans would just shut up about their opinion of Muhammad, and keep it to themselves, then they could practice all the free speech they wanted.
Why else the extra extra guards?
So that's why Obama has all of those Secret Service guys!
I'm tempted to defend Obama here by saying that if Bush were still in office, he'd probably have a televised national speech explaining why the NSA needs these powers to prevent a WMD attack or something. And by contrast, Obama has not publicly come out in favor supporting renewal. However, Obama is clearly working behind the scenes to push renewal.
This is another power grab by the religious right.
You remind me of Bluto Blutarsky when he was ranting about it not being over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, in the movie Animal House. Of course, the Germans didn't bomb Pearl Harbor, and neither is this a power grab by the religious right for the simple reason that it isn't a power grab. A power grab is when one uses political power to force someone else to do something they don't want to do, or force them not to do something that they want to do.
Instead, this is a reaction to a previous power grab by the homosexuals wherein they forced bakers to provide cakes for the marriage of homosexuals. Do you see who is doing the forcing? It's the homosexuals. Do you see who doesn't want to do something? It's the religious right. Do you see what they are being forced to do that they don't want? It's provide cakes for homosexual marriages. So, who has made a power grab? It's the homosexuals.
It is connected to their efforts to restrict sex (through access to contraception, sex education, abortion, etc) and control the lives of Americans in the bedroom.
If, in fact, there is such a connection it's a remote one. The more direct connection is not in the bedroom, but rather in the store front, or the service location. The religious right wants to provide certain products or services and not provide others. Homosexuals have used political power to force a choice on them. Either the religious right can provide cakes to whom they don't want to provide cakes to, or they can quit providing cakes altogether. Neither choice would be what they would prefer to choose if they were free to do so.
But you know what? Every article, every boycott and every protest is pushing them back. Similar bills are stalling or failing. The outrage at actions like these are causing more and more Americans to leave their religion in disgust. The more we drag this bullshit into the light, the more the theocrats feel the heat.
You sound like those salesmen selling multi-level marketing. "Don't you want to get into this opportunity early? Everyone is buying in! Don't be the last one to have a piece of this action!"
A free market solution never worked in the Jim Crow south and it wont work now.
A free market solution never worked in the Jim Crow south because a free market solution was never tried in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow laws refer to a set of laws that governments created and that determined what businesses could and could not do. A free market solution is free because it's free from government intervention. The Jim Crow south was not free from government intervention because government intervened in what businesses could and could not do.
When people are proponents of laws like these I just hope they simply haven't thought about their opinion thoroughly enough. But here is someone who fully knows the ramifications of this opinion and is actually proud of it. I don't meet people like this often, and it is very chilling.
I agree with everything DarkOx said.
I simply couldn't imagine someone walking into a store with a "Whites Only" sign on the door and hear him say "Good for them for sticking up for their convictions." But it is clear that DarkOx is such a person.
I wouldn't say that. Rather--I'm glad that neither the government nor anyone else can force them to take the sign down. It's kind of like saying, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."
Nazi Germany was not opposed to religion -- they were very specifically Christian.
Hitler and Nazi Germany were opposed to religion. Hitler's problem was that Germany was, as you so clearly stated, 94% Christian, so they couldn't be seen as being opposed to Christianity. Thus, the quote you found.
Do you believe that business owner should have the legal ability to refuse service to a black/hispanic/asian person, or a woman?...If so, why are you an bigot?
Do you believe that a white person should have the legal ability to refuse to marry (as in, become the spouse of) a black person? If so, why are you a bigot?
My post was intended for those who understand satire.
I come down on the side of the GPL for the simple reason that without "freedom zero" the BSD code will be much more vulnerable to, if not inevitably overtaken by, the kind of behavior Theo de Raadt complained about vis-a-vis corporate uptake of OpenSSH.
Freedom zero is needed because of the length and strength of copyright and trade secret (and to some extent, patent). If those were eliminated or severely limited then freedom zero would be superfluous.
See the problem yet?
No, because it's entirely logical for me to tolerate intolerant people--by allowing them to sell cakes only to heterosexuals, for example. But it's contradictory for a logical person to use illogical inferences.
Seriously, I am curious to know how much these wingnuts have thought about the possibility that non-Christians might use this crap against them. Imagine the uproar is a Halal butcher turned away some Catholics, or a Jewish deli turned away some Baptists on religious grounds. Faux News would have an outrage-gasm.
I'm going to assume that you really meant it when you indicated that you want a serious answer, while realizing I'm on very shaky ground making that assumption...yes. I would permit you the ability to deny doctoring me, feeding me, painting my house, or whatever. You could put up a sign saying, "No Christians need apply" and I would grant you had that right. As far as Fox News goes, yes, I expect them to report it, and I expect that's a very good thing.
I think it's very clear that the only way to ensure tolerance is that we have to make people practice toleration. We have to force people to sell things to people they don't want to sell to, lend things to people they don't want to lend to, allow patronage to people that they don't want as patrons, accept donations from people they don't want as doners, and, in general, to let any protected class to have any transaction that they desire. I think it behooves us to make government bureaucracies that enforces tolerance. I think that no intolerant person should be permitted to be on the bureaucracy, because otherwise intolerance will creep in, which will allow intolerant people to do intolerant things. In fact, that's true of all government. No unprotected class should be permitted to hold any office in the legislature, executive, or judiciary. Those people are intolerant, and we can't allow their intolerant beliefs to pass intolerant laws, enforce intolerant acts, or made intolerant decisions. Only the tolerant people should be able to force their views on others. The intolerant people have views that can be dismissed out of hand. Those views shouldn't be allowed a forum in the media, on the internet, or anywhere in public. Only tolerant views are permissible. Tolerant views should be mandatory, and anything not mandatory should be forbidden.
Do you actually have any idea at all what the regulations are for taxis? Here are some of the rules that 'only represent one tiny class':
Here's the deal--no matter how good taxis are, no matter how much benefit they confer, no matter how much some people prefer them, there're some people who prefer Uber, or some other service, to taxis. Some people who have a choice choose Uber instead of choosing taxis. That means, to those people, that Uber is better, to them, than traditional taxis would be, to them. Now, the taxi operators and politicians beholden to them don't like that. They want to remove that option, the option that the people prefer, in order to force them to choose taxis, which is what they don't prefer, or to choose nothing, which they also don't prefer. That being the case, it doesn't matter how good taxis are, it doesn't matter how many benefits that taxi operators and owners can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that politicians can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that shills on Slashdot can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that you, if I haven't already mentioned you, can tout. What matters is what people want and are willing to pay for.
No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in relevant papers.
No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in irrelevant papers. Actually, that's not strictly true. Soon was attacked because he opposed the narrative. His funding is just a red herring.
Well, clearly *SOME* hidden funding has been revealed, as mentioned even in the summary.
No, no hidden funding has been revealed. Soon and three others wrote an unfunded paper. They did the research on their own time, and no one paid them to do it, and no one paid them for it. The publisher required authors to disclose funding for the work being submitted. The work being submitted had no funding, so that's what they disclosed. Greenpeace started digging into the authors' histories and found that Soon had received funding for previous work. They told reporters that Soon should have disclosed funding for previous work as though it had been for this work. The Boston Globe reported that Soon had been accused of non-disclosure. Someone started a petition to get Soon fired based on a mis-characterization of the Boston Globe story. No hidden funding has been revealed, but enough slanders have been spread to instill doubt about the work, which, one presumes, was their intent.
Slashdot Mirror
You have no idea if I support government expenditures or not.
Yes I do. You revealed it when you described a 20% increase as "only."
I'm just pointing out that your figures are flawed,
I suppose by, "your figures are flawed," you mean the figures are accurate. Your argument was not with the figures, but with the interpretation.
and since you are loosing that argument
Not to be pedantic, but that word should be "losing." Well, okay. To be pedantic. More to the point, I am not losing the argument. The original point was made by tompaulco. I am Loyal Opposition. We are not one and the same. So, if anyone were losing the argument it would be him, which it's not.
It's clear you lost,
I know some people believe that if you say something enough times then it must be true. Clearly you are one of those.
you know you lost and you are trying to shift the target by claiming I'm a statist.
I have shifted nothing. You objected to tompaulco's selection of basis year, so fine. I described the entire period of the twentieth century. Was that enough to show that federal spending has increased enormously? If not, then say why not. If it was, then admit it. Don't try to argue that I'm trying to change the discussion to whether or not you're a statist, which you admitted by describing a 20% increase in picayune terms. The argument is whether federal spending has increased, which I have proven through the use of Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics. Now, if I have committed some error in that, then feel free to show me. Don't argue whether I have enough evidence to conclude you're a statist.
~Loyal
Why don't you compare 1975 with 2015 instead?
Largely because it misses the point. Consider federal spending as a percentage of GDP between 1900 and 1917. For the entire period, federal spending hovered around 3%. Spending as a percentage of GDP leaped upward during WW1, reaching 23% at one point. It fell off after the war, but not to the prior levels. For the first decade after the war levels were at about 6%, rising to 9% for the second decade. (This period includes tompaulco's base year.) Spending as a percentage of GDP leaped upward again during WW2, reaching 45% at one point. It fell off again after the war, but not to prior levels, again. Since WW2 federal spending as a percentage of GDP has hovered around 17%. If we choose the base year you prefer, 1975, then we've disregarded three leaps in spending levels, not including the war years. tompaulco's point is that if the federal government was able to function with 3% of GDP in the first two decades of the twentieth century, why can't they function with those levels today?
The answer is not shifting burden from the states, because state levels of spending as a percentage of GDP have also increased during those years, just not as fast.
In this case government collection is up only 20% over the last forty years.
I can imagine some time in the future when federal spending is 98% of GDP. Statists, such as yourself, will be touting that spending has only increased by 2% over the previous four decades, and celebrating their restraint.
~Loyal
I love seeing this crap in American articles. "Oh Noes! If we pay people more, it will cost businesses more!"
The reason that business costs are lamented is because those costs represent the scarce resources with alternative uses that businesses must use in order to deliver their products. If a business's costs go up then there are a number of things that happen, all of them bad. All else being equal, this means that less of the resource will be used. Thirty years ago this was an uncontroversial tenet, with about 95% of economists holding it. Now, since the Card and Krueger study, it's slightly more controversial, with only 85% of economists holding it. The Card and Krueger study, and subsequent studies, are fatally flawed, and I'm happy to discuss that with you if you wish. (Note, there are rare exceptions to this. Those exceptions are called abnormal goods, of which the potato during the Irish Potato Famine is the most notable.)
To put it simply, if the price of labor is increased then less of it will be used. That means that after a minimum wage increase, assuming the minimum wage is greater than where wages would be if allowed to move freely, more people will be unemployed than there would be in the absence of the minimum wage increase.
Lets look at this for a second.... Who are a businesses customers? Hint: It's the people who get paid a wage.
Some are. Of course, others aren't. Some customers are living on a fixed wage, such as a pension or off of their savings, or from dividends. Some are people who earn more than the minimum wage, either before or after the change. Some customers are on food stamps. Some customers have income to which minimum wage minimums don't apply. (This often happens for small businesses.) It's wildly oversimplifying to say that a business paying minimum wage has customers who all earn minimum wage.
These people get more money, more businesses get more customers. More customers mean more sales.
You would need to make that case. An alternative is that businesses go out of business, so minimum wage earners don't earn any wage, and the former businesses stop making product. Another alternative is that the prices of the businesses goods go up sufficiently to consume the entirety, or more, of the wage increase. Another alternative is that the minimum wage earners save the additional proceeds. Another alternative is that the earners fail to qualify for government largesse after the minimum wage increase, and subsequently have less money to spend.
More sales means more profits.
You remind me of a passage in Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In it, the protagonist remarked that it appeared as though China-men could make a profit starting business in craters on the moon selling rocks to each other and raise large families doing so. They could sell at a loss and make up the difference through volume. More sales means more profits, all else being equal. Of course, one change often begets another, and all else is seldom equal.
~Loyal
Repetitive skill-less tasks that take forever and are required to get to the promised exciting parts of the game.
It's not like that. I will admit to repetitive, but skill helps tremendously. The ban was applied to accounts using a bot that automated PvP...that means one human against another. Or, rather, twenty humans against twenty others. Since humans are so ingenious, it can be quite challenging, particularly against people who are experienced. However, since it was twenty against twenty a bot could be "carried" by nineteen humans and gain honor, which is coin with which to buy armour and weapons. The armour and weapons didn't allow you to get to an exciting part of the game, it made it more difficult for other human-operated characters to kill you. The bot allowed the owner to start it and leave, coming back hours later to spend the coins that it had received.
~Loyal
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. Yogi Berra
What's the best example you know of for open-source documentation?
It's not open-source documentation, but the same general principles ought to apply. Years ago I bought an Epson dot matrix printer. The first chapter was called "Quick Start." Quick Start told you how to get up and running with the minimum of fuss. For example, it said, "connect all the cables" instead of saying, "connect plug a (pictured) of cable monster (pictured) to jack b (pictured) of printer 345DEF (pictured), along with all the warnings about what damages and injuries might be caused by improper connections of cables. The manual's author assumed the buyer was fairly knowledgeable and simply wanted to print his first file as quickly as possible. So, with a task at hand, and a knowledgeable user, the chapter because a quick, two page, guide that served as either an introduction or a reminder of how things work.
Chapter 2 did the same as chapter 1, but this time with all of the details. People used it to set their printer up using chapter 1, then, if they had trouble, would go to the corresponding portion of chapter 2.
Chapter 3 introduced seldom-used features by describing a task that required that feature and then describing all of the steps necessary to use that feature. It was only with chapter 4 or subsequent chapters that every detail of every possibility was described.
In short, the manual was task-oriented, tasks being the things the user wanted to accomplish, rather then being function-oriented, functions being the things that various parts of the printer were capable of. Engineers and programmers tend to be function-oriented because they design the various functions. Users tend to be task-oriented because things are tools used to get other things done.
I wrote a manual based on the organization of the Epson manual years later. I heard one story of an operator holding up my manual, and telling the speakers, "that's the way to write a manual." It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
~Loyal
This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology.
True. But then, irreligious wackos tend to be as well.
~Loyal
Not sure what your idea of recent is, but I have some pretty old books on mathematical astronomy dating back to the 70's that all refer to the Earth as an oblate spheroid.
Usually, you divide the "recent" time by the lifetime of the object in question. So, if we're talking about Mayflies then recent is anytime within the last 18 minutes. Since we're talking about the Earth, then you divide the time since the very early 70s (45 years) by the age of the earth (6000 years) to get 0.7%, so, yeah. That's recent.
~Loyal
It's pretty obvious to all but the hopelessly deluded that this event had absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Not even those offering that justification actually believe it.
Group A believes something. Group B believes the contrary. Group A threatens to kill group B if they say the contrary. Group B says the contrary. It smells like free speech to me.
~Loyal
I warn you - A government big enough to protect you is strong enough to destroy you.
A government small enough to be unable to destroy you is small enough to be destroyed by the government next door.
~Loyal
That's the level of deliberate stirring we're seeing and it is designed to get a response - bbq in synagogue level squared. If I was in law enforcement in that place I'd make them have their international trollfest way out in the desert so bystanders don't get killed if someone takes the bait.
Really? Do you feel the same way when the shoe's on the other foot? Like when people who subscribe to macro-evolutionary theory take the Ichthys symbol that Christians have used for about twenty centuries, put little footies on it and replace the "Ichthys" with "DARWIN"? Should the guys with that symbol on their cars be forced to drive them out in the desert?
~Loyal
The whole purpose of this contest was to attract a Jihadi to shoot.
Yeah, 'cause there's no way this could have been about free speech! If those Texans would just shut up about their opinion of Muhammad, and keep it to themselves, then they could practice all the free speech they wanted.
Why else the extra extra guards?
So that's why Obama has all of those Secret Service guys!
~Loyal
I'm tempted to defend Obama here by saying that if Bush were still in office, he'd probably have a televised national speech explaining why the NSA needs these powers to prevent a WMD attack or something. And by contrast, Obama has not publicly come out in favor supporting renewal. However, Obama is clearly working behind the scenes to push renewal.
So...you're advocating against transparency?
~Loyal
This is another power grab by the religious right.
You remind me of Bluto Blutarsky when he was ranting about it not being over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, in the movie Animal House. Of course, the Germans didn't bomb Pearl Harbor, and neither is this a power grab by the religious right for the simple reason that it isn't a power grab. A power grab is when one uses political power to force someone else to do something they don't want to do, or force them not to do something that they want to do.
Instead, this is a reaction to a previous power grab by the homosexuals wherein they forced bakers to provide cakes for the marriage of homosexuals. Do you see who is doing the forcing? It's the homosexuals. Do you see who doesn't want to do something? It's the religious right. Do you see what they are being forced to do that they don't want? It's provide cakes for homosexual marriages. So, who has made a power grab? It's the homosexuals.
It is connected to their efforts to restrict sex (through access to contraception, sex education, abortion, etc) and control the lives of Americans in the bedroom.
If, in fact, there is such a connection it's a remote one. The more direct connection is not in the bedroom, but rather in the store front, or the service location. The religious right wants to provide certain products or services and not provide others. Homosexuals have used political power to force a choice on them. Either the religious right can provide cakes to whom they don't want to provide cakes to, or they can quit providing cakes altogether. Neither choice would be what they would prefer to choose if they were free to do so.
But you know what? Every article, every boycott and every protest is pushing them back. Similar bills are stalling or failing. The outrage at actions like these are causing more and more Americans to leave their religion in disgust. The more we drag this bullshit into the light, the more the theocrats feel the heat.
You sound like those salesmen selling multi-level marketing. "Don't you want to get into this opportunity early? Everyone is buying in! Don't be the last one to have a piece of this action!"
~Loyal
"Never mind; he's on a roll."
A free market solution never worked in the Jim Crow south and it wont work now.
A free market solution never worked in the Jim Crow south because a free market solution was never tried in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow laws refer to a set of laws that governments created and that determined what businesses could and could not do. A free market solution is free because it's free from government intervention. The Jim Crow south was not free from government intervention because government intervened in what businesses could and could not do.
~Loyal
When people are proponents of laws like these I just hope they simply haven't thought about their opinion thoroughly enough. But here is someone who fully knows the ramifications of this opinion and is actually proud of it. I don't meet people like this often, and it is very chilling.
I agree with everything DarkOx said.
I simply couldn't imagine someone walking into a store with a "Whites Only" sign on the door and hear him say "Good for them for sticking up for their convictions." But it is clear that DarkOx is such a person.
I wouldn't say that. Rather--I'm glad that neither the government nor anyone else can force them to take the sign down. It's kind of like saying, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."
~Loyal
Nazi Germany was not opposed to religion -- they were very specifically Christian.
Hitler and Nazi Germany were opposed to religion. Hitler's problem was that Germany was, as you so clearly stated, 94% Christian, so they couldn't be seen as being opposed to Christianity. Thus, the quote you found.
~Loyal
Do you believe that business owner should have the legal ability to refuse service to a black/hispanic/asian person, or a woman?...If so, why are you an bigot?
Do you believe that a white person should have the legal ability to refuse to marry (as in, become the spouse of) a black person? If so, why are you a bigot?
~Loyal
(and not very good at it--don't quitcher dayjob)
My post was intended for those who understand satire.
I come down on the side of the GPL for the simple reason that without "freedom zero" the BSD code will be much more vulnerable to, if not inevitably overtaken by, the kind of behavior Theo de Raadt complained about vis-a-vis corporate uptake of OpenSSH.
Freedom zero is needed because of the length and strength of copyright and trade secret (and to some extent, patent). If those were eliminated or severely limited then freedom zero would be superfluous.
See the problem yet?
No, because it's entirely logical for me to tolerate intolerant people--by allowing them to sell cakes only to heterosexuals, for example. But it's contradictory for a logical person to use illogical inferences.
~Loyal
Seriously, I am curious to know how much these wingnuts have thought about the possibility that non-Christians might use this crap against them. Imagine the uproar is a Halal butcher turned away some Catholics, or a Jewish deli turned away some Baptists on religious grounds. Faux News would have an outrage-gasm.
I'm going to assume that you really meant it when you indicated that you want a serious answer, while realizing I'm on very shaky ground making that assumption...yes. I would permit you the ability to deny doctoring me, feeding me, painting my house, or whatever. You could put up a sign saying, "No Christians need apply" and I would grant you had that right. As far as Fox News goes, yes, I expect them to report it, and I expect that's a very good thing.
~Loyal
I think it's very clear that the only way to ensure tolerance is that we have to make people practice toleration. We have to force people to sell things to people they don't want to sell to, lend things to people they don't want to lend to, allow patronage to people that they don't want as patrons, accept donations from people they don't want as doners, and, in general, to let any protected class to have any transaction that they desire. I think it behooves us to make government bureaucracies that enforces tolerance. I think that no intolerant person should be permitted to be on the bureaucracy, because otherwise intolerance will creep in, which will allow intolerant people to do intolerant things. In fact, that's true of all government. No unprotected class should be permitted to hold any office in the legislature, executive, or judiciary. Those people are intolerant, and we can't allow their intolerant beliefs to pass intolerant laws, enforce intolerant acts, or made intolerant decisions. Only the tolerant people should be able to force their views on others. The intolerant people have views that can be dismissed out of hand. Those views shouldn't be allowed a forum in the media, on the internet, or anywhere in public. Only tolerant views are permissible. Tolerant views should be mandatory, and anything not mandatory should be forbidden.
~Loyal
Do you actually have any idea at all what the regulations are for taxis? Here are some of the rules that 'only represent one tiny class':
Here's the deal--no matter how good taxis are, no matter how much benefit they confer, no matter how much some people prefer them, there're some people who prefer Uber, or some other service, to taxis. Some people who have a choice choose Uber instead of choosing taxis. That means, to those people, that Uber is better, to them, than traditional taxis would be, to them. Now, the taxi operators and politicians beholden to them don't like that. They want to remove that option, the option that the people prefer, in order to force them to choose taxis, which is what they don't prefer, or to choose nothing, which they also don't prefer. That being the case, it doesn't matter how good taxis are, it doesn't matter how many benefits that taxi operators and owners can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that politicians can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that shills on Slashdot can tout. It doesn't matter how many benefits that you, if I haven't already mentioned you, can tout. What matters is what people want and are willing to pay for.
I hope I've cleared that up.
~Loyal
No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in relevant papers.
No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in irrelevant papers. Actually, that's not strictly true. Soon was attacked because he opposed the narrative. His funding is just a red herring.
~Loyal
Of course they were. Just like your beliefs. That in itself doesn't help us determine which are true, though.
I'm glad you agree. Now you and I just have to convince MightyMartian.
~Loyal
Well, clearly *SOME* hidden funding has been revealed, as mentioned even in the summary.
No, no hidden funding has been revealed. Soon and three others wrote an unfunded paper. They did the research on their own time, and no one paid them to do it, and no one paid them for it. The publisher required authors to disclose funding for the work being submitted. The work being submitted had no funding, so that's what they disclosed. Greenpeace started digging into the authors' histories and found that Soon had received funding for previous work. They told reporters that Soon should have disclosed funding for previous work as though it had been for this work. The Boston Globe reported that Soon had been accused of non-disclosure. Someone started a petition to get Soon fired based on a mis-characterization of the Boston Globe story. No hidden funding has been revealed, but enough slanders have been spread to instill doubt about the work, which, one presumes, was their intent.
~Loyal