I'm sorry to have to point this out but whether the armed forces are "constitutionally authorized", or not, is irrelevant. If the problem is that the government is "too big", as many Republicans claim that it is, then one way to reduce the size of government would be to reduce the budget of the armed forces.
The armed forces, just like every other organization in human history, wastes some of its budget. Why then should the military be exempt from the same fiscal scrutiny applied to any other government department?
On planet Republican: Tax cuts for the rich and military spending don't count towards the deficit/debt; The military never wastes money and definitely does not count as part of the "big government".
Humans are genetically programmed to be selfish - capitalism is the system most closely aligned with human nature.
Unfortunately it isn't so simple. People are genetically/behaviorally "programmed" to be selfish in some ways and altruistic in others (through notably unselfish acts of charity). We're a mixed bag.
As a result of our mixed nature, neither pure free-market capitalism nor communism match the complex needs of the human psyche. I suppose it's why mixed (market+social) economies are so prevalent around the world.
You know what sets off my alarm bells? When people attempt to smear a well respected research group with insinuations of "conspiracy" despite the fact that all three independent investigations have failed to turn up any evidence of scientific malpractice.
To use a local colloquialism: That dog won't hunt.
You couldn't be more wrong about that. The raw data that the CRU used is still available.
You just have to do what they did: Contact all the same stations that originally observed the data, ask them for their raw data, and rebuild the CRU's raw data set.
The CRU is under no obligation (and it may even be illegal for them) to redistribute the raw data without the permission of the scientific entities that collected the data in the first place.
I'd much rather listen to the scientists who have carefully studied the topic of climate change instead of random internet nut-jobs.
There's a much better chance that the scientists actually know what they're talking about.
Problem: The planet's atmosphere is warming up due to human emissions of greenhouse gasses.
Solution: Reduce carbon emissions through a combination of economic incentive programs, industrial retrofitting, and renewable energy sources in time to prevent catastrophic global warming.
Proposed Alternate Solution: Just get everyone to agree to ignore their procreation instinct! How hard could that be!?!
This is what I love about slashdot: There's always someone out there with an alternative solution to a problem that is even worse than the solution they're trying to replace.
Having your destiny set by your high school grades is a marginal improvement on the current system which is:
Having your destiny set by how much money your parents make.
Personally I think Carlin actually did vote but wrote that routine because he figured:
People who would take political advice from a comedian probably shouldn't be voting anyway!
I had the same mindset in high school, except that I rushed through the book without even really attempting to digest it. In retrospect I would have been better off (in terms of GPA) by reading the study guide instead.
... But I had a change of heart years later. I had graduated from Computer Science and started to feel like I wasn't very "well rounded" (except, perhaps, at the waistline!). I decided to read some classical English literature (and philosophy) as a personal project. I've never been good at picking out symbolism, or motifs, or metaphors/similes, or threads, etc (hence why I did so poorly in high school English. D'oh!). So I started reading the study guide along side with the novel. Read a few chapters from the novel and then the corresponding chapters from the study guide.
I find that the study guide helps to keep me from getting lost and, as a result, I'm better at picking up literary elements on my own. As an added bonus I think I get more out of modern film too because I understand the classical literature elements they draw from.
There are some people who will be surprised by this news...
Or they would be if they could stop brutally assaulting people they disagree with just long enough to hear it.
"No one I know vilifies the rich for being successful. In fact, people tend to idolize successful achievers. IF they deserve that success. People love it when smart, plucky, hard working go-getters make it big, but they hate it when conniving sociopathic weasels do. And quite frankly, for every one upstanding rich man who made it big without stepping on anyone along the way, there are ten selfish, amoral pricks who fucked anyone and anything that got in their way. It's not the bad apple that spoils the rich bunch, it is the one lone good apple that somehow resists the all encompassing rot."
Unfortunately the sociopathic weasels are very good at convincing people that they're the upstanding, smart, plucky, hard working go-getters.
I like to use membership on The Giving Pledge to help decide which type they, probably, are.
"The "faux news" meme was certainly alive and kicking then, but there you have it. Fox appeals to a balanced audience while the others heavily favor liberal viewership."
What it says to me is that liberals are more willing to keep an open mind and listen to opinions they disagree with.
Ordinarily I would agree, but FOX News, ever since they decided to funnel money into the GOP and organize protests, is now a propaganda network.
They can't pretend to be "fair and balanced" anymore.
Passing on the cost of idle power plants to customers is a non-starter:
In the scenario under discussion self-generated power is undercutting the public utility rates. The public utilities are losing people with the affluence to afford their own power generation equipment. Therefore the only way for the publicly owned utilities to remain profitable would be to offer electricity at rates that are competitive with self-generated power. Increasing their prices would be irrational as it would only drive more customer away.
The jobs you imagine would be created by eliminating the minimum wage don't actually exist. Allow me to elaborate:
The only jobs that the minimum wage can eliminate are jobs that earn the company less revenue than the minimum hourly rate. The only way that a job (which generates more revenue per hour than the minimum wage) can be eliminated is by incompetence in the company's management staff.
The government is not responsible for what incompetent businesses do.
Actually, supply and demand requires that as fewer people use the publicly owned utilities that will mean that they have a surplus of generating capacity driving the price down for their few remaining customers.
Putting solar panels on your roof isn't just good for the environment: It helps the poor too.
Jobs with a livable minimum wage, standardized work week, occupational health and safety rules.
The free market completely and utterly failed to provide those.
No I'm just smart enough to be able to see the many and obvious flaws with a libertarian system.
For starters it is obvious that no matter whether fire fighting services are public or private that they must put out the fire for anyone who calls because there might be people (other than the owner) trapped in the burning building.
Since it is a given that the fire department MUST respond then a privately owned fire department does not have a choice of customers. They must put out the fire even for customers that are so heavily in debt that they will never be able to pay for the service.
In that case the person who ought to pay can't; The business that ought to refuse service can't; Who pays?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry to have to point this out but whether the armed forces are "constitutionally authorized", or not, is irrelevant. If the problem is that the government is "too big", as many Republicans claim that it is, then one way to reduce the size of government would be to reduce the budget of the armed forces.
The armed forces, just like every other organization in human history, wastes some of its budget. Why then should the military be exempt from the same fiscal scrutiny applied to any other government department?
On planet Republican: Tax cuts for the rich and military spending don't count towards the deficit/debt; The military never wastes money and definitely does not count as part of the "big government".
That's the great thing about the internet: Somehow the UN is both spineless/weak and, at the same time, a shadowy conspiracy that controls everything!
Slashdot never heard from Cornwallis again... and nothing of value was lost.
Mod parent up.
I'm tired of the media giving equal time to nut-jobs.
Humans are genetically programmed to be selfish - capitalism is the system most closely aligned with human nature.
Unfortunately it isn't so simple. People are genetically/behaviorally "programmed" to be selfish in some ways and altruistic in others (through notably unselfish acts of charity). We're a mixed bag.
As a result of our mixed nature, neither pure free-market capitalism nor communism match the complex needs of the human psyche. I suppose it's why mixed (market+social) economies are so prevalent around the world.
You know what sets off my alarm bells? When people attempt to smear a well respected research group with insinuations of "conspiracy" despite the fact that all three independent investigations have failed to turn up any evidence of scientific malpractice.
To use a local colloquialism: That dog won't hunt.
You couldn't be more wrong about that. The raw data that the CRU used is still available.
You just have to do what they did: Contact all the same stations that originally observed the data, ask them for their raw data, and rebuild the CRU's raw data set.
The CRU is under no obligation (and it may even be illegal for them) to redistribute the raw data without the permission of the scientific entities that collected the data in the first place.
I'd much rather listen to the scientists who have carefully studied the topic of climate change instead of random internet nut-jobs.
There's a much better chance that the scientists actually know what they're talking about.
Problem: The planet's atmosphere is warming up due to human emissions of greenhouse gasses.
Solution: Reduce carbon emissions through a combination of economic incentive programs, industrial retrofitting, and renewable energy sources in time to prevent catastrophic global warming.
Proposed Alternate Solution: Just get everyone to agree to ignore their procreation instinct! How hard could that be!?!
This is what I love about slashdot: There's always someone out there with an alternative solution to a problem that is even worse than the solution they're trying to replace.
Having your destiny set by your high school grades is a marginal improvement on the current system which is:
Having your destiny set by how much money your parents make.
Personally I think Carlin actually did vote but wrote that routine because he figured:
People who would take political advice from a comedian probably shouldn't be voting anyway!
I had the same mindset in high school, except that I rushed through the book without even really attempting to digest it. In retrospect I would have been better off (in terms of GPA) by reading the study guide instead.
... But I had a change of heart years later. I had graduated from Computer Science and started to feel like I wasn't very "well rounded" (except, perhaps, at the waistline!). I decided to read some classical English literature (and philosophy) as a personal project. I've never been good at picking out symbolism, or motifs, or metaphors/similes, or threads, etc (hence why I did so poorly in high school English. D'oh!). So I started reading the study guide along side with the novel. Read a few chapters from the novel and then the corresponding chapters from the study guide.
I find that the study guide helps to keep me from getting lost and, as a result, I'm better at picking up literary elements on my own. As an added bonus I think I get more out of modern film too because I understand the classical literature elements they draw from.
There are some people who will be surprised by this news...
Or they would be if they could stop brutally assaulting people they disagree with just long enough to hear it.
"No one I know vilifies the rich for being successful. In fact, people tend to idolize successful achievers. IF they deserve that success. People love it when smart, plucky, hard working go-getters make it big, but they hate it when conniving sociopathic weasels do. And quite frankly, for every one upstanding rich man who made it big without stepping on anyone along the way, there are ten selfish, amoral pricks who fucked anyone and anything that got in their way. It's not the bad apple that spoils the rich bunch, it is the one lone good apple that somehow resists the all encompassing rot."
Unfortunately the sociopathic weasels are very good at convincing people that they're the upstanding, smart, plucky, hard working go-getters.
I like to use membership on The Giving Pledge to help decide which type they, probably, are.
How interesting that you neglect to mention that ABC, CBS, and NBC (unlike Fox) give to both parties equally.
"The "faux news" meme was certainly alive and kicking then, but there you have it. Fox appeals to a balanced audience while the others heavily favor liberal viewership."
What it says to me is that liberals are more willing to keep an open mind and listen to opinions they disagree with.
Ordinarily I would agree, but FOX News, ever since they decided to funnel money into the GOP and organize protests, is now a propaganda network.
They can't pretend to be "fair and balanced" anymore.
Do they also make ironic comments such as: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here: This is the war room!"
Get out of Randal's head Casio!
Passing on the cost of idle power plants to customers is a non-starter:
In the scenario under discussion self-generated power is undercutting the public utility rates. The public utilities are losing people with the affluence to afford their own power generation equipment. Therefore the only way for the publicly owned utilities to remain profitable would be to offer electricity at rates that are competitive with self-generated power. Increasing their prices would be irrational as it would only drive more customer away.
The jobs you imagine would be created by eliminating the minimum wage don't actually exist. Allow me to elaborate:
The only jobs that the minimum wage can eliminate are jobs that earn the company less revenue than the minimum hourly rate. The only way that a job (which generates more revenue per hour than the minimum wage) can be eliminated is by incompetence in the company's management staff.
The government is not responsible for what incompetent businesses do.
Actually, supply and demand requires that as fewer people use the publicly owned utilities that will mean that they have a surplus of generating capacity driving the price down for their few remaining customers.
Putting solar panels on your roof isn't just good for the environment: It helps the poor too.
Jobs with a livable minimum wage, standardized work week, occupational health and safety rules.
The free market completely and utterly failed to provide those.
No I'm just smart enough to be able to see the many and obvious flaws with a libertarian system.
For starters it is obvious that no matter whether fire fighting services are public or private that they must put out the fire for anyone who calls because there might be people (other than the owner) trapped in the burning building.
Since it is a given that the fire department MUST respond then a privately owned fire department does not have a choice of customers. They must put out the fire even for customers that are so heavily in debt that they will never be able to pay for the service.
In that case the person who ought to pay can't; The business that ought to refuse service can't; Who pays?