There is no qualification required to join the USCF other than paying the registration fee. Anyone can do so and race in category five races. Some of those, you can just enroll with the USCF for the day. The training you speak of only happens once the cyclist joins a team or they choose to do some self-directed training.
Even with team training, it's still not a particularly safe sport. One only has to watch a grand tour and note how many cyclists get taken out per stage by some accident or another. But of course, that's racing. Are you insane enough to push it just a little bit more than the next guy. On that point I agree, racing and riding are vastly different. That's like using NASCAR as evidence of the safety of regular car travel.
No, but it seems to me this willingness to do whatever the higher-ups say is far too prevalent among technology workers. This is just ads, but the same could be said of doing bad things with customer and billing data, security best practices, etc. I hope somewhere along the way, someone has enough backbone to say "hey, maybe this isn't the best idea."
"Car owners should know that although these vehicles have emissions exceeding standards, these violations do not present a safety hazard and the cars remain legal to drive and resell. Owners of cars of these models and years do not need to take any action at this time."
I assume they mean to say that it's not a hazard that will kill the occupants of the vehicle, but only hazardous considering the number of these vehicles on the road, but the way they phrase it seems to contradict the necessity of emission controls.
If you read his other comments.. he did actually take action.
The library workers aren't in any danger. The state would step in if the feds were to ever try and go after them. There was a lot of push back in NH against the TSA, as an example. The state reminded everyone that it's perfectly okay to video record TSA agents that are behaving improperly and that law enforcement was not to interfere with those recordings, and if requested, to assist. We still have a strong state government, and it's perfectly happy to push back against the feds when necessary.
The sarcasm was more about the knee-jerk comments suggesting that the town was going to surrender to DHS and that New Hampshire wasn't living up to its motto. You're right though. Hashtags and comments alone aren't likely to create the change you're looking for. I'd also add that positive change is more likely to happen at the local level as in this instance than at the federal level. And that's alright.
This can't be. Most of the people that posted comments about the previous article swore that freedom was dead and that the people were all sheep. How could this have happened?
What do you want, more social nets? We're in a messed up situation where those that can afford to raise a family and are responsible enough to do a good job at it at the least likely to want to have offspring, meanwhile the government is doing everything possible to encourage those who are less responsible and have no means to support a family to have children anyway. I don't think poverty is the root of this issue. Poverty is a symptom of a bigger problem.
It's even more stupid than that. What is the government going to do even if they do catch these criminals? They're not going to do any serious time in prison. The prisons are full. These types of criminals are the first to be let out so that they have room to house violent criminals. Then they're back on the street committing the same crimes again. It's not unlike people who get caught committing their 20th DUI. There are no serious punishments, so there's no reason for them to stop even if they do get caught.
On the net, they began way back with the stupid x10 pop over, pop under, pop all the fuck over your screen ads. No one had even imagined a popup blocker until that nonsense started, let alone an ad blocker.
Treating social media that way is a bad idea for a whole bunch of reasons. One, Twitter can alter their service at any point, as evidenced by this story. You can't have a transparent government with communication channels that delete information. The issue with the IRS and Hillary Clinton are bad enough as it is. Facebook is a horrible communication mechanism considering you have to sell your soul to Facebook in order to create an account. Are you suggesting that the governed be walled off from their representatives because they don't agree to a social media EULA?
It would be an odd exclusion if the court were to state that stun guns aren't covered by the 2nd. Someone may have been able to fend off a home invader with a stun gun, but by such a court decision might have to use a shotgun instead.
I doubt most people are using software to farm license plates or do facial recognition from those videos, nor would they throw any data derived from that into a central database that would be used for unknown government purposes.
It's an interesting issue since it does touch on a number of things.
"See, this is the kind of dumbass horse shit I was expecting, which lead me to say this probably isn't worth discussing."
You're about as bi-partisan as our current President, assuming you're American. That meeting where he turned to McCain and reminded him who won the election was a low point in US history.
"you make no mention of those who work and still don't succeed, or those who try to work and can't find work"
If you work and you make a living off it, you've succeeded. Fact is, we're not all going to own an executive jet or live in a mansion. Even your minimum payout scheme would not come close to achieving that. If you set reasonable expectations, they most certainly can be achieved. If someone can't find work, then perhaps it's their search that's the problem. I can't find work as a beer tester. Instead, I do software engineering. It's not exactly what I want, but I make a decent living off it. If someone gets a masters degree in women's studies and then complains that they have a huge student loan to pay off and can't find a job better than Starbuck's, that's their own doing. They're free to fail that way in our society. Their failure serves as a warning to others to make better choices, or at least it used to. Even though they aren't living the life they wanted, they'll still make enough to survive until they can come up with a better plan.
"Even if that's your attitude, it doesn't explain what to do with those people."
It's a free country. It's not for me or you or the government to decide. Government doesn't exist to "do something" with "those people". If you flip back in time to governments that have gone down that road, it's not a pretty picture. Just the fact that you're using the phrase "those people" is mildly disturbing.
"If you could instead give them just enough assistance to keep their lives from imploding, they might be productive members of society."
If they're productive, they shouldn't need anyone else's assistance. We already have a minimum wage. We have a ton of support programs for the poor. This is what I'm talking about. You ask for an inch today, tomorrow you're going to want a mile. People in such a scheme will never be happy until they've consumed everything and the whole system collapses. This dream of the great society has created nothing of the sort. Folks such as yourself still claim the nation has lost itself and dire changes are necessary. I don't agree. A lot of Americans don't agree. We need to get past this "reform everything" mentality and realize that the system we have today is pretty fantastic and offers the most opportunity for success. That's why people want to come here from all over the world.
"it's possible that taking money from multi-millionaires to keep poor children from starving could possibly, theoretically, eventually, lead to those multi-millionaires being even richer."
Could. Possibly. Theoretically. Eventually.
That's all code for "never going to happen."
"having a healthy, educated, productive workforce for that millionaire's company is important. Having healthy, prosperous customers who can buy his companies services is also important."
We have that today. How do you think they became millionaires?
"A smart millionaire, thinking of the long-term instead of just 'next quarter's profits' doesn't want to be operating in a society that's going down the tubes."
You're proposing that we flush it down the tubes. We're constantly making millionaires. You can achieve a lot in this country, more so than in many of the others. Many EU countries are closer to this "ideal society" that you're proposing, and at the same time, many EU countries are teetering on the brink of complete financial disaster. Greece is already there. There is no upside in implementing such ideas here if they've never been shown to work in a nation as large and diverse as ours, or even anywhere close.
You might have some success trying this at a state level, but it'
This isn't health care that we're talking about. In fact, health care would continue to be a problem because I don't think the expectation would be that one's health care costs would be paid from this minimum subsistence payment.
"The issue isn't 'whether we're going to lose/spend money on able bodied people.' That's not a battle you can fight."
Why not? You throw this out there like it's an absolute. Part of living in a free society is that you're in control of your destiny. You either work to succeed, or you don't and fail. You're perpetuating the sin of the social safety net. It robs people of the ability to succeed. I get up and go to work in the morning because I need my paycheck to pay mortgage. If I don't, the sheriff shows up and tosses my ass in the street. If I don't have to pay the mortgage, maybe I stay in bed and never succeed at anything significant.
"What are you going to do, murder the unemployed?"
Remember the dot com crash? The feds kept extending unemployment benefits. The interesting part was that when benefits expired, a lot of people suddenly found jobs. They didn't make the effort until they absolutely had to. Like in my first example, if I don't go to work, I'm out on my ass. That's worked pretty well for society for a very long time. You seem to think there's something wrong with our society today, I'd say we have it pretty good.
"It's about making our economy and society work smoothly, so we all make more money and lead safer, happier, more productive lives."
No. We don't all make more money. The people that continue to work are making less money because you're taking it from them and giving it to those that opt out of work. It doesn't make lives more productive either. It makes them less productive. You're pulling people out of the workforce and making those still in it resentful. It's certainly not smoother or happier since it's coercive. You're forcing working folks to fund people that could but don't. That would make me pissed off, not happy.
You're not seeing this from both points of view. It's a great deal for those on the receiving end. There's nothing in it for everyone else. Worse, those on the receiving end are only going to keep wanting more. You'd be setting the nation up for something very ugly to happen.
It's that kind of response that will guarantee this minimum subsistence scheme will never happen in the US. We currently have people who work to maintain a certain lifestyle. Now you're suggesting that more of their income derived from their work should be used to give others a minimum payment even if they themselves don't work. That's a hard sell. Who is going to want to work harder to fund those others that choose not to work? It's one thing to ask them to cover the disabled or to help the elderly, those folks may not be able to provide for themselves. It's a much different thing to make that same demand to benefit the able-bodied.
Laws do impinge on our freedoms. We have to consider how much impingement is tolerable. This scheme goes too far. One party benefits at the expense of the other. A contract is only valid if both parties benefit in some way. If you want to convince others that this does benefit both groups, you'll need something other than a snarky response with irrelevant examples.
It's one thing to do that voluntarily, it's another thing to force people to provide services to others when they're capable of providing for themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no qualification required to join the USCF other than paying the registration fee. Anyone can do so and race in category five races. Some of those, you can just enroll with the USCF for the day. The training you speak of only happens once the cyclist joins a team or they choose to do some self-directed training.
Even with team training, it's still not a particularly safe sport. One only has to watch a grand tour and note how many cyclists get taken out per stage by some accident or another. But of course, that's racing. Are you insane enough to push it just a little bit more than the next guy. On that point I agree, racing and riding are vastly different. That's like using NASCAR as evidence of the safety of regular car travel.
No, but it seems to me this willingness to do whatever the higher-ups say is far too prevalent among technology workers. This is just ads, but the same could be said of doing bad things with customer and billing data, security best practices, etc. I hope somewhere along the way, someone has enough backbone to say "hey, maybe this isn't the best idea."
"I was only following orders."
I don't know, the EPA is using some double-speak:
"Car owners should know that although these vehicles have emissions exceeding standards, these violations do not present a safety hazard and the cars remain legal to drive and resell. Owners of cars of these models and years do not need to take any action at this time."
I assume they mean to say that it's not a hazard that will kill the occupants of the vehicle, but only hazardous considering the number of these vehicles on the road, but the way they phrase it seems to contradict the necessity of emission controls.
If you read his other comments.. he did actually take action.
The library workers aren't in any danger. The state would step in if the feds were to ever try and go after them. There was a lot of push back in NH against the TSA, as an example. The state reminded everyone that it's perfectly okay to video record TSA agents that are behaving improperly and that law enforcement was not to interfere with those recordings, and if requested, to assist. We still have a strong state government, and it's perfectly happy to push back against the feds when necessary.
The sarcasm was more about the knee-jerk comments suggesting that the town was going to surrender to DHS and that New Hampshire wasn't living up to its motto. You're right though. Hashtags and comments alone aren't likely to create the change you're looking for. I'd also add that positive change is more likely to happen at the local level as in this instance than at the federal level. And that's alright.
This can't be. Most of the people that posted comments about the previous article swore that freedom was dead and that the people were all sheep. How could this have happened?
I don't know about you, but I'm skeptical that events played out the way the linked article states.
What do you want, more social nets? We're in a messed up situation where those that can afford to raise a family and are responsible enough to do a good job at it at the least likely to want to have offspring, meanwhile the government is doing everything possible to encourage those who are less responsible and have no means to support a family to have children anyway. I don't think poverty is the root of this issue. Poverty is a symptom of a bigger problem.
It's a shame the media is so tightly controlled that we never heard about this issue.
Oh wait.
It's even more stupid than that. What is the government going to do even if they do catch these criminals? They're not going to do any serious time in prison. The prisons are full. These types of criminals are the first to be let out so that they have room to house violent criminals. Then they're back on the street committing the same crimes again. It's not unlike people who get caught committing their 20th DUI. There are no serious punishments, so there's no reason for them to stop even if they do get caught.
On the net, they began way back with the stupid x10 pop over, pop under, pop all the fuck over your screen ads. No one had even imagined a popup blocker until that nonsense started, let alone an ad blocker.
Not really funny at all.
Treating social media that way is a bad idea for a whole bunch of reasons. One, Twitter can alter their service at any point, as evidenced by this story. You can't have a transparent government with communication channels that delete information. The issue with the IRS and Hillary Clinton are bad enough as it is. Facebook is a horrible communication mechanism considering you have to sell your soul to Facebook in order to create an account. Are you suggesting that the governed be walled off from their representatives because they don't agree to a social media EULA?
Twitter is critical communication tool?
"from my cold, dead hands."
It would be an odd exclusion if the court were to state that stun guns aren't covered by the 2nd. Someone may have been able to fend off a home invader with a stun gun, but by such a court decision might have to use a shotgun instead.
Which has an amendment process which your side of this argument hasn't bothered to use. Until it does.. the 2nd is what it is.
Pass a fucking amendment then.
Oh, you can't get enough votes for that? Good. Then the 2nd is the law, deal with it.
You're fighting the wrong battle. Adding amendments isn't going to help, the government doesn't obey the ones that we already have.
I doubt most people are using software to farm license plates or do facial recognition from those videos, nor would they throw any data derived from that into a central database that would be used for unknown government purposes.
It's an interesting issue since it does touch on a number of things.
"See, this is the kind of dumbass horse shit I was expecting, which lead me to say this probably isn't worth discussing."
You're about as bi-partisan as our current President, assuming you're American. That meeting where he turned to McCain and reminded him who won the election was a low point in US history.
"you make no mention of those who work and still don't succeed, or those who try to work and can't find work"
If you work and you make a living off it, you've succeeded. Fact is, we're not all going to own an executive jet or live in a mansion. Even your minimum payout scheme would not come close to achieving that. If you set reasonable expectations, they most certainly can be achieved. If someone can't find work, then perhaps it's their search that's the problem. I can't find work as a beer tester. Instead, I do software engineering. It's not exactly what I want, but I make a decent living off it. If someone gets a masters degree in women's studies and then complains that they have a huge student loan to pay off and can't find a job better than Starbuck's, that's their own doing. They're free to fail that way in our society. Their failure serves as a warning to others to make better choices, or at least it used to. Even though they aren't living the life they wanted, they'll still make enough to survive until they can come up with a better plan.
"Even if that's your attitude, it doesn't explain what to do with those people."
It's a free country. It's not for me or you or the government to decide. Government doesn't exist to "do something" with "those people". If you flip back in time to governments that have gone down that road, it's not a pretty picture. Just the fact that you're using the phrase "those people" is mildly disturbing.
"If you could instead give them just enough assistance to keep their lives from imploding, they might be productive members of society."
If they're productive, they shouldn't need anyone else's assistance. We already have a minimum wage. We have a ton of support programs for the poor. This is what I'm talking about. You ask for an inch today, tomorrow you're going to want a mile. People in such a scheme will never be happy until they've consumed everything and the whole system collapses. This dream of the great society has created nothing of the sort. Folks such as yourself still claim the nation has lost itself and dire changes are necessary. I don't agree. A lot of Americans don't agree. We need to get past this "reform everything" mentality and realize that the system we have today is pretty fantastic and offers the most opportunity for success. That's why people want to come here from all over the world.
"it's possible that taking money from multi-millionaires to keep poor children from starving could possibly, theoretically, eventually, lead to those multi-millionaires being even richer."
Could.
Possibly.
Theoretically.
Eventually.
That's all code for "never going to happen."
"having a healthy, educated, productive workforce for that millionaire's company is important. Having healthy, prosperous customers who can buy his companies services is also important."
We have that today. How do you think they became millionaires?
"A smart millionaire, thinking of the long-term instead of just 'next quarter's profits' doesn't want to be operating in a society that's going down the tubes."
You're proposing that we flush it down the tubes. We're constantly making millionaires. You can achieve a lot in this country, more so than in many of the others. Many EU countries are closer to this "ideal society" that you're proposing, and at the same time, many EU countries are teetering on the brink of complete financial disaster. Greece is already there. There is no upside in implementing such ideas here if they've never been shown to work in a nation as large and diverse as ours, or even anywhere close.
You might have some success trying this at a state level, but it'
This isn't health care that we're talking about. In fact, health care would continue to be a problem because I don't think the expectation would be that one's health care costs would be paid from this minimum subsistence payment.
"The issue isn't 'whether we're going to lose/spend money on able bodied people.' That's not a battle you can fight."
Why not? You throw this out there like it's an absolute. Part of living in a free society is that you're in control of your destiny. You either work to succeed, or you don't and fail. You're perpetuating the sin of the social safety net. It robs people of the ability to succeed. I get up and go to work in the morning because I need my paycheck to pay mortgage. If I don't, the sheriff shows up and tosses my ass in the street. If I don't have to pay the mortgage, maybe I stay in bed and never succeed at anything significant.
"What are you going to do, murder the unemployed?"
Remember the dot com crash? The feds kept extending unemployment benefits. The interesting part was that when benefits expired, a lot of people suddenly found jobs. They didn't make the effort until they absolutely had to. Like in my first example, if I don't go to work, I'm out on my ass. That's worked pretty well for society for a very long time. You seem to think there's something wrong with our society today, I'd say we have it pretty good.
"It's about making our economy and society work smoothly, so we all make more money and lead safer, happier, more productive lives."
No. We don't all make more money. The people that continue to work are making less money because you're taking it from them and giving it to those that opt out of work. It doesn't make lives more productive either. It makes them less productive. You're pulling people out of the workforce and making those still in it resentful. It's certainly not smoother or happier since it's coercive. You're forcing working folks to fund people that could but don't. That would make me pissed off, not happy.
You're not seeing this from both points of view. It's a great deal for those on the receiving end. There's nothing in it for everyone else. Worse, those on the receiving end are only going to keep wanting more. You'd be setting the nation up for something very ugly to happen.
It's that kind of response that will guarantee this minimum subsistence scheme will never happen in the US. We currently have people who work to maintain a certain lifestyle. Now you're suggesting that more of their income derived from their work should be used to give others a minimum payment even if they themselves don't work. That's a hard sell. Who is going to want to work harder to fund those others that choose not to work? It's one thing to ask them to cover the disabled or to help the elderly, those folks may not be able to provide for themselves. It's a much different thing to make that same demand to benefit the able-bodied.
Laws do impinge on our freedoms. We have to consider how much impingement is tolerable. This scheme goes too far. One party benefits at the expense of the other. A contract is only valid if both parties benefit in some way. If you want to convince others that this does benefit both groups, you'll need something other than a snarky response with irrelevant examples.
It's one thing to do that voluntarily, it's another thing to force people to provide services to others when they're capable of providing for themselves.