Are you English or retarded? I said "for us", meaning the United States, but it would apply to just about anyone not currently living in Iraq. And besides, ever hear the expression "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't"? Just look at Afganistan: the United States spent millions training men in Afganistan to fight off the communists, except these men went on to from the Taliban and Al Queda. And a communist government would have been a human rights utopia compared to the Taliban's regieme.
And leaving Saddam in power might have been better for the Iraqi's, for that matter. Why? Because the arabs in Iraq are tribal as fuck, which could eventually lead to civil war, a la what happened in Yugoslavia after communism fell. A civil war between different tribes, Sunni's and Shites, could kill far more people than Saddam ever did.
Do you honestly believe Saddam should still be over there in the Middle-East?
For us, the answer is probably: yes. Saddam was a secular dictator, and didn't have much use for fundamentalist terrorists such as Osama. Right now Iraq is probably Osama's wet dream as a recruting ground.
If fantasy movies haven't won in the past, it's because they weren't actually all that good.
No, its because the academy has many long standing prejudices against fantasy and for heavy dramas with romance. In 1977, Star Wars got beat out by Annie Hall. Which movie had a bigger impact on the industry, special effects and popular culture? In another 50 years, which film are poeple likely to actually remember?
You can state that, but with no rationale I'm not buying into it. Rationale against income tax.
Ok, thats easy enough. My rational why your rational is irrational:
Indirect benefits. Financial neocons seem to have this idea that unless a tax dollar goes back to them personally (redicilously huge military spending aside, of course), its robbery. The problem is that the fact that they are indirectly benefitting from taxes doesn't cross their minds. Examples? Public education. Public health care. Welfare. Social Security. You are better off with these things than without them, even if you don't have kids, don't get sick, haven't lost your job, and aren't due for retirement.
Why? Becuase you get more than you spent on these things. Public education? Fewer poor, larger middle class, more educated workforce. Public health care? More healthy people = more healthy workforce = more people paying taxes and fewer destitutes. Welfare? Its a saftey net for hard times. Far from getting free money for being lazy, current welfare laws require you to either be applying for a job or looking for a job to be on it. Social Security? Its not meant to be your sole source of income, but rather a guaranteed supplement.
What does the social spending do for you? It prevents millions of people from becomming poor, unhealthy, and desperate. It helps keep your property values up (fewer slums) and your crime rates down (hmm, can't work anywhere...can't get financial assitance...either my kids starve or I start selling drugs).
So you believe that the harder you work and the more successful you are, the less right you have to keep your own money.
Again, easy. The more successful you've been, the more likely you are benefiting from things like public education. The more you benefit, the more advantages you get from public spending, the more you pay. How, in any way, is that unfair? Say your are Bill Gates, who is "merely" worth 50 billion or so. Why should he pay more in taxes than you or me? Well, just about all of his workers had some form of public education. Or do you think Bill would rather go back to the master/apprentice system from the middle ages? Find 11 and 12 year olds interested in programming, and have to teach them how to read and write properly, before you even teach them to code? Microsoft has 11,000 some employees...do you really think they want to be in the education business as well as the software business? The rest of the social spending helps increase the size of the middle class, which increases the number of customers for Microsoft products. Even Granny might buy a copy of Windows XP with her Social Security check.
In a world without income tax, you are certainly free to help your friend out, invite him and the family over for dinner, help repair his car, etc
The problem with making people depend on charity is that a lot of people wont do it. And in some areas, like public education, that is non-negociable. Don't like it? Move to Afganistan.
Why do you consider me the greedy one, when all I want to do is keep (or spend as I choose) what I earned?
Okay, excuse me, I can't say whether or not you are actually greedy. However, I can say that you are massively self-centered.
It was his choice to have a family and certainly his right to do so, and it is just as certainly his responsibility to provide for them.
Uh-huh. And why the hell should I pay taxes to have your street plowed out, when I live five blocks away? Your fire and police protection? It doesn't make any difference to me. Okay, for a more applicable example: lets look at the small town of Mandan in North Dakota, which has a large retired community. The schools there are shit, because the retired folks have the attitude of "I already put my kids through school, so I don't want to pay anymore property taxes". Nevermind the fact that as soon as these kids get jobs, they'll be paying
Check here if you want more facts showing how closely they were allied. Follow some of the links.
Uh-huh. And of course if its on the internet, it must be true! I could make a page and site the words comming out of my ass as proof that George Bush is taking it in the ass from Michael Jackson, and it would be about as reputable as the page you sited as "evidence".
Your Red Hat or OS X box is not an appliance. WebTV is. You can't tie down a Linux, Windows or Mac box too much without severly limiting its functionality. WebTV has only one function, so you can lock down and white-list it up the wazoo. You're comparing apples and oranges.
Are you just hunting for the (+1, anti-Microsoft) mod points?
Hunting for cheap anti-anti-Microsoft points isn't any better, you know.
This is why any photo showing Kerry at an anti-war rally with her is extremely damaging to his campaign.
How the hell can it legitimatly damage his campaign, when his "closest" association with her was being 10 feet away at the same rally? FOR SOMETHING FONDA DID 2 **YEARS** AFTER THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN? Anyone who buys this needs to take a starring role in "Friday the 13th: Jason kills all idiots". I don't think thats what you're saying, but it sad to think that anyone would take this seriously.
They get the knowlegde somewhere, and most of them say they got it at school, in class.
Good for them! But it can be hard to find an actual sex education class in a public school, much less a private, religious one. The kind of "sex ed" generally pushed by Republican politicians can be summed up as "here's a drawing of a penis, this is a vagina, this is your brain on AIDS, which you can get from sex, so don't have sex until marriage".
I wonder if anyone mentioned to these people that if they guy was willing to kill those people just on a whim, that he had some serious physiological issues to begin with. The guy could have picked up a book on medieval samurai and their sword techniques, and decided to see if he could actually decapitate someone, and the author still wouldn't be liable.
hope that offends you. If so, then we can take as a given that there are certain behaviors you think should NOT be broadcast during the Superbowl Half Time Show without warning viewers.
So I take it your an atheist? Or an agnostic? Anyway, I always thought it was funny, growing up and learning about the greek myths in schools. Some students would laugh at those idiot Greeks for believing that gods lived on top of a stupid mountain and pulled the sun around the earth in a chariot, but believed in the story of Noah's ark or Moses parting the Red Sea.
hope that offends you. If so, then we can take as a given that there are certain behaviors you think should NOT be broadcast during the Superbowl Half Time Show without warning viewers.
Don't be an asshat. Bestiality is very rare and physiologically abnormal, whereas just about every boy and girl in this country spends the first 6 months of their life staring at a breast several times per day.
On an entirely unrelated note, why is a union of 2 committed lovers, whatever their sex, a threat to "the oldest and most sacred institution in America", whereas a 2 minute drive-thru ceremony in Las Vegas isn't?
Because people are retarded luddites. 1) marriage "the sacred institution" was let out of the bag decades ago, by no-fault divorces and Hollywood two week marriages (which have been reduced to 40 some hours thanks to Britney Spears). 2) How the hell is the quality of someone else's marriage going to affect your own? 3) Marriage is mostly a religious institution, and so the government doesn't have any god damn business defining it. 4) I'm these arguments against gay marriage are the exact same ones used against inter-racial marriages 50 years ago.
As for the birth control statement, it is taught. At public schools, no less. In fact, there are private, state, and federal programs in place to distribute mechanisms of birth control to people, with a focus on young people. The first place I learned about birth control (as in the Pill) was in biology class at a private Christian school, over 15 years ago.
No, they don't. They teach you about anatomy and abstinence, but not a whit about sex or sexuality.
The great fascist leaders of the 20th century in Europe (Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, and Stalin) did not lack for Europeans to goose-step along and do their will.
We have lots of people like that right here in the United States. They're called Republicans. Or more specifically, neo-cons.
high media prices, high drive prices and shoddy manufacturing processes
So? The above is far more true of floppies than of zips. Even the drives are cheaper, unless your time isn't worth anything. Floppies are just about the most expensive storage medium available, the slowest, and the least reliable.
I'd be surprised if more than 5% of computers had a zip drive.
Heh. Any environment were you had to move files on a regular basis was likely to have zip drives, because floppies were too small and too slow. Business, schools, government...maybe you and your friends used rar and 10000 floppies to move your crap around, but nobody cares about that.:)
The bailout event was well documented in the business and tech press at the time.
What was well documented was the amount of assets Apple had at the time. A 150 million dollar stock buy plus an undisclosed settlement with a company that has over 2 billion in liquid assets does not a buyout make.
From another loyal democrat: I don't think its enjoying other people's suffering, so much as being massivly self-centered. Any tax dollar that doens't go back to them personally is a waste. They don't seem to realize that because they live in society, they indirectly benefit from social spending regardless of whether or not they get direct benefits.
The other problem is that business's have all the rights of individuals, yet the GOP doens't want them to be taxed, regulated, or liable for their actions.
You're missing the point. As the government doesn't take a percentage of GDP, citing it is irrelevant. People buy bonds because they have faith that the US government is still going to be around in 50 years, not based on the GDP of the United States.
I love it when conservatives, who are generally opposed to taxes of any kinds, say the Republican debt (and yes it is Republican, thanks to the Reagan and the Bush's) isn't a big deal compared to GDP, but never mention how much taxes would have to be increased to get the debt back down to a "only" a few trillion as opposed to 7+. So much for being the party of fiscal responsibility.
Hey dumbass, maybe you missed the part where I said "enough insurance". Obviously you've never had to fight it out with an insurance company. My parents have insurance up the wazoo. Flood. Health. Life. About four years ago, however, my sister had an accident and six of her front teeth were knocked out. But even though my parents had dental insurance for her, they've been fighting it out with the insurance company ever since because they insist its "cosmetic surgery".
But hey, thats what you get when self-centered Republicans (any dollar that doesn't go straight back to them is a rip off) fight having any rules or responsibility for businesses, even though said coprorations have been found to have the same rights as individuals. Why they can't see that All Rights + No Responsibilities = Bad Things is beyond me.
But there's a huge difference between out of the blue insanity, a la the John Lennon shooting or John Hinkley, compared to organizing 19 people to kill 4,000 with suicide plane crashes.
You don't see Australia being attacked all the time just because they don't spend hundreds of billions on their military. And it didn't happen to America, either, before WWII or WWI.
As opposed to the United States, where you can see a doctor right away but he tells you to fuck off because you don't have enough ensurance. Soooooo much better, Genius Boy.
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Are you English or retarded? I said "for us", meaning the United States, but it would apply to just about anyone not currently living in Iraq. And besides, ever hear the expression "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't"? Just look at Afganistan: the United States spent millions training men in Afganistan to fight off the communists, except these men went on to from the Taliban and Al Queda. And a communist government would have been a human rights utopia compared to the Taliban's regieme.
And leaving Saddam in power might have been better for the Iraqi's, for that matter. Why? Because the arabs in Iraq are tribal as fuck, which could eventually lead to civil war, a la what happened in Yugoslavia after communism fell. A civil war between different tribes, Sunni's and Shites, could kill far more people than Saddam ever did.
Do you honestly believe Saddam should still be over there in the Middle-East?
For us, the answer is probably: yes. Saddam was a secular dictator, and didn't have much use for fundamentalist terrorists such as Osama. Right now Iraq is probably Osama's wet dream as a recruting ground.
If fantasy movies haven't won in the past, it's because they weren't actually all that good.
No, its because the academy has many long standing prejudices against fantasy and for heavy dramas with romance. In 1977, Star Wars got beat out by Annie Hall. Which movie had a bigger impact on the industry, special effects and popular culture? In another 50 years, which film are poeple likely to actually remember?
You can state that, but with no rationale I'm not buying into it. Rationale against income tax.
Ok, thats easy enough. My rational why your rational is irrational:
Indirect benefits. Financial neocons seem to have this idea that unless a tax dollar goes back to them personally (redicilously huge military spending aside, of course), its robbery. The problem is that the fact that they are indirectly benefitting from taxes doesn't cross their minds. Examples? Public education. Public health care. Welfare. Social Security. You are better off with these things than without them, even if you don't have kids, don't get sick, haven't lost your job, and aren't due for retirement.
Why? Becuase you get more than you spent on these things. Public education? Fewer poor, larger middle class, more educated workforce. Public health care? More healthy people = more healthy workforce = more people paying taxes and fewer destitutes. Welfare? Its a saftey net for hard times. Far from getting free money for being lazy, current welfare laws require you to either be applying for a job or looking for a job to be on it. Social Security? Its not meant to be your sole source of income, but rather a guaranteed supplement.
What does the social spending do for you? It prevents millions of people from becomming poor, unhealthy, and desperate. It helps keep your property values up (fewer slums) and your crime rates down (hmm, can't work anywhere...can't get financial assitance...either my kids starve or I start selling drugs).
So you believe that the harder you work and the more successful you are, the less right you have to keep your own money.
Again, easy. The more successful you've been, the more likely you are benefiting from things like public education. The more you benefit, the more advantages you get from public spending, the more you pay. How, in any way, is that unfair? Say your are Bill Gates, who is "merely" worth 50 billion or so. Why should he pay more in taxes than you or me? Well, just about all of his workers had some form of public education. Or do you think Bill would rather go back to the master/apprentice system from the middle ages? Find 11 and 12 year olds interested in programming, and have to teach them how to read and write properly, before you even teach them to code? Microsoft has 11,000 some employees...do you really think they want to be in the education business as well as the software business? The rest of the social spending helps increase the size of the middle class, which increases the number of customers for Microsoft products. Even Granny might buy a copy of Windows XP with her Social Security check.
In a world without income tax, you are certainly free to help your friend out, invite him and the family over for dinner, help repair his car, etc
The problem with making people depend on charity is that a lot of people wont do it. And in some areas, like public education, that is non-negociable. Don't like it? Move to Afganistan.
Why do you consider me the greedy one, when all I want to do is keep (or spend as I choose) what I earned?
Okay, excuse me, I can't say whether or not you are actually greedy. However, I can say that you are massively self-centered.
It was his choice to have a family and certainly his right to do so, and it is just as certainly his responsibility to provide for them.
Uh-huh. And why the hell should I pay taxes to have your street plowed out, when I live five blocks away? Your fire and police protection? It doesn't make any difference to me. Okay, for a more applicable example: lets look at the small town of Mandan in North Dakota, which has a large retired community. The schools there are shit, because the retired folks have the attitude of "I already put my kids through school, so I don't want to pay anymore property taxes". Nevermind the fact that as soon as these kids get jobs, they'll be paying
Check here if you want more facts showing how closely they were allied. Follow some of the links.
Uh-huh. And of course if its on the internet, it must be true! I could make a page and site the words comming out of my ass as proof that George Bush is taking it in the ass from Michael Jackson, and it would be about as reputable as the page you sited as "evidence".
Your Red Hat or OS X box is not an appliance. WebTV is. You can't tie down a Linux, Windows or Mac box too much without severly limiting its functionality. WebTV has only one function, so you can lock down and white-list it up the wazoo. You're comparing apples and oranges.
Are you just hunting for the (+1, anti-Microsoft) mod points?
Hunting for cheap anti-anti-Microsoft points isn't any better, you know.
And how is this different from all the nasty attempts to smear Bush?
Um, because those attacks are based on things that Bush and his staff have actually said and done?
This is why any photo showing Kerry at an anti-war rally with her is extremely damaging to his campaign.
How the hell can it legitimatly damage his campaign, when his "closest" association with her was being 10 feet away at the same rally? FOR SOMETHING FONDA DID 2 **YEARS** AFTER THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN? Anyone who buys this needs to take a starring role in "Friday the 13th: Jason kills all idiots". I don't think thats what you're saying, but it sad to think that anyone would take this seriously.
They get the knowlegde somewhere, and most of them say they got it at school, in class.
Good for them! But it can be hard to find an actual sex education class in a public school, much less a private, religious one. The kind of "sex ed" generally pushed by Republican politicians can be summed up as "here's a drawing of a penis, this is a vagina, this is your brain on AIDS, which you can get from sex, so don't have sex until marriage".
I wonder if anyone mentioned to these people that if they guy was willing to kill those people just on a whim, that he had some serious physiological issues to begin with. The guy could have picked up a book on medieval samurai and their sword techniques, and decided to see if he could actually decapitate someone, and the author still wouldn't be liable.
Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
hope that offends you. If so, then we can take as a given that there are certain behaviors you think should NOT be broadcast during the Superbowl Half Time Show without warning viewers.
So I take it your an atheist? Or an agnostic? Anyway, I always thought it was funny, growing up and learning about the greek myths in schools. Some students would laugh at those idiot Greeks for believing that gods lived on top of a stupid mountain and pulled the sun around the earth in a chariot, but believed in the story of Noah's ark or Moses parting the Red Sea.
hope that offends you. If so, then we can take as a given that there are certain behaviors you think should NOT be broadcast during the Superbowl Half Time Show without warning viewers.
Don't be an asshat. Bestiality is very rare and physiologically abnormal, whereas just about every boy and girl in this country spends the first 6 months of their life staring at a breast several times per day.
Get some fucking perspective.
On an entirely unrelated note, why is a union of 2 committed lovers, whatever their sex, a threat to "the oldest and most sacred institution in America", whereas a 2 minute drive-thru ceremony in Las Vegas isn't?
Because people are retarded luddites. 1) marriage "the sacred institution" was let out of the bag decades ago, by no-fault divorces and Hollywood two week marriages (which have been reduced to 40 some hours thanks to Britney Spears). 2) How the hell is the quality of someone else's marriage going to affect your own? 3) Marriage is mostly a religious institution, and so the government doesn't have any god damn business defining it. 4) I'm these arguments against gay marriage are the exact same ones used against inter-racial marriages 50 years ago.
As for the birth control statement, it is taught. At public schools, no less. In fact, there are private, state, and federal programs in place to distribute mechanisms of birth control to people, with a focus on young people. The first place I learned about birth control (as in the Pill) was in biology class at a private Christian school, over 15 years ago.
No, they don't. They teach you about anatomy and abstinence, but not a whit about sex or sexuality.
The great fascist leaders of the 20th century in Europe (Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, and Stalin) did not lack for Europeans to goose-step along and do their will.
We have lots of people like that right here in the United States. They're called Republicans. Or more specifically, neo-cons.
high media prices, high drive prices and shoddy manufacturing processes
:)
So? The above is far more true of floppies than of zips. Even the drives are cheaper, unless your time isn't worth anything. Floppies are just about the most expensive storage medium available, the slowest, and the least reliable.
I'd be surprised if more than 5% of computers had a zip drive.
Heh. Any environment were you had to move files on a regular basis was likely to have zip drives, because floppies were too small and too slow. Business, schools, government...maybe you and your friends used rar and 10000 floppies to move your crap around, but nobody cares about that.
The bailout event was well documented in the business and tech press at the time.
What was well documented was the amount of assets Apple had at the time. A 150 million dollar stock buy plus an undisclosed settlement with a company that has over 2 billion in liquid assets does not a buyout make.
Go back to your bridge.
(Posting as AC since I work for Apple).
Huh-huh. If you really work for Apple, then you'd know the stuff about Microsoft "bailing out" Apple was a bunch of huey.
At the height of the floppies popularity? In 1997? I don't agree, as the zip drive was well established by then.
They enjoy watching them suffer.
From another loyal democrat: I don't think its enjoying other people's suffering, so much as being massivly self-centered. Any tax dollar that doens't go back to them personally is a waste. They don't seem to realize that because they live in society, they indirectly benefit from social spending regardless of whether or not they get direct benefits.
The other problem is that business's have all the rights of individuals, yet the GOP doens't want them to be taxed, regulated, or liable for their actions.
You're missing the point. As the government doesn't take a percentage of GDP, citing it is irrelevant. People buy bonds because they have faith that the US government is still going to be around in 50 years, not based on the GDP of the United States.
I love it when conservatives, who are generally opposed to taxes of any kinds, say the Republican debt (and yes it is Republican, thanks to the Reagan and the Bush's) isn't a big deal compared to GDP, but never mention how much taxes would have to be increased to get the debt back down to a "only" a few trillion as opposed to 7+. So much for being the party of fiscal responsibility.
Hey dumbass, maybe you missed the part where I said "enough insurance". Obviously you've never had to fight it out with an insurance company. My parents have insurance up the wazoo. Flood. Health. Life. About four years ago, however, my sister had an accident and six of her front teeth were knocked out. But even though my parents had dental insurance for her, they've been fighting it out with the insurance company ever since because they insist its "cosmetic surgery".
But hey, thats what you get when self-centered Republicans (any dollar that doesn't go straight back to them is a rip off) fight having any rules or responsibility for businesses, even though said coprorations have been found to have the same rights as individuals. Why they can't see that All Rights + No Responsibilities = Bad Things is beyond me.
But there's a huge difference between out of the blue insanity, a la the John Lennon shooting or John Hinkley, compared to organizing 19 people to kill 4,000 with suicide plane crashes.
You don't see Australia being attacked all the time just because they don't spend hundreds of billions on their military. And it didn't happen to America, either, before WWII or WWI.
Or just maybe, Smart Guy, we could try not pissing off the rest of the world so there wouldn't be any terrorists in the first place.
Just wonderin....
As opposed to the United States, where you can see a doctor right away but he tells you to fuck off because you don't have enough ensurance. Soooooo much better, Genius Boy.