I often tell my students that CS is the art of learning the tools to solve many problems, and that they will have to broaden their education enough to be able to operate in any field. I've working in aerospace, networking, security, and biology fields, but I'm a computer scientist. I have to have a strong enough background to at least understand the basics of those fields before I can help people to leverage software and hardware for their particular problems. So I agree with you that it's very multi-disciplinary, and in fact should be as broad as possible.
Not to mention the theory of languages. Understanding the theoretical underpinnings of satisfiability and validity are not "algorithm development", yet they make functional and logical programming possible. Knowing the arithmetical hierarchy doesn't help you develop an algorithm, but it sure is useful in knowing the limitations of your chosen field of study. Even simple underlying theories such as boolean logic, and first order logic don't really tell you how to develop an algorithm, but they have a lot to do with how computers work, major achievements in AI, etc.
It's a very big discipline, and there's no way that anyone can become an expert in all of it. You need to know the basics, and you need to decide how to specialize. I think the next major change in CS needs to be for schools to highlight their focus within the discipline. For undergraduates, there is a fairly well established baseline of knowledge, but even that baseline is often ignored in order to only teach programming skills, or only teach software engineering, etc. The field needs to agree on the baseline, and then establish well defined tracks.
You see this in other disciplines such as Aerodynamics. In that case, you learn the basics, then you specialise on powerplants, airframes, hypersonics, supersonics, CFD, controls, etc. We don't do a good job of defining the specialisations in CS, but they are certainly there: software engineering, software development, networking, artificial intelligence, statistical reasoning (maybe part of AI), numerical computing, high performance computing, distributed computing, theory, logic... the list could go on for quite a while. In the end, the student should know what they are specialising in, and that is often not well advertised by any CS department, yet they all specialise in one way or another.
Actually, Java is a tough teaching language. Most high school and early college students don't have the ability to think abstractly about objects. The idea of "everything is an object" is a tough one for them. You often have to do a lot of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" teaching to get them through the basics of variables, loops, etc. Pascal is a great teaching language because it allows you to teach the mechanics of structured programming without glossing over 90% of the language in the process. Once students have that part down, it's much easier to transition to something like Java.
Of course, just to keep the flame wars alight, I still recommend Ada as a teaching and production language. It's just better. (waiting for the troll mod now)
Although I suspect Torvalds, Stallman, Knuth etc. can "fix a computer,"
Actually, this is the biggest misconception of all. I'm currently a PhD candidate in computer science. I know a lot about algorithms, data structures, computational theory, etc, but I don't know how to fix MS Windows 7 when it doesn't do x, y, or z properly (except of course to install *nix instead). Granted, I know how to work the menus and dig through the options better than a lay person, but that doesn't mean I'm intimately versed in how Windows works, nor do I have any interest in learning it.
Computer Science seems to have lost its soul in some sense. At my university, if I approach a professor with any problem that is NPC, they immediately say "that's an Ops Research problem". Working on robotics algorithms? "That's the EE or ME department". It's been a real challenge to build a committee because most CS profs at this school don't think that CS covers anything more than AI and logic theories.
The point that CS needs to be defined is actually quite salient. Developers often complain that CS students can't program. Some CS departments are less concerned with teaching good programming practices and more concerned with teaching theory. Students expect the former and get the latter. Other schools consider CS to be the art of design. They focus on software engineering and often leave out much of the mathematical rigor in the process. Other schools focus on the logical and mathematical underpinnings, but don't teach programming or software engineering. Then there are the schools that teach only programming with very little else in the curriculum. Should CS encompass all of the above, or should it be a subset of those things? Is software development the same thing as computer science, or are they fundamentally different, somewhat overlapping disciplines? How does operations research fit in? What about numerical computation, high performance computing, networking, etc., etc.? The field has become enormously fractured and everyone, including Knuth, Stallman, Torvals, et al. has a different opinion about what it should be.
For it to be plutocracy, the wealthy should be getting their way, no? According to http://www.tripso.com/today/airline-industry-on-track-to-set-new-lobbying-record/ the airlines spent a total of $25 million lobbying congress on various topics to include increased user fees for private jets (I know, it's an old source, but I don't care enough to look through the current senate website and add up all airline contributions). Also, in 2010, according to http://www.tripso.com/today/airline-industry-on-track-to-set-new-lobbying-record/ of the $6M in PAC contributions from the transportation sector, private pilots, represented by AOPA, made up a total of $1M. The airline industry made up the rest. So you're saying it's a plutocracy when those who donate 1/6th of the total PAC contributions get their way over the other 5/6ths? Give me a break.
The landing fees at these small airports should therefore be the same as the larger airports or this stance sounds like blackmail- "If you don't build us, a tiny minority, separate facilities then we'll clog up the majority".
Spoken like a someone who has never flown out of a small airport. GA airports are required to implement all federally mandated safety-of-flight systems. This includes navigational beacons, markers, landing systems, radio systems, etc, etc, etc. These are unfunded federal mandates. The big airports have the same mandates, and they too receive funding to comply. Most small community airports are actually owned and controlled by the local city or county and the federal dollars go towards FAA mandates.
To turn your argument on its ear a little, let's look at what would happen if all commercial traffic on the interstate were to be charged a fee. All trucks carrying cargo for profit or hire should have to pay a toll for each road they use. Your argument would then be that all private passenger cars should also pay the same toll at the same rate as the commercial vehicles in order to maintain the road. That argument immediately sounds ridiculous because people are paying taxes to maintain roads - one of those government functions that we all agree to help pay for.
General aviation is the same as that public traffic. The federal government ensures safe public travel by helping to maintain local airports at the level of safety they deem necessary and they pay for it using taxpayer money the same way they pay for the large commercial airports. Any member of the public is free to use these airports for private travel, just like a highway. If you are so inclined, you can learn to fly, rent a plane, and cut your travel time from 5 hours to 2 - less if you can pay for a faster plane. This is no different than the hurdles you have to clear to use the roads. If you want to drive, you have to obtain a license, buy or rent a car, and pay for the maintenance and gas costs of that car. Why shouldn't the government facilitate air transportation the same way that it facilitates ground transportation?
People are protesting this law on the basis that it's an overreach of the commerce clause. I say that if you really care about the commerce clause, you'd be just as outraged over the 2005 decision Gonzalez v Raich (ok she's a chronic pain patient, but that's immaterial) as this one.
My original post was a tongue in cheek way of saying that I was outraged by the use of the commerce clause in Gonzalez v Raich. To then be accused of wanting to see cancer patients jailed seemed over the top to me.
Of course, your conclusion is a non sequitur. Your premise is that growing marijuana for personal use implies that the grower is a cancer patient. You then go on to conclude that anyone who wants to criminalize growing home marijuana is someone who wants to criminalize treatment of cancer. That simply fails all logical reasoning.
Many people grow marijuana for home use, and many of those do not have cancer. Also, many people who have cancer do not grow marijuana for home use. So one can conclude that, if there are many cancer patients dealing with the pain through means other than marijuana, then this cancer patient does not necessarily need to grow marijuana to deal with the pain. Additionally, medical condition is a poor defense for criminal activity. I have a torn ACL right now. Should I be allowed to drive while drunk since the alcohol helps the pain?
I do disagree with the use of the commerce clause to justify the decision in that case. It shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever. I do however support businesses who enforce drug testing and fire employees who are using drugs, not because I care how they are taking care of themselves, but because their work will suffer from the drug use and the employer will be adversely affected.
Imagine an aircraft mechanic who grows marijuana at home for personal use. I don't want to board an aircraft that he maintains. So in this case, public safety can be cited as a rational application of such a law - but it would have to be targeted to public safety related positions only, not to everyone.
So now you see that I've given a rational argument, that I have maintained a consistent stance, and that I'm still against the healthcare law. Do you still consider me "scum" that should be "up against the wall when the revolution comes"?
I'm not sure I'm following you on this. What cancer patients are being thrown in jail? Are you referring to people who can't pay for treatment now? If so, then you don't really understand Medicare.
My sister in law is currently undergoing dialysis due to renal failure. She was on an insurance policy, but they dumped the whole pool and now she can't get coverage at all. She's currently getting all of her care paid for through Medicare. The down side is that they pretty much require her to be destitute so she can continue to qualify for coverage.
The funny thing is, the health care overhaul doesn't help her one iota. She'll still be a high risk patient, and be covered by Medicare. She'll still be dirt poor because she can't afford to earn more money since it will disqualify her from receiving Medicare and she would then have to pay for insurance elsewhere at rates that are far higher than the income cap for Medicare qualification. She's still not covered under her parent's insurance because her dad is self-employed and it was his business' pool that was dropped, so he - the business owner - is also uninsured with what are now pre-existing conditions (not pre-existing when he was in the pool of course).
My stance is that we need a serious look at how to overhaul the system. I've seen the British and Canadian single payer systems and they are both crap. She would be dead under either of those systems due to patient wait times. I have no illusions that the US can somehow do it better because we have 100 times their populations. The current reform is a lot of mandates with very little cost cutting. Anyone with half a brain can understand that increased requirements for insurance policies will increase costs.
It would be nice if we could have a sane talk about the real issues and possible solutions as opposed to strangely emotional attack such as accusations that I, or anyone else, suddenly wants to see jailed cancer patients. That's just ridiculous logic.
The public option has some huge drawbacks too. I would be for it if was written in some fairly iron-clad language about how much loss the public pool could take over time. You're not going to see insurance companies doing well against a government run option if that option is allowed to use infinite tax dollars, dictate prices by force of law, and gerrymander the market to fit its needs (a la Medicare and Medicaid today). The concern voiced by (reasonable) Repubs regarding the public option was that it would fall under the same rob-from-Peter-to-pay-Paul finances as Social Security. If you can put some firm cost containment language on the public option, I'd be much more willing to support it. Otherwise, why not simply authorize anyone with a premium higher than $X (X being determined by a means test such as gross wealth, etc) to use Medicare? Why go through an enormous restructuring exercise when a much simpler solution exists?
Anyone who's pissed about this now and wasn't outraged over Gonzalez v Raich in 2005 is a [\. edit] hypocrite.
So if I was outraged about that then am I ok to be outraged about this now? Do I need a card or something? "Outraged by big government since Carter" or something like that?
Hypocrisy is old hat, we all know it happens. Also, people can change their stance when they get new information. It's probably not wise to paint with such a broad brush when in reality most people simply didn't care 5 years ago, but the excesses of the last three or four years have really made them think about it.
There's a big difference between having unprotected sex in your middle years and having a doctor insert sperm in an ovum under a microscope. While you're considering that thought, you might want to look up Genetic Fallacy (fittingly enough).
They have a decreasing cost as even damn blurb said so "price of consumer lithium-ion cells has fallen 6 to 8 percent annually since their 1989 launchprice of consumer lithium-ion cells has fallen 6 to 8 percent annually since their 1989 launch"
You're confusing price per unit with price over time. The cost of batteries is decreasing over time, but the per unit price is constant. In other words, if GM makes 1000 batteries at $8000/unit, they couldn't produce 100000 batteries for any less than $8000/unit. No matter how many batteries they produce on a given day, each battery will still cost the same, ergo constant.
Look at the stuxnet attack on Iran last month. If that country had a more developed nuke program a hostile neighbor (country X) could have had the opportunity to co-opt their systems and launch against Israel.
And fingers=bullets by the same logic. A cyber attack is not a nuclear attack, and a cyber attack that results in nuclear weapons exchange is still not a nuclear attack. An exchange of nuclear weapons is a nuclear attack. There have been fears of falsely attributed nuclear weapons launches since Russia's first nuclear test. The fact that spies could have (possibly) done the same thing doesn't make spying nuclear warfare. Neither is cyber warfare=nuclear warfare.
Sure they're all true, but are they linked to the story?
Although many of the illegal alien headlines involve illegal aliens with a history of arrests and releases, but no deportations. So, yes, in some cases, that race, gender, and/or status of the individual is pertinent. In this case - not so much.
Instead of, I dunno, raising the amount of money they take in. The political right cannot even conceive of raising revenue in any form or fashion.
Let's look at what happens when taxes are raised and lowered, then we can analyze why the political right doesn't want to consider increases in taxes.
From the Heritage Foundation, excerpted from , Daniel J. Mitchell's, Backgrounder, The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates, published July 19, 1996.
Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.
President Hoover dramatically increased tax rates in the 1930s and President Roosevelt compounded the damage by pushing marginal tax rates to more than 90 percent. Recognizing that high tax rates were hindering the economy, President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).
President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).
Each of these examples give a good idea of the result of lower taxes - increased revenue for the federal government. According to the WSJ , the opposite can be seen when raising taxes - that is, less revenue:
Historians and economists who've studied the 1930s conclude that the tax increases passed during that decade derailed the recovery and slowed the decline in unemployment. That was true of the 1935 tax on corporate earnings and of the 1937 introduction of the payroll tax. Japan did the same destructive thing by raising its value-added tax rate in 1997.
Perhaps, some states have tried this (being the incubators of democracy and all):
"One year [after raising income taxes 6.25% on the highest bracket], nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates." Quoted from Millionaires Go Missing
While you might reach different conclusions, it appears that those on the right have a lot of data to back up their claims. In fact, one could say that it is a rational response to the data. They are drawing a conclusion based on evidence. I haven't seen any evidence for your assertions yet.....
Desk clerks, supply sergeants, etc, can all retire after never having seen action. Of course, there is a chance they could be made to if the situation were dire enough.
While I agree with much of what you've said, I'm going to bet you've either never served, or did your enlistment and got out. Here's the real deal. In 12 years of service, I've moved 9 times. I've been sent to Iraq twice. Both times I've left my family behind for an extended period. In about a year and half, I'll be leaving my wife and children for a full year. I routinely work 70 hour weeks, and I'm on duty 24/7. I have been called in at all hours of the night, weekends, and holidays more than I can count. I have been shot at, and I'm not in a job that requires me to go near combat. I have been given anthrax vaccines, smallpox, and a few others I can't remember against my will.
Now, if you can find a teacher or civil servant who has has similar sacrifices in 12 years, I'd like to shake their hand.
None of this is to say that I think the retirement being offered to me is fair or reasonable. I think military retirement is too high. It should probably mirror social security or simply involve a 401k with matching dollars like many employers do.
When the backlash against this madness finally does occur, it will rightly include them, for they are Satan's little helpers.
Disclaimers up front:
I don't approve of the method currently used against suspected copyright pirates.
I think the RIAA/MPAA need to develop a business model on selling products, not litigating prospective customers
Not all P2P is illegal
Now with that out of the way, let's not forget that most, if not all, of the people being sued are, in fact, breaking the law. The copyright of a brand new movie is not an evil thing. The studio spent millions to create it, they should be able to profit off of it for some reasonable amount of time (not for the current time limit of infinity+1, but reasonable).
The movies listed have all been out for less than two years. I think any reasonable person can agree that a copyright should last more than two. I think it's reasonable that the copyright holders go after pirates in this case. I don't think it's reasonable to go after the lawyer who is helping pirates defend themselves. This is like suing the defence lawyers for having the audacity to defend their client. The USCG has clearly gone stupid on this, but let's not lose track of the fact that illegal activity is (allegedly) occurring on the part of the accused too.
What does the military have to do with Farhad's argument?
It's called a non sequitur. Just like Farhad's argument. I'm glad that you think my argument is ridiculous because it is based on the exact same logic as Mr. Manjoor's
And how are you supporting those services with sales tax you pay if you order through Amazon and pay no sales tax?
Fire, police, schools, roads - non of these are supported by sales taxes, they are supported mostly by income taxes, property taxes, and registration fees. By putting a warehouse somewhere, and hiring employees to staff that warehouse, Amazon is doing more to help pay for those services than if the state charged sales tax on out-of-state purchases.
The bigger point I'm making is that taxation is not a zero sum game. The states where Amazon is stationed benefit from the buoyed economy brought on by extra jobs, more local tax revenue, etc. The money out of state purchasers save on sales tax is not money that magically leaves the economy, it will be spent elsewhere, which contributes to a local economy somewhere, Therefore, Amazon is not the sucking leech TFA wants it to appear to be.
I've lived in 5 states in the last seven years, according to Farhad, I've "enjoy[ed] the fruits of local taxes — police and fire protection, roads, hospitals, and other infrastructure that make its operations possible". Guess what, I pay those local taxes in the form of sales tax on everything I buy. I'm currently helping to prop up the state of California with my hard earned dollar (and you wouldn't believe the cut in quality of life I had to take when I was assigned here).
The argument Farhad should be making is that those states are not benefiting from sales taxes on Amazon purchases. By talking about services paid for by local taxes (not sales taxes), he's getting muddled. But let's analyse that argument too. If states are benefiting from sales taxes paid by an out-of-state customer, then they would essentially be stealing from the state that customer lives in. The money that would be collected by, for instance, Kentucky, on each sale Amazon makes is money that would have been collected in the purchaser's state had they bought locally. In fact, to boil this down to a zero sum game is stupid. I don't simply bury the money I saved from buying at Amazon. Instead, I take my wife to the movies, go out to eat, maybe invest it. Each of these activities results in a business making a profit, which means a job is created or saved (to use a completely useless metric), and someone, somewhere takes a cut of that money in taxes.
Farhad simply lacks a broader perspective. It seems he'd rather complain about a company's success than understand how that success benefits the economy as a whole, which ultimately benefits him as well.
Though coyotes have been observed to travel in large groups, they primarily hunt in pairs. Typical packs consist of six closely related adults, yearlings and young. Coyote packs are generally smaller than wolf packs and associations between individuals are less stable,
Sheesh, do I have to do all the googling for you anonymous morons?
TSA's goal is to stop future attacks, however they might occur... not to stop only attacks that repeat the tactics of 9/11.
So they do this by only putting protections in place that superficially might have stopped the last attack? The whole point here is that TSA is flailing wildly about using any previous attack or attempt as an excuse to flail in a new direction with no idea how to actually stop any future attacks.
Slashdot Mirror
I often tell my students that CS is the art of learning the tools to solve many problems, and that they will have to broaden their education enough to be able to operate in any field. I've working in aerospace, networking, security, and biology fields, but I'm a computer scientist. I have to have a strong enough background to at least understand the basics of those fields before I can help people to leverage software and hardware for their particular problems. So I agree with you that it's very multi-disciplinary, and in fact should be as broad as possible.
Not to mention the theory of languages. Understanding the theoretical underpinnings of satisfiability and validity are not "algorithm development", yet they make functional and logical programming possible. Knowing the arithmetical hierarchy doesn't help you develop an algorithm, but it sure is useful in knowing the limitations of your chosen field of study. Even simple underlying theories such as boolean logic, and first order logic don't really tell you how to develop an algorithm, but they have a lot to do with how computers work, major achievements in AI, etc.
It's a very big discipline, and there's no way that anyone can become an expert in all of it. You need to know the basics, and you need to decide how to specialize. I think the next major change in CS needs to be for schools to highlight their focus within the discipline. For undergraduates, there is a fairly well established baseline of knowledge, but even that baseline is often ignored in order to only teach programming skills, or only teach software engineering, etc. The field needs to agree on the baseline, and then establish well defined tracks.
You see this in other disciplines such as Aerodynamics. In that case, you learn the basics, then you specialise on powerplants, airframes, hypersonics, supersonics, CFD, controls, etc. We don't do a good job of defining the specialisations in CS, but they are certainly there: software engineering, software development, networking, artificial intelligence, statistical reasoning (maybe part of AI), numerical computing, high performance computing, distributed computing, theory, logic... the list could go on for quite a while. In the end, the student should know what they are specialising in, and that is often not well advertised by any CS department, yet they all specialise in one way or another.
Actually, Java is a tough teaching language. Most high school and early college students don't have the ability to think abstractly about objects. The idea of "everything is an object" is a tough one for them. You often have to do a lot of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" teaching to get them through the basics of variables, loops, etc. Pascal is a great teaching language because it allows you to teach the mechanics of structured programming without glossing over 90% of the language in the process. Once students have that part down, it's much easier to transition to something like Java.
Of course, just to keep the flame wars alight, I still recommend Ada as a teaching and production language. It's just better. (waiting for the troll mod now)
Although I suspect Torvalds, Stallman, Knuth etc. can "fix a computer,"
Actually, this is the biggest misconception of all. I'm currently a PhD candidate in computer science. I know a lot about algorithms, data structures, computational theory, etc, but I don't know how to fix MS Windows 7 when it doesn't do x, y, or z properly (except of course to install *nix instead). Granted, I know how to work the menus and dig through the options better than a lay person, but that doesn't mean I'm intimately versed in how Windows works, nor do I have any interest in learning it.
Computer Science seems to have lost its soul in some sense. At my university, if I approach a professor with any problem that is NPC, they immediately say "that's an Ops Research problem". Working on robotics algorithms? "That's the EE or ME department". It's been a real challenge to build a committee because most CS profs at this school don't think that CS covers anything more than AI and logic theories.
The point that CS needs to be defined is actually quite salient. Developers often complain that CS students can't program. Some CS departments are less concerned with teaching good programming practices and more concerned with teaching theory. Students expect the former and get the latter. Other schools consider CS to be the art of design. They focus on software engineering and often leave out much of the mathematical rigor in the process. Other schools focus on the logical and mathematical underpinnings, but don't teach programming or software engineering. Then there are the schools that teach only programming with very little else in the curriculum. Should CS encompass all of the above, or should it be a subset of those things? Is software development the same thing as computer science, or are they fundamentally different, somewhat overlapping disciplines? How does operations research fit in? What about numerical computation, high performance computing, networking, etc., etc.? The field has become enormously fractured and everyone, including Knuth, Stallman, Torvals, et al. has a different opinion about what it should be.
For it to be plutocracy, the wealthy should be getting their way, no? According to http://www.tripso.com/today/airline-industry-on-track-to-set-new-lobbying-record/ the airlines spent a total of $25 million lobbying congress on various topics to include increased user fees for private jets (I know, it's an old source, but I don't care enough to look through the current senate website and add up all airline contributions). Also, in 2010, according to http://www.tripso.com/today/airline-industry-on-track-to-set-new-lobbying-record/ of the $6M in PAC contributions from the transportation sector, private pilots, represented by AOPA, made up a total of $1M. The airline industry made up the rest. So you're saying it's a plutocracy when those who donate 1/6th of the total PAC contributions get their way over the other 5/6ths? Give me a break.
The landing fees at these small airports should therefore be the same as the larger airports or this stance sounds like blackmail- "If you don't build us, a tiny minority, separate facilities then we'll clog up the majority".
Spoken like a someone who has never flown out of a small airport. GA airports are required to implement all federally mandated safety-of-flight systems. This includes navigational beacons, markers, landing systems, radio systems, etc, etc, etc. These are unfunded federal mandates. The big airports have the same mandates, and they too receive funding to comply. Most small community airports are actually owned and controlled by the local city or county and the federal dollars go towards FAA mandates.
To turn your argument on its ear a little, let's look at what would happen if all commercial traffic on the interstate were to be charged a fee. All trucks carrying cargo for profit or hire should have to pay a toll for each road they use. Your argument would then be that all private passenger cars should also pay the same toll at the same rate as the commercial vehicles in order to maintain the road. That argument immediately sounds ridiculous because people are paying taxes to maintain roads - one of those government functions that we all agree to help pay for.
General aviation is the same as that public traffic. The federal government ensures safe public travel by helping to maintain local airports at the level of safety they deem necessary and they pay for it using taxpayer money the same way they pay for the large commercial airports. Any member of the public is free to use these airports for private travel, just like a highway. If you are so inclined, you can learn to fly, rent a plane, and cut your travel time from 5 hours to 2 - less if you can pay for a faster plane. This is no different than the hurdles you have to clear to use the roads. If you want to drive, you have to obtain a license, buy or rent a car, and pay for the maintenance and gas costs of that car. Why shouldn't the government facilitate air transportation the same way that it facilitates ground transportation?
People are protesting this law on the basis that it's an overreach of the commerce clause. I say that if you really care about the commerce clause, you'd be just as outraged over the 2005 decision Gonzalez v Raich (ok she's a chronic pain patient, but that's immaterial) as this one.
My original post was a tongue in cheek way of saying that I was outraged by the use of the commerce clause in Gonzalez v Raich. To then be accused of wanting to see cancer patients jailed seemed over the top to me.
Of course, your conclusion is a non sequitur. Your premise is that growing marijuana for personal use implies that the grower is a cancer patient. You then go on to conclude that anyone who wants to criminalize growing home marijuana is someone who wants to criminalize treatment of cancer. That simply fails all logical reasoning.
Many people grow marijuana for home use, and many of those do not have cancer. Also, many people who have cancer do not grow marijuana for home use. So one can conclude that, if there are many cancer patients dealing with the pain through means other than marijuana, then this cancer patient does not necessarily need to grow marijuana to deal with the pain. Additionally, medical condition is a poor defense for criminal activity. I have a torn ACL right now. Should I be allowed to drive while drunk since the alcohol helps the pain?
I do disagree with the use of the commerce clause to justify the decision in that case. It shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever. I do however support businesses who enforce drug testing and fire employees who are using drugs, not because I care how they are taking care of themselves, but because their work will suffer from the drug use and the employer will be adversely affected.
Imagine an aircraft mechanic who grows marijuana at home for personal use. I don't want to board an aircraft that he maintains. So in this case, public safety can be cited as a rational application of such a law - but it would have to be targeted to public safety related positions only, not to everyone.
So now you see that I've given a rational argument, that I have maintained a consistent stance, and that I'm still against the healthcare law. Do you still consider me "scum" that should be "up against the wall when the revolution comes"?
I'm not sure I'm following you on this. What cancer patients are being thrown in jail? Are you referring to people who can't pay for treatment now? If so, then you don't really understand Medicare.
My sister in law is currently undergoing dialysis due to renal failure. She was on an insurance policy, but they dumped the whole pool and now she can't get coverage at all. She's currently getting all of her care paid for through Medicare. The down side is that they pretty much require her to be destitute so she can continue to qualify for coverage.
The funny thing is, the health care overhaul doesn't help her one iota. She'll still be a high risk patient, and be covered by Medicare. She'll still be dirt poor because she can't afford to earn more money since it will disqualify her from receiving Medicare and she would then have to pay for insurance elsewhere at rates that are far higher than the income cap for Medicare qualification. She's still not covered under her parent's insurance because her dad is self-employed and it was his business' pool that was dropped, so he - the business owner - is also uninsured with what are now pre-existing conditions (not pre-existing when he was in the pool of course).
My stance is that we need a serious look at how to overhaul the system. I've seen the British and Canadian single payer systems and they are both crap. She would be dead under either of those systems due to patient wait times. I have no illusions that the US can somehow do it better because we have 100 times their populations. The current reform is a lot of mandates with very little cost cutting. Anyone with half a brain can understand that increased requirements for insurance policies will increase costs.
It would be nice if we could have a sane talk about the real issues and possible solutions as opposed to strangely emotional attack such as accusations that I, or anyone else, suddenly wants to see jailed cancer patients. That's just ridiculous logic.
The public option has some huge drawbacks too. I would be for it if was written in some fairly iron-clad language about how much loss the public pool could take over time. You're not going to see insurance companies doing well against a government run option if that option is allowed to use infinite tax dollars, dictate prices by force of law, and gerrymander the market to fit its needs (a la Medicare and Medicaid today). The concern voiced by (reasonable) Repubs regarding the public option was that it would fall under the same rob-from-Peter-to-pay-Paul finances as Social Security. If you can put some firm cost containment language on the public option, I'd be much more willing to support it. Otherwise, why not simply authorize anyone with a premium higher than $X (X being determined by a means test such as gross wealth, etc) to use Medicare? Why go through an enormous restructuring exercise when a much simpler solution exists?
Anyone who's pissed about this now and wasn't outraged over Gonzalez v Raich in 2005 is a [\. edit] hypocrite.
So if I was outraged about that then am I ok to be outraged about this now? Do I need a card or something? "Outraged by big government since Carter" or something like that?
Hypocrisy is old hat, we all know it happens. Also, people can change their stance when they get new information. It's probably not wise to paint with such a broad brush when in reality most people simply didn't care 5 years ago, but the excesses of the last three or four years have really made them think about it.
But I looked it up on Wikipedia. How dare you say I'm uninformed!
Argh! This is about the upteanth post to do this. Does anyone on slashdot know what "Begging the question" is?!?
There's a big difference between having unprotected sex in your middle years and having a doctor insert sperm in an ovum under a microscope. While you're considering that thought, you might want to look up Genetic Fallacy (fittingly enough).
What, you expected this crowd to debate a topic on its merits? For shame! Most of us don't even read the article!
They have a decreasing cost as even damn blurb said so "price of consumer lithium-ion cells has fallen 6 to 8 percent annually since their 1989 launchprice of consumer lithium-ion cells has fallen 6 to 8 percent annually since their 1989 launch"
You're confusing price per unit with price over time. The cost of batteries is decreasing over time, but the per unit price is constant. In other words, if GM makes 1000 batteries at $8000/unit, they couldn't produce 100000 batteries for any less than $8000/unit. No matter how many batteries they produce on a given day, each battery will still cost the same, ergo constant.
Look at the stuxnet attack on Iran last month. If that country had a more developed nuke program a hostile neighbor (country X) could have had the opportunity to co-opt their systems and launch against Israel.
And fingers=bullets by the same logic. A cyber attack is not a nuclear attack, and a cyber attack that results in nuclear weapons exchange is still not a nuclear attack. An exchange of nuclear weapons is a nuclear attack. There have been fears of falsely attributed nuclear weapons launches since Russia's first nuclear test. The fact that spies could have (possibly) done the same thing doesn't make spying nuclear warfare. Neither is cyber warfare=nuclear warfare.
Sure they're all true, but are they linked to the story?
Although many of the illegal alien headlines involve illegal aliens with a history of arrests and releases, but no deportations. So, yes, in some cases, that race, gender, and/or status of the individual is pertinent. In this case - not so much.
Instead of, I dunno, raising the amount of money they take in. The political right cannot even conceive of raising revenue in any form or fashion.
Let's look at what happens when taxes are raised and lowered, then we can analyze why the political right doesn't want to consider increases in taxes.
From the Heritage Foundation, excerpted from , Daniel J. Mitchell's, Backgrounder, The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates, published July 19, 1996.
Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.
President Hoover dramatically increased tax rates in the 1930s and President Roosevelt compounded the damage by pushing marginal tax rates to more than 90 percent. Recognizing that high tax rates were hindering the economy, President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).
President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).
Each of these examples give a good idea of the result of lower taxes - increased revenue for the federal government. According to the WSJ , the opposite can be seen when raising taxes - that is, less revenue:
Historians and economists who've studied the 1930s conclude that the tax increases passed during that decade derailed the recovery and slowed the decline in unemployment. That was true of the 1935 tax on corporate earnings and of the 1937 introduction of the payroll tax. Japan did the same destructive thing by raising its value-added tax rate in 1997.
Perhaps, some states have tried this (being the incubators of democracy and all):
"One year [after raising income taxes 6.25% on the highest bracket], nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates." Quoted from Millionaires Go Missing
While you might reach different conclusions, it appears that those on the right have a lot of data to back up their claims. In fact, one could say that it is a rational response to the data. They are drawing a conclusion based on evidence. I haven't seen any evidence for your assertions yet.....
Desk clerks, supply sergeants, etc, can all retire after never having seen action. Of course, there is a chance they could be made to if the situation were dire enough.
While I agree with much of what you've said, I'm going to bet you've either never served, or did your enlistment and got out. Here's the real deal. In 12 years of service, I've moved 9 times. I've been sent to Iraq twice. Both times I've left my family behind for an extended period. In about a year and half, I'll be leaving my wife and children for a full year. I routinely work 70 hour weeks, and I'm on duty 24/7. I have been called in at all hours of the night, weekends, and holidays more than I can count. I have been shot at, and I'm not in a job that requires me to go near combat. I have been given anthrax vaccines, smallpox, and a few others I can't remember against my will.
Now, if you can find a teacher or civil servant who has has similar sacrifices in 12 years, I'd like to shake their hand.
None of this is to say that I think the retirement being offered to me is fair or reasonable. I think military retirement is too high. It should probably mirror social security or simply involve a 401k with matching dollars like many employers do.
When the backlash against this madness finally does occur, it will rightly include them, for they are Satan's little helpers.
Disclaimers up front:
Now with that out of the way, let's not forget that most, if not all, of the people being sued are, in fact, breaking the law. The copyright of a brand new movie is not an evil thing. The studio spent millions to create it, they should be able to profit off of it for some reasonable amount of time (not for the current time limit of infinity+1, but reasonable).
The movies listed have all been out for less than two years. I think any reasonable person can agree that a copyright should last more than two. I think it's reasonable that the copyright holders go after pirates in this case. I don't think it's reasonable to go after the lawyer who is helping pirates defend themselves. This is like suing the defence lawyers for having the audacity to defend their client. The USCG has clearly gone stupid on this, but let's not lose track of the fact that illegal activity is (allegedly) occurring on the part of the accused too.
What does the military have to do with Farhad's argument?
It's called a non sequitur. Just like Farhad's argument. I'm glad that you think my argument is ridiculous because it is based on the exact same logic as Mr. Manjoor's
And how are you supporting those services with sales tax you pay if you order through Amazon and pay no sales tax?
Fire, police, schools, roads - non of these are supported by sales taxes, they are supported mostly by income taxes, property taxes, and registration fees. By putting a warehouse somewhere, and hiring employees to staff that warehouse, Amazon is doing more to help pay for those services than if the state charged sales tax on out-of-state purchases.
The bigger point I'm making is that taxation is not a zero sum game. The states where Amazon is stationed benefit from the buoyed economy brought on by extra jobs, more local tax revenue, etc. The money out of state purchasers save on sales tax is not money that magically leaves the economy, it will be spent elsewhere, which contributes to a local economy somewhere, Therefore, Amazon is not the sucking leech TFA wants it to appear to be.
I've lived in 5 states in the last seven years, according to Farhad, I've "enjoy[ed] the fruits of local taxes — police and fire protection, roads, hospitals, and other infrastructure that make its operations possible". Guess what, I pay those local taxes in the form of sales tax on everything I buy. I'm currently helping to prop up the state of California with my hard earned dollar (and you wouldn't believe the cut in quality of life I had to take when I was assigned here).
The argument Farhad should be making is that those states are not benefiting from sales taxes on Amazon purchases. By talking about services paid for by local taxes (not sales taxes), he's getting muddled. But let's analyse that argument too. If states are benefiting from sales taxes paid by an out-of-state customer, then they would essentially be stealing from the state that customer lives in. The money that would be collected by, for instance, Kentucky, on each sale Amazon makes is money that would have been collected in the purchaser's state had they bought locally. In fact, to boil this down to a zero sum game is stupid. I don't simply bury the money I saved from buying at Amazon. Instead, I take my wife to the movies, go out to eat, maybe invest it. Each of these activities results in a business making a profit, which means a job is created or saved (to use a completely useless metric), and someone, somewhere takes a cut of that money in taxes.
Farhad simply lacks a broader perspective. It seems he'd rather complain about a company's success than understand how that success benefits the economy as a whole, which ultimately benefits him as well.
Though coyotes have been observed to travel in large groups, they primarily hunt in pairs. Typical packs consist of six closely related adults, yearlings and young. Coyote packs are generally smaller than wolf packs and associations between individuals are less stable,
Sheesh, do I have to do all the googling for you anonymous morons?
TSA's goal is to stop future attacks, however they might occur... not to stop only attacks that repeat the tactics of 9/11.
So they do this by only putting protections in place that superficially might have stopped the last attack? The whole point here is that TSA is flailing wildly about using any previous attack or attempt as an excuse to flail in a new direction with no idea how to actually stop any future attacks.
As said by an anonymous coward. Nice job.