If they're selling for around $200 on ebay, maybe HP should try to sell them for $250 or $300, whatever their break-even point is (not counting R&D), just to keep their name out there. It seems like Marketing 101: if there's demand for your product, keep making it.
Of course, I was against their pulling out of the PC and handheld markets. I was also against their buying Compaq to begin with. The more players out there, the more competition and innovation. With fewer players, we'll see a reduction in quality and an increase in prices. I think HP shouldn't walk away from an entire business like that. They should hire in some great engineers and great management and make a go of it, not just surrender and withdraw.
I wish the TSA was more transparent and honest about the technologies and processes they use. I get the impression their imaging technology and their processes such as their rules for liquids were better thought out and better supported by real world facts. After the attempt to smuggle explosive liquids onto flights in the UK, many airports limited liquid size to 100 ml, or 3.4 ounces. This somewhat arbitrary amount is just under the size of many 4 ounce mini-drinks and mini-yogurts and baby foods in the U.S. So why not allow 4 or 5 ounces. Does that.6 ounce truly make the difference between life and death?
The TSA should engage in profiling, as the Israelis do. Although it's controversial, the Israelis have managed to prevent any hijacking incidents since 1969 so they must be doing something right. Even the Israelis aren't perfect and sooner or later it's possible someone will slip through and cause a calamity, but so far they have demonstrated a more intelligent approach to airport security that does not require body scanner imaging technology such as the TSA has enthusiastically promoted.
China's airport security is efficient and thorough, as well. A friend traveling there recently told me that when he came back to the U.S., it felt like going from a developed country to a 3rd world country in the airports. I suppose China has certain other problems having to do with civil liberty, not to mention a serious attitude problem on the part of one of their private airlines, but they seem to be doing something right with some aspects of the flying experience, anyway.
Furthermore, we're talking about tubes less than 1mm in diameter. Actually, it's quite an achievement to recreate these connections and have them heal that well. It sounds simple, but it's not.
Shouldn't HP have at least tried to make a go of their WebOs tablet before giving up so quickly? They can't possibly have recouped the investment costs of purchasing Palm, etc.
It's not as though personal computers are going away any time soon. Corporations still need desktop workstations, albeit more in the direction of thin Internet portal devices than the heavily loaded computers of the past.
HP should come out with a world class ultra lightweight laptop to compete with the MacBook Air, with a touch screen and very long battery life. They should come out with an innovative line of consumer and business PCs with touch screen monitors, tiny form factor similar to Mac Mini, remotely flashable, all the bells and whistles. And they should built on their handheld base, come out with some state of the art handsets and tablets to round out their portfolio.
Software services is all very well, but there are plenty of competitors in that space and HP will not be having a picnic. Why did they buy compaq and Palm to begin with? Methinks the current board has taken leave of their senses.
Ask any cop. Situations are not black-and-white out there; they require tremendous judgement calls, more than should be expected of anyone. When cops overreact and reach for their gun for self-protection, or draw a nightstick to subdue someone they suspect of violence, it can be construed as undue violence and it is, technically. But it's also a way to ensure their own safety. If criminals--real hardened criminals who would blast a hole in your liberal head for your wallet--knew that cops were totally bound to the rules, there'd be a lot more crime out there. It's reality, sorry to say.
A bunch of wanna be lawyers here. In the real world, cops have to cut corners a bit from time to time, not only to protect themselves but to protect the public.
In the real world, soldiers can't always follow rules of engagement strictly, or they'd be at a gross disadvantage against foes who have no rules whatsoever.
Of course we have to have due process. We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal". If you enforce the law to the very letter, the police would be completely hogtied and unable to act under many dangerous situations, and the public would be at risk.
So grow up and try thinking for yourself instead of ignorantly parroting some rot about due process.
Yes, Google grabs all the attention right now because it's big.
Microsoft and Yahoo and Cisco were helping China build their internet censorship system and Google rebelled. That makes them A-OK in my book.
Another thing to consider is that Google's stuff is VOLUNTARY. I use Android, I use Search, Maps, Gmail, Docs, Plus, Checkout, and what else am I forgetting? Oh, yeah, free voice mail with transcriptions. And free domestic phone service that works better for me than Skype's.
Probably every time I use Google Shopper on my Android at the store, it's remembering what products I'm looking at. I like Google's services, they greatly benefit me and cost me nothing, and if Google wants to track my habits they're welcome to it. If I were a subversive plotting to overthrow the U.S. gov't and commit terrorism I'd probably feel differently.
Every time I get in my car, I geek out about the fact that I have a (relatively) up to date GPS mapping system in my phone for free, instead of having to pay Garmin $70 for an annual update.
I hope Google makes tons of money off my reading and shopping habits, and continues to offer me all these services for nuttin'. And as for all these whiners, they can just go Bing themselves.
Yes, there have been quite a few reports of people being arrested and their cameras confiscated merely for videoing the police. I applaud this decision and I do hope it causes these statutes to be struck down once and for all.
Generally I'm on the side of private citizens' right to record events, and the police should never be doing anything that makes them shy about being recorded.
It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done. If everyone fought every charge in court, there would be a total logjam. A cop, coming upon a suspect at the scene of a crime, can sometimes intimidate them into 'fessing up without a lot of hassle and expense, and frankly without that we'd have a lot more crime.
So, I hope citizens bear this in mind when taping officers of the law. There's some similarity to the embedded journalists on combat squads in urban warfare situations like Iraq where Marines bursting into a room and discovering a militant lying on the floor holding a white flag will go ahead and frag him out of fear he's got a grenade or suicide belt on him, a common enough occurrence. The journalist will slavishly record the scene, then report it as Marine brutality against an unarmed opponent. Presto, you now have guaranteed more dead Marines.
You could have left off the first paragraph and provided an informative response. I was going to post something about MIT's online courseware, too. But you had to preface a useful bit of information with a put-down. Welcome to slashdot where innocent questions are met with derision and insults.
Most of these problems could be solved with two things: better shielding and cryo-sleep.
Shielding is not that hard; it's just heavy. A couple meters of lead should do the trick. If we can mine the lead outside the gravity well, say, from an asteroid or small moon such as Phobos, then using solar energy it shoud be quite straightforward and inexpensive to melt it into useful shapes. Alternatively, just commandeer a small asteroid, dig deep into it, set it spinning, and hang it on a solar sail to get it out there.
We already know that people can be cooled to near-death states where metabolic processes almost stop. The trick is to keep everything right on the edge between life and death, don't incur cellular damage, and of course be able to wake up again. Sooner or later we'll figure it out.
During the 2008 presidential election, Obama's campaign website contained a plan to cancel Constellation to pay for a national daycare program.
Someone must have told him not to run on an anti-space platform, because this particular plank was later removed. Furthermore, his national daycare program never got off the ground.
However, other expensive initiatives were indeed passed (healthcare, various bailouts), and Obama did follow through and cancel the current NASA shuttle replacement, until "the technology exists" in 10 or 15 years.
The subsequent uproar from senators and congressmen in affected districts, supporters of the American space program, the press, and the general public then forced the Obama Administration to backtrack a bit, and they restored parts of the program including the actual capsule and a modified launcher.
However it is clear that Obama has never been a big supporter of manned space efforts. Bush's vision was to replace the Shuttle fairly quickly, but unfortunately he shut down the shuttle before actually having a replacement in the wings. This gave Obama an opening to not only shut down the publicly funded manned program and give it over to the private sector, but he could blame Bush for the whole mess.
Don't jump to conclusions here. Home schooling is, at worst, generally equivalent to public schooling and at best, far superior (depends on the individuals involved). Whatever the children do on Friday can't be too bad for their personal emotional and intellectual development, unless they have really negligent parents. I suspect lots of 2-income families will start sending their kids to Friday camp at the local YMCA or church, to keep them occupied with games and activities. Hopefully not television for 8 hours.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain (attributed)
"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards." -- Mark Twain (Following the Equator)
The patents are the only thing of value to Google. They don't need a hardware company and they probably shouldn't be in the hardware business. They should be encouraging a plethora of hardware manufacturers to make Android devices. The employees of Motorola are a stodgy, old-line engineering crowd, not really a good fit for Google. Overall it seems like a bad match except for the IP.
Maybe Google can prop up Moto Mobility just long enough to come out with a refreshed line of competitive handsets and tablets, and then spin them off to Nokia or Rim or some other phone maker who is eager to acquire an Android portfolio. Maybe not Nokia, actually, since they've pretty much thrown in their lot with Microsoft.
ScentCone, your common sense reasonable statements will be ignored by the partisan, ignorant fools who dominate the debate here and on every other chatboard in the country.
The U.S. will not reform its deficit spending as long as people remain dependent on the government for cradle to grave benefits and refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes and shortcomings.
When the Democrats controlled the House, they spent like there was no tomorrow--trillions in stimulus, bailouts, and health insurance expansion. Who will pay for all that? Our great-grandchildren, who will be working for their Chinese masters and paying most of their measly wages to servicing the massive accumulated debts that will eventually sink this great country.
It's about time that some people got into the government who are not afraid to say that enough is enough. I applaud the tea party politicians and I hope they gum up the spending machine for years to come, and help nudge the country back to solvency eventually.
Another person who blames "big business" for our problems. So, unions, high corporate tax rates, massive red tape and over regulation have nothing to do with it? A general collapse of the traditional family, respect for authority, and the Puritan work ethic not major factors? A pervasive anti-business attitude, promoted by 2-3 successive generations of leftist teachers and professors?
The Japanese, the Koreans, and the Chinese have demonstrated that old fashioned American capitalism works. In east Asia, business is considered a good thing, an engine that promotes growth and prosperity and a better life for their children. This consensus has been lost in America, where the European disease has taken hold and people now vote for impossibly generous government welfare programs. And we are now reaping the results of this foolish and short sighted approach.
Too many leaps in logic to even understand. Your diatribe reads like a partisan stump speech at a special ed event. I'm not sure what you mean by tea bagger but if you are referring to fiscal conservatives, I think you are a little misguided.
The only solution to america's fiscal problems is to cut spending and cut taxation as well. Raising taxes slows economic growth--proven fact. Lowering taxes is stimulative, resulting in eventual business growth, jobs, and higher government revenues to pay for all that pork.
If you've really been around for 59 years then you should understand that macroeconomic events can't be controlled or managed through debt. America today is bankrupt. The federal government takes in $2.2 trillion a year and spends $3.6 trillion. Taxing all the billionaires at 90% would not make a dent in that gap. Only through massive spending cuts can we begin to dig our way out, and we still have that enormous national debt to pay off.
The tea party is evil because they oppose increased taxation. Right.
Raising taxes is proven not to work, and has a dampening effect on the economy. It's like killing and eating the family cow because you can't go one week without beef, and as a result you will never have milk or calves. It's killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
The only proven solution is to balance the budget through spending cuts, and get out of the way of businesses struggling to invest and grow.
America has become an expensive place to do business. Note the number of companies who have off shored much of their labor and services. Until we lower taxes and deregulate, this trend will continue until we are a completely defunct, obsolete economy like the Ottoman Empire or the Greeks and Spanish today.
"...the last okay politicians from the 90s are gone."
A typical example of the ignorance which dominates the political dialogue. Some fool ascribes a temporary bubble and government windfall to a do-nothing president when in fact it was the ongoing tech boom and the Reagan deregulation and lower taxation of the 1980s that fueled the boom.
Then, when Bush inherited the hangover of the dot com implosion as well as the 9/11 shock, he staved off recession for several years with a major tax cut, and yet the liberals still can't see past their noses.
Both the Democrats and the GOP are guilty of massive over spending, of course, but in the end it's the American people who are the instigators, with their insistence on cradle to grave coverage for their every failing. When people sign for a mortgage they could never afford, the government is expected to step in and bail them out. No retirement savings? No problem, Uncle Sam will hand you a check every month in perpetuity, courtesy of the people still employed. No health plan and unwilling to pay for hospital visits? That's okay; our great-grandchildren will be laboring to pay for that wonderful free healthcare that you deserve right now.
:) Call me old fashioned but I miss those old Caddys and Olds 98s. In '79 I was driving a Buick Electra V8. Now that was a car. You crash into a SmartCar in one of those, you'll need some Kleenex to wipe that little thing off your front bumper.
Basically, people need to get off their duffs and agitate to prevent these bills from becoming law. This is so typical of law enforcement, going after the lowest hanging fruit which is the privacy of innocent civilians rather than doing the difficult detective work of hunting down that tiny fraction of criminals.
As for child porn, I don't see how we can possibly prevent its use. It's out there, the internet is huge and uncontrollable, and it's going to continue to be passed around. All we can really do is try to limit its spread and impact on society. There have always been sick individuals and there has always been sexual abuse of minors. We should be focusing on better education and moral training from an early age.
Obviously, just blanket sweeping the usage statistics of every user out there is a huge step toward a totalitarian control over information and that's not acceptable in a free society. China tries to do it in a bumbling, paranoid manner and mainly they're shooting themselves in the foot. We should be better than that.
Roundabouts (or rotaries, or traffic circles, as they're known in parts of the U.S.) induce confusion and fear in many drivers, although they can be useful at times. This article from an insurance periodical suggests that it's aggressive drivers who are making rotaries more dangerous.
I like rotaries for two reasons: when there's no traffic, it's nicer than having to stop at an arbitrary red light and wait for a mandatory 2 minutes while the lights cycle. Secondly, if I am not sure whether to turn or not, I can just take another spin around the circle until I see the street sign I'm looking for (assuming there is one, not a given on some of the sign-challenged Northeast roads).
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light. Plus, some places make a rotary out of a 5-way intersection which can be incredibly confusing. It's a tradeoff, I guess, but overall I'd rather drive in a straight line:)
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If they're selling for around $200 on ebay, maybe HP should try to sell them for $250 or $300, whatever their break-even point is (not counting R&D), just to keep their name out there. It seems like Marketing 101: if there's demand for your product, keep making it.
Of course, I was against their pulling out of the PC and handheld markets. I was also against their buying Compaq to begin with. The more players out there, the more competition and innovation. With fewer players, we'll see a reduction in quality and an increase in prices. I think HP shouldn't walk away from an entire business like that. They should hire in some great engineers and great management and make a go of it, not just surrender and withdraw.
I wish the TSA was more transparent and honest about the technologies and processes they use. I get the impression their imaging technology and their processes such as their rules for liquids were better thought out and better supported by real world facts. After the attempt to smuggle explosive liquids onto flights in the UK, many airports limited liquid size to 100 ml, or 3.4 ounces. This somewhat arbitrary amount is just under the size of many 4 ounce mini-drinks and mini-yogurts and baby foods in the U.S. So why not allow 4 or 5 ounces. Does that .6 ounce truly make the difference between life and death?
The TSA should engage in profiling, as the Israelis do. Although it's controversial, the Israelis have managed to prevent any hijacking incidents since 1969 so they must be doing something right. Even the Israelis aren't perfect and sooner or later it's possible someone will slip through and cause a calamity, but so far they have demonstrated a more intelligent approach to airport security that does not require body scanner imaging technology such as the TSA has enthusiastically promoted.
China's airport security is efficient and thorough, as well. A friend traveling there recently told me that when he came back to the U.S., it felt like going from a developed country to a 3rd world country in the airports. I suppose China has certain other problems having to do with civil liberty, not to mention a serious attitude problem on the part of one of their private airlines, but they seem to be doing something right with some aspects of the flying experience, anyway.
Furthermore, we're talking about tubes less than 1mm in diameter. Actually, it's quite an achievement to recreate these connections and have them heal that well. It sounds simple, but it's not.
Shouldn't HP have at least tried to make a go of their WebOs tablet before giving up so quickly? They can't possibly have recouped the investment costs of purchasing Palm, etc.
It's not as though personal computers are going away any time soon. Corporations still need desktop workstations, albeit more in the direction of thin Internet portal devices than the heavily loaded computers of the past.
HP should come out with a world class ultra lightweight laptop to compete with the MacBook Air, with a touch screen and very long battery life. They should come out with an innovative line of consumer and business PCs with touch screen monitors, tiny form factor similar to Mac Mini, remotely flashable, all the bells and whistles. And they should built on their handheld base, come out with some state of the art handsets and tablets to round out their portfolio.
Software services is all very well, but there are plenty of competitors in that space and HP will not be having a picnic. Why did they buy compaq and Palm to begin with? Methinks the current board has taken leave of their senses.
Ask any cop. Situations are not black-and-white out there; they require tremendous judgement calls, more than should be expected of anyone. When cops overreact and reach for their gun for self-protection, or draw a nightstick to subdue someone they suspect of violence, it can be construed as undue violence and it is, technically. But it's also a way to ensure their own safety. If criminals--real hardened criminals who would blast a hole in your liberal head for your wallet--knew that cops were totally bound to the rules, there'd be a lot more crime out there. It's reality, sorry to say.
Dead cops and dead marines is your preference, coward?
A bunch of wanna be lawyers here. In the real world, cops have to cut corners a bit from time to time, not only to protect themselves but to protect the public.
In the real world, soldiers can't always follow rules of engagement strictly, or they'd be at a gross disadvantage against foes who have no rules whatsoever.
Of course we have to have due process. We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal". If you enforce the law to the very letter, the police would be completely hogtied and unable to act under many dangerous situations, and the public would be at risk.
So grow up and try thinking for yourself instead of ignorantly parroting some rot about due process.
Yes, Google grabs all the attention right now because it's big.
Microsoft and Yahoo and Cisco were helping China build their internet censorship system and Google rebelled. That makes them A-OK in my book.
Another thing to consider is that Google's stuff is VOLUNTARY. I use Android, I use Search, Maps, Gmail, Docs, Plus, Checkout, and what else am I forgetting? Oh, yeah, free voice mail with transcriptions. And free domestic phone service that works better for me than Skype's.
Probably every time I use Google Shopper on my Android at the store, it's remembering what products I'm looking at. I like Google's services, they greatly benefit me and cost me nothing, and if Google wants to track my habits they're welcome to it. If I were a subversive plotting to overthrow the U.S. gov't and commit terrorism I'd probably feel differently.
Every time I get in my car, I geek out about the fact that I have a (relatively) up to date GPS mapping system in my phone for free, instead of having to pay Garmin $70 for an annual update.
I hope Google makes tons of money off my reading and shopping habits, and continues to offer me all these services for nuttin'. And as for all these whiners, they can just go Bing themselves.
Yes, there have been quite a few reports of people being arrested and their cameras confiscated merely for videoing the police. I applaud this decision and I do hope it causes these statutes to be struck down once and for all.
Generally I'm on the side of private citizens' right to record events, and the police should never be doing anything that makes them shy about being recorded.
It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done. If everyone fought every charge in court, there would be a total logjam. A cop, coming upon a suspect at the scene of a crime, can sometimes intimidate them into 'fessing up without a lot of hassle and expense, and frankly without that we'd have a lot more crime.
So, I hope citizens bear this in mind when taping officers of the law. There's some similarity to the embedded journalists on combat squads in urban warfare situations like Iraq where Marines bursting into a room and discovering a militant lying on the floor holding a white flag will go ahead and frag him out of fear he's got a grenade or suicide belt on him, a common enough occurrence. The journalist will slavishly record the scene, then report it as Marine brutality against an unarmed opponent. Presto, you now have guaranteed more dead Marines.
You could have left off the first paragraph and provided an informative response. I was going to post something about MIT's online courseware, too. But you had to preface a useful bit of information with a put-down. Welcome to slashdot where innocent questions are met with derision and insults.
Most of these problems could be solved with two things: better shielding and cryo-sleep.
Shielding is not that hard; it's just heavy. A couple meters of lead should do the trick. If we can mine the lead outside the gravity well, say, from an asteroid or small moon such as Phobos, then using solar energy it shoud be quite straightforward and inexpensive to melt it into useful shapes. Alternatively, just commandeer a small asteroid, dig deep into it, set it spinning, and hang it on a solar sail to get it out there.
We already know that people can be cooled to near-death states where metabolic processes almost stop. The trick is to keep everything right on the edge between life and death, don't incur cellular damage, and of course be able to wake up again. Sooner or later we'll figure it out.
During the 2008 presidential election, Obama's campaign website contained a plan to cancel Constellation to pay for a national daycare program.
Someone must have told him not to run on an anti-space platform, because this particular plank was later removed. Furthermore, his national daycare program never got off the ground.
However, other expensive initiatives were indeed passed (healthcare, various bailouts), and Obama did follow through and cancel the current NASA shuttle replacement, until "the technology exists" in 10 or 15 years.
The subsequent uproar from senators and congressmen in affected districts, supporters of the American space program, the press, and the general public then forced the Obama Administration to backtrack a bit, and they restored parts of the program including the actual capsule and a modified launcher.
However it is clear that Obama has never been a big supporter of manned space efforts. Bush's vision was to replace the Shuttle fairly quickly, but unfortunately he shut down the shuttle before actually having a replacement in the wings. This gave Obama an opening to not only shut down the publicly funded manned program and give it over to the private sector, but he could blame Bush for the whole mess.
They're following in the footprints of some other great inventors but it's definitely an idea with traction.
My wife would love this thing. She paces while she talks on the phone, and she's always forgetting to charge her cell. This is perfect!
Don't jump to conclusions here. Home schooling is, at worst, generally equivalent to public schooling and at best, far superior (depends on the individuals involved). Whatever the children do on Friday can't be too bad for their personal emotional and intellectual development, unless they have really negligent parents. I suspect lots of 2-income families will start sending their kids to Friday camp at the local YMCA or church, to keep them occupied with games and activities. Hopefully not television for 8 hours.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain (attributed)
"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards." -- Mark Twain (Following the Equator)
The patents are the only thing of value to Google. They don't need a hardware company and they probably shouldn't be in the hardware business. They should be encouraging a plethora of hardware manufacturers to make Android devices. The employees of Motorola are a stodgy, old-line engineering crowd, not really a good fit for Google. Overall it seems like a bad match except for the IP.
Maybe Google can prop up Moto Mobility just long enough to come out with a refreshed line of competitive handsets and tablets, and then spin them off to Nokia or Rim or some other phone maker who is eager to acquire an Android portfolio. Maybe not Nokia, actually, since they've pretty much thrown in their lot with Microsoft.
ScentCone, your common sense reasonable statements will be ignored by the partisan, ignorant fools who dominate the debate here and on every other chatboard in the country.
The U.S. will not reform its deficit spending as long as people remain dependent on the government for cradle to grave benefits and refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes and shortcomings.
When the Democrats controlled the House, they spent like there was no tomorrow--trillions in stimulus, bailouts, and health insurance expansion. Who will pay for all that? Our great-grandchildren, who will be working for their Chinese masters and paying most of their measly wages to servicing the massive accumulated debts that will eventually sink this great country.
It's about time that some people got into the government who are not afraid to say that enough is enough. I applaud the tea party politicians and I hope they gum up the spending machine for years to come, and help nudge the country back to solvency eventually.
Another person who blames "big business" for our problems. So, unions, high corporate tax rates, massive red tape and over regulation have nothing to do with it? A general collapse of the traditional family, respect for authority, and the Puritan work ethic not major factors? A pervasive anti-business attitude, promoted by 2-3 successive generations of leftist teachers and professors?
The Japanese, the Koreans, and the Chinese have demonstrated that old fashioned American capitalism works. In east Asia, business is considered a good thing, an engine that promotes growth and prosperity and a better life for their children. This consensus has been lost in America, where the European disease has taken hold and people now vote for impossibly generous government welfare programs. And we are now reaping the results of this foolish and short sighted approach.
Too many leaps in logic to even understand. Your diatribe reads like a partisan stump speech at a special ed event. I'm not sure what you mean by tea bagger but if you are referring to fiscal conservatives, I think you are a little misguided.
The only solution to america's fiscal problems is to cut spending and cut taxation as well. Raising taxes slows economic growth--proven fact. Lowering taxes is stimulative, resulting in eventual business growth, jobs, and higher government revenues to pay for all that pork.
If you've really been around for 59 years then you should understand that macroeconomic events can't be controlled or managed through debt. America today is bankrupt. The federal government takes in $2.2 trillion a year and spends $3.6 trillion. Taxing all the billionaires at 90% would not make a dent in that gap. Only through massive spending cuts can we begin to dig our way out, and we still have that enormous national debt to pay off.
The tea party is evil because they oppose increased taxation. Right.
Raising taxes is proven not to work, and has a dampening effect on the economy. It's like killing and eating the family cow because you can't go one week without beef, and as a result you will never have milk or calves. It's killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
The only proven solution is to balance the budget through spending cuts, and get out of the way of businesses struggling to invest and grow.
America has become an expensive place to do business. Note the number of companies who have off shored much of their labor and services. Until we lower taxes and deregulate, this trend will continue until we are a completely defunct, obsolete economy like the Ottoman Empire or the Greeks and Spanish today.
"...the last okay politicians from the 90s are gone."
A typical example of the ignorance which dominates the political dialogue. Some fool ascribes a temporary bubble and government windfall to a do-nothing president when in fact it was the ongoing tech boom and the Reagan deregulation and lower taxation of the 1980s that fueled the boom.
Then, when Bush inherited the hangover of the dot com implosion as well as the 9/11 shock, he staved off recession for several years with a major tax cut, and yet the liberals still can't see past their noses.
Both the Democrats and the GOP are guilty of massive over spending, of course, but in the end it's the American people who are the instigators, with their insistence on cradle to grave coverage for their every failing. When people sign for a mortgage they could never afford, the government is expected to step in and bail them out. No retirement savings? No problem, Uncle Sam will hand you a check every month in perpetuity, courtesy of the people still employed. No health plan and unwilling to pay for hospital visits? That's okay; our great-grandchildren will be laboring to pay for that wonderful free healthcare that you deserve right now.
:) Call me old fashioned but I miss those old Caddys and Olds 98s. In '79 I was driving a Buick Electra V8. Now that was a car. You crash into a SmartCar in one of those, you'll need some Kleenex to wipe that little thing off your front bumper.
The DOJ wants to collect data, too. And some Republicans like Rep. Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin oppose data retention.
Basically, people need to get off their duffs and agitate to prevent these bills from becoming law. This is so typical of law enforcement, going after the lowest hanging fruit which is the privacy of innocent civilians rather than doing the difficult detective work of hunting down that tiny fraction of criminals.
As for child porn, I don't see how we can possibly prevent its use. It's out there, the internet is huge and uncontrollable, and it's going to continue to be passed around. All we can really do is try to limit its spread and impact on society. There have always been sick individuals and there has always been sexual abuse of minors. We should be focusing on better education and moral training from an early age.
Obviously, just blanket sweeping the usage statistics of every user out there is a huge step toward a totalitarian control over information and that's not acceptable in a free society. China tries to do it in a bumbling, paranoid manner and mainly they're shooting themselves in the foot. We should be better than that.
Roundabouts (or rotaries, or traffic circles, as they're known in parts of the U.S.) induce confusion and fear in many drivers, although they can be useful at times. This article from an insurance periodical suggests that it's aggressive drivers who are making rotaries more dangerous.
:)
I like rotaries for two reasons: when there's no traffic, it's nicer than having to stop at an arbitrary red light and wait for a mandatory 2 minutes while the lights cycle. Secondly, if I am not sure whether to turn or not, I can just take another spin around the circle until I see the street sign I'm looking for (assuming there is one, not a given on some of the sign-challenged Northeast roads).
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light. Plus, some places make a rotary out of a 5-way intersection which can be incredibly confusing. It's a tradeoff, I guess, but overall I'd rather drive in a straight line