Definitely agree with you, and more. As you said, it's difficult to tie to Leia's recollection. Her comments would have made more sense, and been more touching yet, if Padme had died of a broken heart just a couple of years later. But that's more of a fanboy nitpick.
The real problem was that it wasn't fair to her character. This is a lady who managed to get elected queen and senator, has been politicking in the Senate for probably ten years, is no pushover, but she dies in a unusually short time over the end of an imperfect relationship. (Yes, I know the circumstances were more shocking than just "see ya later.")
She was, to borrow from a character with a similar unexpected fate, "Boba-Fetted": Killed off before her time because she was no longer needed in the plot and without regard to her strengths. Sure, it tied in with Anakin's fears; yes, in a narrative way it makes sense; okay, he turned so completely as to be a serious shock. But I didn't believe it when it happened, and that's the problem there.
"A company riding a sharemarket bubble exchanged some of its overpriced shares for a real company with real assets and real profits, and which had some synergy with the aquiring company."
Nope, that sounds like an honest and proper assessment of AOL/TW. Although AOL was a real enough company compared to some of the other dot-coms.
That's like saying deer are successful because fawns can hide in sun-dappled areas.
Wal-mart was originally forced into areas that didn't have the profit potential to attract K-mart or Sears. That was a niche that allowed them to grow, then thrive, then become big enough to dictate terms to suppliers.
So yes, they did go into those areas at the start, but it only explains how they survived what would otherwise have been intense competition in the households goods markets. Their ultimate mantra of "the low price, always" is more important as a unifying force, then and now.
Then, it gave customers a reason to go to Wal-mart than to their local store; now, it's the reason the company can give for needing cheaper goods every year. Economies of scale mean lower prices; JIT shipping means lower prices; aggressive negotiating means lower prices.
"Always low prices": It's simple, it's memorable, and everyone -- from the CEO to the truck drivers to the customers -- know that's the focus of the business.
The reporter on the camera might be liberal, but who tells him what stories to cover and how to cover them? Managers.
A guy who decides what stories to cover, how to cover them, and what to say: Sounds like a journalist to me. Betcha he's in that "whatever"% of liberal journalists you mentioned, too. (Which means I don't have to point to the old L.A. Times story about journalistic pro-choice bias as a proxy for liberalism...)
Who tells the managers what to do? Owners....the owners of Clear Channel, CNN, NBC, Fox and so on are all conservative.
And with the exception of Fox and maybe Clear Channel, none of them seem to care what their news organizations do, as long as they aren't a threat to their primary corporate interest: Making Money. D'ya think Les Moonves tells the head of CBS News which way to push the news? The news guy has a profit goal, and if he meets or beats that, he wins. War in Iraq -- it bleeds it leads. Presidential blowjobs -- sex sells. Documents proving the President disobeyed orders -- scoop it. The President got fooled by forged documents -- want us to look stupid? Spike it. Journalistic integrity -- just a way to sell mouthwash.
And reporters that go against owners and management get fired.
That Got Milk story just proves my point. First, it's Fox News, where management at a high level appears to be very interested in using conservative reporters/managers/etc. -- not that it matters in what happened. Second, if the manager was choosing "what stories to cover," how did it get to the point where the story was ready to go AT a Fox News station? Mr. Murdoch must've been busy that week. Third, this wasn't a matter of "the story is left-leaning/conservative-damaging," and that wasn't the reason it was killed. Finally -- just as I suggested in my offhand model-- the story was considered a danger to profits, and that's what Fox Corporate cared about.
All I'm trying to do is square the circle between the conservatives who have reasonable examples of liberal bias and the liberals who have reasonable examples of corporate bias. I don't buy the media argument of "Everyone hates us, we must be doing something right," and I don't think you do, either. I loved that Jon Stewart shouted truth at those guys.I have no problem agreeing that corporate control of media is a bad thing. Just take a look at the other side.
But then I started thinking: I am a regular listener to NPR, and though their coverage of news is better (in my opinion) it's still not all that different. It could be because they still have to get corporate contributions, or is it more than that?
Here's a random possibility to consider: Journalists tend towards the liberal side, because they want to speak truth to power, make a difference, change the status quo. Since the journalists decide what to cover and what gets said, it biases most news to the liberal side. You can't tell much difference in what's usually covered because the journalists are starting from the same point.
Corporations are more conservative, because they want to keep the status quo, not make waves, and consolidate power to make more money. As long as news makes enough money, corporate stays out of it. But if reporters start taking that liberal stuff to heart and start making waves -- enough waves to make more trouble than money -- they slap it down. And they can, because reporters that are part of a big media conglomerate can (should? do?) make more money than independents. Once a reporter hits the big time, he'll be less willing to take the monetary/prestige hit.
(ObTheInsider: " 'I'm Lowell Bergmann, I'm from 60 Minutes.' You know, you take the 60 Minutes out of that sentence, nobody returns your phone call.")
This would explain why conservatives see a liberal media (listening directly to the journalists), liberals see a conservative media (watching what the corporations do) and you don't see much difference between corporate and public (because there isn't enough difference to notice at the journalist level).
Just a thought. Other possibilities include:
Herd instinct - if everyone else is covering it, it must be important.
Restrictions of the medium - Television works better with sound bites, simple assumptions, short explanations...
Similar boundaries: Public television is, by definition, government-funded, restricting its ability to strongly criticize the establishment. To the extent it's corporate funded, the previous discussion would apply.
Okay, because your post gets the timing fabulously wrong -- 25 years ago was the revolution that tossed out the Shah, not the coup that put him BACK in power -- I'm going to suggest that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Anyone with mod points, look up Shah Reza Pahlavi, then mod this guy down.
The market and the government aren't separate entities. They are inextricably linked in any situation more civilized than Auntie Entity's Bartertown. Without codes, laws, and moral structures that enable the peaceful exchange of goods and services, the ability to earn anything is dependent, absolutely, on your ability to keep others from taking it. You've already admitted that the government has some role in the marketplace - protecting property rights - so how is it a fantasy that it may have other roles?
Easy example: One of the most liquid, efficient, performance-driven markets in the world is the New York Stock Exchange. The values of hundreds of companies are known to the cent and updated by the second. It's a near-perfect market, right? So there are no rules, no governing bodies, no....oh, that's right: The exchange actually has a governing board, and a stack of rules, and very strong penalties for breaking them. (Plus exchange fees...) But it's worth it, because those rigidly defined processes enable a very lucrative marketplace.
Similarly, the U.S. government -- and those of the several states, and the cities within them -- have rules to define the markets within their borders. A common rule is allowing people to assert ownership of property. Enforcing that ownership through police and courts is another useful rule. But even starting with these simple rules, the state has to decide what can be owned (and what can't), how ownership can be asserted, how it can be proven...and pow, now you have an infrastructure that must be supported -- and that means: you now need taxes.
So, if we assume that's the only reason to have government, it seems pretty clear that taxing people on their wealth/income/property makes plenty of sense -- you're getting charged in proportion to the protection you gain. Nothing there about changing reality: The money is flowing from the people needing the service to the providers of it.
Now, you may believe that the market and the people in it would be better off if the government was less involved. That may even be true. And I would probably agree with you that big chunks of what our government does isn't helping the efficiency of the markets in any way. And why should you or I or anyone else pay for that?
Nonetheless, the market that these people earned their money in requires these services that can be reasonably supplied only by a government. So to say that THEY earned it is to ignore all the infrastructure that THEY depend on to be able to earn it.
Which someone has to pay for -- and why shouldn't it be them?
Glad to hear I'm not the only person thinking that "objectivity" is a well-meaning smothering of real discourse.
If everyone is objective -- or even mostly objective -- why do I need two newspapers? What can I learn from CBS that I can't get from ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN?
The answer, of course, is everything. Objectivity implies a single point of view. If there is an objective truth, how could there be more than one version? Ask anyone who received the most votes in Florida in 2000, though, and the limits of objective truth become quickly evident. But we can't see those limits if we aren't willing to move past them sometimes.
Objectivity is the impossible dream anyway, since the very act of choosing the news -- of deciding What Is Important -- implies bias towards a particular point of view -- the point of view that believes a story is important. And every action that leads to its publication -- this supporting fact included, that important omission mentioned -- reveals what the journalist/publisher/editor sees as important. It's a Godelian knot that can't be unraveled -- let's slice it open.
So, YES to anyone who is willing to revel in their political views, who has no shame in propagandizing, who believes that there IS an objective truth and that it is being shown to you because it is TRUE, not because it's objective.
C'mon, that was the lamest thing about the story. The air smells different, the alphabet works different, history has been re-written -- but the guys running in the election hasn't changed, and it's supposed to be a big deal that the guy who won is the guy you didn't want to win at the start.
Isn't that a little bit out of proportion to the change that has happened? Hasn't the hunting party done more damage in an hour than the new leader might reasonably do in his entire term?
Right, everyone will say "Those bastards are trying to kill us, and this is the only guy trying to stop them...unsuccessfully...again."
Bush has a lot more to lose from a Surprise than to gain. There are plenty of people who would consider a successful attack as proof of failed policies. Since the main reason to vote for Bush is that he's serious about the War on Terror, losing that could easily be the difference in the election.
The transaction costs aren't relevant to the existence of a maxima, only its location. The output of the "maximized efficiency" is decreased by the existence of enforcement mechanisms, but it's still the maximum output. By your logic, legal systems to prevent murder are doomed to failure, too, because lawyers and cops cost too much.
In any case, the point being made by the report is that maximized economic efficiency should be the goal of copyright law. It makes a good argument that this is so because the problem that copyright solves -- the disparity between cost of creation and cost of distribution for creative works -- is an economic problem at the core. It's not a question of power, of rights ("I created it, so I have the right to do what I want with it") nor of justice (who cares who "deserves" the profits from a $100 million film with a cast and crew of hundreds?) but plain old economics.
This is A Good Thing because it is otherwise too easy to get caught by alternate views with worse results -- places where transaction costs are obvious but in the government's (or politician's) favor e.g. favor the folks who have the most votes/give the most cash/yell the loudest.
I can answer at least one easy to remember example: PBS (Or, at the least, our local affiliate) broadcast This Is Spinal Tap, full and uncut, as one of their Saturday evening matinees. I don't recall exactly when I turned around in surprise at the utterance of profanity, although I believe it was after Ian called Sir Denis a poofter and before the F-laced argument where Nigel walks out. Airdate -- very approximately -- was sometime in 1997.
Didn't bother me that they did it, wouldn't really bother me if they bleeped, but one should expect, I think, that a government-operated media outlet will align itself with the government in power. Not a shocker...
I actually don't quite disagree with the argument, but I think it does beg a couple of questions:
What is a "free market," beyond the basic microeconomic definition? That is, are you speaking of the overall free market in a society like the U.S. (which is more of a political concept than an actual entity); the different free markets which you interact with directly e.g. for food, for durable goods, for clothing; the free markets between businesses, such as the one where my employer chooses between Dell, Compaq and Apple for computer gear; or the free markets that allows businesses to buy and sell one another?
To which the obvious followup is to ask what you mean by "efficient." Monopolies can be the most efficient producers, although they may result in a less efficient use of capital. (I gather that you mean that the free market in capital is diminished because there are fewer agents there because all the money is concentrated. I'll accept that, to a point.) On the other hand, capital markets are one of the more efficient ones that exist. Should we instead have a capital market that is even more efficient (and again, we have multiple levels of efficiency there) in exchange for production that is less efficient?
"Actively redistribute money" means we have to trust some entity to do the redistribution. What safeguards do we put in to ensure that the redistribution works? How do we prevent them from being hacked?
Why does the government have to step in to take care of this wealth redistribution? Why doesn't it step out, instead? Extreme example: Wal-Mart can depend on the FBI and other local law enforcement to help it track down stolen property. This enables one of those scale effects, because it doesn't have to post guards around every transport, so it can spend more money on new inventory. The government could effectively restrict the size of companies (and their monopolistic tendencies) by requiring them to deal with stolen property themselves. Like I said, extreme example, just to point out that the problem may be the ability of businesses to grow too large, or artifacts pertaining to aspects of the law rather than the free market.
I'll grant that stable free markets are a lot trickier to set up than anyone realizes -- certainly the energy commission in California found that out the hard way -- and definitely recognize that government is instrumental in ensuring that a free market works to the best interests of the people. But wealth redistribution is only one option, and not necessarily the best one.
So I decided to interview myself because a) I think I'll be harder on myself and know what sort of questions an interviewer might ask and b) no one has asked to interview me.
I'm assuming this is the point where the Slashdot guys give him a call....
...This guy files a FOI request about the underground tunnels...
Sure. I understand why he might be curious. It does seem like a way to draw attention to oneself. And I don't see why the university wouldn't just deny the request with a perfectly reasonable comment about security.
...Six weeks later, the FBI and Secret Service show up to ask him about the request...
Okay: Someone is asking for information on infrastructure that could be exploited in a terrorist attack. I do wonder why they didn't just call the police/sheriff, but perhaps they naturally pass potential terrorist threats to the FBI.
...The FBI asks if the fellow is part of activist organizations...
I don't much like this. Are they saying that UT Watch might be planning terrorist attacks? If they are, then does it make sense to let the organization know that they know? (If this guy had been with UT Watch, pow, they know they're being tracked; if not, why wouldn't he mention the questioning to others?) Or are they just idly trying to find out if there might be a connections? Or are they completely clueless because they are a national law enforcement unit trying to follow up on a local group?
...Nobody knows how the information got from the University to the FBI...
This is odd, too: The obvious answer is "We hand suspicious requests for infrastructure information to the police for further investigation, and they're free to share that with other law enforcement agencies." I'd HOPE that's what they'd do, in fact, and would feel more comfortable if that was their answer. But "I dunno"?
Overall, I'd call it disconcerting, but not really that big a deal. Am I in the minority here?
Really, George Carlin? I first heard it from Drew Carey. (Before he even had a show...)
He was talking about the possibility that folks in Wisconsin were standing outside spraying generic freon spraycans up into the air: "Fuck the grandkids, I'm cold now!"
IANAL, and neither are you, I think. So I'd trust those 9 wise people on this. Even if four of them objected...
People do make mistakes, even in their chosen fields, and sometimes the mistakes are clear to everyone. Even when people can't agree on what, exactly, the mistake was.
But I will agree that my objection to what happened is on a somewhat esoteric level of constitutional law...okay, a couple of different esoteric levels of constitutional law. I'd have preferred that They stayed out of it, and I suspect that, at this point, most of THEM wish they had as well.
Except for that minor point, yep, everything worked out pretty much according to the laws of the land.
I knew I shouldn't have bothered. Well, here we go anyway (responses to three separate replies):
"The federal judiciary was appealed to to interpret the Florida state law."
Yes, that's the problem. They are Florida's laws, and the Florida courts should have interpreted them. The Florida Supremes were messing about with the intent of legislation? That's a problem, but SCOTUS' involvement didn't do much to help, clarify, or fix it. The proper direction would have been for Florida to resolve it. If that meant that two separate slates of electors showed up in Washington, then Congress should have decided it. (Not that it would've gone that far: There weren't enough Gore votes in the disputed counties to change the result.) That's what the U.S. Constitution says should happen.
Those 9 wise people shouldn't have been involved.
"The Supreme Court said that Florida had to follow its own laws....The supreme court did not say "Bush won."
I didn't say that they did. Heck, I said that it didn't matter what they said: Bush had sufficient political support -- in Florida government, in Congress, and in the actual countable VOTES -- that he would've won under any reasonable scenario.
And again, the Supreme Court shouldn't have been mucking about in how Florida interprets its own laws. Heck, I like this Supreme Court's respect for state's rights, so it annoys me more that they got involved in a situation that weakened their usual stance.
" Find a respectable newspaper that participated in the many counts in Florida that declared Gore had more votes."
Is the Assocated Press good enough? "A full, statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes could have erased Bush's 537-vote victory and put Gore ahead by a tiny margin ranging from 42 to 171 votes, depending on how valid votes are defined." Hence the word "probably" in my original post, a modifier that indicates it was likely but not definite that he "received more votes," not that the votes were counted, should have been counted, nor that they were absolutely valid under the law.
But it's not a perfect world, and the fact that Bush had more countable, valid votes in Florida was Gore's problem, not Bush's. As was the fact that if Gore had just carried his home state, the Florida recount would've been an unusual but irrelevant side note to the 2000 election. But that doesn't make Bush v. Gore a masterpiece of jurisprudence, no matter what side you're on.
One of the states had a problem determining, which group of representatives to send, but the problem was settled according to the laws of the land, and I'm much more inclined to trust handling of it to 9 wise people with decades of legal experience.
Well....how true your statement is, is part of the point. The Laws of the Land say that it's up to the states to determine which representatives to send, not the federal judiciary. And if the states really can't decide, it's up to Congress to decide which group of representatives to accept, not the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court had followed its own precedents (i.e. those previously handed down by the same members as for Bush v. Gore), they would've let Florida take care of it, rather than getting involved.
Not, of course, that it would have made any difference. If Congress had decided which electors to send, Bush would've won; if the election was thrown to the House, Bush would've won; if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to proceed as requested, Bush would've won. There wasn't any way that the recount would've been allowed to take the nine months that it did to determine that Gore probably received more votes, and any other way they were counted, Bush won.
It has been a while, but I recall that the Air Force treated Security Policeman (SP) as a default slot -- good for folks that hadn't requested anything in particular, with aptitudes well-suited to holding a gun while watching for Bad Guys. It's a role closer to security guard than policeman. There are some positions that have more responsibility, but I don't doubt that someone who had served one enlistment as an SP would be qualified for jobs not more complicated than, well, security guard.
(Again, nothing against the SPs: It just wasn't one of those positions that gave experience that was highly sought in the outside world.)
Hmmm...My understanding was that this sort of money-losing deal was on the production side (Warner Brothers) not the broadcaster (NBC). The production company owns the characters, the episodes, rights to duplicate in other media, etc. (That might not be the company that actually, technically, produced it: Film Roman produces The Simpsons episodes, but Fox owns everything, AFAIK.)
The broadcaster has exclusive rights to broadcast new episodes for as long as it wishes to purchase those rights. It does that until it determines that the cost is greater than the money it will earn back. (As noted elsewhere, this is primarily advertising revenue, but there can be strategic benefits e.g. by having a strong series to anchor Sunday or Thursday nights.)
Once the broadcaster doesn't want the series any more, the production company can either stop production (as usually happens) or sell new episodes to a different broadcaster (as with Buffy and B5).
Through all this, the production company may not be making any money, and may in fact be losing it. Again, that's NOT the broadcaster that loses out -- they get as much as they can manage from advertising. It's also not the writers, actors, production staff, or company executives -- they get paid as required by their contracts. (This is what is being renegotiated by the Simpons voice talent.) The company may go millions of dollars in the hole, however, over the course of the initial broadcast run.
Once there are enough episodes, though, the production company can syndicate the series. Generally, "Enough" is 100 episodes (about five seasons), which is one reason why series usually make a big deal about that milestone. (Exceptions exist, of course: Star Trek (TOS) had only three seasons produced, but it was, no kidding, extremely successful in syndication.) ALL of this money goes to the producers of the series. DVDs, merchandising, movie rights, Saturday Morning cartoons - all this belongs to the producers. The more episodes there are, the more the producers can sell, and the more money they get. Whatever syndication earns, it's enough for this sort of deficit financing to be worth the risk.
Since Warner Brothers and NBC are owned by separate media conglomerates (Time Warner and GE, respectively) I don't believe that NBC is losing money on Friends in order to recoup on syndication, since I doubt they see any of that. They do seem to be concerned about losing Must See TV Thursdays, since there has been no mention of what will be the new 8:00 anchor there. (Can you believe that NBC has dominated the same night for TWENTY YEARS?) But I'm willing to be educated.
The Simpsons are owned and broadcast by the same company, which changes the dynamic a bit. The production side and the broadcast side will have different views on what they're willing to pay, and there is probably some form of financial chicanery^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hoversight to ensure that News Corp's profit is maximized. (For example, there is no reason to stop production as long as Fox Network breaks even on broadcasts, since syndication turns new episodes into free money.)
But I, too, agree that Cartwright and all should push for as much as they can get.
In the span of a few hundred million years, the Earth will become less and less habitable due to the expected changes to our giant stellar friend 1 AU away,
Shouldn't that be a few thousand million years? The dinosaurs were around a few hundred million years ago, and that's practically recent on your astronomically intuited timescale.
Slashdot Mirror
Definitely agree with you, and more. As you said, it's difficult to tie to Leia's recollection. Her comments would have made more sense, and been more touching yet, if Padme had died of a broken heart just a couple of years later. But that's more of a fanboy nitpick.
The real problem was that it wasn't fair to her character. This is a lady who managed to get elected queen and senator, has been politicking in the Senate for probably ten years, is no pushover, but she dies in a unusually short time over the end of an imperfect relationship. (Yes, I know the circumstances were more shocking than just "see ya later.")
She was, to borrow from a character with a similar unexpected fate, "Boba-Fetted": Killed off before her time because she was no longer needed in the plot and without regard to her strengths. Sure, it tied in with Anakin's fears; yes, in a narrative way it makes sense; okay, he turned so completely as to be a serious shock. But I didn't believe it when it happened, and that's the problem there.
TSG
Nope, that sounds like an honest and proper assessment of AOL/TW. Although AOL was a real enough company compared to some of the other dot-coms.
TSG
Wal-mart was originally forced into areas that didn't have the profit potential to attract K-mart or Sears. That was a niche that allowed them to grow, then thrive, then become big enough to dictate terms to suppliers.
So yes, they did go into those areas at the start, but it only explains how they survived what would otherwise have been intense competition in the households goods markets. Their ultimate mantra of "the low price, always" is more important as a unifying force, then and now.
Then, it gave customers a reason to go to Wal-mart than to their local store; now, it's the reason the company can give for needing cheaper goods every year. Economies of scale mean lower prices; JIT shipping means lower prices; aggressive negotiating means lower prices.
"Always low prices": It's simple, it's memorable, and everyone -- from the CEO to the truck drivers to the customers -- know that's the focus of the business.
TSG
All I'm trying to do is square the circle between the conservatives who have reasonable examples of liberal bias and the liberals who have reasonable examples of corporate bias. I don't buy the media argument of "Everyone hates us, we must be doing something right," and I don't think you do, either. I loved that Jon Stewart shouted truth at those guys.I have no problem agreeing that corporate control of media is a bad thing. Just take a look at the other side.
TSG
Corporations are more conservative, because they want to keep the status quo, not make waves, and consolidate power to make more money. As long as news makes enough money, corporate stays out of it. But if reporters start taking that liberal stuff to heart and start making waves -- enough waves to make more trouble than money -- they slap it down. And they can, because reporters that are part of a big media conglomerate can (should? do?) make more money than independents. Once a reporter hits the big time, he'll be less willing to take the monetary/prestige hit.
(ObTheInsider: " 'I'm Lowell Bergmann, I'm from 60 Minutes.' You know, you take the 60 Minutes out of that sentence, nobody returns your phone call.")
This would explain why conservatives see a liberal media (listening directly to the journalists), liberals see a conservative media (watching what the corporations do) and you don't see much difference between corporate and public (because there isn't enough difference to notice at the journalist level).
Just a thought. Other possibilities include:
- Herd instinct - if everyone else is covering it, it must be important.
- Restrictions of the medium - Television works better with sound bites, simple assumptions, short explanations...
- Similar boundaries: Public television is, by definition, government-funded, restricting its ability to strongly criticize the establishment. To the extent it's corporate funded, the previous discussion would apply.
Discuss among yourselves...TSG
Anyone with mod points, look up Shah Reza Pahlavi, then mod this guy down.
TSG
Easy example: One of the most liquid, efficient, performance-driven markets in the world is the New York Stock Exchange. The values of hundreds of companies are known to the cent and updated by the second. It's a near-perfect market, right? So there are no rules, no governing bodies, no....oh, that's right: The exchange actually has a governing board, and a stack of rules, and very strong penalties for breaking them. (Plus exchange fees...) But it's worth it, because those rigidly defined processes enable a very lucrative marketplace.
Similarly, the U.S. government -- and those of the several states, and the cities within them -- have rules to define the markets within their borders. A common rule is allowing people to assert ownership of property. Enforcing that ownership through police and courts is another useful rule. But even starting with these simple rules, the state has to decide what can be owned (and what can't), how ownership can be asserted, how it can be proven...and pow, now you have an infrastructure that must be supported -- and that means: you now need taxes.
So, if we assume that's the only reason to have government, it seems pretty clear that taxing people on their wealth/income/property makes plenty of sense -- you're getting charged in proportion to the protection you gain. Nothing there about changing reality: The money is flowing from the people needing the service to the providers of it.
Now, you may believe that the market and the people in it would be better off if the government was less involved. That may even be true. And I would probably agree with you that big chunks of what our government does isn't helping the efficiency of the markets in any way. And why should you or I or anyone else pay for that?
Nonetheless, the market that these people earned their money in requires these services that can be reasonably supplied only by a government. So to say that THEY earned it is to ignore all the infrastructure that THEY depend on to be able to earn it.
Which someone has to pay for -- and why shouldn't it be them?
TSG
Glad to hear I'm not the only person thinking that "objectivity" is a well-meaning smothering of real discourse.
If everyone is objective -- or even mostly objective -- why do I need two newspapers? What can I learn from CBS that I can't get from ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN?
The answer, of course, is everything. Objectivity implies a single point of view. If there is an objective truth, how could there be more than one version? Ask anyone who received the most votes in Florida in 2000, though, and the limits of objective truth become quickly evident. But we can't see those limits if we aren't willing to move past them sometimes.
Objectivity is the impossible dream anyway, since the very act of choosing the news -- of deciding What Is Important -- implies bias towards a particular point of view -- the point of view that believes a story is important. And every action that leads to its publication -- this supporting fact included, that important omission mentioned -- reveals what the journalist/publisher/editor sees as important. It's a Godelian knot that can't be unraveled -- let's slice it open.
So, YES to anyone who is willing to revel in their political views, who has no shame in propagandizing, who believes that there IS an objective truth and that it is being shown to you because it is TRUE, not because it's objective.
TSG
C'mon, this is SLASHDOT, after all.
Did ANYONE need to be reminded who Leonard Nimoy was?
In the middle of a Star Trek story?
TSG
Isn't that a little bit out of proportion to the change that has happened? Hasn't the hunting party done more damage in an hour than the new leader might reasonably do in his entire term?
Maybe it's just me...
TSG
Bush has a lot more to lose from a Surprise than to gain. There are plenty of people who would consider a successful attack as proof of failed policies. Since the main reason to vote for Bush is that he's serious about the War on Terror, losing that could easily be the difference in the election.
TSG
In any case, the point being made by the report is that maximized economic efficiency should be the goal of copyright law. It makes a good argument that this is so because the problem that copyright solves -- the disparity between cost of creation and cost of distribution for creative works -- is an economic problem at the core. It's not a question of power, of rights ("I created it, so I have the right to do what I want with it") nor of justice (who cares who "deserves" the profits from a $100 million film with a cast and crew of hundreds?) but plain old economics.
This is A Good Thing because it is otherwise too easy to get caught by alternate views with worse results -- places where transaction costs are obvious but in the government's (or politician's) favor e.g. favor the folks who have the most votes/give the most cash/yell the loudest.
TSG
Didn't bother me that they did it, wouldn't really bother me if they bleeped, but one should expect, I think, that a government-operated media outlet will align itself with the government in power. Not a shocker...
TSG
TSG
I'll grant that stable free markets are a lot trickier to set up than anyone realizes -- certainly the energy commission in California found that out the hard way -- and definitely recognize that government is instrumental in ensuring that a free market works to the best interests of the people. But wealth redistribution is only one option, and not necessarily the best one.
TSG
We're removing bugs from all the code that we send out from now on. So if you could just try to remember, that would be great.
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Sure. I understand why he might be curious. It does seem like a way to draw attention to oneself. And I don't see why the university wouldn't just deny the request with a perfectly reasonable comment about security.
Okay: Someone is asking for information on infrastructure that could be exploited in a terrorist attack. I do wonder why they didn't just call the police/sheriff, but perhaps they naturally pass potential terrorist threats to the FBI.
I don't much like this. Are they saying that UT Watch might be planning terrorist attacks? If they are, then does it make sense to let the organization know that they know? (If this guy had been with UT Watch, pow, they know they're being tracked; if not, why wouldn't he mention the questioning to others?) Or are they just idly trying to find out if there might be a connections? Or are they completely clueless because they are a national law enforcement unit trying to follow up on a local group?
This is odd, too: The obvious answer is "We hand suspicious requests for infrastructure information to the police for further investigation, and they're free to share that with other law enforcement agencies." I'd HOPE that's what they'd do, in fact, and would feel more comfortable if that was their answer. But "I dunno"?
Overall, I'd call it disconcerting, but not really that big a deal. Am I in the minority here?
TSG
He was talking about the possibility that folks in Wisconsin were standing outside spraying generic freon spraycans up into the air: "Fuck the grandkids, I'm cold now!"
TSG
But I will agree that my objection to what happened is on a somewhat esoteric level of constitutional law...okay, a couple of different esoteric levels of constitutional law. I'd have preferred that They stayed out of it, and I suspect that, at this point, most of THEM wish they had as well.
Except for that minor point, yep, everything worked out pretty much according to the laws of the land.
TSG
- "The federal judiciary was appealed to to interpret the Florida state law."
- "The Supreme Court said that Florida had to follow its own laws....The supreme court did not say "Bush won."
- " Find a respectable newspaper that participated in the many counts in Florida that declared Gore had more votes."
But it's not a perfect world, and the fact that Bush had more countable, valid votes in Florida was Gore's problem, not Bush's. As was the fact that if Gore had just carried his home state, the Florida recount would've been an unusual but irrelevant side note to the 2000 election. But that doesn't make Bush v. Gore a masterpiece of jurisprudence, no matter what side you're on.Yes, that's the problem. They are Florida's laws, and the Florida courts should have interpreted them. The Florida Supremes were messing about with the intent of legislation? That's a problem, but SCOTUS' involvement didn't do much to help, clarify, or fix it. The proper direction would have been for Florida to resolve it. If that meant that two separate slates of electors showed up in Washington, then Congress should have decided it. (Not that it would've gone that far: There weren't enough Gore votes in the disputed counties to change the result.) That's what the U.S. Constitution says should happen. Those 9 wise people shouldn't have been involved.
I didn't say that they did. Heck, I said that it didn't matter what they said: Bush had sufficient political support -- in Florida government, in Congress, and in the actual countable VOTES -- that he would've won under any reasonable scenario.
And again, the Supreme Court shouldn't have been mucking about in how Florida interprets its own laws. Heck, I like this Supreme Court's respect for state's rights, so it annoys me more that they got involved in a situation that weakened their usual stance.
Is the Assocated Press good enough? "A full, statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes could have erased Bush's 537-vote victory and put Gore ahead by a tiny margin ranging from 42 to 171 votes, depending on how valid votes are defined." Hence the word "probably" in my original post, a modifier that indicates it was likely but not definite that he "received more votes," not that the votes were counted, should have been counted, nor that they were absolutely valid under the law.
TSG
Not, of course, that it would have made any difference. If Congress had decided which electors to send, Bush would've won; if the election was thrown to the House, Bush would've won; if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to proceed as requested, Bush would've won. There wasn't any way that the recount would've been allowed to take the nine months that it did to determine that Gore probably received more votes, and any other way they were counted, Bush won.
TSG
It has been a while, but I recall that the Air Force treated Security Policeman (SP) as a default slot -- good for folks that hadn't requested anything in particular, with aptitudes well-suited to holding a gun while watching for Bad Guys. It's a role closer to security guard than policeman. There are some positions that have more responsibility, but I don't doubt that someone who had served one enlistment as an SP would be qualified for jobs not more complicated than, well, security guard.
(Again, nothing against the SPs: It just wasn't one of those positions that gave experience that was highly sought in the outside world.)
TSG
The broadcaster has exclusive rights to broadcast new episodes for as long as it wishes to purchase those rights. It does that until it determines that the cost is greater than the money it will earn back. (As noted elsewhere, this is primarily advertising revenue, but there can be strategic benefits e.g. by having a strong series to anchor Sunday or Thursday nights.) Once the broadcaster doesn't want the series any more, the production company can either stop production (as usually happens) or sell new episodes to a different broadcaster (as with Buffy and B5).
Through all this, the production company may not be making any money, and may in fact be losing it. Again, that's NOT the broadcaster that loses out -- they get as much as they can manage from advertising. It's also not the writers, actors, production staff, or company executives -- they get paid as required by their contracts. (This is what is being renegotiated by the Simpons voice talent.) The company may go millions of dollars in the hole, however, over the course of the initial broadcast run.
Once there are enough episodes, though, the production company can syndicate the series. Generally, "Enough" is 100 episodes (about five seasons), which is one reason why series usually make a big deal about that milestone. (Exceptions exist, of course: Star Trek (TOS) had only three seasons produced, but it was, no kidding, extremely successful in syndication.) ALL of this money goes to the producers of the series. DVDs, merchandising, movie rights, Saturday Morning cartoons - all this belongs to the producers. The more episodes there are, the more the producers can sell, and the more money they get. Whatever syndication earns, it's enough for this sort of deficit financing to be worth the risk.
Since Warner Brothers and NBC are owned by separate media conglomerates (Time Warner and GE, respectively) I don't believe that NBC is losing money on Friends in order to recoup on syndication, since I doubt they see any of that. They do seem to be concerned about losing Must See TV Thursdays, since there has been no mention of what will be the new 8:00 anchor there. (Can you believe that NBC has dominated the same night for TWENTY YEARS?) But I'm willing to be educated.
The Simpsons are owned and broadcast by the same company, which changes the dynamic a bit. The production side and the broadcast side will have different views on what they're willing to pay, and there is probably some form of financial chicanery^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hoversight to ensure that News Corp's profit is maximized. (For example, there is no reason to stop production as long as Fox Network breaks even on broadcasts, since syndication turns new episodes into free money.) But I, too, agree that Cartwright and all should push for as much as they can get.
TSG
Shouldn't that be a few thousand million years? The dinosaurs were around a few hundred million years ago, and that's practically recent on your astronomically intuited timescale.
TSG