I just don't understand why anyone would pay for this.
First, I understand you exactly and agree with your point(s).
But to explain, I've seen quite a few people buy Linspire (and a couple even pay for the CNR access). I thought they were loons but after seeing this repeatedly I had to think about it.
The conclusion that I came to was "consumerist training". People are taught to think like that -- just watch TV if you don't believe me. These people have a strong "feeling" that if you pay for something it has to be better. In short, they're "Americans" with "American values".
I see the same thing all the time with Windows users. Some people actually get a certain satisfaction at buying anti-virus software and registry maintenance software and other odds-and-ends $20 or $40 utilities that are unneeded in a GNU/Linux system.
It sounds bizarre, but I'm serious -- some people do like that to a limited extent. They always say, "It's just $30 so what's the big deal?" And it gives them a certain satisfaction because in their mind they're "helping" and "optimizing" their computer.
For those interested in this, the community-driven Freespire project will likely be of interest. From their web site:
Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you.
While it's great that the authors created an apt-get repository for easy Debian installs, be warned that the packages don't work with Debian Sarge/Stable. (The packages conflict with Debian Sarge/Stable's Python packages.)
The world produces enough food right now to feed everyone on the planet. So why aren't they getting fed? The problem is within capitalism and the distribution system.
GM food will not solve either capitalism or the distribution system's problems.
What GM food will do is to pollute the world's plants by gene migration from GM plants to other plants (already seen and documented) and impact us in many unforseen ways (e.g. the butterflies dying from GM-altered plants).
And, of course, GM food will also shift power to corporate agribusiness in a huge way, which is the real reason the US gov't pushes GM crops.
In our puppet state of Iraq -- one of the areas where agriculture literally originated -- US-imposed laws now forbid Iraqi farmers from harvesting seeds from crops to use to plant next year.
And many claim to be Christians and go to church to worship a person who advocated pacifism and told people that when you are attacked you should turn the other cheek.
Meanwhile, the US claims to be a "Christian" country, spends roughly the same amount of money on so-called defense[sic] as the rest of the world combined, and is fighting a war on Iraq that everyone from the UN Secretary General, to the late Pope, to the Dali Lama has bluntly called illegal.
As someone who is "pissed off" about pacifism, you're simply reflecting the attitude of the US, the country which has launched more interventions and wars of aggression in the past century than any other country by far.
I agree. The oil companies and right-wing have poured millions for many years into discrediting global warming and environmentalists in general. This has been profusely documented.
What's surprising is if this can be linked directly to the Republican Party. After all, we know they worked many ways to undermine the last two national elections, but a direct link to dirty tricks like this would be hitting an all-new low. (As if cooking elections isn't low enough.)
Millions of Americans have been unemployed for too long so the gov't just labels those workers as "discouraged" and arbitrarily drops them from its stats -- a nice way of cooking the numbers; just like labeling part-time workers who can't find full time work as "employed".
Do European countries cook their unemployment numbers as badly as the US? (I don't know, just asking.)
The AFL-CIO have done some analysis that showed that if the US used the same statistical model today that they used in the 1970s, that the real unemployment rate today would be almost double what the US gov't reports.
Yes, there really are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Oh boy, just what the American taxpayer needs to pay for -- another useless war toy to feed the military-industrial complex and encourage more wars.
What, are the 50-year old B-52 bombers not capable of dropping bombs? Are the newer B-1 and B-2 bombers inadequate? Why the hell is the US the only country stupid enough to waste their resources on such war toys? Is the fact that the US spends as much on defense[sic] as roughly THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED not enough?!
Meanwhile, the US runs huge budget deficits, talks about killing (err, I mean "privatizing") social security, and all the time our schools (and economy) deteriorate, and tens of millions of Americans go without health care.
We've got our head stuck up our ass -- and Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and the other military contractors laugh all the way to the bank...:-(
Should these two dots be connected, and if so, how?
Please tell me you're not from the US -- please!
Because if you're from the US the question is the height of naivete and clearly demonstrates you don't have a clue about how US politics work and the levels of bribery and corruption inherent in US politics.
It would put all focus on campaigning on specific, higher-density populations, rendering the votes of many regions in the US practically worthless.
Is that any worse than the current system?
Now if you live in a "safe state" which is highly likely to go for one party or the other you're ignored by both parties.
Now the politicians ignore huge portions of the country while fighting it out for only a handful of so-called "battleground states".
That entire phenomenon is due to the warping impact of the undemocratic Electoral College.
I live in a rural area. I don't care if politicians come here. I know they represent people (or at least that's the theory) and they should go to where the most people are.
And besides, does anyone actually see the presidential candidates in an election? In 2004 you needed a ticket to go to Bush's scripted events.
How do we learn about politicians? This isn't the 1800s any more -- we learn about politicians through the media. But instead we're taught to view a local visit by a nat'l politician like some popular rock band coming to our town. In an age where telecommuting is increasingly common, we've got to think differently.
Several states already allocate their Electoral College electors in proportion to the state's popular vote. While that's nice, it doesn't solve the real problem.
The Electoral College itself is undemocratic no matter how states allocate their electors. The Electoral College skews things to over-represent rural states with small populations -- no matter how you slice it, that simply is not democratic.
Examples: Vermont has 3 votes out of the 535 in the Electoral College; that's.5%. Yet Vermont has only about 600,000 people out of the US population of 300 million -- or.2%. Vermont is wildly over-represented in presidential elections.
California has about 1/8 of the US population, yet it gets far, far less than 1/8 of the Electoral College electors; California is wildly under-represented. It's the same for other states with large populations.
Now, add in the sparsely populated prairie and western states and you'll see how warped the whole system is.
Some will argue that this was designed this way by the founding fathers to make sure the "small" states were properly represented. Poppycock -- the founding fathers only had 13 states and had no idea we'd buy Louisiana, seize half of Mexico and expand from sea to sea.
If you read the federalist papers, written during the debate over the Constitution, the reason for creating the Electoral College stands out clearly. It was the same reason the states -- not the people via direct elections -- used to select US Senators. The founding fathers wanted to limit democracy in the new republic they were creating.
The only way to solve the undemocratic nature of the Electoral College is the same way we solved the undemocratic Senate: with a Constitutional amendment to have the president elected directly by the people.
...pray tell why no major news reporting agency, eager to stick it to Bush especially if their main audience is outside the US...
Some of the CMM (corporate mass media) did report on Palast's (and others) findings. But there are two key factors at play here. One is how much coverage was done in the US, where the story mattered most. In the US the CMM took a "unifying stance" and went out of their way to "help heal" the country and to not discredit or undermine the "winner". In short, there was a deafening near-total silence on the issue of "election irregularities".
The other factor is the classic CMM tactic of "placement" and a failure to connect the dots, a failure to paint the big picture. The CMM often portrays stories as an isolated event, rather than to connect the story with other stories.
That tactic, combined with placing -- or "burying" -- the stories deep in the inside pages of a newspaper with the "dirty details" of the story in the middle or end paragraphs of the article are classic tactics to minimize the impact. This underreporting amounts to a de facto censorship even though the CMM can truthfully say they "covered" the story.
...why don't you just elect a president that doesn't suck next time, 'kay?
You're making the wild assumption that the American people actually elected Bush in 2000 and 2004. (How soon we forget!)
For simplicity's sake (!) we'll ignore US laws which bias our elections to favor only Republicans and Democrats. We'll also ignore that under the US Constitution the antiquated and undemocratic Electoral College selects the president and not the American people ('cause the American people clearly chose Gore in 2000). And, of course, we'll ignore that Corporate America funds our elections and politicians so effectively that corporations sometimes -- literally -- write laws that they then have their politicians enact.
As a Brit I don't expect you to be familiar with such dirty details like that.
But it was the BBC's own Greg Palast whose investigations proved that the 2000 and 2004 elections were blatantly rigged using a wide variety of techniques -- ground-breaking journalism confirmed by others much later.
Few people seem aware of it, but the currently undefined US federal gov't "requirements" for state driver's licenses are a de facto nat'l ID card. The federal "RealID" requirements can be changed at a whim by the federal gov't to require whatever data the feds deem worthy.
Some, however, are resisting that blatant violation of the 10th Amendment. In New Hampshire there is a citizen's group which is lobbying against the US nat'l ID program. A NH bill has been proposed, HB1582, which calls on the state to reject the federal RealID requirements, and it just passed the state legislature's Senate Public and Municipal Affairs committee unanimously.
While it is still undecided whether resistance is or is not futile, some people are standing up and being counted.
I think/. should eliminate 2/3 of articles relating to future NASA plans. Not that I dislike NASA, but just because more gov't propaganda and lies don't sit well with me. This is simply hype and mindless PR.
After all, didn't King George tell us a year or so ago that we'd be going to Mars with a mission first to the moon? Does anyone think that will actually happen due to Bush's push? Call me a cynic, but with the US bleeding red ink, losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think Bush's announcement was little more than feel-good propaganda. If we ever do get to Mars it'll be due to some future president's budget and emphasis. Even the article admits that Bush's original 2020 date is unrealistic. Duhh!:-(
NASA plans are simply hype. They should not be "news". (Note: Fully funded NASA programs are another matter.)
Myself, I have plans to marry several supermodels and engage in a life of polygamy. I also have plans to get rich by curing cancer. Anyone want to read "news" about that?
What total compensation is up? Do you have any references? Color me skeptical.
I've read numerous reports that far fewer employers are offering health insurance compared to decades past.
While pension or other benefits may have risen, given the routine news we get of companies changing pensions to screw their former employees, the near criminal underfunding of pension funds by corporations, I have a hard time imagining that workers are seeing significant increases there. After all, pensions and those sorts of benefits are the most attacked items in union strife today -- e.g. the recent NYC transit strike.
In today's free[sic] trade economy, you likely won't have a choice.
For consecutive years, the average real (after-inflation) wages of Americans have fallen. Given that reality, along with the outsourcing and declining jobs in tech (the US now imports more tech than it produces), trading money for contentment is common sense.
The US is living on its seed corn. Under Bush a change was made so that the US gov't no longer reports the metrics to calculate how many decreasing-value dollars they're printing, and we are literally exporting wealth. (Isn't another front-page/. article today about the Japanese buying up Westinghouse?! That is this dynamic in action.) Both Ford and GM teeter on bankruptcy (Chrysler was already bought by foreigners). Our country's net savings just went negative.
Unemployment stats have little to do with reality. I distinctly recall that cooking the unemployment rate started under Reagan -- slight fudging of the algorithms will do the trick. The AFL-CIO's stats, using 1970s methods for figuring unemployment, puts the real unemployment rate at just under twice the gov't-reported level.
As far as "growth", what does that mean for normal people? Bush has created fewer jobs than any president since the Great Depression. GDP = corporate profits and production, not necessarily jobs and employment.
Worse, we all know Americans are working longer and getting paid less. Average real (after-inflation) wages have fallen for consecutive years; the average American now works more hours per year than do the Japanese.
If you actually look at the gov't stats, what are the jobs being created? They are overwhelmingly (almost entirely!) low-paying service sector jobs. This is happening while good-paying manufacturing jobs are being exported. High Tech? Dying quickly -- the US now imports more high tech than it produces.
The core of the US economy is being gutted and wages are being pushed down by the so-called "free trade" which Republicans, Democrats, and corporations all cheer for.
I don't think it's that easy. The pain is in the transition. We see this all the time.
Why doesn't the MPAA and RIAA change their business model to something encompassing electronic media? Because they're in a rut and they're used to making money the way they are. They resist change.
The same concept applies even moreso to energy and oil.
Think of the countless billion$ that are invested in oil-based energy systems: oil refineries, tankers, drilling systems, pipelines, our cars, the entire petrochemical industry, you name it.
A fundamental change in energy technology is a radically "disruptive technology". Some will lose out, but many will make huge money from new markets and industries.
Let's face it, we're not fighting to take over Central Asia and the Mid East's oil because the ruling elites are willing to eagerly adopt change!
You and I probably think, "Hell, if we would have invested $200+ billion in alternative energy instead of wasting the money to create death and hatred by invading Iraq, we could generate new jobs/industries and lessen our dependence on oil".
But then again, if we think that way, I doubt we have much money invested in the petroleum industry. Oil men like Dick Cheney and Bush have a completely different opinion.:-(
So often we hear fuss about our petrol supply running out. Sure, perhaps someday it will.
I'd hate to break the news to you, but running out of oil is not the issue -- peaking world oil production is the issue.
Modern capitalism is based on growth. Our economic system is based on oil. Once oil production peaks, oil demand will continue to grow and production will continually fall.
The absolutely most optimistic prediction of when world oil production will peak is that of the US gov't, which says it'll peak 2035 or so.
Oil industry experts and most other countries put the oil production peak much sooner. Most say world oil production will peak somewhere between now and 2015. That is very close.
But what the US fears is that once the peak hits, the vast majority of the world's remaining oil will be in Russia (which cannot be bullied and has its own interests) and in OPEC countries.
There is a reason why the US gov't is engaged in wars to take control of the Middle East's oil. This strategy is advocated by both Republican and Democrat geopolitical thinkers from the mid-90s on. The present US administration is filled with neo-cons who publicly endorsed this strategy in the 90s.
But like usual, basic economics will take care of the situtation for us.
What economics? The article does not illustrate the "magical" and "wonderful" workings of the so-called "free market"!
What does the article describe? It describes a large gov't-funded program to build the world's largest solar system. That isn't capitalism, that's socialism.
I was intrigued by the last part of the summary -- that the world's largest solar project (almost twice the size of the existing largest) will power not US houses, not US hospitals, not US industry, but instead will power the US war machine (an organization which has a publicly stated goal of world military domination).
Seems a fitting snapshot of the US's continuing economic decline.
The problem, which is obvious when you think about it, is that capitalism no longer has competition from communism....With that competitive threat removed, capitalism can be as nasty as it wants to be. Because it has monopoly power now.
Go to the head of the class, you hit a key point. I wouldn't say that is the only problem, but it is a key problem which explains the rapid deterioration of the American working/living standards.
Does anyone -- besides Animats -- remember what Gorbachev told Reagan in their mid-80s meeting in Iceland? Gorby told Ronny that he was going to do an "evil" thing to him, that he was going to "deprive him of an enemy". The mass media immediately dismissed Gorbachev's line as blather.
Of course, we have a new enemy now, "terrorism", so the military-industrial complex's profits are safe.
But sadly, now that the average American is working longer hours per year than even the Japanese, as we watch our labor unions be eliminated, as we see pensions and health care increasingly eliminated as job benefits, and as we see an all-out attack by capital on American workers, the average American is just now waking up to realize exactly what Gorbachev meant.
This story's initial headline and second sentence would have made an informative and possibly controversial news item -- FC5 including Mono over Red Hat's objections.
But the article wanders into 100% opinion mode, walks through the looking glass, and winds up smack dab in la-la-land. Case in point:
Is the Linux community finally ready to accept Mono? Mono is becoming increasing important due to Windows Vista, which has WinFX (the next.Net Framework) as its core API. This will mean that in future, all native Windows applications will easily run on Linux, with Mono. Will Mono achieve what WINE could not?
Good grief son, buy yourself a clue! Learn some computing history. Read up on OS/2's support for Windows apps in a much simpler API era. At that time, IBM had access to Windows' source code and could "easily" write support to run Windows programs on OS/2. Yet IBM finally gave up because Microsoft could break OS/2's Windows support easily and Microsoft did so many times. IBM finally came to the conlusion that customers bitching about broken Windows support was not worth the headache. Lesson learned: If you control the API, you control everything.
Do we really think that Microsoft will stand by and let Linux become a viable competitor in the.NET realm?
Microsoft is bound to stand by as some GNU/Linux use evolves in.NET. But make no mistake about it, they'll time a convenient -- but "mandatory" -- API change at a very opportune time to maximize Linux's second-class status as a.NET platform. What a perfect way to throw some mud on your competitor while appearing lily-white and innocent!
Of course, just like this article, this reply is 100% opinion. YMMV, depending on what side of the looking glass you're on.
Oh, and to answer the question: No, the GNU/Linux world is not ready for Mono/.NET -- not if we're smart.
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I just don't understand why anyone would pay for this.
First, I understand you exactly and agree with your point(s).
But to explain, I've seen quite a few people buy Linspire (and a couple even pay for the CNR access). I thought they were loons but after seeing this repeatedly I had to think about it.
The conclusion that I came to was "consumerist training". People are taught to think like that -- just watch TV if you don't believe me. These people have a strong "feeling" that if you pay for something it has to be better. In short, they're "Americans" with "American values".
I see the same thing all the time with Windows users. Some people actually get a certain satisfaction at buying anti-virus software and registry maintenance software and other odds-and-ends $20 or $40 utilities that are unneeded in a GNU/Linux system.
It sounds bizarre, but I'm serious -- some people do like that to a limited extent. They always say, "It's just $30 so what's the big deal?" And it gives them a certain satisfaction because in their mind they're "helping" and "optimizing" their computer.
Actually, it's more like an apt-get for clueless users who can't open up a terminal/commandline, and with some non-free software woven in.
:-)
But if that scares you, Linspire, being Debian based, also includes apt-get.
For those interested in this, the community-driven Freespire project will likely be of interest. From their web site:
Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you.
While it's great that the authors created an apt-get repository for easy Debian installs, be warned that the packages don't work with Debian Sarge/Stable. (The packages conflict with Debian Sarge/Stable's Python packages.)
The world produces enough food right now to feed everyone on the planet. So why aren't they getting fed? The problem is within capitalism and the distribution system.
GM food will not solve either capitalism or the distribution system's problems.
What GM food will do is to pollute the world's plants by gene migration from GM plants to other plants (already seen and documented) and impact us in many unforseen ways (e.g. the butterflies dying from GM-altered plants).
And, of course, GM food will also shift power to corporate agribusiness in a huge way, which is the real reason the US gov't pushes GM crops.
In our puppet state of Iraq -- one of the areas where agriculture literally originated -- US-imposed laws now forbid Iraqi farmers from harvesting seeds from crops to use to plant next year.
Pure pacifism pisses me off...
Lots of Americans feel that way.
And many claim to be Christians and go to church to worship a person who advocated pacifism and told people that when you are attacked you should turn the other cheek.
Meanwhile, the US claims to be a "Christian" country, spends roughly the same amount of money on so-called defense[sic] as the rest of the world combined, and is fighting a war on Iraq that everyone from the UN Secretary General, to the late Pope, to the Dali Lama has bluntly called illegal.
As someone who is "pissed off" about pacifism, you're simply reflecting the attitude of the US, the country which has launched more interventions and wars of aggression in the past century than any other country by far.
I agree. The oil companies and right-wing have poured millions for many years into discrediting global warming and environmentalists in general. This has been profusely documented.
What's surprising is if this can be linked directly to the Republican Party. After all, we know they worked many ways to undermine the last two national elections, but a direct link to dirty tricks like this would be hitting an all-new low. (As if cooking elections isn't low enough.)
Don't worry! Chris -- and his family and friends -- are being investigated by homeland security as you read this. :-(
Unemployment is down to 4.6%
But are those stats really accurate? Hardly.
Millions of Americans have been unemployed for too long so the gov't just labels those workers as "discouraged" and arbitrarily drops them from its stats -- a nice way of cooking the numbers; just like labeling part-time workers who can't find full time work as "employed".
Do European countries cook their unemployment numbers as badly as the US? (I don't know, just asking.)
The AFL-CIO have done some analysis that showed that if the US used the same statistical model today that they used in the 1970s, that the real unemployment rate today would be almost double what the US gov't reports.
Yes, there really are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Oh boy, just what the American taxpayer needs to pay for -- another useless war toy to feed the military-industrial complex and encourage more wars.
:-(
What, are the 50-year old B-52 bombers not capable of dropping bombs? Are the newer B-1 and B-2 bombers inadequate? Why the hell is the US the only country stupid enough to waste their resources on such war toys? Is the fact that the US spends as much on defense[sic] as roughly THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED not enough?!
Meanwhile, the US runs huge budget deficits, talks about killing (err, I mean "privatizing") social security, and all the time our schools (and economy) deteriorate, and tens of millions of Americans go without health care.
We've got our head stuck up our ass -- and Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and the other military contractors laugh all the way to the bank...
Should these two dots be connected, and if so, how?
Please tell me you're not from the US -- please!
Because if you're from the US the question is the height of naivete and clearly demonstrates you don't have a clue about how US politics work and the levels of bribery and corruption inherent in US politics.
It would put all focus on campaigning on specific, higher-density populations, rendering the votes of many regions in the US practically worthless.
Is that any worse than the current system?
Now if you live in a "safe state" which is highly likely to go for one party or the other you're ignored by both parties.
Now the politicians ignore huge portions of the country while fighting it out for only a handful of so-called "battleground states".
That entire phenomenon is due to the warping impact of the undemocratic Electoral College.
I live in a rural area. I don't care if politicians come here. I know they represent people (or at least that's the theory) and they should go to where the most people are.
And besides, does anyone actually see the presidential candidates in an election? In 2004 you needed a ticket to go to Bush's scripted events.
How do we learn about politicians? This isn't the 1800s any more -- we learn about politicians through the media. But instead we're taught to view a local visit by a nat'l politician like some popular rock band coming to our town. In an age where telecommuting is increasingly common, we've got to think differently.
Several states already allocate their Electoral College electors in proportion to the state's popular vote. While that's nice, it doesn't solve the real problem.
.5%. Yet Vermont has only about 600,000 people out of the US population of 300 million -- or .2%. Vermont is wildly over-represented in presidential elections.
The Electoral College itself is undemocratic no matter how states allocate their electors. The Electoral College skews things to over-represent rural states with small populations -- no matter how you slice it, that simply is not democratic.
Examples: Vermont has 3 votes out of the 535 in the Electoral College; that's
California has about 1/8 of the US population, yet it gets far, far less than 1/8 of the Electoral College electors; California is wildly under-represented. It's the same for other states with large populations.
Now, add in the sparsely populated prairie and western states and you'll see how warped the whole system is.
Some will argue that this was designed this way by the founding fathers to make sure the "small" states were properly represented. Poppycock -- the founding fathers only had 13 states and had no idea we'd buy Louisiana, seize half of Mexico and expand from sea to sea.
If you read the federalist papers, written during the debate over the Constitution, the reason for creating the Electoral College stands out clearly. It was the same reason the states -- not the people via direct elections -- used to select US Senators. The founding fathers wanted to limit democracy in the new republic they were creating.
The only way to solve the undemocratic nature of the Electoral College is the same way we solved the undemocratic Senate: with a Constitutional amendment to have the president elected directly by the people.
Yes, Greg Palast certainly works for the BBC, as a simple search on the BBC's web site will reveal.
...pray tell why no major news reporting agency, eager to stick it to Bush especially if their main audience is outside the US...
Some of the CMM (corporate mass media) did report on Palast's (and others) findings. But there are two key factors at play here. One is how much coverage was done in the US, where the story mattered most. In the US the CMM took a "unifying stance" and went out of their way to "help heal" the country and to not discredit or undermine the "winner". In short, there was a deafening near-total silence on the issue of "election irregularities".
The other factor is the classic CMM tactic of "placement" and a failure to connect the dots, a failure to paint the big picture. The CMM often portrays stories as an isolated event, rather than to connect the story with other stories.
That tactic, combined with placing -- or "burying" -- the stories deep in the inside pages of a newspaper with the "dirty details" of the story in the middle or end paragraphs of the article are classic tactics to minimize the impact. This underreporting amounts to a de facto censorship even though the CMM can truthfully say they "covered" the story.
...why don't you just elect a president that doesn't suck next time, 'kay?
You're making the wild assumption that the American people actually elected Bush in 2000 and 2004. (How soon we forget!)
For simplicity's sake (!) we'll ignore US laws which bias our elections to favor only Republicans and Democrats. We'll also ignore that under the US Constitution the antiquated and undemocratic Electoral College selects the president and not the American people ('cause the American people clearly chose Gore in 2000). And, of course, we'll ignore that Corporate America funds our elections and politicians so effectively that corporations sometimes -- literally -- write laws that they then have their politicians enact.
As a Brit I don't expect you to be familiar with such dirty details like that.
But it was the BBC's own Greg Palast whose investigations proved that the 2000 and 2004 elections were blatantly rigged using a wide variety of techniques -- ground-breaking journalism confirmed by others much later.
Few people seem aware of it, but the currently undefined US federal gov't "requirements" for state driver's licenses are a de facto nat'l ID card. The federal "RealID" requirements can be changed at a whim by the federal gov't to require whatever data the feds deem worthy.
Some, however, are resisting that blatant violation of the 10th Amendment. In New Hampshire there is a citizen's group which is lobbying against the US nat'l ID program. A NH bill has been proposed, HB1582, which calls on the state to reject the federal RealID requirements, and it just passed the state legislature's Senate Public and Municipal Affairs committee unanimously.
While it is still undecided whether resistance is or is not futile, some people are standing up and being counted.
I think /. should eliminate 2/3 of articles relating to future NASA plans. Not that I dislike NASA, but just because more gov't propaganda and lies don't sit well with me. This is simply hype and mindless PR.
:-(
After all, didn't King George tell us a year or so ago that we'd be going to Mars with a mission first to the moon? Does anyone think that will actually happen due to Bush's push? Call me a cynic, but with the US bleeding red ink, losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think Bush's announcement was little more than feel-good propaganda. If we ever do get to Mars it'll be due to some future president's budget and emphasis. Even the article admits that Bush's original 2020 date is unrealistic. Duhh!
NASA plans are simply hype. They should not be "news". (Note: Fully funded NASA programs are another matter.)
Myself, I have plans to marry several supermodels and engage in a life of polygamy. I also have plans to get rich by curing cancer. Anyone want to read "news" about that?
What total compensation is up? Do you have any references? Color me skeptical.
I've read numerous reports that far fewer employers are offering health insurance compared to decades past.
While pension or other benefits may have risen, given the routine news we get of companies changing pensions to screw their former employees, the near criminal underfunding of pension funds by corporations, I have a hard time imagining that workers are seeing significant increases there. After all, pensions and those sorts of benefits are the most attacked items in union strife today -- e.g. the recent NYC transit strike.
In today's free[sic] trade economy, you likely won't have a choice.
For consecutive years, the average real (after-inflation) wages of Americans have fallen. Given that reality, along with the outsourcing and declining jobs in tech (the US now imports more tech than it produces), trading money for contentment is common sense.
US's continuing economic decline?
/. article today about the Japanese buying up Westinghouse?! That is this dynamic in action.) Both Ford and GM teeter on bankruptcy (Chrysler was already bought by foreigners). Our country's net savings just went negative.
The US is living on its seed corn. Under Bush a change was made so that the US gov't no longer reports the metrics to calculate how many decreasing-value dollars they're printing, and we are literally exporting wealth. (Isn't another front-page
Unemployment stats have little to do with reality. I distinctly recall that cooking the unemployment rate started under Reagan -- slight fudging of the algorithms will do the trick. The AFL-CIO's stats, using 1970s methods for figuring unemployment, puts the real unemployment rate at just under twice the gov't-reported level.
As far as "growth", what does that mean for normal people? Bush has created fewer jobs than any president since the Great Depression. GDP = corporate profits and production, not necessarily jobs and employment.
Worse, we all know Americans are working longer and getting paid less. Average real (after-inflation) wages have fallen for consecutive years; the average American now works more hours per year than do the Japanese.
If you actually look at the gov't stats, what are the jobs being created? They are overwhelmingly (almost entirely!) low-paying service sector jobs. This is happening while good-paying manufacturing jobs are being exported. High Tech? Dying quickly -- the US now imports more high tech than it produces.
The core of the US economy is being gutted and wages are being pushed down by the so-called "free trade" which Republicans, Democrats, and corporations all cheer for.
Don't believe me? Consider what the economist, and former Wall Street Journal editor and Reagan's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, has to say on The True State of the Union or So Much for the New Bush Economy?
I don't think it's that easy. The pain is in the transition. We see this all the time.
:-(
Why doesn't the MPAA and RIAA change their business model to something encompassing electronic media? Because they're in a rut and they're used to making money the way they are. They resist change.
The same concept applies even moreso to energy and oil.
Think of the countless billion$ that are invested in oil-based energy systems: oil refineries, tankers, drilling systems, pipelines, our cars, the entire petrochemical industry, you name it.
A fundamental change in energy technology is a radically "disruptive technology". Some will lose out, but many will make huge money from new markets and industries.
Let's face it, we're not fighting to take over Central Asia and the Mid East's oil because the ruling elites are willing to eagerly adopt change!
You and I probably think, "Hell, if we would have invested $200+ billion in alternative energy instead of wasting the money to create death and hatred by invading Iraq, we could generate new jobs/industries and lessen our dependence on oil".
But then again, if we think that way, I doubt we have much money invested in the petroleum industry. Oil men like Dick Cheney and Bush have a completely different opinion.
So often we hear fuss about our petrol supply running out. Sure, perhaps someday it will.
I'd hate to break the news to you, but running out of oil is not the issue -- peaking world oil production is the issue.
Modern capitalism is based on growth. Our economic system is based on oil. Once oil production peaks, oil demand will continue to grow and production will continually fall.
The absolutely most optimistic prediction of when world oil production will peak is that of the US gov't, which says it'll peak 2035 or so.
Oil industry experts and most other countries put the oil production peak much sooner. Most say world oil production will peak somewhere between now and 2015. That is very close.
But what the US fears is that once the peak hits, the vast majority of the world's remaining oil will be in Russia (which cannot be bullied and has its own interests) and in OPEC countries.
There is a reason why the US gov't is engaged in wars to take control of the Middle East's oil. This strategy is advocated by both Republican and Democrat geopolitical thinkers from the mid-90s on. The present US administration is filled with neo-cons who publicly endorsed this strategy in the 90s.
But like usual, basic economics will take care of the situtation for us.
What economics? The article does not illustrate the "magical" and "wonderful" workings of the so-called "free market"!
What does the article describe? It describes a large gov't-funded program to build the world's largest solar system. That isn't capitalism, that's socialism.
I was intrigued by the last part of the summary -- that the world's largest solar project (almost twice the size of the existing largest) will power not US houses, not US hospitals, not US industry, but instead will power the US war machine (an organization which has a publicly stated goal of world military domination).
Seems a fitting snapshot of the US's continuing economic decline.
The problem, which is obvious when you think about it, is that capitalism no longer has competition from communism....With that competitive threat removed, capitalism can be as nasty as it wants to be. Because it has monopoly power now.
Go to the head of the class, you hit a key point. I wouldn't say that is the only problem, but it is a key problem which explains the rapid deterioration of the American working/living standards.
Does anyone -- besides Animats -- remember what Gorbachev told Reagan in their mid-80s meeting in Iceland? Gorby told Ronny that he was going to do an "evil" thing to him, that he was going to "deprive him of an enemy". The mass media immediately dismissed Gorbachev's line as blather.
Of course, we have a new enemy now, "terrorism", so the military-industrial complex's profits are safe.
But sadly, now that the average American is working longer hours per year than even the Japanese, as we watch our labor unions be eliminated, as we see pensions and health care increasingly eliminated as job benefits, and as we see an all-out attack by capital on American workers, the average American is just now waking up to realize exactly what Gorbachev meant.
This story's initial headline and second sentence would have made an informative and possibly controversial news item -- FC5 including Mono over Red Hat's objections.
.Net Framework) as its core API. This will mean that in future, all native Windows applications will easily run on Linux, with Mono. Will Mono achieve what WINE could not?
.NET realm?
.NET. But make no mistake about it, they'll time a convenient -- but "mandatory" -- API change at a very opportune time to maximize Linux's second-class status as a .NET platform. What a perfect way to throw some mud on your competitor while appearing lily-white and innocent!
But the article wanders into 100% opinion mode, walks through the looking glass, and winds up smack dab in la-la-land. Case in point:
Is the Linux community finally ready to accept Mono? Mono is becoming increasing important due to Windows Vista, which has WinFX (the next
Good grief son, buy yourself a clue! Learn some computing history. Read up on OS/2's support for Windows apps in a much simpler API era. At that time, IBM had access to Windows' source code and could "easily" write support to run Windows programs on OS/2. Yet IBM finally gave up because Microsoft could break OS/2's Windows support easily and Microsoft did so many times. IBM finally came to the conlusion that customers bitching about broken Windows support was not worth the headache. Lesson learned: If you control the API, you control everything.
Do we really think that Microsoft will stand by and let Linux become a viable competitor in the
Microsoft is bound to stand by as some GNU/Linux use evolves in
Of course, just like this article, this reply is 100% opinion. YMMV, depending on what side of the looking glass you're on.
Oh, and to answer the question: No, the GNU/Linux world is not ready for Mono/.NET -- not if we're smart.