Non-smoking restaurants were starting to become a significant trend before the laws kicked in and forced it on everybody.
Really? Where? I can't recall seeing any.
The problem is (or was) that restaurants had little incentive to ban smoking. Non-smokers have long tolerated smokers so banning smoking would just cause the restaurant to lose the smoking customers with no real upside.
Smokers are in the minority. As such it's reasonable to assume that the majority of restaurant owners aren't smokers and, given the choice, probably wouldn't want others smoking up their restaurants. But the reality of the marketplace insured that very few restaurants would dare ban smoking outright even if it's what they wanted to do and what most customers wanted, too. So they didn't.
I live in an area with such laws, and in fact I see the laws broken many nights I go out.
Where the heck do you live? Here in Colorado we've had the law for a year or two and not once have I seen the law violated. I have not seen a single person light up in any restaurant... not even in bars!
Seriously, most people aren't suggesting we prohibit smoking. But is it too much to ask people to be just a little polite of others when out in public?
... but I think it might be possible that it may just reveal a little bit of your bias that you divide the videos into the categories "conservative" and "protecting terrorists".
Unfortunately the bias of liberals prevents them from seeing just how true the "conservative" vs. "protecting terrorists" exclusivity really is.
Smoking is a nasty and disgusting habit. I'm not a smoker, never have been. I'm an asthmatic but cigarette smoke doesn't bother me. But smoking is disgusting and offensive in public places.
In Colorado smoking is now prohibited in most public places, and it's great. Feel free to smoke in the comfort of your own home, or your car, or even walking down the sidewalk. But you have to be pretty arrogant and selfish to think you have any right to light a fire and blow smoke into other people in public places.
Smoking should not be illegal and should not be subject to additional taxes beyond sales tax. But you should definitely have to smoke where it doesn't bother other people in a public place--most of whom do not smoke and who have only tolerated it because we have no choice but to put up with the bad manners of smokers who only think of themselves.
If you feel otherwise, well, next time I see you smoking in a public place maybe I'll just get a half dozen of my closest friends to go over to where you are and let loose some juicy, smelly farts. After all, it's freedom of choice and there's no law against it.
If smokers had been more CONSIDERATE of non-smokers, I'll bet you wouldn't have seen so many places passing laws that legislate consideration and good manners.
Stop acting like what you do doesn't affect anyone else. The entire point of the study is to disprove such bullshit.
I think the next obvious step is that we should pass legislation whereby we simply shoot all the fat mofo's.
How many people realize just how absurd the global warming nonsense has gotten? The global warming scaremongering has reached such insane levels that anything now leads to global warming. Including being fat. And if you're poor and starving in Africa that probably leads to global warming, too, since we have to burn carbon fuel to transport food to those people.
It's the most insane and absurd "the sky is falling" scam that's been pushed on such a large global audience and, seemingly, been accepted at face value by a very scary number of lemmings.
If you (the global warming believers) can't see what's going on and realize that the global warming scaremongering is going to lead to more draconian invasions of your freedom and finances than copyrights, DRM, Bush, and the DHS put together, well... I guess we'll all get what you deserve.
It's time people WAKE UP to the fact that global warming is a scam that has a political--not a scientific or environmental--agenda.
"NBC activated the 'broadcast flag' on a number of shows this week, ranging from American Gladiator to Medium, which prevented compliant programs like Windows Media Center from recording them. The matter is being 'looked into', but that doesn't tell us whether it was an accident or a ploy to see how outraged viewers would be at being stripped of the time-shifting rights they've enjoyed ever since Sony v. Universal.
I don't watch either of these programs (nor anything on NBC as far as I know)... but if I program something to be recorded and it's not, I'll simply miss the program. It's not like I'm going to adjust my schedule to when they want to transmit their material. If the timing of their material conflicts with my life, my life takes precedence.
1. Make content.
2. Prevent people from watching it when they want.
3. People stop watching.
4. ???
5. Profit??
I wish them well with that business strategy. It seems very well thought out.
This movie is 20 years too late.
I would have gladly seen it in 1988.
Oh, come on... I admit it should've been done sooner. But even Spielberg isn't good enough to be able to release the fourth installment before the third!
If the uninhabited sections of the Mojave Desert were used for this system, it would power all of North America.
The environmentalists would never go for that. It might solve our carbon emissions (assuming that's even a problem), but dang it, it's going to kill a desert rat.
Environmentalists aren't interested in solutions. They're interested in problems. The sooner realizes that global warming scaremongering is simply the means to a political end, the better. The global warming movement isn't about the environment. It's about political and economic policies they could never get passed if they were honest about their motives.
Environmental groups call carbon sequestration "a scam",
Sigh... they call carbon sequestration a scam but think "carbon credits" is somehow viable?
Global warming scaremongers aren't interested in the environment nor in things that help it. The only thing they're interested in is reducing our standard of living and in global wealth distribution. That's it.
And looking it against your other figures, you get that, by more than doubling the people, you just double the revenue and not even double the income. So the income generated per person has in fact diminished.
Maybe they hired tens of thousands of accountants?
That you and I don't have to pay for the guy who inherited a ton of money to do nothing. We (those that buy music, anyway) do have to pay for the musician who sits on his bum doing nothing but collecting royalties from something he created decades ago.
I agree that there is something not quite right about bands being able to produce music for a few years and then do nothing the rest of their life. It's not that I oppose that from a capitalistic standpoint--everyone, myself included, would love to be able to quickly make enough money so that we could then be able to do whatever we enjoy... including absolutely nothing.
But I'm not persuaded by arguments that because this has been possible for many in the recording industry that it can or should stay that way. Making music is, from a business perspective, not like winning the lottery. It's a job. And if they want to keep getting paid, they should keep working. That either means making new music or going on lots of tours and playing the same stuff you recorded 20 years ago.
Personally, I feel quite strongly that music should be 100% free and shared. Musicians should make their money on tours or other life performances. That's pretty much the way it was for all of human history before the recording industry came around within the last century.
If the iPhone just had a nice slide-out keyboard somewhere, almost all of my gripes with the iPhone would fade away.
Indeed, if that were the case I would give up my Treo for an IPhone. But reality being what it is, I wouldn't give up my Treo 650 up for an IPhone. It's a pretty package but it's not practical for me. And that is, in large part, because of the lack of a tactile keypad.
Now that you mention it (actually, now that *I* mention it), I'd give up my iPod Nano for something virtually identical that had real buttons for navigating the songs and changing the volume. I love the form factor of the Nano when I'm biking, but I *hate* the lack of buttons. If I'm riding and a song is too loud, I usually just take the headphones off until the song is done. The alternative is stopping by bike, adjusting the volume, and then having to repeat that when the loud song is over. Trying to adjust the volume while reading my bike is downright dangerous.
Don't count on it. There are no good options for Republicans this year. But I snicker at Democrats discussing the election like they just have to choose the president: Clinton or Obama. Truth is, McCain's going to have to try to be able to lose this election. And believe me, I'm not thrilled with McCain. But I think the Democrats are in for a surprise.
Especially with Hillary sabotaging Obama's chances so that she has a chance to run against McCain in 2012.
I think BOTH parties are going to fade into irrelevance. The Republican party because a non-Republican is running as its presidential candidate and the Democratic party because Obama and Clinton are going to tear it apart by the time they're done.
In most cases it would be quicker and cheaper to just pay the taxes.
When individuals do that, it's illegal and called extortion. When the government does it, it's legal and called taxes.
:Sigh:
I sure hope we don't get any Democrat as president this year. Democrats, in their wisdom, are capable of creating new taxes and raising existing ones in their efforts to "fix" the recession. Heheheh.
Conservative fiscal policy, as practiced by Reagan, Bush, and Bush, are inherently unsustainable. That unsustainability is finally coming home to roost, with a plummeting dollar.
That's one opinion.
The other opinion is that the extremely expensive and unsuccessful social programs pushed by the Democrats have strapped the federal budget so it cannot conduct its legitimate defense of the national security in a time of war without racking up large deficits.
The plummeting dollar is due to deficit spending. You can't say that the deficit spending is caused by reducing tax rates since every time taxes have been reduced (JFK onward), tax receipts have gone up. So conservative tax policy definitely works in raising receipts even when it lets people (rich and poor) keep more of their money).
Nor can you say that the deficit spending is specifically due to military spending or specifically due to social spending since it's due to the total sum of government spending.
You can, however, point out that only one of those two items is a function of government that was clearly contemplated in our Constitution.
Me: The rich are the only people that pay any significant amount of taxes.
You: No. In my country, the rich pay up to 25%, the poor pay up to 40%. That's unfairness against the poor, instituted by the rich people that control the means of production.
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the United States. What country do you live in?
The point is, why cut taxes?
Because legalized theft is still theft. There's nothing moral or proper about taking money from the rich just because they happen to have more.
The rich people are not going to invest that money in things that will help the economy.
Anything that the rich spend or invest their money does more to help the economy than stealing it from them to give to the poor. There is no stimulus to the economy in a transfer of wealth.
Those who disagree, including you, are most probably blinded by the power and luxuries money can buy.
Not at all. I believed the same thing years ago when I was earning minimum wage at McDonald's. The problem is people like you who are blinded by idealism to the fact that liberal economic policies cannot and do not work.
For a society that declares that 96% of them are born-again Christians, you are certainly hypocrites...
I'm guessing you aren't a Christian because you clearly don't know what you're talking about, so don't even try to use scripture to backup failed economic policy.
I am 100% in favor of helping the poor. I just think that's my responsibility and my church's responsibility. Not the Federal Government's through mandatory wealth redistribution.
The correct and fair thing to do is that rich people should pay more than poor people. And not only that, but the more rich you are, the more taxes you should pay.
I disagree with the more money you have, the more you should help. But that doesn't mean it should be anything other than linear, nor does it mean the government should mandate it.
The idea that invading Iraq had anything to do with terrorism is something only an ignorant fool could believe given that the PNAC documents stated flat out that their desire to invade Iraq was based purely on economic goals. Hell, you're defending people without even having bothered to read what they wrote about this very topic. That's a serious delusion.
By the way, I did read the PNAC documents. Long before the war in Iraq. So do us all a favor and don't even try to misrepresent them. I'm just waiting for you to claim that PNAC is proof that the administration was complicit in 9/11 -- that'd be good for a laugh if you decided to go that route.:)
Me: His deception was so good that he pretty much fooled everyone.
You: That is an idiotic lie.
I never bought it, nor did millions of other people who did anything to inform themselves apart from watching the mainstream media which was full on selling the war from the start. The UN inspectors sure didn't think he had any.
The fact that there were UN weapons inspectors there at all is because so many of the world's intelligence agencies agreed that there was a threat. Those, like you, that disagreed with the war did so on a matter of principle. I seriously doubt you were privy to any information that the world intelligence agencies didn't have so you can't say you "knew" there were no WMDs. You might have had a hunch or a feeling or simply didn't care one way or the other, but you definitely didn't know. And excuse me if I prefer our president take action based on information and not hunches.
Other than that, I'm not going to bother replying to such a vulgar and insulting troll. You can disagree with me without being insulting or condescending. If you can get your written prose out of the gutter long enough to have a civil discussion, let me know and I'll be happy to continue. In the meantime, it seems that it is you who is emotionally invested in this, not me.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Where? I can't recall seeing any.
The problem is (or was) that restaurants had little incentive to ban smoking. Non-smokers have long tolerated smokers so banning smoking would just cause the restaurant to lose the smoking customers with no real upside.
Smokers are in the minority. As such it's reasonable to assume that the majority of restaurant owners aren't smokers and, given the choice, probably wouldn't want others smoking up their restaurants. But the reality of the marketplace insured that very few restaurants would dare ban smoking outright even if it's what they wanted to do and what most customers wanted, too. So they didn't.
Where the heck do you live? Here in Colorado we've had the law for a year or two and not once have I seen the law violated. I have not seen a single person light up in any restaurant... not even in bars!
Seriously, most people aren't suggesting we prohibit smoking. But is it too much to ask people to be just a little polite of others when out in public?
Unfortunately the bias of liberals prevents them from seeing just how true the "conservative" vs. "protecting terrorists" exclusivity really is.
Smoking is a nasty and disgusting habit. I'm not a smoker, never have been. I'm an asthmatic but cigarette smoke doesn't bother me. But smoking is disgusting and offensive in public places.
In Colorado smoking is now prohibited in most public places, and it's great. Feel free to smoke in the comfort of your own home, or your car, or even walking down the sidewalk. But you have to be pretty arrogant and selfish to think you have any right to light a fire and blow smoke into other people in public places.
Smoking should not be illegal and should not be subject to additional taxes beyond sales tax. But you should definitely have to smoke where it doesn't bother other people in a public place--most of whom do not smoke and who have only tolerated it because we have no choice but to put up with the bad manners of smokers who only think of themselves.
If you feel otherwise, well, next time I see you smoking in a public place maybe I'll just get a half dozen of my closest friends to go over to where you are and let loose some juicy, smelly farts. After all, it's freedom of choice and there's no law against it.
If smokers had been more CONSIDERATE of non-smokers, I'll bet you wouldn't have seen so many places passing laws that legislate consideration and good manners.
I think the next obvious step is that we should pass legislation whereby we simply shoot all the fat mofo's.
How many people realize just how absurd the global warming nonsense has gotten? The global warming scaremongering has reached such insane levels that anything now leads to global warming. Including being fat. And if you're poor and starving in Africa that probably leads to global warming, too, since we have to burn carbon fuel to transport food to those people.
It's the most insane and absurd "the sky is falling" scam that's been pushed on such a large global audience and, seemingly, been accepted at face value by a very scary number of lemmings.
If you (the global warming believers) can't see what's going on and realize that the global warming scaremongering is going to lead to more draconian invasions of your freedom and finances than copyrights, DRM, Bush, and the DHS put together, well... I guess we'll all get what you deserve.
It's time people WAKE UP to the fact that global warming is a scam that has a political--not a scientific or environmental--agenda.
I don't watch either of these programs (nor anything on NBC as far as I know)... but if I program something to be recorded and it's not, I'll simply miss the program. It's not like I'm going to adjust my schedule to when they want to transmit their material. If the timing of their material conflicts with my life, my life takes precedence.
1. Make content.
2. Prevent people from watching it when they want.
3. People stop watching.
4. ???
5. Profit??
I wish them well with that business strategy. It seems very well thought out.
Oh, come on... I admit it should've been done sooner. But even Spielberg isn't good enough to be able to release the fourth installment before the third!
Just get a Bayesian filter for your enterprise and call it done.
Agreed. I just sent a YouTube link from Miranda to MSN Messenger and then back from MSN Messenger to Miranda. Both worked fine.
Nothing is gained by the investors or by the citizens of China by Google exiting the market while both are arguably hurt by doing so. So why do it???
The environmentalists would never go for that. It might solve our carbon emissions (assuming that's even a problem), but dang it, it's going to kill a desert rat.
Environmentalists aren't interested in solutions. They're interested in problems. The sooner realizes that global warming scaremongering is simply the means to a political end, the better. The global warming movement isn't about the environment. It's about political and economic policies they could never get passed if they were honest about their motives.
Sigh... they call carbon sequestration a scam but think "carbon credits" is somehow viable?
Global warming scaremongers aren't interested in the environment nor in things that help it. The only thing they're interested in is reducing our standard of living and in global wealth distribution. That's it.
Maybe they hired tens of thousands of accountants?
Sssh! There are Democrats here and it's an election year so they're bound to claim otherwise, as silly as that may be.
That's a silly grouping of unrelated fields. What is true of music is not necessarily (and isn't in fact) true of games, movies or TV shows.
That you and I don't have to pay for the guy who inherited a ton of money to do nothing. We (those that buy music, anyway) do have to pay for the musician who sits on his bum doing nothing but collecting royalties from something he created decades ago.
I agree that there is something not quite right about bands being able to produce music for a few years and then do nothing the rest of their life. It's not that I oppose that from a capitalistic standpoint--everyone, myself included, would love to be able to quickly make enough money so that we could then be able to do whatever we enjoy... including absolutely nothing.
But I'm not persuaded by arguments that because this has been possible for many in the recording industry that it can or should stay that way. Making music is, from a business perspective, not like winning the lottery. It's a job. And if they want to keep getting paid, they should keep working. That either means making new music or going on lots of tours and playing the same stuff you recorded 20 years ago.
Personally, I feel quite strongly that music should be 100% free and shared. Musicians should make their money on tours or other life performances. That's pretty much the way it was for all of human history before the recording industry came around within the last century.
Indeed, if that were the case I would give up my Treo for an IPhone. But reality being what it is, I wouldn't give up my Treo 650 up for an IPhone. It's a pretty package but it's not practical for me. And that is, in large part, because of the lack of a tactile keypad.
Now that you mention it (actually, now that *I* mention it), I'd give up my iPod Nano for something virtually identical that had real buttons for navigating the songs and changing the volume. I love the form factor of the Nano when I'm biking, but I *hate* the lack of buttons. If I'm riding and a song is too loud, I usually just take the headphones off until the song is done. The alternative is stopping by bike, adjusting the volume, and then having to repeat that when the loud song is over. Trying to adjust the volume while reading my bike is downright dangerous.
Yes.
Don't count on it. There are no good options for Republicans this year. But I snicker at Democrats discussing the election like they just have to choose the president: Clinton or Obama. Truth is, McCain's going to have to try to be able to lose this election. And believe me, I'm not thrilled with McCain. But I think the Democrats are in for a surprise.
Especially with Hillary sabotaging Obama's chances so that she has a chance to run against McCain in 2012.
I think BOTH parties are going to fade into irrelevance. The Republican party because a non-Republican is running as its presidential candidate and the Democratic party because Obama and Clinton are going to tear it apart by the time they're done.
Yep... much like "Michael Moore documentary" or "Al Gore documentary." The words just don't go together in serious conversation.
I trust that's a joke.
When individuals do that, it's illegal and called extortion. When the government does it, it's legal and called taxes.
:Sigh:
I sure hope we don't get any Democrat as president this year. Democrats, in their wisdom, are capable of creating new taxes and raising existing ones in their efforts to "fix" the recession. Heheheh.
That's one opinion.
The other opinion is that the extremely expensive and unsuccessful social programs pushed by the Democrats have strapped the federal budget so it cannot conduct its legitimate defense of the national security in a time of war without racking up large deficits.
The plummeting dollar is due to deficit spending. You can't say that the deficit spending is caused by reducing tax rates since every time taxes have been reduced (JFK onward), tax receipts have gone up. So conservative tax policy definitely works in raising receipts even when it lets people (rich and poor) keep more of their money).
Nor can you say that the deficit spending is specifically due to military spending or specifically due to social spending since it's due to the total sum of government spending.
You can, however, point out that only one of those two items is a function of government that was clearly contemplated in our Constitution.You: No. In my country, the rich pay up to 25%, the poor pay up to 40%. That's unfairness against the poor, instituted by the rich people that control the means of production.
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the United States. What country do you live in?
Because legalized theft is still theft. There's nothing moral or proper about taking money from the rich just because they happen to have more.
Anything that the rich spend or invest their money does more to help the economy than stealing it from them to give to the poor. There is no stimulus to the economy in a transfer of wealth.
Not at all. I believed the same thing years ago when I was earning minimum wage at McDonald's. The problem is people like you who are blinded by idealism to the fact that liberal economic policies cannot and do not work.
I'm guessing you aren't a Christian because you clearly don't know what you're talking about, so don't even try to use scripture to backup failed economic policy.
I am 100% in favor of helping the poor. I just think that's my responsibility and my church's responsibility. Not the Federal Government's through mandatory wealth redistribution.
I disagree with the more money you have, the more you should help. But that doesn't mean it should be anything other than linear, nor does it mean the government should mandate it.
By the way, I did read the PNAC documents. Long before the war in Iraq. So do us all a favor and don't even try to misrepresent them. I'm just waiting for you to claim that PNAC is proof that the administration was complicit in 9/11 -- that'd be good for a laugh if you decided to go that route. :)
The fact that there were UN weapons inspectors there at all is because so many of the world's intelligence agencies agreed that there was a threat. Those, like you, that disagreed with the war did so on a matter of principle. I seriously doubt you were privy to any information that the world intelligence agencies didn't have so you can't say you "knew" there were no WMDs. You might have had a hunch or a feeling or simply didn't care one way or the other, but you definitely didn't know. And excuse me if I prefer our president take action based on information and not hunches.
Other than that, I'm not going to bother replying to such a vulgar and insulting troll. You can disagree with me without being insulting or condescending. If you can get your written prose out of the gutter long enough to have a civil discussion, let me know and I'll be happy to continue. In the meantime, it seems that it is you who is emotionally invested in this, not me.