Is there a linked article I'm missing that explains the reason for naming it the Colbert Flu? I can't tell if the intent is to mock Colbert, annoy him, or honor him. Or was "Colbert" just the first thing that came to mind?
when I was a federal employee it was illegal to use frequent flyer bonuses of any type.
They changed that a decade or more ago. The theory is, since these programs and benefits are offered to everyone, they aren't considered a "bribe" to government employees. In practice, I think allowing use of these benfits still increases unnecessary travel and travel costs (due to individual loyalty to particular airlines/hotel chains which aren't always the best choice from the government standpoint).
You can keep your car, start the engine, idle it, and even drive around - except on public roads. The roads have all been sold to airlines and are being converted to runways.
For what little it's worth, during the 2003 blackout in the northeast US, my landline was dead while my cell phone still worked. I was disappointed, considering the ONLY thing that happened was a power failure - no storm.
That depends on how you define "rich" and how you plan on taxing them. Maybe a tax on dividends? Then you are taxing grandma's retirement fund and you hamper investment (read: growth that produces jobs). Tax incomes? Sure, then the fat-cats you were planning on taxing get their "incomes" by different means (like a company provided million dollar home, fleet of cars, private jet and exorbitant "spending account"). Tax the big businesses directly? Then the businesses pass those taxes on to the consumers and EVERYONE pays them.
Sorry, but there is no way to simply "tax the rich" without catching a few working class in the net.
In a spirit of friendly debate...So, we shouldn't even try, then? Just keep increasing debt until something triggers a currency collapse? Got to tax someone, and everyone claims to not want to tax the middle class.
Suppose "Grandma's retirement fund" is in a Roth IRA and Roth 401k? What do you say to that?
Oh no! Investment might be hampered! Growth must continue forever! Maybe if investment in dot.coms and mortgages had been "hampered" a little, we could have avoided two financial meltdowns.
What's wrong with redirecting resources to, say NASA? Government waste? There's waste in a free market solution as well. It's called "profit".
Besides, an economic downturn, or more accurately, slow-down in growth, is not the best time to raise taxes.
Suuuure. That's the story now. When the economy was roaring, it was not the best time to raise taxes either - because we should give some of the 'windfall' 'back' to taxpayers.
I don't believe that raising taxes on the rich will have any seriously negative effects at any time - except maybe for a revolt of the rich.
IIRC, Add/Remove just runs whatever program is entered into the registry. Most entries just point to an uninstaller. There are a few apps that actually launch an installer to let you add/remove components. For example, I remember the Corel Office suite did this. It launched the full setup program again and you could select and de-select components such as WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, the address book, dictionaries, fonts, etc.
Consider: A U.S. security contractor is taken prisoner on Iraqi soil and held as an 'unlawful enemy combatant' (not part of the U.S. army, no uniform, etc.). On what basis could the U.S. argue for his release, trial, or Habeas Corpus hearing?
I agree there's no free ride. I just want to point out that we're still quite feudal. You must pledge allegiance to a country. It's not practical to be a stateless person.
You have, in practice, agreed to pay taxes by accepting citizenship in your home country.
Accepting citizenship in your home country?? By definition, you were born in your home country. You are trapped. You are subject to the rule of the government, whether monarchy, democracy, etc. Hopefully, the rights and privileges of your citizenship outweigh the duties placed on you.
You can try to emigrate to another country, but, AFAIK, all countries reserve the right not to admit you. You can be classified a criminal if you go about it wrong. See: Mexicans in the U.S.
Ever heard of preparing for the future? Quality of life could well be worse if a true oil shortage occurs and we haven't prepared for it. We won't prepare for it if our leaders keep enabling our addiction to oil. Heaven forbid we Americans make gradual adjustments now to avoid large ones later.
If they engineered bridges the way they "engineer" software, they would just take parts of existing bridges plus random scraps of custom metal and concrete, duct tape it all together, and test the result to see if it crashes.
Seriously. Before 9/11, no boarding pass, ticket, or ID was required to go into the gate areas of US airports. Anyone could go in - through the security screening, of course. The newest airports were designed with so many shops that they resemble shopping malls. The shops are now under-utilized without all those extra people to browse them.
Maybe we should all wear uniform clothing so security forces will immediately know if something is out of place. They could be silver jumpsuits like you might find in a sci-fi story, or orange like prison clothing.
In US law (an probably others) a contract is formed by offer and acceptance.
In a traditional, in-person auction, the bidders make the offers and the seller accepts or rejects them. The auctioneer is not the seller. He only solicits offers to find the highest one. That's why they use phrases like, "who will give me $10 for this lamp?" Even when the auctioneer bangs the gavel and says, "SOLD," it means nothing. At least that's what I heard from a lawyer once. I suppose the seller must still accept the winning bid for a contract to be formed.
Ebay's terms of service seem to differ from this practice. A listing is supposedly an offer. However, I note from the article that real-estate bids are indeed considered offers, or, as the article says, "expressions of interest."
It's not like refundable tickets aren't available anymore. You can still get them if you want. Business travelers often do. There's some on every flight and it's probably they that are most the unpredictable. The number of non-refundable tickets sold is a factor the airlines use to decide how much to overbook.
I wonder how airlines choose who to bump if no one volunteers when they offer vouchers, etc. Is it by who paid the lowest fare? I can see how that'd get people upset!
Bottom line, worldwide travel doesn't always go like clockwork. Be prepared, be flexible, I say. Be one of those passengers who volunteers for a later flight, get a voucher for discount or free flight, and you won't be so annoyed by the system.
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Is there a linked article I'm missing that explains the reason for naming it the Colbert Flu? I can't tell if the intent is to mock Colbert, annoy him, or honor him. Or was "Colbert" just the first thing that came to mind?
Here's a start: death rates by age.
Generally, my spelling and grammar is good.
Uh, generally, my spelling and grammar are good? (Forgive the correction if this is one of those US/UK singular/plural differences.)
The point is that he considers such tests easy.
when I was a federal employee it was illegal to use frequent flyer bonuses of any type.
They changed that a decade or more ago. The theory is, since these programs and benefits are offered to everyone, they aren't considered a "bribe" to government employees. In practice, I think allowing use of these benfits still increases unnecessary travel and travel costs (due to individual loyalty to particular airlines/hotel chains which aren't always the best choice from the government standpoint).
NFSv4 was supposed to take the best of NFS and AFS and combine them, but development of it never got far, apparently.
Are you sure you're watching programming with a 16:9 ratio? If not, the black bars on the sides could be coming from the broadcaster, not your box.
You can keep your car, start the engine, idle it, and even drive around - except on public roads. The roads have all been sold to airlines and are being converted to runways.
For what little it's worth, during the 2003 blackout in the northeast US, my landline was dead while my cell phone still worked. I was disappointed, considering the ONLY thing that happened was a power failure - no storm.
There's also outright lying. "We've been saying 'nine fives' all along." (55.5555555%)
In a spirit of friendly debate...So, we shouldn't even try, then? Just keep increasing debt until something triggers a currency collapse? Got to tax someone, and everyone claims to not want to tax the middle class.
Suppose "Grandma's retirement fund" is in a Roth IRA and Roth 401k? What do you say to that?
Oh no! Investment might be hampered! Growth must continue forever! Maybe if investment in dot.coms and mortgages had been "hampered" a little, we could have avoided two financial meltdowns.
What's wrong with redirecting resources to, say NASA? Government waste? There's waste in a free market solution as well. It's called "profit".
Suuuure. That's the story now. When the economy was roaring, it was not the best time to raise taxes either - because we should give some of the 'windfall' 'back' to taxpayers.
I don't believe that raising taxes on the rich will have any seriously negative effects at any time - except maybe for a revolt of the rich.
IIRC, Add/Remove just runs whatever program is entered into the registry. Most entries just point to an uninstaller. There are a few apps that actually launch an installer to let you add/remove components. For example, I remember the Corel Office suite did this. It launched the full setup program again and you could select and de-select components such as WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, the address book, dictionaries, fonts, etc.
Consider: A U.S. security contractor is taken prisoner on Iraqi soil and held as an 'unlawful enemy combatant' (not part of the U.S. army, no uniform, etc.). On what basis could the U.S. argue for his release, trial, or Habeas Corpus hearing?
To make sure I understand, you may transfer the license plate at will to any car? You may leave a car parked without a license plate?
I agree there's no free ride. I just want to point out that we're still quite feudal. You must pledge allegiance to a country. It's not practical to be a stateless person.
Accepting citizenship in your home country?? By definition, you were born in your home country. You are trapped. You are subject to the rule of the government, whether monarchy, democracy, etc. Hopefully, the rights and privileges of your citizenship outweigh the duties placed on you.
You can try to emigrate to another country, but, AFAIK, all countries reserve the right not to admit you. You can be classified a criminal if you go about it wrong. See: Mexicans in the U.S.
Ever heard of preparing for the future? Quality of life could well be worse if a true oil shortage occurs and we haven't prepared for it. We won't prepare for it if our leaders keep enabling our addiction to oil. Heaven forbid we Americans make gradual adjustments now to avoid large ones later.
AMPS or not, I'd keep a CB radio in the car too.
If they engineered bridges the way they "engineer" software, they would just take parts of existing bridges plus random scraps of custom metal and concrete, duct tape it all together, and test the result to see if it crashes.
Seriously. Before 9/11, no boarding pass, ticket, or ID was required to go into the gate areas of US airports. Anyone could go in - through the security screening, of course. The newest airports were designed with so many shops that they resemble shopping malls. The shops are now under-utilized without all those extra people to browse them.
Maybe we should all wear uniform clothing so security forces will immediately know if something is out of place. They could be silver jumpsuits like you might find in a sci-fi story, or orange like prison clothing.
OT: Michigan is considering extending the sales tax to services because it is facing a 1.75 billion dollar budget deficit.
In a traditional, in-person auction, the bidders make the offers and the seller accepts or rejects them. The auctioneer is not the seller. He only solicits offers to find the highest one. That's why they use phrases like, "who will give me $10 for this lamp?" Even when the auctioneer bangs the gavel and says, "SOLD," it means nothing. At least that's what I heard from a lawyer once. I suppose the seller must still accept the winning bid for a contract to be formed.
Ebay's terms of service seem to differ from this practice. A listing is supposedly an offer. However, I note from the article that real-estate bids are indeed considered offers, or, as the article says, "expressions of interest."
It's not like refundable tickets aren't available anymore. You can still get them if you want. Business travelers often do. There's some on every flight and it's probably they that are most the unpredictable. The number of non-refundable tickets sold is a factor the airlines use to decide how much to overbook.
There was a NYTimes article on this recently: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30bu mp.html. It does, in fact, cost more to the airline to have empty seats than to pay off passengers that are bumped.
I wonder how airlines choose who to bump if no one volunteers when they offer vouchers, etc. Is it by who paid the lowest fare? I can see how that'd get people upset!
Bottom line, worldwide travel doesn't always go like clockwork. Be prepared, be flexible, I say. Be one of those passengers who volunteers for a later flight, get a voucher for discount or free flight, and you won't be so annoyed by the system.