But we _have_ to have those voter ID laws to stop that sort of thing. Because... you know, fraud. Evil, evil fraud. Evil, so damned rare as to be non-existant fraud.
28 is too old to start over? Shit, I wish I'd known that when I changed careers at 40. Okay, sure, I already had the Comp. Sci. degree, but still...
And yes, I know there is a difference between switching jobs when you only have a certain level of training for a specific job vs. having the degree and knowledge, and just finally being able to use a college degree because the job market improved enough.
At least in the case in Ireland, the EU is saying that Ireland could not have legally slashed Apple's tax bill to the extant that it did.
Now, whether Apple knew that this was illegal is the matter.
If they did, then, yes, they are complicit in tax evasion, and the penalties should apply. If they didn't know, i.e., they were acting in good faith, then no, Apple should not be on the hook retroactively.
Now... going forward, it will be hard for Apple to claim that they shouldn't pay the "proper" amount of taxes in Ireland. I'm sure they'll try anyway, mind you.
Part of it depends on the poll methodology. I mean, if it's a "national poll", but it's around a thousand people polled, that's what, 25 people per state? (Of the last 10 polls listed on realclearpolitics.com, all but 1 of them polled 1500 people or less. Although, it should be noted that the poll from NBC that polled over 24,000 people had Clinton up by 4 points.)
It's easy to get results that are a little off. Hence the margin of error on polls.
The more important polls, at least from a certain standpoint, are the polls from the battleground states.
For Trump to win the Presidency, he not only has to carry every state that Romney won in 2012, he would have to flip Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
The polls from those states... aren't looking good for him. (Hell, Trump barely has any campaign presence in Florida, which is arguably the first or second most important battleground state.)
And hell, Trump is in danger of not even carrying some of the states that went for Romney.
I hate to break it to you, but something like 99% of politicians at state level and above have that same problem.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I even need the qualifier. I've met a couple city councilmen who thought they walked on water and that their feces was not odoriferous.
In the (at this point) unlikely event that Trump wins, if he tries to accomplish any of his major campaign talking points (wall across the U.S.-Mexican border, deporting all Muslims, etc.) he's going to be handicapped by lawsuits faster than you can say "shitty idea". And then there's the fact that he's so thin-skinned, that he's basically said he wants to gut the First Amendment so people can't say mean things about him in the press.
Clinton's going to be so handicapped by years more of pulpit-thumping idiots screaming about Benghazi and every other tactic they've tried since Bill and Hillary first hit the White House that it's unlikely that she'll be able to get much done either.
Add in that the House and Senate are so polarized that if one side said the sky was blue, the other side would freak out and ask why you hate the color green. Unless one party or another controls both the House and Senate, they're not going to get shit done, and yet with gerrymandering and the huge advantage that incumbency brings, it's unlikely we're going to see much change on that front.
We're going to see four years (minimum) of fuck-ups and nothing much getting done. Neither major party candidate is worth a full bucket of spit, and quite frankly, I'm at the point where I'd rather see the election handled via Thunderdome.
I've seen ones where the sound controls are hidden, and others where the choices are "full volume" and "mute" (because for an auto-playing video, those are clearly the only logical choices), and non-standard volume controls.
And for god's sake, you'd think that a lot of these sites (especially the ones that have "user controls") would have options for default volume and/or autoplay.
The people who make the decisions to have auto-playing videos on their sites should be beaten with sticks.
Not the IT/web guys implementing it. The execs/marketing guys who go "Yeah, that's what we need. Autoplaying videos with minimal sound controls." Beaten. With sticks.
Considering that probably 50% of the stuff I post on my timeline is politicians behaving badly (either party) or stupidly (lately, heavily Republican, but let's be fair, most of that is Trump), and another fair chunk of stuff I post is pro-LGBTQ, I would honestly be more surprised if Facebook couldn't figure out I was liberal.
I mean, we're not exactly talking a tough determination in my case.
The First Amendment guarantees that the government will not abridge your freedom of speech. (Certain limitations, among them threatening public officials, still apply.)
It says nothing about private entities, such as corporations, being prohibited from abridging your speech.
Look at it like this. Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a venue. It guarantees you a voice. No one has to listen, and no one is obligated to provide you a microphone.
You can say what you want, but Twitter still has the option under their Terms of Service to ban you. You can still say the same things; you just can't say them on their service.
You'll forgive me if I don't cry because you called me a name.
Freedom of speech means that you can get the good sort of speech along with the bad sort of speech. I'll give you an example.
Some years back, the American Nazi Party (or a branch thereof, I'm not quite sure), came to town to protest. They did their thing on statehouse grounds, in front of the Confederate flag, which was still flying on the north side of the statehouse at the time. (Careful readers will note that I have thus identified the state this occurs in as South Carolina.)
Now, I disagree with pretty much everything the American Nazi party stands for. But, inasmuch as I find them distasteful, and would not miss them if they were gone, they had the right to speak their mind. I forget what topic it was supposed to be on, but it very quickly descended into the racist claptrap that one expects from Nazis.
Likewise, I had the right to heckle them. Which I did. I'd like to think that I did so quite well, but lack of planning meant I didn't have a megaphone, so there was only so much volume I could project.
Now, if the Nazis had gone from speech to action, say, trying to thump me upside the head for heckling them, the cops (of which there were many present) would have gotten involved, because while free exercise of speech is protected, assault is not speech.
I digress.
Freedom of speech does not mean that all of the speech you or I are exposed to is going to be speech we agree with. It might be. It might not be. We might not give a shit about what the speaker is saying, and are waiting for the announcement that the bar is now open.
But no privately owned venue or forum is required to give you a platform on which to speak. If I owned a comedy club, and I decided I didn't want a particular comedian to play at my club, it does not matter how often he trots out the idea of freedom of speech. I am not restricting his right to do his act anywhere else. Just at my club. It's privately owned. I can do that. (Note: I don't actually own a comedy club. It's just an example.)
Likewise, Twitter can choose to ban someone, or not ban them, under their terms of service. They can allow certain people to speak at their venue, or decide that they don't want them there any more and ban them. They are free to do so, because Twitter is not owned by the government.
Furthermore, as I have already said, freedom of speech does not make you immune from the consequences of said speech. If, to return to the comedy club example, a comedian at my club says all kinds of stupid/racist things while doing his act, and I decide I don't want him to perform at my club any more, I can ban him. I am, once again, not curtailing his freedom of speech. He is perfectly free to do that act anywhere that will allow him. But I have shown him the door.
And finally, you'll notice I disagreed with you, but didn't call for you to be banned.
Slashdot, or Twitter, or the comments section of Huffington Post, or wherever else doesn't have to let you say whatever you want. Most of those sites have rules or terms of service that you agree to when you create an account there. If you violate those terms of service, they are free to turf you. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get a free venue to be an asshole. It means you can talk. It doesn't mean anyone has to listen, and it doesn't mean anyone has to give you a forum to spout your views from.
Yeah, free speech doesn't have to be nice, and it isn't always nice. But it isn't a blank check to say whatever you want, wherever you want, without any consequences.
Both the left and the right want free speech. The problem is the asshats on both sides.
There are some on the left who think that no-one should ever be offended ever and want safe spaces for everyone, because god forbid someone be exposed to a scary idea. Bunch of bullshit if you ask me.
And there are some on the right who think that they should be able to say whatever they want, consequence free, and if anyone is ever offended, and wants them banned from a forum or whatever, they HATE free speech. Also a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.
Let's get something straight. In the U.S., freedom of speech stops the government from punishing you for exercising it. (There are certain limitations, though.)
Just the government.
Only the government.
If you post (for example), some racist screed on a private owned forum (such as Slashdot, or Twitter, or wherever), and they decide to ban you, it's not a violation of your first amendment rights, because Twitter isn't run by the government. (Although, going by their track record, Twitter will take a long time to ban you)
You're still free to say what you want. You just can't use that forum to broadcast it if they decide to ban you. You have a right to free speech. You don't have a right to use a private venue to voice those statements if the venue decides they don't want you there.
And you don't have a right to ignore the consequences of your speech. If you want to stand in your front yard and yell offensive things as the neighbors, you're free to do so. Just don't expect that magically, everyone will go "Oh, he's just exercising his freedom of speech." No, they're probably going to think you're an asshole. But the two are not mutually exclusive. It's possible to be exercising free speech AND be an asshole. Just don't be surprised that people don't want you around because you're being an asshole.
Well, first you have to consider that anyone can be a moderator. I don't have mod points right now, but I've had them within the last week, and I don't post that much on here any more.
Second, there is such a thing as meta-moderation. (Or at least there was. Not actually sure it's there any more.)
Third, Slashdot doesn't want their moderators harassed. You don't get to see who modded down your post, because they don't want you going to every post that moderator makes and revenge-modding them, or harassing them.
Fourth, if you are consistently being modded down (presumably under your Slashdot handle, rather than as an AC), then the problem isn't the mods, it's you. It is highly unlikely that one or more mods are specifically looking for your posts and going "HaHa! Time to mod him down again!" while twirling their mustaches. If you're being modded down while posting as an AC, how are the mods supposed to know it's you specifically? Not even mods see who is behind a particular AC post.
Uh, no. Clinton's proposed change in that article is to overturn the Citizen's United decision. For the attention impaired, Citizen's United is what is currently allowing big donors to spend enough money to shout down everyone else. Also known as "Money is speech".
It allows deep-pockets donors (billionaires and corporations) to ignore limits that were previously in place to limit the use of money in politics. It wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than letting them buy as much advertising/influence as they wanted under the guise of free speech.
Citizen's United needs to be overturned, and there needs to be serious limits put in place on campaign funding.
Now, I'm not saying Clinton is perfect. Far from it, actually. Honestly, this election cycle is pretty much a shit sandwich regarding the candidates.
If you're looking for someone who wants to screw up the First Amendment for personal reasons, you don't have to look further than Donald Trump, though. He's as much as stated that he wants to make it easier to sue newspapers that say mean things about him, regardless of whether they're true or not. (To note, truth is an absolute defense against libel.)
But see, it makes them look like they're doing something.
"We're stopping drug trafficking. Just look at these sites that we've closed! But we need more money to continue to fight drug traffickers, because don't you want your kids to be safe?"
And hell, the RIAA doesn't want all movie piracy to go away. If it did, they'd have no justification for some of the shit that they pull. They just want the 'easy to acquire' piracy to go away.
Or it could have been both. Never discount the idea of the penny-pinching MBA and an incompetent IT staff.
Now, mind you, I'm inclined to side with the IT guys, as I am one myself, and even though I work for a much smaller company, I've seen some bone-headed decisions regarding purchases.
And let's face it, IT, generally speaking, is not in the business of making things harder for themselves. Whereas company execs are often so insulated from the immediate consequences of their actions, that it could years for some decision to be a problem.
It's entirely possible that everyone involved in the decisions involved in a single-site point of failure don't even work for Delta any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Plant life is also a form of life, and there quite a few vegetarian/vegan recipes out there....
Also, let's face it, voter ID laws only stop one amazingly rare type of voter fraud - in person voter fraud. How rare? Try 31 documented cases out of 1 billion votes cast.
But we _have_ to have those voter ID laws to stop that sort of thing. Because... you know, fraud. Evil, evil fraud. Evil, so damned rare as to be non-existant fraud.
28 is too old to start over? Shit, I wish I'd known that when I changed careers at 40. Okay, sure, I already had the Comp. Sci. degree, but still...
And yes, I know there is a difference between switching jobs when you only have a certain level of training for a specific job vs. having the degree and knowledge, and just finally being able to use a college degree because the job market improved enough.
At least in the case in Ireland, the EU is saying that Ireland could not have legally slashed Apple's tax bill to the extant that it did.
Now, whether Apple knew that this was illegal is the matter.
If they did, then, yes, they are complicit in tax evasion, and the penalties should apply. If they didn't know, i.e., they were acting in good faith, then no, Apple should not be on the hook retroactively.
Now... going forward, it will be hard for Apple to claim that they shouldn't pay the "proper" amount of taxes in Ireland. I'm sure they'll try anyway, mind you.
Part of it depends on the poll methodology. I mean, if it's a "national poll", but it's around a thousand people polled, that's what, 25 people per state? (Of the last 10 polls listed on realclearpolitics.com, all but 1 of them polled 1500 people or less. Although, it should be noted that the poll from NBC that polled over 24,000 people had Clinton up by 4 points.)
It's easy to get results that are a little off. Hence the margin of error on polls.
The more important polls, at least from a certain standpoint, are the polls from the battleground states.
For Trump to win the Presidency, he not only has to carry every state that Romney won in 2012, he would have to flip Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
The polls from those states... aren't looking good for him. (Hell, Trump barely has any campaign presence in Florida, which is arguably the first or second most important battleground state.)
And hell, Trump is in danger of not even carrying some of the states that went for Romney.
I hate to break it to you, but something like 99% of politicians at state level and above have that same problem.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I even need the qualifier. I've met a couple city councilmen who thought they walked on water and that their feces was not odoriferous.
Same goes if you're voting for Trump.
.... are you high?
In the (at this point) unlikely event that Trump wins, if he tries to accomplish any of his major campaign talking points (wall across the U.S.-Mexican border, deporting all Muslims, etc.) he's going to be handicapped by lawsuits faster than you can say "shitty idea". And then there's the fact that he's so thin-skinned, that he's basically said he wants to gut the First Amendment so people can't say mean things about him in the press.
Clinton's going to be so handicapped by years more of pulpit-thumping idiots screaming about Benghazi and every other tactic they've tried since Bill and Hillary first hit the White House that it's unlikely that she'll be able to get much done either.
Add in that the House and Senate are so polarized that if one side said the sky was blue, the other side would freak out and ask why you hate the color green. Unless one party or another controls both the House and Senate, they're not going to get shit done, and yet with gerrymandering and the huge advantage that incumbency brings, it's unlikely we're going to see much change on that front.
We're going to see four years (minimum) of fuck-ups and nothing much getting done. Neither major party candidate is worth a full bucket of spit, and quite frankly, I'm at the point where I'd rather see the election handled via Thunderdome.
I've seen ones where the sound controls are hidden, and others where the choices are "full volume" and "mute" (because for an auto-playing video, those are clearly the only logical choices), and non-standard volume controls.
And for god's sake, you'd think that a lot of these sites (especially the ones that have "user controls") would have options for default volume and/or autoplay.
But noooooooo
The people who make the decisions to have auto-playing videos on their sites should be beaten with sticks.
Not the IT/web guys implementing it. The execs/marketing guys who go "Yeah, that's what we need. Autoplaying videos with minimal sound controls." Beaten. With sticks.
Considering that probably 50% of the stuff I post on my timeline is politicians behaving badly (either party) or stupidly (lately, heavily Republican, but let's be fair, most of that is Trump), and another fair chunk of stuff I post is pro-LGBTQ, I would honestly be more surprised if Facebook couldn't figure out I was liberal.
I mean, we're not exactly talking a tough determination in my case.
How much does an average Uber ride cost that a 20 cents per ride fee is onerous?
As of the end of the second quarter of 2016, they had 313 million active monthly users.
Now, how many of those are twitter-bots, I couldn't tell you.
The First Amendment guarantees that the government will not abridge your freedom of speech. (Certain limitations, among them threatening public officials, still apply.)
It says nothing about private entities, such as corporations, being prohibited from abridging your speech.
Look at it like this. Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a venue. It guarantees you a voice. No one has to listen, and no one is obligated to provide you a microphone.
You can say what you want, but Twitter still has the option under their Terms of Service to ban you. You can still say the same things; you just can't say them on their service.
You'll forgive me if I don't cry because you called me a name.
Freedom of speech means that you can get the good sort of speech along with the bad sort of speech. I'll give you an example.
Some years back, the American Nazi Party (or a branch thereof, I'm not quite sure), came to town to protest. They did their thing on statehouse grounds, in front of the Confederate flag, which was still flying on the north side of the statehouse at the time. (Careful readers will note that I have thus identified the state this occurs in as South Carolina.)
Now, I disagree with pretty much everything the American Nazi party stands for. But, inasmuch as I find them distasteful, and would not miss them if they were gone, they had the right to speak their mind. I forget what topic it was supposed to be on, but it very quickly descended into the racist claptrap that one expects from Nazis.
Likewise, I had the right to heckle them. Which I did. I'd like to think that I did so quite well, but lack of planning meant I didn't have a megaphone, so there was only so much volume I could project.
Now, if the Nazis had gone from speech to action, say, trying to thump me upside the head for heckling them, the cops (of which there were many present) would have gotten involved, because while free exercise of speech is protected, assault is not speech.
I digress.
Freedom of speech does not mean that all of the speech you or I are exposed to is going to be speech we agree with. It might be. It might not be. We might not give a shit about what the speaker is saying, and are waiting for the announcement that the bar is now open.
But no privately owned venue or forum is required to give you a platform on which to speak. If I owned a comedy club, and I decided I didn't want a particular comedian to play at my club, it does not matter how often he trots out the idea of freedom of speech. I am not restricting his right to do his act anywhere else. Just at my club. It's privately owned. I can do that. (Note: I don't actually own a comedy club. It's just an example.)
Likewise, Twitter can choose to ban someone, or not ban them, under their terms of service. They can allow certain people to speak at their venue, or decide that they don't want them there any more and ban them. They are free to do so, because Twitter is not owned by the government.
Furthermore, as I have already said, freedom of speech does not make you immune from the consequences of said speech. If, to return to the comedy club example, a comedian at my club says all kinds of stupid/racist things while doing his act, and I decide I don't want him to perform at my club any more, I can ban him. I am, once again, not curtailing his freedom of speech. He is perfectly free to do that act anywhere that will allow him. But I have shown him the door.
And finally, you'll notice I disagreed with you, but didn't call for you to be banned.
With Trump as the Republican nominee, I don't think we need to worry about that for another four years.
Bull. Shit.
Slashdot, or Twitter, or the comments section of Huffington Post, or wherever else doesn't have to let you say whatever you want. Most of those sites have rules or terms of service that you agree to when you create an account there. If you violate those terms of service, they are free to turf you. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get a free venue to be an asshole. It means you can talk. It doesn't mean anyone has to listen, and it doesn't mean anyone has to give you a forum to spout your views from.
Yeah, free speech doesn't have to be nice, and it isn't always nice. But it isn't a blank check to say whatever you want, wherever you want, without any consequences.
Bollocks.
Both the left and the right want free speech. The problem is the asshats on both sides.
There are some on the left who think that no-one should ever be offended ever and want safe spaces for everyone, because god forbid someone be exposed to a scary idea. Bunch of bullshit if you ask me.
And there are some on the right who think that they should be able to say whatever they want, consequence free, and if anyone is ever offended, and wants them banned from a forum or whatever, they HATE free speech. Also a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.
Let's get something straight. In the U.S., freedom of speech stops the government from punishing you for exercising it. (There are certain limitations, though.)
Just the government.
Only the government.
If you post (for example), some racist screed on a private owned forum (such as Slashdot, or Twitter, or wherever), and they decide to ban you, it's not a violation of your first amendment rights, because Twitter isn't run by the government. (Although, going by their track record, Twitter will take a long time to ban you)
You're still free to say what you want. You just can't use that forum to broadcast it if they decide to ban you. You have a right to free speech. You don't have a right to use a private venue to voice those statements if the venue decides they don't want you there.
And you don't have a right to ignore the consequences of your speech. If you want to stand in your front yard and yell offensive things as the neighbors, you're free to do so. Just don't expect that magically, everyone will go "Oh, he's just exercising his freedom of speech." No, they're probably going to think you're an asshole. But the two are not mutually exclusive. It's possible to be exercising free speech AND be an asshole. Just don't be surprised that people don't want you around because you're being an asshole.
Well, first you have to consider that anyone can be a moderator. I don't have mod points right now, but I've had them within the last week, and I don't post that much on here any more.
Second, there is such a thing as meta-moderation. (Or at least there was. Not actually sure it's there any more.)
Third, Slashdot doesn't want their moderators harassed. You don't get to see who modded down your post, because they don't want you going to every post that moderator makes and revenge-modding them, or harassing them.
Fourth, if you are consistently being modded down (presumably under your Slashdot handle, rather than as an AC), then the problem isn't the mods, it's you. It is highly unlikely that one or more mods are specifically looking for your posts and going "HaHa! Time to mod him down again!" while twirling their mustaches. If you're being modded down while posting as an AC, how are the mods supposed to know it's you specifically? Not even mods see who is behind a particular AC post.
Uh, no. Clinton's proposed change in that article is to overturn the Citizen's United decision. For the attention impaired, Citizen's United is what is currently allowing big donors to spend enough money to shout down everyone else. Also known as "Money is speech".
It allows deep-pockets donors (billionaires and corporations) to ignore limits that were previously in place to limit the use of money in politics. It wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than letting them buy as much advertising/influence as they wanted under the guise of free speech.
Citizen's United needs to be overturned, and there needs to be serious limits put in place on campaign funding.
Now, I'm not saying Clinton is perfect. Far from it, actually. Honestly, this election cycle is pretty much a shit sandwich regarding the candidates.
If you're looking for someone who wants to screw up the First Amendment for personal reasons, you don't have to look further than Donald Trump, though. He's as much as stated that he wants to make it easier to sue newspapers that say mean things about him, regardless of whether they're true or not. (To note, truth is an absolute defense against libel.)
But see, it makes them look like they're doing something.
"We're stopping drug trafficking. Just look at these sites that we've closed! But we need more money to continue to fight drug traffickers, because don't you want your kids to be safe?"
And hell, the RIAA doesn't want all movie piracy to go away. If it did, they'd have no justification for some of the shit that they pull. They just want the 'easy to acquire' piracy to go away.
I pay $5 for a bottle of Atorvastatin at SVC. It's only a month's supply, but still.... not as cheap as CostCo, but still pretty damn inexpensive.
Or it could have been both. Never discount the idea of the penny-pinching MBA and an incompetent IT staff.
Now, mind you, I'm inclined to side with the IT guys, as I am one myself, and even though I work for a much smaller company, I've seen some bone-headed decisions regarding purchases.
And let's face it, IT, generally speaking, is not in the business of making things harder for themselves. Whereas company execs are often so insulated from the immediate consequences of their actions, that it could years for some decision to be a problem.
It's entirely possible that everyone involved in the decisions involved in a single-site point of failure don't even work for Delta any more.
From the sound of things, I'd say the cabbie played you. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this is a scam he runs regularly.
No it isn't. Marketing has been around for a long time.