So if I get this right, if in WoW I reguarly/yell "FREE TIBET" and "DOWN WITH THE FASCIST OPPRESSORS OF TIANAMEN SQUARE!" China will step in and prevent any logins from China to my server?
Very little of the penal system is about punishment any longer. After long-standing politically-correct assaults on the 'cruelty' and 'unfairness' of the system, my understanding (secondhand, from friends that work with the MN Dept of Corrections) is that it's all about rehabilitation.
Your time in prison is NOT considered 'paying for your crimes' by any but the most Neanderthal members of the penal bureacracy. It's the time during which they try to 'reprogram' the offender from the 'societally-inflicted conditioning' that they were invariably raised in. Deliberately being harsh to inmates - like making them uncomfortable, or work long hours, or not get their conjugal visits - is seen as detrimental to the 'healing' process because it builds resentment in the inmate against the system he's supposed to trust.
No, it's been many years since prison was punishment. Then again, wiolent crime IS consistently going down generally in the US. Hell, it may even be working.
You're right, a reduction in the top end is only a refinement of data and otherwise unremarkable...unless a group of people are using that top-end data to constantly fuel a public whinging campaign about how the sky is falling.
THEN a reduction in the top end shows their Cassandra predictions for what they are. It doesn't change the reality, of course, but then again the public debate is rarely about the reality.
"we're still have a pretty drastic affect on the poor earth. "
The Earth doesn't give a shit. The only ones who care or are even AWARE of an impact are the stupid hairless monkeys that infest every continent.
"Net carbon increase, particulates, and nitrous oxides, all of which damage... the environment." They change the environment, they don't damage it. The earth started (apparently) a coalescing ball of dust and rock, for a long time was little more than a sphere of semisolid molten rock. For the majority of its history it hasn't had what we would call a breathable atmosphere. It's been both 100C warmer and 100C cooler, and it seemed to settle at a much warmer temperature than now. In the last several million years it's gotten significantly cooler (on average).
Yes, those hairless monkeys may have polluted their cage past the point of habitability. We shall see. But the earth? Even if you can't help but anthropomorphize, it couldn't care less. She's seen the obliteration of 99% of all species not once but SEVERAL times, and they keep growing back.
1) please let me know which country doesn't have religious nutjobs of one type or another. I'd love to know. We're a democracy - we get what we vote for. If relativism has handcuffed policymakers from saying "sorry, on an absolutely objective basis, that's STUPID", is it any shock that simpler, less intellectually-challenging dogmas are taking hold? The 60's and 70's were spent saying EVERYTHING needed to be challenged....whups, there goes the baby with the bathwater.
2) When you've had an educational system where for the last 40 years there's always been a ready excuse* for why Johnny can't read/add/think (* insert your favorite victimology here: racism, sexism, economic oppression, whatever), this is the result. Where it's more important to spend $100,000 on teaching deeply retarded kids how to eat and not soil themselves, than to challenge the most advanced children to excel, this is the result. Want to implement a test to simply show which schools are teaching the basics most successfully? The teacher's unions (and their mentor, the Democratic Party) will aggressively object (and then ask for more funding). Look at ANY school district and compare its funding for the 'bottom' quartile of their students, vs. their funding for the 'top' quartile.
What's most surprising is that the result surprises ANYONE.
So perhaps the result is that locked clients really are the solution. Essentially, a console with a keyboard, monitor (optional, I guess), mouse, HD, basic OS, word processing, excel, web software all fixed and preloaded, with a single USB port that could be used for a printer or external drive. I'd even suggest a BUILT IN router.
No simple hackability so that if "grandma" wants to get on this "internet thing" she can. We buy the XBox Computer and hand it to her; she plugs the damn thing in to the internet, powers up (she can do those two things), and voila she's capable of doing 99% of the 'typical' user tasks. Config wizards make the initial boot a breeze, and the essentialia is all either hard-coded in ROM or locked down ENTIRELY without configurability short of replacing. It locks up? Just shut off and restart, grandma - you can't break it.
NOTHING can be installed, just like a console. Want to play that cool new game? Drop in a disc (like a console). The only way the config could be changed is perhaps with a tech's keyed USB fob/dongle thing - yes, this would immediately be hacked, but would limit hack/exploitation to the machines the hackers COULD PHYSICALLY GET TO.
Damn, put DECENT video/sound in it so it would be comparable to a current-generation game maching, put that at a $500 price point (sans monitor) and it would sell like hotcakes.
What's better for a group of a million people? Each of them get +$5, or one of them gets $5 million?
If the "one" is an entrepreneur or small businessman, he can likely parlay that $5 million into a significant investment to grow his business, and probably result in at least 5-6 PERMANENT jobs with an annual salary/value of $30k-$40k per year. That additional workforce could allow him to grow his business further, possibly snowballing into more jobs, more business, etc. This ALSO means more tax revenue for the local government, more $ for schools, playgrounds, streets, fire depts, etc.
This is called growth, and it's a good thing for a community.
Does it help everyone equally? NO, and that's why it's so offensive to the leftish/. crowd. But it's net benefit (and sustainably so) for the whole community, far, far more than the $5 would help ANYONE.
Is it possible that the $5 mill goes to some indolent rich person who wastes it? Sure (and this is pretty much what the/. crowd believes of all "rich" people...it's not like they ever work for it, right?), it's POSSIBLE. But where does he waste it? Cars, luxury items, food, drugs - all of which again benefit (to a lesser degree) local businesses.
"Put down your Heinleins and spend a little time trying to make the planet we will all live and die on a better place."
Let's do an experiment.
Take a colony of bacteria. A petri dish with agar.
Add bacteria to petri dish. Place dish someplace comfortable - say somewhere just the right distance from a sun that water is liquid.
Observe over time.
At the longest timescales, what is the ultimate future for that bacteria? What is the ONLY way that the bacteria could conceivably survive these timescales?
Even Bush (you know, the Dark Lord of Evil) has said that the globe appears to be warming. (I will note that I have seen some discrepancies between air and surface temps but on the whole "warming" seems to be plausible.)
The only people that claim "contention" here are environmentalists desperately setting up strawmen to avoid the not-quote-so-simple-to-answer 'parts' of the "global warming" question:
- is the increase contributed by greenhouse gases (compared to natural cycles) significant? (I mean, if greenhouse gases are adding 0.1% to the net temperature gain over the next 100 years, that's NOT significant.) - if it is significant, are the costs of attempted climate mitigation less than or greater than the costs of doing nothing? - even if it is less, could that money be better spent mitigating some other human ill? - even if it is less and there is nothing better to spend that money on, are we positive that the net result of global warming is bad? - if one is convinced that it's significant, that the costs of mitigation are less than the costs of waiting, and that what's coming is bad and there is NOTHING we could better spend the money on....does it make sense that the first effort to cope with the problem should be an agreement OMITTING ENTIRELY the 40% of the Earth's population that are going to be the most critical causal actors over the next several decades?
The "global warming" question is only superficially and immediately about "is global warming happening?" The consequences, our actions, and the expected results are the crux of the question, and I haven't seen any data about this that's worth donkey spit - because frankly it's mostly guesswork and faith which, not being a member of that particular religion, isn't sufficient.
It's got to be nice for the environmentalists to have goalposts with wheels, no?
Can I please ask the Slashdot editors to READ THE FRIGGING STORIES before passing this on as a reasonable summary of the article?
Firstly, it's nowhere suggested that this is "inevitable". IRS interest in the subject is "a matter of time" but the taxes are not. In fact, this could be a Pandora's box for tax authorities, because it will open a flood of issues that have heretofore been somewhat ignored such as a) what right does the government have to interfere (that is, tax) a transaction between two individuals b) trades of in-kind goods are frequently unvalued. If I trade you a $4 chicken for a $6 goose, it's clear that legally (only), I owe the government taxes on my $2 profit. But in real life, things aren't born with price tags attached; if I trade you a chicken for your goose, who's to say who 'gained value' from the transaction? The insubstantiality of the concept of objective value is problematic, exponentially so with 'virtual' goods.
Secondly, from TFA: "LaPiana said that there is little question that the transfer of such assets could be taxable, since it is property. However, he did say that the taxes would accrue only if the total value of the estate's assets exceeded the limit set by the state in which the deceased had lived. In most cases, he said, that amount is $2 million, though some states, like New York and New Jersey, have lower limits."
So realistically we're talking not about a tax on virtual assets, as the stupid summary presents, but a tax on the REAL WORLD PROFIT made from the sale of such assets. And I'd presume that IF the IRS is claiming that profit you made is personal income, then you can immediately apply (and get) deductions for the - cost of the computer - costs of the internet connection - cost of the game - costs of the monthly access fee.
I can't see that even the IRS would see the cost/benefit of chasing 99.999% of gamers who aren't going to actually see a profit from this sort of transaction. Or is the IRS working in China now?
I understand that "OMFG THEY ARE GOING TO TAX MY WARCRAFT ACCOUNT!!!!" is the FUD that everyone seems to like spreading. Isn't it up to tech-literate sites like/. to KILL FUD where they can, rather than incite it?
"..although some of the existing classification systems have demonstrable effectiveness...they typically fail to identify with usual forecasting skill the very few inmates who are likely to commit the most serious offenses..."
1) WTF is "the usual forecasting skill" 2) if they are "demonstrably effective", why do you need another method?
From TFA, they said out of their sample population only 3% were later reported for very serious misconduct, and that their method was able to correctly forecast this behaviour about 50% of the time. How is that different from chance?
Sorry, the summary should have been "new software test predicting violent behaviour fails to score better than chance in prison sample population".
Finally, one might suspect that the noise level in a prison population test would make this a substantially SUBoptimal population to test "proclivity to violence" software....I mean, they ARE ALREADY IN PRISON. If the test was simply binary, pretty much everyone there SHOULD show a tendency toward violence, no?
Seems overall like a poorly designed and reported test with unclear results. How is that news?
Why am I guessing that the only people who care about this are the same ones that claim to be able to detect the difference between brand X and brand Y stereo cables (one having gold plated connectors)?
Look, I'm listening to music in a nonoptimal room, with a 20 year old Sony receiver, playing through 25 year old floor speakers I got from Sears both tucked oddly out of the way, with some crappy stereo cable I bought from radio shack (unshielded, OMFG!). It sounds wonderful. I sincerely believe that I won't miss a little of anything.
You mean I missed the 'click' of the key from the 3rd seat clarinet during the 2nd movement of the Moonlight Sonata? Heavens, I think I'll go commit ritual suicide.
Not everyone has (or wants) a $25,000 'temple of sound' for listening to music.
But it's stupid to allow risk where it's not necessary. I think a responsible government would sweep aside concerns about political correctness and simply deal with the problem, without the window dressing. Stringent screening of visitors? Unapologetic surveillance of middle-eastern men aged 14-50? Making everyone touch a piece of raw pork before boarding (sorry, no heavenly martyrdom for you if you die before you get cleansed!)?
I don't mind living with risks as a price of being a member of a free society. I do mind if those risks are greater JUST because someone's afraid of being called a racist for stopping a suspicious person who fits a terrorist profile.
The MPAA told legislators 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,' and thus killed the bill when it came up for a final vote.
To be more accurate, one would say: "The MPAA told legislators that it needed this bill killed, presumeably either threatening to pull their financial contributions to said legislators, or offering contributions if the legislator agreed to vote the way they wanted. The MPAA approached sufficient legislators to find enough of them that a sufficient percentage were willing to sell their vote to kill the bill. Like well-paid prostitutes, they did exactly what was asked and thereby prevented the bill from passing."
The MPAA can't kill any bills. It takes whores in the legislature to do that.
He said Iraq wasn't armed. Now, unless he's stupid, he means what he says. Personally (and as I specifically said (reading comprehension for the win)) I think he was indulging in the classical rhetorical 'slide' where you 'accidentally' misstate a fact that makes your argument seem even MORE substantial to the ignorant, and to which you can always claim 'misstatement' if confronted. So I called him on it. Then a dimwit from the peanut gallery chimes in, thinking he's really clever, pointing out that 'tanks and fighters in Iraq don't present any real threat to the US'.
Well...and I'll say this slowly since you apparently aren't QUITE getting it...the US's vulnerabilities extend BEYOND the actual borders of the Continental US. For a "tank" or a "plane" to threaten the US substantially, it doesn't have to GET to the US and bomb Washington - taking over (or substantially threatening) a critical strategic commodity would be enough. Say, hypothetically, something like OIL.
Now, couple the posession of tanks and fighters with a middle eastern dictator who PROVED he was willing to use these forces on the faintest pretext, and put him ADJACENT and ATOP the world's largest reserves of this critical resource.
To suggest that tanks and planes - because they cannot physically reach the US itself - can't pose a serious threat is naive or simply disingenuous. Which are you?
I really liked your post. I thought it was absolutely spot on until I got to this: "I don't like to give these crackpots any more legitimacy than they deserve, but if we are truly afraid of them wouldn't it help to find out what they want and then find a way to come to a mutual agreement?"
What if what they want is a Global Islamic State, ruled by the Koran and anyone resisting put to the sword?
I'm all for pragmatic compromise, but at a certain point it's time to simply kill the psychos.*
* yes, I'm FULLY aware that they can use the same rationale; in fact, they probably are. To me, that doesn't really matter. I *know* western secular Humanism is an inherently morally better philosophy than Islam. I also know that in the real world, "moral value" is worth intrinsically nothing, so if we genuinely believe our system is better than theirs, and they believe the opposite, the only way it gets resolved is by beating the other guy into submission. We need to begin.
Sorry if that's too Hobbesian for the intarweb theoretician/moralists out there. But not everyone is interested in negotiation and compromise. And if they aren't, your willingness to compromise simply makes you their next victim. Your philosophy only survives if you do.
Iraq turned out not to be armed in the first place
I understand that hyperbole is necessary to advance one's political point by shifting the tenor of the discussion without bringing a point actually out in the open for argument, but that's a staggeringly stupid statement. Or you have a really peculiar definition of "unarmed":
2003 Iraqi Military OrBat Tanks (Total: 2,200) The Iraqi tank forces consist mainly of old Soviet design. The Type-69/59 are Chinese copies of the Soviet T-55/54 tanks. (see List of Soviet tanks)
Considering the source (NYT), I am highly skeptical of their 'summary' of such a report.
If this report said something on the order of: 1. rebuild Iraqi army 2. rebuild Iraqi police force 3. stabilize civil situation 4. exterminate/disarm Shia/Sunni factions. (...) 88. Paint the house 89. Walk the dog 90. Reduce American force deployments in Iraq
the NYT would summarise as "Bush is a poopyhead; Iraq Study Group agrees with NYT that US forces in Iraq should be REDUCED immediately!"
Remember, this is the 'newspaper of record' that somehow failed to publicize that the Congressional committee on prewar intel found that the original claims of the administration were widely held at the time to be accurate & that Robert Wilson (you know, Mr Valerie Plame) was a self-aggrandizing liar.
Aha, another one of the Islamic Terrorist=Christian folks. Thanks for the easy one, Captain Obvious.
I don't recall a lot of: - Norwegian Lutherans beheading people on camera who don't call it "hot dish". - Episcopalians performing clitorectomies on their daughters simply because, well, they're female. - Spanish Catholics murdering schoolfuls of children because they want to have a Catholic state? - suicide Baptists blowing up car bombs to kill as many innocent people as possible. I must have missed all that news?
Last time I checked, CHRISTIANS built our modern, Western, SECULAR society. The New Testament itself was practically an entree to Humanism, for Pete's sake. No amount of moral relativism is going to change that fact.
disliking, even HATING homosexuals is not the same as having an actual policy of killing homosexuals.
wanting laws to have a basis in morality from your favorite holy book is not the same as refusing to obey any law that does not come from said book.
shouting you down (oh my gosh, did someone's feelings get hurt?) or trying to use the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS to elect a majority of representatives which will pass laws that you agree with is not EVEN CLOSE TO BEING the same as killing people you disagree with, anyone they are associated with, and anyone nearby.
Even trying to compare the nutcases of the Christian Right (people who murder abortion doctors, for example) to Islam is empty-headed; the nutcases are recognized by all as radical nutcases who should be caught and punished for their crimes. This is somewhat different than the Islamic world where they idolize psychotics, celebrate death, inculcate their children with hatred, or (at the very least) stand passively by unwilling to criticise the nutcases acting in the name of their Faith.
The moment you try to equate the feral Islamist terrorist with some empty-headed prosytelizing Presbyterian, you illustrate that you are nothing more than apologist for Islam, or someone who BELIEVES he opposes radical islam but hasn't really thought through the contradictions in his stance vs. the application of that stance in the real world.
You throw away the useless comment "I have no problem with killing Wahabist terrorists who want to kill us." Congratulations. So I'm still waiting for an answer to my first question - You're sitting on one end of the bench, Achmed is sitting on the other end. He's telling everone that walks by that it's ok to kill you, that they SHOULD if they want to go to Heaven. In fact, a couple of guys have assaulted you but you managed to kill them first. Eventually Achmed is GOING to tell enough people (or touch enough people) that you will not be able to defend yourself.
What - always maintaining proper respect for his Consitutional Rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of protest, etc, etc, etc - are you going to do to save yourself?
...that someone needs to look carefully at their money before they spend it?
What a heinous idea.
Oh, and y'know, there are lots of things blind people cannot do that sighted can. That's why it's called a HANDICAP.* What's next, we're going to complain that 'foul balls (in baseball) are unfair to blind people, who risk injury even TRYING to catch them, therefore they should be banned/prevented from happening"?
* for those benighted neaderthals that aren't politically correct.
They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys. blah blah blah Newt's a fascist blah blah doesn't understand our constitution blah rights blah blah stupid blah blah blah freedom blah blah
OK great. We've all totally GOT IT that freedom of speech is a critical and inalienable HUMAN (ie applies to all, not just US citizens) right.
Then again...
It's pretty frikken' easy to stand at the sidelines and lob criticism at policymakers. After all, you're just some wanker on an anonymous login, YOU'LL never be tasked with the responsibility of actually making policy, right?
So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that - believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc. - believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws - will cheerfully kill you because you disagree
How do YOU stop someone sitting next to you whose beliefs are not only inimical to yours, but he WANTS to kill you? Do you 'tolerate' him until he (hopefully) goes away? What about when he starts grabbing the local kids off the playground and starts explaining to them how wonderful his creed of hate is, blaming you for everything wrong that's ever happened to him, and telling them that if they kill you they will be rewarded, even if they die doing it?
And don't say "education" or "poverty" in your answer, as the 9/11 hijackers were all well educated and came from (at least) comfortably middle-class backgrounds.
I can't wait to see how many THOUSANDS of +5 insightful responses we get in here, since so MANY people are so instantly ready to criticize, they MUST have solutions themselves, right? Otherwise they are just typical internet windbag hypocrites.
While I'm utterly aware of the difficulties facing the US military in Iraq (and particularly how mismanaged the post-invasiona deployment has been by the Bush administration) I'm not entirely sure you can say the US is being "whipped" in Iraq.
To conquer a nation of 22 million = 3,000 casualties (the huge majority of which have been caused in occupation operations). Germany's population in WW2 was 55 million. Think about that for a second.
When your opposition has no way to fight back but by using car bombs and IEDs, that's a resistance, not a civil war.
Relevant to the OP, I think the whiz-bang of AA is more than a little sickening, but I don't dispute that as a military force the US is probably man-for-man in the top 5, and in overall combat power is unequalled.
Slashdot Mirror
...Let China do it?
/yell "FREE TIBET" and "DOWN WITH THE FASCIST OPPRESSORS OF TIANAMEN SQUARE!" China will step in and prevent any logins from China to my server?
So if I get this right, if in WoW I reguarly
That's quite a tragedy.
Sounds like I need to program some macros.
Nobody 'pays for their crimes' anymore.
Very little of the penal system is about punishment any longer. After long-standing politically-correct assaults on the 'cruelty' and 'unfairness' of the system, my understanding (secondhand, from friends that work with the MN Dept of Corrections) is that it's all about rehabilitation.
Your time in prison is NOT considered 'paying for your crimes' by any but the most Neanderthal members of the penal bureacracy. It's the time during which they try to 'reprogram' the offender from the 'societally-inflicted conditioning' that they were invariably raised in. Deliberately being harsh to inmates - like making them uncomfortable, or work long hours, or not get their conjugal visits - is seen as detrimental to the 'healing' process because it builds resentment in the inmate against the system he's supposed to trust.
No, it's been many years since prison was punishment. Then again, wiolent crime IS consistently going down generally in the US. Hell, it may even be working.
You're right, a reduction in the top end is only a refinement of data and otherwise unremarkable...unless a group of people are using that top-end data to constantly fuel a public whinging campaign about how the sky is falling.
THEN a reduction in the top end shows their Cassandra predictions for what they are. It doesn't change the reality, of course, but then again the public debate is rarely about the reality.
"we're still have a pretty drastic affect on the poor earth. "
... the environment."
The Earth doesn't give a shit. The only ones who care or are even AWARE of an impact are the stupid hairless monkeys that infest every continent.
"Net carbon increase, particulates, and nitrous oxides, all of which damage
They change the environment, they don't damage it. The earth started (apparently) a coalescing ball of dust and rock, for a long time was little more than a sphere of semisolid molten rock. For the majority of its history it hasn't had what we would call a breathable atmosphere. It's been both 100C warmer and 100C cooler, and it seemed to settle at a much warmer temperature than now. In the last several million years it's gotten significantly cooler (on average).
Yes, those hairless monkeys may have polluted their cage past the point of habitability. We shall see. But the earth? Even if you can't help but anthropomorphize, it couldn't care less. She's seen the obliteration of 99% of all species not once but SEVERAL times, and they keep growing back.
1) please let me know which country doesn't have religious nutjobs of one type or another. I'd love to know. We're a democracy - we get what we vote for. If relativism has handcuffed policymakers from saying "sorry, on an absolutely objective basis, that's STUPID", is it any shock that simpler, less intellectually-challenging dogmas are taking hold? The 60's and 70's were spent saying EVERYTHING needed to be challenged....whups, there goes the baby with the bathwater.
2) When you've had an educational system where for the last 40 years there's always been a ready excuse* for why Johnny can't read/add/think (* insert your favorite victimology here: racism, sexism, economic oppression, whatever), this is the result. Where it's more important to spend $100,000 on teaching deeply retarded kids how to eat and not soil themselves, than to challenge the most advanced children to excel, this is the result.
Want to implement a test to simply show which schools are teaching the basics most successfully? The teacher's unions (and their mentor, the Democratic Party) will aggressively object (and then ask for more funding).
Look at ANY school district and compare its funding for the 'bottom' quartile of their students, vs. their funding for the 'top' quartile.
What's most surprising is that the result surprises ANYONE.
Is it just me or did I totally channel Ayn Rand?
So perhaps the result is that locked clients really are the solution. Essentially, a console with a keyboard, monitor (optional, I guess), mouse, HD, basic OS, word processing, excel, web software all fixed and preloaded, with a single USB port that could be used for a printer or external drive. I'd even suggest a BUILT IN router.
No simple hackability so that if "grandma" wants to get on this "internet thing" she can. We buy the XBox Computer and hand it to her; she plugs the damn thing in to the internet, powers up (she can do those two things), and voila she's capable of doing 99% of the 'typical' user tasks. Config wizards make the initial boot a breeze, and the essentialia is all either hard-coded in ROM or locked down ENTIRELY without configurability short of replacing. It locks up? Just shut off and restart, grandma - you can't break it.
NOTHING can be installed, just like a console. Want to play that cool new game? Drop in a disc (like a console). The only way the config could be changed is perhaps with a tech's keyed USB fob/dongle thing - yes, this would immediately be hacked, but would limit hack/exploitation to the machines the hackers COULD PHYSICALLY GET TO.
Damn, put DECENT video/sound in it so it would be comparable to a current-generation game maching, put that at a $500 price point (sans monitor) and it would sell like hotcakes.
Logic check.
/. crowd. But it's net benefit (and sustainably so) for the whole community, far, far more than the $5 would help ANYONE.
/. crowd believes of all "rich" people...it's not like they ever work for it, right?), it's POSSIBLE. But where does he waste it? Cars, luxury items, food, drugs - all of which again benefit (to a lesser degree) local businesses.
What's better for a group of a million people?
Each of them get +$5, or one of them gets $5 million?
If the "one" is an entrepreneur or small businessman, he can likely parlay that $5 million into a significant investment to grow his business, and probably result in at least 5-6 PERMANENT jobs with an annual salary/value of $30k-$40k per year. That additional workforce could allow him to grow his business further, possibly snowballing into more jobs, more business, etc. This ALSO means more tax revenue for the local government, more $ for schools, playgrounds, streets, fire depts, etc.
This is called growth, and it's a good thing for a community.
Does it help everyone equally? NO, and that's why it's so offensive to the leftish
Is it possible that the $5 mill goes to some indolent rich person who wastes it? Sure (and this is pretty much what the
Yeah, because it's not like war is about killing people. The savage beasts.
"Put down your Heinleins and spend a little time trying to make the planet we will all live and die on a better place."
Let's do an experiment.
Take a colony of bacteria.
A petri dish with agar.
Add bacteria to petri dish. Place dish someplace comfortable - say somewhere just the right distance from a sun that water is liquid.
Observe over time.
At the longest timescales, what is the ultimate future for that bacteria? What is the ONLY way that the bacteria could conceivably survive these timescales?
Finite resources > constantly-reproducing lifeforms.
Even Bush (you know, the Dark Lord of Evil) has said that the globe appears to be warming. (I will note that I have seen some discrepancies between air and surface temps but on the whole "warming" seems to be plausible.)
The only people that claim "contention" here are environmentalists desperately setting up strawmen to avoid the not-quote-so-simple-to-answer 'parts' of the "global warming" question:
- is the increase contributed by greenhouse gases (compared to natural cycles) significant? (I mean, if greenhouse gases are adding 0.1% to the net temperature gain over the next 100 years, that's NOT significant.)
- if it is significant, are the costs of attempted climate mitigation less than or greater than the costs of doing nothing?
- even if it is less, could that money be better spent mitigating some other human ill?
- even if it is less and there is nothing better to spend that money on, are we positive that the net result of global warming is bad?
- if one is convinced that it's significant, that the costs of mitigation are less than the costs of waiting, and that what's coming is bad and there is NOTHING we could better spend the money on....does it make sense that the first effort to cope with the problem should be an agreement OMITTING ENTIRELY the 40% of the Earth's population that are going to be the most critical causal actors over the next several decades?
The "global warming" question is only superficially and immediately about "is global warming happening?" The consequences, our actions, and the expected results are the crux of the question, and I haven't seen any data about this that's worth donkey spit - because frankly it's mostly guesswork and faith which, not being a member of that particular religion, isn't sufficient.
It's got to be nice for the environmentalists to have goalposts with wheels, no?
Never ending FUD.
/. to KILL FUD where they can, rather than incite it?
Can I please ask the Slashdot editors to READ THE FRIGGING STORIES before passing this on as a reasonable summary of the article?
Firstly, it's nowhere suggested that this is "inevitable". IRS interest in the subject is "a matter of time" but the taxes are not. In fact, this could be a Pandora's box for tax authorities, because it will open a flood of issues that have heretofore been somewhat ignored such as
a) what right does the government have to interfere (that is, tax) a transaction between two individuals
b) trades of in-kind goods are frequently unvalued. If I trade you a $4 chicken for a $6 goose, it's clear that legally (only), I owe the government taxes on my $2 profit. But in real life, things aren't born with price tags attached; if I trade you a chicken for your goose, who's to say who 'gained value' from the transaction? The insubstantiality of the concept of objective value is problematic, exponentially so with 'virtual' goods.
Secondly, from TFA:
"LaPiana said that there is little question that the transfer of such assets could be taxable, since it is property. However, he did say that the taxes would accrue only if the total value of the estate's assets exceeded the limit set by the state in which the deceased had lived. In most cases, he said, that amount is $2 million, though some states, like New York and New Jersey, have lower limits."
So realistically we're talking not about a tax on virtual assets, as the stupid summary presents, but a tax on the REAL WORLD PROFIT made from the sale of such assets. And I'd presume that IF the IRS is claiming that profit you made is personal income, then you can immediately apply (and get) deductions for the
- cost of the computer
- costs of the internet connection
- cost of the game
- costs of the monthly access fee.
I can't see that even the IRS would see the cost/benefit of chasing 99.999% of gamers who aren't going to actually see a profit from this sort of transaction. Or is the IRS working in China now?
I understand that "OMFG THEY ARE GOING TO TAX MY WARCRAFT ACCOUNT!!!!" is the FUD that everyone seems to like spreading. Isn't it up to tech-literate sites like
"..although some of the existing classification systems have demonstrable effectiveness...they typically fail to identify with usual forecasting skill the very few inmates who are likely to commit the most serious offenses..."
1) WTF is "the usual forecasting skill"
2) if they are "demonstrably effective", why do you need another method?
From TFA, they said out of their sample population only 3% were later reported for very serious misconduct, and that their method was able to correctly forecast this behaviour about 50% of the time. How is that different from chance?
Sorry, the summary should have been "new software test predicting violent behaviour fails to score better than chance in prison sample population".
Finally, one might suspect that the noise level in a prison population test would make this a substantially SUBoptimal population to test "proclivity to violence" software....I mean, they ARE ALREADY IN PRISON. If the test was simply binary, pretty much everyone there SHOULD show a tendency toward violence, no?
Seems overall like a poorly designed and reported test with unclear results. How is that news?
Why am I guessing that the only people who care about this are the same ones that claim to be able to detect the difference between brand X and brand Y stereo cables (one having gold plated connectors)?
Look, I'm listening to music in a nonoptimal room, with a 20 year old Sony receiver, playing through 25 year old floor speakers I got from Sears both tucked oddly out of the way, with some crappy stereo cable I bought from radio shack (unshielded, OMFG!). It sounds wonderful. I sincerely believe that I won't miss a little of anything.
You mean I missed the 'click' of the key from the 3rd seat clarinet during the 2nd movement of the Moonlight Sonata? Heavens, I think I'll go commit ritual suicide.
Not everyone has (or wants) a $25,000 'temple of sound' for listening to music.
They are aiming for
- replayability
- focussed attention
- increased heart rate and breathing?
Sounds like the next game they produce is going to be essentially just masturbation. more nude chixx0rs in games! w00t!
On the brighter side, it's got some seriously interesting MMOG opportunities.
And, to be fair, I agree with you.
But it's stupid to allow risk where it's not necessary. I think a responsible government would sweep aside concerns about political correctness and simply deal with the problem, without the window dressing. Stringent screening of visitors? Unapologetic surveillance of middle-eastern men aged 14-50? Making everyone touch a piece of raw pork before boarding (sorry, no heavenly martyrdom for you if you die before you get cleansed!)?
I don't mind living with risks as a price of being a member of a free society. I do mind if those risks are greater JUST because someone's afraid of being called a racist for stopping a suspicious person who fits a terrorist profile.
The MPAA told legislators 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,' and thus killed the bill when it came up for a final vote.
To be more accurate, one would say:
"The MPAA told legislators that it needed this bill killed, presumeably either threatening to pull their financial contributions to said legislators, or offering contributions if the legislator agreed to vote the way they wanted. The MPAA approached sufficient legislators to find enough of them that a sufficient percentage were willing to sell their vote to kill the bill. Like well-paid prostitutes, they did exactly what was asked and thereby prevented the bill from passing."
The MPAA can't kill any bills. It takes whores in the legislature to do that.
You're the one that's being a dimwit here.
He said Iraq wasn't armed. Now, unless he's stupid, he means what he says. Personally (and as I specifically said (reading comprehension for the win)) I think he was indulging in the classical rhetorical 'slide' where you 'accidentally' misstate a fact that makes your argument seem even MORE substantial to the ignorant, and to which you can always claim 'misstatement' if confronted. So I called him on it. Then a dimwit from the peanut gallery chimes in, thinking he's really clever, pointing out that 'tanks and fighters in Iraq don't present any real threat to the US'.
Well...and I'll say this slowly since you apparently aren't QUITE getting it...the US's vulnerabilities extend BEYOND the actual borders of the Continental US. For a "tank" or a "plane" to threaten the US substantially, it doesn't have to GET to the US and bomb Washington - taking over (or substantially threatening) a critical strategic commodity would be enough. Say, hypothetically, something like OIL.
Now, couple the posession of tanks and fighters with a middle eastern dictator who PROVED he was willing to use these forces on the faintest pretext, and put him ADJACENT and ATOP the world's largest reserves of this critical resource.
To suggest that tanks and planes - because they cannot physically reach the US itself - can't pose a serious threat is naive or simply disingenuous. Which are you?
Tanks and fighters located halfway around the world were never a threat to the United States.
Imagine those tanks in the streets of Kuwait (again) or over the skies of Jeddah.
Still think that those tanks and fighters aren't a threat to the US?
I really liked your post. I thought it was absolutely spot on until I got to this:
"I don't like to give these crackpots any more legitimacy than they deserve, but if we are truly afraid of them wouldn't it help to find out what they want and then find a way to come to a mutual agreement?"
What if what they want is a Global Islamic State, ruled by the Koran and anyone resisting put to the sword?
I'm all for pragmatic compromise, but at a certain point it's time to simply kill the psychos.*
* yes, I'm FULLY aware that they can use the same rationale; in fact, they probably are. To me, that doesn't really matter. I *know* western secular Humanism is an inherently morally better philosophy than Islam. I also know that in the real world, "moral value" is worth intrinsically nothing, so if we genuinely believe our system is better than theirs, and they believe the opposite, the only way it gets resolved is by beating the other guy into submission. We need to begin.
Sorry if that's too Hobbesian for the intarweb theoretician/moralists out there. But not everyone is interested in negotiation and compromise. And if they aren't, your willingness to compromise simply makes you their next victim. Your philosophy only survives if you do.
Iraq turned out not to be armed in the first place
I understand that hyperbole is necessary to advance one's political point by shifting the tenor of the discussion without bringing a point actually out in the open for argument, but that's a staggeringly stupid statement. Or you have a really peculiar definition of "unarmed":
2003 Iraqi Military OrBat
Tanks (Total: 2,200)
The Iraqi tank forces consist mainly of old Soviet design. The Type-69/59 are Chinese copies of the Soviet T-55/54 tanks. (see List of Soviet tanks)
* T-72 (700)
* T-62 (500)
* T-55/54 (500)
* Type-69 (350)
* Type-59 (150)
AIFV/APCs (Total: 3,800)
* AML-60/-90 (300+)
* BMP-1/-2 (900)
* BRDM-2 (1300+)
* EE-9 (600+)
* EE-3 (300+)
* FV-601 (100+)
* FV-701 (90+)
* PT-76 (100)
* MT-LB (1,500+)
* YW-531 (1,000+)
Towed Artillery (Total: 1,900)
* M-56 105 mm
* D-74 122 mm
* D-30 122 mm (100+)
* M-1938 122 mm (400+)
* M-46 (130)
Multiple Rocket Launchers (Total: 200)
* BM-21 MRL 122 mm
* ASTROS II MRL 127 mm (60+)
* BM-13/-16 MRL 132 mm
* ASTROS SS-30 MRL 180 mm
* Ababeel-50 MRL 262 mm (50+)
* ASTROS SS-60 300 mm
Surface-to-Surface Missiles
* Frog-7 (50)
* Scud-B (27?)
* Al Abbas
* Al Hussein
* Al Samoud
Fighters
The J-7 is a Chinese copy of the MiG-21.
* Dassault Mirage F1
* Su-20/Su-22
* Sukhoi Su-25
* Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
* Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
* Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25
* Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29
* J-7
Surface-to-Air Missiles
* Crotale
* Roland
* SA-2 Guideline
* SA-3 Goa
* SA-7 Grail
* SA-6 Gainful
* SA-8 Gecko
* SA-9 Gaskin
* SA-13 Gopher
I'll wait until I actually read the report.
Considering the source (NYT), I am highly skeptical of their 'summary' of such a report.
If this report said something on the order of:
1. rebuild Iraqi army
2. rebuild Iraqi police force
3. stabilize civil situation
4. exterminate/disarm Shia/Sunni factions.
(...)
88. Paint the house
89. Walk the dog
90. Reduce American force deployments in Iraq
the NYT would summarise as "Bush is a poopyhead; Iraq Study Group agrees with NYT that US forces in Iraq should be REDUCED immediately!"
Remember, this is the 'newspaper of record' that somehow failed to publicize that the Congressional committee on prewar intel found that the original claims of the administration were widely held at the time to be accurate & that Robert Wilson (you know, Mr Valerie Plame) was a self-aggrandizing liar.
Aha, another one of the Islamic Terrorist=Christian folks. Thanks for the easy one, Captain Obvious.
I don't recall a lot of:
- Norwegian Lutherans beheading people on camera who don't call it "hot dish".
- Episcopalians performing clitorectomies on their daughters simply because, well, they're female.
- Spanish Catholics murdering schoolfuls of children because they want to have a Catholic state?
- suicide Baptists blowing up car bombs to kill as many innocent people as possible.
I must have missed all that news?
Last time I checked, CHRISTIANS built our modern, Western, SECULAR society. The New Testament itself was practically an entree to Humanism, for Pete's sake. No amount of moral relativism is going to change that fact.
disliking, even HATING homosexuals is not the same as having an actual policy of killing homosexuals.
wanting laws to have a basis in morality from your favorite holy book is not the same as refusing to obey any law that does not come from said book.
shouting you down (oh my gosh, did someone's feelings get hurt?) or trying to use the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS to elect a majority of representatives which will pass laws that you agree with is not EVEN CLOSE TO BEING the same as killing people you disagree with, anyone they are associated with, and anyone nearby.
Even trying to compare the nutcases of the Christian Right (people who murder abortion doctors, for example) to Islam is empty-headed; the nutcases are recognized by all as radical nutcases who should be caught and punished for their crimes. This is somewhat different than the Islamic world where they idolize psychotics, celebrate death, inculcate their children with hatred, or (at the very least) stand passively by unwilling to criticise the nutcases acting in the name of their Faith.
The moment you try to equate the feral Islamist terrorist with some empty-headed prosytelizing Presbyterian, you illustrate that you are nothing more than apologist for Islam, or someone who BELIEVES he opposes radical islam but hasn't really thought through the contradictions in his stance vs. the application of that stance in the real world.
You throw away the useless comment "I have no problem with killing Wahabist terrorists who want to kill us." Congratulations. So I'm still waiting for an answer to my first question - You're sitting on one end of the bench, Achmed is sitting on the other end. He's telling everone that walks by that it's ok to kill you, that they SHOULD if they want to go to Heaven. In fact, a couple of guys have assaulted you but you managed to kill them first. Eventually Achmed is GOING to tell enough people (or touch enough people) that you will not be able to defend yourself.
What - always maintaining proper respect for his Consitutional Rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of protest, etc, etc, etc - are you going to do to save yourself?
...that someone needs to look carefully at their money before they spend it?
What a heinous idea.
Oh, and y'know, there are lots of things blind people cannot do that sighted can. That's why it's called a HANDICAP.* What's next, we're going to complain that 'foul balls (in baseball) are unfair to blind people, who risk injury even TRYING to catch them, therefore they should be banned/prevented from happening"?
* for those benighted neaderthals that aren't politically correct.
They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys.
blah blah blah Newt's a fascist blah blah doesn't understand our constitution blah rights blah blah stupid blah blah blah freedom blah blah
OK great. We've all totally GOT IT that freedom of speech is a critical and inalienable HUMAN (ie applies to all, not just US citizens) right.
Then again...
It's pretty frikken' easy to stand at the sidelines and lob criticism at policymakers. After all, you're just some wanker on an anonymous login, YOU'LL never be tasked with the responsibility of actually making policy, right?
So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that
- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.
- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree
How do YOU stop someone sitting next to you whose beliefs are not only inimical to yours, but he WANTS to kill you? Do you 'tolerate' him until he (hopefully) goes away? What about when he starts grabbing the local kids off the playground and starts explaining to them how wonderful his creed of hate is, blaming you for everything wrong that's ever happened to him, and telling them that if they kill you they will be rewarded, even if they die doing it?
And don't say "education" or "poverty" in your answer, as the 9/11 hijackers were all well educated and came from (at least) comfortably middle-class backgrounds.
I can't wait to see how many THOUSANDS of +5 insightful responses we get in here, since so MANY people are so instantly ready to criticize, they MUST have solutions themselves, right? Otherwise they are just typical internet windbag hypocrites.
Speaking of departing reality...
While I'm utterly aware of the difficulties facing the US military in Iraq (and particularly how mismanaged the post-invasiona deployment has been by the Bush administration) I'm not entirely sure you can say the US is being "whipped" in Iraq.
To conquer a nation of 22 million = 3,000 casualties (the huge majority of which have been caused in occupation operations). Germany's population in WW2 was 55 million. Think about that for a second.
When your opposition has no way to fight back but by using car bombs and IEDs, that's a resistance, not a civil war.
Relevant to the OP, I think the whiz-bang of AA is more than a little sickening, but I don't dispute that as a military force the US is probably man-for-man in the top 5, and in overall combat power is unequalled.