First of all, the doctrine in question is not "innocent until provent guilty", it is "presumed innocent until proven guilty." This is a very important distinction.
A person's guilt or innocence is established the moment a crime is (or is not) committed. It is completely independent of the amount of proof the State has.
It is only when the State seeks to extract punishment that our judicial system dictates a presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
And secondly, the Fifth Amendment makes no explicit mention of this doctrine. The closest it comes is the guarantee of "due process"; but this vague term does not immediately imply a presumption of innocence or a particular burden of proof. The Sixth Amendment details the rights afforded a person in trial (jury trial, right to call rebuttal witnesses, right to counsel, etc.), but again, does not mention the presumption of innocence.
The presumption of innocence is a much older doctrine, I believe several hundred years before the U.S. was founded, which has (very deservedly!) served as a benchmark for benevolent systems of justice.
Before they can change the speed limit, they have to do a speed study... which means they sit out there and record speeds for 24 hours (or have a speed trailer do it for them) and then find out what the 85th percentile is. The speed limit cannot be *lower* than that.
In my opinion this is a very reasonable way to set speeds. After all, in most cases, it's the differences in speed that is dangerous (that and the fact that slow drivers don't always pull to the right, and fast ones don't always pass on the left).
The most effective method of reducing speed is a visible patrol car. People are guaranteed to slow down when being watched.
OK, how about this: we'll repeal all speed limit laws (and prevent cops from writing tickets for reckless driving just for speeding). Now let's put a few cops on the freeway and see if anyone gives a flying fig.
So no, it's not the cops themselves that reduce the speed. It's the knowledge that they can stop and ticket you---hence the speed limits.
Using an optical disc for software is an entirely different matter than using it for real-time video or audio. The disc doesn't need to be running continuously at all. So it loads what it needs then shuts down. If it takes a half-second longer because you just hit a speed bump, no matter. I mean, people use CD-ROMs in their laptops on trains all the time.
OK, I appreciate your return to the issue and the dispensing of the political junk. We disagree on enough that we could spend a long time on that too, but I really don't want to.
(Incidentally, our constitution has a "not withstanding" clause, which means that the government can pass an unconstitutional law if they wish.)
Whoa, hold the fort. What is the nature of this "notwithstanding clause"? Unless it comes with severe restrictions, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a charter in the first place. "The charter shall hold, notwithstanding any laws passed which contradict it." WTF? (Serious question here.)
The whole point of a constitution is to define and limit what the government can do---because majority rule doesn't always work out well. As you readily point out, my country is full of examples of this. If your constitution basically allows your government to modify its charter at will, it will become more and more irrelevant over time.
1. You adhere to a 200 year old law about handgun ownership, despite the fact that you have by far the highest rate of gun deaths in the Western world.
It is not a law. It is a constitutional provision. And I'm damn glad we follow it. This is exactly what I mean when I say I'm glad we do what is right, no matter what people like you think of it. (See my next response, however.)
2. You defend the law by saying that it is a "constitutional right", despite the fact that it was actually an amendment to the constitution, which implies (among other things) that the constitution can change
Absolutely. After all, what constitutes a "constitutional right" depends on the current state of the constitution, and that includes its amendments. We have a very straightforward process to alter our constitution when it proves important to do so. It's not easy to do so, of course. But I think that any constitutional scholar, no matter what their political leanings may be, would agree that it shouldn't be easy.
Furthermore, I'm definitely willing to entertain a new constitutional amendment which reduces our right to bear arms. But nothing short of a constitutional amendment will suffice, no matter how common sense the change may be. Incidentally, I don't own a weapon of any sort, unless you count my morning breath.
I just find it funny how Americans treat their constitution with all the dogma of a religious text
Hey, what can I say. Glad we can amuse you.
Yes I take the constitution (including its amendments) seriously. Frankly I think we must, or else we'll have no ground to stand on when a particular part that we believe is actually important is somehow abridged.
And *our* charter of rights and freedoms guarantees equal rights to all citizens, including homosexuals.
Whoa, I though you didn't have that much respect for constitutions? Why bother trumpeting yours?
I'll answer the question for you: because even if you don't, your country takes its constitution (or equivalent) very seriously, too. And I'm very glad that it does.
In fact, I frankly appreciate that your country has codified affirmative action in its charter of rights and freedoms. I believe that our constitution enjoins us from practicing it, although the Supreme Court these days doesn't seem to care.
I'll skip all of your other political crap, because frankly it's tangential to the central discussion. I personally believe that constitutional issues can and should transcend political leaning.
Hehe... don't you Americans know how ridiculous to the rest of the world?
I hope we Americans never make our decisions based upon whatever people think of us---but rather on what is right. Hopefully that will usually agree with the rest of the world, indeed. But if it doesn't, that's just tough. There are far too many examples in history where the consensus proved wrong.
You know, the bible is an unfalible book from 2000 years ago and it doesn't say anything about the right to gun ownership. Shouldn't that take precedence over your constitution, which is merely an infalible document from 200 years ago?
Well, this is silly, the Bible is silent about a lot of things, particularly of modern origin. Am I sinning by using a computer, since the Bible doesn't say I have the right to use one? Or since the Bible makes no mention of the Internet, is the enjoyment of Internet porn exempt from its admonitions against sexual immorality?
Besides, the God of the Bible is hardly a pacifist, as even a cursory look at the Old Testament will reveal. And though Jesus did talk about peace in certain contexts ("Blessed are the peacemakers", "those who draw the sword shall die by the sword", etc.), the following suggest that it's not that simple:
Jesus: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34
Jesus, to his disciples: "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Luke 22:36
[Does this mean we should alter our Constitution to provide the right to bear swords? That would be very interesting.]
Paul, speaking about civil government: "For [the ruler] is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." Romans 13:4
[Incidentally, it is popularly believed that Nero was in power when Paul wrote this. So he could not have been limiting his words to benevolent, democratically-elected governments. In fact, he was referring to a government that was rather unfriendly towards Christians by that point.]
Now look, I am not arguing that the Bible supports gun ownership. But that is only as ludicrous as the idea that it condemns it. It is relatively silent on the issue, and it must be decided on more subtle grounds.
More importantly, the Bible provides a benchmark for personal conduct, not governmental conduct. So while it commands people to respect and obey their government's authority, it does not prescribe what that authority should look like.
The fact is, the economy was O.K (It was at least stable, if shrinking slightly) when Clinton was in power.
I think we agree on much of our thinking regarding this current economy, but I disagree with this statement. The economy under Clinton seemed OK at the time, but it wasn't: it was a bubble just waiting for the right moment to burst. I think now we have to look back on the tech boom and the Internet craze as a rather anomolous and unhealthy phase---unhealthy because people acted (and spended) under the assumption it was here for the long haul.
For example, I don't blame the current economy on our huge deficit in the California state budget; I blame the tremendous growth in our state's spending during this supposed boom time. Something like 30% per capita, adjusted for inflation. I mean please, that's just nuts. In contrast, the state of Colorado, which indexes the growth of its state budget to growth in population and cost of living---is having relatively few problems right now, because instead of seeing all this tax revenue during the boom time and inventing new ways to spend it, they refunded it. How sensible of them.
I think there's room for considerable debate on what we ought to be doing to get us out of this mess, whether Bush and Co. is doing a decent job, etc. But frankly anyone who doesn't think that we need to tighten the belt on our federal and (many) state governments is not credible in my book.
Radon, a lot of what you're saying resonates with me. Certainly, I would be all for a greatly simplified tax system with fewer loopholes. And I really don't have a problem with the concept of graduated tax rates so this isn't veiled support for a flat tax system.
However, I do think that it's important that we provide tax incentives for investment. Investment, both personal and corporate, is what provides the economony the liquidity and funds it needs to grow. And growth in the economy is vital to support growth in population and growth in the demands of developing countries. In addition, investment necessarily involves risk---anyone who didn't believe that 10 years ago does now!
Attractive taxation helps to encourage people to accept that risk, because of the promise that the higher returns will still be high after taxes are taken out.
So yes, attractive capital investment taxation policy will often result in rich people getting richer---but if the alternative is that people horde their money and don't invest it, I'm not sure that's a worthwhile trade.
So investment taxation shouldn't be determined solely on some debatable notion of "fairness" alone, though that should be an important part of it. But it must also take into account the need to encourage investment.
I caught a bit of the Sean Hannity AM talk show today. He's rather outspoken, apparently, about the alleged overprescription of Ritalin, and how some school districts end up requiring treatment for anyone they deem "difficult".
Today he had actress Kelly Preston on the show as a guest. Of course she's not a medical expert; and in fact, she and her husband John Travolta are Scientologists, and don't believe in using psychoactive drugs of any kind under any circumstances.
Neverthless, she did have something very interesting to say. She suggested that there are quite a few things that could cause the symptomps of ADHD: food allergies, chemical sensitivities, lead poisoning, etc. etc. (For example, if you're ADHD, try going on a gluten-casein free diet for a few months and see what happens.) Her assertion was that instead of the knee-jerk rush to drugs, people ought to examine other avenues such as dietary changes first.
Ah, there is a big difference between this and DeCSS.
The CSS encryption standard was well known, so one could easily write a functioning DeCSS program without violating the DMCA---with one significant exception: the encryption keys were not made public. Reverse engineering was used to retrieve those keys and thereby make DeCSS a functioning program.
With PKZip, the encryption method is not known and must be reverse-engineered, but the encryption keys are externally supplied by the user. Therefore, you aren't circumventing any copy protection by reverse-engineering PKZip's protection, because you still can't "break" the copy protection of any ZIP file whose key you do not know.
We're not talking about the old password encryption methods; we're talking about the new AES-based encryption methods implemen ted in WinZip 9 and PKZip.
Yeah, VeGaS, I guess I fell for it. Cause I'm with you, it sure as heck makes no sense that someone actually believes the stuff that HanzoSan is spewing. Looks like I got fooled big time.
If i cannot afford to live on my own I consider this poor.
That is simply absurd, particularly since it is common practice in college, and even in the professional world, particularly in cities where you and I live, to have roommates.
But hey, you want to call yourself poor, go ahead---I sure am glad the government doesn't agree and base it's policies on what you consider poor, however.
Trust me, if you make $30,000 here in Boston, in San Fran, in New York etc, you arent going to have ANY extra money at all, none, all your money will be sucked dry, college, bills, fees, rent, food, You'll be lucky if you can go to the movies once a month.
I wouldn't deny that. And yet, it was your choice to live in Boston and to go to school there, where presumably your college fees are extremely high. I went to school in Austin, TX, where both the cost of living and college fees were cheaper. Did I compromise my education? Not a chance. My subsequent successes in graduate school and in the business world are evidence otherwise (although as with any success a bit of Providence is always involved). And more importantly, I left school with no debt, a burden far too many students obtain, thus giving me much more flexible options after I graduated.
I could have chosen a more expensive option; I did not. But if I had done so, I would not have the right to call myself poor---instead, I would have been guilty of failing to live within my means, and that's all.
Honestly, HanzoSan, it is clear to me that you vastly underestimate the choices that are available to you. You have made your choices, and you don't like the consequences---and yet you refuse to believe that there were any alternatives.
I'm done here. You're welcome to the last word if you want it.
I'm in college. I cannot afford rent unless its with roomates.
Horror of horrors! You have to have roommates? Sir, during my college years, I lived on an income which was approximately a third of what you are making now. I paid rent (with roommates), I ate food, I drank beer, I paid tuition, I bought books, I bought gas... and I graduated with no debt.
Now this was in 1986-1990; but even indexed for inflation, it doesn't come close to what you claim to be making now. So it is truly invalid for you to suggest that I don't understand what you're talking about.
$30,000 is poor, I'm not asking you for pity, but $30,000 while you can survive and pay rent, you arent living comfortable.
You have a very distorted view of poverty. You are not "poor" just because you are not "comfortable," particularly if you are the one that gets to define "comfort." You are not "poor" just because you can't do all the things you wish you could do. There are no Constitutional guarantees on "comfort." The very fact that you can afford the time to spout off on SlashDot as much as you do is evidence against your supposed poverty.
So let's look at some more reasonable measures of poverty. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a single person with an annual income of $8980 is considered poor. Now some federal programs that support the poor actually use a threshold that is 185 perect of that, which comes to $16613. The U.S. Census puts the poverty threshold for 2001 at $9214 if you're under 65.
If we look internationally, your idea that $30K is poor sounds even more absurd. Guess what, the average income level is above $30K in only 8 or 9 countries in the world. It is below that average in 200 other countries. You pay $1000 a month in rent? Well, the average per capita income is below $1000 a year in over 70 countries in the world. (World Bank Data)
The first thing people say when I tell them rent is $1000 a month is "well why dont you move?" Move where? To the ghetto? The trailer park? Dont you know people dont make $30,000 there? So I'd be even worse off living in some ghetto where everyone works at mc donalds or some place, than in Boston or Silicon Valley where all the jobs are.
More proof of your distorted point of view! There are plenty of people outside of large, expensive areas like Boston or San Francisco working decent jobs and living in very reasonable accomodations on $30K a year or less. Your claim just patently false. You've made your choice to live in a more expensive place on less income that you would like to have.
Don't fool yourself that you have no choice, that you can't make changes to improve your situation.
What you dont understand is, someone who cannot even afford the cost of living expensives should not be paying taxes, if you cannot afford to eat and pay rent why the hell should you pay taxes?
Wrong, I do understand, from personal experience. I admitted I make decent money now, but did I say it was always that way? Besides, given your quote below, I simply do not believe that you fit in the category of someone who cannot afford to eat and pay rent. Emphasis mine:
Its bad enough people who are single like me making $30,000 pay more in taxes than we get in disposable income, meaning the government spends more of our money than we do.
You're not going to get any pity from me for making only $30K, unless you have some severe, recurring medical expenses that you did not mention (but which would reduce your tax burden anyway). I've been at that level of income, and not that long ago. For awhile, I was broke. Taxes weren't the reason I was broke; I was broke because I spent more than I took in. I was broke because I vastly underestimated, like I suspect you are doing, how much "disposable income" I had. Much of it was going towards a nicer car, or a nicer apartment, or more frequent restaurant outings than I could financially justify.
So I can safely say that for a single guy, $30K is more than enough to eat and pay rent. Of course, it's tighter in a high-rent area like Silicon Valley, but I managed it. And if you don't want to just "manage it", there are places in this country where the $30K would be enough to live quite decently.
Furthermore, you are completely proving my point. You are pissed off because the government takes too much of your money. You should be pissed off about that: that our government spends too much of your money. If you didn't pay any taxes, would you really care?
Why don't those people who feel they are getting reamed by the government, and who believe that it is forcing them to make difficult compromises in their living situation, blame the government for being too big and costly?
I (married, 1 child) got a massive refund from the government this year (ie, I overpaid and they're giving me back the extra). Should I not get a check for $400?
That depends. After you subtract that refund from the total tax you paid out, is the remainder larger than $400?
If so, yes you should get the check. If not, no you should not. You should not get back any more than you paid.
And that's the point. What's going on here is that people with incomes between $10-$25K, and who were already receiving the $600 child tax credit, are already paying zero in the final analysis. Apparently it is a serious injustice that they actually have to pay $0 in taxes!
Now admittedly there are some lower-income folks---specifically, those with no kids and who therefore are not eligible for the tax credit---who are paying taxes now and are not benefiting from this tax cut. But those people are in the lowest (10%) tax bracket, and had their taxes cut dramatically a couple of years ago when their tax rate was reduced from 15%.
And that brings me to my final point: I believe that everyone who makes money should pay at least some income tax, even if it is a small percentage. I have no problem with the notion of a graduated income tax, where those who make more money pay a larger percentage. And I say this as someone in a higher tax bracket, so it is against my self interest to believe so.
But what I do have a problem with is with an effectively 0% tax bracket. This "0% tax bracket" creates a class of people who have no financial "investment" in our government, and therefore no self-interest in insuring that it practices fiscal responsibility. I think that everyone who lives and works in this country needs to have that psychological sense of contribution. It doesn't have to be big, it just needs to be there. (I mean, let's face it, with the top 50% of taxpayers paying 96% of the taxes, the only effect this can have is psychological.)
Fortunately, I know that people see the Social Security deductions as a "tax". I don't, I see it as a forced retirement savings plan (not that I like that). But I imagine that the Social Security deduction does have the psychological effect I'm looking for above.
The second is that I see this as another step on the way toward a completely human-less battlefield.
Never happen. Oh yeah, sure, we might have robots duke it out, but if nobody dies, then all we're basically fighting is an economic battle---and we already do that all the time. And when one is faced with the possible loss of a robbot battle, a most sensible tactic (from the standpoint of winning the war) will be to start going after "soft targets"---i.e., people.
No, the original poster is right. In order to maintain scientific integrity and consistency, you must be willing to accept the truth or falsity of two equivalent claims with equivalent amounts of evidence, even if one claim is less "plausible" than the other.
But the key is this: a claim is plausible if most of the evidence required to prove it is already known and accepted by the skeptic. In other words, the same amount of evidence is required, but for implausible claims, more of it is lacking.
Imagine someone shows you a picture of a mouse in their backyard. The fact that mice are alive and scurry through backyards is proven. You'd be inclined to accept this man's story with a simple picture of the event. Now this person claims an alien is in their back yard. Aliens have never been proven to exist, and therefore have not been proven to have landed on Earth -- ever. If someone makes this claim, it would be an extraordinary claim.
Yes it would. But in both cases, the following evidence is required to prove the claim: evidence that --- said creatures exist --- said creatures scurry in backyards --- one such creature did so at the time and place claimed.
Now for mice, a skeptic is likely to concede that the first two pieces of evidence are readily known and accepted. For aliens, the skeptic would make no such concession.
But again, in the end, the same amount of evidence is needed; but more of that evidence is lacking in the case of the alien.
Look at it this way: what if you grew up in such a way that you had never heard of a mouse? Suddenly the claimant has more work to do before you'll believe a mouse was in his backyard!
Survey grade GPS doesn't always need absolute accuracy. Indeed, when it does, centimeter accuracy is not all that practical, as you point out. But usually it needs only relative accuracy. And the distortion of tectonic plates occurs much more slowly than their motion, at least if you're reasonably far from a plate interface.
So for example, your second hypothetical case is easily dismissed---because if your neighbor's fence moved 45cm, then so did the walls of your house, and the fence on the other side of your property!
Actually, most American mobile phone service plans are effectively flat rate. Service plans include a certain number of included minutes, so for a fixed monthly price you can pick a plan that completely covers your usage habits. You can even get unlimited long distance (within the U.S.) included in your plan as well. Plans often include "freebies" such as free mobile-to-mobile minutes or free off-peak minutes as well. I would wager that in the final analysis, cel phone costs end up being reasonably competitive in the U.S.
And don't forget, we still have decent landline service. Local service is flat rate unlimited, and long distance is getting cheaper every day; I've seen rates as low as 2 cents per minute. With DSL doing reasonably well a lot of us aren't giving up the copper any time soon. So while some people have ditched their landline as their primary phone, most of us haven't. We don't give our mobile phone number out willy nilly. So when we receive a call on our mobile, it's someone that we don't mind burning our minutes with.
So I'd say that the U.S. market is doing a reasonable job of responding to customer demand and the different technological setting in the U.S.
To me there's no need to explain this statement at all. It's a lot easier to assume that Morpheus just didn't know what he was talking about. After all, there are lots of things about reality that he (and everyone else) didn't know, like what year it was. So I think that the "freed" humans figured out most of the obvious details, guessed on the rest---and got some of them wrong.
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First of all, the doctrine in question is not "innocent until provent guilty", it is "presumed innocent until proven guilty." This is a very important distinction.
A person's guilt or innocence is established the moment a crime is (or is not) committed. It is completely independent of the amount of proof the State has.
It is only when the State seeks to extract punishment that our judicial system dictates a presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
And secondly, the Fifth Amendment makes no explicit mention of this doctrine. The closest it comes is the guarantee of "due process"; but this vague term does not immediately imply a presumption of innocence or a particular burden of proof. The Sixth Amendment details the rights afforded a person in trial (jury trial, right to call rebuttal witnesses, right to counsel, etc.), but again, does not mention the presumption of innocence.
The presumption of innocence is a much older doctrine, I believe several hundred years before the U.S. was founded, which has (very deservedly!) served as a benchmark for benevolent systems of justice.
Before they can change the speed limit, they have to do a speed study... which means they sit out there and record speeds for 24 hours (or have a speed trailer do it for them) and then find out what the 85th percentile is. The speed limit cannot be *lower* than that.
In my opinion this is a very reasonable way to set speeds. After all, in most cases, it's the differences in speed that is dangerous (that and the fact that slow drivers don't always pull to the right, and fast ones don't always pass on the left).
The most effective method of reducing speed is a visible patrol car. People are guaranteed to slow down when being watched.
OK, how about this: we'll repeal all speed limit laws (and prevent cops from writing tickets for reckless driving just for speeding). Now let's put a few cops on the freeway and see if anyone gives a flying fig.
So no, it's not the cops themselves that reduce the speed. It's the knowledge that they can stop and ticket you---hence the speed limits.
Using an optical disc for software is an entirely different matter than using it for real-time video or audio. The disc doesn't need to be running continuously at all. So it loads what it needs then shuts down. If it takes a half-second longer because you just hit a speed bump, no matter. I mean, people use CD-ROMs in their laptops on trains all the time.
Did you guess "both"? You got it! :-)
Sorry, we can't both be middle of the road. So either you're Socialist or we're Fascist. Or both. You can bet which one I'll pick.
OK, I appreciate your return to the issue and the dispensing of the political junk. We disagree on enough that we could spend a long time on that too, but I really don't want to.
(Incidentally, our constitution has a "not withstanding" clause, which means that the government can pass an unconstitutional law if they wish.)
Whoa, hold the fort. What is the nature of this "notwithstanding clause"? Unless it comes with severe restrictions, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a charter in the first place. "The charter shall hold, notwithstanding any laws passed which contradict it." WTF? (Serious question here.)
The whole point of a constitution is to define and limit what the government can do---because majority rule doesn't always work out well. As you readily point out, my country is full of examples of this. If your constitution basically allows your government to modify its charter at will, it will become more and more irrelevant over time.
1. You adhere to a 200 year old law about handgun ownership, despite the fact that you have by far the highest rate of gun deaths in the Western world.
It is not a law. It is a constitutional provision. And I'm damn glad we follow it. This is exactly what I mean when I say I'm glad we do what is right, no matter what people like you think of it. (See my next response, however.)
2. You defend the law by saying that it is a "constitutional right", despite the fact that it was actually an amendment to the constitution, which implies (among other things) that the constitution can change
Absolutely. After all, what constitutes a "constitutional right" depends on the current state of the constitution, and that includes its amendments. We have a very straightforward process to alter our constitution when it proves important to do so. It's not easy to do so, of course. But I think that any constitutional scholar, no matter what their political leanings may be, would agree that it shouldn't be easy.
Furthermore, I'm definitely willing to entertain a new constitutional amendment which reduces our right to bear arms. But nothing short of a constitutional amendment will suffice, no matter how common sense the change may be. Incidentally, I don't own a weapon of any sort, unless you count my morning breath.
I just find it funny how Americans treat their constitution with all the dogma of a religious text
Hey, what can I say. Glad we can amuse you.
Yes I take the constitution (including its amendments) seriously. Frankly I think we must, or else we'll have no ground to stand on when a particular part that we believe is actually important is somehow abridged.
And *our* charter of rights and freedoms guarantees equal rights to all citizens, including homosexuals.
Whoa, I though you didn't have that much respect for constitutions? Why bother trumpeting yours?
I'll answer the question for you: because even if you don't, your country takes its constitution (or equivalent) very seriously, too. And I'm very glad that it does.
In fact, I frankly appreciate that your country has codified affirmative action in its charter of rights and freedoms. I believe that our constitution enjoins us from practicing it, although the Supreme Court these days doesn't seem to care.
I'll skip all of your other political crap, because frankly it's tangential to the central discussion. I personally believe that constitutional issues can and should transcend political leaning.
Hehe... don't you Americans know how ridiculous to the rest of the world?
I hope we Americans never make our decisions based upon whatever people think of us---but rather on what is right. Hopefully that will usually agree with the rest of the world, indeed. But if it doesn't, that's just tough. There are far too many examples in history where the consensus proved wrong.
You know, the bible is an unfalible book from 2000 years ago and it doesn't say anything about the right to gun ownership. Shouldn't that take precedence over your constitution, which is merely an infalible document from 200 years ago?
Well, this is silly, the Bible is silent about a lot of things, particularly of modern origin. Am I sinning by using a computer, since the Bible doesn't say I have the right to use one? Or since the Bible makes no mention of the Internet, is the enjoyment of Internet porn exempt from its admonitions against sexual immorality?
Besides, the God of the Bible is hardly a pacifist, as even a cursory look at the Old Testament will reveal. And though Jesus did talk about peace in certain contexts ("Blessed are the peacemakers", "those who draw the sword shall die by the sword", etc.), the following suggest that it's not that simple:
Jesus: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34
Jesus, to his disciples: "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Luke 22:36
[Does this mean we should alter our Constitution to provide the right to bear swords? That would be very interesting.]
Paul, speaking about civil government: "For [the ruler] is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." Romans 13:4
[Incidentally, it is popularly believed that Nero was in power when Paul wrote this. So he could not have been limiting his words to benevolent, democratically-elected governments. In fact, he was referring to a government that was rather unfriendly towards Christians by that point.]
Now look, I am not arguing that the Bible supports gun ownership. But that is only as ludicrous as the idea that it condemns it. It is relatively silent on the issue, and it must be decided on more subtle grounds.
More importantly, the Bible provides a benchmark for personal conduct, not governmental conduct. So while it commands people to respect and obey their government's authority, it does not prescribe what that authority should look like.
The fact is, the economy was O.K (It was at least stable, if shrinking slightly) when Clinton was in power.
I think we agree on much of our thinking regarding this current economy, but I disagree with this statement. The economy under Clinton seemed OK at the time, but it wasn't: it was a bubble just waiting for the right moment to burst. I think now we have to look back on the tech boom and the Internet craze as a rather anomolous and unhealthy phase---unhealthy because people acted (and spended) under the assumption it was here for the long haul.
For example, I don't blame the current economy on our huge deficit in the California state budget; I blame the tremendous growth in our state's spending during this supposed boom time. Something like 30% per capita, adjusted for inflation. I mean please, that's just nuts. In contrast, the state of Colorado, which indexes the growth of its state budget to growth in population and cost of living---is having relatively few problems right now, because instead of seeing all this tax revenue during the boom time and inventing new ways to spend it, they refunded it. How sensible of them.
I think there's room for considerable debate on what we ought to be doing to get us out of this mess, whether Bush and Co. is doing a decent job, etc. But frankly anyone who doesn't think that we need to tighten the belt on our federal and (many) state governments is not credible in my book.
Radon, a lot of what you're saying resonates with me. Certainly, I would be all for a greatly simplified tax system with fewer loopholes. And I really don't have a problem with the concept of graduated tax rates so this isn't veiled support for a flat tax system.
However, I do think that it's important that we provide tax incentives for investment. Investment, both personal and corporate, is what provides the economony the liquidity and funds it needs to grow. And growth in the economy is vital to support growth in population and growth in the demands of developing countries. In addition, investment necessarily involves risk---anyone who didn't believe that 10 years ago does now!
Attractive taxation helps to encourage people to accept that risk, because of the promise that the higher returns will still be high after taxes are taken out.
So yes, attractive capital investment taxation policy will often result in rich people getting richer---but if the alternative is that people horde their money and don't invest it, I'm not sure that's a worthwhile trade.
So investment taxation shouldn't be determined solely on some debatable notion of "fairness" alone, though that should be an important part of it. But it must also take into account the need to encourage investment.
No, dividends are taxed at the (now reduced) capital gains rate, instead of the ordinary income rate.
I caught a bit of the Sean Hannity AM talk show today. He's rather outspoken, apparently, about the alleged overprescription of Ritalin, and how some school districts end up requiring treatment for anyone they deem "difficult".
Today he had actress Kelly Preston on the show as a guest. Of course she's not a medical expert; and in fact, she and her husband John Travolta are Scientologists, and don't believe in using psychoactive drugs of any kind under any circumstances.
Neverthless, she did have something very interesting to say. She suggested that there are quite a few things that could cause the symptomps of ADHD: food allergies, chemical sensitivities, lead poisoning, etc. etc. (For example, if you're ADHD, try going on a gluten-casein free diet for a few months and see what happens.) Her assertion was that instead of the knee-jerk rush to drugs, people ought to examine other avenues such as dietary changes first.
Ah, there is a big difference between this and DeCSS.
The CSS encryption standard was well known, so one could easily write a functioning DeCSS program without violating the DMCA---with one significant exception: the encryption keys were not made public. Reverse engineering was used to retrieve those keys and thereby make DeCSS a functioning program.
With PKZip, the encryption method is not known and must be reverse-engineered, but the encryption keys are externally supplied by the user. Therefore, you aren't circumventing any copy protection by reverse-engineering PKZip's protection, because you still can't "break" the copy protection of any ZIP file whose key you do not know.
We're not talking about the old password encryption methods; we're talking about the new AES-based encryption methods implemen ted in WinZip 9 and PKZip.
Yeah, VeGaS, I guess I fell for it. Cause I'm with you, it sure as heck makes no sense that someone actually believes the stuff that HanzoSan is spewing. Looks like I got fooled big time.
If i cannot afford to live on my own I consider this poor.
That is simply absurd, particularly since it is common practice in college, and even in the professional world, particularly in cities where you and I live, to have roommates.
But hey, you want to call yourself poor, go ahead---I sure am glad the government doesn't agree and base it's policies on what you consider poor, however.
Trust me, if you make $30,000 here in Boston, in San Fran, in New York etc, you arent going to have ANY extra money at all, none, all your money will be sucked dry, college, bills, fees, rent, food, You'll be lucky if you can go to the movies once a month.
I wouldn't deny that. And yet, it was your choice to live in Boston and to go to school there, where presumably your college fees are extremely high. I went to school in Austin, TX, where both the cost of living and college fees were cheaper. Did I compromise my education? Not a chance. My subsequent successes in graduate school and in the business world are evidence otherwise (although as with any success a bit of Providence is always involved). And more importantly, I left school with no debt, a burden far too many students obtain, thus giving me much more flexible options after I graduated.
I could have chosen a more expensive option; I did not. But if I had done so, I would not have the right to call myself poor---instead, I would have been guilty of failing to live within my means, and that's all.
Honestly, HanzoSan, it is clear to me that you vastly underestimate the choices that are available to you. You have made your choices, and you don't like the consequences---and yet you refuse to believe that there were any alternatives.
I'm done here. You're welcome to the last word if you want it.
Best of luck to you.
I'm in college. I cannot afford rent unless its with roomates.
Horror of horrors! You have to have roommates? Sir, during my college years, I lived on an income which was approximately a third of what you are making now. I paid rent (with roommates), I ate food, I drank beer, I paid tuition, I bought books, I bought gas... and I graduated with no debt.
Now this was in 1986-1990; but even indexed for inflation, it doesn't come close to what you claim to be making now. So it is truly invalid for you to suggest that I don't understand what you're talking about.
$30,000 is poor, I'm not asking you for pity, but $30,000 while you can survive and pay rent, you arent living comfortable.
You have a very distorted view of poverty. You are not "poor" just because you are not "comfortable," particularly if you are the one that gets to define "comfort." You are not "poor" just because you can't do all the things you wish you could do. There are no Constitutional guarantees on "comfort." The very fact that you can afford the time to spout off on SlashDot as much as you do is evidence against your supposed poverty.
So let's look at some more reasonable measures of poverty. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a single person with an annual income of $8980 is considered poor. Now some federal programs that support the poor actually use a threshold that is 185 perect of that, which comes to $16613. The U.S. Census puts the poverty threshold for 2001 at $9214 if you're under 65.
If we look internationally, your idea that $30K is poor sounds even more absurd. Guess what, the average income level is above $30K in only 8 or 9 countries in the world. It is below that average in 200 other countries. You pay $1000 a month in rent? Well, the average per capita income is below $1000 a year in over 70 countries in the world. (World Bank Data)
The first thing people say when I tell them rent is $1000 a month is "well why dont you move?" Move where? To the ghetto? The trailer park? Dont you know people dont make $30,000 there? So I'd be even worse off living in some ghetto where everyone works at mc donalds or some place, than in Boston or Silicon Valley where all the jobs are.
More proof of your distorted point of view! There are plenty of people outside of large, expensive areas like Boston or San Francisco working decent jobs and living in very reasonable accomodations on $30K a year or less. Your claim just patently false. You've made your choice to live in a more expensive place on less income that you would like to have.
Don't fool yourself that you have no choice, that you can't make changes to improve your situation.
What you dont understand is, someone who cannot even afford the cost of living expensives should not be paying taxes, if you cannot afford to eat and pay rent why the hell should you pay taxes?
Wrong, I do understand, from personal experience. I admitted I make decent money now, but did I say it was always that way? Besides, given your quote below, I simply do not believe that you fit in the category of someone who cannot afford to eat and pay rent. Emphasis mine:
Its bad enough people who are single like me making $30,000 pay more in taxes than we get in disposable income, meaning the government spends more of our money than we do.
You're not going to get any pity from me for making only $30K, unless you have some severe, recurring medical expenses that you did not mention (but which would reduce your tax burden anyway). I've been at that level of income, and not that long ago. For awhile, I was broke. Taxes weren't the reason I was broke; I was broke because I spent more than I took in. I was broke because I vastly underestimated, like I suspect you are doing, how much "disposable income" I had. Much of it was going towards a nicer car, or a nicer apartment, or more frequent restaurant outings than I could financially justify.
So I can safely say that for a single guy, $30K is more than enough to eat and pay rent. Of course, it's tighter in a high-rent area like Silicon Valley, but I managed it. And if you don't want to just "manage it", there are places in this country where the $30K would be enough to live quite decently.
Furthermore, you are completely proving my point. You are pissed off because the government takes too much of your money. You should be pissed off about that: that our government spends too much of your money. If you didn't pay any taxes, would you really care?
Why don't those people who feel they are getting reamed by the government, and who believe that it is forcing them to make difficult compromises in their living situation, blame the government for being too big and costly?
I (married, 1 child) got a massive refund from the government this year (ie, I overpaid and they're giving me back the extra). Should I not get a check for $400?
That depends. After you subtract that refund from the total tax you paid out, is the remainder larger than $400?
If so, yes you should get the check.
If not, no you should not. You should not get back any more than you paid.
And that's the point. What's going on here is that people with incomes between $10-$25K, and who were already receiving the $600 child tax credit, are already paying zero in the final analysis. Apparently it is a serious injustice that they actually have to pay $0 in taxes!
Now admittedly there are some lower-income folks---specifically, those with no kids and who therefore are not eligible for the tax credit---who are paying taxes now and are not benefiting from this tax cut. But those people are in the lowest (10%) tax bracket, and had their taxes cut dramatically a couple of years ago when their tax rate was reduced from 15%.
And that brings me to my final point: I believe that everyone who makes money should pay at least some income tax, even if it is a small percentage. I have no problem with the notion of a graduated income tax, where those who make more money pay a larger percentage. And I say this as someone in a higher tax bracket, so it is against my self interest to believe so.
But what I do have a problem with is with an effectively 0% tax bracket. This "0% tax bracket" creates a class of people who have no financial "investment" in our government, and therefore no self-interest in insuring that it practices fiscal responsibility. I think that everyone who lives and works in this country needs to have that psychological sense of contribution. It doesn't have to be big, it just needs to be there. (I mean, let's face it, with the top 50% of taxpayers paying 96% of the taxes, the only effect this can have is psychological.)
Fortunately, I know that people see the Social Security deductions as a "tax". I don't, I see it as a forced retirement savings plan (not that I like that). But I imagine that the Social Security deduction does have the psychological effect I'm looking for above.
The second is that I see this as another step on the way toward a completely human-less battlefield.
Never happen. Oh yeah, sure, we might have robots duke it out, but if nobody dies, then all we're basically fighting is an economic battle---and we already do that all the time. And when one is faced with the possible loss of a robbot battle, a most sensible tactic (from the standpoint of winning the war) will be to start going after "soft targets"---i.e., people.
War will always be bloody.
No, the original poster is right. In order to maintain scientific integrity and consistency, you must be willing to accept the truth or falsity of two equivalent claims with equivalent amounts of evidence, even if one claim is less "plausible" than the other.
But the key is this: a claim is plausible if most of the evidence required to prove it is already known and accepted by the skeptic. In other words, the same amount of evidence is required, but for implausible claims, more of it is lacking.
Imagine someone shows you a picture of a mouse in their backyard. The fact that mice are alive and scurry through backyards is proven. You'd be inclined to accept this man's story with a simple picture of the event. Now this person claims an alien is in their back yard. Aliens have never been proven to exist, and therefore have not been proven to have landed on Earth -- ever. If someone makes this claim, it would be an extraordinary claim.
Yes it would. But in both cases, the following evidence is required to prove the claim: evidence that
--- said creatures exist
--- said creatures scurry in backyards
--- one such creature did so at the time and place claimed.
Now for mice, a skeptic is likely to concede that the first two pieces of evidence are readily known and accepted. For aliens, the skeptic would make no such concession.
But again, in the end, the same amount of evidence is needed; but more of that evidence is lacking in the case of the alien.
Look at it this way: what if you grew up in such a way that you had never heard of a mouse? Suddenly the claimant has more work to do before you'll believe a mouse was in his backyard!
Survey grade GPS doesn't always need absolute accuracy. Indeed, when it does, centimeter accuracy is not all that practical, as you point out. But usually it needs only relative accuracy. And the distortion of tectonic plates occurs much more slowly than their motion, at least if you're reasonably far from a plate interface.
So for example, your second hypothetical case is easily dismissed---because if your neighbor's fence moved 45cm, then so did the walls of your house, and the fence on the other side of your property!
Actually, most American mobile phone service plans are effectively flat rate. Service plans include a certain number of included minutes, so for a fixed monthly price you can pick a plan that completely covers your usage habits. You can even get unlimited long distance (within the U.S.) included in your plan as well. Plans often include "freebies" such as free mobile-to-mobile minutes or free off-peak minutes as well. I would wager that in the final analysis, cel phone costs end up being reasonably competitive in the U.S.
And don't forget, we still have decent landline service. Local service is flat rate unlimited, and long distance is getting cheaper every day; I've seen rates as low as 2 cents per minute. With DSL doing reasonably well a lot of us aren't giving up the copper any time soon. So while some people have ditched their landline as their primary phone, most of us haven't. We don't give our mobile phone number out willy nilly. So when we receive a call on our mobile, it's someone that we don't mind burning our minutes with.
So I'd say that the U.S. market is doing a reasonable job of responding to customer demand and the different technological setting in the U.S.
To me there's no need to explain this statement at all. It's a lot easier to assume that Morpheus just didn't know what he was talking about. After all, there are lots of things about reality that he (and everyone else) didn't know, like what year it was. So I think that the "freed" humans figured out most of the obvious details, guessed on the rest---and got some of them wrong.