(He also said it's important for the Web not to simply become an instrument to spread unfounded rumors and conspiracy theories. One of his goals is to make the Web a system in which scientists can share data and information more effectively.)
In other words, its a right but we need people, most likely like him, who control what it used for because obviously there are too many people who don't exercise this right "correctly". So we have yet another intellectual looking down on us, out to protect us from the big bad corporations but also from ourselves. Well, doesn't that sound like every politician who comes down the pipe?
Call the web a right appeals to like thinking people, it is meaningless in a world where so many don't even have access to clean water all the time, let alone adequate food. I think a better right would be to give all people washing machines. Go google the TED video on that subject and see people who have more of a clue than this guy.
[T]he measure applies only to companies and some nonprofit groups, not to the federal, state, and local police agencies that have adopted high-tech surveillance technologies including cell phone tracking, GPS bugs, and requests to Internet companies for users’ personal information–in many cases without obtaining a search warrant from a judge. ---
In other words, the government seems keen on protecting us from ourselves while opening us to them by any means. It really comes down to crafting laws with safe sounding names all in an effort to circumvent the Constitution. As most realize, Congress's favorite activity of the last fifty or so years has been how to get around the limits our Founding Fathers placed on the Federal Government.
People always love to toss out the excuse that game (software) piracy exists mainly because of cost. Yet we see many examples where people will pirate (steal) items with 99 cent prices like those on the App store.
If you "understand" pirating a $50 game then you would understand pirating a $10 game. Justification on price is odd because your still excusing theft? I will assume the price points are merely the level at which you would succumb to the temptation, in other words, where you would feel justified in it?
As for sticking it to the publisher or the "man", again its another misdirection used to excuse oneself of responsibility. When taking has so little threat of recrimination far too many will take. It is no different than looting after a disaster.
There is no bailout this year and Obama's budget is still EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO BILLION MORE just in deficit spending than Bush's last budget.
In all truth, does it really matter what Bush did? Are we such children that we can excuse our behavior by resorting to the old kid routine of "Billy did it" or "Mikey did that"? Is that what people have devolved back too?
Look, one third of his budget is DEFICIT spending. Meaning, we don't have that dollar and have to borrow it. We could tax all income over 250k at 100% and still not close that gap by half. Its impossible when spending is completely out of line with reality.
Why Clinton was successful is because he had real opposition in Congress. Newt and his gang back then actually meant what they said. Not this bunch of Washington insiders we have today who only care to keep their jobs. I am not taking anything away from Clinton, however the best thing that ever happened to him was for the Republicans to have complete control of Congress. It made both sides have to work with each other.
Obama doesn't have that advantage, or should I say we don't have that advantage. Obama has Reid which means he doesn't have to come to the table EVER. He can just let Reid keep any chance of good budget with hard decisions off the table which seems to be the hallmark of his Presidency, which is never to make a hard decision and get someone else to do it. Hence he is a failure.
What really goes without saying is that to fix the federal budget is that entitlement programs need to be addressed head on. This includes the new Health Care law which will only compound the issue. Until we get a President and a Congress willing to tackle entitlements we will never have progress. Instead they will play each side off each other with impunity come election day.
I am all for a smaller military, why should we defend Europe, Japan, and South Korea. They are big boys, let them pay their own way. Get out us of Iraq, we are done there. Carrier flotillas are just big targets and we certainly don't need as many as we have. Yet we must also cut deeply into Social Security and Medicare by reforming the process. Income taxes must be lowered at the top while at the same time taxing Capital gains as income. Simply roll capital gains into income taxes and be done with it, a nice 25% cap on income tax with both combined would sort the field out.
There are many solutions but none are going to get anywhere when we have a President who does not have to work with the other side. Reid gives him that out. So until we get both sides of government into opposite hands we are toast.
but if it is hating what he represents then I say " HELL YEAH "
The current budget is EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX BILLION DOLLARS higher than Bush's last year in office. This is what Obama represents to me. He got in under the guise of change, no more Washington as usual. Well he did give us change, change in the wrong direction.
He was offering no cuts during this process, he was offering platitudes and misdirecting public anger at the process by claiming Republicans were only interested in cutting if they could hurt people. Completely dishonest in the whole. Reid and Pelosi, two Congressmen that should have been taken to the woodshed for skipping out on their lawful requirement to have had this budget passed LAST YEAR. They didn't because they didn't want to be honest with the American people. Apparently the Democratic party is about. Without an official budget they didn't have to declare anything. They could just ad hoc fund what they wanted making it near impossible for the American people to understand what money was being spent on.
Would we miss the D. of Ed? Probably not, it has overseen no improvement in education since its founding under Carter. Can we afford to cut the defense budget, CERTAINLY. Why are we defending Europe? Let alone trying to fight three wars? Why do we need so many floating targets; carriers? Take the money from ridding us of the DOE and give it to states as block grants. Let them meet standards set but without the government finding eighty ways to do the same thing and getting nothing done. The D. of Energy ain't far behind.
The amount of money they are talking about cutting is less than the INTEREST we are paying this year on the Federal Deficit. Congressman Ryan at least has made a real attempt at righting this government. They question is, can he do it? Will it take a Tea Party organization or similar to push Congress to do what is right? Where is the Left's equivalent of the Tea Party, a group trying to get government out of our lives and back into serving the people instead of controlling them?
As for tax cuts. This problem cannot be fixed by ending the "Bush tax cuts". We can tax every dollar made by people over 250,000 a year and still not get the deficit down by half. Does that give anyone a clue as to the problem? It is all about spending. We already bring in more taxes than we should yet we spend more as deficit spending than some other G7 countries spend correctly.
It is quite documented that their adherents do the threatening and bullying for them. I seem to recall more than one sitting Congressmen of the Democratic sort making stupid comments and threats. Their supporters certainly do. If your telling me they have nothing to do with the SEIU or that their followers in Wisconsin don't count then I guess your definition of the Democratic party must be pretty damn narrow.
Both sides have their loons, to claim it is the domain of one party to make threats is just plain ignorance or playing to the certain elements of Slashdot. I don't have the time to google all the examples for you, but if you take your nose out of Huffington Post you might see the truth.
Karma be damned, what passes for insightful on this site is downright hilarious.
Really it seems to be what most of it turns into. Far too many were willing to take anything "but Bush"; and many true conservatives were in the camp of anyone but McCain yet we still had our senses and would never vote for Obama; that as soon as the press piled on no one else in the Democratic party had a chance. Sorry, but Hillary would have made a much better President. This guy really comes off as someone who could step outside in the rain and not decide that its raining.
We have near record prices at the pump, we have very high unemployment, we have the Libyan issue, Gitmo, the Bush started wars, and we have deficit spending at a level I don't even think Bush would have tried. Yet what we don't have is a press willing to take Obama on. They seem to still be enamored with him. At least when we had Bush in office we could count on the press to constantly ride his ass over every little thing. While it got tiresome on some fronts it kept people informed as to what was going on and what was being done. Hell, where are all the Democrats screaming about gasoline prices now? Can you imagine the outrage if Bush had said "get used to it?"
The last thing America needs is a President the press likes, the worst possible outcome is a President they are essentially in love with. Obama comes of as Bush Squared. Meaning, if it was bad under Bush it is just as bad under Obama if not worse. Hell, I think he managed to pick an AG worse than than Bush.
With the Republicans in charge of Congress I was hoping that Obama would wake up and try to lead. Before the losses in 10 he was overly willing to allow Democratic leadership to run amok in Congress and lead on any idea he wanted. He would not make decisions, define the goal, or even try to compromise. As such we got abominations of bills and no clear leadership. We had a Congress which REFUSED to submit a budget for consideration simply because the Democratic leadership at the time did not want to deal with it during an election year and suddenly if you asked the press it is all the Republican's fault for not passing what should have been passed LAST YEAR under Pelosi.
No, we need to get back to Presidents the press don't like. I know it sounds like a negative but the point is, the very people that many Americans need to provide them the truth about their government apparently need incentive to investigate it.
This Presidency is more about Wall Street and big money than Bush ever was. There are rumors of a BILLION dollar reelection campaign. Tell me how that is representative of main street and the American people.
As for accomplishments. I find them all neutered simply because of the deficit and the his lack of trying to fix it. We cannot tax our way out of it, we could take 100% of the earnings above 250k per year for those who earn it and still not reduce it by half. We simply spend too much and very few on either side of the aisle are even trying to do anything about it.
The real truth of the matter is, the Democrats while in power refused to pass a budget for this fiscal year. Worse they refused to even submit one to the floor all because they were afraid of the ramifications of doing so before the election. In other words, if they had submitted their budget they would have had to campaign with that large deficit number hanging over their heads.
I am all for a government shut down, the problem I have is the press is still giving Obama a free pass. When the press decides to come back to the side of the public and keep Obama honest we might see some progress. Right now they are making this all out to be a Republican anti-(insert minority group/poor here) issue instead of pointing out that if Pelosi had not purposefully ignored her duty we would be fighting over the FY2012 now instead of fighting over something that should have been in place before the election.
why anyone would use an OS calling itself secure (or website for that matter) where you could "reverse" out the password. It boggles my mind that many websites already store in clear text or with grade school encryption.
As to the poster above you, it certainly would make some IBM systems I work with that are used in a web environment illegal, there is no possible way on one of the OSes used in my shop to reverse the password or crack it with access to the system. It would be far easier to just guess it based on what is on the user's desk.
Its a lack of self responsibility fed by government entitlement programs that will only get worse as more and more are shifted to public support. We should be doing our best to encourage everyone to live a long and healthy life. Writing people off because it costs us less is inhumane. Why not right off the disabled then as well?
Simple fact, the tax on tobacco is dishonest. If it is such a health threat why is it still legal to buy and sell?
Your study looked at their health costs, what about the other costs to support these people in society? What about loss productivity and the costs of that passed on from employers to every customer? What about the effects of second hand smoke? How do we justify their short term higher costs by claiming that since they cost less over a lifetime it all works out?
What about their effects on their children? Do people who live unhealthy lives not influence their children? How about smokers and their own children? Do not fat people have unhealthy food in house to lead to a whole new generation of fat people?
So yeah, their is a problem. Claiming they cost less overall is a falsehood because it does not look at the effect these people have on others around them, especially any children they have
In an age where far too many people are clamoring for "other guy" to pay for services they want it is good to see someone saying, well if your going to ask others to take care of you here are some ground rules. If you want someone to pay for it then they will, however there are some requirements you must meet as well. Frankly, asking people to adhere to weight control programs, take smoking cessation courses, and in general live a healthy life, is not too much to ask. We have far too many people who have no issue asking someone else to pick up the tab. What makes many of them worse is that far too many continue on with similar bad habits. Not only are they not financially self responsible they treat their bodies the same way. They simply act as if someone else will fix it. They will just pop into the doctors office for their cough, their bad knees and ankles, and demand treatment. When the doctor helps them and then tells them what they need to do to prevent it far too many will tell the doctor to mind his own business.
In my work, where the majority of people are middle and upper middle class, it is common to find those who bitch about their contribution to their medical plans. Hell we have some complain that they company doesn't contribute more to their retirement. Yet you rarely find the case with these people where they aren't under a permanent cell phone contract of some sort usually on the order of $100 or more; have an expensive car or worse a lease payment, and then top it off with all sorts of other expenses. When did we become a society where self gratification took precedence over responsibility to self and others? I know people in their fifties who are not saving for retirement or are making a piddling attempt all the while burning money on frivolous stuff.
When the government starts to reach resistance in its borrowing it will be cutting programs right and left. It behooves everyone to save for their future because you cannot guarantee that all the things promised you by politicians will be three when you need them. You must also accept that unless Washington takes steps to correct its spending (we have more debt spending than some G7 countries have total spending) that you will have far less to spend on anything.
So get your health in line. If it takes a kick in the pants to get people to do that, or should I say I kick in the wallet, then its a good thing. Grow the hell up. Its your body, you are in the best position to take care of it. It is just sad some people require prodding if not penalties just to do what is right for themselves.
because it truly exposes the real problem in government. Government employee pay is out of control. We have judges retiring in Georgia who make over 100K in retirement, some are close to 200K and they just tens of thousands of government employees retiring with 100k per pay packages. This does not include the cost of their health care or other sundries.
While the focus is currently on unionized government employees the real fight is to reign them all in. If the problems we have at the state level in Georgia are a good example can you imagine what it is like with all 50 states and then topping that off with Federal and local government employees? Yes the guys at the bottom don't have it as good and I have no problem with an acceptable amount of pay and retirement pay. Yet the papers are replete nationally with stories of fire fighters, policemen, and teachers with retirements from 60k to the mid 100k. Guess who isn't being drummed to death over this, the politicians signing off on this. Why? Because they don't want it out that they have it even better than the guys that taking the heat now.
This is what is awakening the public. While the Tea Party gets focus for dragging some of this out because of the candidates they supported all Americans benefit knowing what is being done. Like the treasury example of how they don't think the costs of living are rising because they don't measure the staples what we see here is the total disconnect the government has from reality.
We are living in a country where the truly privileged are the very people we expect to look out for us. While they attack the very wealthy via class warfare they live in an OZ world where we are not supposed to look behind the curtain. We have more deficit spending per year than many G7 countries have total budget but all we see is politicians being vilified for trying to get only $100 billion in cuts - we will lose more than that in interest payments this year!
This guy is just another idiot, like the Chicago doctor who could not live off of 350k. They live beyond their means because they don't think they are part of regular America - they are the "smart ones" - the ones born to lead or do the "hard" work and gloss over their failings by blaming us.
You think the federal debt is bad, go hunt up our pension liabilities, let alone current costs of just paying for the people who run this place
especially with the nationwide health care bill what did you expect?
The system will allow people to forgo insurance until they are sick. This is akin to crashing your car and then buying insurance and filing a claim. As such, insurance companies need to come up with methods to better manage those they are covering to buffer against those who will abuse the system.
The real problem of course is, people have no incentive to care about their health. Oh, I know, but you say, who doesn't care about their health. Its a matter of degrees. Tell me how many tubbies you know who think they need to change. OK, now tell me how many are doing something about it. When health care's cost do not directly affect the people using it a large number will do nothing to improve their health. They already have been forgiven the responsibility of paying for their health care and quickly associate that with, if anything goes wrong they won't have to pay for that either. Hence the costs are purposely forced upon those who do pay and the companies managing it. Its a perfect system designed to force people out of private insurance for the exact fear you espouse.
So time to break out the predictions. It should not be too hard to get a few things down quickly, there are issues that are attributable based on race, sex, and known health issues (weight, smoking, etc), then compare to results from actual visits if any. It would be a fascinating project. I don't know why anyone is surprised by any of this, my only surprise is that these are not common place now.
Ask yourself this : Why should someone pay for your healthcare if your not an active participant in improving your own health. Then realize that a sizable portion will tell you to go F off all the while not screwing over themselves by not doing anything or worse doing the wrong things.
If Congress truly wanted to prove themselves to the American people to be above it all they would ban any contribution of any kind from K-Street to any member of Congress or their families. Further more, they would forbid the same from ever working for such organizations. However I doubt this will come, it will take influence outside of the Democrat or Republican parties.
Yet both are deft at playing people off each other, getting people to focus on the other party, which thereby keeps them in power. When groups rise up outside of their control you can tell as the media will line up and protect their investment, along with all the powers on Wall Street. The American public are only allowed to rise when commanded and when they dare do so on their own the entire establishment comes down in force. Unfortunately too many buy into it and side with the very people keeping them under the thumb of two political parties corrupt beyond repair.
If you voting for a party your voting for your loss of freedom
infringes on your free speech? Well you can't have kiddy porn so are people infringing on your rights?
No? Or is it based on what you consider right and wrong? Can we apply all our ideas of right and wrong on another society? Oh sure I agree there are some things that should not be tolerated that we might get 90% of the world to agree on, however the big problems are
1) we don't all have the same values 2) we are asking corporations to do something our own government won't do
I understand #2, it is far easier to go after someone who can't jail you, activist tend to take the path of least resistance these days which is to attack big corporations instead of the governments which enabled them
So I guess those who don't have all your advantages can just take a flying leap?
So your going to wave your magic wand and fix public transportation, then prevent people from living where you deem they should not be allowed to live, then blame the free market for not doing it right (read : YOUR WAY) so you can probably come back with an end run and regulate housing, jobs, and transportation in one fell swoop. All this because its obvious these poor miscreants should just throw in the towel and live off the state because they don't measure up.
WOW. Let me give you a clue. There will always be many professions which require their own transportation. There will be many professions which provide services people want that will never pay enough for those who provide the services to live where the services are needed. There will always be people, hopefully a majority forever, who will resist those who seek to control their lives.
I tend to find people with opinions like yours to be hateful and arrogant. No one measures up to your ideals and therefor they must be FORCED to do so. Damn personal freedom because you will always find someway to claim that the expression of that freedom is dooming everyone else.
Your world was attempted more than once, in many cities this meant housing complexes for the poor which became centers of crime and filth which all the altruist turned their heads away because it obviously wasn't their fault these poor people didn't succeed after all, they were giving shelter, schools, and transportation, only if they would agree to live in a giant cement box reminiscent of a prison. Top it off with the fact they were usually located away from "civilized" people so that their sorrows could be easily ignored. Why it wasn't the benefactors fault and if Poor Joe could not show up at 8AM for his scheduled job cutting the grass it no one would go see why and try to fix the problem, no they would simply assert their belief that it was proof that Poor Joe could not live without being handed all these benefits - as long as he stayed over there and only came when called.
Yeah, sorry, but the story is always the same. Too many people want to tell others how to live and when those others dare not to obey those others are destroying the world for the perfect people. People usually well enough off not to suffer from any of the inconveniences they want to foist unto others
Googling the story title will usually reveal the whole story minus the subscription notice.
Other sites that require simple registration can usually be circumvented with sites like bugmenot.
All in all, their attempts to embargo information will not easily be met unless those who produce the browsers and possibly the operating systems cooperate. In closed environments, iOs is a great example, they will have much better luck but even then as long as the support browsers in those environments ways abound.
Pay their fair share, oh my. However am I going to survive the kharma hit for this one.
YOU IDIOT, CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES EVER!
Now for the nice side. Tell me, where does a corporation get its money to operate?
From consumers of its products.
Now, where does a corporation get the money it pays in taxes?
From consumers of its products.
What we have here and the class warfare ideologues always miss whether on purpose for redirecting ire from their favorite politicians or because of self ignorance which was beaten into them by the same politicians is one simple fact.
A tax on a corporation is an indirect tax on the consumer of that corporations product. This tax can be buried many levels deep as obviously not everyone makes use of every corporations services but someone does somewhere and eventually we all hit each other.
You an I pay taxes. We do it on every purchase we make whether or not there is direct sales tax on the purchase. We pay indirectly every tax bill of every corporation we do business with. This is how it has always has been.
The real crime in this story about GE is that they NEED 975 tax accountants just to pay or not pay taxes. Think about that, nearly a thousand people who produce nothing but instead are there to make a system work. Now while not all companies are as large as GE think of how many tax accountants are required to operate businesses in the US. Now think how much more production we could have if just half the people involved in taxation were instead producing goods and services.
THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE IRS'S BUDGET IS NEARLY AS LARGE AS NASA'S!
So why not stop this taxation of corporations. Because politicians know the holy hell they would be in for if people saw just how much they really paid. See we can kid ourselves and believe that 20 to 30% is OK for taxes. We can guilt ourselves into it. We cannot however guilt ourselves into accepting that plus nearly 20% more indirect taxes we pay. A progressive tax system with a "corporate tax" layer is all about deflecting attention from the tax load the people actually pay. There is nothing fair about it and never can their be fairness because it is purposefully obfuscated.
Still there is an answer, a consumption tax. Drop income taxes, drop fake corporate taxes, and tax consumption. Determine the proper costs to feed, shelter, and cloth a person or family and refund that the first of each month to all heads of households. A consumption tax will get the people who spend money. It will get those who have millions and want to spend it. They won't have their offshore accounts to hide their profits because there is no tax benefit to do so.
I can leave doors open all day, I have left windows on the lower level of my home open all day, simply because of where I live which is the suburbs
Big city schools, yeah that is where its at, if at is graduating a small portion of your students and generally getting stomped by most schools in surrounding counties for GPA/SAT and graduation rates. Top it off with more chances for gang activity and I think you begin to see why people might not want to live in them.
You live your life and let the rest live theirs. NYC is special because of rent control and the like which has gone further than many other cities. Or perhaps you would prefer San Francisco which has nicely driven nearly all blacks from the town by pricing them out of the mark with new building rules and restrictions on what can go where.
Cities work for some people, they don't work for everyone. Atlanta is almost to racial parity but is that a good thing? It is a simple reason really, the city is getting too expensive for the poor to live in it and the poor are majority minority here. Yet people say "move to the city" which brings more yuppies who tear down or gut nice row homes jacking the costs to live in the neighborhood
Back to the story. It was to be expected with the push for better mileage vehicles that the method of taxation must change. Why they need meters I will never know, they can just do inspections and check your mileage. Of course with meters and GPS they can tell which roads you used. It all comes down to one thing.
Instead of spending the money they get and doing well with it they are forever looking for new sources and usually spending it before they get it .
Well if anything the proper way would be to count iOS tablet sales separately from Mac OS X sales. Combining the two is not correct as they are not compatible. When I can seamlessly run apps between both then perhaps you can count them together.
Figures don't lie but liars do figure.
fwiw I own both an iPad and iMac. I don't consider Mac OS X dominant, I only switched when I could get a native version of MS Office
Only Blizzard will kill World of Warcraft; some will say the latest expansion was a major attempt at doing that; and while GW2 looks very nice it still is a PvP centric MMO which don't do well in America. Blizzard succeeded wildly with both the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions because they made content accessible to the majority of players. The game became very friendly towards even those who did not make it a second job. This put them so far over the top I really doubt Guild Wars 2 will do much more gather up all the WOW haters for a few months. See, WOW's other area of success is the end game raids.
So what if GW2 has supposedly done away with the old quest system, if there isn't something to do once you have level capped other than PvP it won't hold a majorities interest. Pretty games sell boxes but they don't hold people. After watching the demo movie I have one immediate comment, goodness I hope not everyone LOOKS like Legolas, the second being, whatever. Didn't really show me much. As for all types having the ability to self heal, unfortunately WOW has slipped that in to a degree recently and RIFT seems to do it as well.
So most likely it will come down to RIFT versus GW for the same people, but I do not see any PvP focused MMO dominating WOW anytime soon; yeah I know about the Korean ones but they aren't in the same market
Slashdot Mirror
(He also said it's important for the Web not to simply become an instrument to spread unfounded rumors and conspiracy theories. One of his goals is to make the Web a system in which scientists can share data and information more effectively.)
In other words, its a right but we need people, most likely like him, who control what it used for because obviously there are too many people who don't exercise this right "correctly". So we have yet another intellectual looking down on us, out to protect us from the big bad corporations but also from ourselves. Well, doesn't that sound like every politician who comes down the pipe?
Call the web a right appeals to like thinking people, it is meaningless in a world where so many don't even have access to clean water all the time, let alone adequate food. I think a better right would be to give all people washing machines. Go google the TED video on that subject and see people who have more of a clue than this guy.
will fix all of this, oh wait, by the standard of law naming in Congress this will do the opposite of what it claims.
See http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/112_SN_799.html and http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-privacy-bill-of-rights-is-in-the-bill-of-rights/
[T]he measure applies only to companies and some nonprofit groups, not to the federal, state, and local police agencies that have adopted high-tech surveillance technologies including cell phone tracking, GPS bugs, and requests to Internet companies for users’ personal information–in many cases without obtaining a search warrant from a judge.
---
In other words, the government seems keen on protecting us from ourselves while opening us to them by any means. It really comes down to crafting laws with safe sounding names all in an effort to circumvent the Constitution. As most realize, Congress's favorite activity of the last fifty or so years has been how to get around the limits our Founding Fathers placed on the Federal Government.
People always love to toss out the excuse that game (software) piracy exists mainly because of cost. Yet we see many examples where people will pirate (steal) items with 99 cent prices like those on the App store.
If you "understand" pirating a $50 game then you would understand pirating a $10 game. Justification on price is odd because your still excusing theft? I will assume the price points are merely the level at which you would succumb to the temptation, in other words, where you would feel justified in it?
As for sticking it to the publisher or the "man", again its another misdirection used to excuse oneself of responsibility. When taking has so little threat of recrimination far too many will take. It is no different than looting after a disaster.
No, it just means that besides Director Cuts and Extended Cuts, we can now have Fast, Faster, and Fastest Cuts.
There is no bailout this year and Obama's budget is still EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO BILLION MORE just in deficit spending than Bush's last budget.
In all truth, does it really matter what Bush did? Are we such children that we can excuse our behavior by resorting to the old kid routine of "Billy did it" or "Mikey did that"? Is that what people have devolved back too?
Look, one third of his budget is DEFICIT spending. Meaning, we don't have that dollar and have to borrow it. We could tax all income over 250k at 100% and still not close that gap by half. Its impossible when spending is completely out of line with reality.
Why Clinton was successful is because he had real opposition in Congress. Newt and his gang back then actually meant what they said. Not this bunch of Washington insiders we have today who only care to keep their jobs. I am not taking anything away from Clinton, however the best thing that ever happened to him was for the Republicans to have complete control of Congress. It made both sides have to work with each other.
Obama doesn't have that advantage, or should I say we don't have that advantage. Obama has Reid which means he doesn't have to come to the table EVER. He can just let Reid keep any chance of good budget with hard decisions off the table which seems to be the hallmark of his Presidency, which is never to make a hard decision and get someone else to do it. Hence he is a failure.
What really goes without saying is that to fix the federal budget is that entitlement programs need to be addressed head on. This includes the new Health Care law which will only compound the issue. Until we get a President and a Congress willing to tackle entitlements we will never have progress. Instead they will play each side off each other with impunity come election day.
I am all for a smaller military, why should we defend Europe, Japan, and South Korea. They are big boys, let them pay their own way. Get out us of Iraq, we are done there. Carrier flotillas are just big targets and we certainly don't need as many as we have. Yet we must also cut deeply into Social Security and Medicare by reforming the process. Income taxes must be lowered at the top while at the same time taxing Capital gains as income. Simply roll capital gains into income taxes and be done with it, a nice 25% cap on income tax with both combined would sort the field out.
There are many solutions but none are going to get anywhere when we have a President who does not have to work with the other side. Reid gives him that out. So until we get both sides of government into opposite hands we are toast.
but if it is hating what he represents then I say " HELL YEAH "
The current budget is EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX BILLION DOLLARS higher than Bush's last year in office. This is what Obama represents to me. He got in under the guise of change, no more Washington as usual. Well he did give us change, change in the wrong direction.
He was offering no cuts during this process, he was offering platitudes and misdirecting public anger at the process by claiming Republicans were only interested in cutting if they could hurt people. Completely dishonest in the whole. Reid and Pelosi, two Congressmen that should have been taken to the woodshed for skipping out on their lawful requirement to have had this budget passed LAST YEAR. They didn't because they didn't want to be honest with the American people. Apparently the Democratic party is about. Without an official budget they didn't have to declare anything. They could just ad hoc fund what they wanted making it near impossible for the American people to understand what money was being spent on.
Would we miss the D. of Ed? Probably not, it has overseen no improvement in education since its founding under Carter. Can we afford to cut the defense budget, CERTAINLY. Why are we defending Europe? Let alone trying to fight three wars? Why do we need so many floating targets; carriers? Take the money from ridding us of the DOE and give it to states as block grants. Let them meet standards set but without the government finding eighty ways to do the same thing and getting nothing done. The D. of Energy ain't far behind.
The amount of money they are talking about cutting is less than the INTEREST we are paying this year on the Federal Deficit. Congressman Ryan at least has made a real attempt at righting this government. They question is, can he do it? Will it take a Tea Party organization or similar to push Congress to do what is right? Where is the Left's equivalent of the Tea Party, a group trying to get government out of our lives and back into serving the people instead of controlling them?
As for tax cuts. This problem cannot be fixed by ending the "Bush tax cuts". We can tax every dollar made by people over 250,000 a year and still not get the deficit down by half. Does that give anyone a clue as to the problem? It is all about spending. We already bring in more taxes than we should yet we spend more as deficit spending than some other G7 countries spend correctly.
It is quite documented that their adherents do the threatening and bullying for them. I seem to recall more than one sitting Congressmen of the Democratic sort making stupid comments and threats. Their supporters certainly do. If your telling me they have nothing to do with the SEIU or that their followers in Wisconsin don't count then I guess your definition of the Democratic party must be pretty damn narrow.
Both sides have their loons, to claim it is the domain of one party to make threats is just plain ignorance or playing to the certain elements of Slashdot. I don't have the time to google all the examples for you, but if you take your nose out of Huffington Post you might see the truth.
Karma be damned, what passes for insightful on this site is downright hilarious.
Really it seems to be what most of it turns into. Far too many were willing to take anything "but Bush"; and many true conservatives were in the camp of anyone but McCain yet we still had our senses and would never vote for Obama; that as soon as the press piled on no one else in the Democratic party had a chance. Sorry, but Hillary would have made a much better President. This guy really comes off as someone who could step outside in the rain and not decide that its raining.
We have near record prices at the pump, we have very high unemployment, we have the Libyan issue, Gitmo, the Bush started wars, and we have deficit spending at a level I don't even think Bush would have tried. Yet what we don't have is a press willing to take Obama on. They seem to still be enamored with him. At least when we had Bush in office we could count on the press to constantly ride his ass over every little thing. While it got tiresome on some fronts it kept people informed as to what was going on and what was being done. Hell, where are all the Democrats screaming about gasoline prices now? Can you imagine the outrage if Bush had said "get used to it?"
The last thing America needs is a President the press likes, the worst possible outcome is a President they are essentially in love with. Obama comes of as Bush Squared. Meaning, if it was bad under Bush it is just as bad under Obama if not worse. Hell, I think he managed to pick an AG worse than than Bush.
With the Republicans in charge of Congress I was hoping that Obama would wake up and try to lead. Before the losses in 10 he was overly willing to allow Democratic leadership to run amok in Congress and lead on any idea he wanted. He would not make decisions, define the goal, or even try to compromise. As such we got abominations of bills and no clear leadership. We had a Congress which REFUSED to submit a budget for consideration simply because the Democratic leadership at the time did not want to deal with it during an election year and suddenly if you asked the press it is all the Republican's fault for not passing what should have been passed LAST YEAR under Pelosi.
No, we need to get back to Presidents the press don't like. I know it sounds like a negative but the point is, the very people that many Americans need to provide them the truth about their government apparently need incentive to investigate it.
This Presidency is more about Wall Street and big money than Bush ever was. There are rumors of a BILLION dollar reelection campaign. Tell me how that is representative of main street and the American people.
As for accomplishments. I find them all neutered simply because of the deficit and the his lack of trying to fix it. We cannot tax our way out of it, we could take 100% of the earnings above 250k per year for those who earn it and still not reduce it by half. We simply spend too much and very few on either side of the aisle are even trying to do anything about it.
The real truth of the matter is, the Democrats while in power refused to pass a budget for this fiscal year. Worse they refused to even submit one to the floor all because they were afraid of the ramifications of doing so before the election. In other words, if they had submitted their budget they would have had to campaign with that large deficit number hanging over their heads.
I am all for a government shut down, the problem I have is the press is still giving Obama a free pass. When the press decides to come back to the side of the public and keep Obama honest we might see some progress. Right now they are making this all out to be a Republican anti-(insert minority group/poor here) issue instead of pointing out that if Pelosi had not purposefully ignored her duty we would be fighting over the FY2012 now instead of fighting over something that should have been in place before the election.
why anyone would use an OS calling itself secure (or website for that matter) where you could "reverse" out the password. It boggles my mind that many websites already store in clear text or with grade school encryption.
As to the poster above you, it certainly would make some IBM systems I work with that are used in a web environment illegal, there is no possible way on one of the OSes used in my shop to reverse the password or crack it with access to the system. It would be far easier to just guess it based on what is on the user's desk.
It is in Parsecs
Its a lack of self responsibility fed by government entitlement programs that will only get worse as more and more are shifted to public support. We should be doing our best to encourage everyone to live a long and healthy life. Writing people off because it costs us less is inhumane. Why not right off the disabled then as well?
Simple fact, the tax on tobacco is dishonest. If it is such a health threat why is it still legal to buy and sell?
Your study looked at their health costs, what about the other costs to support these people in society? What about loss productivity and the costs of that passed on from employers to every customer? What about the effects of second hand smoke? How do we justify their short term higher costs by claiming that since they cost less over a lifetime it all works out?
What about their effects on their children? Do people who live unhealthy lives not influence their children? How about smokers and their own children? Do not fat people have unhealthy food in house to lead to a whole new generation of fat people?
So yeah, their is a problem. Claiming they cost less overall is a falsehood because it does not look at the effect these people have on others around them, especially any children they have
In an age where far too many people are clamoring for "other guy" to pay for services they want it is good to see someone saying, well if your going to ask others to take care of you here are some ground rules. If you want someone to pay for it then they will, however there are some requirements you must meet as well. Frankly, asking people to adhere to weight control programs, take smoking cessation courses, and in general live a healthy life, is not too much to ask. We have far too many people who have no issue asking someone else to pick up the tab. What makes many of them worse is that far too many continue on with similar bad habits. Not only are they not financially self responsible they treat their bodies the same way. They simply act as if someone else will fix it. They will just pop into the doctors office for their cough, their bad knees and ankles, and demand treatment. When the doctor helps them and then tells them what they need to do to prevent it far too many will tell the doctor to mind his own business.
In my work, where the majority of people are middle and upper middle class, it is common to find those who bitch about their contribution to their medical plans. Hell we have some complain that they company doesn't contribute more to their retirement. Yet you rarely find the case with these people where they aren't under a permanent cell phone contract of some sort usually on the order of $100 or more; have an expensive car or worse a lease payment, and then top it off with all sorts of other expenses. When did we become a society where self gratification took precedence over responsibility to self and others? I know people in their fifties who are not saving for retirement or are making a piddling attempt all the while burning money on frivolous stuff.
When the government starts to reach resistance in its borrowing it will be cutting programs right and left. It behooves everyone to save for their future because you cannot guarantee that all the things promised you by politicians will be three when you need them. You must also accept that unless Washington takes steps to correct its spending (we have more debt spending than some G7 countries have total spending) that you will have far less to spend on anything.
So get your health in line. If it takes a kick in the pants to get people to do that, or should I say I kick in the wallet, then its a good thing. Grow the hell up. Its your body, you are in the best position to take care of it. It is just sad some people require prodding if not penalties just to do what is right for themselves.
because it truly exposes the real problem in government. Government employee pay is out of control. We have judges retiring in Georgia who make over 100K in retirement, some are close to 200K and they just tens of thousands of government employees retiring with 100k per pay packages. This does not include the cost of their health care or other sundries.
While the focus is currently on unionized government employees the real fight is to reign them all in. If the problems we have at the state level in Georgia are a good example can you imagine what it is like with all 50 states and then topping that off with Federal and local government employees? Yes the guys at the bottom don't have it as good and I have no problem with an acceptable amount of pay and retirement pay. Yet the papers are replete nationally with stories of fire fighters, policemen, and teachers with retirements from 60k to the mid 100k. Guess who isn't being drummed to death over this, the politicians signing off on this. Why? Because they don't want it out that they have it even better than the guys that taking the heat now.
This is what is awakening the public. While the Tea Party gets focus for dragging some of this out because of the candidates they supported all Americans benefit knowing what is being done. Like the treasury example of how they don't think the costs of living are rising because they don't measure the staples what we see here is the total disconnect the government has from reality.
We are living in a country where the truly privileged are the very people we expect to look out for us. While they attack the very wealthy via class warfare they live in an OZ world where we are not supposed to look behind the curtain. We have more deficit spending per year than many G7 countries have total budget but all we see is politicians being vilified for trying to get only $100 billion in cuts - we will lose more than that in interest payments this year!
This guy is just another idiot, like the Chicago doctor who could not live off of 350k. They live beyond their means because they don't think they are part of regular America - they are the "smart ones" - the ones born to lead or do the "hard" work and gloss over their failings by blaming us.
You think the federal debt is bad, go hunt up our pension liabilities, let alone current costs of just paying for the people who run this place
especially with the nationwide health care bill what did you expect?
The system will allow people to forgo insurance until they are sick. This is akin to crashing your car and then buying insurance and filing a claim. As such, insurance companies need to come up with methods to better manage those they are covering to buffer against those who will abuse the system.
The real problem of course is, people have no incentive to care about their health. Oh, I know, but you say, who doesn't care about their health. Its a matter of degrees. Tell me how many tubbies you know who think they need to change. OK, now tell me how many are doing something about it. When health care's cost do not directly affect the people using it a large number will do nothing to improve their health. They already have been forgiven the responsibility of paying for their health care and quickly associate that with, if anything goes wrong they won't have to pay for that either. Hence the costs are purposely forced upon those who do pay and the companies managing it. Its a perfect system designed to force people out of private insurance for the exact fear you espouse.
So time to break out the predictions. It should not be too hard to get a few things down quickly, there are issues that are attributable based on race, sex, and known health issues (weight, smoking, etc), then compare to results from actual visits if any. It would be a fascinating project. I don't know why anyone is surprised by any of this, my only surprise is that these are not common place now.
Ask yourself this : Why should someone pay for your healthcare if your not an active participant in improving your own health. Then realize that a sizable portion will tell you to go F off all the while not screwing over themselves by not doing anything or worse doing the wrong things.
If Congress truly wanted to prove themselves to the American people to be above it all they would ban any contribution of any kind from K-Street to any member of Congress or their families. Further more, they would forbid the same from ever working for such organizations. However I doubt this will come, it will take influence outside of the Democrat or Republican parties.
Yet both are deft at playing people off each other, getting people to focus on the other party, which thereby keeps them in power. When groups rise up outside of their control you can tell as the media will line up and protect their investment, along with all the powers on Wall Street. The American public are only allowed to rise when commanded and when they dare do so on their own the entire establishment comes down in force. Unfortunately too many buy into it and side with the very people keeping them under the thumb of two political parties corrupt beyond repair.
If you voting for a party your voting for your loss of freedom
infringes on your free speech? Well you can't have kiddy porn so are people infringing on your rights?
No? Or is it based on what you consider right and wrong? Can we apply all our ideas of right and wrong on another society? Oh sure I agree there are some things that should not be tolerated that we might get 90% of the world to agree on, however the big problems are
1) we don't all have the same values
2) we are asking corporations to do something our own government won't do
I understand #2, it is far easier to go after someone who can't jail you, activist tend to take the path of least resistance these days which is to attack big corporations instead of the governments which enabled them
So I guess those who don't have all your advantages can just take a flying leap?
So your going to wave your magic wand and fix public transportation, then prevent people from living where you deem they should not be allowed to live, then blame the free market for not doing it right (read : YOUR WAY) so you can probably come back with an end run and regulate housing, jobs, and transportation in one fell swoop. All this because its obvious these poor miscreants should just throw in the towel and live off the state because they don't measure up.
WOW. Let me give you a clue. There will always be many professions which require their own transportation. There will be many professions which provide services people want that will never pay enough for those who provide the services to live where the services are needed. There will always be people, hopefully a majority forever, who will resist those who seek to control their lives.
I tend to find people with opinions like yours to be hateful and arrogant. No one measures up to your ideals and therefor they must be FORCED to do so. Damn personal freedom because you will always find someway to claim that the expression of that freedom is dooming everyone else.
Your world was attempted more than once, in many cities this meant housing complexes for the poor which became centers of crime and filth which all the altruist turned their heads away because it obviously wasn't their fault these poor people didn't succeed after all, they were giving shelter, schools, and transportation, only if they would agree to live in a giant cement box reminiscent of a prison. Top it off with the fact they were usually located away from "civilized" people so that their sorrows could be easily ignored. Why it wasn't the benefactors fault and if Poor Joe could not show up at 8AM for his scheduled job cutting the grass it no one would go see why and try to fix the problem, no they would simply assert their belief that it was proof that Poor Joe could not live without being handed all these benefits - as long as he stayed over there and only came when called.
Yeah, sorry, but the story is always the same. Too many people want to tell others how to live and when those others dare not to obey those others are destroying the world for the perfect people. People usually well enough off not to suffer from any of the inconveniences they want to foist unto others
One of the proposed uses for an old Ford plant is a large parking area that will offer protected parking under solar panels, on the order of 30 acres
http://www.ajc.com/business/solar-paneled-parking-on-883353.html
Googling the story title will usually reveal the whole story minus the subscription notice.
Other sites that require simple registration can usually be circumvented with sites like bugmenot.
All in all, their attempts to embargo information will not easily be met unless those who produce the browsers and possibly the operating systems cooperate. In closed environments, iOs is a great example, they will have much better luck but even then as long as the support browsers in those environments ways abound.
mostly survives a disaster it wasn't designed to cope with coupled with inept management and regulation?
If anything it seems like nuclear power is the way to go.
Pay their fair share, oh my. However am I going to survive the kharma hit for this one.
YOU IDIOT, CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES EVER!
Now for the nice side. Tell me, where does a corporation get its money to operate?
From consumers of its products.
Now, where does a corporation get the money it pays in taxes?
From consumers of its products.
What we have here and the class warfare ideologues always miss whether on purpose for redirecting ire from their favorite politicians or because of self ignorance which was beaten into them by the same politicians is one simple fact.
A tax on a corporation is an indirect tax on the consumer of that corporations product. This tax can be buried many levels deep as obviously not everyone makes use of every corporations services but someone does somewhere and eventually we all hit each other.
You an I pay taxes. We do it on every purchase we make whether or not there is direct sales tax on the purchase. We pay indirectly every tax bill of every corporation we do business with. This is how it has always has been.
The real crime in this story about GE is that they NEED 975 tax accountants just to pay or not pay taxes. Think about that, nearly a thousand people who produce nothing but instead are there to make a system work. Now while not all companies are as large as GE think of how many tax accountants are required to operate businesses in the US. Now think how much more production we could have if just half the people involved in taxation were instead producing goods and services.
THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE IRS'S BUDGET IS NEARLY AS LARGE AS NASA'S!
So why not stop this taxation of corporations. Because politicians know the holy hell they would be in for if people saw just how much they really paid. See we can kid ourselves and believe that 20 to 30% is OK for taxes. We can guilt ourselves into it. We cannot however guilt ourselves into accepting that plus nearly 20% more indirect taxes we pay. A progressive tax system with a "corporate tax" layer is all about deflecting attention from the tax load the people actually pay. There is nothing fair about it and never can their be fairness because it is purposefully obfuscated.
Still there is an answer, a consumption tax. Drop income taxes, drop fake corporate taxes, and tax consumption. Determine the proper costs to feed, shelter, and cloth a person or family and refund that the first of each month to all heads of households. A consumption tax will get the people who spend money. It will get those who have millions and want to spend it. They won't have their offshore accounts to hide their profits because there is no tax benefit to do so.
I can leave doors open all day, I have left windows on the lower level of my home open all day, simply because of where I live which is the suburbs
Big city schools, yeah that is where its at, if at is graduating a small portion of your students and generally getting stomped by most schools in surrounding counties for GPA/SAT and graduation rates. Top it off with more chances for gang activity and I think you begin to see why people might not want to live in them.
You live your life and let the rest live theirs. NYC is special because of rent control and the like which has gone further than many other cities. Or perhaps you would prefer San Francisco which has nicely driven nearly all blacks from the town by pricing them out of the mark with new building rules and restrictions on what can go where.
Cities work for some people, they don't work for everyone. Atlanta is almost to racial parity but is that a good thing? It is a simple reason really, the city is getting too expensive for the poor to live in it and the poor are majority minority here. Yet people say "move to the city" which brings more yuppies who tear down or gut nice row homes jacking the costs to live in the neighborhood
Back to the story. It was to be expected with the push for better mileage vehicles that the method of taxation must change. Why they need meters I will never know, they can just do inspections and check your mileage. Of course with meters and GPS they can tell which roads you used. It all comes down to one thing.
Instead of spending the money they get and doing well with it they are forever looking for new sources and usually spending it before they get it
.
Well if anything the proper way would be to count iOS tablet sales separately from Mac OS X sales. Combining the two is not correct as they are not compatible. When I can seamlessly run apps between both then perhaps you can count them together.
Figures don't lie but liars do figure.
fwiw I own both an iPad and iMac. I don't consider Mac OS X dominant, I only switched when I could get a native version of MS Office
Only Blizzard will kill World of Warcraft; some will say the latest expansion was a major attempt at doing that; and while GW2 looks very nice it still is a PvP centric MMO which don't do well in America. Blizzard succeeded wildly with both the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions because they made content accessible to the majority of players. The game became very friendly towards even those who did not make it a second job. This put them so far over the top I really doubt Guild Wars 2 will do much more gather up all the WOW haters for a few months. See, WOW's other area of success is the end game raids.
So what if GW2 has supposedly done away with the old quest system, if there isn't something to do once you have level capped other than PvP it won't hold a majorities interest. Pretty games sell boxes but they don't hold people. After watching the demo movie I have one immediate comment, goodness I hope not everyone LOOKS like Legolas, the second being, whatever. Didn't really show me much. As for all types having the ability to self heal, unfortunately WOW has slipped that in to a degree recently and RIFT seems to do it as well.
So most likely it will come down to RIFT versus GW for the same people, but I do not see any PvP focused MMO dominating WOW anytime soon; yeah I know about the Korean ones but they aren't in the same market