Certainly it's the same when it come to gay rights; the definition of marriage comes into play in federal law, so it simply can't be a matter of leaving it to the states
Sure it can: we eliminate references to "marriage" from other laws as well and replace it with something that's religiously neutral.
For example, instead of marriage-based immigration, allow each US citizen to sponsor and take responsibility in a well-defined way for one immigrant for a period for ten years.
"A free market fixes everything" is nonsense. Imagine no rules/laws/regulations. Perfectly free market. To win, I'll murder my competition, and get away with it (until they murder me). There are no laws. It's free and fair, brutal and ugly.
A "free market" doesn't mean an unregulated market. A "free market" means a market in which prices are set by supply and demand. Free markets require laws and a functioning legal system. Those are sufficient and necessary to prevent monopolies, fraud, harm from products and pollution, and asymmetric info: when these things occur, you (or even the government) can sue the people who caused them.
A market stops being free, however, when the government decides to go beyond that and implement economic plans through subsidies, price controls, loan guarantees, bailouts, etc.
Among other things, he's dramatically changed the health care landscape for the better,
I.e., Obama has added more entitlements without addressing the question of cost control in any meaningful way. In different words, the young are getting shafted even more than they already are by the current system.
he's helped to radically shift society's perception of homosexuality
The change in attitudes is due to large numbers of people engaging in grass-roots advocacy for years and years. Obama ("my views are evolving") opportunistically took advantage of this change when it seemed politically prudent.
But yeah, it's most certainly not more of the same. Ask anyone who is getting mortgage relief now.
In different words, taxpayers are subsidizing people who bought homes that were too big and expensive for them.
and militarily he's kicked ass
Targeted killings, unlawful detentions, kill lists: Obama was supposed to end all this and he has failed to do so.
Anyone who thinks that the past four years have been more of the same is either lying, stupid, or grossly not paying attention.
You are right, things are not the same: under Obama, crony capitalism, race baiting, pork, and politically motivated killings have reached new lows. With his policies, Obama is targeting a carefully selected portfolio of voters in order to get reelected, regardless of the long term consequences.
(1) Wait until Google Glass comes out, take it apart and learn about the technology, build a patent fence around it. Optionally, hire away a few key people from Google to help in that effort.
(2) Buy some failing startup that creates augmented reality hardware. Gussy up the failing product with some shiny, market the hell out of it, pretend Apple invented it.
(3) Start suing everybody (including Google) for violating Apple's patents and designs.
Anyway, the basic point is that absolute approval rates are skewed by A) omitting the disapproval rates, and B) the response rate for positive/negative views.
It's called an "approval rating", hence it measures "approval". Geez, is that so hard to understand? If it measured "non-disapproval", it would be called a "non-disapproval rating".
Now, maybe you have some kind of verklemmt worldview in which maximizing non-disapproval is your highest goal, and your nation may be irrelevant enough to be able to make that happen. But the US doesn't have a choice because whatever it decides affects most people on the planet somehow.
Even with the former case taken into account, without the response rate taken into account, it's akin to saying in a poll where country A 60% approval and 40% disapproval, and country B gets 19% approval and 0% disapproval, that country A is more popular, even though there's not a single person who disapproved of country B.
I.e., country B would, in fact, not only have a low approval rating, it would also be quite unpopular, because 81% of worldwide respondents simply don't give a shit about it.
Your response is utter nonsense. The poll is a worldwide poll, so the response rates are automatically the same for all countries. The third column is not non-respondents, as you misinterpreted it to be, it is people who responded to the survey but happened to be neutral about a country (i.e., neither approved nor disapproved), for whatever reason.
The table shows that of the population who actually responded to Gallup, 47% approved of the current US leadership while 40% approved of Germany's leadership. Also, 38% apparently just didn't give a damn what Germany was doing.
An apt analogy, but your history isn't quite right. The Roman Empire was cosmopolitan and the center of commerce and culture in the world. Tribes and kings outside the Roman empire were jealous and decided to take their cut by force. Rome's citizens had gotten tired of maintaining a strong military and were unable to defend Rome. The result was worldwide collapse and the Dark Ages.
And you're right, history may be repeating itself.
So, Birgitta Jonsdottir thinks its OK to use the US legal system when it suits her political ends, but the mere possibility that the US legal system might charge her with something if she violates US law gets her panties in a knot. I think she's a hypocrite.
Yeah, "Reading Comprehension 101", take it to heart. You say that Apple caused a change from a customer-hostile to a customer-friendly market. I'm saying that no such change took place at all. Before Apple, some phones were unlocked and unbranded, while others were locked and tied into some company's expensive "ecosystem", and after iPhone... it's the same. And if you really want a cost-effective, unlocked, unrestricted smartphone, a $800 iPhone 4S is the wrong phone to get.
Doing what? There have been no substantive proposals for changes in policy, nor have there been any significant policy changes in the aftermath of Wikileaks AFAIK. And there haven't been any changes for the simple reason that what Wikileaks "revealed" was nothing new or surprising.
The cables I'm sure have also had repercussions diplomatically, what with all the cases of US ambassadors lying through their teeth.
Yes, because it would be so much better if US diplomats were, you know, undiplomatic. Maybe they should just walk up to heads of state and say things like "you are a moron and your wife looks like a cow". How about it?
The leaks have also taken away a lot of the US's credibility, which will probably impact them strongly in the future, especially with regards to situations like Iran, and whatnot.
What exactly are you saying the US should stop doing? There is no indictment, no legal charges, no extradition request. So far, it's just Assange fantasizing about all the bad things the US will do to him, and then his followers getting upset about his fantasies.
Having said that, I see nothing wrong with Assange facing a court of law in the US; a court is the proper place to resolve the question of whether he violated US law or not.
Now, this is stupid beyond belief because millions of people carry their phone in their pocket, so of course as the phone is pulled in and out of the pocket.... it unlocks.
Yes, a lot of those "stupid decisions" are an attempt to avoid lawsuits by Apple over Apple's phony copyright, design patents, software patents, or just general look-and-feel. So, go thank Apple.
Fortunately, smaller app developers don't give a sh*t about Apple, so whatever aspect of the iPhone you like, you can actually get for Android with a click or two.
I never made any claim that Apple was the first to do this
Yes, you did. You said "Apple changed the game by putting end-user interests first". Apple did neither. The only thing Apple put first is their bottom line, by selling phones that weren't just carrier locked but also much more expensive than other vendors and locked into Apple's app store. Palm and Nokia sold plenty of smart phones that were unlocked and unrestricted in the US, long before Apple, and Apple's policies were a step backwards.
As for RIM, they are toast. Anybody who wants control over their smart phone can get an unlocked multiband Android phone. Or they can just buy a cheap prepaid Android phone and not worry about carrier lock-in. For the price of a single iPhone 4S, you can get four Android phones, one on each major US phone network, if you like, making the issue of lock-in moot.
For the last f**king time... a company has no right to free speech. It's employees may have
Corporations don't have free speech rights. But the owners of the corporation have the right to use the corporation to spread their message. That is what Citizens United was about.
Employees, on the other hand, do not have free speech rights while they are acting as employees of the corporation. They only have free speech rights once they go home.
Verizon has carrier status, which means that they are exempted from many of the laws that you or I are subject to. Furthermore, both cables and airways involve public property. Both of these mean that Verizon has to comply with certain regulations. If they don't like it, they can give up carrier status and give up access to public property, and then they can do whatever they want.
US corporations should have neither more nor less rights than people; corporations simply should have the same rights as the people constituting them.
That's why Miramax could trash Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11, and why Citizens United could trash Hillary in Hillary. But, apparently, attacks by corporations on Republicans are OK while attacks by corporations on Democrats are supposedly the end of civilization.
The reason SCOTUS upheld free speech rights for corporations is that they are associations of people, and they inherit the free speech rights of their owners. I think that is sensible.
However, Verizon is a carrier; the content it carries is obviously not its own speech, nor does it have any business looking at it or modifying it. Hence, the first amendment simply has no bearing on them as a carrier.
The above statement is basically true. If you broke up the entire Greenland ice sheet, the rise in sea level would be catastrophic. Mr. Gore does not say this will happen in the next 100 years
This is apparently Gore's equivalent of "I did not inhale" or "it depends on your definition of 'sex'". What this amounts to is that, in order to push his political agenda, Gore has been using technically true statements intended strike fear into people. And a lot of the advocates of action on climate change are doing the same thing, like Hansen's statements about runaway greenhouse warming and the numerous pictures of burning planets and scorched earth. The reality of climate change is much less dramatic.
Unlocked, carrier independent smartphones were common in many places around the world before Apple, pioneered by companies like Nokia. Given how long Apple's phones were carrier locked, all Apple really did was to replace one evil overpriced corporate master (AT&T) with another one (Apple). For the US, that may seem like an advantage, in the rest of the world it was a step back.
The Soviet Union also had the edge on efficiency for a few decades, until they fell apart. Experience shows that central planning just doesn't work long term, neither for the whole economy, nor for health care, banking, or any of the other areas where people want big government action.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure it can: we eliminate references to "marriage" from other laws as well and replace it with something that's religiously neutral.
For example, instead of marriage-based immigration, allow each US citizen to sponsor and take responsibility in a well-defined way for one immigrant for a period for ten years.
A "free market" doesn't mean an unregulated market. A "free market" means a market in which prices are set by supply and demand. Free markets require laws and a functioning legal system. Those are sufficient and necessary to prevent monopolies, fraud, harm from products and pollution, and asymmetric info: when these things occur, you (or even the government) can sue the people who caused them.
A market stops being free, however, when the government decides to go beyond that and implement economic plans through subsidies, price controls, loan guarantees, bailouts, etc.
I.e., Obama has added more entitlements without addressing the question of cost control in any meaningful way. In different words, the young are getting shafted even more than they already are by the current system.
The change in attitudes is due to large numbers of people engaging in grass-roots advocacy for years and years. Obama ("my views are evolving") opportunistically took advantage of this change when it seemed politically prudent.
In different words, taxpayers are subsidizing people who bought homes that were too big and expensive for them.
Targeted killings, unlawful detentions, kill lists: Obama was supposed to end all this and he has failed to do so.
You are right, things are not the same: under Obama, crony capitalism, race baiting, pork, and politically motivated killings have reached new lows. With his policies, Obama is targeting a carefully selected portfolio of voters in order to get reelected, regardless of the long term consequences.
Here are the next steps for Apple:
(1) Wait until Google Glass comes out, take it apart and learn about the technology, build a patent fence around it. Optionally, hire away a few key people from Google to help in that effort.
(2) Buy some failing startup that creates augmented reality hardware. Gussy up the failing product with some shiny, market the hell out of it, pretend Apple invented it.
(3) Start suing everybody (including Google) for violating Apple's patents and designs.
You know what a link is? You know how to search for "health care in ..." on Wikipedia? Go do it and stop behaving like such a moron.
It's called an "approval rating", hence it measures "approval". Geez, is that so hard to understand? If it measured "non-disapproval", it would be called a "non-disapproval rating".
Now, maybe you have some kind of verklemmt worldview in which maximizing non-disapproval is your highest goal, and your nation may be irrelevant enough to be able to make that happen. But the US doesn't have a choice because whatever it decides affects most people on the planet somehow.
I.e., country B would, in fact, not only have a low approval rating, it would also be quite unpopular, because 81% of worldwide respondents simply don't give a shit about it.
Your response is utter nonsense. The poll is a worldwide poll, so the response rates are automatically the same for all countries. The third column is not non-respondents, as you misinterpreted it to be, it is people who responded to the survey but happened to be neutral about a country (i.e., neither approved nor disapproved), for whatever reason.
The table shows that of the population who actually responded to Gallup, 47% approved of the current US leadership while 40% approved of Germany's leadership. Also, 38% apparently just didn't give a damn what Germany was doing.
An apt analogy, but your history isn't quite right. The Roman Empire was cosmopolitan and the center of commerce and culture in the world. Tribes and kings outside the Roman empire were jealous and decided to take their cut by force. Rome's citizens had gotten tired of maintaining a strong military and were unable to defend Rome. The result was worldwide collapse and the Dark Ages.
And you're right, history may be repeating itself.
So, Birgitta Jonsdottir thinks its OK to use the US legal system when it suits her political ends, but the mere possibility that the US legal system might charge her with something if she violates US law gets her panties in a knot. I think she's a hypocrite.
Yeah, "Reading Comprehension 101", take it to heart. You say that Apple caused a change from a customer-hostile to a customer-friendly market. I'm saying that no such change took place at all. Before Apple, some phones were unlocked and unbranded, while others were locked and tied into some company's expensive "ecosystem", and after iPhone... it's the same. And if you really want a cost-effective, unlocked, unrestricted smartphone, a $800 iPhone 4S is the wrong phone to get.
Doing what? There have been no substantive proposals for changes in policy, nor have there been any significant policy changes in the aftermath of Wikileaks AFAIK. And there haven't been any changes for the simple reason that what Wikileaks "revealed" was nothing new or surprising.
Yes, because it would be so much better if US diplomats were, you know, undiplomatic. Maybe they should just walk up to heads of state and say things like "you are a moron and your wife looks like a cow". How about it?
Doesn't seem to have had much of an effect:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146771/worldwide-approval-leadership-tops-major-powers.aspx
What exactly are you saying the US should stop doing? There is no indictment, no legal charges, no extradition request. So far, it's just Assange fantasizing about all the bad things the US will do to him, and then his followers getting upset about his fantasies.
Having said that, I see nothing wrong with Assange facing a court of law in the US; a court is the proper place to resolve the question of whether he violated US law or not.
That's what I said. You even quoted it.
Yes, a lot of those "stupid decisions" are an attempt to avoid lawsuits by Apple over Apple's phony copyright, design patents, software patents, or just general look-and-feel. So, go thank Apple.
Fortunately, smaller app developers don't give a sh*t about Apple, so whatever aspect of the iPhone you like, you can actually get for Android with a click or two.
Yes, you did. You said "Apple changed the game by putting end-user interests first". Apple did neither. The only thing Apple put first is their bottom line, by selling phones that weren't just carrier locked but also much more expensive than other vendors and locked into Apple's app store. Palm and Nokia sold plenty of smart phones that were unlocked and unrestricted in the US, long before Apple, and Apple's policies were a step backwards.
As for RIM, they are toast. Anybody who wants control over their smart phone can get an unlocked multiband Android phone. Or they can just buy a cheap prepaid Android phone and not worry about carrier lock-in. For the price of a single iPhone 4S, you can get four Android phones, one on each major US phone network, if you like, making the issue of lock-in moot.
Corporations don't have free speech rights. But the owners of the corporation have the right to use the corporation to spread their message. That is what Citizens United was about.
Employees, on the other hand, do not have free speech rights while they are acting as employees of the corporation. They only have free speech rights once they go home.
Verizon has carrier status, which means that they are exempted from many of the laws that you or I are subject to. Furthermore, both cables and airways involve public property. Both of these mean that Verizon has to comply with certain regulations. If they don't like it, they can give up carrier status and give up access to public property, and then they can do whatever they want.
US corporations should have neither more nor less rights than people; corporations simply should have the same rights as the people constituting them.
That's why Miramax could trash Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11, and why Citizens United could trash Hillary in Hillary. But, apparently, attacks by corporations on Republicans are OK while attacks by corporations on Democrats are supposedly the end of civilization.
The reason SCOTUS upheld free speech rights for corporations is that they are associations of people, and they inherit the free speech rights of their owners. I think that is sensible.
However, Verizon is a carrier; the content it carries is obviously not its own speech, nor does it have any business looking at it or modifying it. Hence, the first amendment simply has no bearing on them as a carrier.
This is apparently Gore's equivalent of "I did not inhale" or "it depends on your definition of 'sex'". What this amounts to is that, in order to push his political agenda, Gore has been using technically true statements intended strike fear into people. And a lot of the advocates of action on climate change are doing the same thing, like Hansen's statements about runaway greenhouse warming and the numerous pictures of burning planets and scorched earth. The reality of climate change is much less dramatic.
Unlocked, carrier independent smartphones were common in many places around the world before Apple, pioneered by companies like Nokia. Given how long Apple's phones were carrier locked, all Apple really did was to replace one evil overpriced corporate master (AT&T) with another one (Apple). For the US, that may seem like an advantage, in the rest of the world it was a step back.
Denial comes before anger and acceptance, right?
Or, in this case perhaps, denial comes before the golden parachute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_payer
So far, Apple has been losing...
The Soviet Union also had the edge on efficiency for a few decades, until they fell apart. Experience shows that central planning just doesn't work long term, neither for the whole economy, nor for health care, banking, or any of the other areas where people want big government action.