Yea, I love that one.. Which is just slightly less irritating than the folks that find something on the internet... Slasdot has a bit higher ratio of good information than most websites out there (including ABCNews, MSNBC, Yahoo News etc.. )
Earhart likely sank with her aircraft someplace near Howard island. No way she and Noonan where castaways on Gardner island. That was 2+ hours of flying time beyond Howard where their fuel was "low" already. That one is easy...
But until we find the Electra on the ocean floor, we won't know.
That's quite a theory.... LOL. I sure hope you are joking.
What's Occam's razor? It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
Your solution to this problem assumes a LOT of complexity... I think they had an inflight emergency that incapacitated the crew and passengers sometime after the course changed but before they passed their last way point in the flight director. Likely the problem was related to a problem in the forward avionics bay, likely a fire that disabled their communications either directly or indirectly when they started pulling all the breakers to stop the fire. What happened then, is the aircraft flew until it ran out of fuel, then came down.
Yea the AF flight was pretty small pieces, but it essentially hit at a 150Knot vertical speed... But there are some things in the cabin that simply will not sink unless they are contained. I would have thought if you had small pieces like AF, there would have been a lot of stuff floating someplace. Now they didn't start looking in the right place for nearly 20 days, so I suppose it may have dispersed enough to make it very hard to find, but we've not had any confirmed reports of even a seat flotation device.
I can imagine reasons for an aircraft that is trimmed to slow speed to be going pretty slow when it impacts the water and staying largely together. Properly trimmed, the stall speed could be way below 150 knots horizontal component and if it hit with a similar vertical component as the 777 that landed short in SanFran, it would stay together fairly well like that aircraft did. If you had a nose up oscillation just as the aircraft in the ground effect area, I could see where it impacts the water with a low vertical speed, skipped a bit like the ditching on the Hudson river did. That aircraft was in one piece.
But this is all just a thought experiment. We won't know until we find it and get the data from the flight recorder.
If this plane was flying without human intervention, it may very well have taken a nosedive once the fuel ran out and the autopilot disconnected. If so, it would probably be crushed in a lot of quite small (~meter size) pieces, like the Air France flight that went down in the Atlantic.
Possibly, but the Air France flight wasn't exclusively in tinny pieces. It was also stalled 13 degrees nose up from about 38,000 feet all the way down to impact which was VERY hard at over 150 Knots (That's almost 200 MPH).
It is totally unknown at this point how 370 impacted, but the total lack of derbies indicates to me that it didn't hit that hard. Just shutting off the engine and disengaging the auto pilot does not mean it just falls out of the sky. Airplanes glide, some better than others, but they will continue to fly at the speed they where trimmed for. If the autopilot tried to hold altitude then disconnected when the angle of attack went up too high, the aircraft would have been trimmed fairly slow (auto pilots usually work by adjusting the trim tabs). So it's possible it hit the water at a fairly slow speed, not a slow as it would with full flaps, but it could have been near the clean stall speed.
But this is all conjecture at this point... Got to find the plane and dump the black boxes to find out..
Anyway, there is good evidence where they did end up landing and likely dying already.
Not necessarily in that order, but I agree. What goes up, comes down. Aircraft that run out of fuel, do not fly very long or far. In this case it is at the bottom of the ocean north and west of Perth.
Well, in this case, much of this information WOULD have been uploaded, had the airline coughed up the yearly fee of about 15K per aircraft. Air France pays the fees, but Malaysian airlines apparently doesn't.
I am just amazed at the total lack of wreckage. I mean, none has been found. With the technology we have on the ocean currents something should have been found. Makes me think it wasn't a full fledged crash maybe they landed and then sunk. At any rate i feel for the familys they would like closure as i would.
As light as airplanes are, they are generally really bad at floating for long periods, especially if they have not been properly ditched and didn't stay structurally intact. If you can keep the pressure hull from being breached, they are generally airtight, but if break off the tail or something, you will leave gaping holes and it will sink pretty quick.
IMHO, This aircraft hit the water, generally stayed together, but was structurally damaged enough to sink quickly. When they find it (and I'm fairly sure they will eventually) it will be in two or more large pieces but largely together. The pieces will be scattered on the ocean floor, perhaps miles apart. It is a total shame the Malaysian government and the airline wasted so much time looking in the wrong places. Now the batteries are gone and it's going to take a LOT of effort to find this thing. But like the Titanic, they will eventually find it.
LOL, Only if Noonan and Earhart both manged to fly west when they should have been going east.. Then there is the matter of the Itasca actually receiving voice signals from Earhart... But hey, we can dream.
This company is about as credible here as if they made your claim..
But, as I pointed out previously, the fares collected could NEVER cover the costs of mass transit. Which is the point I'm trying to make. The users do not pay the total costs. This is not true of roads.
And tolls NEVER pay for the whole cost of public roads. Nor do gas taxes, for that matter. So you're back to the start of your circle. Again.
Really? Toll roads don't pay for themselves? And here I thought the KS turnpike had paid off it's initial bond offering (which it did), and the NTTA seems to be able to make their bond payments too. Seems some are able to support themselves.
Really? So we are going to let a company (Comcast) placate the regulators by doing two things? First, by selling some of their customer base to a competitor and then spinning off another competitor. This should NOT happen.
Fist, anytime you have to sell off part of business in a merger to keep the regulators happy it should be a HUGE red flag. It means that you fully realize that your proposed merger is going to create a company that is too large. I hear shades of Microsoft trying to *GIVE* M$ Money to a competitor in order to buy Intuit in a deal that got rejected by regulators (if I recall correctly). Even if the competition is OK with the deal, any horse trading like this should pretty much be considered an admission that the resulting company is too big.
Second, can anybody imagine why you'd want to create some new company when doing a deal like this? Why do they want two separate companies? Usually it is expensive to split a company and unless the two businesses are TOTALLY different kinds of business it usually is more expensive to run two companies over one. So what are they going to gain? One reason they spin off similar companies is to restructure debt and position future liabilities. You take the bad parts of a company (that nobody wants to buy) and spin them off to rid yourself of debt and liabilities, which you dump into the spinoff. So if you see a segment of your business is dying, or the future liabilities are looming (like expensive Union pension plans and older employees) you unload them. Then the child company dies a slow and painful death trying to deal with the debt while the parent lives on.
Both of these actions tell me that Comcast knows that the merger will not be approved so they are grasping at straws in a vain attempt to placate regulators. This merger may still happen, but if it goes though it will be a bad deal for consumers and I'll bet that we find out that Comcast dropped some serious money behind the scenes in the form of bribes, campaign contributions, and lobbying to make it happen. Crony politics are in play and I guess Comcast didn't donate enough to campaign coffers in the last round, or they really need money badly this time around.
it seems like whenever someone says "Here comes the modding down and a wreaking of my karma, in three.... two..... One...." they get modded *up*.
Anyone else notice that? Maybe it's just confirmation bias on my part, but I don't think so. Well, just in case, I'm prepared to be modded down in three, two, one....
So....you're going to explain how roads are publicly paid for while still complaining that mass transit is publicly paid for. Okaaaay.
Taxes on fuel mostly, which are paid by the users of said roads when they fill up their cars to drive on the roads.. Some are supported by tolls around here too. Or didn't you realize that the government did that?
Maybe mass transit is free in your neck of the woods, but everywhere else in the country you need to buy a bus, subway or rail pass to use it.
But, as I pointed out previously, the fares collected could NEVER cover the costs of mass transit. Which is the point I'm trying to make. The users do not pay the total costs. This is not true of roads.
Since you are now modded +4 Insightful, I don't put a lot of faith in your predictive abilities - including the "LONG time after he's gone" one.
Sorry to disappoint and confuse you with a sideways joke... But we all make mistakes from time to time.
Experience tells me that, like Carter's, Obama's legacy will affect us for generations, and not in a good way. But, I HOPE I'm wrong about that, even if the glimmer of hope is fading as fast as the bomb casing during a nuclear detonation....;)
If you are in the USA, then I suggest you threw your vote away. Not that it likely mattered, because anyplace the "green" party was actually on the ballet the number of votes they gathered was unlikely to make a difference in the outcome. Sort of like voting for Obama in Texas... Why bother showing up to vote if he's going to loose by double digits? It's a winner take all state in the electoral college anyway..
I suggest that the BEST way to serve your voting interest is to vote your ideology in the primary ONLY. After that, pick one of the candidates from the two major parties that you most agree with in the general and vote for them. If there is another party candidate, independent, green, or what have you that you like better and they have ZERO CHANCE to win, just hold your nose and vote for one of the two major party's candidates. Same thing when supporting campaigns, do what you want in the primary, but NEVER support the third party in the general (with money or time) unless they really have a chance (i.e. they are within the margin of error or darn close to it in the polling) No supporting long shots, just because you like them a bit better.
Basically true when he's at the mercy of the republicans to adopt the stuff that needs to be changed in order to fulfill the job he was elected to do .
Sucks but it's fundamentally true.
Republicans are obstructing every step of the way. The institutions are totally fucked when a President can't do the job he's elected for.
You seem to forget that his party controlled congress in total for almost TWO full years. He had that long to do anything he wanted.
The situation changed when Mass elected Brown to replace Ted K after he died. Then they didn't have a super majority in the senate anymore, but still had a majority. It wasn't until the midterms that the Republicans took the house away and could effectively object to ANYTHING. Democrats retain control of the Senate to this day. So, it's not just the Republicans fault. Obama had two full years to do literally anything he and his party wanted, TWO YEARS! What did he accomplish? Obamacare and not a whole lot else.
But since then, Republicans have run on a platform that opposed Obama's policies, and have generally won elections in the process. Republicans have tried it both ways. They have tried to work with him but Obama has steadfastly refused to discuss anything or work on compromise and he torched them. So republicans are really left with little other choice but to oppose him, and get torched too. But this is Obama's choice in most part, given his scorched earth political tactics and the obstructionist Senate that refuses to take up much of what the house sends them for debate. But that's how politics works and how the system is designed.
I get that you want to blame the other side and accuse them of being obstructionists. They generally have been, not because that's how they wanted it, but because it didn't matter if they just agreed to anything nor said no, they where going to get torched. But don't fool yourself, Obama and his supporters choosing to use the flamethrower and firebombs leaves little other choice. If you are going to burn anyway, why not keep your base happy in the process? If your base is happy with you, it's easier to raise money and you are less likely to be bloodied in the primaries, so why not?
The real question is how will this play on election day in 2014 and how all this translates into 2016. I getting the feeling the democrats are going to loose the Senate and loose more seats in the house in 2014. If that happens, you can count on a whole lot more obstruction, unless Obama decides to try and work with the republicans on stuff. (Given his history, I doubt he would work with anybody though) The only difference that will be obvious is that you will see a whole lot more videos of Obama vetoing bills on the nightly news. Up until now, he's been spared that optic by the Senate which simply refuses to take up anything Obama doesn't agree to sign in advance. So to this republican, I don't agree that it is our side being unreasonable given the circumstances. Your mileage may vary as your party affiliation apparently does. Just don't try to tell yourself your side has been pure as the wind driven snow in all this. You all got dirt on your hands too.
As a candidate, Pres. Obama said he would support net neutrality. He has not, and I am disappointed.
I'm disappointed too, but I was pretty sure that he was just saying things to get elected, both times, so I didn't vote for him. I suggest you get used to being disappointed in Obama because it's going to be a problem for a LONG time after he's gone..
Here comes the modding down and a wreaking of my karma, in three.... two..... One....
Nice try... I didn't approve of most of this and voted accordingly but my view didn't prevail. Nearly 50% of voters didn't approve of it either. Then figure not everybody voted last time and there is NO WAY 98% agreed to anything.
HAM radio has long irritated me -- because while I completely see the value in people forming clubs to learn to use it, and value in cooperation so the bands can be used constructively? I think getting federal govt. involved in it was a HUGE mistake.
So you don't think the federal government has any right to regulate the use of radio spectrum? I think you are gravely mistaken. Radio spectrum space is a national resource that needs to be managed at the federal level or chaos would be the result. Literally nothing would work like it does now. Your cell phone, your GPS receiver, your WiFi router, the radio in your car and a whole host of things would be hit or miss, if they worked at all. The FCC is necessary. In fact, it was the FCC that created CB, and at least initially they required a license if you where using it. So, like it or not, even on CB you are subject to FCC regulations about the equipment you use and how you use it. Not that they enforce them very well.
I don't care how "easy" the licensing has become. The idea I should have to earn (and pay for) a license before I have the privilege of transmitting over the airwaves disgusts me.
You do realize that the fees you are charged for taking the test are NOT collected for the FCC's coffers right? The FCC doesn't get a dime of the $15 test fees, but it goes to the VE organizations that print, distribute, mail, administer and file the paperwork related to the testing. It doesn't even go the guys/gals standing their monitoring you when you take the test, who grade the test and fill out the paperwork, they are all volunteers who do this for free. Which is what the Armature radio service is all about.
Plus, there is a *point* to what you need to learn here. RF is dangerous stuff at power levels legal for hams to use. You can harm yourself, your family and those that live around you if you don't know what you are doing. Proving you have at least SOME knowledge about what you are doing is a good idea. Also, spectrum is a finite resource, and if you don't know how to tune your radios and antennas or know what modulation techniques are suitable you are going to waste a whole lot of that resource.
But I think you totally ignore the *purpose* of ham radio,
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly
with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical
phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
(from 47 CFR Part 97, Paragraph 1 "Basis and Purpose")
I was always very interested in the hobby, even purchasing a hand-held HAM radio receiver at one time to play around with. But ultimately, I got into CB radio and sold the HAM gear, because it's more true to how I think it should all work.
When I used to listen to the "regulars" on the HAM bands, chatting, it struck me as largely a crowd of entitled, older men who felt self-important that they had this govt. issued call-sign to flaunt around.
I'm sure many others simply take HAM radio as a serious responsibility (ability to get communications through in major emergencies, etc.) -- and that's great. But I'd rather see CB radio expanded to be far more useful by turning over a bigger chunk of these licensed HAM bands for the general public. Even on existing CB, I've seen channel 9 monitored very efficiently by volunteers at local radio stations who path you through to emergency services if neede
Just to throw a spanner into all this math you are doing... I voted in 2012, and along with almost half of the actual voters here, do not approve of what this administration is currently doing... Just ask Cruz, I voted for him too. Was I in the 2%? No, there where a lot more than 2% who voted as I did, even nation wide. In total, it was within 5% on the national race for president, and many of the elections for congress finished within 10% (Even the with his gaff, Akin only lost by about 12%). Harry Reid was only 6% over his challenger in 2010.
So, I consider your 98% number a bit misleading. The actual segment of the population that made the choice we now live with is vanishingly narrow. Yea, there are some places where the outcome is pretty much set (Say the Texas Governor's race, which will go republican by something approaching 20%), but in a lot of places this margin is a lot closer. It is the people in the middle who actually make the choice.
So, if you look at the swing voters, the people really making the decision are usually less than 10%, which is totally different from your number.
And this is one of the many reasons why the US really isn't a democracy.
Being nit picky... The USA is not and it's never been a democracy. We where founded as a constitutional representative republic, which is decidedly NOT a democracy.
What are they teaching in school these days? We tried democracy, determined it didn't work very well for large groups. So the founders went with a representative republic instead. Kids...
Slashdot Mirror
I read it on Slashdot, it must be true!
Yea, I love that one.. Which is just slightly less irritating than the folks that find something on the internet... Slasdot has a bit higher ratio of good information than most websites out there (including ABCNews, MSNBC, Yahoo News etc.. )
I don't recall Kirk ever saving the universe. I could be mistaken.....
Of course he did, One piece at a time.
OK, just the parts that mattered (and a few that didn't) then..
And Leonard Nimoy's response was only three words.
"Kill me already!"
No colorful metaphors for Spock..
Earhart likely sank with her aircraft someplace near Howard island. No way she and Noonan where castaways on Gardner island. That was 2+ hours of flying time beyond Howard where their fuel was "low" already. That one is easy...
But until we find the Electra on the ocean floor, we won't know.
That's quite a theory.... LOL. I sure hope you are joking.
What's Occam's razor? It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
Your solution to this problem assumes a LOT of complexity... I think they had an inflight emergency that incapacitated the crew and passengers sometime after the course changed but before they passed their last way point in the flight director. Likely the problem was related to a problem in the forward avionics bay, likely a fire that disabled their communications either directly or indirectly when they started pulling all the breakers to stop the fire. What happened then, is the aircraft flew until it ran out of fuel, then came down.
Yea the AF flight was pretty small pieces, but it essentially hit at a 150Knot vertical speed... But there are some things in the cabin that simply will not sink unless they are contained. I would have thought if you had small pieces like AF, there would have been a lot of stuff floating someplace. Now they didn't start looking in the right place for nearly 20 days, so I suppose it may have dispersed enough to make it very hard to find, but we've not had any confirmed reports of even a seat flotation device.
I can imagine reasons for an aircraft that is trimmed to slow speed to be going pretty slow when it impacts the water and staying largely together. Properly trimmed, the stall speed could be way below 150 knots horizontal component and if it hit with a similar vertical component as the 777 that landed short in SanFran, it would stay together fairly well like that aircraft did. If you had a nose up oscillation just as the aircraft in the ground effect area, I could see where it impacts the water with a low vertical speed, skipped a bit like the ditching on the Hudson river did. That aircraft was in one piece.
But this is all just a thought experiment. We won't know until we find it and get the data from the flight recorder.
Just before they come to the troll who asks "How much liability have you assumed with all these bodies?"
"Why... I don't know.. "
Woooooosh!
If this plane was flying without human intervention, it may very well have taken a nosedive once the fuel ran out and the autopilot disconnected. If so, it would probably be crushed in a lot of quite small (~meter size) pieces, like the Air France flight that went down in the Atlantic.
Possibly, but the Air France flight wasn't exclusively in tinny pieces. It was also stalled 13 degrees nose up from about 38,000 feet all the way down to impact which was VERY hard at over 150 Knots (That's almost 200 MPH).
It is totally unknown at this point how 370 impacted, but the total lack of derbies indicates to me that it didn't hit that hard. Just shutting off the engine and disengaging the auto pilot does not mean it just falls out of the sky. Airplanes glide, some better than others, but they will continue to fly at the speed they where trimmed for. If the autopilot tried to hold altitude then disconnected when the angle of attack went up too high, the aircraft would have been trimmed fairly slow (auto pilots usually work by adjusting the trim tabs). So it's possible it hit the water at a fairly slow speed, not a slow as it would with full flaps, but it could have been near the clean stall speed.
But this is all conjecture at this point... Got to find the plane and dump the black boxes to find out..
Anyway, there is good evidence where they did end up landing and likely dying already.
Not necessarily in that order, but I agree. What goes up, comes down. Aircraft that run out of fuel, do not fly very long or far. In this case it is at the bottom of the ocean north and west of Perth.
Well, in this case, much of this information WOULD have been uploaded, had the airline coughed up the yearly fee of about 15K per aircraft. Air France pays the fees, but Malaysian airlines apparently doesn't.
Everything but the law is already here.
I am just amazed at the total lack of wreckage. I mean, none has been found. With the technology we have on the ocean currents something should have been found. Makes me think it wasn't a full fledged crash maybe they landed and then sunk. At any rate i feel for the familys they would like closure as i would.
As light as airplanes are, they are generally really bad at floating for long periods, especially if they have not been properly ditched and didn't stay structurally intact. If you can keep the pressure hull from being breached, they are generally airtight, but if break off the tail or something, you will leave gaping holes and it will sink pretty quick.
IMHO, This aircraft hit the water, generally stayed together, but was structurally damaged enough to sink quickly. When they find it (and I'm fairly sure they will eventually) it will be in two or more large pieces but largely together. The pieces will be scattered on the ocean floor, perhaps miles apart. It is a total shame the Malaysian government and the airline wasted so much time looking in the wrong places. Now the batteries are gone and it's going to take a LOT of effort to find this thing. But like the Titanic, they will eventually find it.
LOL, Only if Noonan and Earhart both manged to fly west when they should have been going east.. Then there is the matter of the Itasca actually receiving voice signals from Earhart... But hey, we can dream.
This company is about as credible here as if they made your claim..
And tolls NEVER pay for the whole cost of public roads. Nor do gas taxes, for that matter. So you're back to the start of your circle. Again.
Really? Toll roads don't pay for themselves? And here I thought the KS turnpike had paid off it's initial bond offering (which it did), and the NTTA seems to be able to make their bond payments too. Seems some are able to support themselves.
Really? So we are going to let a company (Comcast) placate the regulators by doing two things? First, by selling some of their customer base to a competitor and then spinning off another competitor. This should NOT happen.
Fist, anytime you have to sell off part of business in a merger to keep the regulators happy it should be a HUGE red flag. It means that you fully realize that your proposed merger is going to create a company that is too large. I hear shades of Microsoft trying to *GIVE* M$ Money to a competitor in order to buy Intuit in a deal that got rejected by regulators (if I recall correctly). Even if the competition is OK with the deal, any horse trading like this should pretty much be considered an admission that the resulting company is too big.
Second, can anybody imagine why you'd want to create some new company when doing a deal like this? Why do they want two separate companies? Usually it is expensive to split a company and unless the two businesses are TOTALLY different kinds of business it usually is more expensive to run two companies over one. So what are they going to gain? One reason they spin off similar companies is to restructure debt and position future liabilities. You take the bad parts of a company (that nobody wants to buy) and spin them off to rid yourself of debt and liabilities, which you dump into the spinoff. So if you see a segment of your business is dying, or the future liabilities are looming (like expensive Union pension plans and older employees) you unload them. Then the child company dies a slow and painful death trying to deal with the debt while the parent lives on.
Both of these actions tell me that Comcast knows that the merger will not be approved so they are grasping at straws in a vain attempt to placate regulators. This merger may still happen, but if it goes though it will be a bad deal for consumers and I'll bet that we find out that Comcast dropped some serious money behind the scenes in the form of bribes, campaign contributions, and lobbying to make it happen. Crony politics are in play and I guess Comcast didn't donate enough to campaign coffers in the last round, or they really need money badly this time around.
it seems like whenever someone says "Here comes the modding down and a wreaking of my karma, in three.... two..... One...." they get modded *up*. Anyone else notice that? Maybe it's just confirmation bias on my part, but I don't think so. Well, just in case, I'm prepared to be modded down in three, two, one....
(Crickets)
Interesting... Guess your theory isn't true.
So....you're going to explain how roads are publicly paid for while still complaining that mass transit is publicly paid for. Okaaaay.
Maybe mass transit is free in your neck of the woods, but everywhere else in the country you need to buy a bus, subway or rail pass to use it.
But, as I pointed out previously, the fares collected could NEVER cover the costs of mass transit. Which is the point I'm trying to make. The users do not pay the total costs. This is not true of roads.
Since you are now modded +4 Insightful, I don't put a lot of faith in your predictive abilities - including the "LONG time after he's gone" one.
Sorry to disappoint and confuse you with a sideways joke... But we all make mistakes from time to time.
Experience tells me that, like Carter's, Obama's legacy will affect us for generations, and not in a good way. But, I HOPE I'm wrong about that, even if the glimmer of hope is fading as fast as the bomb casing during a nuclear detonation.... ;)
I voted Green in both.
If you are in the USA, then I suggest you threw your vote away. Not that it likely mattered, because anyplace the "green" party was actually on the ballet the number of votes they gathered was unlikely to make a difference in the outcome. Sort of like voting for Obama in Texas... Why bother showing up to vote if he's going to loose by double digits? It's a winner take all state in the electoral college anyway..
I suggest that the BEST way to serve your voting interest is to vote your ideology in the primary ONLY. After that, pick one of the candidates from the two major parties that you most agree with in the general and vote for them. If there is another party candidate, independent, green, or what have you that you like better and they have ZERO CHANCE to win, just hold your nose and vote for one of the two major party's candidates. Same thing when supporting campaigns, do what you want in the primary, but NEVER support the third party in the general (with money or time) unless they really have a chance (i.e. they are within the margin of error or darn close to it in the polling) No supporting long shots, just because you like them a bit better.
Basically true when he's at the mercy of the republicans to adopt the stuff that needs to be changed in order to fulfill the job he was elected to do . Sucks but it's fundamentally true. Republicans are obstructing every step of the way. The institutions are totally fucked when a President can't do the job he's elected for.
You seem to forget that his party controlled congress in total for almost TWO full years. He had that long to do anything he wanted.
The situation changed when Mass elected Brown to replace Ted K after he died. Then they didn't have a super majority in the senate anymore, but still had a majority. It wasn't until the midterms that the Republicans took the house away and could effectively object to ANYTHING. Democrats retain control of the Senate to this day. So, it's not just the Republicans fault. Obama had two full years to do literally anything he and his party wanted, TWO YEARS! What did he accomplish? Obamacare and not a whole lot else.
But since then, Republicans have run on a platform that opposed Obama's policies, and have generally won elections in the process. Republicans have tried it both ways. They have tried to work with him but Obama has steadfastly refused to discuss anything or work on compromise and he torched them. So republicans are really left with little other choice but to oppose him, and get torched too. But this is Obama's choice in most part, given his scorched earth political tactics and the obstructionist Senate that refuses to take up much of what the house sends them for debate. But that's how politics works and how the system is designed.
I get that you want to blame the other side and accuse them of being obstructionists. They generally have been, not because that's how they wanted it, but because it didn't matter if they just agreed to anything nor said no, they where going to get torched. But don't fool yourself, Obama and his supporters choosing to use the flamethrower and firebombs leaves little other choice. If you are going to burn anyway, why not keep your base happy in the process? If your base is happy with you, it's easier to raise money and you are less likely to be bloodied in the primaries, so why not?
The real question is how will this play on election day in 2014 and how all this translates into 2016. I getting the feeling the democrats are going to loose the Senate and loose more seats in the house in 2014. If that happens, you can count on a whole lot more obstruction, unless Obama decides to try and work with the republicans on stuff. (Given his history, I doubt he would work with anybody though) The only difference that will be obvious is that you will see a whole lot more videos of Obama vetoing bills on the nightly news. Up until now, he's been spared that optic by the Senate which simply refuses to take up anything Obama doesn't agree to sign in advance. So to this republican, I don't agree that it is our side being unreasonable given the circumstances. Your mileage may vary as your party affiliation apparently does. Just don't try to tell yourself your side has been pure as the wind driven snow in all this. You all got dirt on your hands too.
As a candidate, Pres. Obama said he would support net neutrality. He has not, and I am disappointed.
I'm disappointed too, but I was pretty sure that he was just saying things to get elected, both times, so I didn't vote for him. I suggest you get used to being disappointed in Obama because it's going to be a problem for a LONG time after he's gone..
Here comes the modding down and a wreaking of my karma, in three.... two..... One....
Nice try... I didn't approve of most of this and voted accordingly but my view didn't prevail. Nearly 50% of voters didn't approve of it either. Then figure not everybody voted last time and there is NO WAY 98% agreed to anything.
What's that saying?
There are Lies, damn lies, and statistics?
or was it?
Figures never lie, but lairs figure..
Full Stop..
HAM radio has long irritated me -- because while I completely see the value in people forming clubs to learn to use it, and value in cooperation so the bands can be used constructively? I think getting federal govt. involved in it was a HUGE mistake.
So you don't think the federal government has any right to regulate the use of radio spectrum? I think you are gravely mistaken. Radio spectrum space is a national resource that needs to be managed at the federal level or chaos would be the result. Literally nothing would work like it does now. Your cell phone, your GPS receiver, your WiFi router, the radio in your car and a whole host of things would be hit or miss, if they worked at all. The FCC is necessary. In fact, it was the FCC that created CB, and at least initially they required a license if you where using it. So, like it or not, even on CB you are subject to FCC regulations about the equipment you use and how you use it. Not that they enforce them very well.
I don't care how "easy" the licensing has become. The idea I should have to earn (and pay for) a license before I have the privilege of transmitting over the airwaves disgusts me.
You do realize that the fees you are charged for taking the test are NOT collected for the FCC's coffers right? The FCC doesn't get a dime of the $15 test fees, but it goes to the VE organizations that print, distribute, mail, administer and file the paperwork related to the testing. It doesn't even go the guys/gals standing their monitoring you when you take the test, who grade the test and fill out the paperwork, they are all volunteers who do this for free. Which is what the Armature radio service is all about.
Plus, there is a *point* to what you need to learn here. RF is dangerous stuff at power levels legal for hams to use. You can harm yourself, your family and those that live around you if you don't know what you are doing. Proving you have at least SOME knowledge about what you are doing is a good idea. Also, spectrum is a finite resource, and if you don't know how to tune your radios and antennas or know what modulation techniques are suitable you are going to waste a whole lot of that resource.
But I think you totally ignore the *purpose* of ham radio,
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
(from 47 CFR Part 97, Paragraph 1 "Basis and Purpose")
I was always very interested in the hobby, even purchasing a hand-held HAM radio receiver at one time to play around with. But ultimately, I got into CB radio and sold the HAM gear, because it's more true to how I think it should all work.
When I used to listen to the "regulars" on the HAM bands, chatting, it struck me as largely a crowd of entitled, older men who felt self-important that they had this govt. issued call-sign to flaunt around.
I'm sure many others simply take HAM radio as a serious responsibility (ability to get communications through in major emergencies, etc.) -- and that's great. But I'd rather see CB radio expanded to be far more useful by turning over a bigger chunk of these licensed HAM bands for the general public. Even on existing CB, I've seen channel 9 monitored very efficiently by volunteers at local radio stations who path you through to emergency services if neede
Huh? Dang clever there with your figures..
Just to throw a spanner into all this math you are doing... I voted in 2012, and along with almost half of the actual voters here, do not approve of what this administration is currently doing... Just ask Cruz, I voted for him too. Was I in the 2%? No, there where a lot more than 2% who voted as I did, even nation wide. In total, it was within 5% on the national race for president, and many of the elections for congress finished within 10% (Even the with his gaff, Akin only lost by about 12%). Harry Reid was only 6% over his challenger in 2010.
So, I consider your 98% number a bit misleading. The actual segment of the population that made the choice we now live with is vanishingly narrow. Yea, there are some places where the outcome is pretty much set (Say the Texas Governor's race, which will go republican by something approaching 20%), but in a lot of places this margin is a lot closer. It is the people in the middle who actually make the choice.
So, if you look at the swing voters, the people really making the decision are usually less than 10%, which is totally different from your number.
Crony politics at it's best... (Or worst, depending on how you want to look at it.)
And this is one of the many reasons why the US really isn't a democracy.
Being nit picky... The USA is not and it's never been a democracy. We where founded as a constitutional representative republic, which is decidedly NOT a democracy.
What are they teaching in school these days? We tried democracy, determined it didn't work very well for large groups. So the founders went with a representative republic instead. Kids...