The students will essentially own the computers, are expected to take them home every night, and will be able to purchase the laptops for a nominal fee upon graduation. Here's the dilemma â" how much freedom do you give to students?
Clearly the students *don't* 'essentially' own the computers, if you can do all that stuff to them. ("We also have the ability to monitor any machine remotely, lock the machine down at certain hours, prevent the installation of any software by the user, and prevent the use of iChat.") At best they are operating under a restricted license, like a car. Looks like you will end up using the 'parent' model: "Do X and get grounded, otherwise, you're free: use your common sense."
However, you are already teaching them an even more important lesson: 'a word means what *we say* it means, and not what it *actually* means'. "License is ownership". What you are *really* saying is: 'Here is your ballandchain. You are responsible for it, but we'll be watching.' This is *excellent* training for the hypocritical and surveillant world in which they will soon find themselves. (Not to mention preparing them for their eventual mortgage.) However, you have failed to explain to the students what you are really doing, instead hiding it behind a mystic fog of 'empowerment' and 'responsibility'. If you deconstructed your velvet prison for the enlightenment of your students, they might actually trust you -- because they respected you for being up front with them. The fact is, some will be responsible and some won't -- no matter what rules you come up with.
Make the retail sales tax rate equal to the ceiling of the log [base 10, not *e* - let's not get ridiculous] of the price of the item, rounded down. For example:
Since most transactions are done on computer-aided cash registers, nobody actually has to think to calculate the tax (except we programmers:^), unless they are selling something by hand; even so, logarithms aren't *that* hard to learn.
Note also that all items priced less than a dollar are *tax-free*. The idea of some items *not* being taxed works here in Michigan, where non-ready-to-eat food is tax-free (part of the deal worked out back in the nineties when they raised the sales tax from 4% to 6% while lowering the income tax, which is about 4% now.) If you don't include that 'round down' feature, calculation of tax begins at $.50 rather than $1.00.
An argument against this system is that it introduces gross disparities in tax collection revenues depending on what you're selling: look at, e.g., luxury car sellers vs. dollar store owners. However, this is a straw-man argument: all sellers already remit some sales tax already, and calculation of the revenues is already highly automated. In any case, the tax comes from the *customer*, not the seller: there are no new costs of collection.
Another argument is that it will significantly *reduce* revenues because there are far more items sold at $2 vs. $20,000. To counteract this, the actual numbers used could be adjusted. For example, the tax might end up being twice the log, which is equivalent to this tax on an item whose price is the square of the original price. [2 log X = log (X^2) ].
It might be interesting to look at all the transactions over the course of a year in one state and see if this particular technique brings in more or less than the present system. The tricky part will be getting a reasonable sample of transactions to analyze.
It's paid for out of the checks of the workers (and then funneled into the programs by the federal government) that's why its called unemployment INSURANCE.
There's an bit about this 'insurance' that I don't exactly understand: why is it that people who work part-time are taxed for this, but then they can't get benefits because the job that they lost was *part-time*.
Look, right now, all those grounds go into the garbage.
I've been composting coffee grounds for years. They work well with the vegetable waste (N) and the leaves (C) -- they make the compost a little acid, but not too much. My vegetables are gorgeous and 100% organic. It's a win-win-win situation all around for me.
you *must* have a reliable way to deliver that power.
Onsite power generation is the answer to the "distribution" problem: multiple sources of renewable energy (not only solar electric / thermal, low-power wind, and raindrop harvesting [http://www.physorg.com/news120216714.html], but also improved Seebeck/geothermal* sources) with improved battery/flywheel storage technology + more efficient appliances could take *everyone* off the grid. Cooperative groups of 4-10 houses will become their own power utility.
Of course, there goes a utility's business model, so don't be surprised when such an option is pooh-poohed in the mass media. (Why do you suppose utilities are in such a hurry to get nuclear projects rolling again? They need to lock their customers into their 'big iron' "solution" -- before people catch on to how easy and affordable it is becoming to 'get off the grid'. DTE just pulled some legislative shenanigans here in Michigan, in an attempt to reach just that end.)
But since 2/3 of the energy (in America at least) is utilized by *businesses*, utilities themselves could "decentralize" as well: creating multiple smaller energy plants near their real customers; more efficient because less energy loss from shorter power lines from utility to customer; also the loads on the lines will be smaller. At that scale, nuclear is infeasible.
Adapt or die, guys. The days of centralized power utility monopolies are over. Interestingly, there will be unexpected ramifications in the financial markets as the ratings of utility bonds will begin varying unpredictably due to the collapsing of the current 'fixed base' model. And the utility bond market is *huge*. Better get out of any utility bond insurance companies *now* while you still can.
*Seebeck/geothermal: the Seebeck effect is the generation of a voltage due to a temperature differential across two different metals. Using the constant 56 degree F (13 C) Earth's temperature ten feet (3.3m) down, the ambient air temperature would be used to generate the temperature differential. The current research problem concerns the fact that the differential must be fairly large (in the hundreds of degrees F) to generate significant amounts of electrical potential when standard metals are used. It's possible organic composites might be developed to drop the differential to tens of degrees F.
The final manifestation of this mechanism would be a noiseless boxlike enclosure about 3 feet high and maybe 6 ft by 6 ft square (1m x 2m x 2m) stuck somewhere where there is dirt and air, pumping out maybe 1-2 kw/hour. It would be scalable: you are limited only by the amount of earth that you can cover with these -- something to plop into marginal lands, or an old brownfield.
A possible drawback: this mechanism would work best when temperatures are at their extreme points: summer and winter (indeed, at air = 56 F / 13 C, it would produce no energy at all). However, since summer and winter are the two seasons where energy usage peaks, this may be a feature rather than a bug.
Stalin told us: "It's not who votes. It's who counts the votes,"
Long thought to be an urban myth, someone has discovered an intriguing possible reference:
Dear Reader (updated):
I'm in the process of revising my comments below, but in the meantime am pleased to inform you that a source has been found for a variant of this quote -- Boris Bazhanov's Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary (published in 1992 and only available in Russian, so far as I know).
The passage in question, which appears near the end of chapter five, reads (loosely translated) as follows:
"You know, comrades," says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this â"- who will count the votes, and how."
...it was Bush who got all the favorable publicity. Follow the money: the media does. They look to see who is getting the big money and then they jump on the bandwagon. When you are a lapdog, it pays to know which pockets have the food.
When someone harasses someone else, there is always a reason, and that reason is always some form of personal gain from the harassment.
Aha! This is straight out of Transactional Analysis. You have re-discovered the Game. Dr. Eric Berne (originator of TA) points out that the Game is characterized by a twist which leaves one of the actors feeling emotionally ripped off, and the other with a smug feeling of triumph. (You know.) He further points out that, without this twist, it is not a Game, but a Pastime: a form of mutually agreeable social interaction between two people. He provides techniques for recognizing Games as well as for stopping them in their tracks, and freeing yourself from certain kinds of domination by others. But you are right.
Berne further characterizes these Games as techniques used to further an inner script, with the aim of coming to an inevitable end. We are not often aware of our scripts. Sometimes people who are at the losing end of a game collect resentments; this later allows them to "play a Game of their own" with a worse aim: "balancing the books". It is better to understand that the game player undercuts him or herself in the long run. Comprehend (to the degree that you are able) the motivations of the game player; understand -- and move on. By demonstrating non-game playing strategies (aka "being fair") in your own life, you attract others who also "play it straight".
The problem with Games is that they offer a short-term payoff coupled to a long-term loss. Many people cannot or will not grasp that, so we are continually putting up with Game-playing. You can refuse to play; show them a better way.
This provides the kind of centralization that means 16,000 libraries don't have to all individually catalog the same book. Once is sufficient.Every ILS has an interface to OCLC that allows them to grab records and download them to the local system--as well as upload original cataloging to OCLC (a crucial point, I think.) Every library that owns a particular title attached their own identifier to the main record, which is what makes OCLC a good source for interlibrary loan information.
So what you are saying is that OCLC is kind of a bibliographic DNS?
Maybe some other species could make a better go of it!
Raccoons. They already have binocular vision (although color-blind), five fingers (although no opposable thumb) and are very intelligent. They are highly adaptable to many environments.
One fuck up in contraception and all the sudden you've got the first interstellar birth with a kid that's doomed to spend the rest of their life on another planet.
Well, if we're going to colonize the galaxy, we've got to start *somewhere*.
Many systems that have grown in an organic or semi-organic fashion are non-optimal (like, for example, most people you know and every decision ever rendered by a committee).
On the other hand, many things that have been grown *by nature* in an organic fashion are orders of magnitude more efficient -- and closer to optimal -- than anything we have designed.
Confining "optimal" to "human activity" is a poor modeling choice.
You need to go and get a copy of 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies. Don't laugh: he makes a very good case. He argues that Leonardo and his contemporaries were merely copying manuscripts that had been brought to Venice by the Chinese.
Shouldn't the ~ be at the *beginning* of the line? By the time you get to the end of the line, it is too late: you've already parsed the meme as 'straightforward': it's a waste of cycles to reparse it. ~
Dems or Repubs are going to keep on winning. The only protest possible is to stay home.
Wuss. They *want* you to opt out. Where's your American sense of adventure? Get out there and help one of the many little parties which, BTW, *are* winning races here and there more and more often. As government at *all levels* seesaws back and forth unsteadily, more and more people are not voting for the same old crap, but exploring various alternatives. Most politics really *is* local.
Two months of a Palin presidency and even the staunchest liberals will be begging the military to take over the country.
Anybody got a link to the ifPalin==President Futures Market? Because -- given voters' short memories -- I predict she'll win a hard-fought contest in 2012 against a struggling President Obama, using Middle East tensions as a wedge issue. After assuming the Presidency, she'll try to intercede there -- and ignite Armageddon, much to the delight of her base. The only question is: how long will it take? I predict a time, two times, and half a time: say, about June 2016.
Think that's unlikely? I'm listening to the radio (93.9 The River) and they just ran a story that said, basically, "Sarah Palin is considering running for President in 2012 if Obama wins in 2008." Yes, a chill did run up my spine.
$2,300 went to interest on the national debt. Thank mom and dad.
Thank mom and dad.^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HRonald Reagan for going $1 Trillion into debt back in the '80's to beat the Soviet Union, but failing to have a plan to retire that debt, leading to our current situation of now owing $10 Trillion.
McCain said he would be OK with troops in Iraq for 100 years, just as troops are still in Germany and Japan
All the more reason not to vote for him. Why exactly are our troops still there SIXTY-THREE years later? Are we afraid that, if we leave, the Emperor and the Fuhrer will pop back up or something? Really all that is, is just *military welfare*, and, if you look closely enough, you will find the same kind of earmarking going on there ("You won't vote to close my base and I won't vote to close yours.") as Mr. McCina rants against in the rest of the budget. The defense budget this year is over *SIX HUNDRED BILLION* dollars. (If you are an American that makes your share about $2000.) Anybody else think that this is *a little excessive* for what amounts to state-sponsored full employment in the "defense" industries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union before China had fully militarized, it *sure was fortunate* that Al-Quida showed up just in time to justify the continued excessive military spending binge.
Beat Keller is a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. Keller recently asked permission of the government to conduct a field trial of a genetically modified wheat bred with a resistance to fungus. In order to actually gain permission to go ahead with the trial, he needed to hash out the potential threats to the dignity of the wheat. The majority of the panel agrees that genetically modified plants are ok, âoeas long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured.â In other words, no forced sterility and terminator genes.
The interesting thing here is the implication of this decision. You could go several different ways. What about cutting-edge technology in algae development? The latest thing is to genetically modify algae genes to spew out large quantities of hydrocarbon chains: in essence, we've enslaved them to our needs by changing their natural life cycle: limiting their 'adaptive ability'. That's certainly an interference in their "right to independence".
We'll have to ban all lawnmowers, of course: cruelly slicing off the 'heads' of grasses every couple of weeks inhibits their ability to create and spread their seed: anything that limits reproductive ability is *explicitly* prohibited. And no more 'eating' seeds either: say good-bye to peanut butter, sprouts and bean soup. How *could we ever have had* limited plants' reproductive rights in such a barbarous way? And don't even get me started on bread: the enslavement of yeast to produce CO2, followed by the burning alive of those little cells is a horrible example of the casual way we treat plant cells.
Hang on, bacteria: someday our laws will protect even *your* polymorphous perversity. (Yeah, we don't like it -- but we'll tolerate it.) Antibiotics will be seen as the weapons of mass destruction that they are. Someday, little guys, you won't be judged on the basis of the sugars you display on your external cell membranes -- you'll be accepted for your essential bacterial dignity.
The most extreme ethical implication of this is that *any* use by us of vegetable matter *that didn't die a natural death* is an impingement of its rights. Therefore, the *moral* thing for us self-aware mammals to do is collectively starve to death; those who raise the 'necessity' argument are merely trotting out the "might is right" argument in new clothes. (Humamperialists!) From the point of view of the plants, we are merely parasites, and the sooner we off ourselves, the better. (And don't try to drag out that tired old speciest argument "We're symbionts, not parasites!" -- just moving seeds around hardly begins to make up for all the exploitation, degradation and -- yes, humiliation -- plants have had to suffer since the beginning of 'argiculturism'. There was CO2 before humans; there will be CO2 after humans.) It's *about time* vegetation got the respect it deserves. All power to the Eukaryotic Liberation Movement!
The domain names "perform a critical role in creating and maintaining connection by way of the various interfaces to transact a game or play," he wrote. "Accordingly, but subject to further review during the forfeiture hearing, the court finds reasonable bases to conclude that the internet gambling operators and their property, the internet domain names, are present in Kentucky." He went on to write that the domain names "are virtual keys for entering and creating virtual casinos from the desktop of a resident in Kentucky. The domain name is indispensable in maintaining the player's continuing access to the virtual casinos which serve as the internet gambling operators premises for conducting illegal gambling activity."
So basically he has given a certain amount of cover to an act of *censorship*: pre-emptive state seizure of intellectual assets. Unfortunately for him, this does not pass the smell test of "imminent threat to public health or public safety". I predict that this action will -- somewhere up the line -- be overturned as an unlawful use of state power to restrict First Amendment access by Kentucky citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/07/japans-space-agency-planning-space-based-solar-power-arrays/
The students will essentially own the computers, are expected to take them home every night, and will be able to purchase the laptops for a nominal fee upon graduation. Here's the dilemma â" how much freedom do you give to students?
Clearly the students *don't* 'essentially' own the computers, if you can do all that stuff to them. ("We also have the ability to monitor any machine remotely, lock the machine down at certain hours, prevent the installation of any software by the user, and prevent the use of iChat.") At best they are operating under a restricted license, like a car. Looks like you will end up using the 'parent' model: "Do X and get grounded, otherwise, you're free: use your common sense."
However, you are already teaching them an even more important lesson: 'a word means what *we say* it means, and not what it *actually* means'. "License is ownership". What you are *really* saying is: 'Here is your ballandchain. You are responsible for it, but we'll be watching.' This is *excellent* training for the hypocritical and surveillant world in which they will soon find themselves. (Not to mention preparing them for their eventual mortgage.) However, you have failed to explain to the students what you are really doing, instead hiding it behind a mystic fog of 'empowerment' and 'responsibility'. If you deconstructed your velvet prison for the enlightenment of your students, they might actually trust you -- because they respected you for being up front with them. The fact is, some will be responsible and some won't -- no matter what rules you come up with.
Make the retail sales tax rate equal to the ceiling of the log [base 10, not *e* - let's not get ridiculous] of the price of the item, rounded down. For example:
price log ceil total vs. 5%
$0.20 0.3 1 % $0.00 $0.01
$2.00 1.3 2 % $0.04 $0.10
$20.00 2.3 3 % $0.60 $1.00
$200.00 3.3 4 % $8.00 $10.00
$2000.00 4.3 5 % $100.00 $100.00
$20000.00 5.3 6 % $1200.00 $1000.00
Since most transactions are done on computer-aided cash registers, nobody actually has to think to calculate the tax (except we programmers :^), unless they are selling something by hand; even so, logarithms aren't *that* hard to learn.
Note also that all items priced less than a dollar are *tax-free*. The idea of some items *not* being taxed works here in Michigan, where non-ready-to-eat food is tax-free (part of the deal worked out back in the nineties when they raised the sales tax from 4% to 6% while lowering the income tax, which is about 4% now.) If you don't include that 'round down' feature, calculation of tax begins at $.50 rather than $1.00.
An argument against this system is that it introduces gross disparities in tax collection revenues depending on what you're selling: look at, e.g., luxury car sellers vs. dollar store owners. However, this is a straw-man argument: all sellers already remit some sales tax already, and calculation of the revenues is already highly automated. In any case, the tax comes from the *customer*, not the seller: there are no new costs of collection.
Another argument is that it will significantly *reduce* revenues because there are far more items sold at $2 vs. $20,000. To counteract this, the actual numbers used could be adjusted. For example, the tax might end up being twice the log, which is equivalent to this tax on an item whose price is the square of the original price. [2 log X = log (X^2) ].
It might be interesting to look at all the transactions over the course of a year in one state and see if this particular technique brings in more or less than the present system. The tricky part will be getting a reasonable sample of transactions to analyze.
It's paid for out of the checks of the workers (and then funneled into the programs by the federal government) that's why its called unemployment INSURANCE.
There's an bit about this 'insurance' that I don't exactly understand: why is it that people who work part-time are taxed for this, but then they can't get benefits because the job that they lost was *part-time*.
Anybody want to take a crack at that?
Look, right now, all those grounds go into the garbage.
I've been composting coffee grounds for years. They work well with the vegetable waste (N) and the leaves (C) -- they make the compost a little acid, but not too much. My vegetables are gorgeous and 100% organic. It's a win-win-win situation all around for me.
you *must* have a reliable way to deliver that power.
Onsite power generation is the answer to the "distribution" problem: multiple sources of renewable energy (not only solar electric / thermal, low-power wind, and raindrop harvesting [http://www.physorg.com/news120216714.html], but also improved Seebeck/geothermal* sources) with improved battery/flywheel storage technology + more efficient appliances could take *everyone* off the grid. Cooperative groups of 4-10 houses will become their own power utility.
Of course, there goes a utility's business model, so don't be surprised when such an option is pooh-poohed in the mass media. (Why do you suppose utilities are in such a hurry to get nuclear projects rolling again? They need to lock their customers into their 'big iron' "solution" -- before people catch on to how easy and affordable it is becoming to 'get off the grid'. DTE just pulled some legislative shenanigans here in Michigan, in an attempt to reach just that end.)
But since 2/3 of the energy (in America at least) is utilized by *businesses*, utilities themselves could "decentralize" as well: creating multiple smaller energy plants near their real customers; more efficient because less energy loss from shorter power lines from utility to customer; also the loads on the lines will be smaller. At that scale, nuclear is infeasible.
Adapt or die, guys. The days of centralized power utility monopolies are over. Interestingly, there will be unexpected ramifications in the financial markets as the ratings of utility bonds will begin varying unpredictably due to the collapsing of the current 'fixed base' model. And the utility bond market is *huge*. Better get out of any utility bond insurance companies *now* while you still can.
*Seebeck/geothermal: the Seebeck effect is the generation of a voltage due to a temperature differential across two different metals. Using the constant 56 degree F (13 C) Earth's temperature ten feet (3.3m) down, the ambient air temperature would be used to generate the temperature differential. The current research problem concerns the fact that the differential must be fairly large (in the hundreds of degrees F) to generate significant amounts of electrical potential when standard metals are used. It's possible organic composites might be developed to drop the differential to tens of degrees F.
The final manifestation of this mechanism would be a noiseless boxlike enclosure about 3 feet high and maybe 6 ft by 6 ft square (1m x 2m x 2m) stuck somewhere where there is dirt and air, pumping out maybe 1-2 kw/hour. It would be scalable: you are limited only by the amount of earth that you can cover with these -- something to plop into marginal lands, or an old brownfield.
A possible drawback: this mechanism would work best when temperatures are at their extreme points: summer and winter (indeed, at air = 56 F / 13 C, it would produce no energy at all). However, since summer and winter are the two seasons where energy usage peaks, this may be a feature rather than a bug.
Stalin told us: "It's not who votes. It's who counts the votes,"
Long thought to be an urban myth, someone has discovered an intriguing possible reference:
Dear Reader (updated):
I'm in the process of revising my comments below, but in the meantime am pleased to inform you that a source has been found for a variant of this quote -- Boris Bazhanov's Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary (published in 1992 and only available in Russian, so far as I know).
The passage in question, which appears near the end of chapter five, reads (loosely translated) as follows:
"You know, comrades," says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this â"- who will count the votes, and how."
Heref: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dubiousquotes/a/stalin_quote.htm /
...it was Bush who got all the favorable publicity. Follow the money: the media does. They look to see who is getting the big money and then they jump on the bandwagon. When you are a lapdog, it pays to know which pockets have the food.
When someone harasses someone else, there is always a reason, and that reason is always some form of personal gain from the harassment.
Aha! This is straight out of Transactional Analysis. You have re-discovered the Game. Dr. Eric Berne (originator of TA) points out that the Game is characterized by a twist which leaves one of the actors feeling emotionally ripped off, and the other with a smug feeling of triumph. (You know.) He further points out that, without this twist, it is not a Game, but a Pastime: a form of mutually agreeable social interaction between two people. He provides techniques for recognizing Games as well as for stopping them in their tracks, and freeing yourself from certain kinds of domination by others. But you are right.
Berne further characterizes these Games as techniques used to further an inner script, with the aim of coming to an inevitable end. We are not often aware of our scripts. Sometimes people who are at the losing end of a game collect resentments; this later allows them to "play a Game of their own" with a worse aim: "balancing the books". It is better to understand that the game player undercuts him or herself in the long run. Comprehend (to the degree that you are able) the motivations of the game player; understand -- and move on. By demonstrating non-game playing strategies (aka "being fair") in your own life, you attract others who also "play it straight".
The problem with Games is that they offer a short-term payoff coupled to a long-term loss. Many people cannot or will not grasp that, so we are continually putting up with Game-playing. You can refuse to play; show them a better way.
We come from an unbroken lineage that doesn't simply date back to recorded history: we're the ones that RECORDED recorded history in the first place.
So, if poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, does that make librarians the unacknowledged ... bureaucrats ... of the world?
This provides the kind of centralization that means 16,000 libraries don't have to all individually catalog the same book. Once is sufficient.Every ILS has an interface to OCLC that allows them to grab records and download them to the local system--as well as upload original cataloging to OCLC (a crucial point, I think.) Every library that owns a particular title attached their own identifier to the main record, which is what makes OCLC a good source for interlibrary loan information.
So what you are saying is that OCLC is kind of a bibliographic DNS?
Maybe some other species could make a better go of it!
Raccoons. They already have binocular vision (although color-blind), five fingers (although no opposable thumb) and are very intelligent. They are highly adaptable to many environments.
One fuck up in contraception and all the sudden you've got the first interstellar birth with a kid that's doomed to spend the rest of their life on another planet.
Well, if we're going to colonize the galaxy, we've got to start *somewhere*.
Personally, I was holding out for "Black Cloud of Death". It has such a nice -- finality.
Many systems that have grown in an organic or semi-organic fashion are non-optimal (like, for example, most people you know and every decision ever rendered by a committee).
On the other hand, many things that have been grown *by nature* in an organic fashion are orders of magnitude more efficient -- and closer to optimal -- than anything we have designed.
Confining "optimal" to "human activity" is a poor modeling choice.
You need to go and get a copy of 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies. Don't laugh: he makes a very good case. He argues that Leonardo and his contemporaries were merely copying manuscripts that had been brought to Venice by the Chinese.
Historically, things that have been very uninteresting at the time, have been hugely valuable to researchers later on.
Gee, I can't wait for 2108's "WOW: a key metaphor for understanding the 21st Century" and "How Twittereferenda bought about World Peace".
New punctuation update "~" at the end of a line to indicate sarcasm. http://harns.blogspot.com/
Shouldn't the ~ be at the *beginning* of the line? By the time you get to the end of the line, it is too late: you've already parsed the meme as 'straightforward': it's a waste of cycles to reparse it. ~
Dems or Repubs are going to keep on winning. The only protest possible is to stay home.
Wuss. They *want* you to opt out. Where's your American sense of adventure? Get out there and help one of the many little parties which, BTW, *are* winning races here and there more and more often. As government at *all levels* seesaws back and forth unsteadily, more and more people are not voting for the same old crap, but exploring various alternatives. Most politics really *is* local.
Two months of a Palin presidency and even the staunchest liberals will be begging the military to take over the country.
Anybody got a link to the ifPalin==President Futures Market? Because -- given voters' short memories -- I predict she'll win a hard-fought contest in 2012 against a struggling President Obama, using Middle East tensions as a wedge issue. After assuming the Presidency, she'll try to intercede there -- and ignite Armageddon, much to the delight of her base. The only question is: how long will it take? I predict a time, two times, and half a time: say, about June 2016.
Think that's unlikely? I'm listening to the radio (93.9 The River) and they just ran a story that said, basically, "Sarah Palin is considering running for President in 2012 if Obama wins in 2008." Yes, a chill did run up my spine.
Remember, you saw it on /. first.
$2,300 went to interest on the national debt. Thank mom and dad.
Thank mom and dad.^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HRonald Reagan for going $1 Trillion into debt back in the '80's to beat the Soviet Union, but failing to have a plan to retire that debt, leading to our current situation of now owing $10 Trillion.
There. Fixed that for you.
McCain said he would be OK with troops in Iraq for 100 years, just as troops are still in Germany and Japan
All the more reason not to vote for him. Why exactly are our troops still there SIXTY-THREE years later? Are we afraid that, if we leave, the Emperor and the Fuhrer will pop back up or something? Really all that is, is just *military welfare*, and, if you look closely enough, you will find the same kind of earmarking going on there ("You won't vote to close my base and I won't vote to close yours.") as Mr. McCina rants against in the rest of the budget. The defense budget this year is over *SIX HUNDRED BILLION* dollars. (If you are an American that makes your share about $2000.) Anybody else think that this is *a little excessive* for what amounts to state-sponsored full employment in the "defense" industries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union before China had fully militarized, it *sure was fortunate* that Al-Quida showed up just in time to justify the continued excessive military spending binge.
Like anyone is going to *accidentally* type 'r n' instead of 'm'.
Beat Keller is a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. Keller recently asked permission of the government to conduct a field trial of a genetically modified wheat bred with a resistance to fungus. In order to actually gain permission to go ahead with the trial, he needed to hash out the potential threats to the dignity of the wheat. The majority of the panel agrees that genetically modified plants are ok, âoeas long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured.â In other words, no forced sterility and terminator genes.
The interesting thing here is the implication of this decision. You could go several different ways. What about cutting-edge technology in algae development? The latest thing is to genetically modify algae genes to spew out large quantities of hydrocarbon chains: in essence, we've enslaved them to our needs by changing their natural life cycle: limiting their 'adaptive ability'. That's certainly an interference in their "right to independence".
We'll have to ban all lawnmowers, of course: cruelly slicing off the 'heads' of grasses every couple of weeks inhibits their ability to create and spread their seed: anything that limits reproductive ability is *explicitly* prohibited. And no more 'eating' seeds either: say good-bye to peanut butter, sprouts and bean soup. How *could we ever have had* limited plants' reproductive rights in such a barbarous way? And don't even get me started on bread: the enslavement of yeast to produce CO2, followed by the burning alive of those little cells is a horrible example of the casual way we treat plant cells.
Hang on, bacteria: someday our laws will protect even *your* polymorphous perversity. (Yeah, we don't like it -- but we'll tolerate it.) Antibiotics will be seen as the weapons of mass destruction that they are. Someday, little guys, you won't be judged on the basis of the sugars you display on your external cell membranes -- you'll be accepted for your essential bacterial dignity.
The most extreme ethical implication of this is that *any* use by us of vegetable matter *that didn't die a natural death* is an impingement of its rights. Therefore, the *moral* thing for us self-aware mammals to do is collectively starve to death; those who raise the 'necessity' argument are merely trotting out the "might is right" argument in new clothes. (Humamperialists!) From the point of view of the plants, we are merely parasites, and the sooner we off ourselves, the better. (And don't try to drag out that tired old speciest argument "We're symbionts, not parasites!" -- just moving seeds around hardly begins to make up for all the exploitation, degradation and -- yes, humiliation -- plants have had to suffer since the beginning of 'argiculturism'. There was CO2 before humans; there will be CO2 after humans.) It's *about time* vegetation got the respect it deserves. All power to the Eukaryotic Liberation Movement!
The domain names "perform a critical role in creating and maintaining connection by way of the various interfaces to transact a game or play," he wrote. "Accordingly, but subject to further review during the forfeiture hearing, the court finds reasonable bases to conclude that the internet gambling operators and their property, the internet domain names, are present in Kentucky." He went on to write that the domain names "are virtual keys for entering and creating virtual casinos from the desktop of a resident in Kentucky. The domain name is indispensable in maintaining the player's continuing access to the virtual casinos which serve as the internet gambling operators premises for conducting illegal gambling activity."
So basically he has given a certain amount of cover to an act of *censorship*: pre-emptive state seizure of intellectual assets. Unfortunately for him, this does not pass the smell test of "imminent threat to public health or public safety". I predict that this action will -- somewhere up the line -- be overturned as an unlawful use of state power to restrict First Amendment access by Kentucky citizens.