Why does Ballmer do this? Why does he make such idiotic, easy-to-refute statements?
Dude, if we learned anything from this election, it's that words are more powerful than facts. Get out of the 11/2, reality-based mentality you're stuck in.
If the Libertarian party wants people's success in life to be due to their own wits and hard work, shouldn't it be supporting a free education, and supporting the estate tax?
I'm not sure that making sure you take everything away from someones family when they die is in any way considered to help elevate the poor.
Nice strawman. At least throughout my adult life, there have been substantial exemptions--allowing tax-free inheritance to a surviving spouse, plus allowed intergenerational inheritance of several hundred thousand dollars. The estate tax is not equivalent to "taking everything away," nor does it adversely affect the poor, who fall well within the exemption limits.
furthermore why punish those that do succeed?
Some people have this notion that estate taxes--"death taxes" in the current political vernacular--are tantamount to adding insult to injury; as if it weren't bad enough that you're dead, now the government has to come along and take your stuff. But what right to you really have to control how your wealth is distributed after you're dead? If you die right before an election, your estate doesn't get to cast a vote for you on the principle that had you not died, you would have voted for candidate X. Why should disposition of your assets be any different?
To use your terminology, who is being punished, and who is succeeding? The deceased were allowed to have full use of their wealth during their life, including passing on a reasonable amount to their children (e.g. through tax laws that allow tax-free gifts of $10K/year, making it not terribly difficult to give your child half a million over the course of your life). They're not being punished. The survivors didn't produce the wealth, so they're not being punished either, and because they didn't produce it, it wasn't their success anyway.
Estate taxes are about the fairest form of taxation imaginable. With a reasonable exemption at the bottom, they allow for people to rise to a very decent standard of living, and reduce the taxation demands imposed on working people, while helping to guard against long-term dynastic accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of a tiny minority.
Oh, yeah...this is supposed to be about questions for Michael Badnarik. Sorry. OK...question. How can you watch such a useless person as Paris Hilton whoring it up on national television and not question your principles?
...is why a no-fly list even exists. I don't mean the list where you get pulled aside for extra scrutiny, but the one where they simply will not let you on the plane.
I'm not aware of anything in particular happening to these people, other than not being allowed to board. And I just don't understand the point of that. If the government considers you too dangerous to be allowed on a plane, then they ought to arrest you, charge you with some terror-related crime, and let a court determine your innocence or guilt.
Freedom to travel is a long-acknowledged right. If the government can't muster enough evidence on you to justify their actions against you, then they shouldn't be able to interfere with that right.
This is a weapon designed to use in case of protests or riots. What kinds of governments need this sort of weapon? The nearest thing to a potential use I can think of in the US would be the Rodney King verdict riots, maybe -- and would you want that?
Oh, no, the opportunities for use are endless. Did you miss the WTO summit protests, the pre-Iraq anti-war protests, etc.? It's disgraceful that the leaders of the free world, who do so much for all of us, need to hide away in isolated, amenities-free hovels in places like Davos and Sea Island whenever they want to meet, with all these uppity protesters trying to hound them relentlessly.
This new weapon--no, 'weapon' is such an ugly word. This tool for ensuring the advance of freedom will play a vital role in guaranteeing that they get the respect and adoration they so richly deserve, and I for one welcome our new overlords.
Whoa... citing 9/11 as a reason why privacy rules should be ignored and a court saying that you can't question the motivations of those who are hiding behing a shield preventing terror attacks?
An. (Coward)'s Law: Any abuse of power can be justified by citing 9/11.
The question is, how long before 'pick and drop' is patented and no one else can use it without paying exhorbant liscencing fees.
People rightly object to stupid patents on trivial inventions and processes, but unlike most such things that appear on Slashdot, this really is a pretty ingenious innovation, and they're certainly right to patent it. If they license it reasonably, it will take off. If not, well, it'll still be a great idea twenty years from now when the patent expires.
This is all kind of a silly nitpick. [Patent encumberance] issues are completely orthogonal. They are obviously citing these formats because they are ubiquitous and the prevailing format for their media type...
It's not nitpicking at all...the article states that
the intention is to create a way of encoding 3D data as freely available as MP3 for audio and JPEG for still images. Intel and co.'s goal is to end the array of proprietary 3D graphics formats devised by CAD, 3D and other software developers and replace it with a single, standard format that all can use.
MP3 is unquestionably a patented, and therefore proprietary, format, and JPEG might have some patent issues of its own. If those are the examples they cite, then it's perfectly legitimate to probe more deeply into what exactly they mean when they say they wish to make their format "as freely available" as these.
EB is obviously not looking at the big picture here. They want to recoup the cost of the stuff that they bought.
They want to do more than that...they wouldn't even sell the stuff back for what they paid the thief. They were offering to sell them back to the victim at a profit.
Jane Fonda's a two-time Oscar-winning actress who organized opposition to the Vietnam War, going so far as to travel over to Hanoi and make radio broadcasts on behalf of the communists, with the intention of demoralizing the soldiers fighting there. For this, leaving aside the question of whether the war was moral or not, many Vietnam veterans have never forgiven her and consider her a traitor.
The forged photo is a nasty attempt to smear Kerry's reputation through a fabricated guilt by association.
It's interesting to compare with a friend's more expensive Sony DVD player; it has fewer features, won't play CD-R media, isn't region code switchable, etc. It also cost about six times as much as mine, although this was a few years ago.
"Sony" is a de facto warning label. Great looking designs, but when you can go out and buy a Sony music CD, then discover that you can't rip it to a Sony music CD-R even though you're using a Sony computer and Sony CD-RW drive, that speaks volumes about what Sony thinks of the people buying their products.
That's why it's called the "CAN-SPAM" act. No trickery with naming there, nosir.
This surprises you? If you only need to know one thing about our current government, it's that bills' names and their purposes are directly opposite each other. Hence the "Clear Skies Act," which rolls weakens air quality regulations, the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act," which increases logging in national forests, etc.
If the do-not-call list goes into effect because "fifty million Americans can't be wrong," then... How can sixty-five million Americans be wrong about file sharing?
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet, since it's a House bill, write to your representatives, since they'll be the ones actually voting on it. Plus you've only got one of them.
Dude, if we learned anything from this election, it's that words are more powerful than facts. Get out of the 11/2, reality-based mentality you're stuck in.
<blink>Hi. Remember me?</blink>
Why do you hate America? *duck* ;)
Nice strawman. At least throughout my adult life, there have been substantial exemptions--allowing tax-free inheritance to a surviving spouse, plus allowed intergenerational inheritance of several hundred thousand dollars. The estate tax is not equivalent to "taking everything away," nor does it adversely affect the poor, who fall well within the exemption limits.
Some people have this notion that estate taxes--"death taxes" in the current political vernacular--are tantamount to adding insult to injury; as if it weren't bad enough that you're dead, now the government has to come along and take your stuff. But what right to you really have to control how your wealth is distributed after you're dead? If you die right before an election, your estate doesn't get to cast a vote for you on the principle that had you not died, you would have voted for candidate X. Why should disposition of your assets be any different?
To use your terminology, who is being punished, and who is succeeding? The deceased were allowed to have full use of their wealth during their life, including passing on a reasonable amount to their children (e.g. through tax laws that allow tax-free gifts of $10K/year, making it not terribly difficult to give your child half a million over the course of your life). They're not being punished. The survivors didn't produce the wealth, so they're not being punished either, and because they didn't produce it, it wasn't their success anyway.
Estate taxes are about the fairest form of taxation imaginable. With a reasonable exemption at the bottom, they allow for people to rise to a very decent standard of living, and reduce the taxation demands imposed on working people, while helping to guard against long-term dynastic accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of a tiny minority.
Oh, yeah...this is supposed to be about questions for Michael Badnarik. Sorry. OK...question. How can you watch such a useless person as Paris Hilton whoring it up on national television and not question your principles?
You misspelled "Unions: The People Who Brought You the Weekend.®"
Oh, sorry, next time I'll put a smiley there so it's clear that I'm writing a joke and not a syllogism.
I live in Boston. Drivers here have more than enough trouble coping with travel in two dimensions. Adding a third is a recipe for disaster.
...is why a no-fly list even exists. I don't mean the list where you get pulled aside for extra scrutiny, but the one where they simply will not let you on the plane.
I'm not aware of anything in particular happening to these people, other than not being allowed to board. And I just don't understand the point of that. If the government considers you too dangerous to be allowed on a plane, then they ought to arrest you, charge you with some terror-related crime, and let a court determine your innocence or guilt.
Freedom to travel is a long-acknowledged right. If the government can't muster enough evidence on you to justify their actions against you, then they shouldn't be able to interfere with that right.
I just hope that twenty years from now, today's children look back on all the things their elders did in the name of protecting them.
And then beat the shit out of them.
How many people do you think would have voted for a "Furthering Actions to Subvert, Compromise, and Impede the Schemes of Terrorists" Act?
And why aren't people freaking out about this? Didn't they learn anything from the Autons?
Oh jeez, I'm making references to Doctor Who episodes in public. Somebody please shoot me.
Oh, no, the opportunities for use are endless. Did you miss the WTO summit protests, the pre-Iraq anti-war protests, etc.? It's disgraceful that the leaders of the free world, who do so much for all of us, need to hide away in isolated, amenities-free hovels in places like Davos and Sea Island whenever they want to meet, with all these uppity protesters trying to hound them relentlessly.
This new weapon--no, 'weapon' is such an ugly word. This tool for ensuring the advance of freedom will play a vital role in guaranteeing that they get the respect and adoration they so richly deserve, and I for one welcome our new overlords.
An. (Coward)'s Law: Any abuse of power can be justified by citing 9/11.
People rightly object to stupid patents on trivial inventions and processes, but unlike most such things that appear on Slashdot, this really is a pretty ingenious innovation, and they're certainly right to patent it. If they license it reasonably, it will take off. If not, well, it'll still be a great idea twenty years from now when the patent expires.
It's not nitpicking at all...the article states that
MP3 is unquestionably a patented, and therefore proprietary, format, and JPEG might have some patent issues of its own. If those are the examples they cite, then it's perfectly legitimate to probe more deeply into what exactly they mean when they say they wish to make their format "as freely available" as these.
He does that. It just looks like }}}}}}}}.
The only thing scarier than a Doctor Who nerd is two Doctor Who nerds. :)
They want to do more than that...they wouldn't even sell the stuff back for what they paid the thief. They were offering to sell them back to the victim at a profit.
Jane Fonda's a two-time Oscar-winning actress who organized opposition to the Vietnam War, going so far as to travel over to Hanoi and make radio broadcasts on behalf of the communists, with the intention of demoralizing the soldiers fighting there. For this, leaving aside the question of whether the war was moral or not, many Vietnam veterans have never forgiven her and consider her a traitor.
The forged photo is a nasty attempt to smear Kerry's reputation through a fabricated guilt by association.
"Sony" is a de facto warning label. Great looking designs, but when you can go out and buy a Sony music CD, then discover that you can't rip it to a Sony music CD-R even though you're using a Sony computer and Sony CD-RW drive, that speaks volumes about what Sony thinks of the people buying their products.
This surprises you? If you only need to know one thing about our current government, it's that bills' names and their purposes are directly opposite each other. Hence the "Clear Skies Act," which rolls weakens air quality regulations, the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act," which increases logging in national forests, etc.
Well duh, blow it up of course.
"I'm sorry? You say we called a number that was on the do-not-call list? Hmmm...hold on, let me check. What's the number?"
*click click click*
delete from do_not_call_list where phone_no = '212-555-9364'
"No, I don't see it here. Must be some mistake. That's OK, it happens all the time."
If the do-not-call list goes into effect because "fifty million Americans can't be wrong," then... How can sixty-five million Americans be wrong about file sharing?
Just wondering...