You're flat out incorrect here. First, not only can the power be shut off, but generators can be made to explode.
Not if they're designed correctly.
Second, if you mess with the supply chain electronically, it's possible to do some really interesting stuff with medical supplies, parts for just in time manufacturing, etc. Could go on - but the overall effect is direct, substantial life threatening consequences.
And you know what? People are resilient, and it's people not machines that make the system. You place a few calls, and everything is fixed. This is just the Military-Industrual Complex getting its y2k on. The tried to scare us by saying bills would go unpaid, people would be charged exorbitant amounts of interest, computers would turn into steam engines, and dogs and cats would live together. Well one, it didn't happen. And two, it hinges on people not paying attention to the obvious. For as much as people want to say that everyone else is stupid except them, we live in a world where grocery stores continue to make sales when the cash registers are broken. As long as we have waitresses that say, "$4000 for a cheeseburger? That's not right," we'll be just fine.
With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?
Same way they always prove it, by filing a discovery motion to have all mass storage devices (e.g. computer hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, tapes, etc.) turned over to a third party for expert examination. If the files are there, you did it. If the files were deleted, but still on drive, you did it.
FYI: You don't have have to overwrite data 7 times or even 30 times to erase on today's drives. Once is enough. The original recommendations were based on 1980s technology with large magnetic domains and inaccurate servos. At today's densities, the slop you were trying to overwrite just doesn't happen.
(And yes, I did get this information from an known expert in computer forensics.)
That isn't even touching on the corny "aliens" and their costumes, like the Centauri whose only difference from a human is their hair style or the B-rated look of the rubber mask monsters.
And yet, costume-wise B5 was still better than Star Trek. ("I'm sorry you must be mistaken. We're not human. We wear blue hats.")
Case in point, look at the current recession? If banks do not have capital people save because the result is a recession. When people save then banks have capital again and the problem corrects itself. When product A is in short supply and too expensive then the market creates competitors that make an alternative.
That's quite an interesting example you've chosen. The roots of recession trace themselves back to the deregulation of financial sector. We have the repeal of Glass-Steagall that allowed the largest banks to underwrite the CDOs and the mortgage backed securities that caused the mess. We also have very people that derailed the world economy continuing to say how "they know better" and off balance sheet structured investments should remain off the record, even though there the very same instruments that Enron used to hide their debt. (More on Enron later.) We have the deregulation in the 80s that ushered in ARMs which caused the Savings & Loan collapse and appeared again in this banking collapse. Without oversight, we now have the financial advisors who are paid by their clients to given them advice, lying to their clients because the advisors are betting that the client will lose money on the investments.
Should we have bailed out the big banks? My initial reaction like everyone is a big "no," but the fact is that they alone account for a significant fraction of GDP. We simply can't let that evaporate. What should have been done, and still could be done, is to simply cap the size of the banks. You can't be "too big to fail," if you're not too big to start. But of course the brain trust on Wall Street and the conservative think tanks say that this would be "too much" and we should simply let these people continue to be rewarded for their expertise. But of course these are the same folks that say that by allowing the largest purchaser of prescription drugs to negotiate prices like every other purchaser, that would now be a government price control.
Enron showed us how the deregulation of the energy markets led to rampant manipulation of prices and energy supplies, most notably in California.
Even these last two months with the Deepwater Horizon and the West Virginian mine disaster, we've seen how deregulation and intentionally lax oversight has led to safety equipment not being tested, inspection reports being filled in by the inspectee.
You say that "the real world" and an introductory economics class taught you that the only way to succeed is to compete is to race to the bottom, and that regulation and safety standards cost jobs. Well the thing is, as someone that has lived in "the real world" all his life, has learned that there's this little thing called "data." We've heard these same complaints for over a hundred years, and yet whenever regulations are imposed, the economy continue to grow, sometimes even faster than before(!). History simply doesn't back this up this claim.
You claim we need "less taxes" but taxes are at the lowest rate in 50 years. FIFTY YEARS! We have less taxes, and yet the economy sucks as hard as every. So that's not the problem. You talk about "less lawsuits," but why shouldn't someone be held responsible for their actions?
You say we should race to the bottom. Well, I've been boogey man China. It'sshit. You have bought into the false choice that we can either voluntarily submit to birth defects and carcinogen soups or we can have birth defects and carcinogen soups thrust upon us. That's not the way how history has taught us that economics actually work.
For all your talk about "the real world," you haven't actually examined it. You've only been paying attention to a cartoon version of it. The deregulators have consistently been spectacularly wrong.
I was not really impressed with the film. Sure it was a quality film with a solid message. I didn't feel it was worth an academy award. I'm sure I am not alone
My comment about the film was, "Is there an Academy Award for 'Least Believable Main Character,' because I think Hurt Locker just won that one too."
It had potential to be good. The reviews were good. The film just isn't. When the two big directors up for Best Picture are the directors of Point Break and Rambo, the field is pretty weak.
Funny, there aren't in riots in Germany, france, or even scary "socialist" Norway. Seems to be just those few where the glorious private sector and Wall Street Whiz Kids encouraged more and more government debt and then bet against them is where the problems are.
Beyond the basic "what makes you think people who want to run everything will therefore be good at it"
That's not the question I posed. The question was, "What makes you think people that don't want to do a job, and don't believe that the job should even be done, would be good at doing the job?"
I love how you dismiss this as "big government." It's not. It's EFFECTIVE government. Something that's been sorely missing for 30 years.
When you elect people that axiomatically believe that government can't do anything right, you get people that intentionally do government badly. Whether it's automobile safety, maintaining an a healthy and stable economy, or maintaining worker and environmental safety standards.
You wouldn't hire a janitor that said he was morally opposed to cleanliness and didn't believe that brooms worked. Why would you be shocked when everything goes to hell when you hire someone that says they don't believe government?
It is entirely up to interpretation if allowing prayer in schools constitutes an "establishment of religion" or whether it is "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Except no prevents anyone from praying in school. What is prevented is leading a prayer in school. Think about out it? Why would any organization whose express purpose is irrelevant to religion, engage in religion? What prayer would be led? I bet that if someone stood up in front of those that advocate for government sponsored prayer and started "Oh Dark Lord..." or even "Lord Alllah..." they'd be outraged. The fact is that institutionalized prayer is coercive. Everyone wants to fit in and not feel like a freak, especially children.
Not only is institutionalized prayer and endorsement of a specific religion, its an endorsement of religion itself. That's not the government's role, and I find it insulting. You might find this view "extreme," but keep in mind, that not only was having an opening prayer voted down during the constitutional convention, but the presidential oath of office pointedly does not say "so help me god" in it.
I suggest you look up Billy Graham and the growth of the religious right in the mid 50s and how it dovetailed into the anticommunist fanatism of the day.
You're assuming those are the same conservatives. In fact, you're almost certainly addressing two almost entirely different factions within the movement, the economic and social conservatives. They have only the thinnest of threads in common, but are allied because they would lose every election if they competed for votes.
While it is true that the interests of the ultra religious poor and middle class aren't the interested of the monied elite, you'd be hard pressed to find the religious that believe that. God wants you to be rich. Taxes are an affront to the Lord. Global Warming doesn't exist, because God would protect us, therefore we should eliminate pollution regulation. It's all part of the their "Prosperity Theology" movement.
You should meet these people. It's quite a sight of intellectual discord.
typical High School Civics book today there IS a progressive bias. I don't think its out of line to insists that books at least cover major political events like the Contract with America, the Goldwater movement in the 60s and not leaving kids with the impression Nixon started Vietnam, is out of line at all.
As evidence of "progressive bias" you pick the 1960s? So are you arguing that segregation and racism should be taught as legitimate? Let's make no bones about it it. That was the conservative position. That's why Goldwater won the confederacy. That's why the Southern Strategy works. That's why it's patently absurd for a party to both claim the mantle of Abraham Lincoln, while simultaneously lionizing the Confederacy as "patriots" who fought for "freedom" and working against civil rights.
Taxes have never been socialist. They predate both capitalism and socialism. They're a bill for service. Only those with a very specific and extreme misunderstanding of socialism, government, and sociology think that's the case.
He's making the point that profits are socialized as well as losses.
Except, that the profits aren't socialized! If they were, we'd have a national oil company like every major oil producing nation does, and we wouldn't have oil barons.
Slashdot Mirror
You're flat out incorrect here. First, not only can the power be shut off, but generators can be made to explode.
Not if they're designed correctly.
Second, if you mess with the supply chain electronically, it's possible to do some really interesting stuff with medical supplies, parts for just in time manufacturing, etc. Could go on - but the overall effect is direct, substantial life threatening consequences.
And you know what? People are resilient, and it's people not machines that make the system. You place a few calls, and everything is fixed. This is just the Military-Industrual Complex getting its y2k on. The tried to scare us by saying bills would go unpaid, people would be charged exorbitant amounts of interest, computers would turn into steam engines, and dogs and cats would live together. Well one, it didn't happen. And two, it hinges on people not paying attention to the obvious. For as much as people want to say that everyone else is stupid except them, we live in a world where grocery stores continue to make sales when the cash registers are broken. As long as we have waitresses that say, "$4000 for a cheeseburger? That's not right," we'll be just fine.
Get thee to an atomic powered flying car!
Well Microsoft is also irrelevant.
Hating Microsoft today is like hating Prussia.
How does any of that justify harassment, intimidation, and other anti-social behavior?
With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?
Same way they always prove it, by filing a discovery motion to have all mass storage devices (e.g. computer hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, tapes, etc.) turned over to a third party for expert examination. If the files are there, you did it. If the files were deleted, but still on drive, you did it.
FYI: You don't have have to overwrite data 7 times or even 30 times to erase on today's drives. Once is enough. The original recommendations were based on 1980s technology with large magnetic domains and inaccurate servos. At today's densities, the slop you were trying to overwrite just doesn't happen.
(And yes, I did get this information from an known expert in computer forensics.)
Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?
Why? What's the point? To be a childish dick? To threaten and intimidate?
No thank you. We're adults.
Agreed.
Do you also prefer kicks to the groin and creamed corn as well?
Voyager wasn't good, but B5 was just slow and lame. Now DS9, now that was good.
That isn't even touching on the corny "aliens" and their costumes, like the Centauri whose only difference from a human is their hair style or the B-rated look of the rubber mask monsters.
And yet, costume-wise B5 was still better than Star Trek. ("I'm sorry you must be mistaken. We're not human. We wear blue hats.")
When Apple starts buying up companies, then we can talk.
Case in point, look at the current recession? If banks do not have capital people save because the result is a recession. When people save then banks have capital again and the problem corrects itself. When product A is in short supply and too expensive then the market creates competitors that make an alternative.
That's quite an interesting example you've chosen. The roots of recession trace themselves back to the deregulation of financial sector. We have the repeal of Glass-Steagall that allowed the largest banks to underwrite the CDOs and the mortgage backed securities that caused the mess. We also have very people that derailed the world economy continuing to say how "they know better" and off balance sheet structured investments should remain off the record, even though there the very same instruments that Enron used to hide their debt. (More on Enron later.) We have the deregulation in the 80s that ushered in ARMs which caused the Savings & Loan collapse and appeared again in this banking collapse. Without oversight, we now have the financial advisors who are paid by their clients to given them advice, lying to their clients because the advisors are betting that the client will lose money on the investments.
Should we have bailed out the big banks? My initial reaction like everyone is a big "no," but the fact is that they alone account for a significant fraction of GDP. We simply can't let that evaporate. What should have been done, and still could be done, is to simply cap the size of the banks. You can't be "too big to fail," if you're not too big to start. But of course the brain trust on Wall Street and the conservative think tanks say that this would be "too much" and we should simply let these people continue to be rewarded for their expertise. But of course these are the same folks that say that by allowing the largest purchaser of prescription drugs to negotiate prices like every other purchaser, that would now be a government price control.
Enron showed us how the deregulation of the energy markets led to rampant manipulation of prices and energy supplies, most notably in California.
Even these last two months with the Deepwater Horizon and the West Virginian mine disaster, we've seen how deregulation and intentionally lax oversight has led to safety equipment not being tested, inspection reports being filled in by the inspectee.
You say that "the real world" and an introductory economics class taught you that the only way to succeed is to compete is to race to the bottom, and that regulation and safety standards cost jobs. Well the thing is, as someone that has lived in "the real world" all his life, has learned that there's this little thing called "data." We've heard these same complaints for over a hundred years, and yet whenever regulations are imposed, the economy continue to grow, sometimes even faster than before(!). History simply doesn't back this up this claim.
You claim we need "less taxes" but taxes are at the lowest rate in 50 years. FIFTY YEARS! We have less taxes, and yet the economy sucks as hard as every. So that's not the problem. You talk about "less lawsuits," but why shouldn't someone be held responsible for their actions?
You say we should race to the bottom. Well, I've been boogey man China. It's shit. You have bought into the false choice that we can either voluntarily submit to birth defects and carcinogen soups or we can have birth defects and carcinogen soups thrust upon us. That's not the way how history has taught us that economics actually work.
For all your talk about "the real world," you haven't actually examined it. You've only been paying attention to a cartoon version of it. The deregulators have consistently been spectacularly wrong.
I was not really impressed with the film. Sure it was a quality film with a solid message. I didn't feel it was worth an academy award. I'm sure I am not alone
My comment about the film was, "Is there an Academy Award for 'Least Believable Main Character,' because I think Hurt Locker just won that one too."
It had potential to be good. The reviews were good. The film just isn't. When the two big directors up for Best Picture are the directors of Point Break and Rambo, the field is pretty weak.
Funny, there aren't in riots in Germany, france, or even scary "socialist" Norway. Seems to be just those few where the glorious private sector and Wall Street Whiz Kids encouraged more and more government debt and then bet against them is where the problems are.
God bless Wall Street!
Beyond the basic "what makes you think people who want to run everything will therefore be good at it"
That's not the question I posed. The question was, "What makes you think people that don't want to do a job, and don't believe that the job should even be done, would be good at doing the job?"
I love how you dismiss this as "big government." It's not. It's EFFECTIVE government. Something that's been sorely missing for 30 years.
I wouldn't exactly call him either conservative (he was a radical corporatist) or harmless.
Sounds like a contemporary mainstream Republican.
When you elect people that axiomatically believe that government can't do anything right, you get people that intentionally do government badly. Whether it's automobile safety, maintaining an a healthy and stable economy, or maintaining worker and environmental safety standards.
You wouldn't hire a janitor that said he was morally opposed to cleanliness and didn't believe that brooms worked. Why would you be shocked when everything goes to hell when you hire someone that says they don't believe government?
Troy McClure? Is that you? Thanks to you, I mothballed my own battleship!
It is entirely up to interpretation if allowing prayer in schools constitutes an "establishment of religion" or whether it is "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Except no prevents anyone from praying in school. What is prevented is leading a prayer in school. Think about out it? Why would any organization whose express purpose is irrelevant to religion, engage in religion? What prayer would be led? I bet that if someone stood up in front of those that advocate for government sponsored prayer and started "Oh Dark Lord ..." or even "Lord Alllah..." they'd be outraged. The fact is that institutionalized prayer is coercive. Everyone wants to fit in and not feel like a freak, especially children.
Not only is institutionalized prayer and endorsement of a specific religion, its an endorsement of religion itself. That's not the government's role, and I find it insulting. You might find this view "extreme," but keep in mind, that not only was having an opening prayer voted down during the constitutional convention, but the presidential oath of office pointedly does not say "so help me god" in it.
I suggest you look up Billy Graham and the growth of the religious right in the mid 50s and how it dovetailed into the anticommunist fanatism of the day.
You're assuming those are the same conservatives. In fact, you're almost certainly addressing two almost entirely different factions within the movement, the economic and social conservatives. They have only the thinnest of threads in common, but are allied because they would lose every election if they competed for votes.
While it is true that the interests of the ultra religious poor and middle class aren't the interested of the monied elite, you'd be hard pressed to find the religious that believe that. God wants you to be rich. Taxes are an affront to the Lord. Global Warming doesn't exist, because God would protect us, therefore we should eliminate pollution regulation. It's all part of the their "Prosperity Theology" movement.
You should meet these people. It's quite a sight of intellectual discord.
You have no idea what socialism is.
Go back to Glenn Beck.
typical High School Civics book today there IS a progressive bias. I don't think its out of line to insists that books at least cover major political events like the Contract with America, the Goldwater movement in the 60s and not leaving kids with the impression Nixon started Vietnam, is out of line at all.
As evidence of "progressive bias" you pick the 1960s? So are you arguing that segregation and racism should be taught as legitimate? Let's make no bones about it it. That was the conservative position. That's why Goldwater won the confederacy. That's why the Southern Strategy works. That's why it's patently absurd for a party to both claim the mantle of Abraham Lincoln, while simultaneously lionizing the Confederacy as "patriots" who fought for "freedom" and working against civil rights.
Taxes have never been socialist. They predate both capitalism and socialism. They're a bill for service. Only those with a very specific and extreme misunderstanding of socialism, government, and sociology think that's the case.
I understand the words. Th statement has any bearing on reality.
You think Phillip Morris should be allowed to kill babies since cigarette taxes are so high?
Look, it's not like they use the whole baby during the manufacturing process.
He's making the point that profits are socialized as well as losses.
Except, that the profits aren't socialized! If they were, we'd have a national oil company like every major oil producing nation does, and we wouldn't have oil barons.