At this very moment I can get the following at store.apple.com:
Refurbished MacBook Pro - 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo 15.4-inch TFT display with 1440x900 resolution 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 Cache 667MHz frontside bus 512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW) ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Original price: $1,999.00 Your price: $1,699.00 Estimated Ship: 1-2 business days Free Shipping
... for a dose of mashochism now and then led my remote to stop on Fox last night.
Wow. Holy Fucking Shit. They've gone off the deep end more than I suspected.
The few minutes my stomach could stand to watch before being forced to regurgitate my wonderful New Mexico Green Chile Posole, was 100% pure propaganda. I mean WWI, Wilson type propaganda. The segement was titled something like "Three ways to kick Iran's fucking ass: Booyah to the Mulahs!" The gist was that we'd waltz into Iran with an Army--I guess they left out the draft part in order to find enough 'willing' troops-- and kick some Axis of Evil ass. Fuck Yeah. They did leave out the part about the path being strewn with fragrant rose petals. Sigh.
Also, in direct response to your post, a 4th excuse: 4. Being Plain Fucking Stupid
You're correct. I missed that link in the box on the right as I was so incensed at the crappy article and I have trained by eyes to avoid links in boxes like that as they are often ads.
If you note, in my post I linked to both relevant publications in Pubmed and in a latter post linked to the full articles in EJC.
The ranting has to do with the irresponsible "journalism" at the BBC--and most other "news" organizations-- vis-a-vis science.
1. The BBC article's headline "Colds 'may trigger child cancers'" is sensationalistic to say the least. Monkeys may fly out of my ass, but it is unlikely. Perhaps the single quotes around 'may trigger child cancers' mean that the author made such a statement, but the article never says so. I can only conclude the editor chose this headline for shock value, not for its scientific relevance or merit. By plopping "may" into a headline, doesn't mitigate the damage done by promoting shoddy science and even shoddier science writing.
2. The lead states that, "Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers." Compelling? According to whom? The writer? If so, then they need to take a course in virology, one in epidemiology, one in biostatistics and one in cancer genetics, because after reading the articles, "compelling" is one of the last adjective that comes to mind.
3. The BBC article has no contradictory opinions by "experts" and I can tell you that when discussing links between any infectious agent and the etiology of cancer you can find those opinions with ease.
4. The only mitigating statements are like, "but we need more evidence to be sure." They don't need more evidence, they need a mountain of evidence to even begin asserting that childhood infections may "trigger" certain cancers.
5. The article never mentions the source of the information. The European Journal of Cancer is by and large a decent publication, but if the data were even remotely "compelling" it would amount to a bombshell in the infectious disease and oncology communities and Eur J Can would have been pretty far down on the desired publication list.
6. Statements like "It was even possible infections caught by mothers while pregnant could trigger the cancers, the report said" and "People affected by infections would need to carry mutant cells which could be manipulated by viruses, causing a second mutation and prompting the onset of cancer" are laughable. The articles provide zero evidence for the former, while the latter is so inanely simplistic and wrong that it taints an already tainted beyond repair article.
7. To bolster the lack of actual evidence to support their conclusions, i.e. data that show a concomitant increase in a particular disease symptoms that could be attributed to viral infection, they use the good ole' 'it was below the level of detection argument by stating, "These could be minor, common illnesses that are not even reported to the GP, such as a cold, mild flu or a respiratory virus." Apparently there was no evidence of increase disease symptoms reported to the docs in the area, so the authors just decide to make up a reason for why the data don't support the conclusions. And the BBC writer dutifully reports this with a positive spin.
So that's just a slice of why I hate BBC science reporting and why the broader distribution of such tripe on sites like/. is all the more disturbing.
Hell if you believe the NYTimes, a few years back you would have thought that Judah Folkman had cancer all but cured. The NYT has some decent science writers, but in the competition for the worst of the worst the BBC has a commanding lead.
If the article's statistical data regarding "space-time clustering" of certain cancers is bona fide, then why in this article are there no data, zero, none, nada in the results section speaking to the link to infections?
The link between HPV and cervical cancer is probably the LEAST controversial link between viral infection and cancer. You basically don't get cervical cancer if you don't get infected with HPV type 16 (and a few other types). However, this is important, if you have HPV type 16, it doesn't mean you will get cervical cancer, just that your chances are quite a bit higher.
Please provide a link to "some groups" as I'd like to see their logic.... I'm assuming their fundies.
Just give me my salary and I'll decide how I want to spend it.
I'm sure you'll be more than happy to go out with all your tax savings and personally do things like, oh, build interstates, build electricity distribution networks to *everyone*, research, design and implement military weapons systems, create regulations that provide clean drinking water and food products, pay for basic research and development in the Sciences, educate our citizens, police our borders, train spies and intelligence agents, make sure there aren't carcinogens in my air, food, water, police our cities, fight our fires, make sure pharmaceuticals won't kill me, send satellites into space so that I, and everyone else (except Brownie), knows that Hurricane Katrina is a Cat5 and heading towards NoLa, etc, etc, etc..... Oh that's right, corporations will do those things cheaper, faster and better than the big bad government.
I'm not sure if Libertarians are willfully ignorant, just plain ignorant, or lazy Republicans.
I like him because he's not mealy mouth and he's reasonable when he disagrees with people.
You mean like this...
O'REILLY: Shut up. Shut up.
GLICK: Oh, please don't tell me to shut up.
O'REILLY: As respect -- as respect -- in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians...
GLICK: By radical extremists who were trained by this government...
O'REILLY: Out of respect for him...
GLICK:... not the people of America.
O'REILLY:... I'm not going to...
GLICK:... The people of the ruling class, the small minority.
O'REILLY: Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of THE FACTOR.
GLICK: That means we're done?
O'REILLY: We're done.
I guess in the world of Faux News FanBoys, exchanges like that one--which are not at all uncommon for O'reilly--are considered "reasonable" and "CIVIL".
As you probably know, most bikes don't get that great of mileage. The *best* I got on my '81 Suzuki 650 was 48MPG, all HWY at around 75MPH. My current '88 BMW K75 gets around 40MPG at the same speed. Our 1995 Corolla gets 35MPG on the same commute (80 miles round trip). The bikes that get great mileage (60MPG+) would be absolutely miserable to ride 500 mile per week and the good commuter bikes don't get great mileage.
Given the slight difference in mileage between the corolla and the BMW, one might be inclined to drive, but commuting on the bike is so much more liberating despite all the things you listed. And if you are in Cali, then you get to "share" lanes with the cars, which is reason enough to ride in the Bay Area.
I live in the dead center of San Francisco and can't get a decent signal in or around our apt. We've tried multiple carriers to no avail.
Even with all those high tech resources apparently cell companies can't even get good coverage over a densly populated city measuring a whopping 7x7 miles.
Here's a link to a video of the speech so all those naysayers out there can actually inform themselves instead of reading a hack job by Wired.
Re:Sound like KHTML team doesn't want to play eith
on
Safari vs. KHTML
·
· Score: 1
"Apple loves to keep things secret between releases, and we can only hope they are start to grow up."
Apple needs to grow up?
You have got to be kidding me! They are a company that is, has always been and always will be secretive about their products, both software and hardware. It IS their business model.
If anyone needs to grow up it is those who complain about for-profit companies keeping their work product and products secret.
We agree. My quote should have been, "Hi, I'm Osama Bin Laden, Islamic Terrosit Numero Uno and I plan to kill thousands of Americans real soon now, I'd like my Driver's license today. Thank you?"
My point, which I thought I made, was that they'll use fake identities and counterfeit documents to get these real IDs and that makes them much more dangerous. It is like the putative "trusted flyer" the TSA has been talking about so that our business customers aren't inconvenienced; get trusted flyer status and go to the front of the line, no special searches of your person, etc. If you wanted to hijack an airplane, then the first thing you'd try to do in this environment of heightened security would be to gather the fake documents necessary to get a legitimate ID allowing you special privileges, that as a terrorist, were never supposed to get in the first place.
Those who give up a little freedom for putative security neither deserve, nor shall receive either.
This ID card will NOT make you any safer in any way whatsoever.
Let's use the old NRA argument here. One of the main reasons the NRA is opposed to gun registration (excluding their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment) is that criminals will not register their guns, thus only legitimate gun owners will be registered and potentially tracked.
This national ID is exactly the same. Do you really think that the Terrorists will go to the DMV and say, "Hi, I'm Osama Bin Laden, I'd like my Driver's license today. Thank you?" Do you really think they won't be able to get fake credentials that are as good as these IDs or can be used to get a legitimate ID?
And finally, do you really think that the government won't abuse this new power (i.e. knowleged of your every purchase, move, travel, etc.)? Who do you think will hold and compile these data? My guess is an Oracle based system. Do you really think that our corporatocracy will keep this information away from corporations?
Can you imagine how much corporations would pay to know your every move, flight, purchase, hotel reservation, rental, etc. etc. etc? These data are worth billions upon billions and they won't be sitting idly in some database in DC doing nothing.
I was going to ask the parent (of your post) for some data other than Republican/Libertarian talking points, but you did it for him.
Perhaps he'll ponder that gasoline will probably hit $5.15 a gallon long before the minumum wage will go any higher. I would venture a guess that total inflation during this time period in the future will be relatively low, but still at a rate higher than we're seeing today. However, the rate of inflation for those poor saps making $5.15 an hour will be relatively higher because everyday when the drive to work, they'll work from 8-9AM to pay for driving to work, then they'll work from 9-10AM to pay for their gallon to drive home. So joe executive making $200/hr won't notice that he's paying 2.50 a gallon more for gas--even if it is a Hummer--but Minumum Wage Joe will feel it hard. He's got six hours more work to do, or about $36 to make all his ends meet. Living the high life if I must say so myself.
Factor in the fact that they are poor, so they live in zip codes that aren't desireable and you'll one will note that insurance for said beater car that is worth $500.00 costs them 1500.00 per year for liability only, while Joe Executive pays the same for full coverage on his Hummer because he live in a 'good' zip code. If my math is correct, then Joe Minumum wage has to work another hour per day, just to pay for his car insurance. Woot. Now he's down to $31/day for food, rent, health insurance, clothes, etc.
So, Joe Minimun Wage decides to go get a loan to buy a newer Honda Civic that gets 40MPG to replace his 68 Plymouth with 286,000 miles. Unfortunately for him, the bank won't give him a loan because he has no assets and lives in one of those 'bad' zip codes. When he does find someone to loan him the money he gets a loan at 18.9% to buy his car to save him some gas money.
Unfortunately for Joe Minimum Wage, the school he went to was in a 'bad' zip code area where property values are low and because that area doesn't bring in a lot of property taxes. Add to that the fact that his state and government has decided that Joe Q. Executive really needs a tax cut to spur the economy, schools, especially those in 'bad' zip code areas don't get much money. As a result, the school he went to kinda sucked and he didn't learn much math so he doesn't really know the difference between a 5% loan and an 18.9% loan and that he'll be losing gobs of money. Meanwhile in Exective Zip Code area, Joe, gets his new Hummer for, you guessed it, *free*. Why? Because in order to keep inflation down and spur the economy, it was decided that businesses should get to write off all the costs of "work vehicles" in one year and lo and behold, those Hummers are absolutely necessary to drive to the office and make more money selling money to Joe Minimum Wage... you see Joe Executive is a banker, who grew up in a good zip code, went to good schools, got a good education and got a good job.
But those Republican talking points sound really nice if avarice is your cup-o-tea.
Can you actually drink your tap water? Sorry this is one of the worst examples.
Water is probably the best example anyone can give. Pull your Libertarian head out of your ass for a minute ruminate on the following.
Water is a REQUIREMENT for ALL LIFE.
Water in the USA is the safe and you can drink all of if you want without getting sick. Feel free to buy your bottled water from CocaCola Co. at your SuperWalMart for more than the price of gasoline, while BILLIONS of people across the globe (i) don't have running water, (ii) wouldn't drink it if they did and (iii) can't drink what they have. Do you know why our water is safe? Because our evil government mandates that it be so.
Did you know that unsafe drinking water is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world? REF.
Did you know that our buddies over at Bechtel tried to "privatize" water distribution in some cities in Colombia and basically took a working service, shut it down and told the citizens that they would have to pay 10 times more for the exact same crappy water they were getting in the first place. SEE
If I weren't at work I would find references to show that a cheap and reliable power infrasctructuer, running water, and sewer systems all are keys to moving human beings from cycles of disease and poverty into a more healty and productive existence, which benefits ALL of us on EARTH. Furthermore if profit motive (Corps) instead of sacrificing a little to help those around you (Govt) is the driving force behind building a safe water, sewer and power infrastructure, the those poorer cities, municipalities, counties, states, countries and continents would never move forward. You see providing the basic necessities of life should never be a corporate issue...it is a human rights issue.
Those Islamic fascists are surely taking advantage of us having an absolute moron running the globe's only superpower.
You see, that pesky little organization that actually thinks about issues like global terrorism and the impacts of US policy on such activities, the CIA, has this to say about dumbasses little escapade into Iraq.
Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists...
Not exactly what dumbass had in mind, but I guess when your brain works with binary logic (black:white) you can't see that the world is morass of nasty fucking gray that takes more than 1 step of logic to contemplate.
I hope that the Idiot in Chief at least can figure out that since he's a 2nd-termer, he should pull our troops the fuck outta that shit hole once the civil war begins in earnest...and that should begin in about 15 or so days after the killing event also know as the January 30th "election".
Your points about public universities are right on.
Slashdot Mirror
University of Calgary!!!!!!!!!
I don't know if you are just trolling for dollars, but I did visit your site.
What exactly couldn't you get done on that site with LAMP?
This is a serious question because the only dynamic content I see is your "donor list".
At this very moment I can get the following at store.apple.com:
Refurbished MacBook Pro - 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
15.4-inch TFT display with 1440x900 resolution
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 Cache
667MHz frontside bus
512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Original price: $1,999.00
Your price: $1,699.00
Estimated Ship:
1-2 business days
Free Shipping
... for a dose of mashochism now and then led my remote to stop on Fox last night.
Wow. Holy Fucking Shit. They've gone off the deep end more than I suspected.
The few minutes my stomach could stand to watch before being forced to regurgitate my wonderful New Mexico Green Chile Posole, was 100% pure propaganda. I mean WWI, Wilson type propaganda. The segement was titled something like "Three ways to kick Iran's fucking ass: Booyah to the Mulahs!" The gist was that we'd waltz into Iran with an Army--I guess they left out the draft part in order to find enough 'willing' troops-- and kick some Axis of Evil ass. Fuck Yeah. They did leave out the part about the path being strewn with fragrant rose petals. Sigh.
Also, in direct response to your post, a 4th excuse:
4. Being Plain Fucking Stupid
You're correct. I missed that link in the box on the right as I was so incensed at the crappy article and I have trained by eyes to avoid links in boxes like that as they are often ads.
If you note, in my post I linked to both relevant publications in Pubmed and in a latter post linked to the full articles in EJC.
Thanks for the heads up!
What's with all the ranting?
/. is all the more disturbing.
The ranting has to do with the irresponsible "journalism" at the BBC--and most other "news" organizations-- vis-a-vis science.
1. The BBC article's headline "Colds 'may trigger child cancers'" is sensationalistic to say the least. Monkeys may fly out of my ass, but it is unlikely. Perhaps the single quotes around 'may trigger child cancers' mean that the author made such a statement, but the article never says so. I can only conclude the editor chose this headline for shock value, not for its scientific relevance or merit. By plopping "may" into a headline, doesn't mitigate the damage done by promoting shoddy science and even shoddier science writing.
2. The lead states that, "Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers." Compelling? According to whom? The writer? If so, then they need to take a course in virology, one in epidemiology, one in biostatistics and one in cancer genetics, because after reading the articles, "compelling" is one of the last adjective that comes to mind.
3. The BBC article has no contradictory opinions by "experts" and I can tell you that when discussing links between any infectious agent and the etiology of cancer you can find those opinions with ease.
4. The only mitigating statements are like, "but we need more evidence to be sure." They don't need more evidence, they need a mountain of evidence to even begin asserting that childhood infections may "trigger" certain cancers.
5. The article never mentions the source of the information. The European Journal of Cancer is by and large a decent publication, but if the data were even remotely "compelling" it would amount to a bombshell in the infectious disease and oncology communities and Eur J Can would have been pretty far down on the desired publication list.
6. Statements like "It was even possible infections caught by mothers while pregnant could trigger the cancers, the report said" and "People affected by infections would need to carry mutant cells which could be manipulated by viruses, causing a second mutation and prompting the onset of cancer" are laughable. The articles provide zero evidence for the former, while the latter is so inanely simplistic and wrong that it taints an already tainted beyond repair article.
7. To bolster the lack of actual evidence to support their conclusions, i.e. data that show a concomitant increase in a particular disease symptoms that could be attributed to viral infection, they use the good ole' 'it was below the level of detection argument by stating, "These could be minor, common illnesses that are not even reported to the GP, such as a cold, mild flu or a respiratory virus." Apparently there was no evidence of increase disease symptoms reported to the docs in the area, so the authors just decide to make up a reason for why the data don't support the conclusions. And the BBC writer dutifully reports this with a positive spin.
So that's just a slice of why I hate BBC science reporting and why the broader distribution of such tripe on sites like
Hell if you believe the NYTimes, a few years back you would have thought that Judah Folkman had cancer all but cured. The NYT has some decent science writers, but in the competition for the worst of the worst the BBC has a commanding lead.
If the article's statistical data regarding "space-time clustering" of certain cancers is bona fide, then why in this article are there no data, zero, none, nada in the results section speaking to the link to infections?
And guess what, in
If you would like to discuss your complaint with my post, then please do.
Do you take umbrage at my slam on the BBC? If so, then lay out your reasoning.
Or do you not like my interpretation of the findings?
It does a disservice to the general public for the BBC to post this crap, then to have it propagated by sites like Slashdot.
Please provide a link to "some groups" as I'd like to see their logic.... I'm assuming their fundies.
The BBC article doesn't even mention the actual article, which I assume is this article, or perhaps this one.
Here are some of the juicy conclusion which I assume the craptacular BBC writer honed in on for his/her craptastic masterpiece.
In science parlance those type of conclusions can be translated into, "we have no clue, but here's a guess."
Just give me my salary and I'll decide how I want to spend it.
I'm sure you'll be more than happy to go out with all your tax savings and personally do things like, oh, build interstates, build electricity distribution networks to *everyone*, research, design and implement military weapons systems, create regulations that provide clean drinking water and food products, pay for basic research and development in the Sciences, educate our citizens, police our borders, train spies and intelligence agents, make sure there aren't carcinogens in my air, food, water, police our cities, fight our fires, make sure pharmaceuticals won't kill me, send satellites into space so that I, and everyone else (except Brownie), knows that Hurricane Katrina is a Cat5 and heading towards NoLa, etc, etc, etc..... Oh that's right, corporations will do those things cheaper, faster and better than the big bad government.
I'm not sure if Libertarians are willfully ignorant, just plain ignorant, or lazy Republicans.
You mean like this...
I guess in the world of Faux News FanBoys, exchanges like that one--which are not at all uncommon for O'reilly--are considered "reasonable" and "CIVIL".
One more point for your list.
As you probably know, most bikes don't get that great of mileage. The *best* I got on my '81 Suzuki 650 was 48MPG, all HWY at around 75MPH. My current '88 BMW K75 gets around 40MPG at the same speed. Our 1995 Corolla gets 35MPG on the same commute (80 miles round trip). The bikes that get great mileage (60MPG+) would be absolutely miserable to ride 500 mile per week and the good commuter bikes don't get great mileage.
Given the slight difference in mileage between the corolla and the BMW, one might be inclined to drive, but commuting on the bike is so much more liberating despite all the things you listed. And if you are in Cali, then you get to "share" lanes with the cars, which is reason enough to ride in the Bay Area.
Ouija Boards? Why not!?
I live in the dead center of San Francisco and can't get a decent signal in or around our apt. We've tried multiple carriers to no avail.
Even with all those high tech resources apparently cell companies can't even get good coverage over a densly populated city measuring a whopping 7x7 miles.
OrangeMicro?? Was that the name of the company that sold the Intel CPU daughtercard?
Here's a link to a video of the speech so all those naysayers out there can actually inform themselves instead of reading a hack job by Wired.
"Apple loves to keep things secret between releases, and we can only hope they are start to grow up."
Apple needs to grow up?
You have got to be kidding me! They are a company that is, has always been and always will be secretive about their products, both software and hardware. It IS their business model.
If anyone needs to grow up it is those who complain about for-profit companies keeping their work product and products secret.
We agree. My quote should have been, "Hi, I'm Osama Bin Laden, Islamic Terrosit Numero Uno and I plan to kill thousands of Americans real soon now, I'd like my Driver's license today. Thank you?"
My point, which I thought I made, was that they'll use fake identities and counterfeit documents to get these real IDs and that makes them much more dangerous. It is like the putative "trusted flyer" the TSA has been talking about so that our business customers aren't inconvenienced; get trusted flyer status and go to the front of the line, no special searches of your person, etc. If you wanted to hijack an airplane, then the first thing you'd try to do in this environment of heightened security would be to gather the fake documents necessary to get a legitimate ID allowing you special privileges, that as a terrorist, were never supposed to get in the first place.
Those who give up a little freedom for putative security neither deserve, nor shall receive either.
This ID card will NOT make you any safer in any way whatsoever.
Let's use the old NRA argument here. One of the main reasons the NRA is opposed to gun registration (excluding their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment) is that criminals will not register their guns, thus only legitimate gun owners will be registered and potentially tracked.
This national ID is exactly the same. Do you really think that the Terrorists will go to the DMV and say, "Hi, I'm Osama Bin Laden, I'd like my Driver's license today. Thank you?" Do you really think they won't be able to get fake credentials that are as good as these IDs or can be used to get a legitimate ID?
And finally, do you really think that the government won't abuse this new power (i.e. knowleged of your every purchase, move, travel, etc.)? Who do you think will hold and compile these data? My guess is an Oracle based system. Do you really think that our corporatocracy will keep this information away from corporations?
Can you imagine how much corporations would pay to know your every move, flight, purchase, hotel reservation, rental, etc. etc. etc? These data are worth billions upon billions and they won't be sitting idly in some database in DC doing nothing.
Wow. After reading that link, now I know why KDE is such a monumental Pile of Shit. I've got a great Stilton Blue to go with that Whine.
Thank you.
I was going to ask the parent (of your post) for some data other than Republican/Libertarian talking points, but you did it for him.
Perhaps he'll ponder that gasoline will probably hit $5.15 a gallon long before the minumum wage will go any higher. I would venture a guess that total inflation during this time period in the future will be relatively low, but still at a rate higher than we're seeing today. However, the rate of inflation for those poor saps making $5.15 an hour will be relatively higher because everyday when the drive to work, they'll work from 8-9AM to pay for driving to work, then they'll work from 9-10AM to pay for their gallon to drive home. So joe executive making $200/hr won't notice that he's paying 2.50 a gallon more for gas--even if it is a Hummer--but Minumum Wage Joe will feel it hard. He's got six hours more work to do, or about $36 to make all his ends meet. Living the high life if I must say so myself.
Factor in the fact that they are poor, so they live in zip codes that aren't desireable and you'll one will note that insurance for said beater car that is worth $500.00 costs them 1500.00 per year for liability only, while Joe Executive pays the same for full coverage on his Hummer because he live in a 'good' zip code. If my math is correct, then Joe Minumum wage has to work another hour per day, just to pay for his car insurance. Woot. Now he's down to $31/day for food, rent, health insurance, clothes, etc.
So, Joe Minimun Wage decides to go get a loan to buy a newer Honda Civic that gets 40MPG to replace his 68 Plymouth with 286,000 miles. Unfortunately for him, the bank won't give him a loan because he has no assets and lives in one of those 'bad' zip codes. When he does find someone to loan him the money he gets a loan at 18.9% to buy his car to save him some gas money.
Unfortunately for Joe Minimum Wage, the school he went to was in a 'bad' zip code area where property values are low and because that area doesn't bring in a lot of property taxes. Add to that the fact that his state and government has decided that Joe Q. Executive really needs a tax cut to spur the economy, schools, especially those in 'bad' zip code areas don't get much money. As a result, the school he went to kinda sucked and he didn't learn much math so he doesn't really know the difference between a 5% loan and an 18.9% loan and that he'll be losing gobs of money. Meanwhile in Exective Zip Code area, Joe, gets his new Hummer for, you guessed it, *free*. Why? Because in order to keep inflation down and spur the economy, it was decided that businesses should get to write off all the costs of "work vehicles" in one year and lo and behold, those Hummers are absolutely necessary to drive to the office and make more money selling money to Joe Minimum Wage... you see Joe Executive is a banker, who grew up in a good zip code, went to good schools, got a good education and got a good job.
But those Republican talking points sound really nice if avarice is your cup-o-tea.
Exactly the point.
They likely did something stupid, probably even illegal, but to apply the so-called Patriot Act to them is ludicrous.
Water is probably the best example anyone can give. Pull your Libertarian head out of your ass for a minute ruminate on the following.
Water is a REQUIREMENT for ALL LIFE.
Water in the USA is the safe and you can drink all of if you want without getting sick. Feel free to buy your bottled water from CocaCola Co. at your SuperWalMart for more than the price of gasoline, while BILLIONS of people across the globe (i) don't have running water, (ii) wouldn't drink it if they did and (iii) can't drink what they have. Do you know why our water is safe? Because our evil government mandates that it be so.
Did you know that unsafe drinking water is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world? REF.
Did you know that our buddies over at Bechtel tried to "privatize" water distribution in some cities in Colombia and basically took a working service, shut it down and told the citizens that they would have to pay 10 times more for the exact same crappy water they were getting in the first place. SEE
If I weren't at work I would find references to show that a cheap and reliable power infrasctructuer, running water, and sewer systems all are keys to moving human beings from cycles of disease and poverty into a more healty and productive existence, which benefits ALL of us on EARTH. Furthermore if profit motive (Corps) instead of sacrificing a little to help those around you (Govt) is the driving force behind building a safe water, sewer and power infrastructure, the those poorer cities, municipalities, counties, states, countries and continents would never move forward. You see providing the basic necessities of life should never be a corporate issue...it is a human rights issue.
You see, that pesky little organization that actually thinks about issues like global terrorism and the impacts of US policy on such activities, the CIA, has this to say about dumbasses little escapade into Iraq. Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists...
Not exactly what dumbass had in mind, but I guess when your brain works with binary logic (black:white) you can't see that the world is morass of nasty fucking gray that takes more than 1 step of logic to contemplate.
I hope that the Idiot in Chief at least can figure out that since he's a 2nd-termer, he should pull our troops the fuck outta that shit hole once the civil war begins in earnest...and that should begin in about 15 or so days after the killing event also know as the January 30th "election".
Your points about public universities are right on.
If it pops up, blinks, moves or is obtrusive, I block it.
If it fits in with the site, has targeted content and doesn't flash or move, I leave it.
If she gets ahold of this thing, I'm doomed.
Doomed I tell you.