Re:I thought IT workers can telecommute to work?
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Women Are Fleeing IT Jobs
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, but if management calls after hours to handle some sort of emergency or unusual situation, should / can they really object if you do that work from home? And if they don't object, is the on call requirement even an issue?
Also, this whole topic is predicated on the belief that there are no single fathers out there trying to raise their kids. Fewer of them to be sure, but they are out there.
Why is it that to refute the firing of the 8 U.S. Attorneys, the conservatives always say "But Clinton did it! He fired all 93 at the start of his administration", as if we're leaving out some key fact. But if you want all the facts in play, you can't stop half way. Every president, Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton, and Bush #2, all fired the U.S. Attorney's at the start of their terms. Its customary.
What is not customary is firing 8 of them - the same ones you appointed, no less - in the middle of your term, for dubious reasons which may have included, but not been limitted to the fact that many of these 8 attorney's apparently either refused to back off on investigations of Republicans, or refused to vigorously persue investigations of Democrats - probably because in both scenario's they acted based on what they felt was warranted by the available evidence. In other words they acted as they were supposed to, as unbiased officers of the law, not as political shrills which is what Bush wanted them to be.
By the way, has anyone besides me realised that with 8 of the 93 attornies fired for not doing enough to go after the Democrats or too much to go after the Republicans, that leaves 85 who, by implication, are doing plenty to go after the Democrats and ignoring the mis-steps of the Republicans. Shudder.
I wonder if, by using the RIAA as its bridge to the music-buying-public in their war against digital downloading and everything else going on in the industry these days, the "Big Five" record companies have shot themselves in the foot, at least in terms of public perception? Everyone hates "Big Brother". If there were no RIAA, we'd be left with five or so "littler brothers". By having a single public face that personifies the big guy vs the little guy, the member companies might be deflecting some anger from being focused directly at themselves, but instead are causing MUCH MORE anger to be focused onto their industry as they've given us one big, fat, ugly target.
The amount of revenue for the RIAA is insignificant, either if the fees stay the same or if their raised, since raising them will kill the internet broadcasting industry before its really started. And killing the internet broadcasting industry is exactly the point.
Left unchecked, eventually internet radio will make broadcast radio obsolete. Maybe not for 10 years, but it will happen eventually. For the recording industry, that's a huge problem. See, they effectively control what traditional radio broadcasters play. Ok, maybe they cannot always control the individual bands that will get played, but they have enough control to more or less exclude independent music from the airwaves. With Internet radio stations, they have no such control. None. Perhaps over time they could build up such control with the major internet broadcasters, but that's no garauntee, and with every Tom, Dick, and Harry running his own Internet radio station out of his garage, controlling the entire medium will be impossible. Independent music will become more legitimate, and that is a direct threat to the existence of the RIAA member companies.
Meanwhile, broadcasters like Clearchannel, who do not own the copyrights on the music in question, and thus really have no standing in front of the copyright board, are no doubt applauding from the side lines and having their lobbyists whisper a word or two into the right ears. After all, they've got as much to loose in this as the RIAA as they do not want to be superceeded by internet radio.
That's like saying that after you leave a company and cash the paycheck 3 weeks later, that the company is still paying you. Cheney "earned" those options while he was still employed with Halliburton, and he's just exercising his options before the expire(assuming that they're still worth anything.)
Yes, but if I left a company a few days ago and hadn't yet cashed my final paycheck, I might be slightly disturbed to read in the paper that the company had gone bankrupt. The fact is that as long as Haliburton owes Cheney anything, then its in Cheney's best interests to make sure that Haliburton remains, at the very least, financially solvent.
a) If there were any justice in the world, all of the Haliburton executives would be added to the "No Fly" list. If they want to take our money and run to Dubai, they can at least have to take a damned boat.
b) I predict that on January 21, 2009, Dick Cheney will be taking up residency in Dubai.
Certainly, if Cheney is being paid by Haliburton for work he is supposed to be performing now, while he is at the same time VP, there is a serious problem. But that is not really the issue at hand, because that is not what has happened.
The issue is this: Yes, Cheney earned his deferred compensation. And before its due to him, he became VP. If I were scheduled to receive payments from a company, ***it might be in my best interest to make sure, oh, say, there was money in said company's bank account to pay me***. See, that makes Cheney's finances tied to the well being of Haliburton, and for a VP to have his finances tied to the financial well being of any company ought to be a big no-no.
The entire Cheney / Haliburton affair stinks of a conflict of interest. Given everything that's been said about Cheny and Haliburton, if I were Cheney I'd do whatever I could to avoid any appearance of a conflict, but that's far from what he's done. In fact, aren't high ranking public officials, like the president and VP, supposed to have their money in a blind trust before taking office, to avoid any conflicts of interest? Instead, with Cheney, he and everyone else knows that he has deferred money coming to him from Haliburton.
Unfortunately, those who wrote this law made it illegal to disclose both proper and improper use of it. So it is unlikely there ever will be any concrete examples disclosed to the public (but I note that the auditor's report makes it pretty clear that there are such concrete examples to be had, and its extremily unlikely that those whose rights were violated even know - it could be me or you and we wouldn't know, but this is not a case of what you don't know can't hurt you - it very much can). If under such circumstances you are waiting around for a concrete example before you will agree that there is a problem, then I suggest that a) you will be waiting a very long time and b) you have much more blind faith in our government and its current leadership than I do.
Law enforcement was trying to overstep their authority in the name of anti-terrorism, but the oversight in place caught on and the FBI got nailed.
I beg to differ. If you read the article, part of the oversight that was put in place was that reports about these statistics were to be made to congress. I imagine that the purpose of that provision of the law was put in place so that when it came time to review and renew the law, members of Congress could actually make an informed decision, instead of one based again on misrepresented intelli...,er, uh, statistics.
One possible reason - save weight. Metal is heavier than foam. Imagine a tank similar to the current one in shape, size, and internal volume. Move the metal to the outside of the foam, you need more metal to cover the greater surface area on the outside of the resulting shape than it does on the inside of the current tank, hence more weight.
re: the liner idea - yeah, the tank was painted white for the first two or three launches. They got rid of the paint to save weight - apparently covering the foam with something relatively as light weight as paint, given the surface area involved, still added up to enough weight to make a difference. And, apparently it didn't really help keep the foam in place.
RIAA? How about RAAA? (that is, Recording Artists Association of America). If the artists would just get together and form a group like this, *they* could distribute the money to themselves, leaving the labels (at least on the basis of the 'ol "artists should get paid" argument) out in the cold.
In a lot of cases, they can. Its a question of can they make it through the government beuracracy and procurement process. There are no no-bid contracts for things that actually work, are the only available solution, are available immediately and can save lives. We only have no-bid contracts for corporate cronies who contribute to political campaigns.
So, by doing nothing about this, the government is basically saying that when the five largest companies in an industry, whose combined marketshare represents the vast majority of that industry, get together and claim that their products should cost more, its neither price collusion nor a massive violation of the anti-trust laws of this country?
I don't know what the terms of the contract were, but if Jackson's contract calls for him to be paid more, then I'd say he's completely justified in thinking they owe him something after they've paid him a quarter of a billion dollars. That's why contracts are negotiated - otherwise he could have taken his business elsewhere. They can't retroactively say "We paid you $250 million and that's an awful lot of money, don't be greedy" if they agreed to $300 million.
It looks sweet. But how many people are going to be willing (or able) to drop $500 (or even $600) for this thing? Sure, all the cool kids will want one (myself included), but how many will be able to afford it or justify it? That's more than a (current) iPod, more than almost any other cell phone, more than almost any other PDA. For that much (or not that much more), these days, one can spend their money on many other possibly more desireable (or practical) products - a Mac Mini, even an iBook.
Judging from the pictures, its big for a phone. For an iPod its big too. I can get almost any phone of my choice, plus an 8GB iPod nano, for a lot less $$$ - and the total package will be smaller. Several hundred dollars more just to carry one large device instead of two smaller ones? Makes little sense.
Anyway, long term probably the most significant part of this is that the device runs OS X - meaning Apple now has the technology to deploy OS X to future devices - as Microsoft has been doing with Windows CE for quite a while now - this will ultimately blur the line between apple's computers and other devices.
You said: 3) And speaking of Wii, The apple phone has built in blue tooth and accelerometers, plus all sorts of gripping hand input modes. I wonder if it can do absolute positioning in space--maybe with that camera on the back. if so then this woul dbe an awesome game controller. rig this the the iTV (not the wii) and apple is set. Now the price looks even cheaper since you already have the home computer--if it can do the wiii thing too well bite me. Of course you'll need a couple input devices..
Now, to quote from Apple's web site:
"iPhone's accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio."
If all it does is detect if your holding the phone horizontally or vertically, it sounds more like an orientation sensor (i.e. a weighted switch) than any sort of real accelerometer - perhaps "accelerometer" is too generous a term? My dSLR has similar functionality - it has a small sensor that detects how the camera was oriented when the photo was shot, and it embeds this info into the resulting picture file - when you go to open the photo, if the software is smart enough to look for the embedded orientation information it will automatically rotate the image - sort of nice for avoiding straining one's neck all the time. Anyways, point is my dSLR does this and the manufacturer isn't claiming that it has an "accelerometer".
Not only that, but the record companies often cook the books - which means that the artists have to hire outside auditors at their own expense to try and recoupe royalties from the sales that the record company claims never happened, but also from inflated promotional expenses that come out of the artists cut. Then they usually settle with the record companies for pennies on the dollar. That's the record companies for you - they are supposedly looking out for the artists interest whle at the same time engaging in this sort of practice.
The top 5 record companies are all far larger than any of their other competitors. That these companies cooperate in any way - like by forming the RIAA - ought to be a huge anti-trust violation.
Ubiquitous cell phone cams does not equal the demise of the professional photojournalism.
Yes, a lot of photos are taken by people with cell phones when there is no photojournalist in site. Before cellphone cams became wide spread, those events simply wouldn't have been photographed. So cell phone cams are not exactly invading a marketspace traditionally dominated by professional photojournalists - they are invading a marketspace that has traditionally been vacant - thus I claim photojournalists are not competing with cell cam users.
Photojournalists are out there, right now, shooting the same type of events they've always shot. They'll continue to do so.
And show me a cell phone cam photo and a photo shot by a professional photojournalist from the same event, and I'll choose the photojournalist's shot 999 times out of 1000. Its not because his camera is better (some day, cell phone cams might catch up, who knows?). Its the photographer. There's a reason why these people are pro's and make their living doing it - photographic talent. Joe Schmoe with his cell phone would have to be extremily lucky to stumble into a better picture than the pro is going to take.
You want to stay there for another 5 years? Another 10 years if that's what it takes? Ok, fine, I'll roll up my sleaves and help out. But for heaven sake, lets make it look like we're fighting this war for the right reasons. Lets end all contracts to Halliburton and everyone else, so that it actually looks like the reasons we're there are the right ones and not to help out Bush and Cheney's corporate friends.
While Bush has been waiting for this report our men have been dying nearly every day. Why does he need to wait for a report to decide what to do? The situation isn't apparent to him? He doesn't realise the urgency? He's supposed to be the Commander-In-Chief, our leader, yet instead of doing something himself, he's seemingly quite content to let more men die while he waits for other people to tell him what to do and how to lead. For weeks now, since he's begrudgingly admitted that the situation is not good, he's done nothing to change anything. And more damning that that, is there anyone here who thinks that Mr. bush and his advisors haven't already seen the report, probably weeks or months ago? Sitting around and changing nothing while men are dying the entire time? That is a disgrace.
The answer to why Bush has done nothing while he's been "waiting for the report" is very straightforward. He doesn't want to do anything. He doesn't want to change anything. The simple fact is that no matter what this report says, Mr. Bush is going to do exactly as he pleases. And exactly as he pleases is "staying the course", even if he no longer uses that phrase in public. More of the same. He's said as much.
Of course, there is all sorts of political pressure around him to do something, and at this point, anything. But as long as he is "waiting for the report" he doesn't have to do anything. That lets him continue the war longer. That lets him continue all of the contracts to Halliburton and others that much longer (more on that below), and to Mr. Bush, that is a great thing, even if a few more American lives are lost in the process.
And that is why it is truely a shame that this 10 person commission has no authority here. Nor do the Democrats. The commission can recommend whatever they want (heck, they might even have some brilliant ideas, its just that they won't ever be implemented). The Democrats can control as much of the Congress as they want. But at the end of the day, President Mr. Bush is in control of the military. The commission cannot force him to do anything. Neither can the Democrats, at least not without comitting political suicide themselves (yes, technically they could cut off all funding for the war, which would be immediately portrayed as abandoning our troops, rather than brining a just end to an unjust and unnecessary from the get go war)
Mr. Bush wants this war to continue for as long as possible. Its an economic windfall for everyone he cares about - namely his wealthy corporate friends. As long as Bush is President, as long as multi-million dollar no-bid contracts are being handed out to Halliburton and other FOBs (Friends of Bush), and as long as one American soldier still has one drop of blood flowing through his veins, Mr. Bush will continue this war.
And that is truely the way to stop this war, IMHO. Lets not bring home the troops (yet). Instead, lets bring home the contractors. Yes, lets end the plundering by Americans and American Companies of the United States Treasury under the pretext of helping the Iraqis. These guys have been helping themselves - helping themselves to a lot of our money and these are the people that Mr. Bush is beholdent to. End the money parade for US corporations and FOBs, and the motivation for the war will go away. Instead, lets fulfill our stated purpose of helping the Iraqis by helping their economy - lets give the contracts to Iraqis and to Iraqi companies. In fact, if it had really been Mr. Bush's purpose to help the Iraqi's, that is exactly what he would have done, starting on the day Mr. Hussein was forced from power.
Lets stop for a moment and reflect on the fact that Congress is about to consider a $100 billion dollar + emergency funding bill for the war. Are we insane? The Pentagon has even admitted that the Army and Air Force portions of that money are grossly inflated beyhond what they need to be. And since when did the US have a spare $100 billion (on top of what this whole debacle has cost us
I couldn't agree with you more. In the long run, this is probably the worst thing that could happen to the democrats. I am glad they will be there for the next two years to hopefuly put the brakes on some of what's been going on. But, they just consigned themselves to defeat in 2008.
I say this for two reasons - first, things aren't likely to really improve in the next two years, especially Iraq - and now that the Democrats share power, they'll be sharing plenty of blame too. Unfortunately the people did not wake up in 2004 when all the signs of Iraq being bungled were there. Probably the country could have avoided much of what's happened, and perhaps the Democrats might have even received some electoral credit in 2006 and 2008 for that. Now, Bush will continue with his chosen path, without the Democrats being able to do much to stop him - only now they'll get much of the blame during the 2008 elections. We can look forward to two years of Bush and his ilk blaming Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for EVERYTHING that goes wrong.
But, second and more importantly, when it comes to domestic issues, to social issues, more of the country seems to be in line with the conservatives and the Republicans (and more of the country seems to be in line with them on foreign policy issues too, except in the case of Iraq), and that's not likely to change in two years. The Democrats simply cannot win in a lot of the more conservative areas of the country without some seriously divisive issue for them to hang their hats on. This time, Bush came along and provided that issue. If Bush hadn't bungled Iraq, the Democrats would have had no prayer in this election. In fact I think it likely that they would have lost seats and been even further marginalized.
I for one am not looking forward to 2008 - especially if we're still in Iraq and (heaven help us) someone like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz etc. gets elected.
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Yes, but if management calls after hours to handle some sort of emergency or unusual situation, should / can they really object if you do that work from home? And if they don't object, is the on call requirement even an issue?
Also, this whole topic is predicated on the belief that there are no single fathers out there trying to raise their kids. Fewer of them to be sure, but they are out there.
Why is it that to refute the firing of the 8 U.S. Attorneys, the conservatives always say "But Clinton did it! He fired all 93 at the start of his administration", as if we're leaving out some key fact. But if you want all the facts in play, you can't stop half way. Every president, Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton, and Bush #2, all fired the U.S. Attorney's at the start of their terms. Its customary.
What is not customary is firing 8 of them - the same ones you appointed, no less - in the middle of your term, for dubious reasons which may have included, but not been limitted to the fact that many of these 8 attorney's apparently either refused to back off on investigations of Republicans, or refused to vigorously persue investigations of Democrats - probably because in both scenario's they acted based on what they felt was warranted by the available evidence. In other words they acted as they were supposed to, as unbiased officers of the law, not as political shrills which is what Bush wanted them to be.
By the way, has anyone besides me realised that with 8 of the 93 attornies fired for not doing enough to go after the Democrats or too much to go after the Republicans, that leaves 85 who, by implication, are doing plenty to go after the Democrats and ignoring the mis-steps of the Republicans. Shudder.
I wonder if, by using the RIAA as its bridge to the music-buying-public in their war against digital downloading and everything else going on in the industry these days, the "Big Five" record companies have shot themselves in the foot, at least in terms of public perception? Everyone hates "Big Brother". If there were no RIAA, we'd be left with five or so "littler brothers". By having a single public face that personifies the big guy vs the little guy, the member companies might be deflecting some anger from being focused directly at themselves, but instead are causing MUCH MORE anger to be focused onto their industry as they've given us one big, fat, ugly target.
This is about control, period.
The amount of revenue for the RIAA is insignificant, either if the fees stay the same or if their raised, since raising them will kill the internet broadcasting industry before its really started. And killing the internet broadcasting industry is exactly the point.
Left unchecked, eventually internet radio will make broadcast radio obsolete. Maybe not for 10 years, but it will happen eventually. For the recording industry, that's a huge problem. See, they effectively control what traditional radio broadcasters play. Ok, maybe they cannot always control the individual bands that will get played, but they have enough control to more or less exclude independent music from the airwaves. With Internet radio stations, they have no such control. None. Perhaps over time they could build up such control with the major internet broadcasters, but that's no garauntee, and with every Tom, Dick, and Harry running his own Internet radio station out of his garage, controlling the entire medium will be impossible. Independent music will become more legitimate, and that is a direct threat to the existence of the RIAA member companies.
Meanwhile, broadcasters like Clearchannel, who do not own the copyrights on the music in question, and thus really have no standing in front of the copyright board, are no doubt applauding from the side lines and having their lobbyists whisper a word or two into the right ears. After all, they've got as much to loose in this as the RIAA as they do not want to be superceeded by internet radio.
That's like saying that after you leave a company and cash the paycheck 3 weeks later, that the company is still paying you. Cheney "earned" those options while he was still employed with Halliburton, and he's just exercising his options before the expire(assuming that they're still worth anything.)
Yes, but if I left a company a few days ago and hadn't yet cashed my final paycheck, I might be slightly disturbed to read in the paper that the company had gone bankrupt. The fact is that as long as Haliburton owes Cheney anything, then its in Cheney's best interests to make sure that Haliburton remains, at the very least, financially solvent.
a) If there were any justice in the world, all of the Haliburton executives would be added to the "No Fly" list. If they want to take our money and run to Dubai, they can at least have to take a damned boat.
b) I predict that on January 21, 2009, Dick Cheney will be taking up residency in Dubai.
Certainly, if Cheney is being paid by Haliburton for work he is supposed to be performing now, while he is at the same time VP, there is a serious problem. But that is not really the issue at hand, because that is not what has happened.
The issue is this: Yes, Cheney earned his deferred compensation. And before its due to him, he became VP. If I were scheduled to receive payments from a company, ***it might be in my best interest to make sure, oh, say, there was money in said company's bank account to pay me***. See, that makes Cheney's finances tied to the well being of Haliburton, and for a VP to have his finances tied to the financial well being of any company ought to be a big no-no.
The entire Cheney / Haliburton affair stinks of a conflict of interest. Given everything that's been said about Cheny and Haliburton, if I were Cheney I'd do whatever I could to avoid any appearance of a conflict, but that's far from what he's done. In fact, aren't high ranking public officials, like the president and VP, supposed to have their money in a blind trust before taking office, to avoid any conflicts of interest? Instead, with Cheney, he and everyone else knows that he has deferred money coming to him from Haliburton.
Unfortunately, those who wrote this law made it illegal to disclose both proper and improper use of it. So it is unlikely there ever will be any concrete examples disclosed to the public (but I note that the auditor's report makes it pretty clear that there are such concrete examples to be had, and its extremily unlikely that those whose rights were violated even know - it could be me or you and we wouldn't know, but this is not a case of what you don't know can't hurt you - it very much can). If under such circumstances you are waiting around for a concrete example before you will agree that there is a problem, then I suggest that a) you will be waiting a very long time and b) you have much more blind faith in our government and its current leadership than I do.
Mod parent up please. I would but have already posted in this thread.
So somebody please explain to me who was harmed by these FBI "crimes."
Respectfully, I submit it was me, you, and every other American, as our collective rights and liberties have been squashed even more.
I beg to differ. If you read the article, part of the oversight that was put in place was that reports about these statistics were to be made to congress. I imagine that the purpose of that provision of the law was put in place so that when it came time to review and renew the law, members of Congress could actually make an informed decision, instead of one based again on misrepresented intelli...,er, uh, statistics.
One possible reason - save weight. Metal is heavier than foam. Imagine a tank similar to the current one in shape, size, and internal volume. Move the metal to the outside of the foam, you need more metal to cover the greater surface area on the outside of the resulting shape than it does on the inside of the current tank, hence more weight.
re: the liner idea - yeah, the tank was painted white for the first two or three launches. They got rid of the paint to save weight - apparently covering the foam with something relatively as light weight as paint, given the surface area involved, still added up to enough weight to make a difference. And, apparently it didn't really help keep the foam in place.
RIAA? How about RAAA? (that is, Recording Artists Association of America). If the artists would just get together and form a group like this, *they* could distribute the money to themselves, leaving the labels (at least on the basis of the 'ol "artists should get paid" argument) out in the cold.
In a lot of cases, they can. Its a question of can they make it through the government beuracracy and procurement process. There are no no-bid contracts for things that actually work, are the only available solution, are available immediately and can save lives. We only have no-bid contracts for corporate cronies who contribute to political campaigns.
A case in point...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14686871/
So, by doing nothing about this, the government is basically saying that when the five largest companies in an industry, whose combined marketshare represents the vast majority of that industry, get together and claim that their products should cost more, its neither price collusion nor a massive violation of the anti-trust laws of this country?
I don't know what the terms of the contract were, but if Jackson's contract calls for him to be paid more, then I'd say he's completely justified in thinking they owe him something after they've paid him a quarter of a billion dollars. That's why contracts are negotiated - otherwise he could have taken his business elsewhere. They can't retroactively say "We paid you $250 million and that's an awful lot of money, don't be greedy" if they agreed to $300 million.
If I were the OEM, I'd be worried that Vista will make users think my hardware is crap.
It looks sweet. But how many people are going to be willing (or able) to drop $500 (or even $600) for this thing? Sure, all the cool kids will want one (myself included), but how many will be able to afford it or justify it? That's more than a (current) iPod, more than almost any other cell phone, more than almost any other PDA. For that much (or not that much more), these days, one can spend their money on many other possibly more desireable (or practical) products - a Mac Mini, even an iBook.
Judging from the pictures, its big for a phone. For an iPod its big too. I can get almost any phone of my choice, plus an 8GB iPod nano, for a lot less $$$ - and the total package will be smaller. Several hundred dollars more just to carry one large device instead of two smaller ones? Makes little sense.
Anyway, long term probably the most significant part of this is that the device runs OS X - meaning Apple now has the technology to deploy OS X to future devices - as Microsoft has been doing with Windows CE for quite a while now - this will ultimately blur the line between apple's computers and other devices.
Now, to quote from Apple's web site:
"iPhone's accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio."
If all it does is detect if your holding the phone horizontally or vertically, it sounds more like an orientation sensor (i.e. a weighted switch) than any sort of real accelerometer - perhaps "accelerometer" is too generous a term? My dSLR has similar functionality - it has a small sensor that detects how the camera was oriented when the photo was shot, and it embeds this info into the resulting picture file - when you go to open the photo, if the software is smart enough to look for the embedded orientation information it will automatically rotate the image - sort of nice for avoiding straining one's neck all the time. Anyways, point is my dSLR does this and the manufacturer isn't claiming that it has an "accelerometer".
Not only that, but the record companies often cook the books - which means that the artists have to hire outside auditors at their own expense to try and recoupe royalties from the sales that the record company claims never happened, but also from inflated promotional expenses that come out of the artists cut. Then they usually settle with the record companies for pennies on the dollar. That's the record companies for you - they are supposedly looking out for the artists interest whle at the same time engaging in this sort of practice.
The top 5 record companies are all far larger than any of their other competitors. That these companies cooperate in any way - like by forming the RIAA - ought to be a huge anti-trust violation.
Ubiquitous cell phone cams does not equal the demise of the professional photojournalism.
Yes, a lot of photos are taken by people with cell phones when there is no photojournalist in site. Before cellphone cams became wide spread, those events simply wouldn't have been photographed. So cell phone cams are not exactly invading a marketspace traditionally dominated by professional photojournalists - they are invading a marketspace that has traditionally been vacant - thus I claim photojournalists are not competing with cell cam users.
Photojournalists are out there, right now, shooting the same type of events they've always shot. They'll continue to do so.
And show me a cell phone cam photo and a photo shot by a professional photojournalist from the same event, and I'll choose the photojournalist's shot 999 times out of 1000. Its not because his camera is better (some day, cell phone cams might catch up, who knows?). Its the photographer. There's a reason why these people are pro's and make their living doing it - photographic talent. Joe Schmoe with his cell phone would have to be extremily lucky to stumble into a better picture than the pro is going to take.
You want to stay there for another 5 years? Another 10 years if that's what it takes? Ok, fine, I'll roll up my sleaves and help out. But for heaven sake, lets make it look like we're fighting this war for the right reasons. Lets end all contracts to Halliburton and everyone else, so that it actually looks like the reasons we're there are the right ones and not to help out Bush and Cheney's corporate friends.
While Bush has been waiting for this report our men have been dying nearly every day. Why does he need to wait for a report to decide what to do? The situation isn't apparent to him? He doesn't realise the urgency? He's supposed to be the Commander-In-Chief, our leader, yet instead of doing something himself, he's seemingly quite content to let more men die while he waits for other people to tell him what to do and how to lead. For weeks now, since he's begrudgingly admitted that the situation is not good, he's done nothing to change anything. And more damning that that, is there anyone here who thinks that Mr. bush and his advisors haven't already seen the report, probably weeks or months ago? Sitting around and changing nothing while men are dying the entire time? That is a disgrace.
The answer to why Bush has done nothing while he's been "waiting for the report" is very straightforward. He doesn't want to do anything. He doesn't want to change anything. The simple fact is that no matter what this report says, Mr. Bush is going to do exactly as he pleases. And exactly as he pleases is "staying the course", even if he no longer uses that phrase in public. More of the same. He's said as much.
Of course, there is all sorts of political pressure around him to do something, and at this point, anything. But as long as he is "waiting for the report" he doesn't have to do anything. That lets him continue the war longer. That lets him continue all of the contracts to Halliburton and others that much longer (more on that below), and to Mr. Bush, that is a great thing, even if a few more American lives are lost in the process.
And that is why it is truely a shame that this 10 person commission has no authority here. Nor do the Democrats. The commission can recommend whatever they want (heck, they might even have some brilliant ideas, its just that they won't ever be implemented). The Democrats can control as much of the Congress as they want. But at the end of the day, President Mr. Bush is in control of the military. The commission cannot force him to do anything. Neither can the Democrats, at least not without comitting political suicide themselves (yes, technically they could cut off all funding for the war, which would be immediately portrayed as abandoning our troops, rather than brining a just end to an unjust and unnecessary from the get go war)
Mr. Bush wants this war to continue for as long as possible. Its an economic windfall for everyone he cares about - namely his wealthy corporate friends. As long as Bush is President, as long as multi-million dollar no-bid contracts are being handed out to Halliburton and other FOBs (Friends of Bush), and as long as one American soldier still has one drop of blood flowing through his veins, Mr. Bush will continue this war.
And that is truely the way to stop this war, IMHO. Lets not bring home the troops (yet). Instead, lets bring home the contractors. Yes, lets end the plundering by Americans and American Companies of the United States Treasury under the pretext of helping the Iraqis. These guys have been helping themselves - helping themselves to a lot of our money and these are the people that Mr. Bush is beholdent to. End the money parade for US corporations and FOBs, and the motivation for the war will go away. Instead, lets fulfill our stated purpose of helping the Iraqis by helping their economy - lets give the contracts to Iraqis and to Iraqi companies. In fact, if it had really been Mr. Bush's purpose to help the Iraqi's, that is exactly what he would have done, starting on the day Mr. Hussein was forced from power.
Lets stop for a moment and reflect on the fact that Congress is about to consider a $100 billion dollar + emergency funding bill for the war. Are we insane? The Pentagon has even admitted that the Army and Air Force portions of that money are grossly inflated beyhond what they need to be. And since when did the US have a spare $100 billion (on top of what this whole debacle has cost us
The purpose of future wars would be to force our conquered subjects to install Windows, instead of plundering their country of oil.
I couldn't agree with you more. In the long run, this is probably the worst thing that could happen to the democrats. I am glad they will be there for the next two years to hopefuly put the brakes on some of what's been going on. But, they just consigned themselves to defeat in 2008.
I say this for two reasons - first, things aren't likely to really improve in the next two years, especially Iraq - and now that the Democrats share power, they'll be sharing plenty of blame too. Unfortunately the people did not wake up in 2004 when all the signs of Iraq being bungled were there. Probably the country could have avoided much of what's happened, and perhaps the Democrats might have even received some electoral credit in 2006 and 2008 for that. Now, Bush will continue with his chosen path, without the Democrats being able to do much to stop him - only now they'll get much of the blame during the 2008 elections.
We can look forward to two years of Bush and his ilk blaming Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for EVERYTHING that goes wrong.
But, second and more importantly, when it comes to domestic issues, to social issues, more of the country seems to be in line with the conservatives and the Republicans (and more of the country seems to be in line with them on foreign policy issues too, except in the case of Iraq), and that's not likely to change in two years. The Democrats simply cannot win in a lot of the more conservative areas of the country without some seriously divisive issue for them to hang their hats on. This time, Bush came along and provided that issue. If Bush hadn't bungled Iraq, the Democrats would have had no prayer in this election. In fact I think it likely that they would have lost seats and been even further marginalized.
I for one am not looking forward to 2008 - especially if we're still in Iraq and (heaven help us) someone like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz etc. gets elected.