Again, the SCOTUS ruling was that Florida had to recount all of the votes or none of the votes. They couldn't have a selective recount without violating the equal protection rights of those in other counties. They also admonished the Florida Supreme Court, who's own Chief Justice came right out and said that it was purely a political decision since they were all democrats, for making a decision they didn't have the right to make (ie, changing the standard of a vote in the middle of the game and allowing a selective recount). Basically, the clock ran out on Florida because the other counties hadn't started a recount since they weren't ordered to by the Florida Supreme Court and wouldn't have had time to.
What Al Gore did was attempt a coup by judiciary. His political agenda and wanting the office his daddy told him he was destined for was more important to him than whether or not he was trying to eroding the judicial system, which he swore to protect and defend, like his former boss did. Had Gore actually won on a recount of only selective counties which favored him, HE would have been selected by judicial fiat and we would have seen the first ever successful coup since our founding
No, it was NOT under the election system of the US. It was a selection by the SC. They stopped recounts mandated by the Florida Constitution and recognized by the Florida Supreme Court, declared W to be the winner and stated that any further recounts would cast doubts on their selection. While he may be in office, all I'm doing is noting that he is the Selected President*. Why does ignoring Republican spin and pointing out the reality of the situation irk some folks?
Every newspaper that went to Florida and recounted the votes afterward, even the NY Times, admitted that regardless of what standard they used to recount, GWB won the state. If Gore won his own home state, it never would have been an issue.
What the Florida Supreme Court said, was that they wanted to force selective recounts in the counties that Gore selected and not all counties. The SCOTUS ruled that unfair - you have to recount all the votes, not just a subset. Inaugeration day was quickly approaching and Florida just didn't have time to do it.
Complaining about Florida and ignoring what happened in New Mexico, Missouri, South Dakota, etc is like blaming the last guy up to bat for losing because he struck out. It's just as much of the rest of the team's fault as it is the one who had the final strike out.
Now... you can thank all the voters here at/. who voted for Nader and took votes away from Gore (note, I didn't whine in 1995, 3 years later, that it wasn't fair that Clinton won with only, what, 39% of the vote because Perot took too many votes away from GHWB. I accepted him as the President regardless of whether I thought he was actually fit for the job).
You don't win an argument by alienating a third of your audience before setting forth your views. Reality says that under the election system in the US, GWB won - period. The recounts after the election proved it regardless of how you counted the votes and there were plenty of unpersued irregularities in states other than Florida working in Gore's favor. Reality says GWB won... accept it and move on. Refusing to admit it simply shows that reality doesn't matter and thus, anything the poster says probably doesn't matter. That broken clock might be right for 2 minutes a day, but it's wrong for the other 1438, so I might as well ignore it.
If you want MS punished as badly as I think they deserve to be, let that be the opening premise of your argument, not a whine about how the 2000 election wasn't "fair" because your guy didn't win. Guess what, barring something majorly negative happening in the next year, GWB is gonna McGovern/Dukakis Dean next year and he'll be elected to a second term. Who's in the White House after MS was already convicted doesn't affect the presiding judge's decision on punishment one iota. Perhaps if Judge Jackson kept his mouth shut instead of blathering about how evil "the man", er MS, is, we'd have an outcome we'd like. Stop blaming the "man", er GWB, and actually do something instead of whining. It's hard for your argument to stand on it's own when you have to tear everyone else down to try make it look taller.
After all, it's not their fault if the selected President*
You lost all credibility as soon as you said that. Anything after this point that you say doesn't really matter since you can't deal with the reality of who's in office just because you don't like him. If you want to argue a point, stick to the facts and don't go off on tangents that make people dislike what you're going to say. Is getting bonus points for snide comments with your friends more important than getting your ideas heard?
The Bush administration may have changed the DOJ's perspective on the case, but ultimately, it's up to the judge, not the DOJ, to determine what the actual penalty would be, regardless of the DOJ's opinion
a lot of it, for me at least, is the look of japanese games. Seems like every time I check one out, they look very cartoony/anime looking (especially on the GC). It's not that I value graphics over gameplay, it's just that certain styles of graphics turn me off enough that I don't care if it's a fun game to play because I simply hate looking at it.
When my mortgage went up, I immediately had to change my spending. The government shouldn't be any different... if you can't fund all of your programs, you HAVE to cut something, not look down the end of a barrel and demand people give you more money to waste. Step 1: The federal government has NO business in education (find me the authorization under Article I, Section 8 for it)... bye, bye dept of education. Step 2: The US government has no right to setup a ponzi retirement scheme (again, find it in A1S8). We'll pay the current retirees, all people who've paid in for at least 25 years. Everyone else can have 10% of their income mandated into a private retirement account rather than into the government coffers. Step 3: Welfare and health care is a state issue (again, A1S8). Shift it to the states and counties where the reps are more responsible for spending your money (ie, 2 senators to 18 million people vs 8 county reps to 18,000 people in my county).
Eliminate the unconstitutional programs and the federal deficit is gone in 3-4 years.
cut back spending to Constitutional levels... Of the $2.2 trillion budget, only about 1/5th is actually spent on stuff that is allowed under the Constitution. Make cuts in that $1.7 trillion of fluff to cover the defense needs (the PREDOMINATE purpose of the federal government)
By cutting federal taxes and forcing states to spend more money by implementing the homeland security without properly funding it with federal dollars, what he has forced states to do is raise taxes to fix the deficit.
My mortgage went up $70 a month this year... I adjust by reducing my discretionary spending since I know I only have a certain amount of income per month. Gasp! The government should have to pay for the critical stuff before they waste money on entitlements and pork? There's no fluff spending that could be cut to reduce the deficits?
George W. Bush for ruining the 8 years of Clintons tax free internet, causing us to lose 3 million jobs and counting, ruining our relations with the UN, and causing my state and sales taxes to raise just so you can give a tax cut to the rich
The economy was faltering long before Clinton left office. Alan Greenspan recognized it in 1999 (irrational exuberance) and started preparing for a soft landing. It officially began tanking in the spring of 2000 (remember all the dems whining about how GWB was trying to talk down the economy?). Jobs get lost when the economy contracts... and it started before GWB took office. Had he NOT cut taxes, even more jobs would have been lost (had the states not increased taxes and instead, cut spending, we'd be going along at a pretty healthy clip again).
Now... as for the UN, most of the rest of the world has had a distaste for the US for quite some time, especially Europe (since the fall of the Soviet Empire) and the third world dictators out there. The UN removed the US from the Human Rights Committee (but found a place for the likes of Libya, Syria and Sudan). In August of 2001, the UN held a onference to "denounce" racism in Durbin, South Africa which basically turned into a demand for the US to pay reparations for slavery instead of denouncing Sudan (you know, one of those countries on the Human Rights Committee) for STILL practicing slavery. The UN's definition of human rights includes government funded abortions on demand for any woman who wants them which is very counter to the US ideas on abortion (only the most pro-abortion minority support that stance). The UN's primary mission was to promote diplomacy, not to become yet another level of government bureaucracy and means for dictatorial regimes like China to reject means of achieving peace in places like North Korea.
...and this guy is the CTO, so its "silly" for him to smear the company he's responsible for. That's the whole point, if you're brass and you talk crap about your company and it's partners, you're going to get in deep water even if one of the grunts wouldn't for the same thing.
Did I say what decision I would make or did I say that I know that I would be risking my job by making such a statement? Not all management people are evil you know.
he worked for a company that partners with MS according to the blurb. That's precisely like me saying that one of our food supplier's products has the potential to kill you if you eat it. It hurts their reputation as well as my restaurant's for serving their product, especially since I'm an authority figure at my restaurant (much like he was the CTO). Whenever I speak about the restaurant, I have to take my association into consideration.
I manage a restaurant... if, on my free time, I go around talking about how bad the restaurant is or how crappy the product we buy is, shouldn't I get fired? A lot of contract employees have a various clauses in their contracts that allow for termination if the employee acts in a way, even outside of work, that reflects negatively on the business (see Marv Albert).
I believe captialism does need some checks... anti-trust laws for example. I don't have a problem with a massive corporation with billions in revenues. I do have a problem when a corporation of that size corners a market and uses predatory tactics to maintain control over that market (not only stagnating the market and improvements in the field, but elimating the chance for vibrant business to compete and employ more people).
I think putting caps on what a corporation can earn or how much wealth a person can amass is a very bad thing though. It amounts to punishment for being successful and taking risk that others refused to. It will add a further barrier to creating new advances. Why should a company spend $100 million on drug research if they're only allowed to make $10 million on the investment? Why should someone who's sitting on top of their $10 million maxed out nestegg bother to invest any of it in someone else's idea if he can't get anything for taking the risk?
Under capitalism, everyone has something (more or less) to contribute. If you limit one of the types of contribution, the whole thing falls down. Make it so engineers can't work more than 5 hours a week and you'll find you can't get a product designed. Limit assembly workers to 20 hours a week and your product can't be made fast enough to meet demand. Limit return on investment and watch investment dry up because there isn't enough incentive to invest.
The fact that Bill Gates has $40 billion doesn't prevent me from going out and pursuing my happiness. Big deal... in fact, maybe I work for a company that builds ridiculous yachts and I'm being employed because Bill Gates wants one. If he didn't have the money to waste, I wouldn't have a job to provide the money that helps me pursue my happiness. When you start complaining that (x) has too much money or that (y) has too much revenue, it ALWAYS comes across that you're jealous because you can't compete with them. It bothers you that someone else has something that you don't. You want to find happiness? Stop worrying about what everyone else has and find what will make you happy.
I don't think it's society's job to determine who has the right to be wealthy or to get in the way of people who are doing their best to become wealthy if that's what they desire. Remember, the Declaration of Independence says that we have the right to "pursue happiness." Money itself can't make 99.999% of people happy, but the security of having a healthy nestegg can reduce your problems to some degree (in addition to creating others).
What the current system does is create disincentives to work an average job. The "middle class" isn't shrinking because the wealthy are stealing the money, it's shrinking because of excessive taxation (not just income tax, phone taxes, gas tax, sin taxes, user fees, utility franchise fees, road tolls, etc) combined with rewards for those who don't want to put the effort in to achieve self-sustainance (I'm not saying everyone on welfare is abusing the system but there are a substantial number of people, including people in my own family, who deliberately do less than they're capable of and put themselves in situations so that they don't have to work a real job).
Whether or not wealthy people should be taxed differently than non wealthy people is the wrong question. The question should be why is the federal government so wasteful with the tax money they collect and why has the federal budget gone from $196 billion in 1970 to $2200 billion today (444% inflation vs 1122% growth, meaning the budget grew at 3x the rate of inflation over the years). How much of that $2200 billion actually falls under the scope of the federal government as defined by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution?
The fact that the wealthy are willing to risk their capital already is what created the majority of the private sector jobs out there. Sure, some people start small and grow over time, but something like a restaurant requires significant capital just to serve that first burger (a chain fast food restaurant costs between $800k-$2 million to start depending on the chain and location (plus monthly franchise payments) and even a family restaurant requires more than $50k for basic equipment if they already own a building that doesn't need modifications (or add on another $100-250k for that)).
As to companies and profit... Dell can sell me a basic computer cheaper than I can build one from parts because of economies of scale. They buy so many parts that they get a massive discount compared to the retail price I pay. McDonalds can buy their burger cheaper than the restaurant I manage can. They both started very small... one man's investment and work (ok, in the case of McDonalds, two brothers). They reached their respective positions by doing something better than their competition. Fact is, there are people who can afford to buy a computer today only because of Dell's success. Still neither of them got to their position without the help of outside money from wealthy people along the way and very few substantial corporations can.
All of those companies that had an IPO only had a chance because someone was willing to put money into them. The web "designers" making $150k a year got that money from the investors, not because they were actually creating something worth $150k per year. The demand caused by the investors inflated the salary that high.
Now... as for the wealthy controlling large sums of the cash supply. That's the way capitalism works... if I'm willing to risk my house on a business and I end up making 100 fold more than my neighbors, why shouldn't I get a reward for taking that risk? At the same time, I could lose my house... That's the risk I'm willing to take. So, someone who already took a risk has a substantial amount of money they can risk without having to lose their house. Is that the problem, that they can afford to lose and not have to go sit out on the street because of it? If the wealthy didn't have the cash, who would? If everyone has more money, inflation creeps in to equal out the effect.
You can say you're not jealous but that's exactly how you're coming through. According to you, it's not fair that some people can actually thrive without contributing anything but spare cash to a project. Some people have brains, some creativity, others cash. That's what makes the world go around.
the problem is that you're effectively punishing people for saving money, especially if you're taxing ona month to month basis. Let's say I put away a large chunk of my money during the summer because that's when I make the majority (about 70%) of my money. During the winter, I actually spend more money than I bring in.
So... during the summer, I pay an increased amount of tax for saving most of my money because I know I'm going to need it later in the year. During the winter, I won't pay tax at all since my spending is exceeding my income. At the end of the year, I spent 100% of my income so I shouldn't have been taxed at all... but under your plan, I get punished (by having some of that money taken and thus putting me in debt for the year instead of breaking even) for not spending it the way you wanted me to.
Now... how exactly are we going to verify what I spend? Do I have to keep every receipt of every purchase I make (just averaging 2-3 receipts a day puts me in the 1000 receipts per year to track range). Do we have to use a tax identification card so the government can do it for us (and all the privacy concerns that go along with that)? You're going to need an IRS 100 fold bigger to keep track of all the paperwork and a bigger IRS means a more powerful IRS.
On the other hand, if you are, say making $100,000 per month, you have much less need to save. This tax savings would urge you to spend up to 50% of it in the given month. What is the use of this? Well, it means that you are spending more and therefore money is "moving" more. Ultimately this means economic activity.
I can live on $2k a month and have money to spare after paying my bills. That guy making $100k a month probably has a mortgage larger than my income because he's already spending considerably more money than me. Let's say he has a $10k a month mortgage, 2 car loans totalling $2k, etc. Frankly, when you reach certain income levels, your peers and clients expect more from you than people at the lower levels. I'm happy to own a house I paid $40k for... However, it would never suit the CEO of a billion dollar company because he may need to have a couple dozen people over for a business dinner. Similarly, I'm happy with my $14k truck... but if I was a lawyer and I needed to pick up an important client who pays me $500 an hour, I'm gonna want the luxury car with the leather seat.
My point is that you can't really set a generic point that allows people to save money because everyone's needs are different. That's the whole point of having increasingly limited government as you go higher up the food chain. A federal law affects everyone broadly with few considerations (and good luck getting yours heard since your 2 senators are responsible for the millions of other voices in your state) but a local law allows me to go plead my case to the people who actually have to listen. The federal government shouldn't have any business dictating whether I'm allowed to save money, whether my money should go to support some program that I think is bad (but some loud SIG lobbied for), etc.
Why did the economy stall after the market collapsed following the dotbombs? Because people were irrationally spending more money than they should. When the shit hit the fan, everyone decided they had better cut back their spending since they didn't save anything (it was too important to gamble the savings on making a quick buck... amounting to spending money on a cheap plastic toy that'll get thrown away after a use).
The government's purpose, especially at the federal level, isn't social engineering. It's not to control the people... We got rid of the idea of an unquestioned ruling central authoritarian body in 1215 and I don't think there's a valid reason to put the chains back on.
The wealthy don't fund much at all.. the working people do. In the game it was the creative people that were actually working to make big cool things for everyone to enjoy. (Why did you think they were wealthy?) Seldom do the wealthy get off their fat asses and go out and create new cool stuff. Employees think of the ideas, engineers and scientists make it possible, artists make it look good, factory workers make the parts, and construction workers build it. Even the janitors are making an effort to keep things flowing well for those working on the projects. It's all paid for either by Joe Consumer or by tax dollars. The CEO and stock holders aren't contributing much of anything to the project.
Maybe you remember these things called IPOs... they were pretty big in the dot com era. Exactly what is the point of issuing stock and having an IPO? To raise money to fund the company to create the products in the first place. Someone has to pay the engineers to design something, construct a factory to build it, hire sales and marketing people to move it, etc... often, vast sums of money are required for a significant amount of time before the product even makes it to the consumer's hands so that the company has a chance to become self-sustaining. If the investors were lucky, the company may even (gasp) turn a profit so they can get some money back for risking their capital to pay people before the first sale is made.
Care to tell me how I can start a business I've been working on using just my skill and no money? I need about $40k for equipment at a minimum before I can make my first sale. If I go to a bank, I'm getting money from some wealthy guy or company. If I work for someone and save the money, I'm still benefitting from some rich guy's investment even if his product is already established (for it wouldn't be established without the investment). Maybe if I sit around whining about how evil the rich people are for only contributing the money to make my skill usable, my business will start all by itself.
The engineer contributes his knowledge. The artist his creativity. The factory worker his labor. The wealthy guy contributes the money that makes that possible in the first place. Your skill isn't worth shit if it never gets the chance to be exercised because you'd refuse the contribution from the people that can enable you because you're jealous of them.
Finally, I've always had an interesting theory about economics. The old line is that nothing happens until something gets sold. Yet in many ways, government focuses on "taxing" things which of course reduces the amount of items sold. I propose an interesting experiment to be to reduce taxes for spending a certain portion of your income within a month. For example, let's say 50% of your income within a month. This means that the poor would likely be spending this amount anyways (and be subject to those savings) and the rich would be encouraged to spend more to help vitalize the economy. I'm sure I haven't thought this entirely through yet but I'd be interested in hearing some responses to this. I get this feeling, however, that the criticisms can be worked through.
There are important reasons to actually save money though, especially on a month to month type basis. Things like retirement accounts, risk aversion, financial security in an unexpected crisis, etc. I currently have about 20% of my annual income just sitting in my bank account in case a rainy day comes along. For instance, in 1998, my dad had a brain aneurysm and stroke and was in the hospital for 5 months. After he got out, he still needed constant rehab and someone to be with him all the time so I ended up taking nearly 18 months off from work. My savings, along with some supplimental income (his pension plan kicking in and all his vacation/sick time he saved at work), is how I made it that long.
There are also parallels to the dot com bust. The faster you blow the money, the sooner you'll find yourself working 3 jobs to try to make ends meet when the unexpected occurs. So, do you start allowing exceptions for savings? If so, how do you define the savings limits? Someone who has a $5000 a month mortgage payment is going to need a substantially larger rainy day fund than someone with my $500 a month payment.
What all of the economic theories of taxation come down to is controlling people via the government urging rather than keeping the government off their back. Under the current scheme, people are punished for working their tail off to earn a good living. Under your plan, people are punished for trying to make sure they have a nut saved in case a storm comes along.
I may not be making any money off the few grand I've got sitting in the bank, but the fact that it's there means the bank can lend it to someone else who can try to make something happen with it. Similarly, the money of the filthy rich isn't sitting in their mattress, its being excersized in creating business through stock ownership, allowing government improvement projects through bonds, sitting in a CD while the bank lets someone else use it, etc. Retail is only a small, though critically important, portion of the vast capitalist economic system.
...and you do realize that Rihab Taha al-Azawi al-Tikriti (aka Dr. Germ) and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash (aka Mrs. Anthrax) were educated in the UK and US, respectively, correct?
Every facet of life is about balance... we can't focus on science at all costs nor can we focus on security at all costs. The article doesn't say what the percentage of rejected foreign physics (and note that the article stated it was 20% of physics students, not 20% overall) students were prior to 9/11 nor what countries those 20% are from (does the US want to let in Iranians, North Koreans, etc into graduate physics programs)
Instead of looking outside the US for science majors, perhaps the states should improve their school system (throwing more money at it hasn't fixed it). Here in NY, they decided that the math regents and physics regents tests were too hard so they're going to pass a bunch of kids who failed it (despite my being able to get 100% on the math in about 15 minutes using only high school math (no calc or anything fancy) that I haven't studied in 10 years). Go back to teaching students how to think and learn rather than how to feel good about themselves.
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Now, I just need to sit back until my competition is fined out of existence. You didn't email it? Oh, well, you're the beneficiary, so we don't believe you.
Re:Suitable for kernel yet?
on
GCC 3.3.1 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
I've been building kernels with 3.x for a while now without any problems, both 2.4 and 2.5 series:
Linux version 2.4.20 (root@server) (gcc version 3.2.1) up 148 days, 14:27
Linux version 2.6.0-test3 (ken@workstation) (gcc version 3.3.1)
you're paying for personal use of the content of the CD. This allows you to use the content in a non-commercial manner and to convert it to other formats to suit your own needs (ie, I find it much easier to have a bunch of ogg vorbis files on my hard drive than to pull out a cd every time I want to listen to something). You can give the CD away (either through sale or lending it), but you must destroy any of your alternate formats when doing so.
It does NOT allow you to receive or distribute alternate formatted music, even to other people who own the CD (or tape or whatever), as the purpose of copyright law is to give control over distribution to the copyright holder (IANAL, but IMO, it's NOT fair use). That is, if you want a mp3, you need to create it yourself from your own source. Your right to use the content for your own purposes only extends so far as the original is intact in some form (ie, if you crack your cd, you still have a right to the content. If you throw it out or burn the CD beyond recognition, you don't... same as with a book.)
In 2000 the economy was still rosy so yes, Clinton would have won.
If you remember, things began tanking in March of 2000. We didn't officially hit a recession until 2001 (which was still a Clinton budget), but the dot coms were already busting very early in 2000.
It's a shame the Framers didn't agree with you and immediately changed the thing with the Bill of Rights. Notice that they're amendments and not included in the main body of the Constitution itself. Be quite a different country if Amendments 1-10 never existed.
The framers setup the Constitution to define the scope of the federal government. The Bill of Rights simply goes on to define things that the government cannot use that scope to infringe upon (ie, using the interstate commerce clause to restrict your ability to go to another state to speak your political beliefs). The whole point is the federal government was supposed to be a minimalist government uniting the states' interests in foreign affairs and interstate needs and that it should have an absolute minimal impact on your daily life because it is too distant and out of touch with you (try getting the attention of your town/city councilman vs trying to get a US senator to listen to you about how your neighbor won't keep his dog out of your yard or how the town's roads have too many pot holes).
For as much as he helped the country fight the battle that the framers couldn't, Lincoln also set the precident that destroyed the entire idea of state's rights and the limits of the federal government (FDR completed that with the introduction of the forced national ponzi scheme which is even more exploited today).
Here's the deal... I believe in every word of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The federal government's job is to coin money, regulate interstate affairs and handle foreign affairs. They can't tell you to shut up, can't tell you who you can/can't worship (as long as you don't break laws in the process, like committing murder), can't take away your right to protect yourself with firearms, can't sneak into your house/phone without a warrant, should fund itself through tariffs, can't dictate your state's speed limits, they can't steal from you by threat of imprisonment to give the money to someone else, etc. If you want a welfare state, do it at the state level. If you want education, do it at the state level. If you want forced retirement schemes, do it at the state level. If you want socialized health care, do it at the state/county/city level. None of those things are Constitutionally (even with amendments) within the scope of the federal government. THAT usurption of power is what irks me the most about the left.
I view Bush as being a President of little substance, so it it goes without saying that I want to see "my" candidate run on a platform of ideas and concrete plans to execute them
That's there the clash of our ideologies comes in. I find GWB to have a lot of good ideas, not that I agree with him on everything. School vouchers, initiatives to make sure teachers know the material they're supposed to be teaching, tax cuts, missile defense, drilling in ANWR, etc. Really, he doesn't go far enough for me. I'm the type who wants to get rid of the department of education, welfare, medica(id|re], etc at the federal level since I don't believe there is grounds in the Constitution for the feds to have their hands in any of that. I actually prefer the Constitution party over the republican party but stay in the republican party primarily because it gives me a voice in who one of the leading candidates will be.
Gore wasn't helped by having Lieberman,
Agreed. A bad VP choice can hurt you, but there's no history of someone ever being elected for their choice of VP. Reflecting on history, unless you're one of the persons who memorizes this sort of thing for fun, can you name the VPs of random presidents throughout the years?
I'm willing to bet that if Clinton had been able to run in 2000 he would have won handily. That's all I meant. Can we just rip Jed Bartlett out of the TV and use him?
I've never watched the West Wing, so I can't say for sure... (in fact, about the only network tv I watch is the occassional big sporting event: superbowl or stanley cup final game) Anyway, I think after all of Clinton's scandals, he would have been hard pressed to win in 2000. There were several states, such as Pennsylvania, that Gore won that I don't think Clinton could have pulled off. Besides, realistically, it was only a matter of time before one of the scandals finally stuck to him personally. I just wish the republican senators would have had more backbone during impeachment.
I will give you the fact that he was an incredibly charasmitic guy and that he's a really shrewd thinker. However, a Machiavellian type president isn't necessarily a good thing for our country. In all honesty, I believe Bill Clinton's chief most desire is power and he would do anything he could to obtain/retain it. Nothing is wrong if it furthers his goals. Reagan, for a 70 year old guy, was extremely charasmatic and bright as well... but he had limits on the extents he would go to in order to achieve his goals. Though you might disagree with him politically, check out "Reagan, in His Own Hand" if you believe he was just a dunce with people pulling his strings.
Anyways, yes... your comment about "Bill Clinton with a stronger moral compass" is entirely the point. Now, the morality of the left vs right can be entirely different, but I can respect an honest democrat even if I disagree with him. To me, the democratic leadership seems to care more about power and their method of achieve it is to look down on everyone: minorities can't do without our help so we need affirmative action, people can't live like so we need to give them a handout. They (please note I'm talking leadership, not the rank and file) look down on everyone but the people they look down on see it as a free handout and don't understand why it's bad to take it. The right follows the old "teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry again" mantra. That is, people are capable of succeeding on their own if you teach them how to do it.
Now... I'm an atheist. I support a moment for a silent prayer in school, I support public displays of the 10 commandments or nativity scenes, I'm against abortion based on logical reasons (human dna = human, it's alive regardless of it's viability outside the womb = life. Everyone is endowed with the right to life under the DoI), I don't care what gay adults do in their bedroom as long as it's consentual but I don't support gay marriage (unions, yes... but marriage is an institution between a man and woma
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What Al Gore did was attempt a coup by judiciary. His political agenda and wanting the office his daddy told him he was destined for was more important to him than whether or not he was trying to eroding the judicial system, which he swore to protect and defend, like his former boss did. Had Gore actually won on a recount of only selective counties which favored him, HE would have been selected by judicial fiat and we would have seen the first ever successful coup since our founding
Every newspaper that went to Florida and recounted the votes afterward, even the NY Times, admitted that regardless of what standard they used to recount, GWB won the state. If Gore won his own home state, it never would have been an issue.
What the Florida Supreme Court said, was that they wanted to force selective recounts in the counties that Gore selected and not all counties. The SCOTUS ruled that unfair - you have to recount all the votes, not just a subset. Inaugeration day was quickly approaching and Florida just didn't have time to do it.
Complaining about Florida and ignoring what happened in New Mexico, Missouri, South Dakota, etc is like blaming the last guy up to bat for losing because he struck out. It's just as much of the rest of the team's fault as it is the one who had the final strike out.
Now... you can thank all the voters here at /. who voted for Nader and took votes away from Gore (note, I didn't whine in 1995, 3 years later, that it wasn't fair that Clinton won with only, what, 39% of the vote because Perot took too many votes away from GHWB. I accepted him as the President regardless of whether I thought he was actually fit for the job).
If you want MS punished as badly as I think they deserve to be, let that be the opening premise of your argument, not a whine about how the 2000 election wasn't "fair" because your guy didn't win. Guess what, barring something majorly negative happening in the next year, GWB is gonna McGovern/Dukakis Dean next year and he'll be elected to a second term. Who's in the White House after MS was already convicted doesn't affect the presiding judge's decision on punishment one iota. Perhaps if Judge Jackson kept his mouth shut instead of blathering about how evil "the man", er MS, is, we'd have an outcome we'd like. Stop blaming the "man", er GWB, and actually do something instead of whining. It's hard for your argument to stand on it's own when you have to tear everyone else down to try make it look taller.
You lost all credibility as soon as you said that. Anything after this point that you say doesn't really matter since you can't deal with the reality of who's in office just because you don't like him. If you want to argue a point, stick to the facts and don't go off on tangents that make people dislike what you're going to say. Is getting bonus points for snide comments with your friends more important than getting your ideas heard?
The Bush administration may have changed the DOJ's perspective on the case, but ultimately, it's up to the judge, not the DOJ, to determine what the actual penalty would be, regardless of the DOJ's opinion
a lot of it, for me at least, is the look of japanese games. Seems like every time I check one out, they look very cartoony/anime looking (especially on the GC). It's not that I value graphics over gameplay, it's just that certain styles of graphics turn me off enough that I don't care if it's a fun game to play because I simply hate looking at it.
Eliminate the unconstitutional programs and the federal deficit is gone in 3-4 years.
cut back spending to Constitutional levels... Of the $2.2 trillion budget, only about 1/5th is actually spent on stuff that is allowed under the Constitution. Make cuts in that $1.7 trillion of fluff to cover the defense needs (the PREDOMINATE purpose of the federal government)
My mortgage went up $70 a month this year... I adjust by reducing my discretionary spending since I know I only have a certain amount of income per month. Gasp! The government should have to pay for the critical stuff before they waste money on entitlements and pork? There's no fluff spending that could be cut to reduce the deficits?
George W. Bush for ruining the 8 years of Clintons tax free internet, causing us to lose 3 million jobs and counting, ruining our relations with the UN, and causing my state and sales taxes to raise just so you can give a tax cut to the rich
The economy was faltering long before Clinton left office. Alan Greenspan recognized it in 1999 (irrational exuberance) and started preparing for a soft landing. It officially began tanking in the spring of 2000 (remember all the dems whining about how GWB was trying to talk down the economy?). Jobs get lost when the economy contracts... and it started before GWB took office. Had he NOT cut taxes, even more jobs would have been lost (had the states not increased taxes and instead, cut spending, we'd be going along at a pretty healthy clip again).
Now... as for the UN, most of the rest of the world has had a distaste for the US for quite some time, especially Europe (since the fall of the Soviet Empire) and the third world dictators out there. The UN removed the US from the Human Rights Committee (but found a place for the likes of Libya, Syria and Sudan). In August of 2001, the UN held a onference to "denounce" racism in Durbin, South Africa which basically turned into a demand for the US to pay reparations for slavery instead of denouncing Sudan (you know, one of those countries on the Human Rights Committee) for STILL practicing slavery. The UN's definition of human rights includes government funded abortions on demand for any woman who wants them which is very counter to the US ideas on abortion (only the most pro-abortion minority support that stance). The UN's primary mission was to promote diplomacy, not to become yet another level of government bureaucracy and means for dictatorial regimes like China to reject means of achieving peace in places like North Korea.
...and this guy is the CTO, so its "silly" for him to smear the company he's responsible for. That's the whole point, if you're brass and you talk crap about your company and it's partners, you're going to get in deep water even if one of the grunts wouldn't for the same thing.
Did I say what decision I would make or did I say that I know that I would be risking my job by making such a statement? Not all management people are evil you know.
he worked for a company that partners with MS according to the blurb. That's precisely like me saying that one of our food supplier's products has the potential to kill you if you eat it. It hurts their reputation as well as my restaurant's for serving their product, especially since I'm an authority figure at my restaurant (much like he was the CTO). Whenever I speak about the restaurant, I have to take my association into consideration.
I manage a restaurant... if, on my free time, I go around talking about how bad the restaurant is or how crappy the product we buy is, shouldn't I get fired? A lot of contract employees have a various clauses in their contracts that allow for termination if the employee acts in a way, even outside of work, that reflects negatively on the business (see Marv Albert).
I think putting caps on what a corporation can earn or how much wealth a person can amass is a very bad thing though. It amounts to punishment for being successful and taking risk that others refused to. It will add a further barrier to creating new advances. Why should a company spend $100 million on drug research if they're only allowed to make $10 million on the investment? Why should someone who's sitting on top of their $10 million maxed out nestegg bother to invest any of it in someone else's idea if he can't get anything for taking the risk?
Under capitalism, everyone has something (more or less) to contribute. If you limit one of the types of contribution, the whole thing falls down. Make it so engineers can't work more than 5 hours a week and you'll find you can't get a product designed. Limit assembly workers to 20 hours a week and your product can't be made fast enough to meet demand. Limit return on investment and watch investment dry up because there isn't enough incentive to invest.
The fact that Bill Gates has $40 billion doesn't prevent me from going out and pursuing my happiness. Big deal... in fact, maybe I work for a company that builds ridiculous yachts and I'm being employed because Bill Gates wants one. If he didn't have the money to waste, I wouldn't have a job to provide the money that helps me pursue my happiness. When you start complaining that (x) has too much money or that (y) has too much revenue, it ALWAYS comes across that you're jealous because you can't compete with them. It bothers you that someone else has something that you don't. You want to find happiness? Stop worrying about what everyone else has and find what will make you happy.
What the current system does is create disincentives to work an average job. The "middle class" isn't shrinking because the wealthy are stealing the money, it's shrinking because of excessive taxation (not just income tax, phone taxes, gas tax, sin taxes, user fees, utility franchise fees, road tolls, etc) combined with rewards for those who don't want to put the effort in to achieve self-sustainance (I'm not saying everyone on welfare is abusing the system but there are a substantial number of people, including people in my own family, who deliberately do less than they're capable of and put themselves in situations so that they don't have to work a real job).
Whether or not wealthy people should be taxed differently than non wealthy people is the wrong question. The question should be why is the federal government so wasteful with the tax money they collect and why has the federal budget gone from $196 billion in 1970 to $2200 billion today (444% inflation vs 1122% growth, meaning the budget grew at 3x the rate of inflation over the years). How much of that $2200 billion actually falls under the scope of the federal government as defined by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution?
The fact that the wealthy are willing to risk their capital already is what created the majority of the private sector jobs out there. Sure, some people start small and grow over time, but something like a restaurant requires significant capital just to serve that first burger (a chain fast food restaurant costs between $800k-$2 million to start depending on the chain and location (plus monthly franchise payments) and even a family restaurant requires more than $50k for basic equipment if they already own a building that doesn't need modifications (or add on another $100-250k for that)).
As to companies and profit... Dell can sell me a basic computer cheaper than I can build one from parts because of economies of scale. They buy so many parts that they get a massive discount compared to the retail price I pay. McDonalds can buy their burger cheaper than the restaurant I manage can. They both started very small... one man's investment and work (ok, in the case of McDonalds, two brothers). They reached their respective positions by doing something better than their competition. Fact is, there are people who can afford to buy a computer today only because of Dell's success. Still neither of them got to their position without the help of outside money from wealthy people along the way and very few substantial corporations can.
Now... as for the wealthy controlling large sums of the cash supply. That's the way capitalism works... if I'm willing to risk my house on a business and I end up making 100 fold more than my neighbors, why shouldn't I get a reward for taking that risk? At the same time, I could lose my house... That's the risk I'm willing to take. So, someone who already took a risk has a substantial amount of money they can risk without having to lose their house. Is that the problem, that they can afford to lose and not have to go sit out on the street because of it? If the wealthy didn't have the cash, who would? If everyone has more money, inflation creeps in to equal out the effect.
You can say you're not jealous but that's exactly how you're coming through. According to you, it's not fair that some people can actually thrive without contributing anything but spare cash to a project. Some people have brains, some creativity, others cash. That's what makes the world go around.
So... during the summer, I pay an increased amount of tax for saving most of my money because I know I'm going to need it later in the year. During the winter, I won't pay tax at all since my spending is exceeding my income. At the end of the year, I spent 100% of my income so I shouldn't have been taxed at all... but under your plan, I get punished (by having some of that money taken and thus putting me in debt for the year instead of breaking even) for not spending it the way you wanted me to.
Now... how exactly are we going to verify what I spend? Do I have to keep every receipt of every purchase I make (just averaging 2-3 receipts a day puts me in the 1000 receipts per year to track range). Do we have to use a tax identification card so the government can do it for us (and all the privacy concerns that go along with that)? You're going to need an IRS 100 fold bigger to keep track of all the paperwork and a bigger IRS means a more powerful IRS.
I can live on $2k a month and have money to spare after paying my bills. That guy making $100k a month probably has a mortgage larger than my income because he's already spending considerably more money than me. Let's say he has a $10k a month mortgage, 2 car loans totalling $2k, etc. Frankly, when you reach certain income levels, your peers and clients expect more from you than people at the lower levels. I'm happy to own a house I paid $40k for... However, it would never suit the CEO of a billion dollar company because he may need to have a couple dozen people over for a business dinner. Similarly, I'm happy with my $14k truck... but if I was a lawyer and I needed to pick up an important client who pays me $500 an hour, I'm gonna want the luxury car with the leather seat.
My point is that you can't really set a generic point that allows people to save money because everyone's needs are different. That's the whole point of having increasingly limited government as you go higher up the food chain. A federal law affects everyone broadly with few considerations (and good luck getting yours heard since your 2 senators are responsible for the millions of other voices in your state) but a local law allows me to go plead my case to the people who actually have to listen. The federal government shouldn't have any business dictating whether I'm allowed to save money, whether my money should go to support some program that I think is bad (but some loud SIG lobbied for), etc.
Why did the economy stall after the market collapsed following the dotbombs? Because people were irrationally spending more money than they should. When the shit hit the fan, everyone decided they had better cut back their spending since they didn't save anything (it was too important to gamble the savings on making a quick buck... amounting to spending money on a cheap plastic toy that'll get thrown away after a use).
The government's purpose, especially at the federal level, isn't social engineering. It's not to control the people... We got rid of the idea of an unquestioned ruling central authoritarian body in 1215 and I don't think there's a valid reason to put the chains back on.
Maybe you remember these things called IPOs... they were pretty big in the dot com era. Exactly what is the point of issuing stock and having an IPO? To raise money to fund the company to create the products in the first place. Someone has to pay the engineers to design something, construct a factory to build it, hire sales and marketing people to move it, etc... often, vast sums of money are required for a significant amount of time before the product even makes it to the consumer's hands so that the company has a chance to become self-sustaining. If the investors were lucky, the company may even (gasp) turn a profit so they can get some money back for risking their capital to pay people before the first sale is made.
Care to tell me how I can start a business I've been working on using just my skill and no money? I need about $40k for equipment at a minimum before I can make my first sale. If I go to a bank, I'm getting money from some wealthy guy or company. If I work for someone and save the money, I'm still benefitting from some rich guy's investment even if his product is already established (for it wouldn't be established without the investment). Maybe if I sit around whining about how evil the rich people are for only contributing the money to make my skill usable, my business will start all by itself.
The engineer contributes his knowledge. The artist his creativity. The factory worker his labor. The wealthy guy contributes the money that makes that possible in the first place. Your skill isn't worth shit if it never gets the chance to be exercised because you'd refuse the contribution from the people that can enable you because you're jealous of them.
There are important reasons to actually save money though, especially on a month to month type basis. Things like retirement accounts, risk aversion, financial security in an unexpected crisis, etc. I currently have about 20% of my annual income just sitting in my bank account in case a rainy day comes along. For instance, in 1998, my dad had a brain aneurysm and stroke and was in the hospital for 5 months. After he got out, he still needed constant rehab and someone to be with him all the time so I ended up taking nearly 18 months off from work. My savings, along with some supplimental income (his pension plan kicking in and all his vacation/sick time he saved at work), is how I made it that long.
There are also parallels to the dot com bust. The faster you blow the money, the sooner you'll find yourself working 3 jobs to try to make ends meet when the unexpected occurs. So, do you start allowing exceptions for savings? If so, how do you define the savings limits? Someone who has a $5000 a month mortgage payment is going to need a substantially larger rainy day fund than someone with my $500 a month payment.
What all of the economic theories of taxation come down to is controlling people via the government urging rather than keeping the government off their back. Under the current scheme, people are punished for working their tail off to earn a good living. Under your plan, people are punished for trying to make sure they have a nut saved in case a storm comes along.
I may not be making any money off the few grand I've got sitting in the bank, but the fact that it's there means the bank can lend it to someone else who can try to make something happen with it. Similarly, the money of the filthy rich isn't sitting in their mattress, its being excersized in creating business through stock ownership, allowing government improvement projects through bonds, sitting in a CD while the bank lets someone else use it, etc. Retail is only a small, though critically important, portion of the vast capitalist economic system.
Every facet of life is about balance... we can't focus on science at all costs nor can we focus on security at all costs. The article doesn't say what the percentage of rejected foreign physics (and note that the article stated it was 20% of physics students, not 20% overall) students were prior to 9/11 nor what countries those 20% are from (does the US want to let in Iranians, North Koreans, etc into graduate physics programs)
Instead of looking outside the US for science majors, perhaps the states should improve their school system (throwing more money at it hasn't fixed it). Here in NY, they decided that the math regents and physics regents tests were too hard so they're going to pass a bunch of kids who failed it (despite my being able to get 100% on the math in about 15 minutes using only high school math (no calc or anything fancy) that I haven't studied in 10 years). Go back to teaching students how to think and learn rather than how to feel good about themselves.
Now, I just need to sit back until my competition is fined out of existence. You didn't email it? Oh, well, you're the beneficiary, so we don't believe you.
Linux version 2.4.20 (root@server) (gcc version 3.2.1) up 148 days, 14:27
Linux version 2.6.0-test3 (ken@workstation) (gcc version 3.3.1)
It does NOT allow you to receive or distribute alternate formatted music, even to other people who own the CD (or tape or whatever), as the purpose of copyright law is to give control over distribution to the copyright holder (IANAL, but IMO, it's NOT fair use). That is, if you want a mp3, you need to create it yourself from your own source. Your right to use the content for your own purposes only extends so far as the original is intact in some form (ie, if you crack your cd, you still have a right to the content. If you throw it out or burn the CD beyond recognition, you don't... same as with a book.)
If you remember, things began tanking in March of 2000. We didn't officially hit a recession until 2001 (which was still a Clinton budget), but the dot coms were already busting very early in 2000.
It's a shame the Framers didn't agree with you and immediately changed the thing with the Bill of Rights. Notice that they're amendments and not included in the main body of the Constitution itself. Be quite a different country if Amendments 1-10 never existed .
The framers setup the Constitution to define the scope of the federal government. The Bill of Rights simply goes on to define things that the government cannot use that scope to infringe upon (ie, using the interstate commerce clause to restrict your ability to go to another state to speak your political beliefs). The whole point is the federal government was supposed to be a minimalist government uniting the states' interests in foreign affairs and interstate needs and that it should have an absolute minimal impact on your daily life because it is too distant and out of touch with you (try getting the attention of your town/city councilman vs trying to get a US senator to listen to you about how your neighbor won't keep his dog out of your yard or how the town's roads have too many pot holes).
For as much as he helped the country fight the battle that the framers couldn't, Lincoln also set the precident that destroyed the entire idea of state's rights and the limits of the federal government (FDR completed that with the introduction of the forced national ponzi scheme which is even more exploited today).
Here's the deal... I believe in every word of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The federal government's job is to coin money, regulate interstate affairs and handle foreign affairs. They can't tell you to shut up, can't tell you who you can/can't worship (as long as you don't break laws in the process, like committing murder), can't take away your right to protect yourself with firearms, can't sneak into your house/phone without a warrant, should fund itself through tariffs, can't dictate your state's speed limits, they can't steal from you by threat of imprisonment to give the money to someone else, etc. If you want a welfare state, do it at the state level. If you want education, do it at the state level. If you want forced retirement schemes, do it at the state level. If you want socialized health care, do it at the state/county/city level. None of those things are Constitutionally (even with amendments) within the scope of the federal government. THAT usurption of power is what irks me the most about the left.
That's there the clash of our ideologies comes in. I find GWB to have a lot of good ideas, not that I agree with him on everything. School vouchers, initiatives to make sure teachers know the material they're supposed to be teaching, tax cuts, missile defense, drilling in ANWR, etc. Really, he doesn't go far enough for me. I'm the type who wants to get rid of the department of education, welfare, medica(id|re], etc at the federal level since I don't believe there is grounds in the Constitution for the feds to have their hands in any of that. I actually prefer the Constitution party over the republican party but stay in the republican party primarily because it gives me a voice in who one of the leading candidates will be.
Gore wasn't helped by having Lieberman,
Agreed. A bad VP choice can hurt you, but there's no history of someone ever being elected for their choice of VP. Reflecting on history, unless you're one of the persons who memorizes this sort of thing for fun, can you name the VPs of random presidents throughout the years?
I'm willing to bet that if Clinton had been able to run in 2000 he would have won handily. That's all I meant. Can we just rip Jed Bartlett out of the TV and use him?
I've never watched the West Wing, so I can't say for sure... (in fact, about the only network tv I watch is the occassional big sporting event: superbowl or stanley cup final game) Anyway, I think after all of Clinton's scandals, he would have been hard pressed to win in 2000. There were several states, such as Pennsylvania, that Gore won that I don't think Clinton could have pulled off. Besides, realistically, it was only a matter of time before one of the scandals finally stuck to him personally. I just wish the republican senators would have had more backbone during impeachment.
I will give you the fact that he was an incredibly charasmitic guy and that he's a really shrewd thinker. However, a Machiavellian type president isn't necessarily a good thing for our country. In all honesty, I believe Bill Clinton's chief most desire is power and he would do anything he could to obtain/retain it. Nothing is wrong if it furthers his goals. Reagan, for a 70 year old guy, was extremely charasmatic and bright as well... but he had limits on the extents he would go to in order to achieve his goals. Though you might disagree with him politically, check out "Reagan, in His Own Hand" if you believe he was just a dunce with people pulling his strings.
Anyways, yes... your comment about "Bill Clinton with a stronger moral compass" is entirely the point. Now, the morality of the left vs right can be entirely different, but I can respect an honest democrat even if I disagree with him. To me, the democratic leadership seems to care more about power and their method of achieve it is to look down on everyone: minorities can't do without our help so we need affirmative action, people can't live like so we need to give them a handout. They (please note I'm talking leadership, not the rank and file) look down on everyone but the people they look down on see it as a free handout and don't understand why it's bad to take it. The right follows the old "teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry again" mantra. That is, people are capable of succeeding on their own if you teach them how to do it.
Now... I'm an atheist. I support a moment for a silent prayer in school, I support public displays of the 10 commandments or nativity scenes, I'm against abortion based on logical reasons (human dna = human, it's alive regardless of it's viability outside the womb = life. Everyone is endowed with the right to life under the DoI), I don't care what gay adults do in their bedroom as long as it's consentual but I don't support gay marriage (unions, yes... but marriage is an institution between a man and woma