"The bottom half of the population effectively pays around 5-10% of the income tax. The top half pays the 90-95%."
The problem here is that 5% of the population controls 95% of the wealth. If our taxation system was fair the top 5% would pay 95% of the taxes. Right now that tax burden is carried by upper half which includes many middle income people.
If we were to make the top 5% pay 95% of the taxes then it would lift a huge burden from the middle class.
That's because the court ordered to be compliant within 129 days. Instead of forking over the money they got rid of the windows. Pretty cool if you ask me.
"We're in a shitload of trouble if some bureaucrat makes the 'feel-good' decision that all civil engineers have to start solely using XFig for their drawings"
What are they using now? Autocad? Some other very expensive CAD program? How many full time programmers could the govt hire with the money they pay for the CAD program and associated support?
This is facinating. It's like that stupid "in soviet russia" jokes.
In the near future OSS software writers will be held liable and commercial software won't. Kinda flips that "there is no one to sue" argument doesn't it.
"Does apt-get update apt-get upgrade upgrade the kernel?"
Yes it does but if you are running debian stable this should be a very rare circumstance.
"Is Debian security updates compariable to RHN?"
I don't know what you mean by compareable but certainly they are issued fast and if you subscribe to the list you'll know about them as soon as they are out.
"Completely innocent? They were fighting to establish a despotic theocratic regime where tribal chieftains meted out medieval justice."
Yes completely innocent. Remember they were let go. Or are you suggesting they let guilty criminals go.
"Get accused of adultery? Get buried up to your head and stoned to death."
Once again you are suggesting that people guilty of such henious crimes were released by the US military. BTW did I miss the trial?
"Twice you call Gitmo and foreign bases "concentration camps." "
Yes I am. They are concentration camps. Hitler at least provided walls and a roof for his prisoners, ours are left out in the elements though.
" Is food restricted there?"
Probably. It's a common "pressure" tactic to starve people and then offer them a big mac if they talk.
"Do the detainees work 20 hr/day?"
No they are in a four by six chain link cage. They are lucky if they get an hour a week out of the cage.
"Are diseases like typhus and cholera promoted to get rid of unwanted people?""
I don't know, maybe.
"You have some twisted sense of right and wrong if you think jailing a al Qaeda soldier captured **on the battlefield** "
People captures in the battlefield are prisoners of war, they should be treated as such.
We have no idea what is being done to the prisoners in afghanistan or quatar. They are most likely being tortured and I am sure some of them die during the torture. I don't know if they are being turned into soap or not.
" This would be the ones they're releasing people from with an average weight gain of 13 pounds [msnbc.com] and a new Koran?"
So let me get this straight.
The US imprisoned completely innocent people without a trial, access to lawyers, or any kind of due process for more then two years. After two years of imprisonment and "interrogations" they let them go and gave them a pair of jeans and a koran for their time. And you are actually proud of this fact? Honestly and truly you see nothing wrong with putting people in a concentration camp for two years when they are completely innocent?
Oh what about the other 600+ people? Do you know what is happening to them? Are you allowed to know?
One more thing. What about the unkown number of people being held in concentration camps in afghanistan and quatar? What about them?
you have some weird and warped sense of right and wrong if you think it's OK to lock people in a cage for two years and then let them go when they are no longer useful to you. It's sick, twisted and downright evil.
"However, this doesn't justify repealing the second amendment. It just shows that Americans have vested too much power in their government."
I personally think the second amendment is irrelevant anymore. Guns are useless to keep people free. To do that you need bombs, chemical or biological weapons or even box cutters.
"The only way the 'info required' to prevent 9/11 could have been used to prevent the attack was the kind of 'intrusive government action' that would have had many people screaming and fuming. The 'fight racial profiling' sorts have done their damnest to gut the intelligence organizations of their ability to track 'foreigners' and would have screamed Racist at the top of their lungs if the Arabs who highjacked the planes had been busted the morning before the attack. Ramsey Clark would have been representing them in court by that afternoon. "
Apparently you think that it's impossible to arrest guilty people without profiling an entire race but it's not true. The fact is that the US govt has specific intelilgence on al quada. They could have stopped it (presuming they wanted to) by arresting the people responsible.
GW had two years to get his shit together but he didn't. You can't blame clinton for everything. The chances are that this operation had been in planning entirely under GW's term. In fact it probably started with GW telling the palestenians to go fuck themselves.
"But credit card companies don't employ people with guns and badges that can kick in your door and take you to a holding cell without a reason--and thats the difference!"
Did you miss the trial. There was two of them. An original trial in which MS was found guilty and an appeal which upheld the original ruling unanimously.
It seems like you left this planet during that time but lucky for you all documents are public.
"t hasn't been 'killed', and it would spring back robustly if WalMart closed. All those people would need new jobs, and all the people who wanted merchandise would still be there wanting it."
It hasn't been killed so yes it would take a shorter time to recover. I think that's pretty much a tautology don't you?
"The open source community is no better at getting patches deployed than the commercial vendors and is often worse."
I disagree. For example I run both debian and freebsd machines. In both cases I subscribe to their security mailing list. Whenever a vunrability becomes known in any of the thousands of backages supported by them I get an email telling me about it and instructions on how to go about installing the patch.
I don't know of any commercial OS vendor that does the same thing. WIndows only deploys patches for the OS itself and not for any programs you may be running.
"Stores can and will reopen in the vacuum created when the WalMart goes away. Probably more stores than before, with new owners who aren't deadwood drags on the local economy."
No you have it all wrong. The capital has already left your town. There is no mone money to open up a new store or to get a small business loan.
It takes decades for a town killed by walmart to get enough capital to rebuild.
"Wal-Mart is the *only* place to earn a living wage without working three jobs. "
Since walmart pays pretty close to minimum wage and since they don't allow their employees to form unions, and since walmart forces their employees to work overtime without pay then you are pretty much fucked if that's the best job in town.
"ou obviously haven't had the pleasure of trying to get by on whatever work you can drum up, be it Wal-Mart greeting or collecting chickens for slaughter."
I have had to work my share of shit jobs but you know what I quit and got a better job eventually. Just because you work in a shit job that does not mean I have to put up with your shit or your employees shit. Every jerkoff fuckface who calls me at night telling me about their great long distance plan is working a shit job but you know what I hang up on them anyway. They get no sympathy from me. Fuck you and your shit job just because you can't get a better job that does not give you the right to fuck with my life.
So what if they are just doing their job? If in the process of doing their job they are hassling you then by all means give them all shit you want. they are getting paid to take your shit after all. If they don't like it they can quit.
Slashdot Mirror
"WTF? Who died and left this guy in charge of arbitrarily deciding what organizations impart the necessary information to be "allowed" to vote?"
Yet another dumbfuck who prefers to parrot others rather then think for himself.
"The bottom half of the population effectively pays around 5-10% of the income tax. The top half pays the 90-95%."
The problem here is that 5% of the population controls 95% of the wealth. If our taxation system was fair the top 5% would pay 95% of the taxes. Right now that tax burden is carried by upper half which includes many middle income people.
If we were to make the top 5% pay 95% of the taxes then it would lift a huge burden from the middle class.
"Why can't we just get taxed once."
Because it would close all the loopholes the rich use.
That's because the court ordered to be compliant within 129 days. Instead of forking over the money they got rid of the windows. Pretty cool if you ask me.
"We're in a shitload of trouble if some bureaucrat makes the 'feel-good' decision that all civil engineers have to start solely using XFig for their drawings"
What are they using now? Autocad? Some other very expensive CAD program? How many full time programmers could the govt hire with the money they pay for the CAD program and associated support?
"Or, perhaps, they were just lying in Court, and in fact the source code to Windows actually isn't a threat to national security?"
Didn't we try to impeach a president for that? How come Gares gers away with it?
HAving been in the military I can tell you that your average soldier/seaman/airman/marine is dumber then your average citizen.
Most join because they can't get a better job or to get out of the dinky town they were born and raised in.
What makes you think they would make better choices then your soccer mom or your typical geek?
And "only the druid" is your real name?
This is facinating. It's like that stupid "in soviet russia" jokes.
In the near future OSS software writers will be held liable and commercial software won't. Kinda flips that "there is no one to sue" argument doesn't it.
Why not MACOSX?
IT's commercially supported and integrates nicely with active directory in case you are saddled with it.
"Does apt-get update apt-get upgrade upgrade the kernel?"
Yes it does but if you are running debian stable this should be a very rare circumstance.
"Is Debian security updates compariable to RHN?"
I don't know what you mean by compareable but certainly they are issued fast and if you subscribe to the list you'll know about them as soon as they are out.
"Completely innocent? They were fighting to establish a despotic theocratic regime where tribal chieftains meted out medieval justice."
Yes completely innocent. Remember they were let go. Or are you suggesting they let guilty criminals go.
"Get accused of adultery? Get buried up to your head and stoned to death."
Once again you are suggesting that people guilty of such henious crimes were released by the US military. BTW did I miss the trial?
"Twice you call Gitmo and foreign bases "concentration camps." "
Yes I am. They are concentration camps. Hitler at least provided walls and a roof for his prisoners, ours are left out in the elements though.
" Is food restricted there?"
Probably. It's a common "pressure" tactic to starve people and then offer them a big mac if they talk.
"Do the detainees work 20 hr/day?"
No they are in a four by six chain link cage. They are lucky if they get an hour a week out of the cage.
"Are diseases like typhus and cholera promoted to get rid of unwanted people?""
I don't know, maybe.
"You have some twisted sense of right and wrong if you think jailing a al Qaeda soldier captured **on the battlefield** "
People captures in the battlefield are prisoners of war, they should be treated as such.
We have no idea what is being done to the prisoners in afghanistan or quatar. They are most likely being tortured and I am sure some of them die during the torture. I don't know if they are being turned into soap or not.
" This would be the ones they're releasing people from with an average weight gain of 13 pounds [msnbc.com] and a new Koran?"
So let me get this straight.
The US imprisoned completely innocent people without a trial, access to lawyers, or any kind of due process for more then two years. After two years of imprisonment and "interrogations" they let them go and gave them a pair of jeans and a koran for their time. And you are actually proud of this fact? Honestly and truly you see nothing wrong with putting people in a concentration camp for two years when they are completely innocent?
Oh what about the other 600+ people? Do you know what is happening to them? Are you allowed to know?
One more thing. What about the unkown number of people being held in concentration camps in afghanistan and quatar? What about them?
you have some weird and warped sense of right and wrong if you think it's OK to lock people in a cage for two years and then let them go when they are no longer useful to you. It's sick, twisted and downright evil.
"However, this doesn't justify repealing the second amendment. It just shows that Americans have vested too much power in their government."
I personally think the second amendment is irrelevant anymore. Guns are useless to keep people free. To do that you need bombs, chemical or biological weapons or even box cutters.
"The only way the 'info required' to prevent 9/11 could have been used to prevent the attack was the kind of 'intrusive government action' that would have had many people screaming and fuming. The 'fight racial profiling' sorts have done their damnest to gut the intelligence organizations of their ability to track 'foreigners' and would have screamed Racist at the top of their lungs if the Arabs who highjacked the planes had been busted the morning before the attack. Ramsey Clark would have been representing them in court by that afternoon.
"
Apparently you think that it's impossible to arrest guilty people without profiling an entire race but it's not true. The fact is that the US govt has specific intelilgence on al quada. They could have stopped it (presuming they wanted to) by arresting the people responsible.
GW had two years to get his shit together but he didn't. You can't blame clinton for everything. The chances are that this operation had been in planning entirely under GW's term. In fact it probably started with GW telling the palestenians to go fuck themselves.
"But credit card companies don't employ people with guns and badges that can kick in your door and take you to a holding cell without a reason--and thats the difference!"
Yes they do. It's called the US govt.
The paralells are spooky. There is no denying that. Hell we even have concentration camps set up for muslims.
Ask the palestenians how well those guns are working against the israeli military.
While you are at it ask the iraqis how well it's working to lift the US occupation.
Did you miss the trial. There was two of them. An original trial in which MS was found guilty and an appeal which upheld the original ruling unanimously.
It seems like you left this planet during that time but lucky for you all documents are public.
"t hasn't been 'killed', and it would spring back robustly if WalMart closed. All those people would need new jobs, and all the people who wanted merchandise would still be there wanting it."
It hasn't been killed so yes it would take a shorter time to recover. I think that's pretty much a tautology don't you?
"The open source community is no better at getting patches deployed than the commercial vendors and is often worse."
I disagree. For example I run both debian and freebsd machines. In both cases I subscribe to their security mailing list. Whenever a vunrability becomes known in any of the thousands of backages supported by them I get an email telling me about it and instructions on how to go about installing the patch.
I don't know of any commercial OS vendor that does the same thing. WIndows only deploys patches for the OS itself and not for any programs you may be running.
"Stores can and will reopen in the vacuum created when the WalMart goes away. Probably more stores than before, with new owners who aren't deadwood drags on the local economy."
No you have it all wrong. The capital has already left your town. There is no mone money to open up a new store or to get a small business loan.
It takes decades for a town killed by walmart to get enough capital to rebuild.
"Wal-Mart is the *only* place to earn a living wage without working three jobs. "
Since walmart pays pretty close to minimum wage and since they don't allow their employees to form unions, and since walmart forces their employees to work overtime without pay then you are pretty much fucked if that's the best job in town.
"ou obviously haven't had the pleasure of trying to get by on whatever work you can drum up, be it Wal-Mart greeting or collecting chickens for slaughter."
I have had to work my share of shit jobs but you know what I quit and got a better job eventually. Just because you work in a shit job that does not mean I have to put up with your shit or your employees shit. Every jerkoff fuckface who calls me at night telling me about their great long distance plan is working a shit job but you know what I hang up on them anyway. They get no sympathy from me. Fuck you and your shit job just because you can't get a better job that does not give you the right to fuck with my life.
The real problem is that walmart sucks money from your town and sends it to another state.
Once all the other stores go out of business your economy will start to go down and walmart will pull up it's stores go elsewhere.
This happens all the time. Walmart is like a huge vacuum cleaner. It goes into your town, sucks it dry then moves on.
"they're just doing their job"
The all time lame excuse.
So what if they are just doing their job? If in the process of doing their job they are hassling you then by all means give them all shit you want. they are getting paid to take your shit after all. If they don't like it they can quit.