"Isn't it the boost in government spending (read "waste") that is creating the budget shortfalls?"
You mean other than the un-/underfunded mandates given to them by people who, unlike the state legislatures, get to borrow and endebt us to their heart's content?
So long as people continue to ask state governments to do more with less, the choice is always going to be between debt and taxes, and since many states are now constitutionally prohibited from endebting themselves...
"Just like raising gas taxes, property taxes,"
In case you haven't noticed, the population of the country (and, therefore, the states) is growing. More roads need paving, more homes are being built (or did you miss the whole "housing boom"?) and more people need to be provided with more services ("I want my intarwebs connection!"). The money has to come from somewhere.
"sales taxes,"
How many states with income taxes have raised sales taxes recently?
"cigarette taxes, liquor taxes"
How else are states going to fund Medicaid for people with now-useless lungs and/or livers?
"it all happens because once lawmakers get their hands on those billions, they can't help but spend it recklessly, to the point of drilling an enourmous hole in the budget that John and Joan Taxpayer have to fill."
Pop quiz: name your state legislators. What particular grievances do you have with your state legislature as a whole, if not your particular legislators?
It amazes me how much Americans will bitch about their state governments more than the federal government, all the while knowing far more about the latter than the former.
"when we all know any revenue generated by these taxes is going to simply be frittered away."
Ask the governor to use his line-item veto. Vote against your legislators. Organize a recall or two. Heck, run against them. Propose constitutional amendments. If you have specific grievances, you have far, far more recourse with your state government than you do wtih the feds.
"Maybe these state governments should try balancing their budgets first"
They do! Name a state, any state, and odds are I'll be able to find an article in that state's constitution that requires the government to maintain a balanced budget.
"(a purchase made on a laptop while on vacation, for example)"
What next, do you want your property taxes prorated for the time you're on vacation as well?
If you don't want to pay state taxes while you're not in the state, stop using state services. Make sure to call the police and fire departments before you go on vacation and tell them they won't need to come around to your place if anything happens while you're gone.
And be sure to surrender your driver's license at the state line (and start walking). We wouldn't want your home state to expend resources to maintain your records.
"For me and my state, adding that $.08 to cigarette tax would be much more productive. I wish they would do that instead."
You don't need to be able to afford an iPod (not to mention a computer) to buy and use cigarettes. If you can shell out that kind of money, an $0.08 tax isn't going to make or break you.
Ah, so when deciding to use gross vs. per capita or raw numbers vs. percentages, always choose the option that best suits your argument, eh?
The US is bombarded with statements about how the average American (i. e. per capita) produces more carbon than $PERSONS_OF_COUNTRY_X, but when someone makes a point that some countries have a higher per-capita production, you go right back to comparing gross numbers.
If the parents' assertion about Canadian carbon production is true, we're either worse than Canada or worse than China. Pick one; you can't have it both ways.
Here's a silly question: are we really not cutting CO2 output? Any real numbers for gross tonnage or per capita of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by the United States over the course of, say, the past decade?
Is it that the US isn't cutting emissions at all =, or that we're not cutting them as much as people would like, or not in the way they would prefer?
"I placed the "seeming" (should have been "seemingly") in the statement in order to indicate more of a subjunctive mood, and less of of an indicative one. Thus rendering my point-of-view, and opinion, rather than a statement of fact."
"Women seemingly spend all their time preening over their looks, are seemingly ditzy, and seemingly make horrible drivers."
"Black people seemingly spend all their time sitting on a front porch eating watermelon."
"Jews seemingly control all the banks in the world."
Simply because you're using the word "seemingly" doesn't change the fact that your post's opening statement is essentially an insult levied against every man that is neither you nor the friend you mentioned. If anything, your trying to weasel out of the impact of those words with the inclusion of your "seemingly" makes it worse.
So then one must naturally wonder why you would openly heap scorn on half the population of the planet. 99 times out of 100, when a guy says such things, he's trying to play the empathy card in an effort to "get in her pants" as you put it; it's another way of saying "I'm different from all those other guys you've met so far (Really!)."
But if your protestations are true and you were not (consciously) trying to play the empathy card, that only means you're in the 1% that's either genuinely self-loathing for being born with a Y-chromosone, or elitist snob that sees themselves as inherently unique and better than the rest of the male population, for no better reason than some armchair navel-gazing.
Not that your reasons matter; you still insulted the vast majority of Slashdot readers.
Is this phenomena unique to video games, or are other media outlets (*cough*television*cough*hollywood*cough*) being ignored to focus on "Satan's Own?"
"as well as the impossibility to convert major cross-platform titles to the Revolution.
As has been mentioned ad nauseam, aside from the "nunchaku" thumb stick, there's also going to be a "more conventional" controller the remote can dock into.
But that really doesn't matter, since cross-platform titles don't sell consoles, for obvious reasons.
"If you have such a bad spatial sense, you're probably a very bad gamer."
Um... no. When I think "jump," I think "right thumb down," not "little blue X." The "names" of the buttons on the PS2 controller only make sense when you realize they're based on the names of the buttons on the SNES controller.
"You're probably the kind of person that have to watch the keyboard while typing."
Apples and oranges. I've never played a game where if you push the X button, a blue X appears on the screen. The names of the buttons on PS2 controllers have nothing in common to what appears on screen.
As the only one that can do it out-of-the-box, the only one that can guarantee to third parties that every single Revolution sold will be capable of playing games using that style of controller.
Games that require peripherals don't do very well at all. Successful Sega CD games did far better when they were re-released for the PlayStation.
Why would we care what's going on in mainland China? Without an effective counter to the US Navy, China can't realisticly threaten anything that would involve crossing water. The closest thing we have to an ally that shares a land border with China is India, and they have their own nuclear weapons. Forget Japan, PRC can't even stage an amphibious invasion of Taiwan if we were to decide to intervene.
Control of the Pacific Ocean means it would be far more likely for the US to invade PRC, not the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
"Isn't it the boost in government spending (read "waste") that is creating the budget shortfalls?"
You mean other than the un-/underfunded mandates given to them by people who, unlike the state legislatures, get to borrow and endebt us to their heart's content?
So long as people continue to ask state governments to do more with less, the choice is always going to be between debt and taxes, and since many states are now constitutionally prohibited from endebting themselves...
"Just like raising gas taxes, property taxes,"
In case you haven't noticed, the population of the country (and, therefore, the states) is growing. More roads need paving, more homes are being built (or did you miss the whole "housing boom"?) and more people need to be provided with more services ("I want my intarwebs connection!"). The money has to come from somewhere.
"sales taxes,"
How many states with income taxes have raised sales taxes recently?
"cigarette taxes, liquor taxes"
How else are states going to fund Medicaid for people with now-useless lungs and/or livers?
"it all happens because once lawmakers get their hands on those billions, they can't help but spend it recklessly, to the point of drilling an enourmous hole in the budget that John and Joan Taxpayer have to fill."
Pop quiz: name your state legislators. What particular grievances do you have with your state legislature as a whole, if not your particular legislators?
It amazes me how much Americans will bitch about their state governments more than the federal government, all the while knowing far more about the latter than the former.
"when we all know any revenue generated by these taxes is going to simply be frittered away."
Ask the governor to use his line-item veto. Vote against your legislators. Organize a recall or two. Heck, run against them. Propose constitutional amendments. If you have specific grievances, you have far, far more recourse with your state government than you do wtih the feds.
"Maybe these state governments should try balancing their budgets first"
They do! Name a state, any state, and odds are I'll be able to find an article in that state's constitution that requires the government to maintain a balanced budget.
"(a purchase made on a laptop while on vacation, for example)"
What next, do you want your property taxes prorated for the time you're on vacation as well?
If you don't want to pay state taxes while you're not in the state, stop using state services. Make sure to call the police and fire departments before you go on vacation and tell them they won't need to come around to your place if anything happens while you're gone.
And be sure to surrender your driver's license at the state line (and start walking). We wouldn't want your home state to expend resources to maintain your records.
"For me and my state, adding that $.08 to cigarette tax would be much more productive. I wish they would do that instead."
You don't need to be able to afford an iPod (not to mention a computer) to buy and use cigarettes. If you can shell out that kind of money, an $0.08 tax isn't going to make or break you.
Ah, so when deciding to use gross vs. per capita or raw numbers vs. percentages, always choose the option that best suits your argument, eh?
The US is bombarded with statements about how the average American (i. e. per capita) produces more carbon than $PERSONS_OF_COUNTRY_X, but when someone makes a point that some countries have a higher per-capita production, you go right back to comparing gross numbers.
If the parents' assertion about Canadian carbon production is true, we're either worse than Canada or worse than China. Pick one; you can't have it both ways.
Yeah, because Italy, France and Germany also have to deal with growing populations. Oh, wait...
"someone wrote "pointless" articles about them when they were only theoretically possible."
We're talking about a new iteration of near-beer. Even if the author is right on the money, still seems rather pointless to me.
"Yes, the US refuses to cut levels"
Here's a silly question: are we really not cutting CO2 output? Any real numbers for gross tonnage or per capita of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by the United States over the course of, say, the past decade?
Is it that the US isn't cutting emissions at all =, or that we're not cutting them as much as people would like, or not in the way they would prefer?
Nobody likes spam, either, but people buy stuff from them as well.
"like the fact that everything is apparently so gay when it's bad."
It's not gay, it's ghey! Completely different words!
"240 times over a half hour period, only 133 of its probes were answered."
Well, if a single host tried to ping me once every 7.5 seconds for a half-hour, I'd want my hardware to ignore a few of them, too.
"although some people are apparently worried out of their mind that same sex couples will have virtual babies and get a taste for the real thing."
Does that mean that the ol' flour bag trick done by most high schools encourages teen pregnancy?
Can't empathize enough to make an apology or retraction? Would it help if I had breasts?
FDISK.
"I placed the "seeming" (should have been "seemingly") in the statement in order to indicate more of a subjunctive mood, and less of of an indicative one. Thus rendering my point-of-view, and opinion, rather than a statement of fact."
"Women seemingly spend all their time preening over their looks, are seemingly ditzy, and seemingly make horrible drivers."
"Black people seemingly spend all their time sitting on a front porch eating watermelon."
"Jews seemingly control all the banks in the world."
Simply because you're using the word "seemingly" doesn't change the fact that your post's opening statement is essentially an insult levied against every man that is neither you nor the friend you mentioned. If anything, your trying to weasel out of the impact of those words with the inclusion of your "seemingly" makes it worse.
So then one must naturally wonder why you would openly heap scorn on half the population of the planet. 99 times out of 100, when a guy says such things, he's trying to play the empathy card in an effort to "get in her pants" as you put it; it's another way of saying "I'm different from all those other guys you've met so far (Really!)."
But if your protestations are true and you were not (consciously) trying to play the empathy card, that only means you're in the 1% that's either genuinely self-loathing for being born with a Y-chromosone, or elitist snob that sees themselves as inherently unique and better than the rest of the male population, for no better reason than some armchair navel-gazing.
Not that your reasons matter; you still insulted the vast majority of Slashdot readers.
"both of us seeming more enlightened than most woman-exploiting men."
Am I the only one here who read this sentence and then decided that the rest of this post has no redeeming value whatsoever?
God, if you're going to do the obligatory "Marry me!" Slashdot post, be honest about it! (Hint: Not all women are in to misandry. Really!)
Is this phenomena unique to video games, or are other media outlets (*cough*television*cough*hollywood*cough*) being ignored to focus on "Satan's Own?"
I was thinking more along the lines of "It's German for 'The RealNetworks, the.'"
Spoken like someone who's never tried it.
"only one-third of the titles would be Nintendo games, with the rest being third party."
I've seen 3 or 4 Zelda games so far with Capcom's name on it.
"as well as the impossibility to convert major cross-platform titles to the Revolution.
As has been mentioned ad nauseam, aside from the "nunchaku" thumb stick, there's also going to be a "more conventional" controller the remote can dock into.
But that really doesn't matter, since cross-platform titles don't sell consoles, for obvious reasons.
"If you have such a bad spatial sense, you're probably a very bad gamer."
Um... no. When I think "jump," I think "right thumb down," not "little blue X." The "names" of the buttons on the PS2 controller only make sense when you realize they're based on the names of the buttons on the SNES controller.
"You're probably the kind of person that have to watch the keyboard while typing."
Apples and oranges. I've never played a game where if you push the X button, a blue X appears on the screen. The names of the buttons on PS2 controllers have nothing in common to what appears on screen.
As the only one that can do it out-of-the-box, the only one that can guarantee to third parties that every single Revolution sold will be capable of playing games using that style of controller.
Games that require peripherals don't do very well at all. Successful Sega CD games did far better when they were re-released for the PlayStation.
Your middle fingers go on the L & R buttons.
"It's "Wario World", and there's only been one."
Unless you count "Wario's World" for the Virtual Boy.
"Back when I used to play games, the clone didn't exist..."
Bullshit. What wasn't a clone in the 70's and 80's? If it wasn't Pong clones, it was Space Invaders clones, then Pac-Man clones...
Why would we care what's going on in mainland China? Without an effective counter to the US Navy, China can't realisticly threaten anything that would involve crossing water. The closest thing we have to an ally that shares a land border with China is India, and they have their own nuclear weapons. Forget Japan, PRC can't even stage an amphibious invasion of Taiwan if we were to decide to intervene.
Control of the Pacific Ocean means it would be far more likely for the US to invade PRC, not the other way around.