Also witness that PETA's idea of "ethical treatment" means that they kill 97% of the pets they collect (having often lied to the former owner about the animal's intended fate), because in the words of Ingrid Newkirk, dogs and cats are "better off dead" than living "enslaved" as a companion to humans. See http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ for the whole story. -- By contrast, the average city shelter kills about 30%.
One of the posted comments on the linked article mentioned that it could be construed as identity theft. Witness:
If I go to whatever.good.com, I'm going to expect SOME aspect of good.com, not an advertisement from bad.com. But to the less web-savvy, it may look like good.com is directly affiliated with bad.com. I'm wondering if there's at least a libel suit in here somewhere. Much as I hate to encourage bringing on the lawyers, sometimes the money they can extract from such a case is the only realistic deterrent.
And on a 3rd conviction in California, thanks to our wondrous "Three Strikes" law, he could find himself doing a mandatory 25 years.
One judge stated that he was strictly enforcing the Three Strikes provisions to demonstrate just how ridiculous such a law is (meant for violent repeat offenders, but technically applies to even the most minor felonies). All well and good for demo purposes. Not so good for the poor bloke whose only "crime" was a 3rd incident of possesion of more than 1 ounce of pot (or whatever the felony-possession level is now).
Given the hyperbolic nature of so many social-networking-site posts, they'd be more accurately regarded as the fiction section of an online public library, not a factual reference.
However, the cops and the courts don't always care, so long as they can label it "evidence".
An AC replies with a link to an interesting website: ========= A plan to replace all current members of congress. http://www.goooh.com/ =========
I'm not sure how practical this will prove, and from the slant of the questionaire I suspect some unstated agenda here, but even so it could be at least a start at taking back our own government.
Poor - Income at or below basic expenses; IE unable to save Middle Class - Has the ability to save money/live better. Rich - Independent of work; capable of living indefinitly off of assets.
By these fairly reasonable definitions, it is quite possible to be "worth" millions, yet be economically poor. In fact, this is the situation most independent farmers and many independent businessmen find themselves in.
Well said. And I would posit that while one may gain the *appearance* of greater safety, the *actual* result is that every erosion of freedom ALSO ultimately erodes safety, because the threats from your own government eventually grow larger than the threats from the rest of the world.
My well guy does windmills on the side, and told me they're usually more of a PITA and expense than they're worth. I take this as a warning to shop very carefully for a *reliable* setup. Anyone have thoughts on specific brands and types?
One of the problems with "raising taxes on the rich" is that the most typical way this is done is a high tax on capital gains. Which bites you hardest when you sell a long-term investment, such as stocks.
Such taxes fail to recognise that the vast majority of affected investors are middle-class families and retirees, NOT rich people. Their life savings are in their long-term investments. Capital gains taxes on these small investors (say, under $1M, which is not an unreasonable retirement-fund figure anymore) can mean the difference between a comfortable retirement, and struggling with a precarious balance between a frugal existence and old-age medical costs.
Yep. If we're already stretched thin on necessities and downright hurting for disposable income, how does raising taxes improve our ability to contribute to the economy with our purchasing power? Which is thereby reduced by not only the direct tax that we see, but the increased prices of goods and services, since taxes imposed on business are perforce passed along to consumers.
Most businesses already run on margins too thin to give up more of their net to taxes; they cannot absorb a tax increase without either raising prices or slashing costs, which USUALLY means either laying off workers, or switching from domestic suppliers to Chinese suppliers. Those workers and domestic suppliers then in turn cannot contribute to the economy since they have abruptly reduced incomes.
I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If you take my money, I have less money and cannot buy stuff, which means someone else also has less money because I can't buy THEIR stuff. Eventually it hurts EVERYONE -- and ultimately reduces the amount of income/sales available to the gov't to tax!!
Of course at that point they usually respond by raising taxes to make up the deficit... and the newly-popular "fault" taxes like extremely high traffic fines and "congestion fees" contribute to the problem as well.
Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall that there have been excise taxes of more than 100% in the past. Anyone know for sure??
For that matter, aren't the taxes on cigarettes already greater than the tax-free price of said cigs??
As you say, there's really nothing to prevent sales/use taxes from being greater than 100%, other than the willingness and ability of the public to pay, pay, pay.
Gov't should have to live within its means, just like we do. Gov't running in the red is a disaster in the making.
"Other, more likely solutions exist. Most notably, strong financial cryptography that makes secure currency transfers possible. They can't tax what they can't track."
This is only feasible with individual-to-individual transactions, which are a trivial minority of internet sales. The moment you become a business, you are already tracked in numerous ways, not least of which is income tax. Your sales, and any sales tax due therefrom, are concomitantly tracked via your declaring and paying taxes on your income, which as a business you will do, so the gov't doesn't socially rehabilitate you.
Likewise sales in a public forum like eBay, which by their very existence declare to the tax board that income has occurred at one end or the other of the transaction, and therefore needs taxing.
Totally agree with your comment, in every respect... our only hope at this point is if the gov't becomes ensnarled in such gridlock that it grinds to a complete halt.
Not to put ideas in their pointed little heads, but I'm surprised that the feds don't just impose a uniform federal tax on internet, mail order, and all other non-local sales of goods or services, with some small percentage earmarked for the states based on where the federal tax dollars come from.
Of course, they'd never consider REDUCING SPENDING, not so long as there's any citizen's assets left untaxed at a rate lower than 100%:(
We are a society that, every fifty years or so, is afflicted by some paroxysm of virtue--an orgy of self-cleansing through which evil of one kind or another is cast out. From the witch-hunts of Salem to the communist hunts of the McCarthy era to the current shrill fixation on child abuse, there runs a common thread of moral hysteria. After the McCarthy era, people would ask: But how could it have happened? How could the presumption of innocence have been abandoned wholesale? How did large and powerful institutions acquiesce as congressional investigators ran roughshod over civil liberties--all in the name of a war on communists? How was it possible to believe that subversives lurked behind every library door, in every radio station, that every two-bit actor who had belonged to the wrong political organization posed a threat to the nation's security?
Years from now people doubtless will ask the same questions about our present era--a time when the most improbable charges of abuse find believers; when it is enough only to be accused by anonymous sources to be hauled off by investigators; a time when the hunt for child abusers has become a national pathology.
--Dorothy Rabinowitz, From the Mouths of Babes to a Jail Cell, HARPER'S MAGAZINE (May 1990).
Indeed true. Spectacular incidents like the McMartin Preschool case should serve to warn us all, but if anything they seem to have inflated the public's taste for such scandal, which the media cheerfully panders to.
A small excerpt for those too, uh, "busy" to follow the link:
The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, should serve as a cautionary tale. When it was all over, the government had spent seven years and $15 million dollars investigating and prosecuting a case that led to no convictions. More seriously, the McMartin case left in its wake hundreds of emotionally damaged children, as well as ruined careers for members of the McMartin staff. No one paid a bigger price than Ray Buckey, one of the principal defendants in the case, who spent five years in jail awaiting trial for a crime (most people recognize today) he never committed.
An AC (sensibly remaining anonymous) replies thus:
===========...and there's no way off the list. Further, the list is simply a list of names and birth dates, so it isn't terribly exact anyway. As someone who is on the watch list for no discernible reason, I can state with conviction that it's a huge pain to deal with, and there's no recourse available to do anything about it. ===========
Dear Americans: The New Brown Shirts are NOT members of the U.S. Military. Thank you for your credulousness.
It really is getting to that point. There are hotlines for every manner of anonymous tip, and in some cases (frex, ANY allegation, no matter how spurious, of child or animal abuse) those anonymous tips carry the full force of standard evidence, and are so treated by law enforcement and by the courts. The old Soviet joke may become truth for us:
================= The phone rings at KGB headquarters.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this KGB?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovitz as an enemy of the State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
"This will be noted."
Next day, the KGB goons come over to Rabinovitz's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no diamonds, swear at Yankel Rabinovitz and leave.
The phone rings at Rabinovitz's house.
"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
"Yes."
"Did they chop your firewood?"
"Yes, they did."
"Okay, now it's your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed." ==============
Consider also that a good chunk of the components, including firmware, probably come from China. Remember smaller hacks like digital picture frames, and marvel at the opportunities offered to foreign powers, who will no longer need to waste resources doing their own surveillance, nor need they continue to wonder which of their agents on the ground might already be on a watchlist.
BTW, does anyone know where I can buy an American-made tinfoil hat??
Per all the evidence (ie. the suspicious lack of everyday terrorist activities), I doubt there are even 100 genuine terrorists in the country. Which means the false positive rate of that watchlist is at least 99%.
Slashdot Mirror
Animal rights nuts don't love animals. They HATE HUMANS. Don't think so? read these quotes from PETA members and directors: http://www.activistcash.com/organization_quotes.cfm/oid/21
Also witness that PETA's idea of "ethical treatment" means that they kill 97% of the pets they collect (having often lied to the former owner about the animal's intended fate), because in the words of Ingrid Newkirk, dogs and cats are "better off dead" than living "enslaved" as a companion to humans. See http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ for the whole story. -- By contrast, the average city shelter kills about 30%.
As to PETA's financials, read this:
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_financials.cfm/oid/21
One of the posted comments on the linked article mentioned that it could be construed as identity theft. Witness:
If I go to whatever.good.com, I'm going to expect SOME aspect of good.com, not an advertisement from bad.com. But to the less web-savvy, it may look like good.com is directly affiliated with bad.com. I'm wondering if there's at least a libel suit in here somewhere. Much as I hate to encourage bringing on the lawyers, sometimes the money they can extract from such a case is the only realistic deterrent.
And on a 3rd conviction in California, thanks to our wondrous "Three Strikes" law, he could find himself doing a mandatory 25 years.
One judge stated that he was strictly enforcing the Three Strikes provisions to demonstrate just how ridiculous such a law is (meant for violent repeat offenders, but technically applies to even the most minor felonies). All well and good for demo purposes. Not so good for the poor bloke whose only "crime" was a 3rd incident of possesion of more than 1 ounce of pot (or whatever the felony-possession level is now).
Given the hyperbolic nature of so many social-networking-site posts, they'd be more accurately regarded as the fiction section of an online public library, not a factual reference.
However, the cops and the courts don't always care, so long as they can label it "evidence".
An AC replies with a link to an interesting website:
=========
A plan to replace all current members of congress.
http://www.goooh.com/
=========
I'm not sure how practical this will prove, and from the slant of the questionaire I suspect some unstated agenda here, but even so it could be at least a start at taking back our own government.
Not yet...
Poor - Income at or below basic expenses; IE unable to save
Middle Class - Has the ability to save money/live better.
Rich - Independent of work; capable of living indefinitly off of assets.
By these fairly reasonable definitions, it is quite possible to be "worth" millions, yet be economically poor. In fact, this is the situation most independent farmers and many independent businessmen find themselves in.
Well said. And I would posit that while one may gain the *appearance* of greater safety, the *actual* result is that every erosion of freedom ALSO ultimately erodes safety, because the threats from your own government eventually grow larger than the threats from the rest of the world.
In light of the Senator's comments, I suggest that a file (with random or even blank content) should be widely circulated, with this filename:
"Senator_Joe_Biden_rapes_little_girls.mov"
Let's see how accurate he believes filenames are, after that makes #1 on the filesharing popularity charts.
My well guy does windmills on the side, and told me they're usually more of a PITA and expense than they're worth. I take this as a warning to shop very carefully for a *reliable* setup. Anyone have thoughts on specific brands and types?
One of the problems with "raising taxes on the rich" is that the most typical way this is done is a high tax on capital gains. Which bites you hardest when you sell a long-term investment, such as stocks.
Such taxes fail to recognise that the vast majority of affected investors are middle-class families and retirees, NOT rich people. Their life savings are in their long-term investments.
Capital gains taxes on these small investors (say, under $1M, which is not an unreasonable retirement-fund figure anymore) can mean the difference between a comfortable retirement, and struggling with a precarious balance between a frugal existence and old-age medical costs.
Yep. If we're already stretched thin on necessities and downright hurting for disposable income, how does raising taxes improve our ability to contribute to the economy with our purchasing power? Which is thereby reduced by not only the direct tax that we see, but the increased prices of goods and services, since taxes imposed on business are perforce passed along to consumers.
Most businesses already run on margins too thin to give up more of their net to taxes; they cannot absorb a tax increase without either raising prices or slashing costs, which USUALLY means either laying off workers, or switching from domestic suppliers to Chinese suppliers. Those workers and domestic suppliers then in turn cannot contribute to the economy since they have abruptly reduced incomes.
I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If you take my money, I have less money and cannot buy stuff, which means someone else also has less money because I can't buy THEIR stuff. Eventually it hurts EVERYONE -- and ultimately reduces the amount of income/sales available to the gov't to tax!!
Of course at that point they usually respond by raising taxes to make up the deficit... and the newly-popular "fault" taxes like extremely high traffic fines and "congestion fees" contribute to the problem as well.
Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall that there have been excise taxes of more than 100% in the past. Anyone know for sure??
For that matter, aren't the taxes on cigarettes already greater than the tax-free price of said cigs??
As you say, there's really nothing to prevent sales/use taxes from being greater than 100%, other than the willingness and ability of the public to pay, pay, pay.
Gov't should have to live within its means, just like we do. Gov't running in the red is a disaster in the making.
An AC speculates,
"Other, more likely solutions exist. Most notably, strong financial cryptography that makes secure currency transfers possible. They can't tax what they can't track."
This is only feasible with individual-to-individual transactions, which are a trivial minority of internet sales. The moment you become a business, you are already tracked in numerous ways, not least of which is income tax. Your sales, and any sales tax due therefrom, are concomitantly tracked via your declaring and paying taxes on your income, which as a business you will do, so the gov't doesn't socially rehabilitate you.
Likewise sales in a public forum like eBay, which by their very existence declare to the tax board that income has occurred at one end or the other of the transaction, and therefore needs taxing.
And I agree, we already pay more than plenty fees and taxes, not to mention the rapidly-inflating cost of goods of all sorts...
Allow me to rephrase your sig in context:
If you steal from one person, that is banditry; if you steal from many, well, that's just taxes.
Totally agree with your comment, in every respect... our only hope at this point is if the gov't becomes ensnarled in such gridlock that it grinds to a complete halt.
BTW you might want to read this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=521014&cid=23059926
Not to put ideas in their pointed little heads, but I'm surprised that the feds don't just impose a uniform federal tax on internet, mail order, and all other non-local sales of goods or services, with some small percentage earmarked for the states based on where the federal tax dollars come from.
:(
Of course, they'd never consider REDUCING SPENDING, not so long as there's any citizen's assets left untaxed at a rate lower than 100%
No, no, no. Put all the public officials' names on the list. Enjoy the show.
A small excerpt for those too, uh, "busy" to follow the link:
America, you've been warned.
An AC (sensibly remaining anonymous) replies thus:
...and there's no way off the list. Further, the list is simply a list of names and birth dates, so it isn't terribly exact anyway. As someone who is on the watch list for no discernible reason, I can state with conviction that it's a huge pain to deal with, and there's no recourse available to do anything about it.
===========
===========
'Nuf said.
Great, now my brain AND my eyes hurt!!
Dear Americans: The New Brown Shirts are NOT members of the U.S. Military. Thank you for your credulousness.
It really is getting to that point. There are hotlines for every manner of anonymous tip, and in some cases (frex, ANY allegation, no matter how spurious, of child or animal abuse) those anonymous tips carry the full force of standard evidence, and are so treated by law enforcement and by the courts. The old Soviet joke may become truth for us:
=================
The phone rings at KGB headquarters.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this KGB?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovitz as an enemy of the State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
"This will be noted."
Next day, the KGB goons come over to Rabinovitz's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no diamonds, swear at Yankel Rabinovitz and leave.
The phone rings at Rabinovitz's house.
"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
"Yes."
"Did they chop your firewood?"
"Yes, they did."
"Okay, now it's your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed."
==============
Consider also that a good chunk of the components, including firmware, probably come from China. Remember smaller hacks like digital picture frames, and marvel at the opportunities offered to foreign powers, who will no longer need to waste resources doing their own surveillance, nor need they continue to wonder which of their agents on the ground might already be on a watchlist.
BTW, does anyone know where I can buy an American-made tinfoil hat??
Per all the evidence (ie. the suspicious lack of everyday terrorist activities), I doubt there are even 100 genuine terrorists in the country. Which means the false positive rate of that watchlist is at least 99%.