Good point. California is populated by a pretty fair mix of conservatives and liberals, but is dominated by the Democratic party. This has long been known.
I took to buying cigarettes online, something I only considered after the tax increase. Could I have done so before? Probably, but every increase encourages more people to do so. I am paying less overall than before the increase.
As far as I know I'm still paying the taxes, so what's interesting about this is who is hurting. I asked the clerk at the corner store, where I would have previously bought my small stash of cigarettes, how business was. "Slow," he said.
This tax is going to put honest merchants, would-be US citizens, out of business. If there is truly a dire need to expand SCHIP or whatever let's be honest about it and increase income taxes.
It's hard to find libertarian champions when the two biggest parties a) have a stranglehold on national political institutions and b) have mostly abandoned whatever libertarian wing they had, but I will try.
I like John Stossel. He started out as a consumer advocate doing, as he has described, scare pieces. At some point he realized, hey, feckless corporations aren't the only ones screwing the populace over, and possibly not even the worst. What's great about his shows, though, is he always accompanies the account of the problem with an example of what works.
Anyways the GP has a great point that libertarian is a label adopted by independents for differing motivations. A California republican (I consider them a special breed) once told me basically, "we're all Libertarians at heart, but we don't have a party."
Where do you get this idea? The most famous libertarians are primarily businessmen. Wayne Allen Root? I think he's a bookie. John Stossel and Drew Carey? Self made men.
Those who have large amounts of money, however they got it, tend to want to use it to buy power in one of the big political parties. Old money swings left or right depending on where you're from but rarely libertarian in my experience.
As far as taking a smoke break... at least they are exercising the freedom they're preaching.
It's not a stamp any more (in some, most? states) it's similar to a credit card. I believe you can spend it on anything at the grocery store but booze, but I could be wrong about that.
The games issue is just a relic of history and an attempt for backwards compatibility. It used to be games took over your computer to where you didn't even have an operating system while running them, and they had to use tricks to get things to work/improve performance. Any time MS does break games that used to work people get all gripey.
And actually MS is making a great effort towards fixing all this with Games For Windows. Whatever the program's faults, those games will run on Vista without a UAC prompt, which is cool in my book.
The problem with your argument is that the provisions GS that GLB repealed were actually pro-cyclical. Notice that when the Fed did choose to intervene they were not worried about separating holding companies from investment banks. On the contrary they were actively engineering their mergers.
The repeal of Glass-Stegall allowed banks like Citigroup to buy CDOs, but it didn't create them or even change the they were (not) regulated. AIG, for instance, would have been able to do what it was doing regardless. On the other hand, the repeal did allow banks to merge after the crash in ways that would have previously illegal, creating needed flexibility.
All you can prove to me with fine tuning is that if the constants were any different you wouldn't be here posting on Slashdot. You'd be in the next universe over posting on Bizarro Slashdot.
We always assume that life must exist in conditions similar to ours, but that is not true. Primitive man would not think that life could thrive near a hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor, but it does.
Bigotry is more cultural than religious. I would argue that being judgmental is too. People look to the scriptures for reasons to judge those they dislike to begin with.
Look at the vast majority of the actual clergy. They aim to help people not to throw stones. It seems as you get higher up in those ranks, however, the mission changes to cultural warfare. See, for example, the persecution of Jesus by the highest level Jews.
GP is an ass but... There's no special plan that I know of for "incoming" calls. The concept doesn't exist as far as I know. There are lots of cool plans like 5 best friends free (in both directions). Most carriers allow calling within their network free. Nights and weekends are mostly free. I think what GP was getting at are the unlimited plans, which are expensive... about $100 USD a month. At that level you can pretty much do wtf you want with your phone without incurring extra charges which I suppose qualifies as free incoming. Still, if you talk less than say 3500 non-night non-weekend (so-called "anytime") minutes a limited plan is going to be cheaper for you. While the per message rates for SMS are stupidly high, the only time anyone pays those is when parents discover for the first time how much their kids can text in a month. Unlimited SMS will tack on $5 a month to your bill.
So yeah there are horror stories and we do like to complain about our bills, but it's nothing compared to paying Ma Bell.
Actually on one of those free SMS sites I did see a tool to look up which carrier to use. Not sure how accurate it would be these days when you can take your number with you between carriers.
No not really. I got a 1G shuffle as a gift, and it it's pretty good for running. I want an upgraded 1G shuffle with more storage and a small screen for when I need it. I'll never get it from Apple, but that's ok on my end.
I like the original shuffle. Of course you have to cram your music into 1GB but they're great for running. Also awesome when you travel since you avoid needing yet another charging cord or dock. The fact that it doubles as a USB thumb drive is somewhat diminished these days by the lack of storage compared to modern devices, but it is still nice.
I wonder if straight people will be able to be domestic partners after that? It seems fair I think, although this sort of a change will likely remove all but symbolic reasons why straight people would have to want to be partners.
How was the McCain plan going to make health insurance unaffordable for employers? You are right though that $5000 was not enough seeing as how employers get to "deduct" the full amount as a business expense.
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Good point. California is populated by a pretty fair mix of conservatives and liberals, but is dominated by the Democratic party. This has long been known.
I took to buying cigarettes online, something I only considered after the tax increase. Could I have done so before? Probably, but every increase encourages more people to do so. I am paying less overall than before the increase.
As far as I know I'm still paying the taxes, so what's interesting about this is who is hurting. I asked the clerk at the corner store, where I would have previously bought my small stash of cigarettes, how business was. "Slow," he said.
This tax is going to put honest merchants, would-be US citizens, out of business. If there is truly a dire need to expand SCHIP or whatever let's be honest about it and increase income taxes.
It's hard to find libertarian champions when the two biggest parties a) have a stranglehold on national political institutions and b) have mostly abandoned whatever libertarian wing they had, but I will try.
I like John Stossel. He started out as a consumer advocate doing, as he has described, scare pieces. At some point he realized, hey, feckless corporations aren't the only ones screwing the populace over, and possibly not even the worst. What's great about his shows, though, is he always accompanies the account of the problem with an example of what works.
Anyways the GP has a great point that libertarian is a label adopted by independents for differing motivations. A California republican (I consider them a special breed) once told me basically, "we're all Libertarians at heart, but we don't have a party."
Where do you get this idea? The most famous libertarians are primarily businessmen. Wayne Allen Root? I think he's a bookie. John Stossel and Drew Carey? Self made men.
Those who have large amounts of money, however they got it, tend to want to use it to buy power in one of the big political parties. Old money swings left or right depending on where you're from but rarely libertarian in my experience.
As far as taking a smoke break... at least they are exercising the freedom they're preaching.
Since we're addressing the tax here... Many (most) Mac users probably do install MS Office, so they're paying the MS tax too.
It's not a stamp any more (in some, most? states) it's similar to a credit card. I believe you can spend it on anything at the grocery store but booze, but I could be wrong about that.
hmm
Roughly
(32 gb * 1024 (mb/gb) * 1024 (kb/mb)) / (60 (min/album) * 60 (s/min) * (256 kbit/s) / (8 kbit/kbyte)) * 10 ($/album) = $2910
Yes.
The games issue is just a relic of history and an attempt for backwards compatibility. It used to be games took over your computer to where you didn't even have an operating system while running them, and they had to use tricks to get things to work/improve performance. Any time MS does break games that used to work people get all gripey.
And actually MS is making a great effort towards fixing all this with Games For Windows. Whatever the program's faults, those games will run on Vista without a UAC prompt, which is cool in my book.
Why did you click reply to the guy and write a post to the guy who posted to complain about the story?
Personally I clicked read more to read to the comments to find out why this story is interesting. I was disappointed.
Umm they're targeting people who already have PCs (most people) but might consider buying a Mac?
In my experience Acuras ride smoother than Hondas too but maybe that's just because my Honda is old.
The problem with your argument is that the provisions GS that GLB repealed were actually pro-cyclical. Notice that when the Fed did choose to intervene they were not worried about separating holding companies from investment banks. On the contrary they were actively engineering their mergers.
The repeal of Glass-Stegall allowed banks like Citigroup to buy CDOs, but it didn't create them or even change the they were (not) regulated. AIG, for instance, would have been able to do what it was doing regardless. On the other hand, the repeal did allow banks to merge after the crash in ways that would have previously illegal, creating needed flexibility.
Yeah and then the cops kick in your door looking for your grow op.
All you can prove to me with fine tuning is that if the constants were any different you wouldn't be here posting on Slashdot. You'd be in the next universe over posting on Bizarro Slashdot.
We always assume that life must exist in conditions similar to ours, but that is not true. Primitive man would not think that life could thrive near a hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor, but it does.
Bigotry is more cultural than religious. I would argue that being judgmental is too. People look to the scriptures for reasons to judge those they dislike to begin with.
Look at the vast majority of the actual clergy. They aim to help people not to throw stones. It seems as you get higher up in those ranks, however, the mission changes to cultural warfare. See, for example, the persecution of Jesus by the highest level Jews.
GP is an ass but... There's no special plan that I know of for "incoming" calls. The concept doesn't exist as far as I know. There are lots of cool plans like 5 best friends free (in both directions). Most carriers allow calling within their network free. Nights and weekends are mostly free. I think what GP was getting at are the unlimited plans, which are expensive... about $100 USD a month. At that level you can pretty much do wtf you want with your phone without incurring extra charges which I suppose qualifies as free incoming. Still, if you talk less than say 3500 non-night non-weekend (so-called "anytime") minutes a limited plan is going to be cheaper for you. While the per message rates for SMS are stupidly high, the only time anyone pays those is when parents discover for the first time how much their kids can text in a month. Unlimited SMS will tack on $5 a month to your bill.
So yeah there are horror stories and we do like to complain about our bills, but it's nothing compared to paying Ma Bell.
Actually on one of those free SMS sites I did see a tool to look up which carrier to use. Not sure how accurate it would be these days when you can take your number with you between carriers.
$20/month for txting? LOL mactards.
No not really. I got a 1G shuffle as a gift, and it it's pretty good for running. I want an upgraded 1G shuffle with more storage and a small screen for when I need it. I'll never get it from Apple, but that's ok on my end.
Better than no lines when you're stopped at an intersection?
I like the original shuffle. Of course you have to cram your music into 1GB but they're great for running. Also awesome when you travel since you avoid needing yet another charging cord or dock. The fact that it doubles as a USB thumb drive is somewhat diminished these days by the lack of storage compared to modern devices, but it is still nice.
I wonder if straight people will be able to be domestic partners after that? It seems fair I think, although this sort of a change will likely remove all but symbolic reasons why straight people would have to want to be partners.
What's worse somebody worried about the bottom line or somebody worried about getting us all to his particular heaven.
How was the McCain plan going to make health insurance unaffordable for employers? You are right though that $5000 was not enough seeing as how employers get to "deduct" the full amount as a business expense.