Dude, I live in New York City and make more in a year than you probably have made in your lifetime. Trust me, having a $2500 television doesn't mean shit to me or anyone I know.
Having a $2500 bar tab though, that's a whole other story.
Not so for HD formats. The only benefit is image quality (and possibly sound quality for the few titles mastered with the new formats). Well, this means that the only people who are going to notice a difference are those who own HD TVs, which aren't all that many people at this point. Even if you do own an HD TV, the gain is marginal. No new features or anything, just a better picture. That's nice, but not a big deal especially since upconverting DVD players give an amazingly nice picture and since not all discs come from a high enough quality transfer to really look nice.
Yawn. Another kid posting about something with which he has no experience. There is a significant difference betwenn DVD and HD when you have the right equipment. Especially as screens become bigger, the necessity of an HD format will become even greater. I have a 50" set, and while my PS3 does an amazing job upscaling DVD discs, upscaling isn't perfect and there are quite a few settings you have to play with to get the best picture. Even when you do that, it's still nothing like a blu ray disc.
The sound however, is another matter entirely. I can barely stand to listen to the sound from typical DVD discs. The sound is highly compressed and always sounds flat compared to an audio cd (SACD in particular) or a blu ray disc.
Everyone I have ever met notices a big difference between HD content and DVD content. I just don't understand how or why people repeat such ignorance.
But the privatization of research, the excessive burden of patents, and the big-business/lobbyist friendly approach of our government over the last 2+ decades have lead to a slowing of development and a maximization of profits.
Dear Comrade,
You really don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Every major drug since Bayer first released Aspirin and Heroin well over a century ago has been produced and researched by a private entity. This hasn't changed in 20 years. If anything, the NIH has become a monstrosity - this is in fact a major point of the article in question. TOO MUCH research is done by university flunkies with little interest in getting the job done. This is because too much money is funneled into the university system.
There is a reason we don't use a single drug developed in communist countries: they haven't created any worth using.
Yes, lead (in paint and gas) is hazardous. But to single out that, and only that, as the definitive reason for a lowered crime rate is...simply silly.
That wasn't the conclusion of the study. It merely was an interesting correlation. You're jumping to conclusions.
Increased prosperity, greater law enforcement, greater merging of social strata...are also potential valid reasons. Or maybe we're just growing up a little as a society
There are a variety of factors surely. Again, the article wasn't making a definitive proof of causation.
I have in the past. I was born in such. Decades before lead paint was banned.
Then you wouldn't have been forced to sign a statement agreeing you understand the implications of lead paint and received the Fed's warning. That was my point. Also, lead paint is safe as long the paint is intact. It is when the paint degrades that there is a problem.
I didn't. A previous poster did. Again...whoosh.
My bad, sorry about that. Although your "whoosh" comments are a bit stupid, and unnecessary.
Sorry, you really don't know what you're talking about. Lead is known to increase deviant behavior. Airborne particulate lead is the most common vector for lead poisoning in the modern world as lead is no longer used extensively for pipes or food preparation/serving items in the Western World (I'm unfamiliar with other societies). You obviously don't live in an urban environment with older apartment buildings. Anyone who buys or rents a home that was constructed prior to the banning of lead paint receives a notice regarding the danger of home renovation and the creation of lead paint dust.
We know airborne lead causes lead poisoning in children. It is quite a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that lead from fuel could produce a similar effect. What you have done in this instance is to obfuscate the issue through equivocation. You have provided no real insight, you have simply presented a large quantity of irrelevant information based on the ridiculously incorrect assumption that airborne particular lead is safe. You are wrong. What is most amusing is rather than plagiarizing your precious Wikipedia, you could have read the article on lead paint and found out exactly what I have said - lead dust is the danger, not paint chips.
This has to be the longest, most pointless post I have read on slashdot in a long while. In case you are unaware, lead exposure is linked with criminal behavior. How does any of the crap you just posted affect criminal behavior? I'm sure as hell not going to read it. Thanks for wasting bandwidth.
Like all those liberal Republicans in Congress who investigated and re-investigated Whitewater with no probable cause?
I really don't see how that is related. Whitewater was a criminal conspiracy that resulted in many people being convicted. Enforcing the law is the duty of the government.
That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.
In this case, you appealed to a specific characteristic of the folks who wrote The Media Elite, that they were funded by conservative organizations and thus could not be trusted. Guilt by association could have applied as well, if you had made a more direct claim regarding the sources of the writers' funding. Sorry, you fail it.
Do you also demand evidence that the Pope is Catholic? If you willfully ignore decades of Republican rhetoric, that's your problem, not mine.
You are really not very good at making arguments are you?
Yeah? Go and ask one of those "wild eyes liberals" how happy they are over the Democratic leadership caving on the Iraq war, NSA wiretapping, "free trade", etc etc. They'd vote Labor or Socialist but we don't have those parties in the U.S. We have the conservative Democrats and the ultra-conservative Republicans.
Actually, the green party is quite popular amongst said wild eyed liberals.
How many respected scientists blow off nuclear safety.
Oh, sure, that's what were talking about here....
Either you are a Kool-Aid drinker, or you are a troll.
Oh yeah, another slam dunk! Your mastery of rhetoric is inspirational. I tremble with shame.
Their research and book were funded by right wing groups like the Scaife Foundation and the Coors Foundation.
Only materialistic liberals believe money is the great motivator of society. Too bad all the free money, housing, and education still hasn't righted all the wrongs in the world. It's unfortunate you began your rebuttal with what is essentially an ad hominem attack.
Reporters that agreed with statements like "the government should not attempt to regulate people's sexual practices" were counted as "liberal" even though keeping government out of people's lives is supposedly one of the foundations of the conservative movement.
That's great. You find me the "conservative movement" that holds that view. If you would have read the book, you'd find they aren't making an argument that a particular viewpoint is conservative or liberal, they are assuming that they are for the basis of the study. If I want to figure out what the negative effects of smoking marijuana are, and one of those effects I define as being "apathy", I don't have to make an entire argument that apathy is a negative trait. The author states the viewpoints he believes to be associated with liberalism. That is all that is required. It is not a political treatise, it is a sociological survey.
Operating under the old "Democrat==Liberal" fallacy when the Democratic Party is actually very conservative.
I live in one of the most liberal places in the United States. I have neighbors who go on vacations to communes, but still are wild eyes liberals who fervently support the democrat party. I can assure you that your viewpoint is shared only by hardened communists. Are you a communist?
Completely ignoring three facts: the Cold War was still going strong, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. Is it any surprise there was a heightened concern about nuclear explosions/accidents?
Three Mile Island was a greatly overblown event, and Chernobyl is simply impossible in the US. Even today, many if not most environmental groups consider the risk of nuclear energy to be far less severe than the immediate effect of burning fossil fuels. Respected scientists have ALWAY held this view. Your statement only makes sense in support of the conclusion drawn by the book - journalists completely ignored the many positive statements by respected scientists purely because of their own irrational fear of one severe tragedy in a communist country and a sensationalized event.
Yes, in the chapter called "Pot calls Kettle Black."
At least they don't advocate government oversight of media to regulate "fairness" as do democrats.
The academic study cited most frequently by critics of a "liberal media bias" in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey which found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. Then they compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integration, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The book's most thorough case study involved nuclear energy. The survey of journalists showed that most were highly skeptical about nuclear safety. However, the authors conducted a separate survey of scientists in energy related fields, who were much more sanguine about nuclear safety issues. They then conducted a content analysis of nuclear energy coverage in the media outlets they had surveyed. They found that the opinions of sources who were cited as scientific experts reflected the antinuclear sentiments of journalists, rather than the more pro-nuclear perspectives held by most energy scientists.
The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality. In principle this meant that newsrooms populated mainly by conservatives would produce a similarly skewed perspective toward the political right. Such accusations have been leveled against Fox News. At the time the study was embraced mainly by conservative columnists and politicians, who adopted the findings as "scientific proof" of liberal media bias.
Preventing access to publications is wholly different than throwing people in jail for years because they have read or written a particular work. In most European countries, simply writing that you believe the Holocaust is a fiction will land you in jail for many years. That alone is far beyond anything that has ever happened in the United States in the entire history of our nation.
There is simply no comparison, and your argument directly disregards this fact.
Your body constantly works to maintain equilibrium of all functions. The is a reason Type 2 diabetes almost exclusively occurs in gluttonous people, and is virtually unknown in countries where food is comparatively expensive and scarce. This is because after years of consistent overeating, your body begins to believe that elevated levels of blood sugar is "normal" and there is no need to produce more insulin. This is no different than people who drugs or alcohol. Using drugs or alcohol long term results in your body assuming that is "normal" and it stops producing similar chemicals, which drugs mimic. When you stop using drugs or alcohol, withdrawal symptoms result until your body readjusts.
This particular enzyme is the way your body controls this behavior in regards to insulin, it is not the "cause".
Yes, it is a coincidence. Like the Audio CD and DVD, Blu-ray was/is an industry consortium effort. HD-DVD is the product with only one major hardware company (Toshiba) supporting it.
Amusingly, the exact opposite is true in New York City. I'd say the ratio of PSP to DS users on the NYC subway system is about 10 to 1. It is rare to be in a car where someone isn't playing a PSP (not at nighttime - NYC is 24 hours, unlike Tokyo). Most days I don't see anyone using a DS, and when I do it typically is someone who is East Asian.
I have both systems, but typically play the PSP. It just has more games I enjoy, and I'm a stickler for graphics.
Why on earth would you believe that a console could be priced high above what consoles have been priced before, even current gen consoles, and people would be fine with that?
Because the same is true for every single consumer electronics item available today. Again, I ask you, what makes video game consoles so special? I spent $2000 on a television, $1000 on a home audio system, fuck, even a car is twice the price from when the Super Nintendo was supreme. All of the items I mentioned have increased in price dramatically over this time. Also, as has been said before - the Xbox 360 and PS3 are similarly priced when equipped with the same components. What's the big deal? It would be one thing if the 360 came with an HDVD drive and a 60 gig hard drive for $400, but it does not. The $300 Xbox 360 doesn't even come with a hard drive!
I'm sorry, I think you don't give enough credit to the worldwide consumer here. I think they can figure out the PS3 comes with a lot for the money. I'm personally very happy with it, and really didn't want to pay more to Microsoft to get similar functionality.
Not enough. Few people have HDTVs, without which the blu-ray is pointless, and even people with HDTV are waiting and seeing which format wins before they plunk down hundreds of dollars for a new player. This isn't like PS2 with DVD at all. DVDs didn't have any competition for the most part, everyone was onboard with the evolution from VHS to DVD just like they had with cassettes to CD. DVDs also had plenty of features over VHS, in addition to graphical pluses they also killed the tedium of fast forwarding and rewinding, and they introduced "special features" that couldn't fit on VHS. Blu-ray offers graphical improvements over DVD only if you have an HDTV, and while it offers more special features we reached the limit on how many special features people care about back on DVD. People will watch a few deleted scenes, maybe a commentary, but beyond that most don't care. High definition video just doesn't have that big of a market yet, especially not until a winner is chosen between HD-DVD and BD, and Sony has been foolish to throw away this gaming generation for it.
It is not up to you to decide what is an appropriate market segment. The PS3 was not created to appeal to the broad masses of people, just like a 50" LCD is not marketed towards the same group. Hell, televisions aren't even marketed to the vast majority of the world's people for whom such a device is still a luxury. For people who have money for these goods (of which there ARE millions), the PS3 is great. As I said, my setup cost $3K, and the PS3 was just an extra 20%. Comparatively, that is a small expense. HD screens are selling like hotcakes and they are building factories to produce the things all over Asia. I'd say most everyone I know has an HDTV. By your logic, there is no market demand for HDTVs.
The problem here is you have a soplipsitic, introspective view of the situation. Your obviously poor and don't have the money for these goods. So what? Rather than look at the subject objectively, you apply your personal experience to the entire world. That is inappropriate and immature. I hope you never work in the business world, as you clearly lack the ability to differentiate your personal views and desires from the market.
Your analysis is fundamentally wrong simply for the reason that the $250 price point has been standard now for almost 20 years. In that time, household income has increased 50%. Why on earth would you believe that suddenly, and without any historical precedent to the contrary, people automatically expect video game consoles to become more affordable (as a percentage of household income) over time?
And, I feel you are discounting the importance of the blu-ray player. Sony rightly believes that compared to past consoles, theirs offers more value. Surely, having a blu-ray player must be worth something.
Unlike Japan or Germany there isn't multi billions pouring in to rebuild the infrastructure, we have multi-billion pouring in just to try to maintain order and supply your troops there.
I think you're a bit mistaken. We bombed over 100 German cities to rubble, and Japan was not far off. They were also nuked. The American public simply doesn't have the tolerance for terror campaigns anymore. I can assure you that if we had simply nuked Basra the first time there was a major revolt there, the area would be quite peaceful too.
Unlike Serbia or Rwanda there was no hope of making the situation better.
Let's see, Serbia, a nation working to finally free itself of the legacy of Muslim conquest and prevent the UN from creating a country that never even existed in the past is in the same league as a barbarian nation where people simply hacked each other to death for sport? Things were not "made better" in Serbia. They easily could have been made better by deporting every last muslim to Turkey or Iraq or wherever. Rwanda? Well, stopping the bloodshed will never be possible. Violence is their way.
You used the nominal GDP rate and not the real GDP rate - that is bad economic analysis. If you analyze the numbers again using the real GDP, you'll find the average annual growth rate from 1790 to 1912 was 4.21%, while from the period 1913 to 2006, the rate was 3.48%. The numbers are questionable for several reasons, most notably is the extensive presence of barter during the former period and related imprecision of estimates. Another simple measure of GDP growth should be the level of capital investment. As I said, an entire vast country was created during the former period, while the latter period has produced comparatively little that is lasting.
Perfect. You have constructed another argument where the facts don't matter. How about instead of blindly labeling any contrarian data as "bullshit", suggest some alternate means of measuring the economy, or better yet, explain exactly what aspect of the GDP measurements you find inaccurate.
That wasn't an argument, it was a statement. I don't have time to qualify every statement. But I'll give it a shot because you seem like a smart fellow and at least tried to back up your statements. Cheers to that. I'm an aesthete at heart and don't believe it is possible nor desirable to measure the success or failure of civilization in the materialistic terms of an bean counter. That alone should reason enough to dismiss any GDP measurements in relation to this discussion, but if we are to play your numbers game, I refer you to the wikipedia article which is amazingly a good place to start.
A simple modern-day correlation would be the value of the DOW. Many people believe the stock market has recovered from the 2001 crash. In nominal terms it has, but in real terms - even using the government's dubious inflation statistics - it has still has a good 1,000 points to go before that happens. Another absolutely pressing matter is debt and tax load. What percentage of the per capita GDP in 1890 was sucked up by the banksters and their government minions? What about today? In 1890, Americans probably spent less than 10% of their income on taxes and/or interest. Today, it is more like 50%. This necessarily has to factor into this analysis somehow, but check out the wikipedia article for more.
Where on earth did you get that idea? Even that propaganda video that you are pimping every chance you get talks about some periods of heavy unemployment in the 1800s that led to civil unrest. You know- when those evil illuminati were executing their nefarious plans for world domination.
Sheesh, even the Haymarket Riot (May Day to commies) wasn't about unemployment. Unemployment wasn't a problem because anyone could at the very least become a homesteader on the frontier. I will admit that unemployment is more of a problem today because there is nowhere for surplus population to go. In the 19th century, people were concerned with poor people living in cramped tenements that rent for $2K a month today. They weren't concerned with hordes of people without any means to take care of themselves. I think we're talking about a different video, by the way. I really don't know much about the Illuminati, and that video doesn't discuss it.
That said, take a look at this graph comparing GDP growth and inflation rates from 1790-1913. The correlation between deflation and economic contractions is almost perfect. To claim that the economy thrived when the currency deflated is misleading, to say the least.
If the GDP decreases by 25% but the prices of goods drops 50%, a rational person would call that a period of prosperity. Use the real GDP rate.
Its been a while since I watched the video. I remember such sound arguments as:
The United States did not become the world's largest economy until after WWII. The economy in the 19th century was wild, with massive swings in employment, GDP growth, and inflation. It was not uncommon for the economy would grow by 20+% one year, only to contract by 15% 2 years later (1813 and 1815, for example). The average nominal GDP growth for that century was only around 4.5% compared that to almost 7% since then (and that includes the Great Depression!).
Do you just pull facts out of your ass and hope no one will notice? Lot's of people don't hold much faith in the GDP measurements. In terms of actual industrial and agricultural output, those numbers are bullshit. Find a source. Also, there was virtually no unemployment in the United States in the 19th century. More bullshit.
This is incorrect. Between 1790-1913, the annualized inflation rate was around.1%, which is very low, but still positive. With only one exception, every deflationary period during the 19th century time corresponded directly with an economic contraction. The exception to this is the years 1866-1878, where there were 12 years of sustained deflation (the longest deflationary period on record) but GDP growth remained positive. This period is an outlier in our economic history, and not a basic rule like you claim.
And this of course, is the most comical piece of bullshit in your post. You can find the exact opposite information regarding the value of money in the government's own publications! Read Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census; U.S. G.P.O., 1975. I even found a nice online calculator for you to show how prices declined by 50% during the 19th century.
I have seen that video before, and I do not like it. It is classic conspiratorial propaganda- just enough fact so you can't accuse them of outright lying, but dressed up with the most inflammatory language possible and reaching conclusions not supported by the facts. I found it to be an appeal to emotion rather than to reason, and I don't like that.
Well, we've already established you're not very interested in facts either. Your entitled to an opinion of course, but let's not make the bogus claim you have made a legitimate argument here despite your use of words like "reason". It is a complicated subject that most people don't understand, and the video conveys the truth to the average person quite well. I'd love to know what "conclusion" was reached that is not supported by fact. I guarantee you won't tell me, because well - you're full of shit!
The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
This where the idea of the commodity index comes from - Congress can regulate the value of money to be whatever they like. It is also where the criticism of the Fed comes into play. Congress can delegate its powers, yet Congress no longer regulates the value of money... That is illegal.
Some inflation is desireable, and the reasons why are simple: sustained economic growth when the currency is deflating is next to impossible. Nobody wants to borrow money today that they are going to pay back with more expensive dollars in the future. As a result, productivity and capital investments drop, and the economy stagnates. The opposite is true when the currency inflates. The key is to keep inflation predictable so people can plan for it.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the 19th century. In 100 years, the United States was transformed from near total wilderness to the world's largest industrial power filled with hundreds of cities and a vast railroad system. The US saw vastly greater improvements in standard of living, scientific advancement, and overall progress in comparison with the modern era. This was all done during a period of moderate - and at times severe - deflation. Deflation is the natural order of things in an industrial society. Productivity and efficiency necessarily should result in decreased costs. And please - don't tell me about the horrible days of working factories. I live in New York City - people pay $2000 a month for a 400 square foot studio in tenement built for such factory workers. It wasn't so bad.
No, thats not the only way that the money supply is increased. The US treasury dept increases the money supply when it auctions securities to the public. The FOMC can also increase the money supply through its open market operations.
Don't kid yourself. A bond is a loan.
Your loaded terminology is betraying you. Implicit in our system is the assumption that loans and investments drive future economy growth. If the money supply grows by $y, and the resulting activity increases our economy by $y, then nothing has been "stolen".
In theory this should be true, but it is impossible when people are collecting interest on money created out of thin air. The problem we have today is only part of the money stolen from the people finds its way into the economic system, the interest however accrues to a bankster elite. The current system we have could work, but only the federal government should have the right to issue loans via this system, and they should be interest free or the interest should accrue to the public coffers. Private entities should only be able to issue loans using real money from depositors who rightly are risking their own money. There is no risk in taking money from the people and giving it to someone else when they get nothing out of it.
I guess its a lot easier to argue an opinion if you just blithely dismiss anybody that disagrees with you as being ignorant.
I'm sorry, I didn't know some people on slashdot still support ad hominem attacks. As for the comment on fractional reserve lending, even you don't seem to grasp the consequences. Anyway, watch the video - maybe it will become clear.
Friend, this is a real problem. No one is buying US treasuries anymore because of the pathetic interest rate the fed set last week, and the debt load of the American consumer is far too great. This system of expanding the money supply through the creation of debt is on the way out, and it behooves all responsible citizens to prepare for this accordingly. A major liquidity crisis is coming your way soon.
Banks can collect the capital of several people like me and issue loans.
Sorry, that isn't how banks issue loans. We have this thing called fractional reserve lending, which through a complicated process essentially allows banks to create money via issuance of loans indefinitely. Most commercial banks have liquid assets equivalent to less than 5% of their oustanding loans. When a bank issues you a loan, the money you receive didn't come from a depositor, it was created out of thin air - thereby devaluing existing monies in circulation.
You agree to let the bank use your money this way when you put your savings in there.
Everyone on some level knows this isn't true. If it were, you would not be able to withdraw you money at will from banks as the money was given to someone else. You haven't thought about this enough.
Nobody is stealing from anybody.
Yes they are. You cannot create value out of thin air. This system of lending only works because part of the value of existing money is transferred to the new money put into circulation via the issuance of debt.
Power-hungry dictators existed long before the Fed.
What is worse, a power hungry dictator who is honest about his plans and actions, or this form of debt slavery? There isn't enough money in the world to lend to every single citizen, business, and government entity. The average person spends a quarter of his life paying interest on his mortgage, personal debt, and his share of government debt. Personally, I think the current system is much worse - everyone is a slave and they don't even realize it. They even hold crazy beliefs like yours that the money you borrow actually was the product of someone who chose to save his hard earned money in a bank!
Why don't you watch this video that explains how the money supply is expanded via the issuance of debt.
There are other alternatives. A commodity index can be utilized instead of a gold standard. Especially with rising costs of many imported resources, this would ease the shock amongst the American people.
The reality is the constitution grants congress to fix the value of money to whatever they see fit - given the complexity of the modern world, and a commodity index is the most sound approach.
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Dude, I live in New York City and make more in a year than you probably have made in your lifetime. Trust me, having a $2500 television doesn't mean shit to me or anyone I know.
Having a $2500 bar tab though, that's a whole other story.
Did you read his quote? He said "Even if you do own an HD TV, the gain is marginal. "
My point is the gain is significant! (Gee, do you think that's the reason I used that word?
Vista actually includes a pretty decent memory tester too. It's under the administrative tools folder.
Not so for HD formats. The only benefit is image quality (and possibly sound quality for the few titles mastered with the new formats). Well, this means that the only people who are going to notice a difference are those who own HD TVs, which aren't all that many people at this point. Even if you do own an HD TV, the gain is marginal. No new features or anything, just a better picture. That's nice, but not a big deal especially since upconverting DVD players give an amazingly nice picture and since not all discs come from a high enough quality transfer to really look nice.
Yawn. Another kid posting about something with which he has no experience. There is a significant difference betwenn DVD and HD when you have the right equipment. Especially as screens become bigger, the necessity of an HD format will become even greater. I have a 50" set, and while my PS3 does an amazing job upscaling DVD discs, upscaling isn't perfect and there are quite a few settings you have to play with to get the best picture. Even when you do that, it's still nothing like a blu ray disc.
The sound however, is another matter entirely. I can barely stand to listen to the sound from typical DVD discs. The sound is highly compressed and always sounds flat compared to an audio cd (SACD in particular) or a blu ray disc.
Everyone I have ever met notices a big difference between HD content and DVD content. I just don't understand how or why people repeat such ignorance.
But the privatization of research, the excessive burden of patents, and the big-business/lobbyist friendly approach of our government over the last 2+ decades have lead to a slowing of development and a maximization of profits.
Dear Comrade,
You really don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Every major drug since Bayer first released Aspirin and Heroin well over a century ago has been produced and researched by a private entity. This hasn't changed in 20 years. If anything, the NIH has become a monstrosity - this is in fact a major point of the article in question. TOO MUCH research is done by university flunkies with little interest in getting the job done. This is because too much money is funneled into the university system.
There is a reason we don't use a single drug developed in communist countries: they haven't created any worth using.
Yes, lead (in paint and gas) is hazardous. But to single out that, and only that, as the definitive reason for a lowered crime rate is...simply silly.
That wasn't the conclusion of the study. It merely was an interesting correlation. You're jumping to conclusions.
Increased prosperity, greater law enforcement, greater merging of social strata...are also potential valid reasons. Or maybe we're just growing up a little as a society
There are a variety of factors surely. Again, the article wasn't making a definitive proof of causation.
I have in the past. I was born in such. Decades before lead paint was banned.
Then you wouldn't have been forced to sign a statement agreeing you understand the implications of lead paint and received the Fed's warning. That was my point. Also, lead paint is safe as long the paint is intact. It is when the paint degrades that there is a problem.
I didn't. A previous poster did.
Again...whoosh.
My bad, sorry about that. Although your "whoosh" comments are a bit stupid, and unnecessary.
Sorry, you really don't know what you're talking about. Lead is known to increase deviant behavior. Airborne particulate lead is the most common vector for lead poisoning in the modern world as lead is no longer used extensively for pipes or food preparation/serving items in the Western World (I'm unfamiliar with other societies). You obviously don't live in an urban environment with older apartment buildings. Anyone who buys or rents a home that was constructed prior to the banning of lead paint receives a notice regarding the danger of home renovation and the creation of lead paint dust.
We know airborne lead causes lead poisoning in children. It is quite a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that lead from fuel could produce a similar effect. What you have done in this instance is to obfuscate the issue through equivocation. You have provided no real insight, you have simply presented a large quantity of irrelevant information based on the ridiculously incorrect assumption that airborne particular lead is safe. You are wrong. What is most amusing is rather than plagiarizing your precious Wikipedia, you could have read the article on lead paint and found out exactly what I have said - lead dust is the danger, not paint chips.
This has to be the longest, most pointless post I have read on slashdot in a long while. In case you are unaware, lead exposure is linked with criminal behavior. How does any of the crap you just posted affect criminal behavior? I'm sure as hell not going to read it. Thanks for wasting bandwidth.
Like all those liberal Republicans in Congress who investigated and re-investigated Whitewater with no probable cause?
I really don't see how that is related. Whitewater was a criminal conspiracy that resulted in many people being convicted. Enforcing the law is the duty of the government.
That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.
In this case, you appealed to a specific characteristic of the folks who wrote The Media Elite, that they were funded by conservative organizations and thus could not be trusted. Guilt by association could have applied as well, if you had made a more direct claim regarding the sources of the writers' funding. Sorry, you fail it.
Do you also demand evidence that the Pope is Catholic? If you willfully ignore decades of Republican rhetoric, that's your problem, not mine.
You are really not very good at making arguments are you?
Yeah? Go and ask one of those "wild eyes liberals" how happy they are over the Democratic leadership caving on the Iraq war, NSA wiretapping, "free trade", etc etc. They'd vote Labor or Socialist but we don't have those parties in the U.S. We have the conservative Democrats and the ultra-conservative Republicans.
Actually, the green party is quite popular amongst said wild eyed liberals.
How many respected scientists blow off nuclear safety.
Oh, sure, that's what were talking about here....
Either you are a Kool-Aid drinker, or you are a troll.
Oh yeah, another slam dunk! Your mastery of rhetoric is inspirational. I tremble with shame.
Suck it biznap. Suck it long, suck it hard.
Drop 'em big stuff.
Only materialistic liberals believe money is the great motivator of society. Too bad all the free money, housing, and education still hasn't righted all the wrongs in the world. It's unfortunate you began your rebuttal with what is essentially an ad hominem attack.
That's great. You find me the "conservative movement" that holds that view. If you would have read the book, you'd find they aren't making an argument that a particular viewpoint is conservative or liberal, they are assuming that they are for the basis of the study. If I want to figure out what the negative effects of smoking marijuana are, and one of those effects I define as being "apathy", I don't have to make an entire argument that apathy is a negative trait. The author states the viewpoints he believes to be associated with liberalism. That is all that is required. It is not a political treatise, it is a sociological survey.
I live in one of the most liberal places in the United States. I have neighbors who go on vacations to communes, but still are wild eyes liberals who fervently support the democrat party. I can assure you that your viewpoint is shared only by hardened communists. Are you a communist?
Three Mile Island was a greatly overblown event, and Chernobyl is simply impossible in the US. Even today, many if not most environmental groups consider the risk of nuclear energy to be far less severe than the immediate effect of burning fossil fuels. Respected scientists have ALWAY held this view. Your statement only makes sense in support of the conclusion drawn by the book - journalists completely ignored the many positive statements by respected scientists purely because of their own irrational fear of one severe tragedy in a communist country and a sensationalized event.
At least they don't advocate government oversight of media to regulate "fairness" as do democrats.
The academic study cited most frequently by critics of a "liberal media bias" in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey which found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. Then they compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integration, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The book's most thorough case study involved nuclear energy. The survey of journalists showed that most were highly skeptical about nuclear safety. However, the authors conducted a separate survey of scientists in energy related fields, who were much more sanguine about nuclear safety issues. They then conducted a content analysis of nuclear energy coverage in the media outlets they had surveyed. They found that the opinions of sources who were cited as scientific experts reflected the antinuclear sentiments of journalists, rather than the more pro-nuclear perspectives held by most energy scientists.
The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality. In principle this meant that newsrooms populated mainly by conservatives would produce a similarly skewed perspective toward the political right. Such accusations have been leveled against Fox News. At the time the study was embraced mainly by conservative columnists and politicians, who adopted the findings as "scientific proof" of liberal media bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_media
Sorry, I think you are a bit mistaken here.
Preventing access to publications is wholly different than throwing people in jail for years because they have read or written a particular work. In most European countries, simply writing that you believe the Holocaust is a fiction will land you in jail for many years. That alone is far beyond anything that has ever happened in the United States in the entire history of our nation.
There is simply no comparison, and your argument directly disregards this fact.
Your body constantly works to maintain equilibrium of all functions. The is a reason Type 2 diabetes almost exclusively occurs in gluttonous people, and is virtually unknown in countries where food is comparatively expensive and scarce. This is because after years of consistent overeating, your body begins to believe that elevated levels of blood sugar is "normal" and there is no need to produce more insulin. This is no different than people who drugs or alcohol. Using drugs or alcohol long term results in your body assuming that is "normal" and it stops producing similar chemicals, which drugs mimic. When you stop using drugs or alcohol, withdrawal symptoms result until your body readjusts.
This particular enzyme is the way your body controls this behavior in regards to insulin, it is not the "cause".
Yes, it is a coincidence. Like the Audio CD and DVD, Blu-ray was/is an industry consortium effort. HD-DVD is the product with only one major hardware company (Toshiba) supporting it.
Amusingly, the exact opposite is true in New York City. I'd say the ratio of PSP to DS users on the NYC subway system is about 10 to 1. It is rare to be in a car where someone isn't playing a PSP (not at nighttime - NYC is 24 hours, unlike Tokyo). Most days I don't see anyone using a DS, and when I do it typically is someone who is East Asian.
I have both systems, but typically play the PSP. It just has more games I enjoy, and I'm a stickler for graphics.
Because the same is true for every single consumer electronics item available today. Again, I ask you, what makes video game consoles so special? I spent $2000 on a television, $1000 on a home audio system, fuck, even a car is twice the price from when the Super Nintendo was supreme. All of the items I mentioned have increased in price dramatically over this time. Also, as has been said before - the Xbox 360 and PS3 are similarly priced when equipped with the same components. What's the big deal? It would be one thing if the 360 came with an HDVD drive and a 60 gig hard drive for $400, but it does not. The $300 Xbox 360 doesn't even come with a hard drive!
I'm sorry, I think you don't give enough credit to the worldwide consumer here. I think they can figure out the PS3 comes with a lot for the money. I'm personally very happy with it, and really didn't want to pay more to Microsoft to get similar functionality.
It is not up to you to decide what is an appropriate market segment. The PS3 was not created to appeal to the broad masses of people, just like a 50" LCD is not marketed towards the same group. Hell, televisions aren't even marketed to the vast majority of the world's people for whom such a device is still a luxury. For people who have money for these goods (of which there ARE millions), the PS3 is great. As I said, my setup cost $3K, and the PS3 was just an extra 20%. Comparatively, that is a small expense. HD screens are selling like hotcakes and they are building factories to produce the things all over Asia. I'd say most everyone I know has an HDTV. By your logic, there is no market demand for HDTVs.
The problem here is you have a soplipsitic, introspective view of the situation. Your obviously poor and don't have the money for these goods. So what? Rather than look at the subject objectively, you apply your personal experience to the entire world. That is inappropriate and immature. I hope you never work in the business world, as you clearly lack the ability to differentiate your personal views and desires from the market.
My god have you ever heard of inflation?
Your analysis is fundamentally wrong simply for the reason that the $250 price point has been standard now for almost 20 years. In that time, household income has increased 50%. Why on earth would you believe that suddenly, and without any historical precedent to the contrary, people automatically expect video game consoles to become more affordable (as a percentage of household income) over time?
And, I feel you are discounting the importance of the blu-ray player. Sony rightly believes that compared to past consoles, theirs offers more value. Surely, having a blu-ray player must be worth something.
I think you're a bit mistaken. We bombed over 100 German cities to rubble, and Japan was not far off. They were also nuked. The American public simply doesn't have the tolerance for terror campaigns anymore. I can assure you that if we had simply nuked Basra the first time there was a major revolt there, the area would be quite peaceful too.
Let's see, Serbia, a nation working to finally free itself of the legacy of Muslim conquest and prevent the UN from creating a country that never even existed in the past is in the same league as a barbarian nation where people simply hacked each other to death for sport? Things were not "made better" in Serbia. They easily could have been made better by deporting every last muslim to Turkey or Iraq or wherever. Rwanda? Well, stopping the bloodshed will never be possible. Violence is their way.
You used the nominal GDP rate and not the real GDP rate - that is bad economic analysis. If you analyze the numbers again using the real GDP, you'll find the average annual growth rate from 1790 to 1912 was 4.21%, while from the period 1913 to 2006, the rate was 3.48%. The numbers are questionable for several reasons, most notably is the extensive presence of barter during the former period and related imprecision of estimates. Another simple measure of GDP growth should be the level of capital investment. As I said, an entire vast country was created during the former period, while the latter period has produced comparatively little that is lasting.
That wasn't an argument, it was a statement. I don't have time to qualify every statement. But I'll give it a shot because you seem like a smart fellow and at least tried to back up your statements. Cheers to that. I'm an aesthete at heart and don't believe it is possible nor desirable to measure the success or failure of civilization in the materialistic terms of an bean counter. That alone should reason enough to dismiss any GDP measurements in relation to this discussion, but if we are to play your numbers game, I refer you to the wikipedia article which is amazingly a good place to start.
A simple modern-day correlation would be the value of the DOW. Many people believe the stock market has recovered from the 2001 crash. In nominal terms it has, but in real terms - even using the government's dubious inflation statistics - it has still has a good 1,000 points to go before that happens. Another absolutely pressing matter is debt and tax load. What percentage of the per capita GDP in 1890 was sucked up by the banksters and their government minions? What about today? In 1890, Americans probably spent less than 10% of their income on taxes and/or interest. Today, it is more like 50%. This necessarily has to factor into this analysis somehow, but check out the wikipedia article for more.
Sheesh, even the Haymarket Riot (May Day to commies) wasn't about unemployment. Unemployment wasn't a problem because anyone could at the very least become a homesteader on the frontier. I will admit that unemployment is more of a problem today because there is nowhere for surplus population to go. In the 19th century, people were concerned with poor people living in cramped tenements that rent for $2K a month today. They weren't concerned with hordes of people without any means to take care of themselves. I think we're talking about a different video, by the way. I really don't know much about the Illuminati, and that video doesn't discuss it.
If the GDP decreases by 25% but the prices of goods drops 50%, a rational person would call that a period of prosperity. Use the real GDP rate.
You want to look at Article I Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
This where the idea of the commodity index comes from - Congress can regulate the value of money to be whatever they like. It is also where the criticism of the Fed comes into play. Congress can delegate its powers, yet Congress no longer regulates the value of money... That is illegal.
Some inflation is desireable, and the reasons why are simple: sustained economic growth when the currency is deflating is next to impossible. Nobody wants to borrow money today that they are going to pay back with more expensive dollars in the future. As a result, productivity and capital investments drop, and the economy stagnates. The opposite is true when the currency inflates. The key is to keep inflation predictable so people can plan for it.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the 19th century. In 100 years, the United States was transformed from near total wilderness to the world's largest industrial power filled with hundreds of cities and a vast railroad system. The US saw vastly greater improvements in standard of living, scientific advancement, and overall progress in comparison with the modern era. This was all done during a period of moderate - and at times severe - deflation. Deflation is the natural order of things in an industrial society. Productivity and efficiency necessarily should result in decreased costs. And please - don't tell me about the horrible days of working factories. I live in New York City - people pay $2000 a month for a 400 square foot studio in tenement built for such factory workers. It wasn't so bad.
No, thats not the only way that the money supply is increased. The US treasury dept increases the money supply when it auctions securities to the public. The FOMC can also increase the money supply through its open market operations.
Don't kid yourself. A bond is a loan.
Your loaded terminology is betraying you. Implicit in our system is the assumption that loans and investments drive future economy growth. If the money supply grows by $y, and the resulting activity increases our economy by $y, then nothing has been "stolen".
In theory this should be true, but it is impossible when people are collecting interest on money created out of thin air. The problem we have today is only part of the money stolen from the people finds its way into the economic system, the interest however accrues to a bankster elite. The current system we have could work, but only the federal government should have the right to issue loans via this system, and they should be interest free or the interest should accrue to the public coffers. Private entities should only be able to issue loans using real money from depositors who rightly are risking their own money. There is no risk in taking money from the people and giving it to someone else when they get nothing out of it.
Watch this video.
I guess its a lot easier to argue an opinion if you just blithely dismiss anybody that disagrees with you as being ignorant.
I'm sorry, I didn't know some people on slashdot still support ad hominem attacks. As for the comment on fractional reserve lending, even you don't seem to grasp the consequences. Anyway, watch the video - maybe it will become clear.
Friend, this is a real problem. No one is buying US treasuries anymore because of the pathetic interest rate the fed set last week, and the debt load of the American consumer is far too great. This system of expanding the money supply through the creation of debt is on the way out, and it behooves all responsible citizens to prepare for this accordingly. A major liquidity crisis is coming your way soon.
Banks can collect the capital of several people like me and issue loans.
Sorry, that isn't how banks issue loans. We have this thing called fractional reserve lending, which through a complicated process essentially allows banks to create money via issuance of loans indefinitely. Most commercial banks have liquid assets equivalent to less than 5% of their oustanding loans. When a bank issues you a loan, the money you receive didn't come from a depositor, it was created out of thin air - thereby devaluing existing monies in circulation.
You agree to let the bank use your money this way when you put your savings in there.
Everyone on some level knows this isn't true. If it were, you would not be able to withdraw you money at will from banks as the money was given to someone else. You haven't thought about this enough.
Nobody is stealing from anybody.
Yes they are. You cannot create value out of thin air. This system of lending only works because part of the value of existing money is transferred to the new money put into circulation via the issuance of debt.
Power-hungry dictators existed long before the Fed.
What is worse, a power hungry dictator who is honest about his plans and actions, or this form of debt slavery? There isn't enough money in the world to lend to every single citizen, business, and government entity. The average person spends a quarter of his life paying interest on his mortgage, personal debt, and his share of government debt. Personally, I think the current system is much worse - everyone is a slave and they don't even realize it. They even hold crazy beliefs like yours that the money you borrow actually was the product of someone who chose to save his hard earned money in a bank!
Why don't you watch this video that explains how the money supply is expanded via the issuance of debt.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&hl=en
None.
There are other alternatives. A commodity index can be utilized instead of a gold standard. Especially with rising costs of many imported resources, this would ease the shock amongst the American people.
The reality is the constitution grants congress to fix the value of money to whatever they see fit - given the complexity of the modern world, and a commodity index is the most sound approach.