We fail to understand that the corporation is fundamentally evil. It's stated purpose is to generate profit... PERIOD.
The same capitalistic forces that created the Enron scandal also create toxic waste dumping grounds. The almighty dollar dictates the cutting of corners and sacrifice of long term stability for short-term profit.
Until we can figure out a proper way to dispose of nuclear waste, it should be considered dangerous. It's only cheap when you leave out the cost of disposal. Then it gets VERY expensive (Most things in costs in America leave out disposal, thats why recycling is considered un-profitable).
Honestly, I'm not very concerned about a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. I'm far more concerned about nuclear waste sinking into the soil and contaminating vast areas through seepage (radon, unusable ground water).
It's my sincere hope that we can eventually find a way to build deep earth disposal vehicles that burrow into hot layers and melt the waste make into a volcanic soup. Until then, we're stuck with that shit and no has figured out a good way to nuetralize it and store it safely.
I'm curious, would radiation interfere with a GPS receiver???
It would be useful if she needed to radio her location to someone. When you think about it, it's not that different from being in ANY wilderness (save some National Parks now have cell phone coverage).
What kinda surprises me is that she goes into the zone wearing leathers and no additional protection. Don't those leathers soak up some of that radiation.
I would suspect she'd have access to radiation gear since her father is a nuclear scientist. Basically, just wear the radiation suit over the leathers so they don't get contaminated.
What is interesting is that wildlife seems to be thriving in some of "not so hot" areas. I'm curious if nature will evolve creatures in these zones that are genetically more resilient to the radiation effects.
This was the point. Big companies like SBC use their weight to muscle out any innovation and competition. Anyone on Slashdot should realize this from Microsoft's efforts to squash Linux.
I'm mearly pointing out that we have some good examples of citizens that have decided to use THEIR institutions (local municipalites) to provide quality (non-gouging) alternatives to the Franken-Bells (they're NOT BABY BELLS. SBC is NOT a baby).
I was 100% fine with Ameritech. There was ZERO motivation for Ameritech customers to get merged into the SBC abomination.
BTW, Kucinich made his name by opposing monopolizers in a takeover of Cleavlends municipal power systems. The Power providers colluded with the banks and called in Cleaveland's loans to punish Kucinich with Bankruptcy.
Ultimately, Kucinich saved Cleaveland rate payers a shit-load of money. They didn't need big-power to stomp all over their municipal power system that returned all it's profits to rate payers.
Again and again you see that the biggest enemy of big-business is their own customers. Remember when the banks sued the Credit Union's over the meager fowl of Credit Union's not wanting PROFIT.
The case centered around the unfairness of a group of service users banding together and providing THEIR OWN services thereby avoiding the taxes of firms like Bank One, Citibank, etc... (who can tell anymore, they're merging together at such a rate we'll have a total of 3 US banks within 5 years).
What the Credit Union's prove is that it's 100% possible to be WAY more efficient than major corporations and provide citizens with discount services without the use of foreign slave labor. On a personal note, Credit Union service is... WAAAAY more personal. If you call a Credit Union, they won't answer the phone in Bangalore.
I suppose that those defeated in this measure could form non-muni co-ops. Telco Unions if you will. But I'm 100% sure that SBC and Comcast will sue these folks as well. Just like the Banks sued the non-governmental Credit Unions.
At the end of the day, it has SHIT to do with law. It has EVERYTHING to do with big-business crushing ANY possible competition using ANY menas, legal or otherwise. Especially the kind that really doesn't wan't a big profit. Heaven forbid that the suits lose their rights to squeeze ordinary Americans of money in return for poor service.
Like basic municipal services, roads, sidewalks, water, sewers, and trash that facilitate good health and transportation and indirectly... communication.
Na, I think that facilitating communication is one of the jobs municipalities. This is one of the purposes of roads and sidewalks. Lest we forget how mail travels and the greatest communication organization in the history of the world... The US Postal Service.
Of course we should remember that the Postal Service has been supplanted by quicker, more agile competition... The Internet. Which was completely conceived and developed in the... PUBLIC sector. The private sector mearly dug the holes and laid the fiber for a project they considered unprofitable.
Republicans have MANY myths. One of the biggest is that Government doesn't innovate. In fact, public agencies do a pretty good job in some areas (certainly not all, we don't live in a black/white world). In the realm of communications, government agencies have done a DAMN GOOD job.
This is the product of a de-regulated environment. Companies buy each other with haste and speed. Partially because of comparitive advantage of a larger company. Partially to engratiate executives who's stock options become WAY more valuable around merger time. The consumers are the one's who ultimately loose.
Time-Warner, Comcast, Viacom, Disney, Clear-Channel and NBC all need to be broken up. Let's hope our next President (John Kerry) follows through on his some of his trust-busting promises.
Actually, the best geological explanation I've seen is the flooding of the Black Sea basin. There used to be a big lake down there until the passage breached and let the Mediterranean in.
The archaeologists have actually down excavations down there and found "tells" under the sea on the old water line (belonging to the lake). This is a pretty good fit for the biblical flood given both it's scope and it's proximity to Babylon where the story could easily be brought by migrants, refugees and traders.
http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/noah.htm h ttp://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/story9 _1.html
No, actually it's NOT a free market decision. It prevents local citizens from using THEIR institutions to band together and fight monopolistic utilities.
Since private corporations are so "efficient" they should have ZERO trouble defeating "inefficient" government organizations with superior products and service. For example, the stellar service of SBC could just blow ANY municipal telco away!!!!
BTW, this law is plainly unconstitutional. It denies state governmental agencies from exercising a "non-enumerated" power. Yes, states cannot constrain inter-state commerce (telecommunications) but nothing in the constitution allows the federal government to PREVENT a state from engaging in interstate commerce.
Well, technically a citizen is a subdivision of your local government. It sounds pretty stupid, but don't be surprised to hear SBC using this argument to shut down community telcos.
Shit under this definition, even a community co-op could be considered a government organization.
You would think that the Congress of the 90s would be unafraid of small towns starting their own telcos. After all, governement is so "inefficient" in their minds that they couldn't possibly compete with such "efficient" and capable telcos like SBC, MCI and Global Crossing for services like DSL, etc....
The "free market" Bush administration should be the first ones to decry this ruling. It prevents more competition in the market.
Of course, most people who advocate free markets aren't actually in favor of free markets. There in favor of access for themselves and cutting everyone else off. Free markets for mega corporations. Closed markets for those "innovative" salt of the earth small businesses and entreprenuers (which IS a French word;-).
The irony is that anarchy leads to the formation of alpha-military leaders to protect themselves and their group. This leads to rigid top down hierarchies and.... MORE RULES.
Anarchy is simply a DIFFERENT form of order. A more brutal one.
This is an old lie. Municipal agencies do a pretty damn good job at most of the services they provide.
Municipalities are the institutions of the people. They are the safety pin that picks up the slack that the private sector does not cover. Most of the services provided by government are those that have little profit attached to them (besides monopolistic utilities).
Government does have a role of providing UNIVERSAL services that the private sector has ZERO desire to do. Yes, Fedex would like to deliver the mail, but only to heavily populated areas. There are lots of private schools, but they only want to teach the brightest and richest, and most athletically gifted students.
Finally, government isn't burdened by the need to create a profit. Nor are they run completely by appointed MBAs whose only real purpose is to enrich their supervisor and themselves.
Non-profits are ALWAYS more efficient than profit-seekers because they are populated by people who are more interested in the MISSION than the self enrichment. They HAVE to be. In most cases they would make FAR MORE in the private sector.
I suspect that those of us who were booted from our jobs by outsourcing will be prime targets for such a draft. That way, the draft would become an employment program.
On the lighter side, those signal corps guys don't get very close to the front lines. Your chances of being killed as a programmer in Chicago may be higher than a army network admin at the Baghdad airport.
I just love it when free traders mess up occasionally and admit to their money grubbing unhuman slime nature:
Modern steel mini-mills are actually thriving; it is the old steel firms who have to deal with the leacy of massive pension costs from the days when they had to hire many times more workers than they need to today who are in trouble. The situation is much the same for autos and textiles; it is the transition from low productivity technology to high productivity technology, not so much competiton from imports, which is causing the bulk of the dislocation.
So what we're saying is that PEOPLE are the problem. Don't ever proclaim you're message here in Northwest Indiana. You won't escape without needing a VERY good health care plan of your own.
The truth is that the pension money was ALL STOLEN bit by bit by executives who could CARE LESS about the business OR the people working for it. They only cared about extracting THEIR WEALTH from the corporate organism.
What you people fail to realize is that we have effectively SUBSIDIZED commercial development overseas. The cool little techno-toys we are SOOOO dependent on are ALL produced overseas. That is, we aren't making capital investments in OUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY!!!!!
That's not "competing" as a nation. That's "SELLING OUT!!!!!". Competing as a nation is the good ole cold war. Back than we KNEW that trading with slave drivers WAS WRONG!!!! We new it would ultimately undermine our democracy and standard of living.
Not now. We've been suckered into the belief that exploiting slaves is the path to prosperity (just like the Romans). Now we are SUBSIDIZING capital development in the high tech tools we NEED to foreign countries.
Honestly, you people think your so fucking clever. But you're really idiotic moronic savants. We as a nation are losing are ability to stand up to foreign tyrranny (like China). We are losing the ability to command our own destiny. We are selling out our neighbors and friends. We are DESTROYING America.
Make no doubt, that I and many others consider your kind a TRAITOR to the United States. You're a rotten cancer eating our nation from the inside out.
BTW, speaking of Health Care... IT IS being outsourced overseas. X-Rays, medical billing, and medical coding are all being sent overseas. Foreign nurses (often without the same level of training) are being imported to keep nurses from capitalizing on the current high demand.
Education ????? You're fucking kidding me right. Are you a moron or are you just stupid. Go take some classes from a University and tell me that education wasn't outsourced 20 years ago.
Real Estate?????? Ahh, you see we are selling America off piece by piece. Why would foreigners sell what we have. We are practically GIVING it away.
If Dante were alive, he would invent a new level of hell specifically for traitorous outsourcers like you!!!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear ... Enron
... PERIOD.
We fail to understand that the corporation is fundamentally evil. It's stated purpose is to generate profit
The same capitalistic forces that created the Enron scandal also create toxic waste dumping grounds. The almighty dollar dictates the cutting of corners and sacrifice of long term stability for short-term profit.
Until we can figure out a proper way to dispose of nuclear waste, it should be considered dangerous. It's only cheap when you leave out the cost of disposal. Then it gets VERY expensive (Most things in costs in America leave out disposal, thats why recycling is considered un-profitable).
Honestly, I'm not very concerned about a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. I'm far more concerned about nuclear waste sinking into the soil and contaminating vast areas through seepage (radon, unusable ground water).
It's my sincere hope that we can eventually find a way to build deep earth disposal vehicles that burrow into hot layers and melt the waste make into a volcanic soup. Until then, we're stuck with that shit and no has figured out a good way to nuetralize it and store it safely.
I'm curious, would radiation interfere with a GPS receiver???
It would be useful if she needed to radio her location to someone. When you think about it, it's not that different from being in ANY wilderness (save some National Parks now have cell phone coverage).
She talked about bringing along a few friends occasionally.
Either that, or she just brought a tripod.
Heat Exchanger. A good house will compeletely exchange the air in a couple hours.
But I do agree that excessive insulation against air leaks is
Getting out in the Sun gets you some radiation as well. Hopefully, we can keep the Ozone layer intact so that level won't be climbing.
What kinda surprises me is that she goes into the zone wearing leathers and no additional protection. Don't those leathers soak up some of that radiation.
I would suspect she'd have access to radiation gear since her father is a nuclear scientist. Basically, just wear the radiation suit over the leathers so they don't get contaminated.
What is interesting is that wildlife seems to be thriving in some of "not so hot" areas. I'm curious if nature will evolve creatures in these zones that are genetically more resilient to the radiation effects.
Yeah, that would be like the TVA. Damn those Roosevelt communists trying to bring reasonable priced power to the masses.
....
Curse them for overthrowing the nobility and exclusivity of 1930's power producers. Damn their Dams!!!!!!!
Further back
Damn those Jeffersonians and their PUBLIC roads!!!!!
etc...
This was the point. Big companies like SBC use their weight to muscle out any innovation and competition. Anyone on Slashdot should realize this from Microsoft's efforts to squash Linux.
I'm mearly pointing out that we have some good examples of citizens that have decided to use THEIR institutions (local municipalites) to provide quality (non-gouging) alternatives to the Franken-Bells (they're NOT BABY BELLS. SBC is NOT a baby).
I was 100% fine with Ameritech. There was ZERO motivation for Ameritech customers to get merged into the SBC abomination.
BTW, Kucinich made his name by opposing monopolizers in a takeover of Cleavlends municipal power systems. The Power providers colluded with the banks and called in Cleaveland's loans to punish Kucinich with Bankruptcy.
Ultimately, Kucinich saved Cleaveland rate payers a shit-load of money. They didn't need big-power to stomp all over their municipal power system that returned all it's profits to rate payers.
Again and again you see that the biggest enemy of big-business is their own customers. Remember when the banks sued the Credit Union's over the meager fowl of Credit Union's not wanting PROFIT.
The case centered around the unfairness of a group of service users banding together and providing THEIR OWN services thereby avoiding the taxes of firms like Bank One, Citibank, etc... (who can tell anymore, they're merging together at such a rate we'll have a total of 3 US banks within 5 years).
What the Credit Union's prove is that it's 100% possible to be WAY more efficient than major corporations and provide citizens with discount services without the use of foreign slave labor. On a personal note, Credit Union service is
I suppose that those defeated in this measure could form non-muni co-ops. Telco Unions if you will. But I'm 100% sure that SBC and Comcast will sue these folks as well. Just like the Banks sued the non-governmental Credit Unions.
At the end of the day, it has SHIT to do with law. It has EVERYTHING to do with big-business crushing ANY possible competition using ANY menas, legal or otherwise. Especially the kind that really doesn't wan't a big profit. Heaven forbid that the suits lose their rights to squeeze ordinary Americans of money in return for poor service.
Like basic municipal services, roads, sidewalks, water, sewers, and trash that facilitate good health and transportation and indirectly
Na, I think that facilitating communication is one of the jobs municipalities. This is one of the purposes of roads and sidewalks. Lest we forget how mail travels and the greatest communication organization in the history of the world
Of course we should remember that the Postal Service has been supplanted by quicker, more agile competition
Republicans have MANY myths. One of the biggest is that Government doesn't innovate. In fact, public agencies do a pretty good job in some areas (certainly not all, we don't live in a black/white world). In the realm of communications, government agencies have done a DAMN GOOD job.
This is the product of a de-regulated environment. Companies buy each other with haste and speed. Partially because of comparitive advantage of a larger company. Partially to engratiate executives who's stock options become WAY more valuable around merger time. The consumers are the one's who ultimately loose.
Time-Warner, Comcast, Viacom, Disney, Clear-Channel and NBC all need to be broken up. Let's hope our next President (John Kerry) follows through on his some of his trust-busting promises.
OK, that was funny.
But that would be interesting to see geeks swap their machines and individually upgrade them.
Does GUI customization count as an upgrade. What about a new art of home case painting???? Workspaces and desks should be included.
Perhaps it should be called "Trading (work) Stations".
Actually, the best geological explanation I've seen is the flooding of the Black Sea basin. There used to be a big lake down there until the passage breached and let the Mediterranean in.
h ttp://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/story9 _1.html
The archaeologists have actually down excavations down there and found "tells" under the sea on the old water line (belonging to the lake). This is a pretty good fit for the biblical flood given both it's scope and it's proximity to Babylon where the story could easily be brought by migrants, refugees and traders.
http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/noah.htm
Those suits are pretty tough. That's like George Lucas suing Battlestar Galactica.
Besides, you should probably sue Constantine the Great since he's the guy who convened the Council of Nicea that cannonized the relevant texts.
But, you all know what happens when you fuck with Roman Emperors.
Crucifixion, yes
Remember what the city was like before the sewers??? Yuck.
But besides the aqueducts, wine, roads and sewers... What have the Romans ever done for us????
Serious, I think this argument would also be relevant in arguments about the "American Empire". Being colonized DOES have SOME benefits.
The "over-regulated" pharmacies in Canada have far lower prices than their American counterparts.
No, actually it's NOT a free market decision. It prevents local citizens from using THEIR institutions to band together and fight monopolistic utilities.
Since private corporations are so "efficient" they should have ZERO trouble defeating "inefficient" government organizations with superior products and service. For example, the stellar service of SBC could just blow ANY municipal telco away!!!!
BTW, this law is plainly unconstitutional. It denies state governmental agencies from exercising a "non-enumerated" power. Yes, states cannot constrain inter-state commerce (telecommunications) but nothing in the constitution allows the federal government to PREVENT a state from engaging in interstate commerce.
Well, technically a citizen is a subdivision of your local government. It sounds pretty stupid, but don't be surprised to hear SBC using this argument to shut down community telcos.
Shit under this definition, even a community co-op could be considered a government organization.
You would think that the Congress of the 90s would be unafraid of small towns starting their own telcos. After all, governement is so "inefficient" in their minds that they couldn't possibly compete with such "efficient" and capable telcos like SBC, MCI and Global Crossing for services like DSL, etc....
The "free market" Bush administration should be the first ones to decry this ruling. It prevents more competition in the market.
;-).
Of course, most people who advocate free markets aren't actually in favor of free markets. There in favor of access for themselves and cutting everyone else off. Free markets for mega corporations. Closed markets for those "innovative" salt of the earth small businesses and entreprenuers (which IS a French word
The irony is that anarchy leads to the formation of alpha-military leaders to protect themselves and their group. This leads to rigid top down hierarchies and
Anarchy is simply a DIFFERENT form of order. A more brutal one.
This is an old lie. Municipal agencies do a pretty damn good job at most of the services they provide.
Municipalities are the institutions of the people. They are the safety pin that picks up the slack that the private sector does not cover. Most of the services provided by government are those that have little profit attached to them (besides monopolistic utilities).
Government does have a role of providing UNIVERSAL services that the private sector has ZERO desire to do. Yes, Fedex would like to deliver the mail, but only to heavily populated areas. There are lots of private schools, but they only want to teach the brightest and richest, and most athletically gifted students.
Finally, government isn't burdened by the need to create a profit. Nor are they run completely by appointed MBAs whose only real purpose is to enrich their supervisor and themselves.
Non-profits are ALWAYS more efficient than profit-seekers because they are populated by people who are more interested in the MISSION than the self enrichment. They HAVE to be. In most cases they would make FAR MORE in the private sector.
My understanding is the guys who staff service bands have to be capable of firing a weapon if the shit hits the fan.
Imagine, hand to hand combat with trumpets and trombones, absolutely brutal!!!!!
I suspect that those of us who were booted from our jobs by outsourcing will be prime targets for such a draft. That way, the draft would become an employment program.
On the lighter side, those signal corps guys don't get very close to the front lines. Your chances of being killed as a programmer in Chicago may be higher than a army network admin at the Baghdad airport.
I just love it when free traders mess up occasionally and admit to their money grubbing unhuman slime nature:
Modern steel mini-mills are actually thriving; it is the old steel firms who have to deal with the leacy of massive pension costs from the days when they had to hire many times more workers than they need to today who are in trouble. The situation is much the same for autos and textiles; it is the transition from low productivity technology to high productivity technology, not so much competiton from imports, which is causing the bulk of the dislocation.
So what we're saying is that PEOPLE are the problem. Don't ever proclaim you're message here in Northwest Indiana. You won't escape without needing a VERY good health care plan of your own.
The truth is that the pension money was ALL STOLEN bit by bit by executives who could CARE LESS about the business OR the people working for it. They only cared about extracting THEIR WEALTH from the corporate organism.
What you people fail to realize is that we have effectively SUBSIDIZED commercial development overseas. The cool little techno-toys we are SOOOO dependent on are ALL produced overseas. That is, we aren't making capital investments in OUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY!!!!!
That's not "competing" as a nation. That's "SELLING OUT!!!!!". Competing as a nation is the good ole cold war. Back than we KNEW that trading with slave drivers WAS WRONG!!!! We new it would ultimately undermine our democracy and standard of living.
Not now. We've been suckered into the belief that exploiting slaves is the path to prosperity (just like the Romans). Now we are SUBSIDIZING capital development in the high tech tools we NEED to foreign countries.
Honestly, you people think your so fucking clever. But you're really idiotic moronic savants. We as a nation are losing are ability to stand up to foreign tyrranny (like China). We are losing the ability to command our own destiny. We are selling out our neighbors and friends. We are DESTROYING America.
Make no doubt, that I and many others consider your kind a TRAITOR to the United States. You're a rotten cancer eating our nation from the inside out.
BTW, speaking of Health Care
Education ????? You're fucking kidding me right. Are you a moron or are you just stupid. Go take some classes from a University and tell me that education wasn't outsourced 20 years ago.
Real Estate?????? Ahh, you see we are selling America off piece by piece. Why would foreigners sell what we have. We are practically GIVING it away.
If Dante were alive, he would invent a new level of hell specifically for traitorous outsourcers like you!!!!!!