I just don't see your definition there. Dumping garbage on my property is trespassing and vandalism (and probably violates any number of local laws). It's not an exchange (if you take something, that's stealing), and not a business deal, and not bartering.
some arbitrary standard you can't identify
The "arbitrary standard" is the meaning of the word "commerce" at the time the Constitution was written. Releasing CO2 is not included in that definition, at least as far as I can tell. If it is, please inform me.
Feel free to explain how you think that is not commerce, and how you think that one state dumping in another without permission is something outside the bounds of Federal government.
Well, you certainly turned it around on me there. It's hard to prove a negative. How about you show me what definition of commerce you're using to arrive at your conclusion. And if it's not commerce, how about you show me the part of the Constitution that does authorize such regulation.
The thing is, if releasing CO2 is "commerce" than anything can be. Heck, I release CO2, and so do you. We might as well say that absorbing CO2 is also "commerce" and therefore plants can be regulated too, not just animals.
And we will have to live with all the expensive inefficiencies.
I'm not too worried about it. I feel no need to artificially encourage larger and larger corporations by "standardizing" the law at the federal level.
The Constitution is not Gospel,
But it is the document that sets duties and boundaries for the federal government (and, to a lesser extent, the states). If we really need to change it, there's something called the Amendment process, which has happened many times over the course of US history. However, if we let politicians play fast and loose with the Constitution without the appropriate Amendments, all of the Constitutional protections lose significance. Allowing the commerce clause to mean anything then emboldened the SCOTUS to allow the taking of land for a private party in the Kelo decision.
Aynone who relies on a strict interpretation of the Constitution fails to react to changing times
Strict interpretation still allows Amendments.
but the problem is not unconstitutional activity,
Yes, it is.
but the failure of the Constitution to change with the times as it was meant to do,
The Constitution hasn't failed to change. It's inanimate. The federal government has failed to make the changes necessary to pass the laws they'd like passed.
and the failure of government to own up to the fact that they are changing the Constitution via interpretation, when they should be changing it via amendment.
I don't think the government's failing is that of "owning up". I think that they shouldn't be re-interpreting the Constitution to suit their needs in the first place. As you say, they should be changing it via Amendment.
Texas continues to export CO2 to Louisiana through the wind. Louisiana should be able to sue Texas in federal court.
By your standards, everything is subject to federal regulation, and the commerce clause becomes meaningless. Modern equipment can detect very small concentrations of pretty much anything in the air. Just because it's detectable doesn't mean that it represents "commerce among the states". Affecting interstate commerce is not enough of a standard for the commerce clause. It must actually be interstate commerce.
this kind of thing can be in compliance with a reasonable of the commerce lause.
I don't think so. The fact that some industries find the diversity of law inconvenient is not an excuse to expand federal power to "standardize" these laws at the national level. The federal government's powers are few and defined, and if you open it up to whatever is convenient for an industry, then you have missed the point of the commerce clause.
The simple test is: any law at all meets your standards; therefore the commerce clause has no meaning to you at all. However, it does have a meaning.
I don't know much about the 16th amendment, but couldn't this EPA stuff be handled through a fiction relating to Federal income tax?
It's a stretch, but it makes at least as much sense as allowing people to deduct the interest paid on a home loan. Personally I don't think that either are Constitutional, but I can see how -- under the influence of the wrong substance -- one might say that it's still a tax on income, even though such an "income tax" is based on all kinds of non-income variables.
Industries have been known to ask that the federal government step in with a set of central standards,
I don't care what the industries want, I care what the Constitution says. Big business loves big government; as long as they are on the right side of whatever legislation is being passed. That's nothing new.
We should have a limited federal government and leave more power with the states. That's what the Constitution says.
Even when carbon dioxide emissions in one state interfere with the ability of another state to conduct commerce?
How might CO2 emissions be considered regulating commerce "among the several states"?
CO2 mixes over the entire world, and does not affect a transaction between individuals across state lines. Your argument is no better than the logic that they used to say that someone growing crops on their own land for their own consumption was subject to federal regulation (which is how they make Marijuana illegal, you know).
If you say that anything that affects people in more than one state is commerce "among the several states" and is subject to federal regulation, then the commerce clause has no meaning at all. Granted, we're already way beyond the scope of the commerce clause already.
The "benefit" a PostgreSQL storage engine would be that you could pick and choose whether PostgreSQL or InnoDB, MyISAM and all other other backends fits the requirements of your app the best without changing your database environment.
(1) MySQL's "storage engines" cause different behavior at the semantic level. If you change storage engines, there's a good chance your queries will behave differently. What used to work may now fail.
(2) PostgreSQL has sophisticated performance options which *are* transparent at the semantic level. If you add a GIN index, a GiST index, a functional index, etc., then that will not change the behavior of queries; only the performance. Even though it all uses the same "heap" to store the raw tuples, you can even modify that by changing the "fillfactor", etc.
(3) PostgreSQL's optimizer is much more sophisticated than that of MySQL. If (when) MySQL's optimizer chooses a bad plan, it won't matter that PostgreSQL is the storage engine; it will still be slow.
A hack like this that actually worked would let you run crappy open source code on a more scalable database back end.
A lot of PostgreSQL's performance comes from it's cost-based optimizer that chooses the correct plan based on statistically sampling your real data periodically. In other words, as your data changes, your plans change accordingly without administrator intervention. MySQL's optimizer is much more primitive.
Also, PostgreSQL has much more sophisticated options when planning, like bitmap index scans (which can be ANDed/ORed with other indexes and reorder the tuple fetching in disk order), GIN and GiST indexes, Hash Aggregates, Hash Joins, etc.
However, if PostgreSQL were just a "storage engine" I don't MySQL's storage API would pass enough information about the high-level query down to the PostgreSQL storage engine. That means PostgreSQL couldn't make good choices for plans.
A "storage engine" with a simple API for storing/fetching records is fairly uninteresting from a database performance standpoint.
Granted, PostgreSQL's MVCC is likely to be a win under concurrent access in some situations. But the wide range of performance that PostgreSQL delivers without modification of application queries (or administrator intervention) is where it really shines.
rural poor in America have been voting consistently against their own economic interests for the past few election cycles.
Your statement is more of a wedge than anything else: the idea that economics is a contest between "the rich" and "the poor". Good economic policy is good for people across the spectrum.
Corporations are chartered by states, but certainly "exist according to" federal law, with a variety of recognitions, tax laws not least, in federal statutes.
I'm getting into details here; don't take this as disagreement necessarily, but some thoughts I'd like to add.
The way I see corporation is that the government is "reaching in" to tax them much in the same way they reach in to tax private citizens (which is explicitly Unconstitutional, except for the 16th Amendment that allows it). It's not so much that the federal government taxes corporations, except that states proclaim corporations have income as an entity separate from the income of the investors, and are therefore subject to the 16th Amendment.
I think a lot of the other recognition is case law, based on federal courts trying to interpret what a corporation means in the context of the state in which it exists. Perhaps some is English Common Law even; I don't know.
Most likely, you're right -- I'm sure there are many laws on the books that are too specific about corporate law (which should be state based). More to the point, the federal government would be within it's scope to regulate interstate corporate activity, but we both know it reaches in much more than that, which is what causes inconsistency.
But the fact that it's a state government and not the feds is irrelevant to the fact that the creation of corporations is an intervention into the marketplace.
I don't think that the federal versus state distinction is irrelevant, but I agree that corporations are an interference in the marketplace.
I think that retailers should most definately be able to set their own price
If you begin a sentence "I think that _______ should...," then the argument is probably not well thought out. "Should" is very passive and ambiguous, and so is your thinking. Those manufacturers might require that a retailer sell above a given price or the manufacturer has the LIBERTY not to sell to the retailer.
"Should" is so ambiguous. They CAN set their own price and they CHOOSE not to in order to convince a manufacturer to supply them. Where does this "should" fit in? They "shouldn't" choose to obey the manufacturers restrictions, and go without the product? Someone else "should" interfere and prevent the retailer from entering into a contract with the suppliers in which the suppliers set the price?
discussion of reducing government power to interfere in the marketplace
You seem to be confused between levels of government. A corporation exists according to state law, not federal. There's a BIG difference.
should start with the revokation of most corporate charters
I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea, although state-granted corporate charters are Constitutional. The idea of eliminating corporations is quite a libertarian concept.
This gets interesting reactions from people who identify as "libertarian capitalists".
I suggest reading the real platforms of libertarianism rather than bouncing your ideas off people who are clearly not intellectually prepared.
The fact that a large corporation has a similar coercive power
I disagree. There's nothing similar between: (a) The power to refuse to enter into a contract with you. (b) The power to seize property, imprison, and kill you.
Most of the things corporations do that enrage people is due to their influence in the government. When government has more power, that creates a larger market for lobbyists to influence the direction that power is focused.
Big corporations like big government because they can use it to squash upstart small businesses.
I don't see an argument being made that prohibiting retail price maintenace is unconstitutional.
What about it is Constitutional? If it's "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States," I'll agree. If it's a transaction that happens entirely within one state the federal government has no Constitutional authority to regulate it.
In high minded theory land, doesn't a more efficient producer step in in that case?
Where are these price floors likely to exist in a market economy?
Not in commodities and staples. It would make no sense; another producer would jump in.
Where it does make sense is with things like an iPod or some other gotta-have-it where they want to associate their brand with quality and status, and not "cheap". Price floors will hurt the people who need brand names, and new gadgets.
So don't act like people will be starving in the streets because some "big company" forced prices to be high. A big company can already drive up prices by simply selling their goods at a higher price, and a retailer can only last so long selling at a loss.
This whole thing just makes no sense to me as a consumer rights issue. Price floor does not equal high prices. Sometimes prices are just high because that's what the supplier sells them for. And sometimes the product isn't really so necessary to begin with.
abuse of power and invasion of privacy and misuse of government
Surveillance of activities in public as well as undercover operations have been used by the police for a long time. The police are allowed to do these things based on a hunch if they want, they don't need a warrant to do any of it.
What, specifically, did they do that's illegal/unconstitutional?
you don't cure a people's inaccess to treatment by making different treatments.
Of course you do. This new treatment is not a new pill and does not necessarily have the same accessibility problems.
It may be more accessible because we don't need to distribute the cure to each individual person (you underestimate this cost). It may be a good idea and it may not be, but this development is exciting because it provides a new way to save the lives of millions of people from a horrible disease.
Your argument is no different from saying that cheaper clean water and food aren't necessary because we already have those things. Surely you wouldn't deny a clean water system and better agricultural methods to a poor region? You might as well tell them to hold their breath, because you're working on ending world poverty (clearly, you're working against ending world poverty).
There is a world-wide SHORTAGE of skilled IT professionals.
Shortages and surpluses don't exist in a free market. If some cries "shortage" that means that they want the government to make IT workers cheaper somehow. If they were willing to pay enough, they'd get good IT workers lining up.
Which second rate scientists have been promoting global warming?
"Second rate" is from the scientists' perspective. Any scientist who sees others ahead of him and feels like he needs to boost himself into the spotlight and into more interesting projects.
It's not just more grant money directly, it's more attention, which makes the scientist more likely to receive other grants and work on better projects.
If you look at the dollar figures it looks like a rather small incentive in the overall scheme of things. But if you look at it from the perspective of second-rate scientists who need to catch a break, the incentive to come up with exciting "findings" is very powerful.
In many scientific fields, these types of scientists are quickly disregarded because they don't have the repeatable experiments to back it up. But if a scientist merely has to tweak some arbitrary variables in a climate model to predict that the sky will fall, we don't have a better model to use to refute the claim. All our climate models are so bad that virtually any adjustment of the model could be taken seriously.
Right. The root of the problem is a lack of standardization. Each company wants it's own proprietary interfaces to everything, and that practice made them some extra money in the short term. Now they're whining because customers are expecting more and they have no standards upon which to build.
Take any major engineering achievement and you will see lots of open standards beneath it. The carriers want the lock-in without the inherent engineering limitations; big surprise.
I'll ignore the "unconstitutional" bit, because I live outside the USA and regard your country's worship of its constitution with bemusement. Discussions of what's right and wrong should be based on logical arguments, not on what some bit of paper says.
The Rule of Law is an important policy in and of itself. Even if you disagree with something "some bit of paper says," it is in the best interests of the nation (in my opinion) to follow it anyway or to change it according to the proper procedures; not ignore it. The Rule of Law is, arguably, one of the most valuable developments in human civilization.
If we let the government walk all over the Second Amendment, then it's much easier to walk all over the Fourth and Fifth. When citizens pick and choose which of their enumerated rights they will fight for, that allows the politicians to divide and conquer our rights.
They should be seeking me out, not putting up hurdles.
It all depends on who "they" are. If "they" are students, parents, or school districts, then yes, they should be seeking you out.
If "they" are teachers, why would they want to compete with you? You obviously hold yourself to a high standard, and you'd hold the kids to a high standard as well. You have the ability to make sure they actually achieve that high standard by backing up your lessons with in-depth knowledge about the subject matter, and by showing students the many resources that helped you learn over the years. Your students would excel, and put to shame all the teachers who distribute nothing but NEA propaganda.
Unfortunately, the NEA has somehow managed to make education about the current teachers and not teachers in general. You could be a teacher, but because you're not, you aren't a part of the equation when it comes to public education policy. Parents need to ignore the current teachers and focus on getting better teachers in the classroom.
The NEA is easily one of the most vile, destructive organizations on the planet.
Public schools are run more by politics than credentials and experience.
That's why Steve Jobs wants unions out of schools, so that local people can hire good teachers by offering high salaries, and fire poorly-performing teachers.
Slashdot Mirror
If you carry over a load of garbage to my property and dump it on my lawn, I believe that could be considered a form of commerce.
n e:commerce&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/commerce
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=trade
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=defi
I just don't see your definition there. Dumping garbage on my property is trespassing and vandalism (and probably violates any number of local laws). It's not an exchange (if you take something, that's stealing), and not a business deal, and not bartering.
some arbitrary standard you can't identify
The "arbitrary standard" is the meaning of the word "commerce" at the time the Constitution was written. Releasing CO2 is not included in that definition, at least as far as I can tell. If it is, please inform me.
Feel free to explain how you think that is not commerce, and how you think that one state dumping in another without permission is something outside the bounds of Federal government.
Well, you certainly turned it around on me there. It's hard to prove a negative. How about you show me what definition of commerce you're using to arrive at your conclusion. And if it's not commerce, how about you show me the part of the Constitution that does authorize such regulation.
The thing is, if releasing CO2 is "commerce" than anything can be. Heck, I release CO2, and so do you. We might as well say that absorbing CO2 is also "commerce" and therefore plants can be regulated too, not just animals.
And we will have to live with all the expensive inefficiencies.
I'm not too worried about it. I feel no need to artificially encourage larger and larger corporations by "standardizing" the law at the federal level.
The Constitution is not Gospel,
But it is the document that sets duties and boundaries for the federal government (and, to a lesser extent, the states). If we really need to change it, there's something called the Amendment process, which has happened many times over the course of US history. However, if we let politicians play fast and loose with the Constitution without the appropriate Amendments, all of the Constitutional protections lose significance. Allowing the commerce clause to mean anything then emboldened the SCOTUS to allow the taking of land for a private party in the Kelo decision.
Aynone who relies on a strict interpretation of the Constitution fails to react to changing times
Strict interpretation still allows Amendments.
but the problem is not unconstitutional activity,
Yes, it is.
but the failure of the Constitution to change with the times as it was meant to do,
The Constitution hasn't failed to change. It's inanimate. The federal government has failed to make the changes necessary to pass the laws they'd like passed.
and the failure of government to own up to the fact that they are changing the Constitution via interpretation, when they should be changing it via amendment.
I don't think the government's failing is that of "owning up". I think that they shouldn't be re-interpreting the Constitution to suit their needs in the first place. As you say, they should be changing it via Amendment.
Texas continues to export CO2 to Louisiana through the wind. Louisiana should be able to sue Texas in federal court.
By your standards, everything is subject to federal regulation, and the commerce clause becomes meaningless. Modern equipment can detect very small concentrations of pretty much anything in the air. Just because it's detectable doesn't mean that it represents "commerce among the states". Affecting interstate commerce is not enough of a standard for the commerce clause. It must actually be interstate commerce.
this kind of thing can be in compliance with a reasonable of the commerce lause.
I don't think so. The fact that some industries find the diversity of law inconvenient is not an excuse to expand federal power to "standardize" these laws at the national level. The federal government's powers are few and defined, and if you open it up to whatever is convenient for an industry, then you have missed the point of the commerce clause.
The simple test is: any law at all meets your standards; therefore the commerce clause has no meaning to you at all. However, it does have a meaning.
I don't know much about the 16th amendment, but couldn't this EPA stuff be handled through a fiction relating to Federal income tax?
It's a stretch, but it makes at least as much sense as allowing people to deduct the interest paid on a home loan. Personally I don't think that either are Constitutional, but I can see how -- under the influence of the wrong substance -- one might say that it's still a tax on income, even though such an "income tax" is based on all kinds of non-income variables.
Industries have been known to ask that the federal government step in with a set of central standards,
I don't care what the industries want, I care what the Constitution says. Big business loves big government; as long as they are on the right side of whatever legislation is being passed. That's nothing new.
We should have a limited federal government and leave more power with the states. That's what the Constitution says.
Even when carbon dioxide emissions in one state interfere with the ability of another state to conduct commerce?
How might CO2 emissions be considered regulating commerce "among the several states"?
CO2 mixes over the entire world, and does not affect a transaction between individuals across state lines. Your argument is no better than the logic that they used to say that someone growing crops on their own land for their own consumption was subject to federal regulation (which is how they make Marijuana illegal, you know).
If you say that anything that affects people in more than one state is commerce "among the several states" and is subject to federal regulation, then the commerce clause has no meaning at all. Granted, we're already way beyond the scope of the commerce clause already.
The "benefit" a PostgreSQL storage engine would be that you could pick and choose whether PostgreSQL or InnoDB, MyISAM and all other other backends fits the requirements of your app the best without changing your database environment.
(1) MySQL's "storage engines" cause different behavior at the semantic level. If you change storage engines, there's a good chance your queries will behave differently. What used to work may now fail.
(2) PostgreSQL has sophisticated performance options which *are* transparent at the semantic level. If you add a GIN index, a GiST index, a functional index, etc., then that will not change the behavior of queries; only the performance. Even though it all uses the same "heap" to store the raw tuples, you can even modify that by changing the "fillfactor", etc.
(3) PostgreSQL's optimizer is much more sophisticated than that of MySQL. If (when) MySQL's optimizer chooses a bad plan, it won't matter that PostgreSQL is the storage engine; it will still be slow.
A hack like this that actually worked would let you run crappy open source code on a more scalable database back end.
A lot of PostgreSQL's performance comes from it's cost-based optimizer that chooses the correct plan based on statistically sampling your real data periodically. In other words, as your data changes, your plans change accordingly without administrator intervention. MySQL's optimizer is much more primitive.
Also, PostgreSQL has much more sophisticated options when planning, like bitmap index scans (which can be ANDed/ORed with other indexes and reorder the tuple fetching in disk order), GIN and GiST indexes, Hash Aggregates, Hash Joins, etc.
However, if PostgreSQL were just a "storage engine" I don't MySQL's storage API would pass enough information about the high-level query down to the PostgreSQL storage engine. That means PostgreSQL couldn't make good choices for plans.
A "storage engine" with a simple API for storing/fetching records is fairly uninteresting from a database performance standpoint.
Granted, PostgreSQL's MVCC is likely to be a win under concurrent access in some situations. But the wide range of performance that PostgreSQL delivers without modification of application queries (or administrator intervention) is where it really shines.
rural poor in America have been voting consistently against their own economic interests for the past few election cycles.
Your statement is more of a wedge than anything else: the idea that economics is a contest between "the rich" and "the poor". Good economic policy is good for people across the spectrum.
Corporations are chartered by states, but certainly "exist according to" federal law, with a variety of recognitions, tax laws not least, in federal statutes.
I'm getting into details here; don't take this as disagreement necessarily, but some thoughts I'd like to add.
The way I see corporation is that the government is "reaching in" to tax them much in the same way they reach in to tax private citizens (which is explicitly Unconstitutional, except for the 16th Amendment that allows it). It's not so much that the federal government taxes corporations, except that states proclaim corporations have income as an entity separate from the income of the investors, and are therefore subject to the 16th Amendment.
I think a lot of the other recognition is case law, based on federal courts trying to interpret what a corporation means in the context of the state in which it exists. Perhaps some is English Common Law even; I don't know.
Most likely, you're right -- I'm sure there are many laws on the books that are too specific about corporate law (which should be state based). More to the point, the federal government would be within it's scope to regulate interstate corporate activity, but we both know it reaches in much more than that, which is what causes inconsistency.
But the fact that it's a state government and not the feds is irrelevant to the fact that the creation of corporations is an intervention into the marketplace.
I don't think that the federal versus state distinction is irrelevant, but I agree that corporations are an interference in the marketplace.
I think that retailers should most definately be able to set their own price
...," then the argument is probably not well thought out. "Should" is very passive and ambiguous, and so is your thinking. Those manufacturers might require that a retailer sell above a given price or the manufacturer has the LIBERTY not to sell to the retailer.
If you begin a sentence "I think that _______ should
"Should" is so ambiguous. They CAN set their own price and they CHOOSE not to in order to convince a manufacturer to supply them. Where does this "should" fit in? They "shouldn't" choose to obey the manufacturers restrictions, and go without the product? Someone else "should" interfere and prevent the retailer from entering into a contract with the suppliers in which the suppliers set the price?
discussion of reducing government power to interfere in the marketplace
You seem to be confused between levels of government. A corporation exists according to state law, not federal. There's a BIG difference.
should start with the revokation of most corporate charters
I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea, although state-granted corporate charters are Constitutional. The idea of eliminating corporations is quite a libertarian concept.
This gets interesting reactions from people who identify as "libertarian capitalists".
I suggest reading the real platforms of libertarianism rather than bouncing your ideas off people who are clearly not intellectually prepared.
The fact that a large corporation has a similar coercive power
I disagree. There's nothing similar between:
(a) The power to refuse to enter into a contract with you.
(b) The power to seize property, imprison, and kill you.
Most of the things corporations do that enrage people is due to their influence in the government. When government has more power, that creates a larger market for lobbyists to influence the direction that power is focused.
Big corporations like big government because they can use it to squash upstart small businesses.
I don't see an argument being made that prohibiting retail price maintenace is unconstitutional.
What about it is Constitutional? If it's "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States," I'll agree. If it's a transaction that happens entirely within one state the federal government has no Constitutional authority to regulate it.
In high minded theory land, doesn't a more efficient producer step in in that case?
Where are these price floors likely to exist in a market economy?
Not in commodities and staples. It would make no sense; another producer would jump in.
Where it does make sense is with things like an iPod or some other gotta-have-it where they want to associate their brand with quality and status, and not "cheap". Price floors will hurt the people who need brand names, and new gadgets.
So don't act like people will be starving in the streets because some "big company" forced prices to be high. A big company can already drive up prices by simply selling their goods at a higher price, and a retailer can only last so long selling at a loss.
This whole thing just makes no sense to me as a consumer rights issue. Price floor does not equal high prices. Sometimes prices are just high because that's what the supplier sells them for. And sometimes the product isn't really so necessary to begin with.
abuse of power and invasion of privacy and misuse of government
Surveillance of activities in public as well as undercover operations have been used by the police for a long time. The police are allowed to do these things based on a hunch if they want, they don't need a warrant to do any of it.
What, specifically, did they do that's illegal/unconstitutional?
you don't cure a people's inaccess to treatment by making different treatments.
Of course you do. This new treatment is not a new pill and does not necessarily have the same accessibility problems.
It may be more accessible because we don't need to distribute the cure to each individual person (you underestimate this cost). It may be a good idea and it may not be, but this development is exciting because it provides a new way to save the lives of millions of people from a horrible disease.
Your argument is no different from saying that cheaper clean water and food aren't necessary because we already have those things. Surely you wouldn't deny a clean water system and better agricultural methods to a poor region? You might as well tell them to hold their breath, because you're working on ending world poverty (clearly, you're working against ending world poverty).
It was actually only worth $200k, since that's the amount of money it took to recover from the problem.
The fact that it was related to an account worth $38B is scary, but not the actual cost.
There is a world-wide SHORTAGE of skilled IT professionals.
Shortages and surpluses don't exist in a free market. If some cries "shortage" that means that they want the government to make IT workers cheaper somehow. If they were willing to pay enough, they'd get good IT workers lining up.
Which second rate scientists have been promoting global warming?
"Second rate" is from the scientists' perspective. Any scientist who sees others ahead of him and feels like he needs to boost himself into the spotlight and into more interesting projects.
It's not just more grant money directly, it's more attention, which makes the scientist more likely to receive other grants and work on better projects.
If you look at the dollar figures it looks like a rather small incentive in the overall scheme of things. But if you look at it from the perspective of second-rate scientists who need to catch a break, the incentive to come up with exciting "findings" is very powerful.
In many scientific fields, these types of scientists are quickly disregarded because they don't have the repeatable experiments to back it up. But if a scientist merely has to tweak some arbitrary variables in a climate model to predict that the sky will fall, we don't have a better model to use to refute the claim. All our climate models are so bad that virtually any adjustment of the model could be taken seriously.
The problem is a proliferation of userland APIs.
Right. The root of the problem is a lack of standardization. Each company wants it's own proprietary interfaces to everything, and that practice made them some extra money in the short term. Now they're whining because customers are expecting more and they have no standards upon which to build.
Take any major engineering achievement and you will see lots of open standards beneath it. The carriers want the lock-in without the inherent engineering limitations; big surprise.
I'll ignore the "unconstitutional" bit, because I live outside the USA and regard your country's worship of its constitution with bemusement. Discussions of what's right and wrong should be based on logical arguments, not on what some bit of paper says.
The Rule of Law is an important policy in and of itself. Even if you disagree with something "some bit of paper says," it is in the best interests of the nation (in my opinion) to follow it anyway or to change it according to the proper procedures; not ignore it. The Rule of Law is, arguably, one of the most valuable developments in human civilization.
If we let the government walk all over the Second Amendment, then it's much easier to walk all over the Fourth and Fifth. When citizens pick and choose which of their enumerated rights they will fight for, that allows the politicians to divide and conquer our rights.
They should be seeking me out, not putting up hurdles.
It all depends on who "they" are. If "they" are students, parents, or school districts, then yes, they should be seeking you out.
If "they" are teachers, why would they want to compete with you? You obviously hold yourself to a high standard, and you'd hold the kids to a high standard as well. You have the ability to make sure they actually achieve that high standard by backing up your lessons with in-depth knowledge about the subject matter, and by showing students the many resources that helped you learn over the years. Your students would excel, and put to shame all the teachers who distribute nothing but NEA propaganda.
Unfortunately, the NEA has somehow managed to make education about the current teachers and not teachers in general. You could be a teacher, but because you're not, you aren't a part of the equation when it comes to public education policy. Parents need to ignore the current teachers and focus on getting better teachers in the classroom.
The NEA is easily one of the most vile, destructive organizations on the planet.
Public schools are run more by politics than credentials and experience.
0 691.html
That's why Steve Jobs wants unions out of schools, so that local people can hire good teachers by offering high salaries, and fire poorly-performing teachers.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/456