That's perfectly in keeping with the past and current management philosophy at GM. Their entire focus is on reducing the quality of everything in the car so that everything in the vehicle is as cheap as possible and fails just outside the warranty period. The "everything is integrated" dashboard concept fits neatly into this strategy of planned obsolescence whereby the end user was strongly encouraged to "upgrade" every three to five years into a new GM vehicle financed with credit provided at the highest possible monthly rate through their crappy in house lender, GMAC. For the most part, GM cars were cheap and still are cheap and designed from the start to fail. The fact that GM received a generous bailout at taxpayer expense was really the final insult to those of us who for years had refused to own a GM vehicle or GM stock and bonds. We wanted nothing to do with them and yet they found a way to screw us all anyway.
You're comparing "the old boys network" to an economic system that encourages corruption on the part of both elected officials and corporate operatives. The two are not one and the same.
You're making a distinction without a difference. I remain unconvinced that capitalism is any more susceptible to corruption than say socialism or communism or any other system. The mechanisms may be different in different systems, but the results of corruption are always the same; the insiders benefit to the detriment of society at large. Thus, the simple fact that corruption exists cannot, by itself, form the basis of an argument against a particular system unless it can also be shown that the system being argued against is uniquely susceptible to corruption or produces greater amounts of corruption, relative to the size of the economy, than any of the alternatives. I don't believe that capitalism encourages corruption or at least it encourages no more, and probably less, than the alternatives. Indeed, it has been my experience that wherever corruption exists in any economy it's in no small part enabled, either intentionally or unintentionally (the results are what matter, not the intent), by the policies and actions of government. Ask yourself who enforces the monopolies or provides opportunities for rent seeking or limits competition? Does the market do these things or does the government enforce the rules, regulations and restrictions that result in those outcomes?
crony capitalism (which is the only type of capitalism that ever has or ever CAN arise)
Powerful people have been abusing their powers to help their friends or dispense favors with expectation of repayment since the dawn of recorded history. This is nothing that's either unique to capitalism or new. Were some more equal than others in Mao's China or the Soviet Union or in Cuba? You'd better believe it. Did Louis XIV of France play favorites among his nobles? Absolutely. So, this cannot be a valid critique of capitalism because it's no less prevalent, and may even be more prevalent, in any of the alternative systems.
A true UHC would put all aspects of healthcare back in the hands of the people who are getting that care
Which is a sure fire recipe for cost overruns. I like to use the analogy of the all expenses paid vacation. Suppose that you buy an all expenses paid vacation at a private beach resort where everything is run by the resort. After paying to get in, what incentive do you have to restrain yourself at the buffet or the bar? Are you going to have only 2 beers when you could have had 5 instead? Are you going to limit yourself to one helping of lobster when you can just as easily have two? This is how people treat healthcare when they aren't paying for it directly Ala Carte. They've already paid their premiums and they want ten of everything, in order to get their "money's worth" from the insurance. At least at the resort the chefs cannot be sued because the buffet was lousy, but in healthcare doctors can be and often are sued because tests weren't run when an outcome was poor.
as evidenced by every civilized nation in the world with UHC that is vastly popular with said nation's citizenry.
Just because an idea or program is popular doesn't make it right or good. If more people were aware of just how much these systems cost, especially when compared to the quality of the services they deliver, they might reconsider. Fortunately, the nations of Europe are now receiving just that lesson. How much longer now before the youth of Greece, Spain, Portugal and France grow weary of stubbornly high unemployment and dim financial futures? Margaret Thatcher was right, eventually you run out of other people's money and that's precisely what's happening in Europe today.
were you to replace "my employer" with "my government", the same arguments could apply.
I disagree. There is an existing relationship between you and your employer which may serve to restrain you and your coworkers from going too far in the opposite direction of over-using the health care services paid for by your employer (actually paid for by you because your wages are lower than they otherwise would've been, but that's another conversation). If one employee was overusing the health care system or abusing privileges, it would be a simple matter to identify that employee and have a talk with them. However, this breaks down when "my employer" is replaced with "my government". The government cannot dismiss a citizen for breaking the rules or abusing the system. In fact, I challenge you to name one US Government program today that isn't plagued by waste, fraud and abuse. Indeed, one need only take a look at Medicare and Medicaid to see how wasteful the government is; it's like giving a credit card to your teenage daughter, it's a disaster. Most Americans are skeptical in the extreme, and rightly so, about the ability of the government to run an efficient health care system. They may like free stuff for themselves, provided that they don't have to pay personally though higher taxes, but only the most naive citizen believes that the US Government will reduce costs. Find someone who says with a straight face that Obamacare is going to cost less and I will show you either a fool or a liar.
Laws like this will continue to punish file sharers because file sharers are poor. You're being punished, not because what you're doing is unethical or immoral, but because you make less money than the people who say it should be illegal.
Perhaps, but only in so far as it's economical to do so. One might easily imagine a scenario where these encrypted darknets, perhaps aided by those whose machines were hacked and turned unknowingly into exit nodes, remain so difficult to penetrate that the effort will only be expended as part of larger military conflict between nations and not for what amounts to a relatively minor economic matter like copyright.
Or to put it another way, if it costs too much to track down the file sharers then the effort will not be expended.
It's not myopic to give thanks, whether to God or to your neighbors and friends or even just to those who've been kind to you. The concept of giving thanks knows no cultural boundaries and it's an essential part of what it means to be a decent human being. You should try it sometime.
They should accept what's being offered to them instead of continually throwing it back into the faces of their benefactors. Continued conflict and violence is useless because it has no realistic chance of achieving their stated objective, the dissolution of the Israeli state. It can bring only further suffering to the Palestinian people. All wars must eventually end and here in the modern world we end them with diplomacy and sanctions for transgressions. Now everyone will see who keeps the ceasefire and who violates it. If the Palestinians wish to demonstrate to the world their maturity and readiness for statehood, this is their chance. If the ceasefire holds, additional steps can be taken along the path to peace, statehood and normalized relations. Personally, I don't believe that Hamas is capable of leading the Palestinians towards that brighter future, but we shall see.
Palestinians get there dome or do they too need a rock to go in it?
They get it when they finally put their violent past behind them and start valuing a peaceful future. By way of comparison, Israel is an advanced and modern nation with a well trained and equipped military, a modern economy and a culture that values education and equal opportunities for women. The Palestinians could learn a lot from them, but instead they seek continual conflict with a vastly superior enemy while at the same time brutalizing their women and rejecting the western ideas and freedoms that have led millions out of poverty in every part of the world. Until the Hamas government acknowledges the right of Israel to exist, they cannot expect to move beyond these petty escalations and ineffective attacks on Israel and the international isolation that such practices bring.
Given that Israeli officials are currently the only information source for Iron Dome's amazing 90% success rate, surely we should be highly sceptical.
The Israelis have their own anti-ballistic missile missile, the Arrow, which has no doubt benefited from improvements in technology and years of refinements. It wouldn't surprise me if the Israelis now field a much better system than was possible in 1991, they're very clever and innovative when it comes to high technology.
But the problem then is that those people are the ones who end up either offing themselves, mugging people at train stations, or sending their families (you know, the partner and 2.3 kids who weren't gambling) bankrupt as well. Yay social Darwinism!
So what? If you're an adult do you want to be treated like one or should the namby-pamby big brother government always be holding your little hand? Are we going to force everyone to live like children because a few can't handle adult responsibilities? I didn't have any say in whether or not those people had kids so why should I have less freedom just because they're irresponsible parents?
If they're public universities, strong restrictions on free speech on campus are a consequence of restrictions on the use of public funds and resources to promote personal political and religious views.
Is muzzling free speech, simply because some find it offensive, not also promoting a personal political view? How can people speak of "tolerance" when they're unwilling to tolerate free speech on campus? Does it strike anyone else as ironic that those who hold "tolerance" in such high regard are amongst the most intolerant of speech that doesn't comport with their world view and ideological sensibilities?
Today's students can take back their freedom of expression, but will they have the guts to do so? Or will they continue to lament that "the man" doesn't allow them to say unpopular things?
And how can they do that when their fellow students continue to play the role of Judas, siding with the administration and perpetuating the condescending liberal attitudes and beliefs which led to the present situation in the first place? The students who support limiting speech to avoid hurting feelings are fools, but unfortunately for the rest of us they aren't stupid and so remain the useful idiots of the administration and faculty who support these asinine policies out of intellectual laziness and lack of character.
Perhaps it helps that the republicans don't have so many ties to Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
Probably not as much as you might think. First off, the docket is already jam packed with more pressing matters, such as the fiscal cliff and credible long term budget and tax reforms; not to mention the fact that the economy is still lousy for many Americans. Second, Hollywood really pulled out all the stops for Obama this time around, raising money and entertaining the President and their lefty friends in swanky mansions nestled in the Hollywood hills. They raised millions for Obama and it would be very easy for him to help them out because he (Obama) could simply focus on the aforementioned tax, budget and economic concerns and let any proposed copyright reforms simply fall by the wayside. Finally, on the Republican side, there is *zero* chance that they will elect to spend their precious remaining political capital on something as obtuse as copyright reform. They're saving all their chips for the budget round, not a side bet on what amounts to a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
Plays for Sure and Kin were nothing compared to the Sony Rootkit fiasco. That was a much lower low than anything Microsoft ever did; Sony, like no other.
Exactly. It's hard to name another company that treats its customers worse than Sony. Those who buy Sony products have to know that they're going to be screwed sooner or later, it's just part of Sony's corporate DNA to leave their customers holding the bag. They just don't care, so why buy from them? It's like handing your money to the bully and asking for abuse.
People can't be blamed for failing to read the full text of the proposition.
As I said before, I doubt that many of them even read the summary in the supplement election booklet. It seems that many people simply read the 140 character description on the ballot and thought to themselves, "yeah, punish those sex offenders and never mind the rest". The thought that the proposition might contain other things didn't cross their minds or even if it did it was clearly overwhelmed by emotion and think of the children.
For one thing, a recurring tactic in the California ballot initiative system is for opponents of one proposition to push their own proposition, with wording that is difficult for a lay person to distinguish from the other proposition, but with some clause that causes it to override the other proposition and nullify its intended effects. What typically happens is that voters will see two propositions that seem to have the same laudable purpose, and will vote for both of them; the deceptive proposition passes as well as the genuine proposition, and nullifies the genuine proposition.
The margin in favor of "Yes" was extremely high in this case, something like 80% "Yes" to 20% "No", and unlike the dueling tax increase proposals, there were no other ballot measures dealing with either sex offenses or human trafficking. The results suggest that people fired from the hip and voted their emotions on this one, there's too many "Yes" votes for any other plausible explanation.
I still couldn't tell which proposition was which, except by checking what political groups supported which proposition.
That's one way to help clear up misunderstandings. There was also fairly extensive news coverage of the various propositions, some obviously receiving more attention than others, in the months and weeks leading up to the election. Anyone willing to wield a search engine and educate themselves could have established a pretty good understanding of what the proposals were. Of course that would have taken time and effort to accomplish and many would be voters are apparently unwilling to put in even a modest amount of time reading the election booklet and then following that up with a news search engine.
Most people headed to the polls, I expect, with a firm decision about which candidate for president they would support, but little idea of any other issues that would see on the ballot.
There's no rule that says that voters must vote every issue put before them on the ballot. It's perfectly acceptable to vote some and abstain from voting on others. In fact, abstaining when one doesn't understand what's being voted on is the most ethical choice in these situations.
The sad thing is, it passed by a bigger margin than a proposition whose sole argument against and rebuttal to the argument for was "we are no longer asking for a NO vote".
Yet one more piece of evidence that the California electorate, by and large, is both ignorant and stupid. Clearly those who voted "Yes" didn't even bother to read the summary of the proposition in the election guide, never mind the full text of the proposition (PDF) or Section 236.1 of the California Penal Code to determine whether or not the proposed amendments are even necessary. This really is classic California: people too lazy, ignorant and stupid to be bothered with attending to their duties as citizens. Meanwhile, they whine for more entitlements, complain that companies are "cheating" them and blame everyone but themselves for their own situations. It's depressing, but not surprising.
I can't get a full time job even with a Master's degree.
It's unfortunate that Americans in general and young Americans in particular have been forced to endure the largely unnecessary hardships of the past four years. Hopefully, now that the young have been suitably punished for their idealism, they will not make the same mistake a second time and vote again for Obama. To paraphrase the well known quotation, "To lose four years may be regarded as misfortune, losing eight sounds more like carelessness."
You won't be "fined for being poor" unless you're ignorant ideology prevents you from taking advantage.
Has it occurred to you that some people, particularly those whose labor does not justify the additional costs imposed by Obamacare, will simply not be employed? If these people remain unemployed then how will they be able to afford insurance at any price, subsidized or not? It's like the minimum wage laws. The left ends up hurting precisely the people whom they would most like to help.
You're both missing the essential matter. The people who pay the bills don't want to wait for the elegant solution when they can have the good enough solution yesterday. We know that there are better ways to solve problems, but the bean counters put the kabosh on that because they view elegant code solutions, which do the same jobs as the good enough solutions, as wastes of time and money. The worst part about it is that from a business standpoint, they're often right.
According to the wiki there's 34,913.7 tons of total reported reserves worldwide. It can probably be safely assumed that any privately held quantities of gold are a rounding error by way of comparison. The United States is second on the list with 8,133.5 tons to the European Unions 15,784.1 tons (although obviously held separately by different member states). It should also be noted that even at current prices, which wouldn't survive 8,000+ tons of gold being dumped on the market, the US couldn't even begin to pay it's outstanding debts with the gold reserves.
The various government central banks still buy and sell gold bullion from time to time. They don't like to talk about it, because they'd rather you believe in their fiat money, but they still deal regularly in gold amongst themselves. Draw your own conclusions about which money you prefer.
Slashdot Mirror
No, he's saying that there's not point in sticking a condom on your cock while MS is giving it to you up the arse from behind!
Perhaps not, but the condom may still protect you when they go for the reach-around.
Needless to say, I was ignored
That's perfectly in keeping with the past and current management philosophy at GM. Their entire focus is on reducing the quality of everything in the car so that everything in the vehicle is as cheap as possible and fails just outside the warranty period. The "everything is integrated" dashboard concept fits neatly into this strategy of planned obsolescence whereby the end user was strongly encouraged to "upgrade" every three to five years into a new GM vehicle financed with credit provided at the highest possible monthly rate through their crappy in house lender, GMAC. For the most part, GM cars were cheap and still are cheap and designed from the start to fail. The fact that GM received a generous bailout at taxpayer expense was really the final insult to those of us who for years had refused to own a GM vehicle or GM stock and bonds. We wanted nothing to do with them and yet they found a way to screw us all anyway.
You're comparing "the old boys network" to an economic system that encourages corruption on the part of both elected officials and corporate operatives. The two are not one and the same.
You're making a distinction without a difference. I remain unconvinced that capitalism is any more susceptible to corruption than say socialism or communism or any other system. The mechanisms may be different in different systems, but the results of corruption are always the same; the insiders benefit to the detriment of society at large. Thus, the simple fact that corruption exists cannot, by itself, form the basis of an argument against a particular system unless it can also be shown that the system being argued against is uniquely susceptible to corruption or produces greater amounts of corruption, relative to the size of the economy, than any of the alternatives. I don't believe that capitalism encourages corruption or at least it encourages no more, and probably less, than the alternatives. Indeed, it has been my experience that wherever corruption exists in any economy it's in no small part enabled, either intentionally or unintentionally (the results are what matter, not the intent), by the policies and actions of government. Ask yourself who enforces the monopolies or provides opportunities for rent seeking or limits competition? Does the market do these things or does the government enforce the rules, regulations and restrictions that result in those outcomes?
crony capitalism (which is the only type of capitalism that ever has or ever CAN arise)
Powerful people have been abusing their powers to help their friends or dispense favors with expectation of repayment since the dawn of recorded history. This is nothing that's either unique to capitalism or new. Were some more equal than others in Mao's China or the Soviet Union or in Cuba? You'd better believe it. Did Louis XIV of France play favorites among his nobles? Absolutely. So, this cannot be a valid critique of capitalism because it's no less prevalent, and may even be more prevalent, in any of the alternative systems.
A true UHC would put all aspects of healthcare back in the hands of the people who are getting that care
Which is a sure fire recipe for cost overruns. I like to use the analogy of the all expenses paid vacation. Suppose that you buy an all expenses paid vacation at a private beach resort where everything is run by the resort. After paying to get in, what incentive do you have to restrain yourself at the buffet or the bar? Are you going to have only 2 beers when you could have had 5 instead? Are you going to limit yourself to one helping of lobster when you can just as easily have two? This is how people treat healthcare when they aren't paying for it directly Ala Carte. They've already paid their premiums and they want ten of everything, in order to get their "money's worth" from the insurance. At least at the resort the chefs cannot be sued because the buffet was lousy, but in healthcare doctors can be and often are sued because tests weren't run when an outcome was poor.
as evidenced by every civilized nation in the world with UHC that is vastly popular with said nation's citizenry.
Just because an idea or program is popular doesn't make it right or good. If more people were aware of just how much these systems cost, especially when compared to the quality of the services they deliver, they might reconsider. Fortunately, the nations of Europe are now receiving just that lesson. How much longer now before the youth of Greece, Spain, Portugal and France grow weary of stubbornly high unemployment and dim financial futures? Margaret Thatcher was right, eventually you run out of other people's money and that's precisely what's happening in Europe today.
were you to replace "my employer" with "my government", the same arguments could apply.
I disagree. There is an existing relationship between you and your employer which may serve to restrain you and your coworkers from going too far in the opposite direction of over-using the health care services paid for by your employer (actually paid for by you because your wages are lower than they otherwise would've been, but that's another conversation). If one employee was overusing the health care system or abusing privileges, it would be a simple matter to identify that employee and have a talk with them. However, this breaks down when "my employer" is replaced with "my government". The government cannot dismiss a citizen for breaking the rules or abusing the system. In fact, I challenge you to name one US Government program today that isn't plagued by waste, fraud and abuse. Indeed, one need only take a look at Medicare and Medicaid to see how wasteful the government is; it's like giving a credit card to your teenage daughter, it's a disaster. Most Americans are skeptical in the extreme, and rightly so, about the ability of the government to run an efficient health care system. They may like free stuff for themselves, provided that they don't have to pay personally though higher taxes, but only the most naive citizen believes that the US Government will reduce costs. Find someone who says with a straight face that Obamacare is going to cost less and I will show you either a fool or a liar.
Laws like this will continue to punish file sharers because file sharers are poor. You're being punished, not because what you're doing is unethical or immoral, but because you make less money than the people who say it should be illegal.
Perhaps, but only in so far as it's economical to do so. One might easily imagine a scenario where these encrypted darknets, perhaps aided by those whose machines were hacked and turned unknowingly into exit nodes, remain so difficult to penetrate that the effort will only be expended as part of larger military conflict between nations and not for what amounts to a relatively minor economic matter like copyright.
Or to put it another way, if it costs too much to track down the file sharers then the effort will not be expended.
It's not myopic to give thanks, whether to God or to your neighbors and friends or even just to those who've been kind to you. The concept of giving thanks knows no cultural boundaries and it's an essential part of what it means to be a decent human being. You should try it sometime.
They should accept what's being offered to them instead of continually throwing it back into the faces of their benefactors. Continued conflict and violence is useless because it has no realistic chance of achieving their stated objective, the dissolution of the Israeli state. It can bring only further suffering to the Palestinian people. All wars must eventually end and here in the modern world we end them with diplomacy and sanctions for transgressions. Now everyone will see who keeps the ceasefire and who violates it. If the Palestinians wish to demonstrate to the world their maturity and readiness for statehood, this is their chance. If the ceasefire holds, additional steps can be taken along the path to peace, statehood and normalized relations. Personally, I don't believe that Hamas is capable of leading the Palestinians towards that brighter future, but we shall see.
Palestinians get there dome or do they too need a rock to go in it?
They get it when they finally put their violent past behind them and start valuing a peaceful future. By way of comparison, Israel is an advanced and modern nation with a well trained and equipped military, a modern economy and a culture that values education and equal opportunities for women. The Palestinians could learn a lot from them, but instead they seek continual conflict with a vastly superior enemy while at the same time brutalizing their women and rejecting the western ideas and freedoms that have led millions out of poverty in every part of the world. Until the Hamas government acknowledges the right of Israel to exist, they cannot expect to move beyond these petty escalations and ineffective attacks on Israel and the international isolation that such practices bring.
Given that Israeli officials are currently the only information source for Iron Dome's amazing 90% success rate, surely we should be highly sceptical.
The Israelis have their own anti-ballistic missile missile, the Arrow , which has no doubt benefited from improvements in technology and years of refinements. It wouldn't surprise me if the Israelis now field a much better system than was possible in 1991, they're very clever and innovative when it comes to high technology.
But the problem then is that those people are the ones who end up either offing themselves, mugging people at train stations, or sending their families (you know, the partner and 2.3 kids who weren't gambling) bankrupt as well. Yay social Darwinism!
So what? If you're an adult do you want to be treated like one or should the namby-pamby big brother government always be holding your little hand? Are we going to force everyone to live like children because a few can't handle adult responsibilities? I didn't have any say in whether or not those people had kids so why should I have less freedom just because they're irresponsible parents?
If they're public universities, strong restrictions on free speech on campus are a consequence of restrictions on the use of public funds and resources to promote personal political and religious views.
Is muzzling free speech, simply because some find it offensive, not also promoting a personal political view? How can people speak of "tolerance" when they're unwilling to tolerate free speech on campus? Does it strike anyone else as ironic that those who hold "tolerance" in such high regard are amongst the most intolerant of speech that doesn't comport with their world view and ideological sensibilities?
Today's students can take back their freedom of expression, but will they have the guts to do so? Or will they continue to lament that "the man" doesn't allow them to say unpopular things?
And how can they do that when their fellow students continue to play the role of Judas, siding with the administration and perpetuating the condescending liberal attitudes and beliefs which led to the present situation in the first place? The students who support limiting speech to avoid hurting feelings are fools, but unfortunately for the rest of us they aren't stupid and so remain the useful idiots of the administration and faculty who support these asinine policies out of intellectual laziness and lack of character.
Perhaps it helps that the republicans don't have so many ties to Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
Probably not as much as you might think. First off, the docket is already jam packed with more pressing matters, such as the fiscal cliff and credible long term budget and tax reforms; not to mention the fact that the economy is still lousy for many Americans. Second, Hollywood really pulled out all the stops for Obama this time around, raising money and entertaining the President and their lefty friends in swanky mansions nestled in the Hollywood hills. They raised millions for Obama and it would be very easy for him to help them out because he (Obama) could simply focus on the aforementioned tax, budget and economic concerns and let any proposed copyright reforms simply fall by the wayside. Finally, on the Republican side, there is *zero* chance that they will elect to spend their precious remaining political capital on something as obtuse as copyright reform. They're saving all their chips for the budget round, not a side bet on what amounts to a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
Plays for Sure and Kin were nothing compared to the Sony Rootkit fiasco. That was a much lower low than anything Microsoft ever did; Sony, like no other.
Exactly. It's hard to name another company that treats its customers worse than Sony. Those who buy Sony products have to know that they're going to be screwed sooner or later, it's just part of Sony's corporate DNA to leave their customers holding the bag. They just don't care, so why buy from them? It's like handing your money to the bully and asking for abuse.
People can't be blamed for failing to read the full text of the proposition.
As I said before, I doubt that many of them even read the summary in the supplement election booklet. It seems that many people simply read the 140 character description on the ballot and thought to themselves, "yeah, punish those sex offenders and never mind the rest". The thought that the proposition might contain other things didn't cross their minds or even if it did it was clearly overwhelmed by emotion and think of the children.
For one thing, a recurring tactic in the California ballot initiative system is for opponents of one proposition to push their own proposition, with wording that is difficult for a lay person to distinguish from the other proposition, but with some clause that causes it to override the other proposition and nullify its intended effects. What typically happens is that voters will see two propositions that seem to have the same laudable purpose, and will vote for both of them; the deceptive proposition passes as well as the genuine proposition, and nullifies the genuine proposition.
The margin in favor of "Yes" was extremely high in this case, something like 80% "Yes" to 20% "No", and unlike the dueling tax increase proposals, there were no other ballot measures dealing with either sex offenses or human trafficking. The results suggest that people fired from the hip and voted their emotions on this one, there's too many "Yes" votes for any other plausible explanation.
I still couldn't tell which proposition was which, except by checking what political groups supported which proposition.
That's one way to help clear up misunderstandings. There was also fairly extensive news coverage of the various propositions, some obviously receiving more attention than others, in the months and weeks leading up to the election. Anyone willing to wield a search engine and educate themselves could have established a pretty good understanding of what the proposals were. Of course that would have taken time and effort to accomplish and many would be voters are apparently unwilling to put in even a modest amount of time reading the election booklet and then following that up with a news search engine.
Most people headed to the polls, I expect, with a firm decision about which candidate for president they would support, but little idea of any other issues that would see on the ballot.
There's no rule that says that voters must vote every issue put before them on the ballot. It's perfectly acceptable to vote some and abstain from voting on others. In fact, abstaining when one doesn't understand what's being voted on is the most ethical choice in these situations.
The sad thing is, it passed by a bigger margin than a proposition whose sole argument against and rebuttal to the argument for was "we are no longer asking for a NO vote".
Yet one more piece of evidence that the California electorate, by and large, is both ignorant and stupid. Clearly those who voted "Yes" didn't even bother to read the summary of the proposition in the election guide, never mind the full text of the proposition (PDF) or Section 236.1 of the California Penal Code to determine whether or not the proposed amendments are even necessary. This really is classic California: people too lazy, ignorant and stupid to be bothered with attending to their duties as citizens. Meanwhile, they whine for more entitlements, complain that companies are "cheating" them and blame everyone but themselves for their own situations. It's depressing, but not surprising.
most people probably couldn't be reasonably expected to remember every fake alias they've ever created.
So don't, use bugmenot instead.
I can't get a full time job even with a Master's degree.
It's unfortunate that Americans in general and young Americans in particular have been forced to endure the largely unnecessary hardships of the past four years. Hopefully, now that the young have been suitably punished for their idealism, they will not make the same mistake a second time and vote again for Obama. To paraphrase the well known quotation, "To lose four years may be regarded as misfortune, losing eight sounds more like carelessness."
You won't be "fined for being poor" unless you're ignorant ideology prevents you from taking advantage.
Has it occurred to you that some people, particularly those whose labor does not justify the additional costs imposed by Obamacare, will simply not be employed? If these people remain unemployed then how will they be able to afford insurance at any price, subsidized or not? It's like the minimum wage laws. The left ends up hurting precisely the people whom they would most like to help.
You're both missing the essential matter. The people who pay the bills don't want to wait for the elegant solution when they can have the good enough solution yesterday. We know that there are better ways to solve problems, but the bean counters put the kabosh on that because they view elegant code solutions, which do the same jobs as the good enough solutions, as wastes of time and money. The worst part about it is that from a business standpoint, they're often right.
I like coding, as long as what I'm writing is solving an interesting problem.
Not every problem worth paying for a solution is interesting. That's life in our business.
According to the wiki there's 34,913.7 tons of total reported reserves worldwide. It can probably be safely assumed that any privately held quantities of gold are a rounding error by way of comparison. The United States is second on the list with 8,133.5 tons to the European Unions 15,784.1 tons (although obviously held separately by different member states). It should also be noted that even at current prices, which wouldn't survive 8,000+ tons of gold being dumped on the market, the US couldn't even begin to pay it's outstanding debts with the gold reserves.
The various government central banks still buy and sell gold bullion from time to time. They don't like to talk about it, because they'd rather you believe in their fiat money, but they still deal regularly in gold amongst themselves. Draw your own conclusions about which money you prefer.