That's exactly the idea. They're going to do what they can to increase costs just enough that you're willing to pay it because it's easier/cheaper than switching. In the long run, it might be cheaper to switch, but as long as they can keep it cheaper in any given quarter, many (most?) managers won't want to make that choice. Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft, after all.
How fucking hard is it to think in a clear, rational manner rather than just slapping demonizing labels on anyone you don't like. Liberalism is a moronic label thats painted on anyone you think is taking away your money.
Here's a brief rundown - it's the idea that people are important. That by being a member of society, you have an obligation to all the other members of that society. That people should work together to provide for the common good. You would be dead right now if it weren't for the things you're poo-pooing. You didn't educate yourself - nobody does. You can't.
I DO work 60 hours a week (often) with no overtime. I'm forced into that work model because this country treats people as a resource rather than citizens, and thus I'm expected to compete to keep my job. I'm sure your father is a very worthwhile person, but it's a simple fact of economics that not everyone can be successfull - in fact most people can't. Think about it sometime. And, to a liberal, that fact means that we have an obligation to make sure that our own ambition doesn't take the food from anyone elses mouth or the roof from over thier head.
I don't have any solid figures, but I would be astonished if I were wrong when I said that 90% of the people making over, say, 100k a year (not rich, but upper middle class) came from (at least) lower middle class backgrounds. This is where your taxes go - to provide opportunities for people without rich parents.
Now, it's not done perfectly and I'm as annoyed as you with the amount of taxes taken out of my check, although military spending accounts for more of it than anything else, so if you support that you might want to re-think your ranting. But the principles, the concepts that lead to this sort of thing, are perfectlly sound, and, in fact, are one of the reasons our country even still exists. Take a look at history, with the massive gap (far more than in America today, although it's growing) in the standard of living between the upper class and the poor. The American Dream was the rise of the middle class.
Guessing from the synopsis of your life story, I'd bet that you've never been truly poor - that while you may have worked hard, you've never needed to make choices like whether to feed your children or clothe them. Those are hard choices - the kind that nobody should ever have to make, and they pretty much take the wind right our of arguments like "work harder and everything will be okay".
If you were TRULY a libertarian, you'd want to do away with inheritence. Think you have what it takes to make it on your own? How about, at birth, all children are placed in a big pit (we can use Texas) and only the strongest are able to dig themselves out. That way, your parents won't provide you with anything. Your success won't be measured by the accidents of your birth.
Lastly, let me just address this little tidbit of bullcrap: ""Liberals" believe that the government should take care of the people, and the people should thank and worship the government."
Bunk. Liberals believe that the goverment should take care of the people, period. It's that simple. I certainly don't worship or thank my government, but my social beliefs are liberal by any definition. I believe it's my obligation, as it is yours, that by being a member of society, and a citizen of this nation, to support everyone. To provide for common education. To provide a path for people to better themselves. The "free market" does not and cannot do any of this, because it inherently does not produce a profit.
Idealism does not mean a lack of intelligence. Notice the spelling. There's nothing wrong with the ideals of either socialism or communism, nor are they neccesarily incompatible with democracy.
You're assuming that you need to be a criminal for this to happen. Despite (many) failures in the system up till now, the reason why it's (mostly) only criminals that get tapped phones is because there's a process of judicial review, which makes it hard for a corrupt (or even just pissed off and stupid) law enforcment officer to tap your phone. Now, with no oversight neccesary, it becomes even easier. Even if there isn't any large-scale consipiracy, or if the government as a whole doesn't start using it's power to suppress dissidents (not just fearmongering, as this is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover did), you're still at risk if you, say, personally annoy a police officer. There's been many cases of officers using resources to do things like stalk ex-girlfriends or spy on people they don't like. An open and transparent law enforcement system is the ONLY thing that can even attempt to prevent these sort of abuses.
Totally aside from the stupidity of the name, it's declared objective, which is the "worldwide elimination of terrorism", is both logically impossible to achieve, as well as unprovable whether or not it ever has been achieved. Exactly like the war on drugs, which it's often compated too. Both are little more than political fictions to allow expanded police powers with less oversight. From a historical point of view, consider the war on organized crime, another total flop which gives us crap like the material witness laws.
If our "representatives" would do thier goddamn jobs and live up to thier oath of office and stop passing obviously untenable legislation as a way of making political hay, then maybe we wouldn't need to go to the courts so often. This happens even more at the state level than the federal. Anyone who voted in favor of a bill that's declared unconstitutional should be removed from office because they've violated the oath of office. It's ridiculous.
Did you even read the article? Or even very many of the posts? He gave his home address the contact information for his buisness. That means anyone who wants to communicate with him has every right to that information, and, in fact, that information is a matter of public record. Threatning phonecalls have nothing to do with this.
Since the courts don't seem to be interested in supporting the anti-spam viewpoint, there is not one thing wrong with taking the same liberties that are extended to spammers. Making death threats against him would be illegal. Signing him up for spam of his own is both fitting and morally and legally justifiable.
This is a sign of how fucking stupid our country is getting. As long as the spam is truly spam, and unsolicited, and there's a good faith attempt by the company to prevent it from getting through, there's no fucking way a company should be liable for that sort of thing. It's moronic. The good faith effort should NOT be required to be 100% effective, and it shouldn't infringe on employees privacy (to the limits of the companies acceptable use policy. This is a good reason for companies to be more lenient about personal use of email).
I agree 100%. The people who're threatning him need to be stopped, but he has no expectation of privacy for his buisness address. He should get a PO Box and an answering service if he doesn't want buisness related calls at home. And yelling at him for spamming is certainly buisness related.
The actual truth of the matter seems to be that he ran an SMB indexing service that indexed 652,000 songs. I can't find any information if music was the only thing indexed, or if he did anything special to make it easier to provide access to music, as opposed to anything that people put out there.
And suing someone for more money than your entire industry grosses in 5 years is a little excessive.
You know that the government DOES subsidize art, right? And that doing so, even if you personally don't like the art, is considered an important part of our social heritage?
It doesn't subsidize pop stars, because they get plenty of private money.
You really think there'd be more of the art you like if the only source of art funding and education was private? Think about that for a second.
Just to clear something up: Biologically speaking, it's normal for people to be attracted to sexually mature or maturing members of the opposite sex. Age is not a factor. It's sexual maturity (or, in some cases, the appearance of maturity, look at J-Lo's kid fashions some time), that makes the decision. The vast majority of sexually mature males will be titillated by your typically dressed high school girl of today. Socially adjusted males past a certain age will self-censor those feelings, but they'll still be there by reflex. Appealing to that desire is why the slutty teen diva is so popular.
Just as a heads up, you can be arrested and convicted for possessing fake kiddy porn as well - both computer generated drawings or textual fantasies. Ohio is one state I'm certain of, I'm not sure about others. The supreme court case was for a federal law.
As for you arguments, you summarize well, but I don't think anyone misunderstands them. I think alot of people understand them fine, and realize that they're hopelessly naive.
I spend alot of time on the internet. I even look at alot of porn. I have never, not even once, happened across a child pornography website, and I'm probably the most at risk for that sort of thing. I have come across kiddie porn on Kazaa and in newsgroups. I've seen alot of things I didn't want to see, but I'm a mature adult and was able to deal with that.
This is a moronic law, because it hides rather than addressing an issue. And the AG needs a beating with the dumbass stick for refusing to release the list, for which there is NO valid argument.
This has not one thing in common with immigration, so I'm not sure where you got that from.
This law, and support of it, belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what law is for. It's not the job of the state to protect you. If the state wants to stop kiddy porn, it has to seek out purveyors of it and arrest them. Blocking it at the ISP level won't do a damn thing.
Some other problems, which I'm sure the AG is aware of but doesn't care about:
a) No oversight. Since there's no way to confirm that a site is actually listed, there's no way to tell whether or not a site is listed incorrectly.
b) Related to a). No evaluation. If a site is listed incorrectly, or if the domain is bought by someone else (for example) and is no longer a porn site, there's no way to unlist it. There's not even any way to evaluate if it should be unlisted, since access to it from within PA is supposedly impossible and illegal.
c) Prevents law enforcement from prosecuting kiddy porn, for the same reason. Law enforcement officers can't access kiddy porn sites from within PA, and therefore can't investigate them.
This is exactly the sort of law that should be under immediate suspicion of abuse, because it fails to addess the problem it purpots to solve, it's overly broad and allows broad leway on behalf of legislature and law enforcement, and because there's no oversight. If it's not being abused right now, it certainly will be in the future.
Dividends are only the nominal reason to buy stocks. How many stock traders do you know who actually hold onto stock and earn dividends off it? The reason to buy stock is that you expect to be able to sell it later. The stock market is a big shell game with no real basis in reality. The tech bubble was a good an infication of that as anything.
Note that I'm not talking about raising salaries. That's mismanagment. I'm talking about redistributing profits to employees rather than owners.
That should have almost exactly the same benefits as the trickle down theory, except moreso, because the people benefitting get money directly.
How the heck did you pass high school social studies? That's exactly what the Constitution is, by definition. It defines the powers available to Federal and State goverments.
It's worse that Saddams because we're supposed to have a process and a government that prevents this. Bush is not a military dictator, and letting him act like one is our failing as much as his.
And I'd take issue with the idea that Ashcroft is a "good man". It would be very difficult to convince me that he honestly has democratic principles and the upholding of the Constitution (something he swore to in his oath of office, btw) at heart.
Just as a point of fact, most Moslem leaders (the equivilent of the Council of Cardinals in Catholicism, but with more authority) resisted urging to declare jihad against the US until the actual invasion of Iraq - not just the threats, but the actual armed invasion. Thats seems pretty reasonable to me.
The Daily Show (better news than Fox. How fucked up is that?) played this the other day and I almost had a heart attack. I thought they faked it. I wish I was right:(
How does this somehow make it okay? Hostile witness legislation should be obviously non-Constitutional to anyone with half an ounce of sense anyway. I don't care what he's done or what he knows. The government, as much for our benefit as the accused, has an obligation to be open about who it's prosecuting and why.
You're basically saying that you feel the government should have the right to hold anyone for any reason - all they need to do is declare him a material witness. It doesn't matter if he actually is or not.
I think we've all been shown the difference - due process of law doesn't apply if you aren't a criminal. It frightens me that you can think even for a second that this is somehow legitimate.
Any vote, anywhere, where the margin of victory is less than the margin of error in counting, should result in a run-off election, any other irregularities notwithstanding.
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That's exactly the idea. They're going to do what they can to increase costs just enough that you're willing to pay it because it's easier/cheaper than switching. In the long run, it might be cheaper to switch, but as long as they can keep it cheaper in any given quarter, many (most?) managers won't want to make that choice. Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft, after all.
Here's a brief rundown - it's the idea that people are important. That by being a member of society, you have an obligation to all the other members of that society. That people should work together to provide for the common good. You would be dead right now if it weren't for the things you're poo-pooing. You didn't educate yourself - nobody does. You can't.
I DO work 60 hours a week (often) with no overtime. I'm forced into that work model because this country treats people as a resource rather than citizens, and thus I'm expected to compete to keep my job. I'm sure your father is a very worthwhile person, but it's a simple fact of economics that not everyone can be successfull - in fact most people can't. Think about it sometime. And, to a liberal, that fact means that we have an obligation to make sure that our own ambition doesn't take the food from anyone elses mouth or the roof from over thier head.
I don't have any solid figures, but I would be astonished if I were wrong when I said that 90% of the people making over, say, 100k a year (not rich, but upper middle class) came from (at least) lower middle class backgrounds. This is where your taxes go - to provide opportunities for people without rich parents.
Now, it's not done perfectly and I'm as annoyed as you with the amount of taxes taken out of my check, although military spending accounts for more of it than anything else, so if you support that you might want to re-think your ranting. But the principles, the concepts that lead to this sort of thing, are perfectlly sound, and, in fact, are one of the reasons our country even still exists. Take a look at history, with the massive gap (far more than in America today, although it's growing) in the standard of living between the upper class and the poor. The American Dream was the rise of the middle class.
Guessing from the synopsis of your life story, I'd bet that you've never been truly poor - that while you may have worked hard, you've never needed to make choices like whether to feed your children or clothe them. Those are hard choices - the kind that nobody should ever have to make, and they pretty much take the wind right our of arguments like "work harder and everything will be okay".
If you were TRULY a libertarian, you'd want to do away with inheritence. Think you have what it takes to make it on your own? How about, at birth, all children are placed in a big pit (we can use Texas) and only the strongest are able to dig themselves out. That way, your parents won't provide you with anything. Your success won't be measured by the accidents of your birth.
Lastly, let me just address this little tidbit of bullcrap: ""Liberals" believe that the government should take care of the people, and the people should thank and worship the government."
Bunk. Liberals believe that the goverment should take care of the people, period. It's that simple. I certainly don't worship or thank my government, but my social beliefs are liberal by any definition. I believe it's my obligation, as it is yours, that by being a member of society, and a citizen of this nation, to support everyone. To provide for common education. To provide a path for people to better themselves. The "free market" does not and cannot do any of this, because it inherently does not produce a profit.
Idealism does not mean a lack of intelligence. Notice the spelling. There's nothing wrong with the ideals of either socialism or communism, nor are they neccesarily incompatible with democracy.
You're assuming that you need to be a criminal for this to happen. Despite (many) failures in the system up till now, the reason why it's (mostly) only criminals that get tapped phones is because there's a process of judicial review, which makes it hard for a corrupt (or even just pissed off and stupid) law enforcment officer to tap your phone. Now, with no oversight neccesary, it becomes even easier. Even if there isn't any large-scale consipiracy, or if the government as a whole doesn't start using it's power to suppress dissidents (not just fearmongering, as this is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover did), you're still at risk if you, say, personally annoy a police officer. There's been many cases of officers using resources to do things like stalk ex-girlfriends or spy on people they don't like. An open and transparent law enforcement system is the ONLY thing that can even attempt to prevent these sort of abuses.
Totally aside from the stupidity of the name, it's declared objective, which is the "worldwide elimination of terrorism", is both logically impossible to achieve, as well as unprovable whether or not it ever has been achieved. Exactly like the war on drugs, which it's often compated too. Both are little more than political fictions to allow expanded police powers with less oversight. From a historical point of view, consider the war on organized crime, another total flop which gives us crap like the material witness laws.
If our "representatives" would do thier goddamn jobs and live up to thier oath of office and stop passing obviously untenable legislation as a way of making political hay, then maybe we wouldn't need to go to the courts so often. This happens even more at the state level than the federal. Anyone who voted in favor of a bill that's declared unconstitutional should be removed from office because they've violated the oath of office. It's ridiculous.
Did you even read the article? Or even very many of the posts? He gave his home address the contact information for his buisness. That means anyone who wants to communicate with him has every right to that information, and, in fact, that information is a matter of public record. Threatning phonecalls have nothing to do with this.
Since the courts don't seem to be interested in supporting the anti-spam viewpoint, there is not one thing wrong with taking the same liberties that are extended to spammers. Making death threats against him would be illegal. Signing him up for spam of his own is both fitting and morally and legally justifiable.
This is a sign of how fucking stupid our country is getting. As long as the spam is truly spam, and unsolicited, and there's a good faith attempt by the company to prevent it from getting through, there's no fucking way a company should be liable for that sort of thing. It's moronic. The good faith effort should NOT be required to be 100% effective, and it shouldn't infringe on employees privacy (to the limits of the companies acceptable use policy. This is a good reason for companies to be more lenient about personal use of email).
I agree 100%. The people who're threatning him need to be stopped, but he has no expectation of privacy for his buisness address. He should get a PO Box and an answering service if he doesn't want buisness related calls at home. And yelling at him for spamming is certainly buisness related.
And suing someone for more money than your entire industry grosses in 5 years is a little excessive.
Spend on music, dipshit. Damages are supposed to be related to how much harm is done.
PER SONG?!? That's a moronic amount, no matter what.
It doesn't subsidize pop stars, because they get plenty of private money.
You really think there'd be more of the art you like if the only source of art funding and education was private? Think about that for a second.
Just to clear something up: Biologically speaking, it's normal for people to be attracted to sexually mature or maturing members of the opposite sex. Age is not a factor. It's sexual maturity (or, in some cases, the appearance of maturity, look at J-Lo's kid fashions some time), that makes the decision. The vast majority of sexually mature males will be titillated by your typically dressed high school girl of today. Socially adjusted males past a certain age will self-censor those feelings, but they'll still be there by reflex. Appealing to that desire is why the slutty teen diva is so popular.
As for you arguments, you summarize well, but I don't think anyone misunderstands them. I think alot of people understand them fine, and realize that they're hopelessly naive.
This is a moronic law, because it hides rather than addressing an issue. And the AG needs a beating with the dumbass stick for refusing to release the list, for which there is NO valid argument.
This has not one thing in common with immigration, so I'm not sure where you got that from.
This law, and support of it, belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what law is for. It's not the job of the state to protect you. If the state wants to stop kiddy porn, it has to seek out purveyors of it and arrest them. Blocking it at the ISP level won't do a damn thing.
Some other problems, which I'm sure the AG is aware of but doesn't care about:
a) No oversight. Since there's no way to confirm that a site is actually listed, there's no way to tell whether or not a site is listed incorrectly.
b) Related to a). No evaluation. If a site is listed incorrectly, or if the domain is bought by someone else (for example) and is no longer a porn site, there's no way to unlist it. There's not even any way to evaluate if it should be unlisted, since access to it from within PA is supposedly impossible and illegal.
c) Prevents law enforcement from prosecuting kiddy porn, for the same reason. Law enforcement officers can't access kiddy porn sites from within PA, and therefore can't investigate them.
This is exactly the sort of law that should be under immediate suspicion of abuse, because it fails to addess the problem it purpots to solve, it's overly broad and allows broad leway on behalf of legislature and law enforcement, and because there's no oversight. If it's not being abused right now, it certainly will be in the future.
Erm. Yes. Gross. Blame the meds ;P
Note that I'm not talking about raising salaries. That's mismanagment. I'm talking about redistributing profits to employees rather than owners.
That should have almost exactly the same benefits as the trickle down theory, except moreso, because the people benefitting get money directly.
How the heck did you pass high school social studies? That's exactly what the Constitution is, by definition. It defines the powers available to Federal and State goverments.
And I'd take issue with the idea that Ashcroft is a "good man". It would be very difficult to convince me that he honestly has democratic principles and the upholding of the Constitution (something he swore to in his oath of office, btw) at heart.
Just as a point of fact, most Moslem leaders (the equivilent of the Council of Cardinals in Catholicism, but with more authority) resisted urging to declare jihad against the US until the actual invasion of Iraq - not just the threats, but the actual armed invasion. Thats seems pretty reasonable to me.
The Daily Show (better news than Fox. How fucked up is that?) played this the other day and I almost had a heart attack. I thought they faked it. I wish I was right :(
You're basically saying that you feel the government should have the right to hold anyone for any reason - all they need to do is declare him a material witness. It doesn't matter if he actually is or not.
I think we've all been shown the difference - due process of law doesn't apply if you aren't a criminal. It frightens me that you can think even for a second that this is somehow legitimate.
Any vote, anywhere, where the margin of victory is less than the margin of error in counting, should result in a run-off election, any other irregularities notwithstanding.