an idea that i've been interested to see for some time...what if article submission was handled with an algorithm similar to message posts?
there would be hundreds of articles every day. moderators would sort through them. moderators be meta-moderated. viewers would create filters to only display stories above a certain threshold (with perhaps other parameters such as giving preference to certain topics).
administrators just sit back, tweak stuff, and occasionally override the moderators to get out particular articles (eg announcements, interviews) or repress articles (eg pornographic, extremely off topic, promoting illegal activity).
The automobile will never be popular until it has a standard interface. I'm sick of having headlights controlled by a switch in one car and a knob in another. Some have the doors lock with bottons and some with switches. Some have the tachometer on the left and speedometer on the right. Some have it the other way around. Some have no tachometer at all! Sometimes climate control uses knobs, sometimes buttons, sometimes switches, sometimes all three. How many different-looking stereos are there? Sometimes the parking brake is a pedal and sometimes it's a lever. Come on people! Standard or automatic transmission?! Make up your minds!!! Unless we can agree, the automobile will NEVER gain wide acceptance.
The preceeding post contains large amounts of sarcasm is may not be appropriate for all readers. Don't run with scissors.
Myth: The goal of the research was to enable enterprises to be objective in understanding the benefits of the Linux OS on the desktop, separating open-source fact from fiction.
it's illegal to sell adult viewing materials to children, however it is deemed unconstitutional to require websites to verify age because they may accidentally block someone who is of age. what does the court say about adult bookstores? the requirement to show id could block adults who don't have their id on them.
i would like to raise one other point for discussion purposes--is pornography really part of speech or the press? i submit this for discussion, but it seems to me that pornography is a product designed to help people get off. i would not classify it as speech or part of the press. you could call it art or expression (and that's quite a stretch, i think), but the constitution says nothing that protects either of those (aside from protecting speech and press which are merely subsets of expression). hell, punching a guy in the face because i don't like him is expression--clearly not protected.
i'm not saying these materials should or should not be allowed. i'm just wondering what bearing the constitution has on the issue. do that many people actually believe the contitution guarentees the right to buy and sell pictures of naked people, or do judges today just call anything uncontistution that they don't like and can't stop by the constitutionally defined legislative process?
Charge even more for a program that allows people to see the stories just one minutes before even the current subcribers...done right, I bet we could fund the whole site on just the "First Post" whores!
The FCC reserves blue for military use. Yellow and green will be reserved for commercial use, and licensed in 10nm blocks. Red is reserved for emergency purposes. The public is allowed to transmit orange and purple, purple only with an operator license.
Sales of orange housepaint are up, as are orange cars.
it's legal in pakistan to own a fully automatic ak47 (substitute another country if i'm wrong). it is generally illegal in the united states. if someone in pakistan ships one to my home address, what will happen?
is the shipping company liable? are they required to open the package? will the government open it when it first arrives in the us? once i recieve it, did anyone but me break the law?
i'm curious what the answers are, but i'd start by saying follow the analogy.
here's what i want to know--what happens to opensource when creators of content are requiring drm? if i'm creating music or video and drm is a requirement, it can't run on anything opensource because anyone can modify the code to stream a digital copy of the content to a file, making a perfect copy and the entire drm effort is already defeated.
if this goes through, are we looking at basically every piece of software and digital content becoming another slice of decss hell? is there any way out? is there any way opensource software will be able to legally play music, watch video, read documents, or run proprietary software?
are there any good articles that discuss the opensource implications? is there any way drm can be implemented such that opensource software could legally view protected software for legal, legitamate purposes? i can't think of a way and it worries me.
"You would find me and a lot of other folk saying it's unconstitutional."
let's see...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
okay, what law did congress pass which abridged feedom of the press? the united states constitution places no restrictions on states with regard to freedom of speech. if congress did not pass a law, the aclu has no grounds with the first ammendment.
that aside, where do you get this stuff about it being okay for the government to offer no internet access in libraries, but they can't offer only partial access? clearly no grounds for such an argument can be found anywhere in the first ammendment.
what about all the exceptions i noted in the last post? (no free hbo, no playboy, no techno) do those bother you? if not, why not?
i'm sure i would find you and "a lot of other folk" saying that would be unconstitutional, just as you are saying internet filters in libraries is unconstitutional. however, what you say does not have any bearing on the actual content of the first ammendment. no ammount of public opinion can change one word of the first ammendment without the constitutionally defined means for modification (which have not happened). the first ammendment protects your right to make up anything you want about what you wish it said, however.
please educate yourself because it's taking too much work for me to educate you. read and understand the constitution.
"People are complaining that their tax dollars are being wasted on something that doesn't work and is unconstitional. It takes librarian time and money to add and run these censorship filters."
i never said they should have filters. i just said it's not a constitutional issue.
the government certainly can pick and choose what content is accessable in a public library. if they cut all anit-bush articles from the newspapers they provide, i may say the policy is stupid and should change, but you won't catch me saying it's unconstitutional.
in fact, where did i say that libraries should censor internet content? i didn't. i just said the constitution doesn't forbid censorship in libraries and that i'm sick of people whining that my tax dollars don't give them enough.
the constitutions protects the right of the media to produce content which you can view if you purchase it. it does not mean the government must provide the content to you at taxpayer expense.
"leave me alone" means don't complain that i don't pay enough taxes to provide you with things. that is not a direct statement to you, but rather one to the entitlement (ie "gimme! gimme!") crowd in general.
answers to your questions: 1-it doesn't 2-it doesn't 3-it doesn't 4-now you're just being silly
you must make a separation here between what is good policy and what is constitutionally protected. public roads are good policy. freedom of press is constitutionally protected. see the difference? just because something isn't constitutionally protected does not mean it is a bad idea. i never said it was a bad idea for libraries to offer all content--i just said it wasn't protected by the constitution.
then i went on to rant about whiners who are after my money, which i'll admit was off topic since it doesn't cost any more (in fact, it costs less) to simply offer all internet content. so, you got that extra opinion for free.
the first ammendment is very important and i do not want it eliminated, despite the hateful words you attempted to place into my mouth. the first ammendment protects your right to publish your opnions. it does NOT say the government will provide the means for others to hear those opinions--they may have to buy the newspaper, book, television, or internet access themselves in order to view/hear/read your opinion.
the constitution does not say the government (local government, at least) can not provide some of these anyway on a partial basis, so i do not oppose the offering on any constitutional basis.
how can the government provide cspan and pbs without providing hbo? how can they provide radio stations that play classical mucic without providing ones that play techno? how can they provide newsweek in libraries but exclude playboy? the government does this sort of thing constantly and it does not violate the constitution.
grow up, read the constitution, make some sense, and don't put words in my mouth.
let me get this straight. taxpayers buy computers for children to use, but it's considered a first ammendment violation for them not to deliver all internet content?
here's my question: where does the constitution say children have the right to view ANY internet content at taxpayer expense? where does it say adults have this right? if they don't have a right to view any internet content at taxpayer expense, how can it be uncontitutional for them to view partial internet content at taxpayer expense?
i'm getting really tired of the entitlement mentality. if the government gives them $100, they complain it's not $200. if we give them stamps for food, they complain if the stamps can't be traded for candy. if we give them healthcare, they complain that we don't pay for their prescription drugs as well. if we give them access to part of the internet, they complain that they can't get porn.
go out. get a job. buy your own internet access. leave me alone. i'm not saying the government should provide nothing, but people need to learn to depend on themselves and provide for themselves. the first reaction should not be that the government owes something to them.
"Having a good ratings system in place for games will help get angry parents off the gaming industries' back."
Yep--just like nobody's mad at the tobacco companies since minors can't buy cigarettes.
The gaming industry (or "Big Game") will be hauled off to court for delibarately targeting children with their advertisements. I have two words for what comes next: "Target Market!"
This post may contain high levels of sarcasm and is not suitable for readers.
We could even try human meat
on
Lab-Grown Steak
·
· Score: 1
Would it be cannibalism if we tried this on humans? Maybe humans taste really good and we just never knew it because killing is wrong and it just feels strange to eat what used to be someone's arm. Is there a "sick bastard" mod?
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they partic
"We need to turn out smarter teachers and give them incentives to perform, like better pay, long before we think about having a computer for every student."
Like any union, the NEA has always opposed, and continues to oppose, performance measurement of its members. Pay is determined by education level and years of experience. Since the NEA is the single biggest contributor to the Democratic Party, crackdowns aren't coming anytime soon.
In the capitalist sense, I agree that paying teachers better would cause smarter people to become teachers, but it would increase people of all intelligence levels in pursuing teaching. Without metrics for teacher performance, higher wages would just turn into an employment lottery, with more teachers than available jobs.
These reasons are part of why I support private school vouchers. If you're sick of the NEA, bad teachers, and wasteful budgets, you should be able to opt out. Microsoft can't touch public schools in the control they have as a monopoly. If you use a competing product (i.e. private school), you first pay for the public (monopoly) school with your tax dollars and THEN pay for the school your child is actually attending.
Education budgets continue to grow faster than the rate of inflation while schools simultaneously reduce the quality of their product, as demonstrated by test scores. There is no accountability. In fact, the worse schools perform, the faster taxpayers WILLINGLY pull out their wallets and hand over the cash.
With a voucher system, school improvements would not require constant attention from politicians who are already paid off by the NEA. Improvements would come from lower levels as school compete for students because they receive funding roughly proportional to the number of students they have can attract. Problem solved.
Campaigns are already filled with enough soundbite garbage made to attract voters who don't get into the issues far enough to see what's really going on. All things being equal, people who follow the issues more are more likely to vote. I like it that way because sometimes the right policy is not the one with the best soundbites. Sometimes the best candidate is not the one with the best haircut and speechwriter. When voting becomes manditory or too easy (like internet voting), policy will be made by soundbites. The candidate who makes the most promises will win, and not enough voters will check to see of those promises are kept.
The right to vote is very, very important, but it bears with it a responsibility. I like having to drive out to vote. I'm glad I have to register in advance. I'm not huge on big efforts to get people out to vote. If they don't want to vote and they don't know what they'd be voting for, I'd rather they don't vote.
Part of me would like a little quiz on the US Constitution when you vote and the vote only counts if you do well enough on it, but that's obviously unconstitional so I wouldn't actually support it. Point is: ignorant voters make for bad governmnet.
I frequently see the anti-capitalist rant. "The companies don't care about me. They care only about making money!"
When was the last time you bought something from Sony and gave them an extra $5 to help them out? No, you paid the minimum amount--just enough so that you could legally acquire what you were purchasing. Must be that you care only about keeping as much money as you possibly can. Your motives are selfish and greedy.
Sure Sony doesn't love me. I'm okay with that. I don't love Sony. Every now and then, they offer a product or serivce I want for a price i like and we do business. That's where our relationship ends. They provide me no more than I pay for, and I pay for no more than they provide me.
There are some exceptions--times when I've acted specifically to support a particular company. However, my efforts are primarily greedy because it's always a company I want to survive and grow, or a situation in which the company owner is a friend of mine.
Love your family and friends and get it in return from them. Business is just business.
taxes are already too high. i don't oppose national sales tax (in fact, i think it would be more fair than the current national income tax). the problem is when new taxes are created in addition to existing ones.
many people (many of them in washington, unfortunately) believe that nothing else changes when taxes change. if a tax hike is proposed, we see predictions of how much extra revenue will be generated. if a tax reduction is proposed, we hear about how much it's going to "cost" the government.
the fact is, many people buy online because of this tax break. if a tax is added, people will buy less stuff--not good for an economy. in the end, lower taxes actually lead to higher tax revenues through a stronger economy.
critics are fast to point the finger at reagan's tax cuts for national debt. the truth is that tax revenues doubled during his presidency--it's just that spending rates increased even faster. determining whether that blame should go to congress for social program spending or reagan for military spending is an exercise for the reader. i'm just talking about revenues here.
Slashdot Mirror
an idea that i've been interested to see for some time...what if article submission was handled with an algorithm similar to message posts?
there would be hundreds of articles every day. moderators would sort through them. moderators be meta-moderated. viewers would create filters to only display stories above a certain threshold (with perhaps other parameters such as giving preference to certain topics).
administrators just sit back, tweak stuff, and occasionally override the moderators to get out particular articles (eg announcements, interviews) or repress articles (eg pornographic, extremely off topic, promoting illegal activity).
it seems to me that would make everyone happy.
[comic book guy voice]
"worst thread EVER"
The automobile will never be popular until it has a standard interface. I'm sick of having headlights controlled by a switch in one car and a
knob in another. Some have the doors lock with bottons and some with switches. Some have the tachometer on the left and speedometer on the
right. Some have it the other way around. Some have no tachometer at all! Sometimes climate control uses knobs, sometimes buttons, sometimes
switches, sometimes all three. How many different-looking stereos are there? Sometimes the parking brake is a pedal and sometimes it's a lever.
Come on people! Standard or automatic transmission?! Make up your minds!!! Unless we can agree, the automobile will NEVER gain wide acceptance.
The preceeding post contains large amounts of sarcasm is may not be appropriate for all readers. Don't run with scissors.
Myth: The goal of the research was to enable enterprises to be objective in understanding the benefits of the Linux OS on the desktop, separating open-source fact from fiction.
call the action! the linux crowd needs to spring into action, utilizing their knowledge of what appeals to females!!!
it's illegal to sell adult viewing materials to children, however it is deemed unconstitutional to require websites to verify age because they may accidentally block someone who is of age. what does the court say about adult bookstores? the requirement to show id could block adults who don't have their id on them.
i would like to raise one other point for discussion purposes--is pornography really part of speech or the press? i submit this for discussion, but it seems to me that pornography is a product designed to help people get off. i would not classify it as speech or part of the press. you could call it art or expression (and that's quite a stretch, i think), but the constitution says nothing that protects either of those (aside from protecting speech and press which are merely subsets of expression). hell, punching a guy in the face because i don't like him is expression--clearly not protected.
i'm not saying these materials should or should not be allowed. i'm just wondering what bearing the constitution has on the issue. do that many people actually believe the contitution guarentees the right to buy and sell pictures of naked people, or do judges today just call anything uncontistution that they don't like and can't stop by the constitutionally defined legislative process?
i'm curious what people think.
Charge even more for a program that allows people to see the stories just one minutes before even the current subcribers...done right, I bet we could fund the whole site on just the "First Post" whores!
The FCC reserves blue for military use. Yellow and green will be reserved for commercial use, and licensed in 10nm blocks. Red is reserved for emergency purposes. The public is allowed to transmit orange and purple, purple only with an operator license.
Sales of orange housepaint are up, as are orange cars.
it's legal in pakistan to own a fully automatic ak47 (substitute another country if i'm wrong). it is generally illegal in the united states. if someone in pakistan ships one to my home address, what will happen?
is the shipping company liable? are they required to open the package? will the government open it when it first arrives in the us? once i recieve it, did anyone but me break the law?
i'm curious what the answers are, but i'd start by saying follow the analogy.
here's what i want to know--what happens to opensource when creators of content are requiring drm? if i'm creating music or video and drm is a requirement, it can't run on anything opensource because anyone can modify the code to stream a digital copy of the content to a file, making a perfect copy and the entire drm effort is already defeated.
if this goes through, are we looking at basically every piece of software and digital content becoming another slice of decss hell? is there any way out? is there any way opensource software will be able to legally play music, watch video, read documents, or run proprietary software?
are there any good articles that discuss the opensource implications? is there any way drm can be implemented such that opensource software could legally view protected software for legal, legitamate purposes? i can't think of a way and it worries me.
i sure hope i'm wrong.
"You would find me and a lot of other folk saying it's unconstitutional."
let's see...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
okay, what law did congress pass which abridged feedom of the press? the united states constitution places no restrictions on states with regard to freedom of speech. if congress did not pass a law, the aclu has no grounds with the first ammendment.
that aside, where do you get this stuff about it being okay for the government to offer no internet access in libraries, but they can't offer only partial access? clearly no grounds for such an argument can be found anywhere in the first ammendment.
what about all the exceptions i noted in the last post? (no free hbo, no playboy, no techno) do those bother you? if not, why not?
i'm sure i would find you and "a lot of other folk" saying that would be unconstitutional, just as you are saying internet filters in libraries is unconstitutional. however, what you say does not have any bearing on the actual content of the first ammendment. no ammount of public opinion can change one word of the first ammendment without the constitutionally defined means for modification (which have not happened). the first ammendment protects your right to make up anything you want about what you wish it said, however.
please educate yourself because it's taking too much work for me to educate you. read and understand the constitution.
"People are complaining that their tax dollars are being wasted on something that doesn't work and is unconstitional. It takes librarian time and money to add and run these censorship filters."
i never said they should have filters. i just said it's not a constitutional issue.
the government certainly can pick and choose what content is accessable in a public library. if they cut all anit-bush articles from the newspapers they provide, i may say the policy is stupid and should change, but you won't catch me saying it's unconstitutional.
in fact, where did i say that libraries should censor internet content? i didn't. i just said the constitution doesn't forbid censorship in libraries and that i'm sick of people whining that my tax dollars don't give them enough.
the constitutions protects the right of the media to produce content which you can view if you purchase it. it does not mean the government must provide the content to you at taxpayer expense.
"leave me alone" means don't complain that i don't pay enough taxes to provide you with things. that is not a direct statement to you, but rather one to the entitlement (ie "gimme! gimme!") crowd in general.
answers to your questions:
1-it doesn't
2-it doesn't
3-it doesn't
4-now you're just being silly
you must make a separation here between what is good policy and what is constitutionally protected. public roads are good policy. freedom of press is constitutionally protected. see the difference? just because something isn't constitutionally protected does not mean it is a bad idea. i never said it was a bad idea for libraries to offer all content--i just said it wasn't protected by the constitution.
then i went on to rant about whiners who are after my money, which i'll admit was off topic since it doesn't cost any more (in fact, it costs less) to simply offer all internet content. so, you got that extra opinion for free.
the first ammendment is very important and i do not want it eliminated, despite the hateful words you attempted to place into my mouth. the first ammendment protects your right to publish your opnions. it does NOT say the government will provide the means for others to hear those opinions--they may have to buy the newspaper, book, television, or internet access themselves in order to view/hear/read your opinion.
the constitution does not say the government (local government, at least) can not provide some of these anyway on a partial basis, so i do not oppose the offering on any constitutional basis.
how can the government provide cspan and pbs without providing hbo? how can they provide radio stations that play classical mucic without providing ones that play techno? how can they provide newsweek in libraries but exclude playboy? the government does this sort of thing constantly and it does not violate the constitution.
grow up, read the constitution, make some sense, and don't put words in my mouth.
let me get this straight. taxpayers buy computers for children to use, but it's considered a first ammendment violation for them not to deliver all internet content?
here's my question: where does the constitution say children have the right to view ANY internet content at taxpayer expense? where does it say adults have this right? if they don't have a right to view any internet content at taxpayer expense, how can it be uncontitutional for them to view partial internet content at taxpayer expense?
i'm getting really tired of the entitlement mentality. if the government gives them $100, they complain it's not $200. if we give them stamps for food, they complain if the stamps can't be traded for candy. if we give them healthcare, they complain that we don't pay for their prescription drugs as well. if we give them access to part of the internet, they complain that they can't get porn.
go out. get a job. buy your own internet access. leave me alone. i'm not saying the government should provide nothing, but people need to learn to depend on themselves and provide for themselves. the first reaction should not be that the government owes something to them.
if in soviet russia we suspended our space tourist program, does that mean in america our space tourist program suspended US?
...but thankfully you can just print replacements.
"Having a good ratings system in place for games will help get angry parents off the gaming industries' back."
Yep--just like nobody's mad at the tobacco companies since minors can't buy cigarettes.
The gaming industry (or "Big Game") will be hauled off to court for delibarately targeting children with their advertisements. I have two words for what comes next: "Target Market!"
This post may contain high levels of sarcasm and is not suitable for readers.
Would it be cannibalism if we tried this on humans? Maybe humans taste really good and we just never knew it because killing is wrong and it just feels strange to eat what used to be someone's arm. Is there a "sick bastard" mod?
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they participate in that.
but then you're still "testing" them, which would be unconstitutional, so if they really knew what was going on, they wouldn't participate in the test of whether to participate in the test. therefore, the test would be whether or not they partic
Error: out of memory
"We need to turn out smarter teachers and give them incentives to perform, like better pay, long before we think about having a computer for every student."
Like any union, the NEA has always opposed, and continues to oppose, performance measurement of its members. Pay is determined by education level and years of experience. Since the NEA is the single biggest contributor to the Democratic Party, crackdowns aren't coming anytime soon.
In the capitalist sense, I agree that paying teachers better would cause smarter people to become teachers, but it would increase people of all intelligence levels in pursuing teaching. Without metrics for teacher performance, higher wages would just turn into an employment lottery, with more teachers than available jobs.
These reasons are part of why I support private school vouchers. If you're sick of the NEA, bad teachers, and wasteful budgets, you should be able to opt out. Microsoft can't touch public schools in the control they have as a monopoly. If you use a competing product (i.e. private school), you first pay for the public (monopoly) school with your tax dollars and THEN pay for the school your child is actually attending.
Education budgets continue to grow faster than the rate of inflation while schools simultaneously reduce the quality of their product, as demonstrated by test scores. There is no accountability. In fact, the worse schools perform, the faster taxpayers WILLINGLY pull out their wallets and hand over the cash.
With a voucher system, school improvements would not require constant attention from politicians who are already paid off by the NEA. Improvements would come from lower levels as school compete for students because they receive funding roughly proportional to the number of students they have can attract. Problem solved.
Campaigns are already filled with enough soundbite garbage made to attract voters who don't get into the issues far enough to see what's really going on. All things being equal, people who follow the issues more are more likely to vote. I like it that way because sometimes the right policy is not the one with the best soundbites. Sometimes the best candidate is not the one with the best haircut and speechwriter. When voting becomes manditory or too easy (like internet voting), policy will be made by soundbites. The candidate who makes the most promises will win, and not enough voters will check to see of those promises are kept.
The right to vote is very, very important, but it bears with it a responsibility. I like having to drive out to vote. I'm glad I have to register in advance. I'm not huge on big efforts to get people out to vote. If they don't want to vote and they don't know what they'd be voting for, I'd rather they don't vote.
Part of me would like a little quiz on the US Constitution when you vote and the vote only counts if you do well enough on it, but that's obviously unconstitional so I wouldn't actually support it. Point is: ignorant voters make for bad governmnet.
too bad you can't mod stories
I frequently see the anti-capitalist rant. "The companies don't care about me. They care only about making money!"
When was the last time you bought something from Sony and gave them an extra $5 to help them out? No, you paid the minimum amount--just enough so that you could legally acquire what you were purchasing. Must be that you care only about keeping as much money as you possibly can. Your motives are selfish and greedy.
Sure Sony doesn't love me. I'm okay with that. I don't love Sony. Every now and then, they offer a product or serivce I want for a price i like and we do business. That's where our relationship ends. They provide me no more than I pay for, and I pay for no more than they provide me.
There are some exceptions--times when I've acted specifically to support a particular company. However, my efforts are primarily greedy because it's always a company I want to survive and grow, or a situation in which the company owner is a friend of mine.
Love your family and friends and get it in return from them. Business is just business.
Wow--then you'll REALLY seem some benefits of zero gravity. This space stuff is actually paying off!
taxes are already too high. i don't oppose national sales tax (in fact, i think it would be more fair than the current national income tax). the problem is when new taxes are created in addition to existing ones.
many people (many of them in washington, unfortunately) believe that nothing else changes when taxes change. if a tax hike is proposed, we see predictions of how much extra revenue will be generated. if a tax reduction is proposed, we hear about how much it's going to "cost" the government.
the fact is, many people buy online because of this tax break. if a tax is added, people will buy less stuff--not good for an economy. in the end, lower taxes actually lead to higher tax revenues through a stronger economy.
critics are fast to point the finger at reagan's tax cuts for national debt. the truth is that tax revenues doubled during his presidency--it's just that spending rates increased even faster. determining whether that blame should go to congress for social program spending or reagan for military spending is an exercise for the reader. i'm just talking about revenues here.