You might want to go back and look at the actual findings - that MS explicitly changed IE so that it wasn't a separate 'default' program, but a piece of Windows that simply couldn't be removed. That's called leveraging your existing monopoly to create a new one and is expressly illegal. Actual sanctions would have been implemented if Bush hadn't been elected and just shut down the process entirely.
It is the program that deals with internet traffic
No it isn't. It's the part that simply displays the *results* of internet traffic and asks the computer to send traffic out. The TCP/IP stack is the part that deals with internet traffic (roughly defined anyway). Windows did 'internet' before IE, perhaps not well, but it did it just the same. Hell, IE was sold as a *separate product* at one point. Then when the browser wars were heating up...and MS was looking vulnerable, it integrated IE into Windows in a way that was not removable. They didn't make a 'browser api' that people or OEMs could implement with their own version replacing IE, they made it so IE was the *only* option for that space. Other browsers had to be installed after the fact and didn't replace IE only ran along side it.
As for your examples about Ubuntu..and 'key' difference here is that Ubuntu does not have monopoly power in it's OS. When you have monopoly power you have to play by a different set of rules than if you are just a smaller player in the market.
Including a default browser is one thing. Compiling *your* browser into the innards of *your* OS tends to put the competition at a disadvantage. Not to mention opens your OS up to even more security hacks.
If one could remove IE from Windows it would one thing, but you simply can't. It's baked in. Even if you remove the interface for it, the innards and all it's security issues still remain.
Walker wisely excluded police and fire from the union busting
Wisely? It's called crass political payback against the unions that *didn't* support his campaign. The ones he didn't attack are the only ones who supported him.
And unions are hardly financial drains. Hell, WI's budget was actually 'balanced' prior to his putting his union busting plan into effect. The only way he could get his 'budget' measure passed was to remove all the monetary items from it.
So in the end, Walker's bill to stop the unions from 'bankrupting' the state contained absolutely zero cost savings. That should tell you something about his actual intentions.
Indeed. And we're hopefully just starting this process. The over the top reactions don't generally come in the first 2 months of a protest movement. Civil rights took years. This will likely as well. Though, when the economy improves much of the impetus for this will start to seem less important.
Dunno, the 'roots' of OWS are arguably in the Wisconsin and Ohio movements. Wisconsin recalls did some work, Ohio was watershed type rejection of the GOP laws. (granted Ohio also overwhelmingly said no to insurance mandates so that may be something to watch for in 2012)
But the trend is pretty clearly back from the ultra-right towards middle to left positions.
Did you really think you could threaten the powers-that-be and not have them turn the full force of the government they control on you at some point?
I believe both Gandhi and Rev. King counted on just that full-force response. It's rather the 'point' of a protest to get the powers that be to acknowledge you...and that acknowledgement, going back millennia, is usually full force/too far and results in the protesters getting some semblance of what they want, eventually anyway.
The OWS movement will need to do what the Tea Party did...actively influence election outcomes. Granted they have to do it without massive funding of the Koch's and Fox's relentless propoganda. But it can be done.
The mantra of the temperance movement back in the day comes to mind. "We don't need to win the election, just swing it to someone else". Once they show enough force to knock off a few incumbents, then the power starts flowing.
Without the guarantees, the plant would not be built so in essence, there is not a lower cost to build the plant
Nope. The cost to build the plant without the loan guarantee is effectively infinity dollars since it simply can't be built without the loan guarantees. That makes the actual cost of building it....wait for it....lower than infinity dollars.
So here would be my question: which energy source requires the most mined materials per TW. Honestly, I don't know. But my suspicions are that nuclear would be near the bottom of that list
All power sources have a construction portion so there will be mining for the construction materials for all the sources.
Renewable sources do not have any fuel requirements, so once the systems are constructed the mining basically stops. Nuclear has lower fuel/ore requirements than coal or oil, but it still needs to be mined/transported/refined etc before it can be used as the fuel.
according to UNSCEAR but up to 4,000 according to the World Health Organization when shortened lives are also accounted for.
Well if you read further on this page estimates are as high as almost a million.
A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[11] A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[12] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[13] A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide
If you are going to hold nuclear to these extreme corner cases, please hold all other energy generation techniques to equally high standards.
I hold them to extreme corner cases as commensurate with the risk of what happens when those conditions manifest themselves.
Nuclear simply has consequences that no other power source does. In each and every other case I can quite safely walk the grounds of a failed power plant the very day after the accident. You simply can't do that with nuclear when it goes tits up.
And you sir are fabulously muddying the waters with unrelated information.
No one is talking about the bank. We're are talking about the subsidy given to a power company to build a power plant.
As the OP stated, by receiving federal loan guarantees, the power company receives a lower interest rate.
You do agree this results in a lower cost to build the plant yes?
THAT is the subsidy, whether that loan came from a bank or someone's really large mattress, the cost to build the actual plant is lower than if it wouldn't have had the loan guarantees.
The company is clearly getting something for free, the loan guarantees and the resulting lower interest rate which means likely millions of dollars in savings.
That's like saying I'm not giving you more apples, but as part of my 'approval' of your business, you'll get more apples from other people.
That's a subsidy any way you slice it. The government loan guarantees, however indirectly you want to claim, are the sole reason they get lower interest rates and that does in fact reduce their costs.
As does the insurance they would have to pay if they didn't have the loan guarantees...which as we're talking here are effectively infinity since no one would loan the money without the guarantee.
Perhaps because the family and friends didn't play a part in the crime? The 'corporation' here was fined, not individuals. Hence the 'corporation' itself was punished...how do you imprison a corporation? Obviously you can't. So perhaps...we shouldn't be so willfully giving them the 'rights' of personhood without the correlated punishments...
My point was that if we're going to give corporations all the benefits of personhood, they need to be capable of being punished in the same manner.
As you so astutely note, it's not practical to punish corporations in the same manner...so perhaps they shouldn't be given the 'rights' of personhood, which was my actual point.
To answer your 'deaths per TWH' reference. That's not the point. The point is how much cost is associated with that figure. Where would coal be on that list if they had to fully scrub their emissions to prevent the mercury and other such stuff from escaping? Now add CO2.
They could easily get their numbers down to nuclear levels but it wouldn't be economical in any sense...
and they might need....wait for it....
government loan guarantees to be able to build such expensive plants.
Lets talk about construction versus operation. Exactly how many people die from solar panels simply sitting on a roof? Does your nuclear figure include the construction costs of the plants? Wind ditto. It just sits there spinning and as long as you aren't within a few hundred yards on a *very* windy day...zero casualties.
"It infamously failed in 1975, causing more casualties than any other dam failure in history, and was subsequently rebuilt."
I don't see them rebuilding Fukushima or Chernobyl anytime soon...
I didn't say other power sources don't have failure issues, I said other power sources don't render the surrounding 100 square miles uninhabitable for decades.
They only got to keep pennies on the dollar and most of the money had to go towards the loans and other investors.
I assume you're point is that it isn't terribly profitable to run a nuclear plant. How much more unprofitable would it be if you didn't have the government subsidizing those loans in the first place?
If the big oil/coal industries want to decry subsidies to green tech, they should also be screaming louder about the nuclear subsidies.
Green also doesn't tend to blow up and render large areas uninhabitable for decades...
Slashdot Mirror
And you cannot expect MS to be saints.
You might want to go back and look at the actual findings - that MS explicitly changed IE so that it wasn't a separate 'default' program, but a piece of Windows that simply couldn't be removed. That's called leveraging your existing monopoly to create a new one and is expressly illegal. Actual sanctions would have been implemented if Bush hadn't been elected and just shut down the process entirely.
It is the program that deals with internet traffic
No it isn't. It's the part that simply displays the *results* of internet traffic and asks the computer to send traffic out. The TCP/IP stack is the part that deals with internet traffic (roughly defined anyway). Windows did 'internet' before IE, perhaps not well, but it did it just the same. Hell, IE was sold as a *separate product* at one point. Then when the browser wars were heating up...and MS was looking vulnerable, it integrated IE into Windows in a way that was not removable. They didn't make a 'browser api' that people or OEMs could implement with their own version replacing IE, they made it so IE was the *only* option for that space. Other browsers had to be installed after the fact and didn't replace IE only ran along side it.
As for your examples about Ubuntu..and 'key' difference here is that Ubuntu does not have monopoly power in it's OS. When you have monopoly power you have to play by a different set of rules than if you are just a smaller player in the market.
You're serious?
Including a default browser is one thing. Compiling *your* browser into the innards of *your* OS tends to put the competition at a disadvantage. Not to mention opens your OS up to even more security hacks.
If one could remove IE from Windows it would one thing, but you simply can't. It's baked in. Even if you remove the interface for it, the innards and all it's security issues still remain.
Walker wisely excluded police and fire from the union busting
Wisely? It's called crass political payback against the unions that *didn't* support his campaign. The ones he didn't attack are the only ones who supported him.
And unions are hardly financial drains. Hell, WI's budget was actually 'balanced' prior to his putting his union busting plan into effect. The only way he could get his 'budget' measure passed was to remove all the monetary items from it.
So in the end, Walker's bill to stop the unions from 'bankrupting' the state contained absolutely zero cost savings. That should tell you something about his actual intentions.
They have to be embarrassed at the violence.
Indeed. And we're hopefully just starting this process. The over the top reactions don't generally come in the first 2 months of a protest movement. Civil rights took years. This will likely as well. Though, when the economy improves much of the impetus for this will start to seem less important.
Well except for the polls that show majority support for OWS, I'm sure 'most' people don't like them...
Funny, Soros' contributions are public...can't say the same for the Koch's.
Besides, what exactly would Soros' be 'buying' compared with the Koch's buying congressional favors to get legislation?
Dunno, the 'roots' of OWS are arguably in the Wisconsin and Ohio movements. Wisconsin recalls did some work, Ohio was watershed type rejection of the GOP laws. (granted Ohio also overwhelmingly said no to insurance mandates so that may be something to watch for in 2012)
But the trend is pretty clearly back from the ultra-right towards middle to left positions.
Did you really think you could threaten the powers-that-be and not have them turn the full force of the government they control on you at some point?
I believe both Gandhi and Rev. King counted on just that full-force response. It's rather the 'point' of a protest to get the powers that be to acknowledge you...and that acknowledgement, going back millennia, is usually full force/too far and results in the protesters getting some semblance of what they want, eventually anyway.
The OWS movement will need to do what the Tea Party did...actively influence election outcomes. Granted they have to do it without massive funding of the Koch's and Fox's relentless propoganda. But it can be done.
The mantra of the temperance movement back in the day comes to mind. "We don't need to win the election, just swing it to someone else". Once they show enough force to knock off a few incumbents, then the power starts flowing.
How much did Michelle Obama's last vacation cost?
Less than GWB, the most frequent vacationer president of all time?
Without the guarantees, the plant would not be built so in essence, there is not a lower cost to build the plant
Nope. The cost to build the plant without the loan guarantee is effectively infinity dollars since it simply can't be built without the loan guarantees. That makes the actual cost of building it....wait for it....lower than infinity dollars.
So here would be my question: which energy source requires the most mined materials per TW. Honestly, I don't know. But my suspicions are that nuclear would be near the bottom of that list
All power sources have a construction portion so there will be mining for the construction materials for all the sources.
Renewable sources do not have any fuel requirements, so once the systems are constructed the mining basically stops. Nuclear has lower fuel/ore requirements than coal or oil, but it still needs to be mined/transported/refined etc before it can be used as the fuel.
according to UNSCEAR but up to 4,000 according to the World Health Organization when shortened lives are also accounted for.
Well if you read further on this page estimates are as high as almost a million.
A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[11] A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[12] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[13] A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide
If you are going to hold nuclear to these extreme corner cases, please hold all other energy generation techniques to equally high standards.
I hold them to extreme corner cases as commensurate with the risk of what happens when those conditions manifest themselves.
Nuclear simply has consequences that no other power source does. In each and every other case I can quite safely walk the grounds of a failed power plant the very day after the accident. You simply can't do that with nuclear when it goes tits up.
Using your example, you also received a lower interest rate on the co-signed loan than you would have if it was on your own.
THAT difference in your cost of the loan is the subsidy.
And you sir are fabulously muddying the waters with unrelated information.
No one is talking about the bank. We're are talking about the subsidy given to a power company to build a power plant.
As the OP stated, by receiving federal loan guarantees, the power company receives a lower interest rate.
You do agree this results in a lower cost to build the plant yes?
THAT is the subsidy, whether that loan came from a bank or someone's really large mattress, the cost to build the actual plant is lower than if it wouldn't have had the loan guarantees.
the loan still has to be paid
AT. A. LOWER. RATE.
The company is clearly getting something for free, the loan guarantees and the resulting lower interest rate which means likely millions of dollars in savings.
That's like saying I'm not giving you more apples, but as part of my 'approval' of your business, you'll get more apples from other people.
That's a subsidy any way you slice it. The government loan guarantees, however indirectly you want to claim, are the sole reason they get lower interest rates and that does in fact reduce their costs.
As does the insurance they would have to pay if they didn't have the loan guarantees...which as we're talking here are effectively infinity since no one would loan the money without the guarantee.
Perhaps because the family and friends didn't play a part in the crime? The 'corporation' here was fined, not individuals. Hence the 'corporation' itself was punished...how do you imprison a corporation? Obviously you can't. So perhaps...we shouldn't be so willfully giving them the 'rights' of personhood without the correlated punishments...
My point was that if we're going to give corporations all the benefits of personhood, they need to be capable of being punished in the same manner.
As you so astutely note, it's not practical to punish corporations in the same manner...so perhaps they shouldn't be given the 'rights' of personhood, which was my actual point.
To answer your 'deaths per TWH' reference. That's not the point. The point is how much cost is associated with that figure. Where would coal be on that list if they had to fully scrub their emissions to prevent the mercury and other such stuff from escaping? Now add CO2.
They could easily get their numbers down to nuclear levels but it wouldn't be economical in any sense...
and they might need....wait for it....
government loan guarantees to be able to build such expensive plants.
Lets talk about construction versus operation. Exactly how many people die from solar panels simply sitting on a roof? Does your nuclear figure include the construction costs of the plants? Wind ditto. It just sits there spinning and as long as you aren't within a few hundred yards on a *very* windy day...zero casualties.
From your wikipedia reference:
"It infamously failed in 1975, causing more casualties than any other dam failure in history, and was subsequently rebuilt."
I don't see them rebuilding Fukushima or Chernobyl anytime soon...
I didn't say other power sources don't have failure issues, I said other power sources don't render the surrounding 100 square miles uninhabitable for decades.
care to try again?
Because as the name suggests it's simply a guarantee, not a subsidy (emphasis mine).
followed by the VERY NEXT SENTENCE:
It allows the company to borrow at government interest rates (2-3%) rather than market interest rates (6-9%)
cognitive dissonance anyway?
and yet the corporation continued to do business, they paid a fine and didn't do any time.
Therein lies the problem with corporate citizen-hood. Can you tell the corporation to stop doing business for 3 years while they are in prison?
They only got to keep pennies on the dollar and most of the money had to go towards the loans and other investors.
I assume you're point is that it isn't terribly profitable to run a nuclear plant. How much more unprofitable would it be if you didn't have the government subsidizing those loans in the first place?
If the big oil/coal industries want to decry subsidies to green tech, they should also be screaming louder about the nuclear subsidies.
Green also doesn't tend to blow up and render large areas uninhabitable for decades...
whooosh
please, they aren't that stupid.
They called it 'dontreadme.txt'