You're blaming "corporate whores" as if you know for certain this is some sort of intentional error arranged around benefiting a company or people within that company. How do you know it's not simple human error? True, I'm sure these parts go through strict quality control during and after manufacturing, but what if some poor slob just screwed up? Put a decimal point in the wrong place? Miscalibrated the test gear before testing the sample? There are a billion different ways this could have gone wrong without any malfeasance or "whoring" going on. Your comment is pure speculation put forth as if it were an absolute. Typically that's the result of someone with an ideological chip on their shoulder instead of someone interested in finding out the truth of the matter.
The oxygen tank explosion that nearly doomed Apollo 13 was due to human error, equipment miscalibration, latent design faults, and unforeseen circumstances that all culminated at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no "corporate whoring" going on then, and safety controls were damned strict back then as well -- as strict as their technology and know-how would allow. Shit happens. It doesn't mean some greedy corporation is out there trying to kill astronauts to make a buck.
Only if they are defensive wars against other nation states who attacked you.
That's right! We should allow our enemies to build up their forces and position them where they can cause maximum damage to us, our armed forces, and our interests abroad before we do anything. After all, if you see a suspicious-looking guy prowling around your home, checking the doors and windows to see if they're locked, all while armed to to the teeth, you damned sure shouldn't call the cops until after he's broken in, raped your wife, killed your kids, and started carrying your belongings out the front door.
Funny you should mention Poland and Japan in your post. In both cases, the U.S. didn't pre-emptively strike, largely due to isolationist politics like what you're suggesting. The result was a World War where more than 60 million people were killed. How many might've been saved if Hitler had been stopped when he first violated the Treaty of Versailles? How many might've been saved if Japan's imperialist intentions -- blatantly displayed in China prior to 1941 -- had been curbed before their navy had built up its ability to hit Pearl Harbor? But no. We sat and watched as our enemies prepared. We listened to them preach world domination on the radio and did nothing. We let them get away with larger and larger violations while we gave bigger and bigger chunks of appeasement. Churchill said it best after the war when he stated "at one point, a memo would've stopped Hitler."
But you are one of those who refuses to learn from history. It's a good thing you aren't making policy because your ignorance of it would make the rest of us relive it.
They're general safety nets that also cover those unfortunates that never could earn any money.
Please explain to me how it's possible for someone to live to the Social Security retirement age and never earn any money? Short of being born in a vegetative state, it's practically impossible to do what you suggest unless you're voluntarily deciding to live off of someone else for your entire life. Such a mentality might suit you just fine, but what if everybody did that? Who would pay for Social Security then? The system collapses if everyone decides "hey, the government will take care of me fairly well if I vote the right fellow into office so I might as well become a slacker!"
Now perhaps you really meant Social Security is for those who could never save any money. Saving money is a lifestyle choice everyone gets to make. Minimum wage not enough to support your lifestyle and set aside some money for the future? Either change your lifestyle (i.e. spend less) or improve your marketability and get a better-paying job (i.e. free or low-cost classes on job skills are available to anyone who wants them). But what if you've spent yourself into a lifestyle already that doesn't allow you to save? Well, that's where responsibility for your choices comes into play. You chose your lifestyle and spending habits. If you can't set any money aside because the bills keep coming in, you don't have to look very far to find a person to blame.
But I forget that responsibility for your own actions and Socialism aren't remotely compatible. And Socialism sounds so cool when you aren't the one paying for it, forgetting that somewhere, somebody is paying for it. The entire concept of Socialism depends upon there being someone out there who is willing to work hard so that you don't have to. What short-sighted Socialists never seem to grasp is government benefits inevitably rise to unsustainable levels, which leads to higher and higher taxes, which makes working harder less rewarding while making slacking off more attractive, which leads to a stagnating economy, reduced employment, and a collapse of the entire system.
Economically-speaking, there are no "unfortunate" people. There are, however, people who make unfortunate choices. If you feel so horrible that these people are in "unfortunate" circumstances, please feel free to donate money to a charity or do volunteer work at a soup kitchen. I've done both. But you have no right to require anyone else to do so. Any government that seeks to impose such a requirement is running contrary to the principles established by the Founding Fathers.
Then don't rely on other people providing the medical care you might need. Do your own medical checks on yourself. Collect your own blood and store it. Do the surgery on yourself. Stop being lazy and relying on other people to do the work you need.
I realize this is a radical stretch for you, but what if I merely paid out of my own funds and at my own discretion for someone else to perform these tasks for me? The costs for such things would be quite affordable for all if (a) government regulation weren't so onerous as to increase the cost of such services, (b) if trial lawyers weren't allowed to create such hideous insurance burdens on those trying to provide such services, and (c) government didn't keep trying to take so much of my money (via taxes, fees, regulation, etc.) and give it to other people who didn't earn it and won't spend it as wisely as I have. It's called Capitalism, and it's created more wealth, more inventions, and more prosperity in general than any other form of economics in the history of mankind. Socialism and Communism brought bread lines and rationed toilet paper.
The "we're rich enough to afford it so we ought to do it" argument is what started some countries down the Socialist road that now has them in dire economic straits. Those few largely-socialist countries that aren't in horrible economic shape also happen to be countries that aren't superpowers, don't have much impact on world affairs, and certainly don't have extensive defensive commitments to defend other countries -- sometimes even their own borders -- like America does.
Let me first state that I don't condone terrorism of any kind from anyone. Having said that, your comparison between The Troubles and jihadi's is flawed. Irish terrorism was motivated more by politics than religion, whereas the opposite is true with Al Queada.
Sure, the IRA played heavily on the Catholic vs. non-Catholic angle as a recruiting tool, and Al Queada plays on the Imperialist vs. anti-Imperialist angle for the same reason. But Irish terrorism was mainly political (i.e. get the Brits out so we can run our own country) not like Al Queada (kill all the infidels and impose an Islamic caliphate world order).
I for one am tired of hearing about all these wonderful propulsion ideas that inevitably fade into the background. What is it going to take to get one of these damned things built and tested?
Yes, I know the trite answer is "money," but that's merely a means. What we lack is desire. I have a funny feeling that all the billions we've wasted on the ISS and keeping the nigh-useless Shuttle flying these past decades could've easily funded an unmanned test vehicle that could've used VASIMIR to fly to Mars and back as a technology demonstrator.
Let's quit talking about what this technology "could" do and actual do it for a change. If it's feasible then we should be screaming at our Congress-critters to get behind it.
OPERATOR: Hello, my name is Prakesh Vijay Chandrashekar Subrayaman, but please call me "Bob." What seems to be the problem today?
MISSION CONTROL: We've lost communications with our lunar satellite.
"BOB": I see. Well, have you tried rebooting the system?
MC: There is no system to reboot. It's a satellite, not a PC!
"BOB": I see. Well, have you checked to see if the power cord is plugged into the device?
MC: Are you not listening? There is no power cord, it's a *satellite*.
"BOB": I see. Well, sir, I'll need you to find the original CD-ROM that came with the satellite and put it into the CD-ROM drive, the turn the power off, then turn it back on again.
MC: OK, this is getting ridiculous, "Bob". I thought this was the satellite technical support line. Do you know anything about *satellites*?
"BOB": I see. Well, let me see what I can do. Can I place you on hold for four or five hours?
It is what Microsoft said about Vista, but this time around it's the beta testers of Win7 that are saying it. Go back and look at the beta feedback for Vista. It was pretty lukewarm. Win7 feedback is so good that people are asking why MS won't release it now instead of a few months from now. Many are using it as their primary OS because it's been so stable and usable -- something impossible with Vista and unheard of for a Microsoft product.
Great? Great? Windows 7 is better than Vista, that's it's only claim to fame. It's far from "great".
and
Pure opinion and far from the opinion of most people.
Then perhaps you'd be so good as to post what makes Win7 "far from great" that isn't "pure opinion" on your part?
Win7 has a lot going for it. I'm not going to say it's perfect (no OS -- even your pet one -- is perfect, nor will it ever be), but it's quite good. Faster than Vista, more secure (by default) than XP, and easier to administrate, runs better on lower hardware specs than Vista...I could go on.
XP feels clunky by comparison. I mean, after all, XP was released eight years ago. Visually, functionally, and ergonomically, most OS's have evolved a long ways since then. XP reaps no benefits from that and is essentially frozen in time circa 2001. After using the Win7 beta and RC for several months now, going back to troubleshoot an XP workstation starkly illustrates how Win7 is a superior platform in nearly any respect.
My biggest gripe is Win7 shouldn't be a fully separate product; it should be a major service pack for Vista. It takes the good parts of Vista (which, despite popular opinion, were quite good but poorly presented), tweaks it, puts it in a shinier, more-useful interface. But a SP wouldn't generate any revenue for MS, hence Win7.
Your comment just goes to prove that you're more interested in saying "I'm right, you're wrong" than you are about actually trying to do something about the cause you claim to hold so dear. Because you're not going to accomplish much by calling people "fucking morons," and last time I checked, people like you are busily screaming that we're going to murder the planet unless everybody does exactly as the GW crowd says they should do.
This is not a good way to start a debate when you're trying to convince someone else of your point of view.
1. We, humans, are pumping over 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. 2. A corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has been observed. 3. The interaction of CO2 with IR radiation is well-established and well-understood by anyone with an understanding of simple chemistry.
Which point, exactly, is in dispute?
A number of things. For example, you choose to focus on CO2. While CO2 is associated with warming, there are an almost limitless number of other factors that also can contribute to warming (or cooling, for that matter). For example (taken from Wikipedia):
In order, Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are:
When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:
* water vapor, which contributes 36â"72%
* carbon dioxide, which contributes 9â"26%
* methane, which contributes 4â"9%
* ozone, which contributes 3â"7%
So right there, even if you take the worst-case scenario for CO2 (26%), it's still far, far less of an effect than the best case for water vapor (36%). Shouldn't we be trying to reduce water vapor instead of CO2? Note that's a rhetorical question. I'm just trying to point out where your argument -- and insistence -- on CO2 fails to account for what may be the largest driver in climate change. CO2 just seems to be a popular whipping boy these days because it appeals to environmentalists who've always been against fossil fuels, anti-capitalists who are against Big Oil, and anti-Westerners who would be happy to see the Western powers (i.e. the U.S.) come to economic harm while they can handily skirt any emissions controls on their own industry (see Kyoto protocols).
It also doesn't help that global warming proponents tend to be shrill absolutists who, instead of trying to convince people of their argument, are merely content to shout them down or denounce them as imbeciles. You may recall my first comment on your post. Your opener falls into such a category. It's not a way to win people over to your side even if you were to have all the facts (which you don't). Note this isn't a knock against you personally or the science of climatology; nobody has all the facts, because nobody fully understands all the variables (or even most of the variables) associated with our climate. We have theories and models that require constant tweaking, modifying, and massaging, and even then they fail to accurately predict both past and present weather trends. The disclosure that several high-profile warming proponents admitting to actually cooking their data (aka cherry picking) also doesn't help your cause, as it shows these people had political, economic, or ideological biases which drove them to commit scientific fraud.
If you care to respond to this, try to make it reasoned and tactful. Have all your facts, and admit that the totality of our knowledge about what's going on with the climate is anything but 100% sure. Claiming you've got it all nailed down with unassailable data is the surest sign that you've turned into a zealot. Nobody listens to zealots, even if they are sometimes right.
But when a gasoline powered vehicle has a fuel tank rupture, the fuel pours down to the ground, pools, and becomes very dangerous, as a simple spark can ignite it.
Pooled gasoline will burn but not explode. Diesel is even less inflammable. Both require either vapors or misted fuel mixed with lots of air before they will burn explosively.
Mythbusters showed this (by accident -- they were testing something else) when they tried to use a propane torch to ignite liquid fuel poured onto a flat plate. Jamie couldn't get it to ignite and sustain a burn even with the torch impinging directly on the pool of fuel. More recently (the Exploding Bumper myth), Adam got mildly scorched while trying to ignite a car's engine compartment that had been doused with fuel. He couldn't get the pooled fuel to ignite, so he opened the passenger compartment (which had also been doused but where fumes had accumulated) and tried. That caught, and the fumes engulfed Adam's fire suit for a brief moment while he ran away.
The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
This is one of the most oft-misquoted "facts" on stem cell research. The Bush stance was not a ban on research. It was a ban on federal funding for such research. Private companies were free to do whatever research they felt like doing so long as taxpayer money wasn't spent on it. Yes, I'm aware that the lack of federal funding stymies getting research done, but the article synopsis as written is factually incorrect.
No, you deserve to be shouted down, you heretic! How dare you bring things like logic and physics into a debate that should be ruled by emotion and general lack of understanding of how the earth's climate works! Don't you realize that thousands -- maybe hundreds of thousands -- of scientists, authors, and pundits could die or be seriously financially inconvenienced should the public ever glom onto the fact that there is no consensus amongst scientists on what's going on with our climate? And unicorns! Won't somebody think of the uuuunnniicoooorrrnnns??? You heartless bastard! You want unicorns to die, don't you?
I rather like living in a country where the government still has the ability to bail out its banks if it needs to, thank-you-very-much.
I see. You appear to be under the impression that capitalism is only worthwhile if it brings continual, rapid, and uninterrupted growth. This exposes your total ignorance of the way the world works. You are quick to claim the Irish Miracle is a dead end because things are down right now. A lot of people claimed American capitalism was dead with the Great Depression as well. Your eagerness to put nails in the coffin belies the fact that, taken over a longer period than just a couple of years, capitalism's benefits hugely outweigh the occasional downturns. To wit, had you bought $1,000 worth of stock during the Great Depression, held onto it, and passed it down through generations, it would be worth many times what you paid for it even adjusted for inflation.
Admit it: you're just damned happy as hell that you can point to Ireland's economy and say "See! You failed!" It feeds your hatred of success to do so, even if it means purposefully ignoring data to the contrary.
Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy... One of the two. Yeah, it's probably because they're evil though, because slashdotters are too stupid to notice something like economics but we all consult our priests and/or crystal balls daily.
Perhaps you should consult the report on the federal budget created every year by the OMB, then. Because if you did, you'd see the fallacy of your statement. The economic crash happened because somebody in congress thought it would be a good idea (e.g. it'll get me re-elected!) to push through a bill forcing banks to make lots of loans to people with bad credit. It was called the Community Re-Investment Act. Go look it up (yeah, right, like you're actually interested in the truth instead of class warfare rhetoric).
The massive homebuying binge artificially raised real-estate prices to unheard of levels. People and businesses bought these mortgages as high-performance investments, doing so with the knowledge the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- both government-sponsored entities -- said the loans were safe. Only the loans weren't safe, and FM & FM went more or less bankrupt because of it. And all the people who invested in it got burned. And to bail out all the banks that were forced to make the loans, you and I are going to get burned by high taxes and even higher inflation in the next 5-15 years.
Now, if you have any shred of intellectual honesty in you, you've looked up who sponsored the Community Re-Investment Act. Now please tell me, did the bill's sponsor have a "D" or an "R" in front of their name?
Now please tell me again who you are blaming for this debacle?
For several years in the late 1990's Microsoft literally did not pay any US income taxes.
Really? And you have the SEC filings and MS quarterly statements to back up that assertion? I'd love to see them.
Please post your source. I'd hate to think you're just pulling shit out of your ass in a cheap attempt to bolster a weak argument. Since I know you're just too good and too honest to ever do anything like that, I'm sure you'll have no problem posting an accurate source.
The only way around this is to form a Union or start your own company. Union's typically will flatten out the pay curve but ensure a higher average pay scale plus other amenities.
That is, until the unionized company is forced to compete with a non-unionized one. In such a case, the union would either (a) have to accept lower wages and benefits in line with the non-union competition or (b) go out of business (i.e. see the entire state of Michigan). Unions only work when you don't have to compete, and a lack of competition can only be ensured by government removing economic freedom from its people.
He admits they transferred resources to Ireland to avoid taxes and then whines that if they go after that, he'll leave...WTF?!?!?
All I can say is 'so long Monkey Boy'
Lovely way to cut off your nose to spite your face. Do you have any idea how many jobs MS contributes to the U.S. economy? Or since you love to talk about taxing other people, do you have any idea how much in taxes MS pays every year? If MS moves offshore, you're talking about losing the jobs and tax base of every domestic MS employee. That's tens of thousands of people and tens of billions of dollars -- none of which will be doing anything at all to benefit the U.S. economy. Instead, it would benefit the Indian or Chinese economy.
But go ahead with your class warfare rhetoric. I'm sure it sounds really great until you have to actually deal with the consequences of your disastrous policies.
If corporations don't pay tax as so many Internet corporate lick-spittles shriek, then they wouldn't need ridiculously twisted foreign tax accounts and be prancing around like sooks when someone comes along and tells them to meet their obligations in their home countries would they? They would just happily pass this tax burden it along.
Why does this ridiculous soundbite keep getting regurgitated *every single time* this topic comes up? Because you fail to understand basic economics, that's why.
If the company didn't try to minimize its tax burden, it would have higher operating costs due to higher taxes. That would result in either (a) a lower profit margin or (b) a higher price for the end product or service.
You probably think (a) is a great idea. Hey, let's sock it to those fat, lazy, rich bastards, right? Cut their profits! Only it doesn't work that way. Businesses that make lower profits have less money not only for compensation but also for re-investment and expansion. So the business grows slower if it grows at all. It has less money in the bank to weather a recession. In general, it's always going to be in a worse position than another company with a higher margin, assuming the costs of the end product or service are relatively equal. So your brilliant idea is a recipe for hurting a company and potentially causing layoffs or the wholesale shutdown where tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs. Nice job!
But if we don't reduce profit margin, then the cost must be passed along to the consumer. Thus we get higher prices. If everyone were on the same tax playing field then this wouldn't be quite so detrimental (to the company, not the consumer, mind you), but international companies do not play on a level field. If the U.S. taxes MS more than India would tax an Indian company then the Indian company has a competitive advantage over MS. It could sell its products or services for less and still enjoy the same margin. Or it could sell it for the same price and have a higher margin. Either way, in the long run the Indian company can cause significant harm to the U.S. company, thus losing jobs, stock value, and so forth.
So I'm really, really sorry to have burst your Socialist Worker's Paradise Reality Distortion Field. Higher corporate taxes are an added hidden cost to consumers. Higher taxes are a detriment to domestic job creation due to depressed investment and re-investment. And if you know anything at all about how an economy works you'd know this already.
- Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
Which in turn depresses the mahogany desk business and Vegas travel business, which causes them to close factories and lay off staff. There is no free lunch, there is no free tax. Right now Vegas is really hurting because people like you think it's really neat to punish businesses that have conventions in Vegas. In the same vein, people who buy heavily-taxed or -regulated goods are choosing not to buy these goods, instead opting to buy something without such hidden added costs -- or opting not to buy at all. If you want to see the results of this, just look at Detroit and how artificially inflated labor rates and benefits (thanks, unions) have made domestic cars expensive, inferior, and unprofitable.
He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today. Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
And what do you suppose will happen if MS doesn't move? Foreign competition that isn't subject to a crushing corporate tax will then have an advantage over MS. You don't move your labor base because you want to, you do it because if you don't, your competition will. It has nothing to do with greed (a favorite word of the class warfare monger) and everything to do with how the world works in a global labor market.
If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
California's standard of living would have to drop below that of a peasant Chinese factory worker living in a hut with 20 other people before that would happen because that's what labor is like in China. Somehow I don't see that happening.
What could happen -- but won't because people like you refuse to understand basic economics -- is the U.S. government could drastically reduce corporate taxes. If you want see what kind of effects that can have on attracting and keeping new businesses to your country, try here. Corporate taxes were lowered. Businesses flocked to it. Tax reveneues increased because of a larger tax base despite a lower marginal rate. The general standard of living for everyone went up. And you're against this idea?
The leadership does not want a nuclear apocalypse which would result in the destruction of Iran as well as the US, they want to make sure the US does not decide to invade them. Pretty much the only thing that can guarantee that is long range nukes.
Riiiiiight. Because we couldn't possibly nuke Iran from afar with our own voluminous collection of ICBM's. And Iran is nowhere near developing a missile that could hit the U.S. mainland.
Let's face it: if we wanted to destroy Iran, we could do so tomorrow, next month, or next year without any fear whatsoever of retaliation. The fact that we haven't despite a hostage crisis, decades of vitriolic rhetoric from Tehran, Iranian meddling in Iraq, threats to wipe Israel off the map, and Iranian nuclear ambitions is a sign that we are not the antagonists in this situation. If we wanted to be, we could do so with utter impunity. Remind me again why we're the evil empire and the Iranians are the poor, downtrodden, oppressed, benevolent people in this situation?
Once people demand and establish direct democracy and stay active in it, no other solution will come close.
Except such an idea is the will of the mob. Whatever is popular will pass. Whatever is unpopular will not pass. Consider things like slavery and the Civil Rights Act. In both cases, a minority (blacks) were being either exploited or oppressed by a majority (whites). In your "perfect" system, the minority can never prevail over the majority unless you can convince the majority of a "higher purpose." History doesn't exactly shine with examples of that working. As it is, the representative democracy that is the United States abolished slavery and passed the Civil Rights Act even though there was never a majority of the population in favor of it. Your system would've denied that.
You'll notice how countries where people stay active in unions - France, Germany, Italy - have less wealth disparity, happier citizens, and have tended to be more pacifistic and less colonialist than the UK and the US.
Less wealth disparity? Please explain to me why it's a bad thing that somebody has more money than somebody else? Why should I care two damns how many billions of dollars Bill Gates has in his pocket? Does it prevent me from earning my own billion? No it does not. "Wealth disparity" is just a more slippery, fuzzy name for "wealth envy." Even though Bill Gates's billions don't hurt (or benefit) you directly in any way, you just don't like that he has them and you don't. So you despise the wealthy and dream up terms like "wealth disparity" to make you feel righteous in your hatred of anyone who has more toys than you.
And if you want to talk about "colonial" and use the US and UK as examples -- and France, Germany, and Italy as counter-examples -- then perhaps you should acquaint yourself with France's colonial history, or the German-Italian Axis powers of WWII. You see quite selective in your history, either out of ignorance or malice. I'm going to give you benefit of the doubt and assume you're just too ignorant to know better.
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You're blaming "corporate whores" as if you know for certain this is some sort of intentional error arranged around benefiting a company or people within that company. How do you know it's not simple human error? True, I'm sure these parts go through strict quality control during and after manufacturing, but what if some poor slob just screwed up? Put a decimal point in the wrong place? Miscalibrated the test gear before testing the sample? There are a billion different ways this could have gone wrong without any malfeasance or "whoring" going on. Your comment is pure speculation put forth as if it were an absolute. Typically that's the result of someone with an ideological chip on their shoulder instead of someone interested in finding out the truth of the matter.
The oxygen tank explosion that nearly doomed Apollo 13 was due to human error, equipment miscalibration, latent design faults, and unforeseen circumstances that all culminated at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no "corporate whoring" going on then, and safety controls were damned strict back then as well -- as strict as their technology and know-how would allow. Shit happens. It doesn't mean some greedy corporation is out there trying to kill astronauts to make a buck.
Actually, as soon as I saw them I thought of the Stalkers from Half Life 2.
Only if they are defensive wars against other nation states who attacked you.
That's right! We should allow our enemies to build up their forces and position them where they can cause maximum damage to us, our armed forces, and our interests abroad before we do anything. After all, if you see a suspicious-looking guy prowling around your home, checking the doors and windows to see if they're locked, all while armed to to the teeth, you damned sure shouldn't call the cops until after he's broken in, raped your wife, killed your kids, and started carrying your belongings out the front door.
Funny you should mention Poland and Japan in your post. In both cases, the U.S. didn't pre-emptively strike, largely due to isolationist politics like what you're suggesting. The result was a World War where more than 60 million people were killed. How many might've been saved if Hitler had been stopped when he first violated the Treaty of Versailles? How many might've been saved if Japan's imperialist intentions -- blatantly displayed in China prior to 1941 -- had been curbed before their navy had built up its ability to hit Pearl Harbor? But no. We sat and watched as our enemies prepared. We listened to them preach world domination on the radio and did nothing. We let them get away with larger and larger violations while we gave bigger and bigger chunks of appeasement. Churchill said it best after the war when he stated "at one point, a memo would've stopped Hitler."
But you are one of those who refuses to learn from history. It's a good thing you aren't making policy because your ignorance of it would make the rest of us relive it.
They're general safety nets that also cover those unfortunates that never could earn any money.
Please explain to me how it's possible for someone to live to the Social Security retirement age and never earn any money? Short of being born in a vegetative state, it's practically impossible to do what you suggest unless you're voluntarily deciding to live off of someone else for your entire life. Such a mentality might suit you just fine, but what if everybody did that? Who would pay for Social Security then? The system collapses if everyone decides "hey, the government will take care of me fairly well if I vote the right fellow into office so I might as well become a slacker!"
Now perhaps you really meant Social Security is for those who could never save any money. Saving money is a lifestyle choice everyone gets to make. Minimum wage not enough to support your lifestyle and set aside some money for the future? Either change your lifestyle (i.e. spend less) or improve your marketability and get a better-paying job (i.e. free or low-cost classes on job skills are available to anyone who wants them). But what if you've spent yourself into a lifestyle already that doesn't allow you to save? Well, that's where responsibility for your choices comes into play. You chose your lifestyle and spending habits. If you can't set any money aside because the bills keep coming in, you don't have to look very far to find a person to blame.
But I forget that responsibility for your own actions and Socialism aren't remotely compatible. And Socialism sounds so cool when you aren't the one paying for it, forgetting that somewhere, somebody is paying for it. The entire concept of Socialism depends upon there being someone out there who is willing to work hard so that you don't have to. What short-sighted Socialists never seem to grasp is government benefits inevitably rise to unsustainable levels, which leads to higher and higher taxes, which makes working harder less rewarding while making slacking off more attractive, which leads to a stagnating economy, reduced employment, and a collapse of the entire system.
Economically-speaking, there are no "unfortunate" people. There are, however, people who make unfortunate choices. If you feel so horrible that these people are in "unfortunate" circumstances, please feel free to donate money to a charity or do volunteer work at a soup kitchen. I've done both. But you have no right to require anyone else to do so. Any government that seeks to impose such a requirement is running contrary to the principles established by the Founding Fathers.
Then don't rely on other people providing the medical care you might need. Do your own medical checks on yourself. Collect your own blood and store it. Do the surgery on yourself. Stop being lazy and relying on other people to do the work you need.
I realize this is a radical stretch for you, but what if I merely paid out of my own funds and at my own discretion for someone else to perform these tasks for me? The costs for such things would be quite affordable for all if (a) government regulation weren't so onerous as to increase the cost of such services, (b) if trial lawyers weren't allowed to create such hideous insurance burdens on those trying to provide such services, and (c) government didn't keep trying to take so much of my money (via taxes, fees, regulation, etc.) and give it to other people who didn't earn it and won't spend it as wisely as I have. It's called Capitalism, and it's created more wealth, more inventions, and more prosperity in general than any other form of economics in the history of mankind. Socialism and Communism brought bread lines and rationed toilet paper.
The "we're rich enough to afford it so we ought to do it" argument is what started some countries down the Socialist road that now has them in dire economic straits. Those few largely-socialist countries that aren't in horrible economic shape also happen to be countries that aren't superpowers, don't have much impact on world affairs, and certainly don't have extensive defensive commitments to defend other countries -- sometimes even their own borders -- like America does.
Let me first state that I don't condone terrorism of any kind from anyone. Having said that, your comparison between The Troubles and jihadi's is flawed. Irish terrorism was motivated more by politics than religion, whereas the opposite is true with Al Queada.
Sure, the IRA played heavily on the Catholic vs. non-Catholic angle as a recruiting tool, and Al Queada plays on the Imperialist vs. anti-Imperialist angle for the same reason. But Irish terrorism was mainly political (i.e. get the Brits out so we can run our own country) not like Al Queada (kill all the infidels and impose an Islamic caliphate world order).
I for one am tired of hearing about all these wonderful propulsion ideas that inevitably fade into the background. What is it going to take to get one of these damned things built and tested?
Yes, I know the trite answer is "money," but that's merely a means. What we lack is desire. I have a funny feeling that all the billions we've wasted on the ISS and keeping the nigh-useless Shuttle flying these past decades could've easily funded an unmanned test vehicle that could've used VASIMIR to fly to Mars and back as a technology demonstrator.
Let's quit talking about what this technology "could" do and actual do it for a change. If it's feasible then we should be screaming at our Congress-critters to get behind it.
OPERATOR: Hello, my name is Prakesh Vijay Chandrashekar Subrayaman, but please call me "Bob." What seems to be the problem today?
MISSION CONTROL: We've lost communications with our lunar satellite.
"BOB": I see. Well, have you tried rebooting the system?
MC: There is no system to reboot. It's a satellite, not a PC!
"BOB": I see. Well, have you checked to see if the power cord is plugged into the device?
MC: Are you not listening? There is no power cord, it's a *satellite*.
"BOB": I see. Well, sir, I'll need you to find the original CD-ROM that came with the satellite and put it into the CD-ROM drive, the turn the power off, then turn it back on again.
MC: OK, this is getting ridiculous, "Bob". I thought this was the satellite technical support line. Do you know anything about *satellites*?
"BOB": I see. Well, let me see what I can do. Can I place you on hold for four or five hours?
MC: -- click --
But isn't that what they said about VISTA
It is what Microsoft said about Vista, but this time around it's the beta testers of Win7 that are saying it. Go back and look at the beta feedback for Vista. It was pretty lukewarm. Win7 feedback is so good that people are asking why MS won't release it now instead of a few months from now. Many are using it as their primary OS because it's been so stable and usable -- something impossible with Vista and unheard of for a Microsoft product.
Great? Great? Windows 7 is better than Vista, that's it's only claim to fame. It's far from "great".
and
Pure opinion and far from the opinion of most people.
Then perhaps you'd be so good as to post what makes Win7 "far from great" that isn't "pure opinion" on your part?
Win7 has a lot going for it. I'm not going to say it's perfect (no OS -- even your pet one -- is perfect, nor will it ever be), but it's quite good. Faster than Vista, more secure (by default) than XP, and easier to administrate, runs better on lower hardware specs than Vista...I could go on.
XP feels clunky by comparison. I mean, after all, XP was released eight years ago. Visually, functionally, and ergonomically, most OS's have evolved a long ways since then. XP reaps no benefits from that and is essentially frozen in time circa 2001. After using the Win7 beta and RC for several months now, going back to troubleshoot an XP workstation starkly illustrates how Win7 is a superior platform in nearly any respect.
My biggest gripe is Win7 shouldn't be a fully separate product; it should be a major service pack for Vista. It takes the good parts of Vista (which, despite popular opinion, were quite good but poorly presented), tweaks it, puts it in a shinier, more-useful interface. But a SP wouldn't generate any revenue for MS, hence Win7.
Your comment just goes to prove that you're more interested in saying "I'm right, you're wrong" than you are about actually trying to do something about the cause you claim to hold so dear. Because you're not going to accomplish much by calling people "fucking morons," and last time I checked, people like you are busily screaming that we're going to murder the planet unless everybody does exactly as the GW crowd says they should do.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
This is not a good way to start a debate when you're trying to convince someone else of your point of view.
1. We, humans, are pumping over 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
2. A corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has been observed.
3. The interaction of CO2 with IR radiation is well-established and well-understood by anyone with an understanding of simple chemistry.
Which point, exactly, is in dispute?
A number of things. For example, you choose to focus on CO2. While CO2 is associated with warming, there are an almost limitless number of other factors that also can contribute to warming (or cooling, for that matter). For example (taken from Wikipedia):
In order, Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are:
* water vapor
* carbon dioxide
* methane
* nitrous oxide
* ozone
* CFCs
When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:
* water vapor, which contributes 36â"72%
* carbon dioxide, which contributes 9â"26%
* methane, which contributes 4â"9%
* ozone, which contributes 3â"7%
So right there, even if you take the worst-case scenario for CO2 (26%), it's still far, far less of an effect than the best case for water vapor (36%). Shouldn't we be trying to reduce water vapor instead of CO2? Note that's a rhetorical question. I'm just trying to point out where your argument -- and insistence -- on CO2 fails to account for what may be the largest driver in climate change. CO2 just seems to be a popular whipping boy these days because it appeals to environmentalists who've always been against fossil fuels, anti-capitalists who are against Big Oil, and anti-Westerners who would be happy to see the Western powers (i.e. the U.S.) come to economic harm while they can handily skirt any emissions controls on their own industry (see Kyoto protocols).
It also doesn't help that global warming proponents tend to be shrill absolutists who, instead of trying to convince people of their argument, are merely content to shout them down or denounce them as imbeciles. You may recall my first comment on your post. Your opener falls into such a category. It's not a way to win people over to your side even if you were to have all the facts (which you don't). Note this isn't a knock against you personally or the science of climatology; nobody has all the facts, because nobody fully understands all the variables (or even most of the variables) associated with our climate. We have theories and models that require constant tweaking, modifying, and massaging, and even then they fail to accurately predict both past and present weather trends. The disclosure that several high-profile warming proponents admitting to actually cooking their data (aka cherry picking) also doesn't help your cause, as it shows these people had political, economic, or ideological biases which drove them to commit scientific fraud.
If you care to respond to this, try to make it reasoned and tactful. Have all your facts, and admit that the totality of our knowledge about what's going on with the climate is anything but 100% sure. Claiming you've got it all nailed down with unassailable data is the surest sign that you've turned into a zealot. Nobody listens to zealots, even if they are sometimes right.
But when a gasoline powered vehicle has a fuel tank rupture, the fuel pours down to the ground, pools, and becomes very dangerous, as a simple spark can ignite it.
Pooled gasoline will burn but not explode. Diesel is even less inflammable. Both require either vapors or misted fuel mixed with lots of air before they will burn explosively.
Mythbusters showed this (by accident -- they were testing something else) when they tried to use a propane torch to ignite liquid fuel poured onto a flat plate. Jamie couldn't get it to ignite and sustain a burn even with the torch impinging directly on the pool of fuel. More recently (the Exploding Bumper myth), Adam got mildly scorched while trying to ignite a car's engine compartment that had been doused with fuel. He couldn't get the pooled fuel to ignite, so he opened the passenger compartment (which had also been doused but where fumes had accumulated) and tried. That caught, and the fumes engulfed Adam's fire suit for a brief moment while he ran away.
The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
This is one of the most oft-misquoted "facts" on stem cell research. The Bush stance was not a ban on research. It was a ban on federal funding for such research. Private companies were free to do whatever research they felt like doing so long as taxpayer money wasn't spent on it. Yes, I'm aware that the lack of federal funding stymies getting research done, but the article synopsis as written is factually incorrect.
His question demands an answer.
No, you deserve to be shouted down, you heretic! How dare you bring things like logic and physics into a debate that should be ruled by emotion and general lack of understanding of how the earth's climate works! Don't you realize that thousands -- maybe hundreds of thousands -- of scientists, authors, and pundits could die or be seriously financially inconvenienced should the public ever glom onto the fact that there is no consensus amongst scientists on what's going on with our climate? And unicorns! Won't somebody think of the uuuunnniicoooorrrnnns??? You heartless bastard! You want unicorns to die, don't you?
I rather like living in a country where the government still has the ability to bail out its banks if it needs to, thank-you-very-much.
I see. You appear to be under the impression that capitalism is only worthwhile if it brings continual, rapid, and uninterrupted growth. This exposes your total ignorance of the way the world works. You are quick to claim the Irish Miracle is a dead end because things are down right now. A lot of people claimed American capitalism was dead with the Great Depression as well. Your eagerness to put nails in the coffin belies the fact that, taken over a longer period than just a couple of years, capitalism's benefits hugely outweigh the occasional downturns. To wit, had you bought $1,000 worth of stock during the Great Depression, held onto it, and passed it down through generations, it would be worth many times what you paid for it even adjusted for inflation.
Admit it: you're just damned happy as hell that you can point to Ireland's economy and say "See! You failed!" It feeds your hatred of success to do so, even if it means purposefully ignoring data to the contrary.
Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy... One of the two. Yeah, it's probably because they're evil though, because slashdotters are too stupid to notice something like economics but we all consult our priests and/or crystal balls daily.
Perhaps you should consult the report on the federal budget created every year by the OMB, then. Because if you did, you'd see the fallacy of your statement. The economic crash happened because somebody in congress thought it would be a good idea (e.g. it'll get me re-elected!) to push through a bill forcing banks to make lots of loans to people with bad credit. It was called the Community Re-Investment Act. Go look it up (yeah, right, like you're actually interested in the truth instead of class warfare rhetoric).
The massive homebuying binge artificially raised real-estate prices to unheard of levels. People and businesses bought these mortgages as high-performance investments, doing so with the knowledge the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- both government-sponsored entities -- said the loans were safe. Only the loans weren't safe, and FM & FM went more or less bankrupt because of it. And all the people who invested in it got burned. And to bail out all the banks that were forced to make the loans, you and I are going to get burned by high taxes and even higher inflation in the next 5-15 years.
Now, if you have any shred of intellectual honesty in you, you've looked up who sponsored the Community Re-Investment Act. Now please tell me, did the bill's sponsor have a "D" or an "R" in front of their name?
Now please tell me again who you are blaming for this debacle?
For several years in the late 1990's Microsoft literally did not pay any US income taxes.
Really? And you have the SEC filings and MS quarterly statements to back up that assertion? I'd love to see them.
Please post your source. I'd hate to think you're just pulling shit out of your ass in a cheap attempt to bolster a weak argument. Since I know you're just too good and too honest to ever do anything like that, I'm sure you'll have no problem posting an accurate source.
The only way around this is to form a Union or start your own company. Union's typically will flatten out the pay curve but ensure a higher average pay scale plus other amenities.
That is, until the unionized company is forced to compete with a non-unionized one. In such a case, the union would either (a) have to accept lower wages and benefits in line with the non-union competition or (b) go out of business (i.e. see the entire state of Michigan). Unions only work when you don't have to compete, and a lack of competition can only be ensured by government removing economic freedom from its people.
He admits they transferred resources to Ireland to avoid taxes and then whines that if they go after that, he'll leave...WTF?!?!?
All I can say is 'so long Monkey Boy'
Lovely way to cut off your nose to spite your face. Do you have any idea how many jobs MS contributes to the U.S. economy? Or since you love to talk about taxing other people, do you have any idea how much in taxes MS pays every year? If MS moves offshore, you're talking about losing the jobs and tax base of every domestic MS employee. That's tens of thousands of people and tens of billions of dollars -- none of which will be doing anything at all to benefit the U.S. economy. Instead, it would benefit the Indian or Chinese economy.
But go ahead with your class warfare rhetoric. I'm sure it sounds really great until you have to actually deal with the consequences of your disastrous policies.
If corporations don't pay tax as so many Internet corporate lick-spittles shriek, then they wouldn't need ridiculously twisted foreign tax accounts and be prancing around like sooks when someone comes along and tells them to meet their obligations in their home countries would they? They would just happily pass this tax burden it along.
Why does this ridiculous soundbite keep getting regurgitated *every single time* this topic comes up? Because you fail to understand basic economics, that's why.
If the company didn't try to minimize its tax burden, it would have higher operating costs due to higher taxes. That would result in either (a) a lower profit margin or (b) a higher price for the end product or service.
You probably think (a) is a great idea. Hey, let's sock it to those fat, lazy, rich bastards, right? Cut their profits! Only it doesn't work that way. Businesses that make lower profits have less money not only for compensation but also for re-investment and expansion. So the business grows slower if it grows at all. It has less money in the bank to weather a recession. In general, it's always going to be in a worse position than another company with a higher margin, assuming the costs of the end product or service are relatively equal. So your brilliant idea is a recipe for hurting a company and potentially causing layoffs or the wholesale shutdown where tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs. Nice job!
But if we don't reduce profit margin, then the cost must be passed along to the consumer. Thus we get higher prices. If everyone were on the same tax playing field then this wouldn't be quite so detrimental (to the company, not the consumer, mind you), but international companies do not play on a level field. If the U.S. taxes MS more than India would tax an Indian company then the Indian company has a competitive advantage over MS. It could sell its products or services for less and still enjoy the same margin. Or it could sell it for the same price and have a higher margin. Either way, in the long run the Indian company can cause significant harm to the U.S. company, thus losing jobs, stock value, and so forth.
So I'm really, really sorry to have burst your Socialist Worker's Paradise Reality Distortion Field. Higher corporate taxes are an added hidden cost to consumers. Higher taxes are a detriment to domestic job creation due to depressed investment and re-investment. And if you know anything at all about how an economy works you'd know this already.
- Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
Which in turn depresses the mahogany desk business and Vegas travel business, which causes them to close factories and lay off staff. There is no free lunch, there is no free tax. Right now Vegas is really hurting because people like you think it's really neat to punish businesses that have conventions in Vegas. In the same vein, people who buy heavily-taxed or -regulated goods are choosing not to buy these goods, instead opting to buy something without such hidden added costs -- or opting not to buy at all. If you want to see the results of this, just look at Detroit and how artificially inflated labor rates and benefits (thanks, unions) have made domestic cars expensive, inferior, and unprofitable.
He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today. Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
And what do you suppose will happen if MS doesn't move? Foreign competition that isn't subject to a crushing corporate tax will then have an advantage over MS. You don't move your labor base because you want to, you do it because if you don't, your competition will. It has nothing to do with greed (a favorite word of the class warfare monger) and everything to do with how the world works in a global labor market.
If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
California's standard of living would have to drop below that of a peasant Chinese factory worker living in a hut with 20 other people before that would happen because that's what labor is like in China. Somehow I don't see that happening.
What could happen -- but won't because people like you refuse to understand basic economics -- is the U.S. government could drastically reduce corporate taxes. If you want see what kind of effects that can have on attracting and keeping new businesses to your country, try here. Corporate taxes were lowered. Businesses flocked to it. Tax reveneues increased because of a larger tax base despite a lower marginal rate. The general standard of living for everyone went up. And you're against this idea?
The leadership does not want a nuclear apocalypse which would result in the destruction of Iran as well as the US, they want to make sure the US does not decide to invade them. Pretty much the only thing that can guarantee that is long range nukes.
Riiiiiight. Because we couldn't possibly nuke Iran from afar with our own voluminous collection of ICBM's. And Iran is nowhere near developing a missile that could hit the U.S. mainland.
Let's face it: if we wanted to destroy Iran, we could do so tomorrow, next month, or next year without any fear whatsoever of retaliation. The fact that we haven't despite a hostage crisis, decades of vitriolic rhetoric from Tehran, Iranian meddling in Iraq, threats to wipe Israel off the map, and Iranian nuclear ambitions is a sign that we are not the antagonists in this situation. If we wanted to be, we could do so with utter impunity. Remind me again why we're the evil empire and the Iranians are the poor, downtrodden, oppressed, benevolent people in this situation?
Should Iran manage to get nuclear weapons, they will likely use them. Probably on Israel, possibly somewhere else.
No, they won't. They'll threaten to use them, and the Western powers will back down and let Iran do whatever it wants. See Hitler, circa 1938.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to make the rest of us relive it.
Once people demand and establish direct democracy and stay active in it, no other solution will come close.
Except such an idea is the will of the mob. Whatever is popular will pass. Whatever is unpopular will not pass. Consider things like slavery and the Civil Rights Act. In both cases, a minority (blacks) were being either exploited or oppressed by a majority (whites). In your "perfect" system, the minority can never prevail over the majority unless you can convince the majority of a "higher purpose." History doesn't exactly shine with examples of that working. As it is, the representative democracy that is the United States abolished slavery and passed the Civil Rights Act even though there was never a majority of the population in favor of it. Your system would've denied that.
You'll notice how countries where people stay active in unions - France, Germany, Italy - have less wealth disparity, happier citizens, and have tended to be more pacifistic and less colonialist than the UK and the US.
Less wealth disparity? Please explain to me why it's a bad thing that somebody has more money than somebody else? Why should I care two damns how many billions of dollars Bill Gates has in his pocket? Does it prevent me from earning my own billion? No it does not. "Wealth disparity" is just a more slippery, fuzzy name for "wealth envy." Even though Bill Gates's billions don't hurt (or benefit) you directly in any way, you just don't like that he has them and you don't. So you despise the wealthy and dream up terms like "wealth disparity" to make you feel righteous in your hatred of anyone who has more toys than you.
And if you want to talk about "colonial" and use the US and UK as examples -- and France, Germany, and Italy as counter-examples -- then perhaps you should acquaint yourself with France's colonial history, or the German-Italian Axis powers of WWII. You see quite selective in your history, either out of ignorance or malice. I'm going to give you benefit of the doubt and assume you're just too ignorant to know better.