If I drop a drink on the floor, the fucking janitor will do his job, and I won't thank him for it.
PP:
I think this says more about you than it does about the grandparent. The janitor may be more replaceable than you (or they may not, after all, there are lots of ACs), but they're still human, and a little respect does a lot to improve the quality of their working environment, which in turn improves that of everyone else who works there.
Seriously. It's amazing to me how people will treat human beings who happen to have jobs those people regard as "beneath" themselves. I accidentally discovered how to get extra-special service just about everywhere here in São Paulo. Want to know the big secret? Simply treat the employees with the respect and dignity they deserve as human beings. Unfortunately, the few of us who do that end up standing out from the vast majority of people, who seem to treat waiters, buspersons, janitors, and manual laborers in general as if they were poorly made machines or annoying insects.
It's sad that just by being a decent person and treating human beings with respect, I set myself apart and become a favorite customer. But unfortunately, attitudes like the one in the GP are all too common. And this is not unique to Brazil. I see plenty of alleged human beings in the USA treating other human beings like crap just because of the jobs the second group holds, and I've seen the same kind of crap going on in other places I've visited too.
Everyone knows it's nice to be recognized for the work one does now and then, even though the company is already paying you a salary for that work. Why so many educated people can't seem to apply that concept to other people is kind of hard to understand.
GP: Would it really be that hard to thank the janitor for cleaning up the mess you made, or even to (gasp!) apologize for dropping a drink on the floor?
Dude, why didn't you look around for the bug that makes them misreport the news so horribly that a majority of FOX News viewers still believes Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and Saddam had WMDs when the US invaded?
The only disappointment in terms of plot, I felt, was that not a single Slytherin stayed behind after the evacuation of the school. I know, they are supposed to be cunning and self serving, but Harry was almost put into their house. Surely there must be a handful of Slytherins who, like him, are borderline and would have enough bravery to stand beside their schoolmates against the deatheaters.
Because it seemed Slytherin was heavily favoring Voldemort, I paid special attention to what Slughorn does when he showed up near the end. Slughorn is not just a Slytherin but the head of Slytherin House, and he does fight against the Death Eaters in the Battle of Hogwarts. Further, he seems to have been slightly offended by McGonagall's threat to "duel to kill" with any Slytherins that would take the side of the Death Eaters, but it was his own hesitation that made McGonagall say it. Still, he does make a decision and stand by it. He is one of three teachers directly fighting Voldemort late in the battle.
In any case, the PP's basic point is good. I don't remember mention of any Slytherin students staying and fighting on the side of Harry, the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army, and the Hogwarts teachers.
It's interesting that Rowling chose not to have more Slytherin students stay behind and play prominent roles in the Battle of Hogwarts, but chose to end the book with an epilogue in which Harry reassures one of his kids about the possibility of the Sorting Hat putting him (Harry's son) in Slytherin. He even mentions that the son, whose name is Albus Severus, is named for two Hogwarts Headmasters, and one of them, a Slytherin (Snape), was possibly the bravest man Harry ever met.
The other Alaskan senator, also a Republican, is under a cloud as well.
PP, responding to GP:
Don Young (R) is Alaska's sole Representative in Congress, not the other Alaskan Senator.
But the thing is that Alaska's other Senator, Lisa Murkowski (appointed to the job by her father), like the other two congresscritters from Alaska, is a Republican, and she is under an ethics cloud as well, just as the GP said.
I hope the parent poster doesn't feel bad. This kind of corruption is rampant after 6 years of Republican control of all three branches of the Federal government with no kind of oversight, and with the Republican leadership having willfully ignored or even removed the famous "checks and balances" we hear about in US history classes on the US government. Anyway, with all the corruption, it's easy to get confused.
You are inside the US media bubble, which managed to present things in a way that had about 80% of the US population finding Powell's ridiculous, lie-filled, truth-free presentation to the Security Council. I'm in a place where 90% of the population correctly recognized that Powell was full of shit. So who is it that has a problem with filtering facts? You have a huge handicap because of the way the US media filter the information before it gets to you.
Brazil's result on the "did you find Powell's presentation convincing" question and the question of support for the invasion of Iraq was pretty similar to results in most of the world. I only remember there being one other country outside the US and Israel (it was in Eastern Europe, if I'm not mistaken) where even a plurality found Powell convincing and/or supported the war. In most countries, overwhelming majorities were against the war and thought Powell's presentation was a joke. I think it was close in England, but I think the English people, like most of the people in the world, got it right.
Your very idea of who is in "the middle" in the USA is also clearly deeply affected by the US media bubble.
Staying in the airplane may not be cowardly, guiding it to hit a bunch of unsuspecting and innocent civilians certainly is.
So then what was "Shock and Awe," if not terrorism and utter cowardice?
And what is using cruise missiles and drones against unsuspecting and innocent civilians?
Sorry, I forgot. To people in the USA, Iraqi lives don't count.
And babbling about the "Republican-controlled media in the USA" is, well, just babbling.
Whatever. So riddle me this: why is it that the same number of US citizens know about the cost of John Edwards's haircut as know that Saddam didn't have WMDs when the USA invaded (about 45% on both)? Why is it that when the minority party in the Senate had a name that started with "D," all the media were talking about filibuster this and obstruction that, but now that the minority party has a name that starts with "R" (and is trying to block debate on something 70% of the US population wants), neither the word "filibuster" nor the word "obstruction" (or variants thereof) appear in the media reports. Just something or other about "extended debates" and "overnight debates." And why is it that the media don't call out the Republicans on their blatant hypocrisy? Just two years ago, Trent Lott said:
(Filibustering) is wrong. It's not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I'm perfectly prepared to blow the place up.
A spokesperson for Mitch McConnell, that paragon of integrity, said:
Senator McConnell always has and continues to fully support the use of what has become known as the "(nuclear)" option in order to restore the norms and traditions of the Senate.
Well, if McConnell was right then (OK, he wasn't, but bear with me), then now he is one of the ones not respecting the norms and traditions of the Senate. Never mind that the filibuster is part of the norms and traditions of the Senate.
Has a single mass media outlet pointed out that these hypocrites who were talking about changing the Senate rules to not allow filibusters anymore and get an "upperdownvote" (up or down vote) on the things they wanted are now calling for "extended debate" to prevent the Senate from passing legislation that 70% of the US population want? Hint: the answer is "no." Why is that?
Further, why is Fred Thompson's candidacy/non-candidacy (it depends on whether he's collecting money from supporters or trying to avoid obeying campaign laws) anything but a joke? He was seen as lazy and unproductive when he was in the Senate. Before that, as "Minority Counsel," he was a Nixon mole in the Watergate investigations and hearings, despite Nixon having nailed him as "dumb as Hell." The only reason anybody takes this chump seriously at all as a candidate for president of the USA is because the Republican media don't call him out and continue to pretend he's special and is coming to save the Republicans.
Why is it that the word "Republican" or even just the letter "R" in parentheses so rarely appears in articles about Duke Cunningham? Why is it that reporting on the commuting of Scooter Libby's sentence try to make the irrelevant comparison to Clinton's end-of-second-term pardons and ignore the oh-so-important fact that Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, and his obstruction of justice was in a case that involved the Bush White House. Libby lied in court to cover up worse things happening in the White House. Bush commuting his sentence (and probably pardoning him in January of 2009) furthers the obstruction of justice. That makes it different from most presidential pardons (or commutations). I can't think of another case, other than Bush's father pardoning the Iran-Contra criminals, where a presidential pardon (or commutation) interfered with an investigation of the president himself and his administration. Despite the very unusual nature o
And just like the Republicans in the media always do, the parent post takes the quote out of context and misuses to make it an anti-troop thing. And it only took 33 minutes!
Want to help the troops? Help get rid of Bush and his gang. I cannot think of another US president who was nearly as bad for US troops as Bush, whose defenders accuse everyone who doesn't like his policies of being anti-US and anti-troops. The Bush White House and its rubber-stamp accomplices in the 2001-2006 Congress have screwed veterans so they could give tax cuts to the richest 0.5%. They have, as the parent came close to noting (but cleverly avoided "going there"), changed the operational policy. Troops used to get more time off between in-country rotations than they spent on the rotations. The Bushies have changed the ratio and increased the amount of time (6 months became 9, 9 became 12, 12 became 15... what's next?) troops have to spend. Further, the only real mission that was accomplished, the invasion of Afghanistan, has now been undone by lack of attention, because the Bushies have left the armed forces stretched waaayyy too thin. Additionally, the Bush executive branch has totally failed to adequately equip the soldiers in Iraq. Body armor? Vehicle armor? Well, you go to war with the army you have, right? And WRAMC? Just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
There was no reason for an invasion and occupation of Iraq, and therefore no reason for the situation in Afghanistan to get as bad as it has. Al Qaida has regrouped, and we're now basically back where we were in the Summer of 2001. There's a good chance Al Qaida and the Taliban will retake at least large parts of Afghanistan, and I think even Musharraf's terrorist-supporting government (oops, sorry... he's the US's "ally" in the "war on terror.") could be in trouble next door in Pakistan.
I wrote:
Not only is Maher's comment protected speech, but he was right too!
To which the parent of this post responded:
Try parroting that shit to the folks who are spending 12 or 15 months at a time in Iraq. I imagine they might have a different opinion.
The troops currently in Iraq have nothing to do with Maher's comments in September of 2001, when there weren't even US troops in Afghanistan yet, let alone Iraq. Maher's speech was clearly of the protected kind, despite what that fascist Fleischman said, and Maher was right on the facts.
On September 17, 2001, Bill Maher got himself into a lot of trouble with the Republican-controlled media in the USA by saying the following:
We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly. Stupid maybe, but not cowardly.
The White House spokeswhore (Ari Fleischer at the time) responded in a predictable, but still scary manner:
There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that. There never is.
Not only is Maher's comment protected speech, but he was right too!
I'm sure an apology will be forthcoming from the White House, the Pentagon, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, plus all the media sheep that don't dare disagree with the entities I just mentioned. I think I'll hold my breath while I wait for it.
Heh. According to his Congressional campaign site, Strimling and his wife live on Brackett Street, across from Reiche School, and he even announced his candidacy at Reiche. That's walking distance (a couple of blocks) from Waynflete School, where I studied from 1979 to 1987. I used to walk (and later, drive) past Reiche on Spring Street whenever I went downtown. I must have passed right in front of Strimling's house a couple of weeks ago when I was in Portland for my high school reunion. This is something cool about Maine... I haven't lived there in 20 years, and I now live several thousand miles away, in a different country, and yet I am certain I know people who know Sen. Strimling.
When I mentioned Hannah Pingree, it was because of other good work she'd done. I went to the title page of LD 1675 specifically to see if she was there, and she was, as a cosponsor. I did not mean to take any credit away from state Sen. Strimling, who did indeed present the legislation, or any of the other cosponsors.
Strimling looks like a very good candidate for Congress. I could support him (dammit, how I wish I could vote in Maine elections!). That actually might be a good thing - Strimling in DC representing the first district, and Hannah Pingree continuing her good work in the Maine state legislature for a time, possibly including the state senate, where her mother already served.
Interesting question: why are the Democrats so far ahead of the Republicans on the "nerd issues" in Maine (electronic voting, national ID and privacy issues, and now net neutrality)?
As an expat from Maine who still pays some attention to what goes on in his home state, I have already been a fan of state Rep Hannah Pingree for some time. She was the sponsor of an early law requiring a paper trail (and originally, but not in the final version passed, open source software) in electronic voting machines. I wrote about it here. Well, I went to the title page of the legislation, and there's Representative PINGREE from North Haven as one of the co-sponsors.
Additionally, Rep. Pingree has become the majority leader in the Maine state legislature. I am a fan of Ms. Pingree's work and look forward to following her political career. I'm torn, though. She seems to be effective in the state legislature, but since Tom Allen has announced he will run for Senate against Susan Collins, that leaves Allen's first district US House seat available. I've heard rumors that both Hannah Pingree and her mother, Chellie Pingree, were both considering running for that seat. Much as I like Hannah's work in the state legislature, I start to wonder if she couldn't get some stuff done on the Federal level. I'd like to have somebody with a background like Hannah Pingree's (voting machine legislation and net neutrality being the two "nerd issues" relevant to this discussion, but there are others on which I agree with Ms. Pingree) representing Maine in DC.
What kills me is the fact that, although I identify with Maine and still have a clue what's going on in Maine, I have to vote absentee in Federal elections (Congress, Senate, President) in the district in California that was the last place I lived in the USA. Even though I lived for 8 years in California, I do not identify as strongly with the state (it was a great place to live, but I'm from Maine) and, despite it getting a lot more media attention, I am not really up on California state legislation and politics. I don't need to be, because since I'm an expat, I only get to vote in Federal elections, but I really wish I could vote in the state with which I identify instead of the last place I happened to live before leaving the USA.
I recently found out that friend of mine from childhood and adolescence is now a state rep in Maine. I just saw him a few weeks ago at my 20 year high school reunion. I didn't know about LD 1675 when I saw him, but I've already shot him an e-mail asking him about it. I'm almost sure he would vote the way I would. Even if I didn't know him and like him from when we were kids, he seems to be a politician I could like based on the issues and based on his way of doing things. Anyway, I'm following legislative and political goings-on in Maine in part because Maine is my home state, but also because Hannah Pingree (and, it turns out, a friend from my childhood) is doing things there that make me proud to be a "Downeastah."
Yeh... I thought of this when I went out in the frickin' cold a little while ago. I had 37 on the brain from my posts here, and it occurred to me that while the air temperature was in the neighborhood of 8 or 9C, my body's temperature was probably somewhere below 37 and above 35. Then the whole shiver-at-35C thing made sense.
Jeebus... the human body is normally at about 37C, not 37.5C. Naturally, I only checked this after hitting the "submit" button. If I'd been correcting the GP's spelling or grammar, I would have made some dumbass typing error. The universe has a sense of humor.
Plus I've just noticed that Slashdot eats the "degree" symbols I have placed between numbers and "F" or "C" in these posts. Weird. Right now, there are no "degree" symbols in the preview of my post, but here in the "comment" field, they still appear as I typed them.
Anyway, despite the half-degree error in the normal human body temperature, the point of the parent post stands.
27C is pretty warm, and 35C is hot. I think the body, which is normally at about 37.5C, would be more interested in sweating than in shivering at those temperatures.
You mean 25F and 35F, right? Those are on opposite sides of the freezing point of water, which is 32C.
No, I think the current Health Minister is José Temporão. The Health Minister from 1998 to 2002 was José Serra.
His term as Health Minister is mentioned in the second paragraph of the biography on his Wikipedia page in English. It is given more prominence on his Wikipedia page in Portuguese - it is even mentioned in the introductory paragraph at the top of the page.
>>...having been repeatedly proven not to decrease teen pregnancy at all, but proven to lead to increased incidence of STDs, including AIDS.
References please?
OK. How about a report on the results of abstinence-only sex education, which has been implemented because of Bush Administration policy promoting abstinence-only sex education at the expense of things like teaching people about birth control and disease control? The government (Department of Health and Human Services) buried it in a Friday afternoon news dump in April, but you can read it (PDF) here.
The strawman at the end of your post is a riot. Abstinence-only education would suggest never carrying scissors at all, even when you need to use them. The kind of education I'm promoting would warn you about the dangers of running with scissors and would teach you how to walk safely with scissors. The abstinence-only version of the BB gun would be not using the gun at all. Education analogous to the kind of sex education I think worthwhile would be teaching the user how the gun works, how to use it properly, and warning the user of the dangers of using it improperly. Much better than a simple "don't use it."
Yes, abstinence is the only way to completely stop the spread of STDs, but that doesn't mean it's the best solution. Asking people not to have sex when their bodies really, really want to do it is not realistic. Sex is one of the fundamental drives at the root of much of human behavior.
It sure is nice to live in a country that makes it very clear the dangers of aids, I'm not so sure Brazillians have that luxury.
While I agree with the overall point your post makes, I'd like to tell you that Brazil has an outstanding AIDS policy, one that has been praised by the WHO (called OMS here - Organização Mundial de Saúde) and copied by numerous other countries. Brazil's policy includes free distribution of condoms, distribution of clean needles to addicts of intravenous drugs, and free access to the best and most modern drugs. It also includes free HIV and STD testing, a service I've personally used a few times. I am not in a high risk group, but it's good to be sure. Further, the Brazilian government's AIDS policy includes education. I myself learned quite a bit from the people at the government health center near my apartment where I have gotten HIV tests. The test result is given by a counselor, and the counselor gave me a lot of information I didn't previously have about STDs and HIV. Since I am highly educated and generally try to keep myself well-informed, I was surprised at how much basic information I didn't know before the counselor told me.
So in Brazil, in fact, the dangers of AIDS are made very clear by the excellent educational portion of the AIDS policy. Further, unlike the USA, insane religious fanatics don't have the power to push idiocy like the "abstinence only" sex education pushed in a lot of places in the USA despite having been repeatedly proven not to decrease teen pregnancy at all, but proven to lead to increased incidence of STDs, including AIDS. So let me bounce it right backatcha and say it sure is nice to live in a country where the public interest is placed above the sensitivities of lunatics who want to impose their beliefs on others, even if imposition of those beliefs can be a death sentence.
there is a difference between making a profit and gouging poor people for a drug they need
Right. And in this case, the Brazilian government, whose AIDS policy is a model being copied by other countries worldwide, makes sure every single HIV and AIDS patient in Brazil has the medicines. It therefore has huge bargaining power, because it represents such a large number of patients. The former Health Minister, the man responsible for Brazil's AIDS policy, is José Serra, currently the governor of São Paulo state (think of it as being like holding the offices of governor of California and New York and you start to get an idea of the importance of that post). Before anyone cries for the poor drug companies, there are a few important facts you need to know. First, when Serra was still Health Minister, the drug companies decided to try to make more money since the government was buying up everything. They tried to increase their prices when they were already reaping massive profits (all these drugs are mature products in the "cash cow" phase of the product lifecycle, so the BS "paying for research" argument doesn't fly in this case) at the old price. And now the Brazilian government is asking that Merck charge the same price here as they charge in Thailand. And you can be sure Merck is not selling at that price in Thailand as a public service - they are making a profit there too.
When Serra originally went to the two largest makers of AIDS drugs that sell in Brazil, he showed them that the Brazilian constitution permits the Health Minister to determine that a given epidemic is an emergency situation, and in case of emergencies, the Federal Government, on the recommendation of the Health Minister, can break patents. Serra went to the companies and told them he didn't want to do that, but that they would have to negotiate with him in good faith or he would simply break their patents. As I recall, one went along and the other balked for a time, until they saw that Serra wasn't bluffing and was really going to allow Brazilian pharma companies to manufacture the patented drug. I'm surprised the president had to go this far, but the drug companies may have decided to improve their bottom line by doing a little gouging of AIDS patients in Brazil. I'm proud of the government for not knuckling under to Big Pharma. If only the US government would see that and be shamed into actually standing up to Big Pharma on any issue, any issue at all. Instead, you all (I fled 7 years ago) will have to deal with health care prices spiraling out of control until almost nobody can afford it. I have to tell you I'm happy to be in Brazil, a country that actually cares about its residents' health. Yes, I said RESIDENTS. I'm not even a citizen yet! Brazil isn't xenophobic like the USA either, and does not see me, an immigrant, as some kind of threat or some kind of outsider to be treated like crap. Contrast that with how immigrants are treated in the USA these days... I understand there were huge anti-immigration rallies in the USA last week.
Just a quick disclaimer: I think Serra was one hell of a great Health Minister. In addition to standing up to Big Pharma on AIDS drugs, he was also the one who successfully pushed for a law permitting generic drugs (before him, there were none in Brazil), something you can be sure the price gougers from Big Pharma were opposing every step of the way. Serra was really brave to stand up to them on those two points, and I'm proud of him for doing it. He also worked hard (from the executive branch) with the Brazilian Congress to pass a modern organ donation law in Brazil, basically doing away with the black market for transplantable organs that existed before. All that said, I don't think Serra would be much of a president, and I can't say I'm unhappy he lost in his bid for the presidency in 2002. I suspect he'll run again in 2010, because the current president, who is serving his second consecutive term and is still massively p
Generally I would expect that not needing packaging, delivery trucks, shelf space, etc, would result in the end product being cheaper due to the lack of need to pay for all that stuff... but no, somehow delivering less is a "feature" that makes sense to pay extra money for.
Yay for Apple hater logic.
What makes you think companies should set their prices based on costs? They should set their prices according to the market. Apple has been successful selling music at iTMS prices because people are willing to pay that price for the convenience of buying their music from home, work, or anywhere else they can connect to the internet, without restrictions on what's offered because of the sensitivity of somebody in Bentonville.
And outlaw services like the pirate Web sites that use BitTorrent technology demonstrated that digital piracy, which had consumed the music business first, now posed a real problem for Hollywood.
(Emphasis mine)
OK. I'll raise the BS flag.
Digital piracy did not consume the music business. Price gouging, crappy releases, treating customers like criminals, and failure to adapt to changing technologies harmed the music business. That is, just as with so many other businesses, the cause of problems in the music business was simple mismanagement.
Actually, this is quite common practice. A lot of people assume that just because the package is bigger, the "cost per gram" or "cost per ounce" MUST be lower - and they buy accordingly. Not only didn't the retailer screw up - he's making more by this "tax on ignorance."
That's a good point. Also, as I mentioned in the grandparent post, sometimes a retailer might do that in order to move the smaller ones if they had too many units of that size in stock. But what's really cool is that the software can actually pick up on how the customers at any given store respond to these situations and set the prices accordingly. The pricing policy can require the unit price to go down as the package size goes up in stores where people (on average) act more like the author of the parent post and use the parent post's "tax on ignorance" in the stores where people don't (on average) bother calculating the unit price.
This all goes back to what Ken was saying in TFA about using methods from theoretical physics and chemical engineering (I was a physics student and Ken was a chem-E student; our advisor is a chemical engineer by training who is a respected researcher in the area of theoretical macromolecular and other "soft" condensed matter physics) to predict the behavior of people in stores. While each one of us is a unique human being with his own quirks and policies for buying, the behavior of the customers in a given store on average can be understood and then predicted pretty well using software. As Ken said, that's really surprising.
So on the one hand, we have multibillion dollar retailers who are spending a lot of money on these solutions and entrusting them with the guts of their business, all after having tested the solutions with real data, and on the other we have the intuition of an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot that computers won't be able to pick up important factors. Hmmm... I wonder which analysis I ought to give more weight.
The technology is that good. Retailers have reported huge gains in both revenue and profits from implementing KhiMetrics and other price optimization solutions. Since I'm insisting on making the case, I'll repeat that I have no financial stake at all in SAP or in the success of KhiMetrics, much less any of its competitors like DemandTec. I did have a brief flirtation with SAP last month about possibly working with KhiMetrics and other related solutions here in Brazil, but our conversation didn't get past the part where they were looking for somebody full-time. I already have commitments that keep me from taking a full-time job as an employee.
And as for the "autopilot is convenient but not always optimal" comment, I'll refer the AC to my post (the grandparent of this one), in which I stated that the software provides tools for understanding why the optimization software is recommending a given price change, and any price change may of course be overridden. As I said in the earlier post, one is not required to accept price recommendations blindly.
Slashdot Mirror
RIAA's lawyers: "Ruh roh!"
It's sad that just by being a decent person and treating human beings with respect, I set myself apart and become a favorite customer. But unfortunately, attitudes like the one in the GP are all too common. And this is not unique to Brazil. I see plenty of alleged human beings in the USA treating other human beings like crap just because of the jobs the second group holds, and I've seen the same kind of crap going on in other places I've visited too.
Everyone knows it's nice to be recognized for the work one does now and then, even though the company is already paying you a salary for that work. Why so many educated people can't seem to apply that concept to other people is kind of hard to understand.
GP: Would it really be that hard to thank the janitor for cleaning up the mess you made, or even to (gasp!) apologize for dropping a drink on the floor?
Dude, why didn't you look around for the bug that makes them misreport the news so horribly that a majority of FOX News viewers still believes Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and Saddam had WMDs when the US invaded?
In any case, the PP's basic point is good. I don't remember mention of any Slytherin students staying and fighting on the side of Harry, the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army, and the Hogwarts teachers.
It's interesting that Rowling chose not to have more Slytherin students stay behind and play prominent roles in the Battle of Hogwarts, but chose to end the book with an epilogue in which Harry reassures one of his kids about the possibility of the Sorting Hat putting him (Harry's son) in Slytherin. He even mentions that the son, whose name is Albus Severus, is named for two Hogwarts Headmasters, and one of them, a Slytherin (Snape), was possibly the bravest man Harry ever met.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003718.php
I hope the parent poster doesn't feel bad. This kind of corruption is rampant after 6 years of Republican control of all three branches of the Federal government with no kind of oversight, and with the Republican leadership having willfully ignored or even removed the famous "checks and balances" we hear about in US history classes on the US government. Anyway, with all the corruption, it's easy to get confused.
You are inside the US media bubble, which managed to present things in a way that had about 80% of the US population finding Powell's ridiculous, lie-filled, truth-free presentation to the Security Council. I'm in a place where 90% of the population correctly recognized that Powell was full of shit. So who is it that has a problem with filtering facts? You have a huge handicap because of the way the US media filter the information before it gets to you.
Brazil's result on the "did you find Powell's presentation convincing" question and the question of support for the invasion of Iraq was pretty similar to results in most of the world. I only remember there being one other country outside the US and Israel (it was in Eastern Europe, if I'm not mistaken) where even a plurality found Powell convincing and/or supported the war. In most countries, overwhelming majorities were against the war and thought Powell's presentation was a joke. I think it was close in England, but I think the English people, like most of the people in the world, got it right.
Your very idea of who is in "the middle" in the USA is also clearly deeply affected by the US media bubble.
So then what was "Shock and Awe," if not terrorism and utter cowardice?
And what is using cruise missiles and drones against unsuspecting and innocent civilians?
Sorry, I forgot. To people in the USA, Iraqi lives don't count.
Whatever. So riddle me this: why is it that the same number of US citizens know about the cost of John Edwards's haircut as know that Saddam didn't have WMDs when the USA invaded (about 45% on both)? Why is it that when the minority party in the Senate had a name that started with "D," all the media were talking about filibuster this and obstruction that, but now that the minority party has a name that starts with "R" (and is trying to block debate on something 70% of the US population wants), neither the word "filibuster" nor the word "obstruction" (or variants thereof) appear in the media reports. Just something or other about "extended debates" and "overnight debates." And why is it that the media don't call out the Republicans on their blatant hypocrisy? Just two years ago, Trent Lott said:
A spokesperson for Mitch McConnell, that paragon of integrity, said:
Well, if McConnell was right then (OK, he wasn't, but bear with me), then now he is one of the ones not respecting the norms and traditions of the Senate. Never mind that the filibuster is part of the norms and traditions of the Senate.
Has a single mass media outlet pointed out that these hypocrites who were talking about changing the Senate rules to not allow filibusters anymore and get an "upperdownvote" (up or down vote) on the things they wanted are now calling for "extended debate" to prevent the Senate from passing legislation that 70% of the US population want? Hint: the answer is "no." Why is that?
Further, why is Fred Thompson's candidacy/non-candidacy (it depends on whether he's collecting money from supporters or trying to avoid obeying campaign laws) anything but a joke? He was seen as lazy and unproductive when he was in the Senate. Before that, as "Minority Counsel," he was a Nixon mole in the Watergate investigations and hearings, despite Nixon having nailed him as "dumb as Hell." The only reason anybody takes this chump seriously at all as a candidate for president of the USA is because the Republican media don't call him out and continue to pretend he's special and is coming to save the Republicans.
Why is it that the word "Republican" or even just the letter "R" in parentheses so rarely appears in articles about Duke Cunningham? Why is it that reporting on the commuting of Scooter Libby's sentence try to make the irrelevant comparison to Clinton's end-of-second-term pardons and ignore the oh-so-important fact that Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, and his obstruction of justice was in a case that involved the Bush White House. Libby lied in court to cover up worse things happening in the White House. Bush commuting his sentence (and probably pardoning him in January of 2009) furthers the obstruction of justice. That makes it different from most presidential pardons (or commutations). I can't think of another case, other than Bush's father pardoning the Iran-Contra criminals, where a presidential pardon (or commutation) interfered with an investigation of the president himself and his administration. Despite the very unusual nature o
Want to help the troops? Help get rid of Bush and his gang. I cannot think of another US president who was nearly as bad for US troops as Bush, whose defenders accuse everyone who doesn't like his policies of being anti-US and anti-troops. The Bush White House and its rubber-stamp accomplices in the 2001-2006 Congress have screwed veterans so they could give tax cuts to the richest 0.5%. They have, as the parent came close to noting (but cleverly avoided "going there"), changed the operational policy. Troops used to get more time off between in-country rotations than they spent on the rotations. The Bushies have changed the ratio and increased the amount of time (6 months became 9, 9 became 12, 12 became 15... what's next?) troops have to spend. Further, the only real mission that was accomplished, the invasion of Afghanistan, has now been undone by lack of attention, because the Bushies have left the armed forces stretched waaayyy too thin. Additionally, the Bush executive branch has totally failed to adequately equip the soldiers in Iraq. Body armor? Vehicle armor? Well, you go to war with the army you have, right? And WRAMC? Just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
There was no reason for an invasion and occupation of Iraq, and therefore no reason for the situation in Afghanistan to get as bad as it has. Al Qaida has regrouped, and we're now basically back where we were in the Summer of 2001. There's a good chance Al Qaida and the Taliban will retake at least large parts of Afghanistan, and I think even Musharraf's terrorist-supporting government (oops, sorry... he's the US's "ally" in the "war on terror.") could be in trouble next door in Pakistan.
I wrote: To which the parent of this post responded: The troops currently in Iraq have nothing to do with Maher's comments in September of 2001, when there weren't even US troops in Afghanistan yet, let alone Iraq. Maher's speech was clearly of the protected kind, despite what that fascist Fleischman said, and Maher was right on the facts.
I'm sure an apology will be forthcoming from the White House, the Pentagon, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, plus all the media sheep that don't dare disagree with the entities I just mentioned. I think I'll hold my breath while I wait for it.
Heh. According to his Congressional campaign site, Strimling and his wife live on Brackett Street, across from Reiche School, and he even announced his candidacy at Reiche. That's walking distance (a couple of blocks) from Waynflete School, where I studied from 1979 to 1987. I used to walk (and later, drive) past Reiche on Spring Street whenever I went downtown. I must have passed right in front of Strimling's house a couple of weeks ago when I was in Portland for my high school reunion. This is something cool about Maine... I haven't lived there in 20 years, and I now live several thousand miles away, in a different country, and yet I am certain I know people who know Sen. Strimling.
When I mentioned Hannah Pingree, it was because of other good work she'd done. I went to the title page of LD 1675 specifically to see if she was there, and she was, as a cosponsor. I did not mean to take any credit away from state Sen. Strimling, who did indeed present the legislation, or any of the other cosponsors.
Strimling looks like a very good candidate for Congress. I could support him (dammit, how I wish I could vote in Maine elections!). That actually might be a good thing - Strimling in DC representing the first district, and Hannah Pingree continuing her good work in the Maine state legislature for a time, possibly including the state senate, where her mother already served.
Interesting question: why are the Democrats so far ahead of the Republicans on the "nerd issues" in Maine (electronic voting, national ID and privacy issues, and now net neutrality)?
As an expat from Maine who still pays some attention to what goes on in his home state, I have already been a fan of state Rep Hannah Pingree for some time. She was the sponsor of an early law requiring a paper trail (and originally, but not in the final version passed, open source software) in electronic voting machines. I wrote about it here. Well, I went to the title page of the legislation, and there's Representative PINGREE from North Haven as one of the co-sponsors.
Additionally, Rep. Pingree has become the majority leader in the Maine state legislature. I am a fan of Ms. Pingree's work and look forward to following her political career. I'm torn, though. She seems to be effective in the state legislature, but since Tom Allen has announced he will run for Senate against Susan Collins, that leaves Allen's first district US House seat available. I've heard rumors that both Hannah Pingree and her mother, Chellie Pingree, were both considering running for that seat. Much as I like Hannah's work in the state legislature, I start to wonder if she couldn't get some stuff done on the Federal level. I'd like to have somebody with a background like Hannah Pingree's (voting machine legislation and net neutrality being the two "nerd issues" relevant to this discussion, but there are others on which I agree with Ms. Pingree) representing Maine in DC.
What kills me is the fact that, although I identify with Maine and still have a clue what's going on in Maine, I have to vote absentee in Federal elections (Congress, Senate, President) in the district in California that was the last place I lived in the USA. Even though I lived for 8 years in California, I do not identify as strongly with the state (it was a great place to live, but I'm from Maine) and, despite it getting a lot more media attention, I am not really up on California state legislation and politics. I don't need to be, because since I'm an expat, I only get to vote in Federal elections, but I really wish I could vote in the state with which I identify instead of the last place I happened to live before leaving the USA.
I recently found out that friend of mine from childhood and adolescence is now a state rep in Maine. I just saw him a few weeks ago at my 20 year high school reunion. I didn't know about LD 1675 when I saw him, but I've already shot him an e-mail asking him about it. I'm almost sure he would vote the way I would. Even if I didn't know him and like him from when we were kids, he seems to be a politician I could like based on the issues and based on his way of doing things. Anyway, I'm following legislative and political goings-on in Maine in part because Maine is my home state, but also because Hannah Pingree (and, it turns out, a friend from my childhood) is doing things there that make me proud to be a "Downeastah."
Ayuh.
This has been another edition of Easy Answers to Stupid Astroturfer Questions.
Yeh... I thought of this when I went out in the frickin' cold a little while ago. I had 37 on the brain from my posts here, and it occurred to me that while the air temperature was in the neighborhood of 8 or 9C, my body's temperature was probably somewhere below 37 and above 35. Then the whole shiver-at-35C thing made sense.
Jeebus... the human body is normally at about 37C, not 37.5C. Naturally, I only checked this after hitting the "submit" button. If I'd been correcting the GP's spelling or grammar, I would have made some dumbass typing error. The universe has a sense of humor.
Plus I've just noticed that Slashdot eats the "degree" symbols I have placed between numbers and "F" or "C" in these posts. Weird. Right now, there are no "degree" symbols in the preview of my post, but here in the "comment" field, they still appear as I typed them.
Anyway, despite the half-degree error in the normal human body temperature, the point of the parent post stands.
27C is pretty warm, and 35C is hot. I think the body, which is normally at about 37.5C, would be more interested in sweating than in shivering at those temperatures.
You mean 25F and 35F, right? Those are on opposite sides of the freezing point of water, which is 32C.
No, I think the current Health Minister is José Temporão. The Health Minister from 1998 to 2002 was José Serra.
His term as Health Minister is mentioned in the second paragraph of the biography on his Wikipedia page in English. It is given more prominence on his Wikipedia page in Portuguese - it is even mentioned in the introductory paragraph at the top of the page.
The strawman at the end of your post is a riot. Abstinence-only education would suggest never carrying scissors at all, even when you need to use them. The kind of education I'm promoting would warn you about the dangers of running with scissors and would teach you how to walk safely with scissors. The abstinence-only version of the BB gun would be not using the gun at all. Education analogous to the kind of sex education I think worthwhile would be teaching the user how the gun works, how to use it properly, and warning the user of the dangers of using it improperly. Much better than a simple "don't use it."
Yes, abstinence is the only way to completely stop the spread of STDs, but that doesn't mean it's the best solution. Asking people not to have sex when their bodies really, really want to do it is not realistic. Sex is one of the fundamental drives at the root of much of human behavior.
So in Brazil, in fact, the dangers of AIDS are made very clear by the excellent educational portion of the AIDS policy. Further, unlike the USA, insane religious fanatics don't have the power to push idiocy like the "abstinence only" sex education pushed in a lot of places in the USA despite having been repeatedly proven not to decrease teen pregnancy at all, but proven to lead to increased incidence of STDs, including AIDS. So let me bounce it right backatcha and say it sure is nice to live in a country where the public interest is placed above the sensitivities of lunatics who want to impose their beliefs on others, even if imposition of those beliefs can be a death sentence.
Right. And in this case, the Brazilian government, whose AIDS policy is a model being copied by other countries worldwide, makes sure every single HIV and AIDS patient in Brazil has the medicines. It therefore has huge bargaining power, because it represents such a large number of patients. The former Health Minister, the man responsible for Brazil's AIDS policy, is José Serra, currently the governor of São Paulo state (think of it as being like holding the offices of governor of California and New York and you start to get an idea of the importance of that post). Before anyone cries for the poor drug companies, there are a few important facts you need to know. First, when Serra was still Health Minister, the drug companies decided to try to make more money since the government was buying up everything. They tried to increase their prices when they were already reaping massive profits (all these drugs are mature products in the "cash cow" phase of the product lifecycle, so the BS "paying for research" argument doesn't fly in this case) at the old price. And now the Brazilian government is asking that Merck charge the same price here as they charge in Thailand. And you can be sure Merck is not selling at that price in Thailand as a public service - they are making a profit there too.
When Serra originally went to the two largest makers of AIDS drugs that sell in Brazil, he showed them that the Brazilian constitution permits the Health Minister to determine that a given epidemic is an emergency situation, and in case of emergencies, the Federal Government, on the recommendation of the Health Minister, can break patents. Serra went to the companies and told them he didn't want to do that, but that they would have to negotiate with him in good faith or he would simply break their patents. As I recall, one went along and the other balked for a time, until they saw that Serra wasn't bluffing and was really going to allow Brazilian pharma companies to manufacture the patented drug. I'm surprised the president had to go this far, but the drug companies may have decided to improve their bottom line by doing a little gouging of AIDS patients in Brazil. I'm proud of the government for not knuckling under to Big Pharma. If only the US government would see that and be shamed into actually standing up to Big Pharma on any issue, any issue at all. Instead, you all (I fled 7 years ago) will have to deal with health care prices spiraling out of control until almost nobody can afford it. I have to tell you I'm happy to be in Brazil, a country that actually cares about its residents' health. Yes, I said RESIDENTS. I'm not even a citizen yet! Brazil isn't xenophobic like the USA either, and does not see me, an immigrant, as some kind of threat or some kind of outsider to be treated like crap. Contrast that with how immigrants are treated in the USA these days... I understand there were huge anti-immigration rallies in the USA last week.
Just a quick disclaimer: I think Serra was one hell of a great Health Minister. In addition to standing up to Big Pharma on AIDS drugs, he was also the one who successfully pushed for a law permitting generic drugs (before him, there were none in Brazil), something you can be sure the price gougers from Big Pharma were opposing every step of the way. Serra was really brave to stand up to them on those two points, and I'm proud of him for doing it. He also worked hard (from the executive branch) with the Brazilian Congress to pass a modern organ donation law in Brazil, basically doing away with the black market for transplantable organs that existed before. All that said, I don't think Serra would be much of a president, and I can't say I'm unhappy he lost in his bid for the presidency in 2002. I suspect he'll run again in 2010, because the current president, who is serving his second consecutive term and is still massively p
What makes you think companies should set their prices based on costs? They should set their prices according to the market. Apple has been successful selling music at iTMS prices because people are willing to pay that price for the convenience of buying their music from home, work, or anywhere else they can connect to the internet, without restrictions on what's offered because of the sensitivity of somebody in Bentonville.
Yes.
OK. I'll raise the BS flag.
Digital piracy did not consume the music business. Price gouging, crappy releases, treating customers like criminals, and failure to adapt to changing technologies harmed the music business. That is, just as with so many other businesses, the cause of problems in the music business was simple mismanagement.
This all goes back to what Ken was saying in TFA about using methods from theoretical physics and chemical engineering (I was a physics student and Ken was a chem-E student; our advisor is a chemical engineer by training who is a respected researcher in the area of theoretical macromolecular and other "soft" condensed matter physics) to predict the behavior of people in stores. While each one of us is a unique human being with his own quirks and policies for buying, the behavior of the customers in a given store on average can be understood and then predicted pretty well using software. As Ken said, that's really surprising.
So on the one hand, we have multibillion dollar retailers who are spending a lot of money on these solutions and entrusting them with the guts of their business, all after having tested the solutions with real data, and on the other we have the intuition of an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot that computers won't be able to pick up important factors. Hmmm... I wonder which analysis I ought to give more weight.
The technology is that good. Retailers have reported huge gains in both revenue and profits from implementing KhiMetrics and other price optimization solutions. Since I'm insisting on making the case, I'll repeat that I have no financial stake at all in SAP or in the success of KhiMetrics, much less any of its competitors like DemandTec. I did have a brief flirtation with SAP last month about possibly working with KhiMetrics and other related solutions here in Brazil, but our conversation didn't get past the part where they were looking for somebody full-time. I already have commitments that keep me from taking a full-time job as an employee.
And as for the "autopilot is convenient but not always optimal" comment, I'll refer the AC to my post (the grandparent of this one), in which I stated that the software provides tools for understanding why the optimization software is recommending a given price change, and any price change may of course be overridden. As I said in the earlier post, one is not required to accept price recommendations blindly.