I don't deny that those mistakes were made, and was abundantly aware of them when I posted. But it is disengenuous at best comparing the nature, cause and breadth of those mistakes - and the character and motivation of the men who made them - with the current administration's actions and concluding (or implying) much similarity.
You think Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Carter would really try this stuff? I don't, and I don't think you do either. Yet it's become popular to grouse about how the whole political system sucks, how you don't have any choices, how it doesn't matter who is in office because they're all the same and pretty much leave it at that.
I call bullshit. They're not all the same. Some are definitely, demonstrably better or worse than others. The "Current Administration," in my opinion, will go down in history as THE WORST administration this country has ever had up to the present day - in so many ways and for so many reasons - to what is truly a treasonable extent. Given the outright contempt for the existing laws of the U.S., the spirit in which they were written and the rights of the citizens of the U.S. (to a degree and with an arrogance and seeming malice unequalled in previous U.S. history) demonstrated by this "Current Administration" on an almost daily basis, it is very important to know that it wasn't always this way, and it doesn't need to be this way.
Painting all politicians and political/governmental decisons and activities with the same brush, denouncing one and all as "chimps" or "scum" is muddleheaded thinking that does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to help it. It's a cop out, a blank check to take your toys and go home, rather than expending the effort to find and empower the next Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson or Lincoln. It's the mindset of the victim at heart - I can't do anything so I'll just suffer noisily because everyone else is an idiot. You have to do more than "Just Say No," because you think everyone but you knows what's what. You have to find those who can bring ideas to which it makes sense to say yes to office, you have to elect the non-scum - they're out there, but you won't find them or be served by them with the kind of attitude that lumps all politicians and public servants into the same sludge bin indiscriminately.
If you want the real U.S. back you have to work for it, we all do, and that means much more than just saying no and bitching about how all politicians suck.
The President names the head of NASA, the head of NASA sets the tone and agenda for the whole organization. Very rarely does the head of NASA not fall into line with the President's space policy (if he has one). Congress approves or disapproves the plan set forth under the direction of the NASA administrator. Thus the focus of the space program is directly traceable to the President's thoughts and goals in this area.
In addition to sending men to the moon/Mars being a good sound bite for the general public, manned missions tend to be heavily oriented towards a Florida/Texas locale with a subsequent influence on their economies. Considering the obvious interest our current President has in those states, it's one more reason (not the only one), this administration has focused on manned missions.
We need to find a better balance between manned and unmanned missions for NASA, I think the pendulum swings a bit too far in either direction sometimes, and now is one of them. They really do have a symbiotic relationship, and we have need of both. Apart from that, it's time to put the shuttle down and work on our next manned vehicle more seriously - there's no good reason to keep those things flying anymore, send one to the Smithsonian and call it a day.
Maybe I read the article wrong, but it doesn't seem like there's a group in the study who just listened to songs straight without either being preempted by knowing the band/song name or what other people thought of it - ie. the group of people who listened to the song with no knowledge in any way about it before hand? Wouldn't the correct control group have been that one if you're interested in figuring out how the experience of a song's quality can be effected by external elements (title, other peoples' opinion)?
I guess my assumption is that the people running the study are (or should be) interested in figuring out why songs which people thought actually sound good (in the absence of preconceived notions whatever they may be) aren't as popular and conversely why songs that people actually thought sound not so good are popular. Could be a wrong assumption on my part - of course how the song sounds is all that matters to me, I couldn't care less what its name is or what other people think of it.
I suppose I'm not the target demographic of the study, but I find it ver y telling (and disturbing) that straight appreciation of how the song sounds doesn't even garner a mention in regard to why people liked the song for the purposes of this study.
But since these "scientists" have figured this out, I'll now use an appeal to popularity. If you're looking for tunes you might not have heard before but that might be good (works for me anyway) try grabbing a podcast from www.kcrw.org. My favorite show is metropolis, but there's usually at least a nugget or two in each show. It's public radio, which doesn't hurt either.
I opted in for all green power here in Pasadena, California U.S.A. (home of the Rose Parade/Rose Bowl) about seven months ago. It's about $5-$10 a month extra. I'm not naive enough to think there's a magic switch that channels only green power to my grid, I just think of it as the energy I use and pay for comes the portion of the of overall energy pool which is generated by green power.
Anyway, people in Pasadena should consider it if you can to assuage environmental concerns - plus they give you a free package of hallogen lightbulbs if you convert to using all green (or at least they did when I signed up).
There are a few problems in reasoning with the parent post.
Firstly, the example items mentioned WOULDN'T necessarily be tallied into the Chinese total, as they are indeed manufactured and sold by a company in the U.S. regardless of the location of manufacture. These would not normally be categorized as Chinese exports - normally export would mean a Chinese good purchased from a Chinese company.
Secondly while profits may accrue to a U.S. corporation, some of the wealth generated in such an endeavor would remain in China in the form of wages paid to Chinese workers, possible purchase of raw materials from Chinese sources, and related expenditures to support the endeavor (offices, plants, services, utilities, etc.). This is nominally at the expense of the U.S. economy as that wealth has moved from the U.S. to China.
Thirdly, in this particluar example and in an ever increasing majority of public holdings, the shareholder in fact does not receive any profits from the company whatsoever. Apple does not issue a dividend on their stock. Owning Apple stock is pure speculation on the rise in value of the shares. In that instance the investor realizes their profit by selling their shares for more than what they paid, not by receiving any money from Apple. Profitibility of the company is only indirectly related to the investor's return on investment in its effect on the stock price. Currently the only people who seem to benefit much from a company's profitability (as I said in a majority of cases it seems) are the officers of the company, with some crumbs thrown the regular employees way occasionally. And where do you think these officers keep their profits? Offshore banks for tax purposes perhaps? And do you think these officers are buying a majority of U.S. made items with all of their money? Thus the bulk of the profits do not necessarily end up getting plowed back into the U.S. economy, further decreasing the wealth comprising that economy.
Fourthly, saying foreigners have driven much of the growth indicates that they are investing money in Chinese companies, again moving wealth from the economy of the investor to the economy of the investee. Certainly the investor, if they receive a profitable return on the investment, MAY then increase the wealth of his "home" economy through expenditure of the profits, but I hesitate to say that that happens enough to make up for the grass roots wealth creation that is lost as a result of the investment leaving the U.S. In short TFA does not remotely say the same thing, even obliquely.
Finally, I see no basis for thinking U.S. production may still lead Chinese production because the U.S. leads the world "in resource hoggery." You have to pay for those resources somehow, and if you're running a trade deficit, with the threat of a devalued currency, it makes it difficult to continue to be able to afford being a resource hog, especially to the degree the U.S. has been.
Unless of course you start beating people up to secure the resources, and even then you have to have the money to buy the guns...
And the response of these workers and others in Europe is that they don't want to be chattel/wage slaves. Shocking isn't it? It seems like people in Europe can somehow envision a world where there is such a thing as enough profit, and that at the end of the day corporations exist for the betterment of all of society - not vice versa.
One of my old bosses had a great expression - "Trees don't grow to the sky." It was in relation to commodity trading, but it's applicable in many areas of life. Growth can not be infinite - it's simply not sustainable. At some point you need to be satisfied that you're running a profitable business, creating valued products.
Causing unemployment in Europe and the U.S. to save a couple sheckles on the front end will ultimately result in less wealth and less growth in the long run. You need someone to buy your products, and as others have already pointed out, the unemployed and minimum wage workers of the world aren't going to be able to do so. All the arm chair "free marketers" need to dig a little deeper with their analysis than parroting "corporations are in business to make money" and thereby whatever they do in that line makes sense - that may be a primary goal, but it certainly doesn't valildate or justify every decision corporations make.
Greed is good only works up to a point - after which you start eating your own young.
"The best people of my generation, 'gen Y' aren't empowered yet. They're the ones doing community building projects, watching over teens in crisis, helping deranged children get over what they can, building a little bit here and there of themselves, trying out new things still"
This is too rich. Except for the "gen Y" part that's something I expect has been said nearly verbatim by every generation. In particular you might check out that whole counter-culture thing that happened in the late 60's early 70's. I'm sorry Mr. Y but they had your generation beat in all these things by a mile - and they're the very same Baby Boomers and Yuppies you're castigating. And don't even get started with those who lived through the two world wars - those were generations that did something - and even then they too moved on to become the establishment.
Idealism is great, but when it's coupled with hubris and a lack of perspective, it's laughable at best, harmful at worst. Your generation didn't suddenly invent the worlds problems or the solutions to them, it's just that you've finally become aware enough to recognize them. The easiest thing to do at that point is to then say it's the fault of everyone else who came before me, and everyone in my generation is going to be extra special betterer and gooder. I hope your idealistic nature and that which you claim for the rest of "gen Y" is able to bear up as you continue through life, but history shows otherwise. Mainly because in every generation there are those that act (for better or worse) and everyone else who's happy just being alive. You'll understand better as you mature and find that the world is both more complex and more simple than thinking geekiness and good intentions will triumph.
Just ask the Who, who've gone from wanting to die before they get old to selling their songs to promote just about anything that will pay them to do so. That's their generation - it'll be yours in fifteen to twenty years.
Of course this is all entirely off topic and has fuck all to do with Star Wars - which is at the end of the day just a bunch of movies and related accessories.
Also, haven't we been getting news of Apple perhaps using Intel chips moreso than they already are? It would make sense (in fact it may be life or death) for Intel to diversify, and if they are, it's no difference to them if you use OSX or Windows - they'll have an interest in both. And linux of course runs just fine on Intel chips. I think Otellini may just be laying the groundwork for a less Windows centric Intel future here, good businessmanship.
Probably, after reading the article it's still not clear what the child died of. It may have been possible for some sort of CPR to have saved the child's life, which the hypothetical person at the other end of the 911 call may have been able to instruct the mother in. Then of course the mother would have had to have been in a rational/controlled enough state of mind to successfully apply the emergency procedures. I find that scenario unlikely.
If it was something like that, something non-extraordinary measures could have corrected, the mother needs to take more of the blame than the phone company. If she's going to be responsible for a human life, it's in her interest to know such things. If it wasn't something like that, there was nothing to be done regardless of whether she had 911 service or not. It's harsh, but it's true.
"Today, the civil rights movement has come and gone, there's equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone, and no one gives a crap about a mars base, much less colonizing space. The core themes of Star Trek have lost relevance with today's generation."
Equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone? Really? You honestly believe that? I mean, that's not even entirely true for the U.S. anymore, much less the rest of the world.
No one gives a crap about a Mars base or colonizing space? Really? You honestly believe that? Maybe it's just politicspeak but Junior says he believes in it, and that's something. Then of course there are the Mars hotbutton folks that frequent this site. I doubt they're all nom de plumes for Junior.
The core themes of Star Trek (freedom, equality, exploration, hope, optimism about the future, exploring the human condition, etc.) are core themes for humanity, probably for as long as there will be humanity. That those things are not relevant (according to you) to "today's generation" says more about "today's generation" than it does about Star Trek. And in case you were wondering, what it says isn't good. That people like you and Card can't get past the styrofoam boulders and green alien chicks to see this indicates a lack of insight on your parts.
While I'm ranting, there was nothing soap (space) operaish about TOS. There was one multipart episode, and that done for budget constraint reasons. There were no ciffhangers, no see what happens next week, no dead people coming back from the dead a year later, no ongoing romances, so on and so forth.
Maybe he did call him and maybe he didn't. But what we know for sure is that Junior is the guy who gave O'Keefe his current position. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to ascertain why Junior promotes certain people. I personaly find it hard to believe Junior would recommend someone who didn't share his views - and these decisions most likely reflect those views. Regardless Junior definitely gets to share the blame at least indirectly for putting this guy in charge.
Disclaimer - I have never watched an episode of Enterprise. In fact for me it's TOS or nothing. That being said.....
People pay for Direct TV and pay an additional $99 a year so they can see NFL games.
People pay for cable so they can see Deadwood, or Sex In The City, or Stargate, or Cowboy Beebop, or Mexican Soap Operas.
The people paying for these things will pay again later for DVDs of the very same things they already watched (well probably not the NFL games).
People want to pay to see more episodes and seasons of Enterprise. They may also want to pay again for DVDs of those episodes seasons - just like the people mentioned above. What's so hard to understand or different about that? Especially considering Paramount will NEVER allow a Star Trek show to be produced by some other network (eg. Sci Fi).
And especially, especially considering I hear that Enterprise has brought back orion slave girls.
If you cast your vision forward just a little bit, these folks may just be advancing the cause of ala carte paid for programming here, and I for one think that would be a good thing.
"Most of us living in the US are NOT living in high-population density areas."
I'll pick a nit here on a possibly semantic basis. Given a definition of Metropolitan from the Population Reference Bureau as:
"Metropolitan areas include an urbanized area of at least 50,000 people, the county where the urbanized area is located, and adjacent counties linked by commuting ties."
The U.S. census of 2000 records that in a Resident U.S. Population of 281,421,906 people, 232,579,940 reside in what is considered a Metropolitan area. That's about 83% of the U.S. Resident Population. Certailnly this does not specify the amount of territory the at least 50,000 people are spread over, but even given some variation in terms I find it unlikely that the number of people living in any empirically agreeable notion of high population density areas is less than 50% among U.S. residents. It looks like most people in the U.S. do live in what would be considered relatively high population density areas - the GP is invalid in this regard. We're highly urbanized, and the dirtiest country in the world as far as polution production - those are facts.
Others have given note of possible evidence that the weather has indeed changed noticeably over the last 30+ years in some areas. It's not just about global warming - it's about ecological and general climatic trauma. Global warming is just one possible symptom.
Also the arguments supporting the possibility of economic upturn due to technological advances seem just as viable as those espousing economic downturn. If politicians wanted to they could easily sell that angle - but many are already heavily invested in the status quo re the environment - it's not a U.S. economic downturn they truly fear, it's a personal one. If we had representatives worth their weight in water, they'd be willing to commit political suicide to protect the true interests of their constituants - namely avoiding ecological and climatic suicide. If they were truly concerned with the economic well being of U.S. citizens they'd do a bit more questioning of how our taxes are being spent, a bit more pondering on whether outsourcing all skilled jobs is truly best for everyone in this country and a little less time harping on hollow xenophobia wrapped up with a pretty Michael Crichton junk science bow.
So first you give credit to Ronald Reagan (and ostensibly the U.S. by extension) for playing a big part in the collapse of the Soviet Union (note "communism" has not collapsed, it's still around) - whether rightly or wrongly - and then analogize that situation to Microsoft's? Can you see the problem with this line of reasoning? Hint - it has to do with that whole monopoly thing. I'd be interested to see who you think is playing Ronald Reagan to Bill Gates's evil Soviet dictator.
MSN search will be intergrated into everything MS touches, and most users probably won't even realize it. It'll just be "search", "web search", "search the web," type your term in and go - from IE, from the file manager, from the start menu, on a desktop shortcut, from word - everywhere. For a while some will go out of their way to type www.google.com into their browser bar, but eventually, msn search will be good enough not to bother with the extra step or two. At that point, party over for Google search. Why do you think they're getting their fingers into so many other pies right now? They know it's comming - just a matter of when, not if.
Put it this way - if you wanted a cookie, you had the choice of walking three blocks to the store to get one, or just taking the one that's being delivered right to your door, and the cookies were roughly equivalent in pure cookie goodness - which one are you more likely to choose?
If you don't want to lose control of your company, don't go public - it's really that simple.
Everyone likes to play by the rules as long as they're in their favor, but as soon as someone else gets the upper hand and threatens your (insert precious item here) the rules suddenly become unfair and need to be circumvented. Human nature I guess. Hooray for "free" markets though - greed really is the best motivation for human endeavors, right?
You're mostly right, although at times the Republic allowed itself to be run by a Dictator which eventually came to supersede the Consuls and Senate/House. Some of the dictators included Sulla and Julius himself - these last coincided with (caused?) the defacto end of the Republic.
To the topic at hand - whatever happened to small government? What ever happened to the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country? This is a non-partisan problem at this point. Both parties are tax and spend parties (pay now or pay later is your only option) well in the clutches of big business (just different big businesses). I don't believe in heaven and hell, but if there is a hell I sure hope the foolish judges who gave corporations legal personhood beginning around 1877 and culminating in 1886 with the egrigious Southern Pacific ruling roast in it for all eternity.
"I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with a 'war on IP theft'."
What if you see something intrinsically wrong with the entire concept of "IP" (especially the monetized economically stratifying kind these laws attempt to solidify) to start with?
"It's been said Lucas was inspired by old samurai movies and westerns. Han was kind of like a ninja mercenary, who learns at the last minute how to "walk the true path"."
To be more specific - as a rip off of Akira Kurosawa (in general), Han closely relates to the characters Toshiro Mifune usually played.
At what point can wrongfully accused parties level countersuits for harassment (if at all)?
INAL to the extreme, so I may be way off base here, but it seems like wasting peoples' time and resources like this should make you open to such suits.
Let's hear it for people in some other country doing things for 10% of what people in developed nations (I'm from the U.S.) get paid to do it, without having to worry about troublesome environmental restrictions or fair labor laws. Similarly I can't wait to pay......10% of what a house costs here,10% of what a gallon of milk costs here, 10% of what a doctor costs here, 10% of what a lawyer costs here, etc., etc. - because you know, it's a free market and I have easy access to outsourcing this kind of thing for myself.
All the while the corporations taking advantage of the superior infrastructure, tax breaks and markets of the developed countries simultaneously take advantage of cheap labor elsewhere to fatten the accounts of a couple of upper management types, all the while justifying things by pointing at the mirage of stock prices and telling people they're increasing shareholder value. Where does the money go - not back into our economy, no, no - it's all safely and efficiently funneled into tax exempt investments and offshore bank accounts.
We don't have free trade - we have corporate slavery. Unless you're among the richest, these "benefits" of free trade don't make it back to you. All the while the shift in technological prowess, knowledge, research and facilities to other countries guarantees a downward spiral into a country divided into a thin upper crust of rich corporate officers, the lawyers and accountants that serve them, and everyone else who's supposed to buy whatever it is they're selling on service sector job wages. You're just another sucker who's bought in without really thinking about it. You'll realize it when it's your industry that's being outsourced next.
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I don't deny that those mistakes were made, and was abundantly aware of them when I posted. But it is disengenuous at best comparing the nature, cause and breadth of those mistakes - and the character and motivation of the men who made them - with the current administration's actions and concluding (or implying) much similarity.
I'd mod you +1 valid nitpicking.
You think Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Carter would really try this stuff? I don't, and I don't think you do either. Yet it's become popular to grouse about how the whole political system sucks, how you don't have any choices, how it doesn't matter who is in office because they're all the same and pretty much leave it at that.
I call bullshit. They're not all the same. Some are definitely, demonstrably better or worse than others. The "Current Administration," in my opinion, will go down in history as THE WORST administration this country has ever had up to the present day - in so many ways and for so many reasons - to what is truly a treasonable extent. Given the outright contempt for the existing laws of the U.S., the spirit in which they were written and the rights of the citizens of the U.S. (to a degree and with an arrogance and seeming malice unequalled in previous U.S. history) demonstrated by this "Current Administration" on an almost daily basis, it is very important to know that it wasn't always this way, and it doesn't need to be this way.
Painting all politicians and political/governmental decisons and activities with the same brush, denouncing one and all as "chimps" or "scum" is muddleheaded thinking that does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to help it. It's a cop out, a blank check to take your toys and go home, rather than expending the effort to find and empower the next Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson or Lincoln. It's the mindset of the victim at heart - I can't do anything so I'll just suffer noisily because everyone else is an idiot. You have to do more than "Just Say No," because you think everyone but you knows what's what. You have to find those who can bring ideas to which it makes sense to say yes to office, you have to elect the non-scum - they're out there, but you won't find them or be served by them with the kind of attitude that lumps all politicians and public servants into the same sludge bin indiscriminately.
If you want the real U.S. back you have to work for it, we all do, and that means much more than just saying no and bitching about how all politicians suck.
The President names the head of NASA, the head of NASA sets the tone and agenda for the whole organization. Very rarely does the head of NASA not fall into line with the President's space policy (if he has one). Congress approves or disapproves the plan set forth under the direction of the NASA administrator. Thus the focus of the space program is directly traceable to the President's thoughts and goals in this area.
In addition to sending men to the moon/Mars being a good sound bite for the general public, manned missions tend to be heavily oriented towards a Florida/Texas locale with a subsequent influence on their economies. Considering the obvious interest our current President has in those states, it's one more reason (not the only one), this administration has focused on manned missions.
We need to find a better balance between manned and unmanned missions for NASA, I think the pendulum swings a bit too far in either direction sometimes, and now is one of them. They really do have a symbiotic relationship, and we have need of both. Apart from that, it's time to put the shuttle down and work on our next manned vehicle more seriously - there's no good reason to keep those things flying anymore, send one to the Smithsonian and call it a day.
Maybe I read the article wrong, but it doesn't seem like there's a group in the study who just listened to songs straight without either being preempted by knowing the band/song name or what other people thought of it - ie. the group of people who listened to the song with no knowledge in any way about it before hand? Wouldn't the correct control group have been that one if you're interested in figuring out how the experience of a song's quality can be effected by external elements (title, other peoples' opinion)?
I guess my assumption is that the people running the study are (or should be) interested in figuring out why songs which people thought actually sound good (in the absence of preconceived notions whatever they may be) aren't as popular and conversely why songs that people actually thought sound not so good are popular. Could be a wrong assumption on my part - of course how the song sounds is all that matters to me, I couldn't care less what its name is or what other people think of it.
I suppose I'm not the target demographic of the study, but I find it ver y telling (and disturbing) that straight appreciation of how the song sounds doesn't even garner a mention in regard to why people liked the song for the purposes of this study.
But since these "scientists" have figured this out, I'll now use an appeal to popularity. If you're looking for tunes you might not have heard before but that might be good (works for me anyway) try grabbing a podcast from www.kcrw.org. My favorite show is metropolis, but there's usually at least a nugget or two in each show. It's public radio, which doesn't hurt either.
I opted in for all green power here in Pasadena, California U.S.A. (home of the Rose Parade/Rose Bowl) about seven months ago. It's about $5-$10 a month extra. I'm not naive enough to think there's a magic switch that channels only green power to my grid, I just think of it as the energy I use and pay for comes the portion of the of overall energy pool which is generated by green power.
Anyway, people in Pasadena should consider it if you can to assuage environmental concerns - plus they give you a free package of hallogen lightbulbs if you convert to using all green (or at least they did when I signed up).
There are a few problems in reasoning with the parent post.
Firstly, the example items mentioned WOULDN'T necessarily be tallied into the Chinese total, as they are indeed manufactured and sold by a company in the U.S. regardless of the location of manufacture. These would not normally be categorized as Chinese exports - normally export would mean a Chinese good purchased from a Chinese company.
Secondly while profits may accrue to a U.S. corporation, some of the wealth generated in such an endeavor would remain in China in the form of wages paid to Chinese workers, possible purchase of raw materials from Chinese sources, and related expenditures to support the endeavor (offices, plants, services, utilities, etc.). This is nominally at the expense of the U.S. economy as that wealth has moved from the U.S. to China.
Thirdly, in this particluar example and in an ever increasing majority of public holdings, the shareholder in fact does not receive any profits from the company whatsoever. Apple does not issue a dividend on their stock. Owning Apple stock is pure speculation on the rise in value of the shares. In that instance the investor realizes their profit by selling their shares for more than what they paid, not by receiving any money from Apple. Profitibility of the company is only indirectly related to the investor's return on investment in its effect on the stock price. Currently the only people who seem to benefit much from a company's profitability (as I said in a majority of cases it seems) are the officers of the company, with some crumbs thrown the regular employees way occasionally. And where do you think these officers keep their profits? Offshore banks for tax purposes perhaps? And do you think these officers are buying a majority of U.S. made items with all of their money? Thus the bulk of the profits do not necessarily end up getting plowed back into the U.S. economy, further decreasing the wealth comprising that economy.
Fourthly, saying foreigners have driven much of the growth indicates that they are investing money in Chinese companies, again moving wealth from the economy of the investor to the economy of the investee. Certainly the investor, if they receive a profitable return on the investment, MAY then increase the wealth of his "home" economy through expenditure of the profits, but I hesitate to say that that happens enough to make up for the grass roots wealth creation that is lost as a result of the investment leaving the U.S. In short TFA does not remotely say the same thing, even obliquely.
Finally, I see no basis for thinking U.S. production may still lead Chinese production because the U.S. leads the world "in resource hoggery." You have to pay for those resources somehow, and if you're running a trade deficit, with the threat of a devalued currency, it makes it difficult to continue to be able to afford being a resource hog, especially to the degree the U.S. has been.
Unless of course you start beating people up to secure the resources, and even then you have to have the money to buy the guns...
"should anyone be able to sell information about you at all?"
In a word: no.
In three words: no fucking way.
The fact that this isn't obvious is incredibly frustrating/depressing.
And the response of these workers and others in Europe is that they don't want to be chattel/wage slaves. Shocking isn't it? It seems like people in Europe can somehow envision a world where there is such a thing as enough profit, and that at the end of the day corporations exist for the betterment of all of society - not vice versa.
One of my old bosses had a great expression - "Trees don't grow to the sky." It was in relation to commodity trading, but it's applicable in many areas of life. Growth can not be infinite - it's simply not sustainable. At some point you need to be satisfied that you're running a profitable business, creating valued products.
Causing unemployment in Europe and the U.S. to save a couple sheckles on the front end will ultimately result in less wealth and less growth in the long run. You need someone to buy your products, and as others have already pointed out, the unemployed and minimum wage workers of the world aren't going to be able to do so. All the arm chair "free marketers" need to dig a little deeper with their analysis than parroting "corporations are in business to make money" and thereby whatever they do in that line makes sense - that may be a primary goal, but it certainly doesn't valildate or justify every decision corporations make.
Greed is good only works up to a point - after which you start eating your own young.
"The best people of my generation, 'gen Y' aren't empowered yet. They're the ones doing community building projects, watching over teens in crisis, helping deranged children get over what they can, building a little bit here and there of themselves, trying out new things still"
This is too rich. Except for the "gen Y" part that's something I expect has been said nearly verbatim by every generation. In particular you might check out that whole counter-culture thing that happened in the late 60's early 70's. I'm sorry Mr. Y but they had your generation beat in all these things by a mile - and they're the very same Baby Boomers and Yuppies you're castigating. And don't even get started with those who lived through the two world wars - those were generations that did something - and even then they too moved on to become the establishment.
Idealism is great, but when it's coupled with hubris and a lack of perspective, it's laughable at best, harmful at worst. Your generation didn't suddenly invent the worlds problems or the solutions to them, it's just that you've finally become aware enough to recognize them. The easiest thing to do at that point is to then say it's the fault of everyone else who came before me, and everyone in my generation is going to be extra special betterer and gooder. I hope your idealistic nature and that which you claim for the rest of "gen Y" is able to bear up as you continue through life, but history shows otherwise. Mainly because in every generation there are those that act (for better or worse) and everyone else who's happy just being alive. You'll understand better as you mature and find that the world is both more complex and more simple than thinking geekiness and good intentions will triumph.
Just ask the Who, who've gone from wanting to die before they get old to selling their songs to promote just about anything that will pay them to do so. That's their generation - it'll be yours in fifteen to twenty years.
Of course this is all entirely off topic and has fuck all to do with Star Wars - which is at the end of the day just a bunch of movies and related accessories.
Also, haven't we been getting news of Apple perhaps using Intel chips moreso than they already are? It would make sense (in fact it may be life or death) for Intel to diversify, and if they are, it's no difference to them if you use OSX or Windows - they'll have an interest in both. And linux of course runs just fine on Intel chips. I think Otellini may just be laying the groundwork for a less Windows centric Intel future here, good businessmanship.
Probably, after reading the article it's still not clear what the child died of. It may have been possible for some sort of CPR to have saved the child's life, which the hypothetical person at the other end of the 911 call may have been able to instruct the mother in. Then of course the mother would have had to have been in a rational/controlled enough state of mind to successfully apply the emergency procedures. I find that scenario unlikely.
If it was something like that, something non-extraordinary measures could have corrected, the mother needs to take more of the blame than the phone company. If she's going to be responsible for a human life, it's in her interest to know such things. If it wasn't something like that, there was nothing to be done regardless of whether she had 911 service or not. It's harsh, but it's true.
"Today, the civil rights movement has come and gone, there's equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone, and no one gives a crap about a mars base, much less colonizing space. The core themes of Star Trek have lost relevance with today's generation."
Equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone? Really? You honestly believe that? I mean, that's not even entirely true for the U.S. anymore, much less the rest of the world.
No one gives a crap about a Mars base or colonizing space? Really? You honestly believe that? Maybe it's just politicspeak but Junior says he believes in it, and that's something. Then of course there are the Mars hotbutton folks that frequent this site. I doubt they're all nom de plumes for Junior.
The core themes of Star Trek (freedom, equality, exploration, hope, optimism about the future, exploring the human condition, etc.) are core themes for humanity, probably for as long as there will be humanity. That those things are not relevant (according to you) to "today's generation" says more about "today's generation" than it does about Star Trek. And in case you were wondering, what it says isn't good. That people like you and Card can't get past the styrofoam boulders and green alien chicks to see this indicates a lack of insight on your parts.
While I'm ranting, there was nothing soap (space) operaish about TOS. There was one multipart episode, and that done for budget constraint reasons. There were no ciffhangers, no see what happens next week, no dead people coming back from the dead a year later, no ongoing romances, so on and so forth.
Maybe he did call him and maybe he didn't. But what we know for sure is that Junior is the guy who gave O'Keefe his current position. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to ascertain why Junior promotes certain people. I personaly find it hard to believe Junior would recommend someone who didn't share his views - and these decisions most likely reflect those views. Regardless Junior definitely gets to share the blame at least indirectly for putting this guy in charge.
Disclaimer - I have never watched an episode of Enterprise. In fact for me it's TOS or nothing. That being said.....
People pay for Direct TV and pay an additional $99 a year so they can see NFL games.
People pay for cable so they can see Deadwood, or Sex In The City, or Stargate, or Cowboy Beebop, or Mexican Soap Operas.
The people paying for these things will pay again later for DVDs of the very same things they already watched (well probably not the NFL games).
People want to pay to see more episodes and seasons of Enterprise. They may also want to pay again for DVDs of those episodes seasons - just like the people mentioned above. What's so hard to understand or different about that? Especially considering Paramount will NEVER allow a Star Trek show to be produced by some other network (eg. Sci Fi).
And especially, especially considering I hear that Enterprise has brought back orion slave girls.
If you cast your vision forward just a little bit, these folks may just be advancing the cause of ala carte paid for programming here, and I for one think that would be a good thing.
"Most of us living in the US are NOT living in high-population density areas."
I'll pick a nit here on a possibly semantic basis. Given a definition of Metropolitan from the Population Reference Bureau as:
"Metropolitan areas include an urbanized area of at least 50,000 people, the county where the urbanized area is located, and adjacent counties linked by commuting ties."
The U.S. census of 2000 records that in a Resident U.S. Population of 281,421,906 people, 232,579,940 reside in what is considered a Metropolitan area. That's about 83% of the U.S. Resident Population. Certailnly this does not specify the amount of territory the at least 50,000 people are spread over, but even given some variation in terms I find it unlikely that the number of people living in any empirically agreeable notion of high population density areas is less than 50% among U.S. residents. It looks like most people in the U.S. do live in what would be considered relatively high population density areas - the GP is invalid in this regard. We're highly urbanized, and the dirtiest country in the world as far as polution production - those are facts.
Others have given note of possible evidence that the weather has indeed changed noticeably over the last 30+ years in some areas. It's not just about global warming - it's about ecological and general climatic trauma. Global warming is just one possible symptom. Also the arguments supporting the possibility of economic upturn due to technological advances seem just as viable as those espousing economic downturn. If politicians wanted to they could easily sell that angle - but many are already heavily invested in the status quo re the environment - it's not a U.S. economic downturn they truly fear, it's a personal one. If we had representatives worth their weight in water, they'd be willing to commit political suicide to protect the true interests of their constituants - namely avoiding ecological and climatic suicide. If they were truly concerned with the economic well being of U.S. citizens they'd do a bit more questioning of how our taxes are being spent, a bit more pondering on whether outsourcing all skilled jobs is truly best for everyone in this country and a little less time harping on hollow xenophobia wrapped up with a pretty Michael Crichton junk science bow .
So first you give credit to Ronald Reagan (and ostensibly the U.S. by extension) for playing a big part in the collapse of the Soviet Union (note "communism" has not collapsed, it's still around) - whether rightly or wrongly - and then analogize that situation to Microsoft's? Can you see the problem with this line of reasoning? Hint - it has to do with that whole monopoly thing. I'd be interested to see who you think is playing Ronald Reagan to Bill Gates's evil Soviet dictator.
"Where is the problem again?"
The fact that there is such a thing as unsafe code. Why is that so hard to understand?
Convenient - adj.
MSN search will be intergrated into everything MS touches, and most users probably won't even realize it. It'll just be "search", "web search", "search the web," type your term in and go - from IE, from the file manager, from the start menu, on a desktop shortcut, from word - everywhere. For a while some will go out of their way to type www.google.com into their browser bar, but eventually, msn search will be good enough not to bother with the extra step or two. At that point, party over for Google search. Why do you think they're getting their fingers into so many other pies right now? They know it's comming - just a matter of when, not if.
Put it this way - if you wanted a cookie, you had the choice of walking three blocks to the store to get one, or just taking the one that's being delivered right to your door, and the cookies were roughly equivalent in pure cookie goodness - which one are you more likely to choose?
If you don't want to lose control of your company, don't go public - it's really that simple.
Everyone likes to play by the rules as long as they're in their favor, but as soon as someone else gets the upper hand and threatens your (insert precious item here) the rules suddenly become unfair and need to be circumvented. Human nature I guess. Hooray for "free" markets though - greed really is the best motivation for human endeavors, right?
You're mostly right, although at times the Republic allowed itself to be run by a Dictator which eventually came to supersede the Consuls and Senate/House. Some of the dictators included Sulla and Julius himself - these last coincided with (caused?) the defacto end of the Republic.
To the topic at hand - whatever happened to small government? What ever happened to the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country? This is a non-partisan problem at this point. Both parties are tax and spend parties (pay now or pay later is your only option) well in the clutches of big business (just different big businesses). I don't believe in heaven and hell, but if there is a hell I sure hope the foolish judges who gave corporations legal personhood beginning around 1877 and culminating in 1886 with the egrigious Southern Pacific ruling roast in it for all eternity.
"I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with a 'war on IP theft'."
What if you see something intrinsically wrong with the entire concept of "IP" (especially the monetized economically stratifying kind these laws attempt to solidify) to start with?
"It's been said Lucas was inspired by old samurai movies and westerns. Han was kind of like a ninja mercenary, who learns at the last minute how to "walk the true path"."
To be more specific - as a rip off of Akira Kurosawa (in general), Han closely relates to the characters Toshiro Mifune usually played.
At what point can wrongfully accused parties level countersuits for harassment (if at all)?
INAL to the extreme, so I may be way off base here, but it seems like wasting peoples' time and resources like this should make you open to such suits.
0 for 9 is it? I'd have thought maybe 2 or 4 would have gotten a mention. There's a couple on the list I think one of those could replace.
Yes hooray for free trade!
...10% of what a house costs here,10% of what a gallon of milk costs here, 10% of what a doctor costs here, 10% of what a lawyer costs here, etc., etc. - because you know, it's a free market and I have easy access to outsourcing this kind of thing for myself.
Let's hear it for people in some other country doing things for 10% of what people in developed nations (I'm from the U.S.) get paid to do it, without having to worry about troublesome environmental restrictions or fair labor laws. Similarly I can't wait to pay...
All the while the corporations taking advantage of the superior infrastructure, tax breaks and markets of the developed countries simultaneously take advantage of cheap labor elsewhere to fatten the accounts of a couple of upper management types, all the while justifying things by pointing at the mirage of stock prices and telling people they're increasing shareholder value. Where does the money go - not back into our economy, no, no - it's all safely and efficiently funneled into tax exempt investments and offshore bank accounts.
We don't have free trade - we have corporate slavery. Unless you're among the richest, these "benefits" of free trade don't make it back to you. All the while the shift in technological prowess, knowledge, research and facilities to other countries guarantees a downward spiral into a country divided into a thin upper crust of rich corporate officers, the lawyers and accountants that serve them, and everyone else who's supposed to buy whatever it is they're selling on service sector job wages. You're just another sucker who's bought in without really thinking about it. You'll realize it when it's your industry that's being outsourced next.