Note the use of the word "today" in your quote from TFA.
The CEO of a company that outright failed last year is clearly not "CEO of a large publicly traded American company today". Yesterday, perhaps, but not today.
Looks to me like TFA is arguing that Ballmer SHOULD be fired, not that he's the worst in history.
According to WP [wikipedia.org], there are different "tons" out there. The terse "ton" or "tonne" should mean 1000kg everywhere. When used in terms of poundage, the appropriate terms are apparently "short ton" (US, 2000 lb) and "long ton" (UK, 2240 lb).
It makes it all the more annoying when people steeped in science and logic continue to pander to these archaic systems instead of phasing them out:S
Yah, it bugs the piss out of me that so many SI evangelists don't know the difference between 1000kg (properly, a Mg, a unit of MASS) and 2000lb (or 2240lb), which are units of FORCE.
Tell you what, I'll get behind using SI in the USA as soon as the current users of same start using the correct units consistently, rather than pretending that 1kg = 2.2lb like they do now.
I would agree with you if Social programs was 70% of our spending, but in reality it's not even 20%. Defense is the bulk of our spending and is not needed to be that large.
US Federal Budfget, 2010...
Total spending: ~$3.55 trillion.
Total Social Security spending: $695 billion (19.6%)
Total Medicare spending: $453 billion (12.8%)
So, we're over 20% so far.
Total Medicaid spending: $290 billion (8.2%)
Unemployment/Welfare/"other mandatory spending: $571 billion. (16.1%) - note that not all this will be "social programs", but most of it will.
So, total Social programs are ~49.5% of our spending. AT LEAST.
Note that those numbers are only from the "mandatory spending" part of the ledger. It is likely that there are some "social programs" hidden in the "discretionary spending" part of the budget ($1.378 trillion total).
Oh, and finally, it should be noted that "military spending" is $716.2 billion, if you include the VA as part of the military budget. Which is...20.2% of the Federal budget.
So, you're wrong about the military being "the bulk of our spending, and you're also wrong about "social programs are not even 20% of our Federal spending"....
Oh, and note that if we had zeroed the DoD and VA in 2010, the deficit for that year would have been $454 billion, which would still have left it in the top ten deficits ever.
The right wingers are gonna be all over this one. After all any time anything Obama fails at is good for America. It must be nice that we have someone who's fault everything is.
Funny, seems to me that four years ago everything was Bush's fault.
What goes around comes around, as they used to say....
Another one is paper money: the Constitution clearly says Congress has the power to "coin" money, so obviously we all should be carrying around nothing but coins in our pockets.
Once upon a time, paper money was issued by banks.
Oddly enough, it still is, technically. That's why it says "Federal Reserve Note" on every bill.
Note, by the by, that arguing "it's perfectly okay when the Congress ignores the Constitution, because the Congress ignores the Constitution all the time" isn't all that useful when they decide to ignore it to your detriment a bit down the road.
Do remember that the Constitution was meant to be a LIMITER on the power of the Federal Government, not an enabler.
Yes, we do. Without a military our civilization would fall to a more aggressive civilization. A military is necessary to create the environment where your civilization can do something other than be a servant to another.
Interesting, then, that the Founding Fathers envisaged a United States without a standing army...
âoeA standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happenâ - James Madison
It should be noted that "military" and "standing army" are not actually synonymous.
There's a reason why we have traditionally had a larger peacetime Navy than Army (up till WW2)...
Because, of course, he hasn't been found corrupt. Even if the summary were taken at face value it still wouldn't be corruption...'having a financial interest in the outcome', although clearly not acceptable for a judge in a case, is not the same as 'accepting an offer of money in exchange for not carrying out your duties properly'.
Theoretically, the financial interest that the Judge had would be harmed by his decision, since killing the Pirate Bay would reduce the need for whatever he and his (theoretical) partner were (theoretically) selling.
Which doesn't suggest all that much corruption - "wow, he hurt his own business interest, he must be evil!!".
I'm more than happy to do pc repairs and exchange services with friends, right now one friend helps with mechanical issues with my car and I take care of their computers.
It seems to me that the Supremes once ruled that that sort of thing might be a violation of Interstate Commerce laws.
Also, the IRS tends to have a dim view of that sort of thing, since it smacks of tax avoidance.
And no, I'm not serious. Quite. The "barter economy" really is something that annoys the crap out of the IRS.
well, you are wrong, but keep letting the media dictate your views for you.
Perhaps you might be inclined to provide some evidence of this?
After all, the "science being attacked by many groups" thing should affect all States equally - it's not like the "attacks" are local to California and DC.
So, what makes both California and DC different from Massachusetts? They all lean left, DC spends more per kid than MA, which spends more per kid than CA.
This is bollocks. You cannot collect a years worth of meteorological data, monitor polar ice caps or acquire orbital imagery in 10 minutes with a shovel.
On the other hand, Spirit took three years to move as far as I walked yesterday morning.
I notice in the wiki a mention of one rover going three miles in one year. Which is less than I walk every morning (what can I say, yesterday was special, I went a couple of extra laps around the park).
And it should be noted that both rovers together, didn't quite manage a distance that I could make in a day, walking. Two days, walking with a backpack.
Yah, those rovers did some good work. And lasted amazingly well over the years. But eight years to cover the ground that two astronauts could cover in two or three days (assuming they didn't have something like the Lunar Rover to ferry them around)? A team of six astronauts sent to Mars for a ten month stay would get us more information than we'll get in the next 50 years of sending unmanned rovers (mostly because if a man sees a damp spot on the ground, he can walk over and investigate. If the rover wasn't built to dig around a damp spot on the ground, you need to design a new one and deliver it before you can find out why the ground was damp there...)
Pine Box?? heck if it comes to that they might not even get that . im sure there are a few "undisclosed locations" where folks can be left for the critters to feast on.
Nah, that's too Zoroastrian for the Iranian government to put up with...
If I am not misunderstanding, he basically just laid down a fine line that implies that using anti-filter technology IS ok, as long as you arent doing that specifically in order to commit another crime. A pretty reasonable line to parse - and one that would give anyone caught in simple possession of such tools a nice legal out. "I only got that so I could read the Supreme Leaders statement! "
No, from TFA, it's pretty clear that he said that anti-filtering tools are illegal, and that citizens are required to obey the law. Therefore, Iranians can't have anti-filtering tools.
Why must a single LED provide all the light? Couldn't an array of, say, four LEDs, each equivalent to a 25W incandescent and using mirrors and/or lenses to even out the light distribution, get the same efficiency and substitute for a 100W bulb? Am I missing something obvious?
People's houses have ceiling mounts that typically take from one to four bulbs. Lamps take one.
If you want to deal with anything other than that, you're talking replacing the hardware as well as the bulbs. Which is too expensive for many people, and too annoying for many more of them (who really wants to replace every light in your house just so you can use LED's, when CFL's already fit in the sockets?
So, yes, you're missing something. Existing infrastructure says people will be using things that fit into standard sockets for a long time to come.
why does everything have to devolve into politics?
Because some people believe that ANY problem can be fixed with another law.
And some people believe that NO problem can be fixed with another law.
They're both wrong, but as a result, any problem has people calling for a new law, and people calling the first group idiots. And the first group then calls the second group idiots.
Repeat until doomsday.
Meanwhile, the problem isn't fixed, and what's worse, noone is even making an effort to figure out a fix - they're too busy shouting at each other.
Maybe try to figure out which solutions are actually good and push for those? Remember, problems don't go away when we don't like the solutions.
Simple solution: replace ALL coal-fired plants with nuclear plants, starting immediately.
At the same time, begin replacing all gas-fired plants with solar.
Once that's done, begin increasing electrical generating capacity to a level sufficient to replace all oil-fired vehicles/whatever with electric versions of same.
That's for the solution that will work, as it requires nothing but political will and technologies we can already do.
An alternate path, which might work (or might take too long and be unfeasible) would be to pass laws mandating a maximum 50 year lifespan for ALL powerplants using fossil fuels. With a grandfather clause for existing plants to allow them to operate for another 20 years.
Then begin replacing the plants that are due to be shutdown in 20 years with clean alternatives.
By the time you've replaced that first batch, you should know when to start working on replacing the next ones to come due for retirement, and you can then do an orderly shutdown of the fossil-fuel industry.
Note that both these "plans" require a world government and tax rates on everyone comparable to what the wealthy pay now. The first one also requires a world government that is, at least, a command economy, which means you can expect standard of living world-wide to trend toward that of the upper-tier third world countries....
Alas, "carbon credits" and similar crap will do little or nothing to resolve the issue for a very long time, since it'll be decades before solar is economically feasible on the large scale (if nothing else, we'd have to build about 1000 solar cell fabs for every one existing today), and most people who are worried about AGW wet themselves whenever they hear the words "nuclear power"....
The Republicans want to fund the program with cuts to preventative health services.
Well, no.
The "cuts" you're talking about are to services that don't currently exist. So you're defining "not adding new spending" as "cutting spending".
So... how do/you/ think the program should be funded?
At the State level.
Or by an across-the-board income tax increase.
Or not at all.
Personally, I'm really tired of politicians buying votes with "Here's a great new program that gives YOU free money!!! And we're paying for it by taxing SOMEONE ELSE! Isn't that great?!?"
Reasonable people can disagree what's useful and what's useless, but blanket statements like "All increased spending is bad" and "All government programs are good" are just plain stupid. Of course, what the electorate really really would like is no taxes and lots of spending, but any sane government makes the effort to balance those 2 desires.
Yes.
More or less.
Note that right now, the Feds are borrowing about 30 cents on every dollar they're spending.
And that they have no plans to ever pay off that debt, or even to stop borrowing more every year.
Under those conditions, ANY new spending is probably a very bad idea.
Of course, this discussion isn't about "new" spending. It's about restoring things to the status quo pre-2007, when the Democratic Congress paid for a program meant to bribe the voters by promising that after they're out of office, spending on a popular program would be reduced.
And now, it's time for that promise to be kept, and, as usual, the pols are busy trying to break that promise by making a new promise to have the people cut spending after the current bunch is out of office...
You know what - maybe a dissolution of the union IS a good idea. That way, all the ass-backwards states can find out exactly how much life sucks without other states subsidizing their lifestyles.
Yeah, it would be funny to see how well California works out without exporting their pollution to Nevada and Oregon....
Slashdot Mirror
Note the use of the word "today" in your quote from TFA.
The CEO of a company that outright failed last year is clearly not "CEO of a large publicly traded American company today". Yesterday, perhaps, but not today.
Looks to me like TFA is arguing that Ballmer SHOULD be fired, not that he's the worst in history.
Yah, it bugs the piss out of me that so many SI evangelists don't know the difference between 1000kg (properly, a Mg, a unit of MASS) and 2000lb (or 2240lb), which are units of FORCE.
Tell you what, I'll get behind using SI in the USA as soon as the current users of same start using the correct units consistently, rather than pretending that 1kg = 2.2lb like they do now.
US Federal Budfget, 2010...
Total spending: ~$3.55 trillion.
Total Social Security spending: $695 billion (19.6%)
Total Medicare spending: $453 billion (12.8%)
So, we're over 20% so far.
Total Medicaid spending: $290 billion (8.2%)
Unemployment/Welfare/"other mandatory spending: $571 billion. (16.1%) - note that not all this will be "social programs", but most of it will.
So, total Social programs are ~49.5% of our spending. AT LEAST.
Note that those numbers are only from the "mandatory spending" part of the ledger. It is likely that there are some "social programs" hidden in the "discretionary spending" part of the budget ($1.378 trillion total).
Oh, and finally, it should be noted that "military spending" is $716.2 billion, if you include the VA as part of the military budget. Which is...20.2% of the Federal budget.
So, you're wrong about the military being "the bulk of our spending, and you're also wrong about "social programs are not even 20% of our Federal spending"....
Oh, and note that if we had zeroed the DoD and VA in 2010, the deficit for that year would have been $454 billion, which would still have left it in the top ten deficits ever.
Funny, seems to me that four years ago everything was Bush's fault.
What goes around comes around, as they used to say....
Once upon a time, paper money was issued by banks.
Oddly enough, it still is, technically. That's why it says "Federal Reserve Note" on every bill.
Note, by the by, that arguing "it's perfectly okay when the Congress ignores the Constitution, because the Congress ignores the Constitution all the time" isn't all that useful when they decide to ignore it to your detriment a bit down the road.
Do remember that the Constitution was meant to be a LIMITER on the power of the Federal Government, not an enabler.
Well, no.
Actually, 2 octal digits can do 64 different combinations.
It should be noted that "military" and "standing army" are not actually synonymous.
There's a reason why we have traditionally had a larger peacetime Navy than Army (up till WW2)...
Theoretically, the financial interest that the Judge had would be harmed by his decision, since killing the Pirate Bay would reduce the need for whatever he and his (theoretical) partner were (theoretically) selling.
Which doesn't suggest all that much corruption - "wow, he hurt his own business interest, he must be evil!!".
It seems to me that the Supremes once ruled that that sort of thing might be a violation of Interstate Commerce laws.
Also, the IRS tends to have a dim view of that sort of thing, since it smacks of tax avoidance.
And no, I'm not serious. Quite. The "barter economy" really is something that annoys the crap out of the IRS.
Note that neither company in question is either planning or doing suborbital hops.
Note also that the company that is planning them already has 400+ people who've paid deposits for a flight.
So, yes, it looks like people will line up for miles to pay $100K (they're actually charging twice that)...
Perhaps you might be inclined to provide some evidence of this?
After all, the "science being attacked by many groups" thing should affect all States equally - it's not like the "attacks" are local to California and DC.
So, what makes both California and DC different from Massachusetts? They all lean left, DC spends more per kid than MA, which spends more per kid than CA.
Note that, from TFS, DC did even worse than California.
Hear, hear!! First time I've ever wished I had mod points....
In that spirit, I'd like to point out that California has the second longest coastline of any State.
Not saying that that caused the problem, just pointing out the data.
In other words, you were certainly trying to suggest that it was the EEEEEVIL Republicans who were at fault.
7.2%, which is the employer share of your SS/Medicare taxes, last I looked.
And yes, I know that that 7.2% is really a hidden tax on the employee's income...
On the other hand, Spirit took three years to move as far as I walked yesterday morning.
I notice in the wiki a mention of one rover going three miles in one year. Which is less than I walk every morning (what can I say, yesterday was special, I went a couple of extra laps around the park).
And it should be noted that both rovers together, didn't quite manage a distance that I could make in a day, walking. Two days, walking with a backpack.
Yah, those rovers did some good work. And lasted amazingly well over the years. But eight years to cover the ground that two astronauts could cover in two or three days (assuming they didn't have something like the Lunar Rover to ferry them around)? A team of six astronauts sent to Mars for a ten month stay would get us more information than we'll get in the next 50 years of sending unmanned rovers (mostly because if a man sees a damp spot on the ground, he can walk over and investigate. If the rover wasn't built to dig around a damp spot on the ground, you need to design a new one and deliver it before you can find out why the ground was damp there...)
Nah, that's too Zoroastrian for the Iranian government to put up with...
No, from TFA, it's pretty clear that he said that anti-filtering tools are illegal, and that citizens are required to obey the law. Therefore, Iranians can't have anti-filtering tools.
Hmm, seems to me that that's the attitude people had in 1936, when the German Army moved into the Rhineland, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
People's houses have ceiling mounts that typically take from one to four bulbs. Lamps take one.
If you want to deal with anything other than that, you're talking replacing the hardware as well as the bulbs. Which is too expensive for many people, and too annoying for many more of them (who really wants to replace every light in your house just so you can use LED's, when CFL's already fit in the sockets?
So, yes, you're missing something. Existing infrastructure says people will be using things that fit into standard sockets for a long time to come.
Because some people believe that ANY problem can be fixed with another law.
And some people believe that NO problem can be fixed with another law.
They're both wrong, but as a result, any problem has people calling for a new law, and people calling the first group idiots. And the first group then calls the second group idiots.
Repeat until doomsday.
Meanwhile, the problem isn't fixed, and what's worse, noone is even making an effort to figure out a fix - they're too busy shouting at each other.
Simple solution: replace ALL coal-fired plants with nuclear plants, starting immediately.
At the same time, begin replacing all gas-fired plants with solar.
Once that's done, begin increasing electrical generating capacity to a level sufficient to replace all oil-fired vehicles/whatever with electric versions of same.
That's for the solution that will work, as it requires nothing but political will and technologies we can already do.
An alternate path, which might work (or might take too long and be unfeasible) would be to pass laws mandating a maximum 50 year lifespan for ALL powerplants using fossil fuels. With a grandfather clause for existing plants to allow them to operate for another 20 years.
Then begin replacing the plants that are due to be shutdown in 20 years with clean alternatives.
By the time you've replaced that first batch, you should know when to start working on replacing the next ones to come due for retirement, and you can then do an orderly shutdown of the fossil-fuel industry.
Note that both these "plans" require a world government and tax rates on everyone comparable to what the wealthy pay now. The first one also requires a world government that is, at least, a command economy, which means you can expect standard of living world-wide to trend toward that of the upper-tier third world countries....
Alas, "carbon credits" and similar crap will do little or nothing to resolve the issue for a very long time, since it'll be decades before solar is economically feasible on the large scale (if nothing else, we'd have to build about 1000 solar cell fabs for every one existing today), and most people who are worried about AGW wet themselves whenever they hear the words "nuclear power"....
Well, no.
The "cuts" you're talking about are to services that don't currently exist. So you're defining "not adding new spending" as "cutting spending".
At the State level.
Or by an across-the-board income tax increase.
Or not at all.
Personally, I'm really tired of politicians buying votes with "Here's a great new program that gives YOU free money!!! And we're paying for it by taxing SOMEONE ELSE! Isn't that great?!?"
Yes.
More or less.
Note that right now, the Feds are borrowing about 30 cents on every dollar they're spending.
And that they have no plans to ever pay off that debt, or even to stop borrowing more every year.
Under those conditions, ANY new spending is probably a very bad idea.
Of course, this discussion isn't about "new" spending. It's about restoring things to the status quo pre-2007, when the Democratic Congress paid for a program meant to bribe the voters by promising that after they're out of office, spending on a popular program would be reduced.
And now, it's time for that promise to be kept, and, as usual, the pols are busy trying to break that promise by making a new promise to have the people cut spending after the current bunch is out of office...
Yeah, it would be funny to see how well California works out without exporting their pollution to Nevada and Oregon....