The way I've always seen it is once you start calling people names or nitpicking spelling and grammar you've already lost your argument.
The way I see it, if you're (nominally) a college graduate, and you can neither spell nor write a grammatically correct sentence, then you are unlikely to be able to make a coherent argument.
Oh, and if you use numbers in your argument, it helps if they're the correct numbers, and that the correct conclusion are drawn from the numbers used.
hey have no idea how to fix the problem, and the continual dismantling of our education system is why. This is a problem of the 1%'s making;
Since our education system is run by the government and the teachers' unions, I'm not sure how the 1% have much to do with it.
Note that it wasn't the 1% who advocated passing kids along to the next grade (and eventually graduating them) even if they hadn't learned the material.
Chrony Capitalism coupled with inflation really has created a system where money comes out of the void, shoots to the top and by the very existence of that new money being created causes the money other people hold to decline in value.
Wall Street without a doubt orchestrated the creation of this system.
No, that would be the Federal government that created that system.
If you don't like the idea of government being able to run roughshod over you, consider seriously the idea of giving it less power, not more.
I love how all the right wingers in the US bang on about freedom of speech when it applies to anti-abortionists and racists, but as soon as someone criticises the power elite, it's just "get back to work you hippy".
More like "have fun protesting, but you're not going to accomplish anything doing it like that".
Oddly enough, I haven't heard of anyone from the "right wing" saying these guys shouldn't be allowed to protest. Note that the cities that are trying to stop the protests are generally rather left of center....
Wise men once stood up against taxation without representation and fought and gained a nation for themselves. Well what do you think you have now folks?
What we have now is a bunch of people who are NOT willing to fight and gain a nation for themselves.
Note that protesting isn't the same as shooting at the government. When they reach that point, I'll start giving them a bit more attention.
What is "Fracking"? Well, it's the tunneling down in to the ground to extract natural gas. Tunneling leaves a hole, so if Fracking did not cause the earth quake, then the tunnels should be still there?
1) That's not what fracking is.
2) Even it it were, "if the earthquake were not caused by fracking, all natural gas wells would still be in place undamaged" does not logically follow. Nor does the converse, by the by.
The price still needs to come down, since they're targeting the "$25,000 to $50,000 per unit" price range, but all it will take is someone realizing they can still make a profit selling nearly the exact same thing for 10% of the price, making up the difference in volume - Selling an item for 10% of the profit will likely generate 20x the sales, thus actually generating twice the profit - something the music/movie industries might do well to learn.
It should, perhaps, be noted that "10% of price" is NOT the same as "10% of profit".
It should also be noted that the music/movie industry has already pretty much saturated the market.
You're not going to get ten times as many people buying DVD's by lowering the price by a factor of ten, since pretty much everyone who wants the DVD is already willing to pay the trivial price for it (I can buy multiple DVDs for the price of an evening out with the wife)...
Actually, draconian birth control policies have the best proven effectiveness.
Umm, no.
China has draconian birth control policies. They have a higher population growth rate than Europe, which has only a higher standard of living to fall back on.
The you tell me what the third choice is. You let the corporations rule and enslave the world or you let a flawed government (pretty much controlled by the corporations) that is theoretically overthrown every 4 years or so try to rule and enslave the world.
You're obviously unaware that the "corporation" is a government creation.
Before the government invented the corporation, what you had were businesses and partnerships, and things like that.
And the OWNERS were liable for the actions of the business/partnership.
The corporation was an invention by the government that divorced legal liability from the owners - now, the corporation is legally liable, but the owners of the corporation (and employees, like the CEO) are not liable.
Now, it's a fair question as to whether you think that the benefits of incorporation (government creation) are worth the price (lack of legal liability).
Certainly, some things would be much harder without the corporation (remember, if you own stock, YOU are on OWNER, and would be liable (slightly) if the company you owned stock in did something bad).
On the other hand, it would be almost impossible to concentrate the vast amount of power that so annoys so many people about major corporations without that government grant of incorporation to grant the owners legal immunity.
So, which do you prefer? Government action (directly), or government action (via the corporation)? Or the third choice, which limits governments (and thus corporations)....
Not really surprised; after all, this is the same US House of Representatives majority that believes the reason we don't have more jobs is that businesses aren't allowed to poison us as much as they'd like.
Actually, this isn't about the House of Representatives at all. It's about the Senate.
You remember, the one controlled by the Democrats....
Why were the mainstream media so unified in their "WMDs in Iraq" message? Anyone who looked impartially at the issue was *easily* able to say that was nonsense.
And yet...
We recovered WMD's from Iraq. Remember, chemical weapons are WMD's too.
Don't let the "WMD = nukular weapon" idea blind you to reality.
If we ended the Federal Breeding Subsidy in the U.S., we could reduce our carbon footprint as a species in very short order. Even better: $1k per child tax ($200 federal, $800 state). Would help pay for schools too.
1) The USA's population growth rate is already negative when immigration is ignored. And I'm not talking about the children of first-generation immigrants, I'm talking the immigrants themselves.
2) If you live under the delusion that having children lowers your cost of living, you're sadly mistaken. In spite of deductions for children, a family with kids has a lower standard of living than one without.
3) The US population is such a small part of the world's population that if the US population were 100% removed today, the world population would be higher than today's in five years.
No, it most certainly is a property of capitalism. Or are you going to try and tell me that trying to gain an advantage by bribing politicians is somehow not a property of capitalism?
If the Federal government were limited per the Founders' intent (most everything handled at the State level), then the Federal politicians wouldn't have the power to grant you your every whim if you handed them a pile of money.
By allowing the Federal government nearly unlimited power to do good, you also allow it nearly unlimited power to do evil.
And guess which side has more money to bribe politicians?
Sure, scientists want those kinds of answers too. But we understand it's not that easy. The public really doesn't.
Yes, actually the public really does. Most, if not all, of the public can tell the difference between "science fiction" and "science" with not trouble.
And very few of the public are really wasting a lot of lifespan waiting on scientists to solve their problems.
He got a 1206 on his SAT's. That doesn't make him bright but pretty much average - even I scored higher.
Doing a quick google on the subject, that puts his IQ in the 130 range. Yes, I used a different source than the one that put his IQ at 125 at the bottom of their chart - apparently the SAT was changed, and the older one had slightly different results.
Which, last I looked, made him bright. Not necessarily brilliant, but bright. Say, in the top 5% of the population.
The fact that you got higher doesn't imply that HE is stupid. It simply implies that you are less stupid.
Note that I also got higher, and while I tend to think most people are idiots, this doesn't actually mean "I got a higher score than XXXXX, therefore he is a moron"...
The US budget for 2012 military spending is well over a trillion dollars. 7.5 billion might be a lot in total dollars, but it's 0.075 percent of the total budget. Not a particularly high rate of fraud in that context.
1)The US budget for 2012 military spending includes just about $735 billion (including the VA). Which is well short of a trillion dollars.
Note that we don't actually HAVE a budget for 2012, any more than we've had one in any year since 2007.
But the proposed budget is $735 billion, including "Overseas Contingency Operations", which I take as a euphemism for "just in case we need to bomb someone".
2) It's 0.75%, not 0.075%. Why do so many slashdotters seem to have so much trouble with basic arithmetic?
I suspect that it would be physically impossible to read every vote aloud in a reasonable (50 hour work week) time frame.
If it can't be read aloud in 50 hours, it's almost certainly bad law.
If Congress is passing so many laws that they all can't be read aloud during the Congressional Term, then Congress is passing a lot of what are, almost certainly, bad laws.
One easy check for a bad law - the people who voted for/against it haven't read it.
Composed of 251 adult citizens with college educations (5 from each state, 1 from DC) selected at random for 1 year terms. Each law after presidential signing or Congressional override must be read aloud and provided in writing to the branch. They vote on it in secret. If it does not get 60% of the votes, it dies.
Two-thirds. Require 168 votes in your little organization. Other than that, I approve of the concept.
Slashdot Mirror
The way I see it, if you're (nominally) a college graduate, and you can neither spell nor write a grammatically correct sentence, then you are unlikely to be able to make a coherent argument.
Oh, and if you use numbers in your argument, it helps if they're the correct numbers, and that the correct conclusion are drawn from the numbers used.
Since our education system is run by the government and the teachers' unions, I'm not sure how the 1% have much to do with it.
Note that it wasn't the 1% who advocated passing kids along to the next grade (and eventually graduating them) even if they hadn't learned the material.
Note that, statistically, this is true as long as unemployment is 4% or higher.
And 4% is considered "full employment"....
No, that would be the Federal government that created that system.
If you don't like the idea of government being able to run roughshod over you, consider seriously the idea of giving it less power, not more.
Read this on Failblog last night. Might want to aim for slightly more originality.
More like "have fun protesting, but you're not going to accomplish anything doing it like that".
Oddly enough, I haven't heard of anyone from the "right wing" saying these guys shouldn't be allowed to protest. Note that the cities that are trying to stop the protests are generally rather left of center....
What we have now is a bunch of people who are NOT willing to fight and gain a nation for themselves.
Note that protesting isn't the same as shooting at the government. When they reach that point, I'll start giving them a bit more attention.
Oddly enough, the wealthy are already taxed, banks are already regulated, and they're lobbying for an end to lobbying....
Not hardly.
3000 feet by a mile is smaller than your average airport, much less your average small town.
1) That's not what fracking is.
2) Even it it were, "if the earthquake were not caused by fracking, all natural gas wells would still be in place undamaged" does not logically follow. Nor does the converse, by the by.
Well, no, it doesn't.
Which doesn't make the wikipedia definition of Republic correct either, mind you.
It should, perhaps, be noted that "10% of price" is NOT the same as "10% of profit".
It should also be noted that the music/movie industry has already pretty much saturated the market.
You're not going to get ten times as many people buying DVD's by lowering the price by a factor of ten, since pretty much everyone who wants the DVD is already willing to pay the trivial price for it (I can buy multiple DVDs for the price of an evening out with the wife)...
Umm, no.
China has draconian birth control policies. They have a higher population growth rate than Europe, which has only a higher standard of living to fall back on.
You're obviously unaware that the "corporation" is a government creation.
Before the government invented the corporation, what you had were businesses and partnerships, and things like that.
And the OWNERS were liable for the actions of the business/partnership.
The corporation was an invention by the government that divorced legal liability from the owners - now, the corporation is legally liable, but the owners of the corporation (and employees, like the CEO) are not liable.
Now, it's a fair question as to whether you think that the benefits of incorporation (government creation) are worth the price (lack of legal liability).
Certainly, some things would be much harder without the corporation (remember, if you own stock, YOU are on OWNER, and would be liable (slightly) if the company you owned stock in did something bad).
On the other hand, it would be almost impossible to concentrate the vast amount of power that so annoys so many people about major corporations without that government grant of incorporation to grant the owners legal immunity.
So, which do you prefer? Government action (directly), or government action (via the corporation)? Or the third choice, which limits governments (and thus corporations)....
Actually, this isn't about the House of Representatives at all. It's about the Senate.
You remember, the one controlled by the Democrats....
And yet...
We recovered WMD's from Iraq. Remember, chemical weapons are WMD's too.
Don't let the "WMD = nukular weapon" idea blind you to reality.
1) The USA's population growth rate is already negative when immigration is ignored. And I'm not talking about the children of first-generation immigrants, I'm talking the immigrants themselves.
2) If you live under the delusion that having children lowers your cost of living, you're sadly mistaken. In spite of deductions for children, a family with kids has a lower standard of living than one without.
3) The US population is such a small part of the world's population that if the US population were 100% removed today, the world population would be higher than today's in five years.
Good!
You'll make more room for my children.
Actually, evidence is that if we taxed most currently illegal drugs the way we do tobacco, we'd see less use of them.
Yes, even as addictive as tobacco is, increasing taxes on it reduces the use of it. Or drives it to a black market....
If the Federal government were limited per the Founders' intent (most everything handled at the State level), then the Federal politicians wouldn't have the power to grant you your every whim if you handed them a pile of money.
By allowing the Federal government nearly unlimited power to do good, you also allow it nearly unlimited power to do evil.
And guess which side has more money to bribe politicians?
Yes, actually the public really does. Most, if not all, of the public can tell the difference between "science fiction" and "science" with not trouble.
And very few of the public are really wasting a lot of lifespan waiting on scientists to solve their problems.
Doing a quick google on the subject, that puts his IQ in the 130 range. Yes, I used a different source than the one that put his IQ at 125 at the bottom of their chart - apparently the SAT was changed, and the older one had slightly different results.
Which, last I looked, made him bright. Not necessarily brilliant, but bright. Say, in the top 5% of the population.
The fact that you got higher doesn't imply that HE is stupid. It simply implies that you are less stupid.
Note that I also got higher, and while I tend to think most people are idiots, this doesn't actually mean "I got a higher score than XXXXX, therefore he is a moron"...
1)The US budget for 2012 military spending includes just about $735 billion (including the VA). Which is well short of a trillion dollars.
Note that we don't actually HAVE a budget for 2012, any more than we've had one in any year since 2007.
But the proposed budget is $735 billion, including "Overseas Contingency Operations", which I take as a euphemism for "just in case we need to bomb someone".
2) It's 0.75%, not 0.075%. Why do so many slashdotters seem to have so much trouble with basic arithmetic?
If it can't be read aloud in 50 hours, it's almost certainly bad law.
If Congress is passing so many laws that they all can't be read aloud during the Congressional Term, then Congress is passing a lot of what are, almost certainly, bad laws.
One easy check for a bad law - the people who voted for/against it haven't read it.
Two-thirds. Require 168 votes in your little organization. Other than that, I approve of the concept.