Somebody with "plenty of money" probably has a checking and savings history with a bank that would trust him enough to issue a normal card with a low ($1000 - $2000) limit. The people going after secured cards are usually the ones who have significant dings on their credit histories (late payments, bounced checks, collections, etc.).
Credit rating (without violating my FICO formula NDA) is an attempt to quantify fiscal responsibility, specifically, your likelihood to repay a loan, both in terms of capability (i.e. do you have the money), and willingness (i.e. do you want to give them the money). Credit cards are a double edged sword to FICO: they might show that you have been responsible with money in the past, but they also show that you could increase your debt by $X overnight. If X is significant compared to your income level, they'll worry that you might not be able to pay them after a spending spree.
Secured loans (e.g. cars and houses) bump your credit rating much faster, because they show you can meet an agreed payment schedule, and they don't have the capacity to increase your debt, so they're safer that way. Avoid home equity lines of credit--they're revolving credit.
Savings, CD, and other low activity accounts show that you are responsible with your money. They also represent a financial buffer that could be used to repay your debt. Their effect isn't huge, but they're basically free points. You score points for multiple accounts (with diminishing returns), and you score more points based on a higher balance or longer account history. Most secured credit cards are backed by a savings account with the issuing bank.
One card type that we forgot to mention is the store credit card. Some stores offer their card as a branded Visa or MC, but most department stores, Home Depot, Target and others have a standard store account. These are generally easier to get than a Visa or MC; they'll give one to somebody whose credit score is lower due to inactivity rather than bad activity. They also tend to have no monthly/annual fees. The down side is they can only be used at that company's stores and they tend to have 20+% interest rates (but you should pay off any credit card with more than a 3% interest rate at the end of the month). They'll give you the same credit bump as any other revolving account.
That's what I've learned in a decade writing software at various bank & bank like companies.
Amazon Visa: 1% - 3% on various things. 3% at amazon, I believe.
Pentagon Federal Credit Union Visa: 1% - 2% on various things. 5% on gas.
Those are in the USA, and I notice you're buying your gas in liters, so they might not be available for you. Just one of the many benefits of the dollar destroying inflationary polices the US has had since Kennedy died.
...except they charge monthly fees, and annual fees, and infinity-1% interest (yes, I'm aware you said pay the bill in full each month, but some people can't make that full payment every month...especially with huge fees). A debit card is a far superior option to a secured card. And as long as you're not on the bank's Do Not Trust This Guy With Money list, you should be able to get one with any checking account.
If you want to build credit history, secured loans are much better than revolving debt. Buy a car with a tiny loan (e.g. 50% of the price). Pay it off in six months by refinancing it with a new bank. Do that a few times (or just buy a new car every six months), for two years and you'll have a strong credit history.
You can also open multiple savings or CD accounts with different banks. Those make you look responsible.
There's a credit card table that lists every credit card ever entered into the system, there's an address table that lists every mailing and billing address ever entered, there's a series of tables that list the information for every transaction ever attempted, etc.
CO2 is a pollutant in enough concentration, just as is oxygen and anything else.
Then it's actually acting as a poison. But it's still not a pollutant.
you know what else they had? a lack of 'us'. Just because a specific environment existed at one time does *not* mean it is meant to exist now, nor that we can survive in it.
Meant to exist by whom? Humans are adaptable. If food became as plentiful as it was then, I think we'd manage.
ike say a chunk of glacier 4 times the size of Manhatten breaking off of Greenland today? or the fact that at Glacier National Park, you can't even *see* the glaciers from the main viewing point anymore? or the fact that rate of sea level rise has doubled in the last 50 years? or that the last decade is the warmest on record?
What *would* be proof to you that it is happening?
I never said that there were no glaciers melting. Glaciers melt. That doesn't mean burning fossil fuels have anything to do with it. About a millenium ago Greenland's glaciers melted to the point that the vikings were able to build structures that are still covered in ice. I don't think Leif Ericson burned many fossil fuels.
The Roman and Medieval warming periods were warmer than today. The '30s were warmer than today, as were the '90s. Human CO2 production doesn't correlate with global temperature variations over the Earth's lengthy history. That temperature variance does, however, seem to follow solar output pretty well.
Although they're still smaller than they were 30 years ago (after the '40s to '70s cooldown), glaciers and ice caps are rebounding. They lag temperature changes by several years, in both directions.
Trying to blame temperature changes on CO2 is a political construct meant to distract people from important issues, such as farm runoff.
Using an existing resource is somewhat better than constructing a new one, but only marginally since you have to replace the vehicle at some point regardless. And again, if the costs of CO2 release are factored in the equation gets a lot more in favor of lower CO2 cars than even existing high CO2 ones.
It's a lot better than "marginal". And if you want to factor in CO2, you should factor in the CO2 of the production.
as for hybrids being so much more polluting, it can very much depend on the batteries. Take lead acid batteries for instance. They are one of the most recycled materials on the planet. Hybrid batteries will likewise be valuable for their reconditioning into new batteries.
If they get recycled. Sadly, a lot of recyclable materials just get dumped. And regardless, there's a lot of pollution produced in mining and refining. A Prius contains a lot more heavy metals than a Yaris.
Which as you say about your car is better than making a whole new battery right?
Correct. The phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" is best when followed in order.
I clearly said pollution, not byproducts. My car also produces a great deal of water vapor.
Despite what Al Gore might say, CO2 is not pollution. Without CO2, there would be no plant life on earth. In fact, the eras with the greatest abundance and diversity of life (plant and animal) have had CO2 levels several times higher than what we currently have (and they weren't much warmer, if any).
And even if those as of yet unproven claims against CO2 are somehow proven true, I still produce less pollution and CO2 by driving the car, than I would trading it in on a new car that would get double or even triple the gas mileage, since producing a car, particularly a hybrid, produces so much pollution.
I don't give a crap about fossil fuel usage (except in terms of money spent). I care more about pollution caused.
Which causes less pollution? Destroying my V8 powered, 18 mpg (but fairly clean, since gasoline burns cleanly these days) 1999 Mercedes SUV, mining and shipping raw materials for a Prius around the world, assembling the Prius, and shipping the Prius to me? Or...continuing to drive the Mercedes until it begins falling apart? Option B is cheaper too, allowing me to save up for the world's first not-butt-ugly hybrid.
Are you joking, or just an idiot? Fire up Google maps (or earth) and look to the east of Scottsdale, AZ. You'll see an area where the suburban sprawl stops cold and turns into tracts of farmland. That's the Salt River/Pima reservation.
According to this, agriculture accounts for $6.6 billion per year in AZ. And it's probably gone up since that was published.
Plants don't mind the extreme heat as much as people do. What they do mind is extreme cold (December and January are growing months around here), and lack of water (did you ever wonder why there are so many dams on the Colorado River?).
Good soil can be imported, water can be imported, sunlight cannot.
I agree that the Feds created a situation where obesity became so common, by 1) subsidizing the production of crap food, as detailed fairly well in the documentary Food, Inc., and 2) creating a welfare system that perpetuates laziness and ignorance.
However, I think the Havasupai bear a significant portion of the responsibility, because nobody is forcing them to stay in that lifestyle.
I've been to Havasupai (which is actually in Havasu Canyon, not the Grand Canyon, but they are connected). It's known locally for it's really beautiful falls (Moody, Havasu, and Beaver). If you remember the Indian village from Next, that's the place.
While I was waiting to get helicoptered out (you can hike ten miles, or fly, there are no roads) after my girlfriend twisted her ankle, I got to watch for three hours as the locals flew in from their shopping trips. I do not remember a single one who was not obese. Most were morbidly obese. And the crap they were getting off the helicopter was, well, crap. They subsist on a diet of Hot Pockets, Cheetos, and Pepsi. They don't farm, they don't work, they do all have satellite TV, though.
Morbid obesity, a high-fructose corn syrup heavy diet, and a sedentary lifestyle are all factors for an increased rate of diabetes.
The other reservations in AZ that I've visited are primarily agrarian (with a few casinos), so for the most part, they're eating healthier foods, and they're out there performing physical labor to cultivate the food. A good diet, and plenty of exercise reduce the risk of diabetes.
Forcing an insurance company to pay for a pre-existing condition is simple theft
Right -- that's why the government, and not private industry, should do it.
So are you admitting that the government is nothing but a bunch of thieves?
Provision of health care [sic] is an important function of a modern state.
Interesting theory...and exactly why is healthcare any of the government's business? Governments exist (supposedly) to protect the basic rights: life, liberty, and property. If government goes beyond this and starts making up new rights to protect (e.g. a right to education or healthcare), then it has to violate those basic rights (e.g. taxation and inflation).
Whenever someone makes the bold suggestion that the government should run healthcare, because it's too important to leave to private industry I ask some simple questions:
What's the most efficient industry (private or public) you can think of? Which one has had the fastest advancements while having reductions in prices? Most people answer something about computers or cell phones. Nobody answers transit systems, the post office, power production or other "essential" services. When you understand that profit drives innovation, this becomes obvious.
If essential services need to be controlled by the government, because they can't be trusted to the private sector, why are we not trusting them with the most important industry of all: food production and distribution? I don't know about you, but I visit a doctor, at most, once a year, and I could go a lot longer than that. I need food on a regular basis, or I'll die. (I know there are many people who need medical care as regularly as food, but for the vast majority of us, food is far more important). Just think, we could have government controlled food just like the Soviets did. Breadline anyone? When you understand the complexity of centralization, this begins to make sense. Centralized decision making is a horribly complex nightmare. Centralized planners have a harder task than predicting the weather next week (but without the warehouse full of computers to do the modeling), which is why their predictions are so vague, yet they're still wrong more often than next week's weather prediction. Distributed decision making only makes decisions specific to what's at hand, and then that decision combines with others. This is far more adaptable, and in a non-constant world, ends up being superior.
Now to the topic at hand: the bill in question is not healthcare reform. Like any other bill with strong support, it's a collection of kickbacks for special interest groups, with some handouts to the common people thrown in to make it look tempting. Follow the money, and it becomes clear. Who's paying for all the ads saying that republicans are shills for the insurance industry? Why, the drug industry (incidentally, Obama took more bribe money...I mean campaign contributions...from the drug industry than any other political candidate in US History). Billy Tauzin, head of the pharmaceutical lobby was a key contributor to the bill. Coincidence? Or corporatist whores?
The reform needed in this country for medical care is to get rid of these corporatist special interest laws:
Get rid of the restriction on interstate insurance. The feds made it illegal for you to buy insurance from another state, because that would increase competition and drop the insurance cartel's profits.
Get rid of the tax break for employment based insurance. Your insurance is tied to your job, because it saves your employer money. Drop that and implement a 100% tax credit system for medical payments, like Dr. Ron Paul has introduced, and we'd be able to save money, while having better insurance coverage, that wasn't dependent on employm
So Microsoft is complaining that Google's success is making Google more successful. Within the next few years, I expect the government to equip all Google engineers (starting with their best, Harrison Bergeron) with devices that interrupt their brain activity at random intervals to keep them from coming up with such innovative technology.
Did you read the quotes? None of them said anything like "worship Jesus, or go to hell". They probably just searched a Biblical concordance for cool quotes about light. If they were trying to push their religion on us, they'd put pamphlets in the packaging, or visible quotes on the sights. But they don't.
If they did put "There is no god" on their products, and religious people complained, they'd be just as ridiculous as the non-religious complaining about this.
But, if it bothers you that much, don't buy Trijicon products. If they piss off enough customers (but as I said before, few of their customers, Christian or not, will care), the demand will go down, and I'll be able to buy another ACOG for rock bottom prices!
For the most part, Trijicon sells "night sights": tritium lit, light amplification, etc. Given that, their choices of quotes (about shining light) seem apropos. If it had been a Shakespeare quote about light, would anybody be complaining? Before crying about religious oppression, realize that the Bible is a work of literature. Quotes from it are not necessarily for religious purposes.
If you really want to get upset about something military related, might I suggest the expense of trillions of borrowed dollars to kill unthreatening foreigners and police the world?
I have Trijicon tritium sights on most of my pistols, and a Trijicon ACOG on one of my AR-15s. I've never noticed the quotes (I'll look tonight), but they haven't subliminally converted me to Christianity yet. The only people who really have any justification to complain would be the customers, and most gun owners I know (Christian or not) wouldn't care.
In a felony, mens rea is almost always required. There are a few "crimes", like possession with intent to distribute, where they've effectively eliminated the intent requirement.
I agree about the jury's disgust, that's why I emphasized that they need to be very careful in jury selection, so they get a jury that can feel a commonality with the defendant. Or at least a few jurors who will. A hung jury is almost as good as an acquittal.
What really should happen though, is that everyone involved in prosecuting this case should be fired and held financially and criminally responsible for their actions (where appropriate) in persecuting a kid who made a dumb mistake. These people see an innocent kid as a stepping stone to promotion.
So if you accidentally get kiddie porn on your machine, you should call them and confess to downloading it? After they nailed this guy, stealing 20 years of his life (or only 3.5 if he pleads out), and destroying the remainder: "Hi, my name's Dave. I'm a registered sex offender, and I just moved in next door." "Hi, I'd like to apply for the job. I'm a registered sex offender." "Hello beautiful. Can I buy you a drink? I'm a registered sex offender." They proved that there effectively was no porn on his machine! What do you think they'd do to you when you called up and they had the computer with the porn on it? Your claim of "accident" is no better than his.
The correct thing to do is run shred on the drive for a few days and then restore from back up (I love Time Machine). And if the feds show up, admit nothing and posit that it could easily have been a wardriver on your WiFi.
As for the kid in the story about to get fucked by the system, he needs to get a better lawyer (as others have pointed out), and have his lawyer focus on the prosecution's complete lack of proof of criminal intent (mens rea as the lawyers call it). Although the concept has been ignored recently (especially in federal courts), it is still on the books as a requirement of the prosecution. He needs to show the jury (made up hopefully of mostly men, and nobody with small children), that he's just a regular horny college kid, just like they were. And then point out very clearly to the jury that, according to the law, if they do not feel he intended to download child pornography, beyond a reasonable doubt, then they must acquit him.
Study Economics. I recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt as a good starting point.
Again what are you trying to say. That's such a loaded statement it's going to explode in my face if I even try to decipher it. You do realize that income taxes are nearly the lowest they've been since the introduction of income taxes nearly 100 years ago. Manufacturing in the US boomed in a period when income taxes for the wealthy were above 60% and even near 90%. You also realize that before there was an income tax we received virtually all of our national income through tariffs.
You're ignoring the fact that during that time the US and Canada were the only two first world nations that hadn't been almost completely destroyed in a six year long war. They needed to rebuild their manufacturing base, and we were the source of all the machinery. The economies of North America prospered despite the taxes, because they were the only functional ones left in the world.
Enlighten us about what's so bad about minimum wages since Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stieglitz are too ignorant for you.
What about Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek? But to summarize: minimum wage laws are price controls on labor. Price controls artificially affect supply and demand. In this case, they artificially reduce demand. If McDonalds can afford to pay $20 per hour to staff the place during the evening, then they'll hire four people if the minimum wage is $5/hour (ignoring the hidden costs of employment for simplicity). If the minimum wage jumps to $6.50/hour, they'll cut back on staff, rather than lose money. Minimum wage laws are also contributing to the destruction of the Main Street mom-n-pop businesses in America. They can't afford to pay for minimum wage, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, employer tax contributions, etc. But Wal-Mart can.
40 years ago there were far fewer mega corporations than there are today. The amount of wealth and control these companies have on our economy is practically unprecedented in a generation. Yet 40 years ago wages were higher, families could live on a single income (many provided by a small business) and these pesky things like minimum wages did not cause all the problems you espouse. I agree large companies love the idea about mandatory health coverage, but it's because it enslaves the workers. Once you have health care you can basically never leave your job without fear you won't be able to enroll again, or that it will be so expensive it will bankrupt you.
40 years ago, total taxes were much lower. 40 years ago, government regulation of the economy was much lower. And as I've said before, the mega corporations love all of this regulation, because it weeds out the competition, and leaves only them behind. What we live in today is fascism. Now fascism does not mean rounding up Jews & gypsies and putting them in camps or the Gestapo arresting and executing anyone who passes out leaflets. Fascism, as described by Mussolini, is a system where there is a strong partnership between government and corporations to enrich themselves (presumably at the expense of the only group left, us). The USA has moved steadily toward that since 1913.
We live in one of the most laisse-faire capitalist periods in nearly 80 years. There is virtually unfettered free trade. Taxes are practically the lowest they've ever been. The largest sector of our economy Finance and Real Estate http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2008/05%20May/0508_indy_acct.pdf is totally unregulated. What part of this needs to "return" to capitalism? These corporations already own the government, electing Obama does nothing for them that they haven't already gotten over the last 20 years. In fact they hated all this der
No it is not. Here is an article from someone who shares your own view also responding to my post. http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL0490971420080604 He has a 9.6% stake (~$12M) in a company whose total worth is estimated at ~$120M. The value of the company would have to increase its value by more than 100 for him to reach billionaire status. Not impossible, but hardly a slam dunk.
But quite likely if cap and trade becomes law. He also has stakes in several "green" energy companies.
No you just implied it.
I implied no such thing. If you actually read my first post you'll see that I said both he and the mega-corps love the idea of all of this global warming alarmism because it benefits both groups. I stated they both had influence without any indication of whose was greater.
What??? I can barely even parse what you are saying, but what ever it is it doesn't make any sense.
So you're saying you don't have an understanding of basic economics? Or that you refuse to understand it because it violates your simplistic world view? Both are sad.
Huh? What do you mean again? Are those your true colors shining through?
You caught me. I'm actually an American who believes in outdated concepts like freedom, and not the empty phrase George W. Bush would spout every minute or so in a speech. I'm one of those whack-job extremists like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. I dislike fascism, or corporatism, or crony-capitalism, or whatever you choose to call our current system where the right campaign contribution can be more important than a good business plan.
So I'm basically right. A few dozen respected scientists and a several thousand pulled off the internet.
If you said that a significant portion of the scientific community does not support the alarmist theory, then yes you are right. But I don't think you said that. That's just what I found in a few minutes of searching. There are thousands more out there. Here's another one: A majority of American meteorologists disagree with the "consensus". Do you not find it odd that a significant number of experts in the field completely disagree? And that many have claimed that they had pressure put on them (like that alluded to in the CRU emails) to toe the party line? THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS! That is religion, plain and simple.
To draw a parallel, look at evolution. The only scientists in a related field who disagree with the theory of evolution (in general, not the guys who disagree on smaller details) do so because of religious beliefs. That's not science either. And yes, I just compared you with the evolution deniers, and it fits.
So you/they claim GISS falsified data once so that invalidates all data ever produced by the institution?
Yes. That's how science works. It's all about reputation. In any other field, those people would have been ostracized by now, and rightly so. If the data is falsified by one person, who is fired for it, then the institution can begin to repair its reputation. When the person falsifying data is in charge of the institution, everything they produce must be suspect.
Right, so convincing a statement right after this one:
My apologies for assuming you could discern obvious sarcasm.
So you do believe in the scientific method, but you've already made up your mind? And who is they. You are making some pretty serious quantification errors. It is not true because one or more people do not accept dissenting opinions that they, in your words, do not accept dissenting opinions. Th
First, it isn't clear how Al Gore would instantly become a billionaire if cap and trade becomes law. Second, you really think one man is more influential than several, already, multi-billion dollar industries?
It's quite clear how he would become a multibillionaire. He started a company that does nothing but buy and sell carbon credits. He'd be the founder and owner of the biggest company on the carbon credit version of Wall Street. I also never said he was more influential than multi-billion dollar industries. However he is one of the most influential people in the world in terms of environmental policy.
While this may be true, they already are the completely dominant force in commerce and so they'll make even more money if they don't have to retool anything.
Incorrect. The cost of doing business in the developed world is more expensive than in the undeveloped world. The western factories are steadily losing ground to the Daewoos and Tatas of the world. Their profits (adjusted for inflation) are shrinking. They have a few choices: compete from a position that is inferior in the long term, level the playing field by getting rid of wealth destroying laws like western income taxes and minimum wages (which the economically ignorant would never let happen), or use the fear of the scientifically ignorant to pressure the developing nations to level the playing field the other way. These are the same mega-corps that promote ideas like mandatory worker health benefits, minimum wage, and complicated tax accounting rules. Sure it costs them money, but it costs their small scale competitors a greater amount (in relative terms), so they win. If the American corporations didn't want greater regulation and global environmental treaties, why did they give record amounts of money to the Obama campaign? It certainly wasn't because he wanted to make the US a capitalist country again.
What? Are you counting yourself and all the other posters on slashdot?
What cooling? The temperatures may be slightly cooler than the absolute peak, but to say there is a cooling trend is simply not true.
The "trend", as you call it, is a decade long...so far, and it's projected to last another few decades. How long was the warming that proceeded it? Twenty five years? I find it interesting that you quote a man (James Hansen of GISS) who was forced to retract falsified evidence that had claimed that the 2000s were the hottest decade in recorded history. And whose revised (i.e. more truthful) report showed that the world has cooled since the 1940s, while at the same time CO2 production skyrocketed. Additionally, wasn't he implicated in the CRU data manipulation? Yeah, he was. He's a trustwo
Keep it up deniers, Im sure your corporate masters are laughing all the way to the bank while you cry all the way to the grave.
Yeah...because the mega-corps and super-rich don't make a penny off of the current wave of Chicken Little alarmism. Al Gore isn't poised to become a multibillionaire if Cap-And-Trade becomes law. Western mega-corps won't have complete dominance in commerce if the developing world has to retool its entire production and delivery system to comply with international CO2 limits. Oh wait...that's exactly what will happen. You'll feel very stupid if you ever realize how much the anticorporate movement in the US and Europe plays right into the hands of the companies you're trying to take down.
So while you "deniers" stick your fingers in your ears, screaming "lalalalala...", so you don't have to acknowledge the thousands of respected scientists who disagree with the Anthropomorphic Global Warming theory or the obvious evidence that all the models failed to predict the past decade of cooling, corrupt cronyists like Gore get richer, and attention is diverted from real environmental issues (farm runoff into rivers, high levels of mercury, lead, and other heavy metals in the food supply, etc) to stopping a gas that is no more dangerous to animals than nitrogen, and incredibly beneficial to plants.
There have been a few instances in Earth's past where CO2 levels were dramatically higher than they are today, and they were all periods of incredible biodiversity. The world was lush and green, because plant food (i.e. CO2) was so plentiful. And since plants form the basis of the food chain (which is more of a pyramid, wider on the bottom than the top), there was more life at all levels.
There have also been two periods in western history where global temperatures were significantly higher than today: the Roman Warming Period, and Medieval Warming Period. Rome and London didn't flood under the melted icecap water. Farmland didn't burst into flame destroying all crops. Disease didn't run rampant around the world. In fact quite the opposite happened. Humanity flourished, science advanced quicker, crops were plentiful, disease was lower, the weather was less extreme. Based on what we know of history, if the "science" of Anthropomorphic Global Warming wasn't complete crap, we should all buy Humvees and run them 24/7, to speed things up.
Bah. We can control that with central government planning. All we need to do is alternate the direction in which planes take off and land. Of course, since some planes push with more thrust than others, it will get slightly out of balance, so we'll have a leap plane every googol takeoffs or so to compensate.
Note: I just noticed Firefox's built in spell checker considers googol a spelling error, but accepts Google (but only with the capital G). Coincidence? Or Evil World Domination Conspiracy (TM)?
They need a new "funny because it's true" mod. I started using e15 a few months before e16 came out. When e16 came out it was the shiniest, flashiest UI available. I spent hours tweaking the UI to be exactly what I wanted (F1, change text file,:wq, <alt>F7, <ctrl><alt><backspace>, verify change,...). Then they announced e17 would be out "soon", then they decided to rewrite it, then they re-announced it as "soon", then they re-rewrote it, then I gave up and used KDE, because the rest of the FOSS UI world had caught up with, and passed, e (and Qt has a good C++ api for writing my own apps).</nostalgia>
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Somebody with "plenty of money" probably has a checking and savings history with a bank that would trust him enough to issue a normal card with a low ($1000 - $2000) limit. The people going after secured cards are usually the ones who have significant dings on their credit histories (late payments, bounced checks, collections, etc.).
Credit rating (without violating my FICO formula NDA) is an attempt to quantify fiscal responsibility, specifically, your likelihood to repay a loan, both in terms of capability (i.e. do you have the money), and willingness (i.e. do you want to give them the money). Credit cards are a double edged sword to FICO: they might show that you have been responsible with money in the past, but they also show that you could increase your debt by $X overnight. If X is significant compared to your income level, they'll worry that you might not be able to pay them after a spending spree.
Secured loans (e.g. cars and houses) bump your credit rating much faster, because they show you can meet an agreed payment schedule, and they don't have the capacity to increase your debt, so they're safer that way. Avoid home equity lines of credit--they're revolving credit.
Savings, CD, and other low activity accounts show that you are responsible with your money. They also represent a financial buffer that could be used to repay your debt. Their effect isn't huge, but they're basically free points. You score points for multiple accounts (with diminishing returns), and you score more points based on a higher balance or longer account history. Most secured credit cards are backed by a savings account with the issuing bank.
One card type that we forgot to mention is the store credit card. Some stores offer their card as a branded Visa or MC, but most department stores, Home Depot, Target and others have a standard store account. These are generally easier to get than a Visa or MC; they'll give one to somebody whose credit score is lower due to inactivity rather than bad activity. They also tend to have no monthly/annual fees. The down side is they can only be used at that company's stores and they tend to have 20+% interest rates (but you should pay off any credit card with more than a 3% interest rate at the end of the month). They'll give you the same credit bump as any other revolving account.
That's what I've learned in a decade writing software at various bank & bank like companies.
Chase Freedom Card: 1% - 3% on various things.
Amazon Visa: 1% - 3% on various things. 3% at amazon, I believe.
Pentagon Federal Credit Union Visa: 1% - 2% on various things. 5% on gas.
Those are in the USA, and I notice you're buying your gas in liters, so they might not be available for you. Just one of the many benefits of the dollar destroying inflationary polices the US has had since Kennedy died.
...except they charge monthly fees, and annual fees, and infinity-1% interest (yes, I'm aware you said pay the bill in full each month, but some people can't make that full payment every month...especially with huge fees). A debit card is a far superior option to a secured card. And as long as you're not on the bank's Do Not Trust This Guy With Money list, you should be able to get one with any checking account.
If you want to build credit history, secured loans are much better than revolving debt. Buy a car with a tiny loan (e.g. 50% of the price). Pay it off in six months by refinancing it with a new bank. Do that a few times (or just buy a new car every six months), for two years and you'll have a strong credit history.
You can also open multiple savings or CD accounts with different banks. Those make you look responsible.
No information is ever deleted from PayPal.
There's a credit card table that lists every credit card ever entered into the system, there's an address table that lists every mailing and billing address ever entered, there's a series of tables that list the information for every transaction ever attempted, etc.
Then it's actually acting as a poison. But it's still not a pollutant.
Meant to exist by whom? Humans are adaptable. If food became as plentiful as it was then, I think we'd manage.
I never said that there were no glaciers melting. Glaciers melt. That doesn't mean burning fossil fuels have anything to do with it. About a millenium ago Greenland's glaciers melted to the point that the vikings were able to build structures that are still covered in ice. I don't think Leif Ericson burned many fossil fuels.
The Roman and Medieval warming periods were warmer than today. The '30s were warmer than today, as were the '90s. Human CO2 production doesn't correlate with global temperature variations over the Earth's lengthy history. That temperature variance does, however, seem to follow solar output pretty well.
Although they're still smaller than they were 30 years ago (after the '40s to '70s cooldown), glaciers and ice caps are rebounding. They lag temperature changes by several years, in both directions.
Trying to blame temperature changes on CO2 is a political construct meant to distract people from important issues, such as farm runoff.
It's a lot better than "marginal". And if you want to factor in CO2, you should factor in the CO2 of the production.
If they get recycled. Sadly, a lot of recyclable materials just get dumped. And regardless, there's a lot of pollution produced in mining and refining. A Prius contains a lot more heavy metals than a Yaris.
Correct. The phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" is best when followed in order.
I clearly said pollution, not byproducts. My car also produces a great deal of water vapor.
Despite what Al Gore might say, CO2 is not pollution. Without CO2, there would be no plant life on earth. In fact, the eras with the greatest abundance and diversity of life (plant and animal) have had CO2 levels several times higher than what we currently have (and they weren't much warmer, if any).
And even if those as of yet unproven claims against CO2 are somehow proven true, I still produce less pollution and CO2 by driving the car, than I would trading it in on a new car that would get double or even triple the gas mileage, since producing a car, particularly a hybrid, produces so much pollution.
I don't give a crap about fossil fuel usage (except in terms of money spent). I care more about pollution caused.
Which causes less pollution? Destroying my V8 powered, 18 mpg (but fairly clean, since gasoline burns cleanly these days) 1999 Mercedes SUV, mining and shipping raw materials for a Prius around the world, assembling the Prius, and shipping the Prius to me? Or...continuing to drive the Mercedes until it begins falling apart? Option B is cheaper too, allowing me to save up for the world's first not-butt-ugly hybrid.
Are you joking, or just an idiot? Fire up Google maps (or earth) and look to the east of Scottsdale, AZ. You'll see an area where the suburban sprawl stops cold and turns into tracts of farmland. That's the Salt River/Pima reservation.
According to this, agriculture accounts for $6.6 billion per year in AZ. And it's probably gone up since that was published.
Plants don't mind the extreme heat as much as people do. What they do mind is extreme cold (December and January are growing months around here), and lack of water (did you ever wonder why there are so many dams on the Colorado River?).
Good soil can be imported, water can be imported, sunlight cannot.
I agree that the Feds created a situation where obesity became so common, by 1) subsidizing the production of crap food, as detailed fairly well in the documentary Food, Inc. , and 2) creating a welfare system that perpetuates laziness and ignorance.
However, I think the Havasupai bear a significant portion of the responsibility, because nobody is forcing them to stay in that lifestyle.
I've been to Havasupai (which is actually in Havasu Canyon, not the Grand Canyon, but they are connected). It's known locally for it's really beautiful falls (Moody, Havasu, and Beaver). If you remember the Indian village from Next , that's the place.
While I was waiting to get helicoptered out (you can hike ten miles, or fly, there are no roads) after my girlfriend twisted her ankle, I got to watch for three hours as the locals flew in from their shopping trips. I do not remember a single one who was not obese. Most were morbidly obese. And the crap they were getting off the helicopter was, well, crap. They subsist on a diet of Hot Pockets, Cheetos, and Pepsi. They don't farm, they don't work, they do all have satellite TV, though.
Morbid obesity, a high-fructose corn syrup heavy diet, and a sedentary lifestyle are all factors for an increased rate of diabetes.
The other reservations in AZ that I've visited are primarily agrarian (with a few casinos), so for the most part, they're eating healthier foods, and they're out there performing physical labor to cultivate the food. A good diet, and plenty of exercise reduce the risk of diabetes.
So are you admitting that the government is nothing but a bunch of thieves?
Interesting theory...and exactly why is healthcare any of the government's business? Governments exist (supposedly) to protect the basic rights: life, liberty, and property. If government goes beyond this and starts making up new rights to protect (e.g. a right to education or healthcare), then it has to violate those basic rights (e.g. taxation and inflation).
Whenever someone makes the bold suggestion that the government should run healthcare, because it's too important to leave to private industry I ask some simple questions:
What's the most efficient industry (private or public) you can think of? Which one has had the fastest advancements while having reductions in prices? Most people answer something about computers or cell phones. Nobody answers transit systems, the post office, power production or other "essential" services. When you understand that profit drives innovation, this becomes obvious.
If essential services need to be controlled by the government, because they can't be trusted to the private sector, why are we not trusting them with the most important industry of all: food production and distribution? I don't know about you, but I visit a doctor, at most, once a year, and I could go a lot longer than that. I need food on a regular basis, or I'll die. (I know there are many people who need medical care as regularly as food, but for the vast majority of us, food is far more important). Just think, we could have government controlled food just like the Soviets did. Breadline anyone? When you understand the complexity of centralization, this begins to make sense. Centralized decision making is a horribly complex nightmare. Centralized planners have a harder task than predicting the weather next week (but without the warehouse full of computers to do the modeling), which is why their predictions are so vague, yet they're still wrong more often than next week's weather prediction. Distributed decision making only makes decisions specific to what's at hand, and then that decision combines with others. This is far more adaptable, and in a non-constant world, ends up being superior.
Now to the topic at hand: the bill in question is not healthcare reform. Like any other bill with strong support, it's a collection of kickbacks for special interest groups, with some handouts to the common people thrown in to make it look tempting. Follow the money, and it becomes clear. Who's paying for all the ads saying that republicans are shills for the insurance industry? Why, the drug industry (incidentally, Obama took more bribe money...I mean campaign contributions...from the drug industry than any other political candidate in US History). Billy Tauzin, head of the pharmaceutical lobby was a key contributor to the bill. Coincidence? Or corporatist whores?
The reform needed in this country for medical care is to get rid of these corporatist special interest laws:
So Microsoft is complaining that Google's success is making Google more successful. Within the next few years, I expect the government to equip all Google engineers (starting with their best, Harrison Bergeron) with devices that interrupt their brain activity at random intervals to keep them from coming up with such innovative technology.
You can pay hookers with PayPal (just use send money). You can't buy porn with it. There's a difference.
Did you read the quotes? None of them said anything like "worship Jesus, or go to hell". They probably just searched a Biblical concordance for cool quotes about light. If they were trying to push their religion on us, they'd put pamphlets in the packaging, or visible quotes on the sights. But they don't.
If they did put "There is no god" on their products, and religious people complained, they'd be just as ridiculous as the non-religious complaining about this.
But, if it bothers you that much, don't buy Trijicon products. If they piss off enough customers (but as I said before, few of their customers, Christian or not, will care), the demand will go down, and I'll be able to buy another ACOG for rock bottom prices!
I hope none of you complaining about this have ever eaten at In-N-Out Burger.
For the most part, Trijicon sells "night sights": tritium lit, light amplification, etc. Given that, their choices of quotes (about shining light) seem apropos. If it had been a Shakespeare quote about light, would anybody be complaining? Before crying about religious oppression, realize that the Bible is a work of literature. Quotes from it are not necessarily for religious purposes.
If you really want to get upset about something military related, might I suggest the expense of trillions of borrowed dollars to kill unthreatening foreigners and police the world?
I have Trijicon tritium sights on most of my pistols, and a Trijicon ACOG on one of my AR-15s. I've never noticed the quotes (I'll look tonight), but they haven't subliminally converted me to Christianity yet. The only people who really have any justification to complain would be the customers, and most gun owners I know (Christian or not) wouldn't care.
In a felony, mens rea is almost always required. There are a few "crimes", like possession with intent to distribute, where they've effectively eliminated the intent requirement.
I agree about the jury's disgust, that's why I emphasized that they need to be very careful in jury selection, so they get a jury that can feel a commonality with the defendant. Or at least a few jurors who will. A hung jury is almost as good as an acquittal.
What really should happen though, is that everyone involved in prosecuting this case should be fired and held financially and criminally responsible for their actions (where appropriate) in persecuting a kid who made a dumb mistake. These people see an innocent kid as a stepping stone to promotion.
So if you accidentally get kiddie porn on your machine, you should call them and confess to downloading it? After they nailed this guy, stealing 20 years of his life (or only 3.5 if he pleads out), and destroying the remainder: "Hi, my name's Dave. I'm a registered sex offender, and I just moved in next door." "Hi, I'd like to apply for the job. I'm a registered sex offender." "Hello beautiful. Can I buy you a drink? I'm a registered sex offender." They proved that there effectively was no porn on his machine! What do you think they'd do to you when you called up and they had the computer with the porn on it? Your claim of "accident" is no better than his.
The correct thing to do is run shred on the drive for a few days and then restore from back up (I love Time Machine). And if the feds show up, admit nothing and posit that it could easily have been a wardriver on your WiFi.
As for the kid in the story about to get fucked by the system, he needs to get a better lawyer (as others have pointed out), and have his lawyer focus on the prosecution's complete lack of proof of criminal intent (mens rea as the lawyers call it). Although the concept has been ignored recently (especially in federal courts), it is still on the books as a requirement of the prosecution. He needs to show the jury (made up hopefully of mostly men, and nobody with small children), that he's just a regular horny college kid, just like they were. And then point out very clearly to the jury that, according to the law, if they do not feel he intended to download child pornography, beyond a reasonable doubt, then they must acquit him.
Sorry...I clicked the wrong news article. This would have made much more sense on the printer story.
Go Office Space on it's ass!
Study Economics. I recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt as a good starting point.
You're ignoring the fact that during that time the US and Canada were the only two first world nations that hadn't been almost completely destroyed in a six year long war. They needed to rebuild their manufacturing base, and we were the source of all the machinery. The economies of North America prospered despite the taxes, because they were the only functional ones left in the world.
What about Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek? But to summarize: minimum wage laws are price controls on labor. Price controls artificially affect supply and demand. In this case, they artificially reduce demand. If McDonalds can afford to pay $20 per hour to staff the place during the evening, then they'll hire four people if the minimum wage is $5/hour (ignoring the hidden costs of employment for simplicity). If the minimum wage jumps to $6.50/hour, they'll cut back on staff, rather than lose money. Minimum wage laws are also contributing to the destruction of the Main Street mom-n-pop businesses in America. They can't afford to pay for minimum wage, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, employer tax contributions, etc. But Wal-Mart can.
40 years ago, total taxes were much lower. 40 years ago, government regulation of the economy was much lower. And as I've said before, the mega corporations love all of this regulation, because it weeds out the competition, and leaves only them behind. What we live in today is fascism. Now fascism does not mean rounding up Jews & gypsies and putting them in camps or the Gestapo arresting and executing anyone who passes out leaflets. Fascism, as described by Mussolini, is a system where there is a strong partnership between government and corporations to enrich themselves (presumably at the expense of the only group left, us). The USA has moved steadily toward that since 1913.
But quite likely if cap and trade becomes law. He also has stakes in several "green" energy companies.
I implied no such thing. If you actually read my first post you'll see that I said both he and the mega-corps love the idea of all of this global warming alarmism because it benefits both groups. I stated they both had influence without any indication of whose was greater.
So you're saying you don't have an understanding of basic economics? Or that you refuse to understand it because it violates your simplistic world view? Both are sad.
You caught me. I'm actually an American who believes in outdated concepts like freedom, and not the empty phrase George W. Bush would spout every minute or so in a speech. I'm one of those whack-job extremists like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. I dislike fascism, or corporatism, or crony-capitalism, or whatever you choose to call our current system where the right campaign contribution can be more important than a good business plan.
If you said that a significant portion of the scientific community does not support the alarmist theory, then yes you are right. But I don't think you said that. That's just what I found in a few minutes of searching. There are thousands more out there. Here's another one: A majority of American meteorologists disagree with the "consensus". Do you not find it odd that a significant number of experts in the field completely disagree? And that many have claimed that they had pressure put on them (like that alluded to in the CRU emails) to toe the party line? THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS! That is religion, plain and simple.
To draw a parallel, look at evolution. The only scientists in a related field who disagree with the theory of evolution (in general, not the guys who disagree on smaller details) do so because of religious beliefs. That's not science either. And yes, I just compared you with the evolution deniers, and it fits.
Yes. That's how science works. It's all about reputation. In any other field, those people would have been ostracized by now, and rightly so. If the data is falsified by one person, who is fired for it, then the institution can begin to repair its reputation. When the person falsifying data is in charge of the institution, everything they produce must be suspect.
My apologies for assuming you could discern obvious sarcasm.
It's quite clear how he would become a multibillionaire. He started a company that does nothing but buy and sell carbon credits. He'd be the founder and owner of the biggest company on the carbon credit version of Wall Street. I also never said he was more influential than multi-billion dollar industries. However he is one of the most influential people in the world in terms of environmental policy.
Incorrect. The cost of doing business in the developed world is more expensive than in the undeveloped world. The western factories are steadily losing ground to the Daewoos and Tatas of the world. Their profits (adjusted for inflation) are shrinking. They have a few choices: compete from a position that is inferior in the long term, level the playing field by getting rid of wealth destroying laws like western income taxes and minimum wages (which the economically ignorant would never let happen), or use the fear of the scientifically ignorant to pressure the developing nations to level the playing field the other way. These are the same mega-corps that promote ideas like mandatory worker health benefits, minimum wage, and complicated tax accounting rules. Sure it costs them money, but it costs their small scale competitors a greater amount (in relative terms), so they win. If the American corporations didn't want greater regulation and global environmental treaties, why did they give record amounts of money to the Obama campaign? It certainly wasn't because he wanted to make the US a capitalist country again.
No I'm counting world renowned scientists:
Astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas
Statistician Stephen McIntyre
Professor Habibullo Abdussamatov
Geologist Astrid Lyså
Prof. Roy Spencer, NASA scientist
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT
a few dozen here...including an IPCC member.
and these 32 000 guys.
That should be enough people to show there is no "consensus" on global warming.
The "trend", as you call it, is a decade long...so far, and it's projected to last another few decades. How long was the warming that proceeded it? Twenty five years? I find it interesting that you quote a man (James Hansen of GISS) who was forced to retract falsified evidence that had claimed that the 2000s were the hottest decade in recorded history. And whose revised (i.e. more truthful) report showed that the world has cooled since the 1940s, while at the same time CO2 production skyrocketed. Additionally, wasn't he implicated in the CRU data manipulation? Yeah, he was. He's a trustwo
Keep it up deniers, Im sure your corporate masters are laughing all the way to the bank while you cry all the way to the grave.
Yeah...because the mega-corps and super-rich don't make a penny off of the current wave of Chicken Little alarmism. Al Gore isn't poised to become a multibillionaire if Cap-And-Trade becomes law. Western mega-corps won't have complete dominance in commerce if the developing world has to retool its entire production and delivery system to comply with international CO2 limits. Oh wait...that's exactly what will happen. You'll feel very stupid if you ever realize how much the anticorporate movement in the US and Europe plays right into the hands of the companies you're trying to take down.
So while you "deniers" stick your fingers in your ears, screaming "lalalalala...", so you don't have to acknowledge the thousands of respected scientists who disagree with the Anthropomorphic Global Warming theory or the obvious evidence that all the models failed to predict the past decade of cooling, corrupt cronyists like Gore get richer, and attention is diverted from real environmental issues (farm runoff into rivers, high levels of mercury, lead, and other heavy metals in the food supply, etc) to stopping a gas that is no more dangerous to animals than nitrogen, and incredibly beneficial to plants.
There have been a few instances in Earth's past where CO2 levels were dramatically higher than they are today, and they were all periods of incredible biodiversity. The world was lush and green, because plant food (i.e. CO2) was so plentiful. And since plants form the basis of the food chain (which is more of a pyramid, wider on the bottom than the top), there was more life at all levels.
There have also been two periods in western history where global temperatures were significantly higher than today: the Roman Warming Period, and Medieval Warming Period. Rome and London didn't flood under the melted icecap water. Farmland didn't burst into flame destroying all crops. Disease didn't run rampant around the world. In fact quite the opposite happened. Humanity flourished, science advanced quicker, crops were plentiful, disease was lower, the weather was less extreme. Based on what we know of history, if the "science" of Anthropomorphic Global Warming wasn't complete crap, we should all buy Humvees and run them 24/7, to speed things up.
Bah. We can control that with central government planning. All we need to do is alternate the direction in which planes take off and land. Of course, since some planes push with more thrust than others, it will get slightly out of balance, so we'll have a leap plane every googol takeoffs or so to compensate.
Note: I just noticed Firefox's built in spell checker considers googol a spelling error, but accepts Google (but only with the capital G). Coincidence? Or Evil World Domination Conspiracy (TM)?
They need a new "funny because it's true" mod. I started using e15 a few months before e16 came out. When e16 came out it was the shiniest, flashiest UI available. I spent hours tweaking the UI to be exactly what I wanted (F1, change text file, :wq, <alt>F7, <ctrl><alt><backspace>, verify change, ...). Then they announced e17 would be out "soon", then they decided to rewrite it, then they re-announced it as "soon", then they re-rewrote it, then I gave up and used KDE, because the rest of the FOSS UI world had caught up with, and passed, e (and Qt has a good C++ api for writing my own apps).</nostalgia>