Here in NYC, the first fire companies were actually created by neighborhood gangs back in the early- to mid-1800s. The rival gangs would sometimes fight over who got to a fire first and who should have the honor of putting it out -- to the point where occasionally the building would burn down while the rival gangs were fighting.
Please tell me you didn't get your history from watching "Gangs of New York" (just checking)
It only surprises you because you assume most things now run by the government were invented by it.
First fire companies.... Yup, insurance companies protecting its assets
First alarms about obesity in America... yup life insurance companies. This was back in the 1900s, when the government, and general opinion advised people to eat more and gain weight to combat "wasting diseases".
Capitalism does indeed work, because it assigns things value. When things have a value they are protected.
Depends on how you look at it... I actually heard this conversation once (in an ethics class)
Student: What about the ethics of things like government cover-ups, and hiding the truth from the public
Teacher:: Well, I suppose it would depend on the circumstances, and what was involved...
Student:: Because, back in the 70s, this UFO crashed out in New Mexico... witnesses reported it looking a lot like a giant flying wing. The government sealed the area, and covered it up. They took this UFO technology and studied it to turn it into the B2 Bomber today. That's why they're so advanced
Teacher:: Couldn't it have just been a prototype B2 bomber built by the government that cashed
Student:: (Twitch.... The thought never occurred to him) Uh...no.... No, see it was a UFO, and the government covered it up! (think... 6 minute abs)
I never really heard about it requiring more energy, but what I did hear about is that it requires producing hazardous chemicals. Amazingly, I did RTFA, and found their answer to this wanting. If you are going to "debunk" myths, please use... actual numbers. As I read it, this document is primarily directed at people who already want to believe its conclusions. I'm not saying this to be hostile.... I just honestly wanted an answer to this and was disappointed they didn't give one.
and chemicals used must be disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.
And how is that exactly?
By using well-designed industrial processes and careful monitoring, PV manufacturers have minimized risks to where they are far less than those in most major industries.
One, I'm not sure what exactly they are talking about here: They bounce back and forth between discussing the safety of the workers, and the environmental impact. I suspect that this quote was in context of risks to workers, but it is presented as risk to the environment
Secondly, What is "most major industries". I suspect that they compared PV cell production to other industries where you have to use other similar processes and chemicals to refine your materials. Lets say you have to use similar silicon techniques for PV cells and microchip production (I don't know about this). It is all well and good to say "We're no worse that other industries that use these chemicals to produce our product", but this is really skirting the issue because you aren't addressing the issue of whether you have to use that process to produce electricity. You have to use these chemicals to produce microchips, you do not have to do so to produce electricity.
This is the central question to the debate, and they have not addressed it, but merely changed the debate to a question of whether their industrial process is worse than other industries with the same process.
They also did not address the issue of environmental impact of the batteries that you need with the photo cells.
Nukes produce nuclear waste, and even after spending billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, no acceptable disposal solution has been brought to the table
This is a good example of "Begging the question"..... Nukes produce nuclear waste is only a detriment if you already accept that nuclear waste is bad (or at least worse than anything else).... which is the statement they are trying to prove
Again, the reason "no acceptable disposal solution has been brought to the table" is because they will not accept any solution as acceptable because it involves nuclear waste.... They have to answer: why is burying nuclear waste so much worse than burying toxic chemicals produced by PVC and battery production?
Again, as a solar supporter I'm sure you run into hostile questioning.... but do not consider this... I am truly some one who wants to believe solar is a viable solution, but I am looking for hard numbers to justify this and I have not found it yet.... hope you can supply this.
The problem is that the ACLU selectively defends the constitution. They don't defend the rights of gun owners for one.
This means they are really no different than anyone else. Everyone agrees they like the constitution, they just can't agree on which parts are important to protect and which aren't.
If the ACLU would say, we want to protect everything, they would get a lot more respect from me. I support a lot of what they do now, but I think that point needs to be addressed
Because...
The music industry hasn't figured out that piracy helps them, the software industry has. Think Adobe cares that thousands of people pirate photoshop that weren't going to buy it anyway? No... they only care that all other competition has been driven out of business
because of the same human tendencies that free players from domineering storylines and inflexible rules. Games naturally turn players against contrived limits and inconsistencies.
Of course the same argument could be made that games do not favor political/social liberty... Games like SimCity/warcraft show gamers how an extremely organized, well planned, and well led society can become greater than all others. Seeing how such societies flourish would naturally lead them to desire a similar intelligent overseer running the real world, with extreme authoritarian control to be able to 'do the right thing'.
It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me
It should have read:
It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me Oops, I almost forgot to pay my monthly subscription to play the game.
---Lane
P.S. I haven't played, so who knows whether you have to pay a monthly subscription, but the sarcasm still stands as I imagine they still had to pay to purchase the game.
MOD PARENT DOWN. GOATSEX LINK + STOLEN TEXT
on
Systemantics
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I'm not sure if I should even waste my time replying, but here it goes...
Or you could create a business, that slowly churns in the coin.
You realize, that people who make businesses don't have all the money they need immediately. Even the smallest business requires some sort of initial capital. To get this money, they go to someone and say "give me some money now, and I'll give you a percentage of whatever money my business makes". This is exactly what investing is.
Stocks are mere gambling, imho. The house always wins...
Except, there is no "house" It is a game people play against each other. In this regard, if it is like gambling, it is like poker. You win by being smarter or knowing more than your opponent. Therefore it just resolves that in stocks... "There is no better ROI than genius" (duh)
heh...
First off... in my previous post my browser must have messed up... As written, my first reply (the one that is about what I think is naive) doesn't make much sense.
It should read:
The real reason for this law is to try to get as many illegal immigrantsto be able to vote (presumably Democrat) as possible
With out that, the sentence is at best confusing.
The Naive part, is that I don't think anyone who is honest with themselves either Democrat or Republican (I'm neither by the way) would really say that the point of the drivers license for illegal immigrants was to make them aspire to obtain a better driving record.
In fact, I would imagine no one would drive better than someone who is an illegal immigrant without a driver's license... considering any traffic infringement leads to automatic arrest and deportation.
Again, Do you honestly think that legislation was aimed at safer driving standards, or what it perhaps just a bit of rhetoric on your part? If it was an honest belief, I just think it was a naive one.
As for the rest of your post
what I've read made it sound like the reason for the CA deficit was a vast reduction in capital gains and income tax revenue brought on by the collapse of the stock bubble and many Silicon Valley companies.
Yes, but that was my point: The government increased spending during this bubble. It was spending money that was based on a revenue they should have known would not continue. This was irresponsible and should not have been continued. This is the fundamental difference I was trying to point out about liberals.... That when they see a surplus, they think "great, now we have enough funding for project X or Y" and authorize it. When revenue falls, a deficit grows but no one wants to cut spending, they raise taxes (which often times leads to a short term surplus, which gets spent). If you listened to the California Debate, this is exactly what the Green party candidate said he'd do: "I'd raise taxes on the rich, and with the surplus generated I'd create low income housing..." and some other things.
Obviously there are two parts to a deficit: income, and expense... when the income is less than the expense, you have a deficit. I merely said.. there is a deficit because the expense was built up upon an unreasonable expectation of income. Your reply to me was "no, it is really because the income fell".
Some businesses are running out of CA. Some businesses are moving in.
This really isn't open for debate. Businesses are leaving California, and heading to more friendly states. This is why neighboring states have such low tax rates: to attract growth.
For the first time, California is seeing a net loss in US. citizen population movement. Namely, more people are leaving CA than moving to there. The population is still growing however, through an influx of illegal immigrants.
What you will hear from people (Bustamante said it in the debate). Is that "during the dot com bubble, we saw X number of businesses founded per day, today we are seeing Y businesses stated per day. (where Y>X). This is misleading however, as often times during recession we see many individuals who can not find work starting their own companies (it is why home unemployment numbers often much lower than industry unemployment numbers... like we see now)
There are 43 million Americans without health insurance of any kind. What is wrong with trying a new solution to the problem?
The problem is, government being in charge of health care is not a new solution... It is done in Europe and leads to disastrous consequences:
Experience overseas shows that governments that pay for prescription drugs tend to involve themselves extensively in both pricing and availability. So, while the EU drug-approval process is relatively speedy, individual nation
People without documents (who assuredly aren't in the US right now) learning basic road safety and having an incentive to pass the driver's test.
Wow, that is amazingly naive... The real reason for this law is to try to get as many illegal immigrants as possible. If you can't see this (no matter what side you're on) you are pretty blind
As an added bonus, legal California residents will have their licensees considered invalid as a form of ID most anywhere else, and will have to lug around their passports. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an elected government supposed to represent the citizens that elected it?
As for the other things, they of course all sound nice... but in practice only serve to discourage business and drive away jobs. This is similar to the workers comp. issue and health insurance.
It would be great if we could legislate "all businesses have to provide everything for their workers"... but then the businesses leave, and the unemployed are worse off than they would have been if they had a job with slightly worse health coverage.
On top of that, the remaining businesses (and people) have to be taxed more to make up for the reduction in revenue of those who left... causing them to want to leave (wash, rinse, repeat). It is how you wind up with a state in deficit, with both businesses and people running out.
With Gray Davis' days numbered, the California legislature is cranking out as many liberal laws as possible. The Wall Street Journal has an article about it on the front page.
This legislation serves two real purposes: winning over many Democratic supporters and interest groups and giving Democrats ammo to fire against Arnold when he repeals them. Note, the last reason is fairly typical of any political group.... Clinton signed environmental legislation that was extremely harsh, knowing that if Bush won he'd have to repeal them which would let Democrats call him anti-environmental (If Gore won, no one would care about him repealing the laws, as it didn't fit into the stereotype)
Recent CA laws passed include:
granting illegal immigrants the right to driver's licenses
enacting the nation's toughest financial-privacy and antispam measures
expanding the rights of gay domestic partners
and coming up: requiring businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance or pay into a state pool to purchase the coverage
Considering the plants are much healthier, and live much longer than they would naturally... I'm not loosing any sleep.
Remember, this is a plant not an animal, don't give it animal emotions and senses when making morality judgments. In the strictest sense, all the plant cares about is living longer to put out more seeds.
Just because you like it when a tree grows tall, doesn't mean the tree likes it. It just does that because it is programmed to (it is assuming it will have to be competing for light).
Bonsai is a technique not a species. Literally in Japanese, it means "tree in pot". You can take any number of species of tree, and "bonsai" them. This involves restricting the roots, reducing the leaf size, and pruning it in such a manor that the small tree appears like a miniature version of the larger tree (as opposed to just a young tree).
So you could actually get one of these trees, and turn it into a "bonsai tree" (which is what I considered doing when I read the article)
Except neither of those things are Rights. Be careful on your language.... people throw around that word to carelessly.
Even the other night, in the recall debate... Huffington was describing those who wanted to stop the drivers licenses for illegal immigrants as "wanting to stop their right to drive".... huh?
Allthough you might not be able to read the articles, th entire site, including the free font page, has a very clean and elegant design...
http://www.wsj.com
---Lane
Slashdot Mirror
Here in NYC, the first fire companies were actually created by neighborhood gangs back in the early- to mid-1800s. The rival gangs would sometimes fight over who got to a fire first and who should have the honor of putting it out -- to the point where occasionally the building would burn down while the rival gangs were fighting.
Please tell me you didn't get your history from watching "Gangs of New York" (just checking)
It only surprises you because you assume most things now run by the government were invented by it.
First fire companies.... Yup, insurance companies protecting its assets
First alarms about obesity in America... yup life insurance companies. This was back in the 1900s, when the government, and general opinion advised people to eat more and gain weight to combat "wasting diseases".
Capitalism does indeed work, because it assigns things value. When things have a value they are protected.
Depends on how you look at it... I actually heard this conversation once (in an ethics class)
: Well, I suppose it would depend on the circumstances, and what was involved...
: Because, back in the 70s, this UFO crashed out in New Mexico... witnesses reported it looking a lot like a giant flying wing. The government sealed the area, and covered it up. They took this UFO technology and studied it to turn it into the B2 Bomber today. That's why they're so advanced
: Couldn't it have just been a prototype B2 bomber built by the government that cashed
: (Twitch.... The thought never occurred to him) Uh...no.... No, see it was a UFO, and the government covered it up! (think... 6 minute abs)
Student: What about the ethics of things like government cover-ups, and hiding the truth from the public
Teacher:
Student:
Teacher:
Student:
virus n. pl. viruses
If you pass out, your RFID chip still works, guess who's buying!
If you pass out, your cash still works, guess who's buying!
---Lane
give it to blind people so they can know who they're talking to
Have you never had someone say "Hi" after calling you on the phone.... and known who it is?
I never really heard about it requiring more energy, but what I did hear about is that it requires producing hazardous chemicals. Amazingly, I did RTFA, and found their answer to this wanting. If you are going to "debunk" myths, please use... actual numbers. As I read it, this document is primarily directed at people who already want to believe its conclusions. I'm not saying this to be hostile.... I just honestly wanted an answer to this and was disappointed they didn't give one.
..... Nukes produce nuclear waste is only a detriment if you already accept that nuclear waste is bad (or at least worse than anything else).... which is the statement they are trying to prove
and chemicals used must be disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.
And how is that exactly?
By using well-designed industrial processes and careful monitoring, PV manufacturers have minimized risks to where they are far less than those in most major industries.
One, I'm not sure what exactly they are talking about here: They bounce back and forth between discussing the safety of the workers, and the environmental impact. I suspect that this quote was in context of risks to workers, but it is presented as risk to the environment
Secondly, What is "most major industries". I suspect that they compared PV cell production to other industries where you have to use other similar processes and chemicals to refine your materials. Lets say you have to use similar silicon techniques for PV cells and microchip production (I don't know about this). It is all well and good to say "We're no worse that other industries that use these chemicals to produce our product", but this is really skirting the issue because you aren't addressing the issue of whether you have to use that process to produce electricity. You have to use these chemicals to produce microchips, you do not have to do so to produce electricity.
This is the central question to the debate, and they have not addressed it, but merely changed the debate to a question of whether their industrial process is worse than other industries with the same process.
They also did not address the issue of environmental impact of the batteries that you need with the photo cells.
Nukes produce nuclear waste, and even after spending billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, no acceptable disposal solution has been brought to the table
This is a good example of "Begging the question"
Again, the reason "no acceptable disposal solution has been brought to the table" is because they will not accept any solution as acceptable because it involves nuclear waste.... They have to answer: why is burying nuclear waste so much worse than burying toxic chemicals produced by PVC and battery production?
Again, as a solar supporter I'm sure you run into hostile questioning.... but do not consider this... I am truly some one who wants to believe solar is a viable solution, but I am looking for hard numbers to justify this and I have not found it yet.... hope you can supply this.
---Lane
The problem is that the ACLU selectively defends the constitution. They don't defend the rights of gun owners for one.
This means they are really no different than anyone else. Everyone agrees they like the constitution, they just can't agree on which parts are important to protect and which aren't.
If the ACLU would say, we want to protect everything, they would get a lot more respect from me. I support a lot of what they do now, but I think that point needs to be addressed
Maybe he was busy killing all the other more annoying bugs that we don't see today.
---Lane
Because...
The music industry hasn't figured out that piracy helps them, the software industry has. Think Adobe cares that thousands of people pirate photoshop that weren't going to buy it anyway? No... they only care that all other competition has been driven out of business
because of the same human tendencies that free players from domineering storylines and inflexible rules. Games naturally turn players against contrived limits and inconsistencies.
Of course the same argument could be made that games do not favor political/social liberty... Games like SimCity/warcraft show gamers how an extremely organized, well planned, and well led society can become greater than all others. Seeing how such societies flourish would naturally lead them to desire a similar intelligent overseer running the real world, with extreme authoritarian control to be able to 'do the right thing'.
I'm turning 35 in a few months...does that mean I'll have to start watching more TV?
No, but you will bring these habits forward into more demographics until it becomes the norm.... which is what they are afraid of.
This is why it's pretty dumb to pay to be frozen until we can reverse the process and revive a person...
Yeah, because if we don't invent the technology to fix that, then they'll be really screwed.
---Lane
Just went from 0 to 1..... the fastest percentage increase of any distro!
we all saw that one coming didn't we?
I believe this quote was taken out of context..
It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me
It should have read:
It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me Oops, I almost forgot to pay my monthly subscription to play the game.
---Lane
P.S. I haven't played, so who knows whether you have to pay a monthly subscription, but the sarcasm still stands as I imagine they still had to pay to purchase the game.
as others have pointed out
Go
---Lane
I'm not sure if I should even waste my time replying, but here it goes...
Or you could create a business, that slowly churns in the coin.
You realize, that people who make businesses don't have all the money they need immediately. Even the smallest business requires some sort of initial capital. To get this money, they go to someone and say "give me some money now, and I'll give you a percentage of whatever money my business makes". This is exactly what investing is.
Stocks are mere gambling, imho. The house always wins...
Except, there is no "house" It is a game people play against each other. In this regard, if it is like gambling, it is like poker. You win by being smarter or knowing more than your opponent. Therefore it just resolves that in stocks... "There is no better ROI than genius" (duh)
---Lane
It should read:
The real reason for this law is to try to get as many illegal immigrants to be able to vote (presumably Democrat) as possible
With out that, the sentence is at best confusing.
The Naive part, is that I don't think anyone who is honest with themselves either Democrat or Republican (I'm neither by the way) would really say that the point of the drivers license for illegal immigrants was to make them aspire to obtain a better driving record.
In fact, I would imagine no one would drive better than someone who is an illegal immigrant without a driver's license... considering any traffic infringement leads to automatic arrest and deportation.
Again, Do you honestly think that legislation was aimed at safer driving standards, or what it perhaps just a bit of rhetoric on your part? If it was an honest belief, I just think it was a naive one.
As for the rest of your post
what I've read made it sound like the reason for the CA deficit was a vast reduction in capital gains and income tax revenue brought on by the collapse of the stock bubble and many Silicon Valley companies.
Yes, but that was my point: The government increased spending during this bubble. It was spending money that was based on a revenue they should have known would not continue. This was irresponsible and should not have been continued. This is the fundamental difference I was trying to point out about liberals.... That when they see a surplus, they think "great, now we have enough funding for project X or Y" and authorize it. When revenue falls, a deficit grows but no one wants to cut spending, they raise taxes (which often times leads to a short term surplus, which gets spent). If you listened to the California Debate, this is exactly what the Green party candidate said he'd do: "I'd raise taxes on the rich, and with the surplus generated I'd create low income housing..." and some other things.
Obviously there are two parts to a deficit: income, and expense... when the income is less than the expense, you have a deficit. I merely said.. there is a deficit because the expense was built up upon an unreasonable expectation of income. Your reply to me was "no, it is really because the income fell".
Some businesses are running out of CA. Some businesses are moving in.
This really isn't open for debate. Businesses are leaving California, and heading to more friendly states. This is why neighboring states have such low tax rates: to attract growth.
For the first time, California is seeing a net loss in US. citizen population movement. Namely, more people are leaving CA than moving to there. The population is still growing however, through an influx of illegal immigrants.
What you will hear from people (Bustamante said it in the debate). Is that "during the dot com bubble, we saw X number of businesses founded per day, today we are seeing Y businesses stated per day. (where Y>X). This is misleading however, as often times during recession we see many individuals who can not find work starting their own companies (it is why home unemployment numbers often much lower than industry unemployment numbers... like we see now)
There are 43 million Americans without health insurance of any kind. What is wrong with trying a new solution to the problem?
The problem is, government being in charge of health care is not a new solution... It is done in Europe and leads to disastrous consequences:
People without documents (who assuredly aren't in the US right now) learning basic road safety and having an incentive to pass the driver's test.
Wow, that is amazingly naive... The real reason for this law is to try to get as many illegal immigrants as possible. If you can't see this (no matter what side you're on) you are pretty blind
As an added bonus, legal California residents will have their licensees considered invalid as a form of ID most anywhere else, and will have to lug around their passports. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an elected government supposed to represent the citizens that elected it?
As for the other things, they of course all sound nice... but in practice only serve to discourage business and drive away jobs. This is similar to the workers comp. issue and health insurance.
It would be great if we could legislate "all businesses have to provide everything for their workers"... but then the businesses leave, and the unemployed are worse off than they would have been if they had a job with slightly worse health coverage.
On top of that, the remaining businesses (and people) have to be taxed more to make up for the reduction in revenue of those who left... causing them to want to leave (wash, rinse, repeat). It is how you wind up with a state in deficit, with both businesses and people running out.
---Lane
This legislation serves two real purposes: winning over many Democratic supporters and interest groups and giving Democrats ammo to fire against Arnold when he repeals them. Note, the last reason is fairly typical of any political group.... Clinton signed environmental legislation that was extremely harsh, knowing that if Bush won he'd have to repeal them which would let Democrats call him anti-environmental (If Gore won, no one would care about him repealing the laws, as it didn't fit into the stereotype)
Recent CA laws passed include:
- granting illegal immigrants the right to driver's licenses
- enacting the nation's toughest financial-privacy and antispam measures
- expanding the rights of gay domestic partners
and coming up: requiring businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance or pay into a state pool to purchase the coverage---Lane
Considering the plants are much healthier, and live much longer than they would naturally... I'm not loosing any sleep.
Remember, this is a plant not an animal, don't give it animal emotions and senses when making morality judgments. In the strictest sense, all the plant cares about is living longer to put out more seeds.
Just because you like it when a tree grows tall, doesn't mean the tree likes it. It just does that because it is programmed to (it is assuming it will have to be competing for light).
Thanks for the troll,
---Lane
Bonsai is a technique not a species. Literally in Japanese, it means "tree in pot". You can take any number of species of tree, and "bonsai" them. This involves restricting the roots, reducing the leaf size, and pruning it in such a manor that the small tree appears like a miniature version of the larger tree (as opposed to just a young tree).
So you could actually get one of these trees, and turn it into a "bonsai tree" (which is what I considered doing when I read the article)
---Lane
Except neither of those things are Rights. Be careful on your language.... people throw around that word to carelessly.
Even the other night, in the recall debate... Huffington was describing those who wanted to stop the drivers licenses for illegal immigrants as "wanting to stop their right to drive".... huh?
---Lane
Allthough you might not be able to read the articles, th entire site, including the free font page, has a very clean and elegant design... http://www.wsj.com ---Lane