Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
I am puzzled by people who defend a person's "right" to smoke in public places. Smoking pollutes the air around the smoker. It is unhealthy and the odor is offensive. Should you wish to smoke, fart, spit, or smear turds on your clothes you should not be shocked when someone asks you to leave or to refrain from doing this in a public place. If we were to follow this logic, there should be no reprisals for being loud either. As we cannot turn off our hearing, we cannot chose to NOT breathe.
I like having my freedoms. But smoking is not a freedom any more than dumping untreated sewage into the rivers is a freedom. Your "go elsewhere if you want a smoke free environment" is simply infantile. If you want to provide a eating establishment that caters to smokers, then make it a private club that is not open to the public. If this is not allowed under the law, then I believe it should be.
And since the subject has been raised, know that I will be carrying a squirt gun and will dampen anyone who smokes in a public area or puffs out disgusting clouds of smoke in front of the door to my workplace. I'm going wear my "You smoke, I fart" T-shirt to work this casual Friday.
There are public places where people go to fart and shit. It's disgusting and the odor is offensive. They are called "public restrooms". No different than a smoking bar. People go there to drink, smoke and socialize with others that enjoy smoke and noise. I see nothing wrong with that. These places are privately owned - they are public only in the sense that they serve anyone. I perfectly understand that some people would prefer to drink and socialize in a smoke-free environment, as that is my preference as well.
Why can't people have a choice? Your viewpoint is that there should only be the environment that you like, and no one should be allowed to have a smokey bar.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 0
Sorry, but my numbers are correct. They came direct from the Virginia Department of Health. It's not up anymore because ALL restaurants are now supposed to be smoke-free, but feel free to look for archives if you want to dispute my numbers with something other than opining that "a bunch of made up sounding BS".
As far as the closing restaurants, that's all stuff that I have observed, so there's no way to dispute it, it's just fact. You can go talk to the (former) owners of Mile Post 5 and Caddy's, if you don't believe me. You can also ask the owners of the other restaurants that are defying the ban.
If you're going to post a study to back up your own opinions, you might want to find one that actually... backs up your opinions. The one you posted says that "We found no significant change in the overall number of patrons before and after the ban," contrary to your claim that occupancy increased.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
If you think that not smoking (alone) means there's a "good chance" you'll avoid heart disease, you're in for a rude awakening. Smoking isn't even the lead cause of heart disease. It's among the top 5 causes, but diet, exercise, and lifestyle are the major causes.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Ah, I love the deniers. The authorities shouldn't spend all that money on research, they should just have asked you. You seem to know it all.
I'm not denying anything, just pointing out that the "smoking related death" numbers are often over-stated. That's not to say it isn't a serious health issue. Of course, since it's such an "unapproved opinion" to point out the fallacies in those numbers, of course it gets modded as a troll.
Here in Portugal, 3 years after smoking was banned in closed public spaces, the numbers of ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have gone down for the first time ever in our history. Is this just a coincidence or your post is full of bullshit?
It's almost certainly attributable to a reduced incidence of smoking, and almost certainly unrelated to the smoking ban, since any reduction in the incidence of smoking would take at least 5-10 years to show up as an improvement in any smoking-related health issues. Most likely there has been raised public awareness of the dangers for many years, reducing smoking in general, which eventually lead to both the reduction in certain smoking-related illnesses as well as support for the smoking ban.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Why were you going into bars and restaurants where people smoked, if you found it so unpleasant?
Because those were 100% of bars and restaurants before laws were passed to change the situation.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Heart disease, for instance, is the leading cause of death in the US, with cancer a close 2nd.
Funny, TFA makes the case that fructose could be the culprit of heart disease and some kinds of cancer. Guess the comparison between it and tobacco might be apropos to the conversation after all.
Well, sure it is. The tobacco nazis had great success in demonizing smokers, creating a Great Satan that no one would defend, and laying not only exorbitant taxes on the users, but a cut of profits directly from the tobacco companies themselves.
Now they can use the same techniques for the new demon - SUGAR! It's evil! It's costing us all money! Tax sugar! Sugar producers should pay! Ban it from restaurants! Sugar addicts are a bane of society - no candy in the workplace! No sugar in the schools (guess they've already started on this one).
Soon, it will be a SUGAR CRISES and will require the Minister of Food to take drastic regulatory action.
Also, George Soros has been buying up grain elevators and is now the third largest holder of America’s grain elevators. I think banning home gardens would probably cause too much of an uproar, but how will you get seeds for your garden?
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1, Insightful
They banned smoking in bars and restaurants around here, and maybe all those people are smoking other places, but my shirt doesn't smell like smoke any longer. I find it very hard to believe that consumption hasn't gone down, and maybe some people have quit/not started who otherwise would be smoking today. I'm sure not getting any second hand anymore and I love it.
Why were you going into bars and restaurants where people smoked, if you found it so unpleasant? There are more restaurants that do not allow smoking pretty much everywhere you go in the country. Before they banned restaurant/bar smoking here in Virginia, about 65% of all restaurants were already smoke-free. But good on you that the government has forced restaurant owners to provide an environment preferable to you, even if you didn't patronize them.
I've noticed several things that have happened as a result. One of my favorite restaurants (Milepost 5) went under entirely. They had a pretty regular clientele of smokers that would sit at the bar all night drinking (and eating), and they stopped coming. Another place nearby ignored the law for a while, separating the smokers from non, but eventually they sicked the cops on them, and they had to kick out their regulars.
There are a few places still ignoring the law and letting people smoke, mostly small bars and "dives" with loyal customers that like the way things are. I imagine they'll eventually get to all these places, and I'm sure I'll see more places shut down. A few of the larger ones (that have the space) have started putting up patio tents right off the bar, so patrons can bring their drinks "outside" to the tent to smoke. It's not ideal, but maybe it will keep a few of these innovative places in business.
Re:This is not the logic you are looking for
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Tobacco is still one of the leading causes of death in America and on Earth.
That's not strictly true. The truth is that tobacco increases the risk of contracting several of the leading causes of death. Not the same thing. Heart disease, for instance, is the leading cause of death in the US, with cancer a close 2nd. What certain statisticians do is attribute every death by these causes to tobacco, without accounting for the people that died of them without ever smoking. (You know what they say about statistics, right?)
Keep in mind, also, that it is the facts about the dangers of smoking that drive people to quit. Draconian laws restricting smokers have little if any effect, just as total bans on marijuana and other unsanctioned drugs have failed to have much impact on their consumption. In fact, it can be argued that increasing the authoritative restrictions actual encourage teens to smoke as an symbolic rebellious reaction to authority.
The federal government now also generates significant revenues from smokers, so it is in their interest to keep people smoking. That's the motivation behind their efforts to stop or slow the distribution of "vapor" nicotine delivery systems, which have only a tiny fraction of the dangerous toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke (recall that nicotine itself is not a carcinogen).
Re:Sugar is not only toxic but it's addictive.
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Sounds like fresh-squeezed fruit juice is well out, too, then.
Exactly. Add to that the recognition of private property rights. No one is going to put in the effort and risk to develop a piece of land when they don't know if they are going to be allowed to keep it or have everything it produces taken away from them by a the next government.
Because nobody is going to force you to use a bank, shop on-line, or send email that will actually make it to somebody else's inbox. Sorry about all those on-line government services that you won't be able to use. You can always hike to one of the brick-and-mortar offices and present your papers in person.
Freedom isn't free. If you really want to live a life unfettered by a verifiable identity, that choice has real consequences for the sort of lifestyle you can enjoy, the sort of trust others will be willing to grant you, and the sort of financial transactions people will be willing to make with you.
I currently have a verifiable identity that I can use to do all of those things. And I don't have to be "coordinated" with some government bureaucracy in order to do it.
This isn't about solving a problem, it's about gaining more power and control for the central authorities and global corporations. It's really very transparent. There are much better ways to deal with identity theft than a draconian central planning scheme dreamed up by fascist partnerships.
The new version more explicitly emphasizes that the private sector will drive forward the trusted ID market, with government playing a coordinating role, administration officials said.
In other words, it's a Mussolini-style Fascism model.
Consumer participation in trusted ID technologies will be voluntary, they added.
Because nobody is going to force you to use a bank, shop on-line, or send email that will actually make it to somebody else's inbox. Sorry about all those on-line government services that you won't be able to use. You can always hike to one of the brick-and-mortar offices and present your papers in person.
I've seen no evidence that the size of government changes the fact of tribute, although it may well have bearing on the amount.
Wow way to create a straw man out of something I barely said. It has a bearing not just on the amount, but the ability to demand it and the number of people they demand it from. At one time it was just the whiskey distillers and the import/export businesses. The government actually had to go begging for a loan from JP Morgan because he had money and they didn't. FDR grew government tremendously, and threw a much wider net, until he was demanding tribute from every business and farmer he could get his thumb on.
These days it's almost impossible for a business of any size to be successful without political contribution and lobbying fund, because if you don't your competitors that do will soon have crony laws in place that will put you at a significant disadvantage. It's no wonder consumers are their power to pick winners and losers in the marketplace - it's been rigged by a thousand rules from Washington that make sure their favored companies can crush all the unfavored competition.
If you think a smaller government could have that kind of manipulative influence in virtually every market, I've got a bridge you'll want to make an investment in.
You're still not getting it. You get as much justice as you can afford.
Because the government is too big. Shrink it down to a manageable size and they wouldn't require tribute from everyone like they do now.
Can you please explain for me why the USDOJ found that Microsoft had illegally exploited their monopoly position in a variety of ways, yet was let off the hook without so much as a hand-slap.
Because Microsoft had tons of money and pretty much kept out of politics and ignored all the blustery puffing going on in DC. Once they started throwing money at the politicians and paying lobbyists to take them out to fancy dinners and junkets, they got all warm and fuzzy about them.
You really don't have the rights you think you have. One by one they are being eliminated.
Of course. Government grows at the expense of liberty.
Personally I run my own email-server, its not very expensive and you get full control of a domain. Now with all the virtual servers in-the-cloud, the entrycost is next to none, and you get a domain that you control.
What makes you think this gives you any protection against this? Where is your server located?
Mine is in my house, which will require a warrant to access.
Even if you run the machine in a secure facility where only you have physical access to the box, then it's just a matter of finding a root vulnerability in order to access it. It's not like that hasn't been done before...
I thought we were talking about the police? If I was ever doing anything that would prompt law enforcement to go to that level of effort to access my email... AND it was something that I could absolutely NOT avoid putting it in an email, well, it wouldn't be stored on anything I own can be linked to anyway.
In principle, I agree with you. But in reality, if the email is stored somewhere else, while it might be yours in name, it's NOT your data. It belongs to everyone who has it.
They why is it treated differently if it is "stored" on a piece of paper?
Sorry dude, but the US imprisons over 2 million people. China is around 1.5 million. Even in absolute numbers the US trumps China.
That may be true if you're only looking at the "official" numbers from China. But it doesn't include "administrative detention" and the re-education and forced-labor camps, which according to Harry Wu tops 8 million people.
nothing compares to China's outright abuse of its people
Ironically, the United States currently imprisons more people than China, and most of those prisoners are not violent offenders. Yes, the Chinese have a record of abuses, but that does not exonerate the United States.
I'm not fond of the US record on incarceration, at all, but you're missing some important salient points here.
First, the US doesn't imprison more people, just more people per capita.
Consider also that the death penalty in the US is now very rare at around 50 per year in the entire country, with 10 years between conviction and execution the typical waiting period. Compare that to China, which executes 1,700 - 1,800 people per year, without appeal, and often for crimes like sedition.
They were experimenting to see if it causes mutations.
Pretty much all capsicums (peppers) are cultivars or mutations of the original plants from Central America. What is interesting is to seek out the original plants.
And here I thought peppers had been grown in India for much longer than that, because they are so prevalent there, but it turns out you are correct. India produced black pepper (and other spices) for thousands of years, but the capsicums were not introduced there until the 17th century. The name pepper (like many "mistaken identity" names to blame on Columbus' voyage to America) was coined when he brought dried chilis back to Isabella, supposedly since he wasn't able to bring back the Indian pepper like he set out to do.
Yeah, see, this is where you don't seem to understand basic economics. Business don't hire simply because you give them, or let them keep if you prefer, more money.
That's not what I said. Go back and read it again. If you still don't think UI policies influence business, research "SUTA Dumping".
700k jobs being lost *per month* to net job growth in less than 2 years
In spite of the wreckless spending. You're doing nothing but speaking in talking points. I might as well respond with "They promised the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8.5%!! Whirr".
As for 'inflammatory', you started with the 'OMG taxes are killing my freedom' crap.
Which you didn't really respond to, you just changed the subject. Now that you're stuck with BS talking-point economic "facts" (lol) you want to change it back?
You don't either - you seem to support the tragedy as it currently exists. In other words, you are part of the problem.
Translation:
Those life sucking unemployed parasites, err, people are living high on the hog with the free benefits we give them.
Translation:
I'm an idiot, so I'm going to use inflammatory hyperbole to dismiss every argument that doesn't fit my ideology as evil
You are really part of the problem.
You seem to think that unemployment payments even come close to covering the average families expenses
I don't know why you're bringing up unemployment - but you're completely wrong about the entire system. It's not "unemployment payments" - it's unemployment insurance - it's designed to get you by (barely) while you search for another job. We here that work to administer the system call them "Employment agencies" or "Employment Security agencies" - not "Unemployment offices". And even with the low payments (so you can eat while you look for work), there are still plenty that don't make any real effort until their benefits end..
what happens when the economy tanks and there are no jobs available? Pretty soon you have the people who do still have jobs losing revenue because the unemployed stopped spending altogether. Then those people lose their jobs. Rinse repeat. It's called cascading economic effects.
I see you've bought into the Nancy Pelosi "you can create wine from water" theory of economic that claims unemployment benefits create jobs. They do not. See, when the unemployment increases, we impose higher UI taxes on businesses. That's money they can't use to hire more people with, and when they aren't confident that they won't need to layoff workers, they are not going to risk it when they know it means their taxes will go up even more.
I know I've designed sites that do everything you just described, albeit not for the government, and done so from scratch (no CMS). It took me about 4 months, as the lead along with 1 other coder, and including hardware, people time, testing, everything, cost less than $200K.
Sure, but does it have back-end integration to a S/360 mainframe? Hmmm??
Are you claiming there is something less heartless than the IRS?
Don't worry about the 2 bucks you gave the homeless guy. More likely than not, he will pay significant taxes when he buys that bottle of MD 20/20 at the convenience store around the corner.
You don't need a radical new solution to provide some significant reform to the tax code. All that social modification you seem to favor has produced a tax code so complicated that no 2 tax lawyers can come up with the same answer on a tax return, and GE can make $14.2 billion in profits and not only owe NO taxes, but also claim tax benefits of $3.2 billion. Tax policy shouldn't be an exercise in who has the smartest lawyers, and it shouldn't be an annual experiment in behavior modification, either. It should exist to fund essential services of government, and that should be the priority.
If you want to provide some public safety net services, too (out of those revenues), I can understand that. But let's not turn that into a hammock. The most heartless treatment of all for the poor is to make them complacent in dependency and hopeless in their own abilities to improve themselves. As Ben Franklin said, ensuring that poverty is uncomfortable is the best way to reduce poverty. That works as long as your government isn't providing social disincentives for working and hiring workers.
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I am puzzled by people who defend a person's "right" to smoke in public places. Smoking pollutes the air around the smoker. It is unhealthy and the odor is offensive. Should you wish to smoke, fart, spit, or smear turds on your clothes you should not be shocked when someone asks you to leave or to refrain from doing this in a public place. If we were to follow this logic, there should be no reprisals for being loud either. As we cannot turn off our hearing, we cannot chose to NOT breathe. I like having my freedoms. But smoking is not a freedom any more than dumping untreated sewage into the rivers is a freedom. Your "go elsewhere if you want a smoke free environment" is simply infantile. If you want to provide a eating establishment that caters to smokers, then make it a private club that is not open to the public. If this is not allowed under the law, then I believe it should be. And since the subject has been raised, know that I will be carrying a squirt gun and will dampen anyone who smokes in a public area or puffs out disgusting clouds of smoke in front of the door to my workplace. I'm going wear my "You smoke, I fart" T-shirt to work this casual Friday.
There are public places where people go to fart and shit. It's disgusting and the odor is offensive. They are called "public restrooms". No different than a smoking bar. People go there to drink, smoke and socialize with others that enjoy smoke and noise. I see nothing wrong with that. These places are privately owned - they are public only in the sense that they serve anyone. I perfectly understand that some people would prefer to drink and socialize in a smoke-free environment, as that is my preference as well.
Why can't people have a choice? Your viewpoint is that there should only be the environment that you like, and no one should be allowed to have a smokey bar.
Sorry, but my numbers are correct. They came direct from the Virginia Department of Health. It's not up anymore because ALL restaurants are now supposed to be smoke-free, but feel free to look for archives if you want to dispute my numbers with something other than opining that "a bunch of made up sounding BS".
As far as the closing restaurants, that's all stuff that I have observed, so there's no way to dispute it, it's just fact. You can go talk to the (former) owners of Mile Post 5 and Caddy's, if you don't believe me. You can also ask the owners of the other restaurants that are defying the ban.
If you're going to post a study to back up your own opinions, you might want to find one that actually ... backs up your opinions. The one you posted says that "We found no significant change in the overall number of patrons before and after the ban," contrary to your claim that occupancy increased.
If you think that not smoking (alone) means there's a "good chance" you'll avoid heart disease, you're in for a rude awakening. Smoking isn't even the lead cause of heart disease. It's among the top 5 causes, but diet, exercise, and lifestyle are the major causes.
Ah, I love the deniers. The authorities shouldn't spend all that money on research, they should just have asked you. You seem to know it all.
I'm not denying anything, just pointing out that the "smoking related death" numbers are often over-stated. That's not to say it isn't a serious health issue. Of course, since it's such an "unapproved opinion" to point out the fallacies in those numbers, of course it gets modded as a troll.
Here in Portugal, 3 years after smoking was banned in closed public spaces, the numbers of ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have gone down for the first time ever in our history. Is this just a coincidence or your post is full of bullshit?
It's almost certainly attributable to a reduced incidence of smoking, and almost certainly unrelated to the smoking ban, since any reduction in the incidence of smoking would take at least 5-10 years to show up as an improvement in any smoking-related health issues. Most likely there has been raised public awareness of the dangers for many years, reducing smoking in general, which eventually lead to both the reduction in certain smoking-related illnesses as well as support for the smoking ban.
Why were you going into bars and restaurants where people smoked, if you found it so unpleasant?
Because those were 100% of bars and restaurants before laws were passed to change the situation.
For some reason I don't believe you.
Heart disease, for instance, is the leading cause of death in the US, with cancer a close 2nd.
Funny, TFA makes the case that fructose could be the culprit of heart disease and some kinds of cancer. Guess the comparison between it and tobacco might be apropos to the conversation after all.
Well, sure it is. The tobacco nazis had great success in demonizing smokers, creating a Great Satan that no one would defend, and laying not only exorbitant taxes on the users, but a cut of profits directly from the tobacco companies themselves.
Now they can use the same techniques for the new demon - SUGAR! It's evil! It's costing us all money! Tax sugar! Sugar producers should pay! Ban it from restaurants! Sugar addicts are a bane of society - no candy in the workplace! No sugar in the schools (guess they've already started on this one).
Soon, it will be a SUGAR CRISES and will require the Minister of Food to take drastic regulatory action.
Also, George Soros has been buying up grain elevators and is now the third largest holder of America’s grain elevators. I think banning home gardens would probably cause too much of an uproar, but how will you get seeds for your garden?
They banned smoking in bars and restaurants around here, and maybe all those people are smoking other places, but my shirt doesn't smell like smoke any longer. I find it very hard to believe that consumption hasn't gone down, and maybe some people have quit/not started who otherwise would be smoking today. I'm sure not getting any second hand anymore and I love it.
Why were you going into bars and restaurants where people smoked, if you found it so unpleasant? There are more restaurants that do not allow smoking pretty much everywhere you go in the country. Before they banned restaurant/bar smoking here in Virginia, about 65% of all restaurants were already smoke-free. But good on you that the government has forced restaurant owners to provide an environment preferable to you, even if you didn't patronize them.
I've noticed several things that have happened as a result. One of my favorite restaurants (Milepost 5) went under entirely. They had a pretty regular clientele of smokers that would sit at the bar all night drinking (and eating), and they stopped coming. Another place nearby ignored the law for a while, separating the smokers from non, but eventually they sicked the cops on them, and they had to kick out their regulars.
There are a few places still ignoring the law and letting people smoke, mostly small bars and "dives" with loyal customers that like the way things are. I imagine they'll eventually get to all these places, and I'm sure I'll see more places shut down. A few of the larger ones (that have the space) have started putting up patio tents right off the bar, so patrons can bring their drinks "outside" to the tent to smoke. It's not ideal, but maybe it will keep a few of these innovative places in business.
Tobacco is still one of the leading causes of death in America and on Earth.
That's not strictly true. The truth is that tobacco increases the risk of contracting several of the leading causes of death. Not the same thing. Heart disease, for instance, is the leading cause of death in the US, with cancer a close 2nd. What certain statisticians do is attribute every death by these causes to tobacco, without accounting for the people that died of them without ever smoking. (You know what they say about statistics, right?)
Keep in mind, also, that it is the facts about the dangers of smoking that drive people to quit. Draconian laws restricting smokers have little if any effect, just as total bans on marijuana and other unsanctioned drugs have failed to have much impact on their consumption. In fact, it can be argued that increasing the authoritative restrictions actual encourage teens to smoke as an symbolic rebellious reaction to authority.
The federal government now also generates significant revenues from smokers, so it is in their interest to keep people smoking. That's the motivation behind their efforts to stop or slow the distribution of "vapor" nicotine delivery systems, which have only a tiny fraction of the dangerous toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke (recall that nicotine itself is not a carcinogen).
Sounds like fresh-squeezed fruit juice is well out, too, then.
Exactly. Add to that the recognition of private property rights. No one is going to put in the effort and risk to develop a piece of land when they don't know if they are going to be allowed to keep it or have everything it produces taken away from them by a the next government.
Freedom isn't free. If you really want to live a life unfettered by a verifiable identity, that choice has real consequences for the sort of lifestyle you can enjoy, the sort of trust others will be willing to grant you, and the sort of financial transactions people will be willing to make with you.
I currently have a verifiable identity that I can use to do all of those things. And I don't have to be "coordinated" with some government bureaucracy in order to do it.
This isn't about solving a problem, it's about gaining more power and control for the central authorities and global corporations. It's really very transparent. There are much better ways to deal with identity theft than a draconian central planning scheme dreamed up by fascist partnerships.
The new version more explicitly emphasizes that the private sector will drive forward the trusted ID market, with government playing a coordinating role, administration officials said.
In other words, it's a Mussolini-style Fascism model.
Consumer participation in trusted ID technologies will be voluntary, they added.
Because nobody is going to force you to use a bank, shop on-line, or send email that will actually make it to somebody else's inbox. Sorry about all those on-line government services that you won't be able to use. You can always hike to one of the brick-and-mortar offices and present your papers in person.
I've seen no evidence that the size of government changes the fact of tribute, although it may well have bearing on the amount.
Wow way to create a straw man out of something I barely said. It has a bearing not just on the amount, but the ability to demand it and the number of people they demand it from. At one time it was just the whiskey distillers and the import/export businesses. The government actually had to go begging for a loan from JP Morgan because he had money and they didn't. FDR grew government tremendously, and threw a much wider net, until he was demanding tribute from every business and farmer he could get his thumb on.
These days it's almost impossible for a business of any size to be successful without political contribution and lobbying fund, because if you don't your competitors that do will soon have crony laws in place that will put you at a significant disadvantage. It's no wonder consumers are their power to pick winners and losers in the marketplace - it's been rigged by a thousand rules from Washington that make sure their favored companies can crush all the unfavored competition.
If you think a smaller government could have that kind of manipulative influence in virtually every market, I've got a bridge you'll want to make an investment in.
You're still not getting it. You get as much justice as you can afford.
Because the government is too big. Shrink it down to a manageable size and they wouldn't require tribute from everyone like they do now.
Can you please explain for me why the USDOJ found that Microsoft had illegally exploited their monopoly position in a variety of ways, yet was let off the hook without so much as a hand-slap.
Because Microsoft had tons of money and pretty much kept out of politics and ignored all the blustery puffing going on in DC. Once they started throwing money at the politicians and paying lobbyists to take them out to fancy dinners and junkets, they got all warm and fuzzy about them.
You really don't have the rights you think you have. One by one they are being eliminated.
Of course. Government grows at the expense of liberty.
What does paper have to do with anything?
Are you kidding with this? How about 18 USC 1702?
Personally I run my own email-server, its not very expensive and you get full control of a domain. Now with all the virtual servers in-the-cloud, the entrycost is next to none, and you get a domain that you control.
What makes you think this gives you any protection against this? Where is your server located?
Mine is in my house, which will require a warrant to access.
Even if you run the machine in a secure facility where only you have physical access to the box, then it's just a matter of finding a root vulnerability in order to access it. It's not like that hasn't been done before...
I thought we were talking about the police? If I was ever doing anything that would prompt law enforcement to go to that level of effort to access my email ... AND it was something that I could absolutely NOT avoid putting it in an email, well, it wouldn't be stored on anything I own can be linked to anyway.
In principle, I agree with you. But in reality, if the email is stored somewhere else, while it might be yours in name, it's NOT your data. It belongs to everyone who has it.
They why is it treated differently if it is "stored" on a piece of paper?
Sorry dude, but the US imprisons over 2 million people. China is around 1.5 million. Even in absolute numbers the US trumps China.
That may be true if you're only looking at the "official" numbers from China. But it doesn't include "administrative detention" and the re-education and forced-labor camps, which according to Harry Wu tops 8 million people.
nothing compares to China's outright abuse of its people
Ironically, the United States currently imprisons more people than China, and most of those prisoners are not violent offenders. Yes, the Chinese have a record of abuses, but that does not exonerate the United States.
I'm not fond of the US record on incarceration, at all, but you're missing some important salient points here.
First, the US doesn't imprison more people, just more people per capita.
Consider also that the death penalty in the US is now very rare at around 50 per year in the entire country, with 10 years between conviction and execution the typical waiting period. Compare that to China, which executes 1,700 - 1,800 people per year, without appeal, and often for crimes like sedition.
They were experimenting to see if it causes mutations.
Pretty much all capsicums (peppers) are cultivars or mutations of the original plants from Central America. What is interesting is to seek out the original plants.
And here I thought peppers had been grown in India for much longer than that, because they are so prevalent there, but it turns out you are correct. India produced black pepper (and other spices) for thousands of years, but the capsicums were not introduced there until the 17th century. The name pepper (like many "mistaken identity" names to blame on Columbus' voyage to America) was coined when he brought dried chilis back to Isabella, supposedly since he wasn't able to bring back the Indian pepper like he set out to do.
Yeah, see, this is where you don't seem to understand basic economics. Business don't hire simply because you give them, or let them keep if you prefer, more money.
That's not what I said. Go back and read it again. If you still don't think UI policies influence business, research "SUTA Dumping".
700k jobs being lost *per month* to net job growth in less than 2 years
In spite of the wreckless spending. You're doing nothing but speaking in talking points. I might as well respond with "They promised the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8.5%!! Whirr".
As for 'inflammatory', you started with the 'OMG taxes are killing my freedom' crap.
Which you didn't really respond to, you just changed the subject. Now that you're stuck with BS talking-point economic "facts" (lol) you want to change it back?
You still haven't provided another solution
You don't either - you seem to support the tragedy as it currently exists. In other words, you are part of the problem.
Translation: Those life sucking unemployed parasites, err, people are living high on the hog with the free benefits we give them.
Translation:
I'm an idiot, so I'm going to use inflammatory hyperbole to dismiss every argument that doesn't fit my ideology as evil
You are really part of the problem.
You seem to think that unemployment payments even come close to covering the average families expenses
I don't know why you're bringing up unemployment - but you're completely wrong about the entire system. It's not "unemployment payments" - it's unemployment insurance - it's designed to get you by (barely) while you search for another job. We here that work to administer the system call them "Employment agencies" or "Employment Security agencies" - not "Unemployment offices". And even with the low payments (so you can eat while you look for work), there are still plenty that don't make any real effort until their benefits end..
what happens when the economy tanks and there are no jobs available? Pretty soon you have the people who do still have jobs losing revenue because the unemployed stopped spending altogether. Then those people lose their jobs. Rinse repeat. It's called cascading economic effects.
I see you've bought into the Nancy Pelosi "you can create wine from water" theory of economic that claims unemployment benefits create jobs. They do not. See, when the unemployment increases, we impose higher UI taxes on businesses. That's money they can't use to hire more people with, and when they aren't confident that they won't need to layoff workers, they are not going to risk it when they know it means their taxes will go up even more.
I know I've designed sites that do everything you just described, albeit not for the government, and done so from scratch (no CMS). It took me about 4 months, as the lead along with 1 other coder, and including hardware, people time, testing, everything, cost less than $200K.
Sure, but does it have back-end integration to a S/360 mainframe? Hmmm??
Are you claiming there is something less heartless than the IRS?
Don't worry about the 2 bucks you gave the homeless guy. More likely than not, he will pay significant taxes when he buys that bottle of MD 20/20 at the convenience store around the corner.
You don't need a radical new solution to provide some significant reform to the tax code. All that social modification you seem to favor has produced a tax code so complicated that no 2 tax lawyers can come up with the same answer on a tax return, and GE can make $14.2 billion in profits and not only owe NO taxes, but also claim tax benefits of $3.2 billion. Tax policy shouldn't be an exercise in who has the smartest lawyers, and it shouldn't be an annual experiment in behavior modification, either. It should exist to fund essential services of government, and that should be the priority.
If you want to provide some public safety net services, too (out of those revenues), I can understand that. But let's not turn that into a hammock. The most heartless treatment of all for the poor is to make them complacent in dependency and hopeless in their own abilities to improve themselves. As Ben Franklin said, ensuring that poverty is uncomfortable is the best way to reduce poverty. That works as long as your government isn't providing social disincentives for working and hiring workers.