I didn't mean to imply that one should only eat fruits and vegetables. I meant only that one would not suffer an over-intake of a nutritional element from eating as much of them as one wants.
Like it or not the tax code is used for social purposes.
I, for one, do not like it. I recognize that governments are a necessary evil and require funding, but this "social purposes" notion of taxation is just another path to tyranny, courtesy of the 16th amendment. The Constitution was supposed to guarantee the continued existence of a free country, but when you are required to register for a number, provide that documentation in order to work, have 15% of your labor taken from you off the top and then some sliding scale more taken depending on your value and "compliance" with the social order, well, not really much freedom left after all, is there?
Consider fruits and vegetables. Eat as much as you like of these, and I don't think you will have health problems. They are not "junk food" - you can't consume enough of them to suffer from over-intake of their nutritional elements.
If that's all you eat, you will eventually become malnourished, anemic, and at risk for rickets and other nasty diseases
Also, I'm not even sure it's a skill you can teach everyone. I've run into some staggeringly irrational people, and I'm skeptical that it's all because their [government-funded and -controlled] school didn't do its job.
Maybe it's because the school actually did its job too well.
There's a red vase with a hole in the bottom and a blue vase with a hole in the bottom, but you have the free choice which one you want to buy.
Our "2-party" system doesn't work like that. There are actually plenty of other vases around, but you only get the vase you want if enough other people buy that vase, too.
It's a system of fear, where you are asked to pick the lesser of two evils, and are told that if you pick one of the "other" options, the greater evil will win.
the war on drugs has nothing to do with piracy. nothing.
Unless you consider that they are both tyrannical government programs that target participants of a black market in order to protect wealthy special interests, then, yes, you're right.
Quite insightful, sir. Too bad it's posted on a site where people will defend every last government program from spending cuts until the entire country is bankrupt.
As far as the public goes, the parts who know and care at least, hundreds of millions of people are being persecuted globally because a few overprivileged rich guys want their stupid business models protected.
Actually federal spending as a percentage of the GDP is not significantly different now than it has been historically.
Not really sure what you mean by that. It's currently higher than it's been since WW2, and Eisenhower enacted some significant spending cuts and fiscal discipline to pay off all that debt.
Corporations used to account for about 30% of federal income tax receipts and the wealthy used use to have a top marginal rate well over 50%.
Corporations don't pay taxes (they pass them on to consumers), and the wealthiest pay a higher percentage of federal revenues (top 5% pay over 60% of the revenues) than at any time in history, despite having a lower rate than in the past. Of course, in inflation-adjusted dollars, those top marginal rates only impacted people making $3 - $4 million a year in income.
Dude, you should totally go to work for Ben Bernanke. He could really use your help coming up with this kind of tortured rhetoric to convince people that the US economy is totally safe, and that the dollar is actually worth something.
All of these "open" sites were a scam. You do remember that one of them cost something like $40m and another cost like $18m, right? And the sites were Drupal installs. The national "CIO/CTO czar" guy is a brainless twit (seriously, listen to him ramble about how they need to spend money to create a human computer interface, because COBOL is binary) and this whole project was a serious scam.
Indeed. It's amazing the otherwise intelligent people that don't get this. It cost millions to create and set up the sites, specify how and what would be reported, and then the new reporting requirement for each agency and department became a new reporting process that some set of employees had to take on. Nevermind that all the data is already being reported to the OMB, up the agency chain to the secretariat, and tracked in detail in their own systems. You can't just send that stuff in - this is a different set used for public consumption. It's practically a whole new set of books that need to be kept. And how it relates to the actual spending in various areas is all up to somebody's interpretation somewhere. Good luck reconciling any of it with real spending, real budgets, OMB reporting or anything that the GSA would recognize as responsible accounting.
Increased jobs? Really? Sounds like unfounded rhetoric thrown in to drum up support for this scheme. Or maybe they envision a healthy market for rickshaw drivers.
This is not a case of a non-profit being subverted with money - it's just an example of an organization's program that operates just like the program was intended to. Yea, McDonald's paid to get their food certified and able to use the Heart Foundation endorsement - but they also made changes to meet the standards of the program.
That's really no different than the $200 a year I pay to the Project Management Institute so that I can put "PMP" on my correspondence and resume.
No matter how confident you feel, you're wrong. If you look it up in the US trademarks database, you'll find that it was granted in the 1980s, and it's still live.
Okay, I'm wrong that it's not registered now. But it was certainly not registered in the "the 1980s". In fact, I found reference to a "final action" by the USPTO rejecting the "Windows" trademark in February of 1993.
Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected. The USPTO rejected the Windows trademark, after several appeals, in a "final action" in February of 1993 - "Too Generic". Somehow that "final action" decision was reversed, I can't really find a specific reference, but it looks like sometime between 2000 and 2002.
So it was rejected over and over, but, yes, they were eventually awarded the registration.
Still seems pretty... hypocritical for Microsoft to now be appealing to the USPTO to reject Apple's "App Store" registration as "too generic".
Windows is a generic term too. My Mac has windows. My Linux system has windows. Even my house has windows. That doesn't mean I can call my operating system Windows.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Microsoft has been denied trademark on "Windows" time and time again.
Meh. You could be right in theory. Certainly there have been some neophyte political organizations set up by well-meaning but naive activists that were able to get subverted by establishment types because they were not careful in structuring their by-laws and board.
None of that really applies to an established organization like the EFF. They are pretty well protected and have a source of revenue that would be difficult to overcome. If you know of any similar organizations of the type that were able to be subverted by the interests they were opposing I would love to hear about it - I actually doubt you can come up with any.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't mean to imply that one should only eat fruits and vegetables. I meant only that one would not suffer an over-intake of a nutritional element from eating as much of them as one wants.
My fault, I simply mis-read.
For those who are interested, here is an essay
I think you forgot your attachment.
Like it or not the tax code is used for social purposes.
I, for one, do not like it. I recognize that governments are a necessary evil and require funding, but this "social purposes" notion of taxation is just another path to tyranny, courtesy of the 16th amendment. The Constitution was supposed to guarantee the continued existence of a free country, but when you are required to register for a number, provide that documentation in order to work, have 15% of your labor taken from you off the top and then some sliding scale more taken depending on your value and "compliance" with the social order, well, not really much freedom left after all, is there?
Consider fruits and vegetables. Eat as much as you like of these, and I don't think you will have health problems. They are not "junk food" - you can't consume enough of them to suffer from over-intake of their nutritional elements.
If that's all you eat, you will eventually become malnourished, anemic, and at risk for rickets and other nasty diseases
"SS isn't a ponzi scheme." "Social Security is a good investment." "The money the Federal government borrows from SS is repaid, plus about 50% extra"
Sorry, but I couldn't think of any more ludicrous descriptions of an accounting besides the Federal Reserve.
Also, I'm not even sure it's a skill you can teach everyone. I've run into some staggeringly irrational people, and I'm skeptical that it's all because their [government-funded and -controlled] school didn't do its job.
Maybe it's because the school actually did its job too well.
There's a red vase with a hole in the bottom and a blue vase with a hole in the bottom, but you have the free choice which one you want to buy.
Our "2-party" system doesn't work like that. There are actually plenty of other vases around, but you only get the vase you want if enough other people buy that vase, too.
It's a system of fear, where you are asked to pick the lesser of two evils, and are told that if you pick one of the "other" options, the greater evil will win.
it always amazes me the creative stretches stubborn minds will go to to smoosh reality into their ideology
Yes.
i stopped reading there
Okay, I see what you mean. But just closing your ears and going "nah nah nah I can't hear you" isn't really "creative".
the war on drugs has nothing to do with piracy. nothing.
Unless you consider that they are both tyrannical government programs that target participants of a black market in order to protect wealthy special interests, then, yes, you're right.
Quite insightful, sir. Too bad it's posted on a site where people will defend every last government program from spending cuts until the entire country is bankrupt.
As far as the public goes, the parts who know and care at least, hundreds of millions of people are being persecuted globally because a few overprivileged rich guys want their stupid business models protected.
That sounds a lot like the Federal Reserve banking system.
Actually federal spending as a percentage of the GDP is not significantly different now than it has been historically.
Not really sure what you mean by that. It's currently higher than it's been since WW2, and Eisenhower enacted some significant spending cuts and fiscal discipline to pay off all that debt.
Corporations used to account for about 30% of federal income tax receipts and the wealthy used use to have a top marginal rate well over 50%.
Corporations don't pay taxes (they pass them on to consumers), and the wealthiest pay a higher percentage of federal revenues (top 5% pay over 60% of the revenues) than at any time in history, despite having a lower rate than in the past. Of course, in inflation-adjusted dollars, those top marginal rates only impacted people making $3 - $4 million a year in income.
Dude, you should totally go to work for Ben Bernanke. He could really use your help coming up with this kind of tortured rhetoric to convince people that the US economy is totally safe, and that the dollar is actually worth something.
Social Security still has a surplus.
Nope. Social Security this year started paying out more than it's taking in.
All of these "open" sites were a scam. You do remember that one of them cost something like $40m and another cost like $18m, right? And the sites were Drupal installs. The national "CIO/CTO czar" guy is a brainless twit (seriously, listen to him ramble about how they need to spend money to create a human computer interface, because COBOL is binary) and this whole project was a serious scam.
Indeed. It's amazing the otherwise intelligent people that don't get this. It cost millions to create and set up the sites, specify how and what would be reported, and then the new reporting requirement for each agency and department became a new reporting process that some set of employees had to take on. Nevermind that all the data is already being reported to the OMB, up the agency chain to the secretariat, and tracked in detail in their own systems. You can't just send that stuff in - this is a different set used for public consumption. It's practically a whole new set of books that need to be kept. And how it relates to the actual spending in various areas is all up to somebody's interpretation somewhere. Good luck reconciling any of it with real spending, real budgets, OMB reporting or anything that the GSA would recognize as responsible accounting.
You lost me at "no drinking".
Your mistake is thinking that somehow government is actually doing something to prevent millions from starving or dying.
Your mistake is thinking that these multi-million dollar websites have anything to do with "Open Government".
Really, does anyone get to where Bill Gates is right now without screwing a couple people in the process?
Well, sure it is. Take George Soros, for example. He only profited from institutionalized genocide - he didn't participate in it at all!
Increased jobs? Really? Sounds like unfounded rhetoric thrown in to drum up support for this scheme. Or maybe they envision a healthy market for rickshaw drivers.
Sorry, but that fails.
This is not a case of a non-profit being subverted with money - it's just an example of an organization's program that operates just like the program was intended to. Yea, McDonald's paid to get their food certified and able to use the Heart Foundation endorsement - but they also made changes to meet the standards of the program.
That's really no different than the $200 a year I pay to the Project Management Institute so that I can put "PMP" on my correspondence and resume.
No matter how confident you feel, you're wrong. If you look it up in the US trademarks database, you'll find that it was granted in the 1980s, and it's still live.
Okay, I'm wrong that it's not registered now. But it was certainly not registered in the "the 1980s". In fact, I found reference to a "final action" by the USPTO rejecting the "Windows" trademark in February of 1993.
Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected. The USPTO rejected the Windows trademark, after several appeals, in a "final action" in February of 1993 - "Too Generic". Somehow that "final action" decision was reversed, I can't really find a specific reference, but it looks like sometime between 2000 and 2002.
So it was rejected over and over, but, yes, they were eventually awarded the registration.
Still seems pretty ... hypocritical for Microsoft to now be appealing to the USPTO to reject Apple's "App Store" registration as "too generic".
Windows is a generic term too. My Mac has windows. My Linux system has windows. Even my house has windows. That doesn't mean I can call my operating system Windows.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Microsoft has been denied trademark on "Windows" time and time again.
Meh. You could be right in theory. Certainly there have been some neophyte political organizations set up by well-meaning but naive activists that were able to get subverted by establishment types because they were not careful in structuring their by-laws and board.
None of that really applies to an established organization like the EFF. They are pretty well protected and have a source of revenue that would be difficult to overcome. If you know of any similar organizations of the type that were able to be subverted by the interests they were opposing I would love to hear about it - I actually doubt you can come up with any.
It seems that the US government now believes their experts are above juries, courts, and all that shit.
You nailed it. Included in "all that shit" would be those complete unqualified to be of, by or for the government: "the people".