That's the way to have a scientific debate: state that the other side has an agenda, attack them as being dishonest, and ignore any analysis they attempt to present.
I cannot think of a single industry that I think would benefit me by being completely controlled by a few big players. But I can survive without Microsoft, Clear Channel, Disney, Hilton, GM, Verizon, and Amazon. I don't want to rely on them as the sole source of my food supply.
CO2 is not a pollutant. We have real pollution we should be dealing with, that would actually have a deterministic impact on improving the environment. Instead, some want this giant new market for Wall Street to play around in that will most likely increase the US dependence on imports.
Then you're also supporting some huge new "track every edible product everywhere" scheme, which is nothing but a boon to giant corporate farming that will kill off farmer's markets and roadside vegetable/fruit stands (not to mention small sales at small farms). You know, place where you actually buy food from the people that pulled it out of the ground.
Sell crazy somewhere else. We've got all we need around here.
Reading the About page is useless. The impression I get is that this is a fancy marketing scheme for Rational products. Which, is business as usual for Rational...they market well to managers and are more trouble than they're worth to the people that have to actually use them.
You describe the very experience I had. Our manager decided we were going to do Rational. We spent lots of time and money on training, hardware, installation services, etc. Everybody hated it. The developers would deal with the ClearQuest windows interface okay, but when we tried to get the users to report issues using the web interface, they revolted, and so we developed our own solution with integration to the CQ back-end.
When ClearCase worked and everybody followed the plan, it was okay (but a HUGE resource hog, and nobody could work with it over VPN). But administration took a *lot* of time. On more than one occasion a computer would be re-imaged or a consultant would leave, and "checked-out" files that people needed were locked (meaning you can't even get a snapshot), and digging through the VOB to fix an issue like that was a PITA, even with some of the scripts I developed to deal with that and other issues.
Don't even get me started on all the crap we had to deal with using Rose. Some of the developers even started trying to do round-trip engineering. That was my 2nd experience with software that promised to do that and failed miserably (the first was Oracle Designer). Maybe it will be useful in the future. Here's a hint if you've never tried it yourself: get your design as close as you can, and generate your starter code from it, but if you think you're going to get an updated model after you've been coding for more than a couple of days, you're in for some major disappointment.
When that manager left, we started migrating to SubVersion, Trac, and some home-grown tools, and threw away just about everything else other the Requisite Pro (still too much documentation "locked" into that tool). It took us almost 2 years to extricate ourselves from that bloated garbage. We're much more productive now, though.
The interval between extinctions is 62 million years only if you accept ~30 millions of year of error margin.
The current downfall of biodiversity is really fast compared to the time scale mentioned here. Its most likely reason has two legs, two arms, a big brain and a various set of forest-destroying machines as well as a bad habit of dumping various materials into the ocean.
You're right! It's people that is the problem. Please write your congressman and tell them to expand Cap'n Trade to cover Humans. All that human breathing is producing unacceptable levels of CO2.
We could put a life clock on everyone's hand, and only allow a few people selected by lottery to live past age 35. That should keep the population down enough to save planet Earth!
In other words, he took an issue that millions of people want a serious discussion about, so many that it became the most popular issue visitors to the site wanted to have a discuss, and he dismissed them as a joke.
If the issues of hemp prohibition and the opportunities available in reforming those restrictions aren't even worth discussing, it may indicate that Obama's agenda has very little to do addressing with the problems and concerns of average American citizens.
That sounds like a bad idea. Not so much the dance classes, but actually meeting someone there. If you can't talk to chick drunk in a bar, no way you're going to strike up a conversation during dance lessons that will work out for you.
Here's what worked for me: find a cause, and volunteer. I got involved with Special Olympics, myself. Plenty of volunteer opportunities, and lots of rewards regardless of whether you meet anyone or not (but - you will). Just find something you can support. Local animal shelters are always looking for help. You can find soup kitchens and food banks, too, if you're into that, but less prospects for decent social interaction. Lots of community organizations get involved with fundraisers that involve beer trucks and bands - lots of opportunities there.
I think by "what the US wants", you mean "what certain interests in the US wants but can't get enough to support in Congress to get". As powerful and wealthy as these people are, the draconian measures are *not* something that most people in the US wants. That's why they are using this "secret treaty" technique to try to get their rules put in place.
To have a functioning Republic, governed by the will of the people, there should be 3 stages of adult life encouraged by society:
Service (military, peace corps, civilian, whatever)
Vocational (business, real work, etc. & raising a family)
Teaching (because you've been in the real world, raised children, etc. - time to pass it on)
Unfortunately, even those people with great success, that are willing and able to teach what they know to the next generation, are totally shoved out and discouraged to even try it. Most are told (after retiring from a successful career, mind you) that they need to go back to school for 4 years to even qualify!! What's with that??
That's why we end up with "career" teachers - they are often the ones that aren't even competent enough to make it in their chosen career, so they end up with a teaching certification to "fall back on" - and that's what they do.
Apologies to those very excellent and competent teachers that are out there - don't mean to generalize here.
and most of them can be traced to certain groups (*cough*progressives*cough*) waging a 50 year war on public education, and people refusing to see and treat education as what they think it is: an investment in the future new world order, which requires a compliant and ignorant populace.
It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale is called night. Which is easier in the end, behaving responsibly or spending trillions of dollars on unproven techniques for undoing the damage we are doing? If we'd simply spend the money spent on avoiding the issues on actual solutions we could fix the problem. I recently heard that it will likely cost an additional trillion dollars for carbon sequestering so we can keep burning coal, a trillion dollars! And that's just an estimate since it's also unproven technology. Is it smarter to keep spending trillions of dollars on the status quo or to fix the problem once and for all?
That's a good argument, until you consider the fact that stopping the use of fossil fuels (and insisting that everybody live like serfs in the dark ages - except for the Lords like Al Gore, of course, who need jets) has no guarantee of actually fixing anything. All you're saying is that we should stop putting out CO2 (should we stop breathing, too?), because this might mitigate some possible effects of global climate change in the long run.
Frankly, rather than reducing the output of CO2 (which makes plants grow), I'd rather concentrate on stopping other truly harmful pollution, like agricultural run-off of phosphorous, which we know for sure is harmful and can guarantee to have benefits if we stop it.
There is a plummeting of amphibian populations from toxins. There is MTBE in breast milk (a rocket fuel additive). There are plenty of species about to go extinct from habitat destruction. There is plenty to worry about.
And this is the one of the main reasons I am opposed to the ClimateChange hoax. It diverts attention from these issues, and other serious ones like proper disposal of waste products from electronics, and agricultural run-off that is poisoning our bays and oceans. These are things that have effective solutions available. Instead the hucksters and the ignorant masses they have following them along are intent on using vast resources in a vain attempt to change the global climate of the Earth.
Arrogant foolishness at best. Let's instead concentrate on reducing actual pollution instead of creating boogeymen that can never be defeated.
Whether what the defendent is accused of by the prosecution is a violation of the tax code is a question of law, and hence to be settled by judges. Exactly what he did is a matter of fact, to be settled by a jury. (In practice, juries do interpret the law to some extent, and cannot be held liable for rendering verdicts not according to the law.) Therefore, threatening the jury would seem to be irrelevant to the tax code.
I'm not real clear what you're responding to, here. The case is not about jury threatening or anything, that's just an ancillary issue ultimately caused by justified fear and loathing of the IRS, that lead some folks to make unjustified comments about the jury, and the prosecutor going off on a tangent because he thought he smelled a new case he could drum up against someone.
In fact the case won't even revolve around the tax code - that's not really at issue. The case is about whether the defendants thought their actions were allowed under the tax code, and were knowingly lying and running a criminal enterprise. It's probably going to be a tough sell to any jury, since the IRS seemed to be okay with the idea, or at least unsure about it. Besides, they have been doing this for many years, and were dragged into court about it before and were cleared of all charges.
That would be true if we were all a bunch of mindless zombies and the law was a completely clear and undebatable codex that needed no real-world interpretation. In the REAL world common sense can, does, and should play a role in the law and its interpretation. This sort of "letter of the law" mentality is what leads to stupid shit like kids getting expelled from school for bringing plastic knives in with their lunch (because TECHNICALLY they did indeed "bring a knife to school"). What it comes down to this case isn't "Was he technically following the exact letter of the law?" It comes down to "Would a jury of reasonable peers conclude that this man was willfully engaging in tax evasion?" And I think it's clear that the answer to the latter question is, in the mind of anything resembling a reasonable human being, a resounding "Yes."
BZZZZZT! Sorry, massive fail. Tax code is all about the letter of the law. That's why people pay tax accountants and tax attorneys all the time to help them find those loopholes. Perfectly accepted behavior of the rich and politicians (although it seems a lot of politicians lately have been trying to use loopholes that really aren't there).
These guys aren't wealthy or powerful politicians - they are working people that found a loophole for themselves. I applaud them for it. This is more like a case of malicious prosecution, as this is not the first time Bill Cohen has tried to put these guys in jail - they were acquitted last time for using exactly this avoidance procedure.
I don't really disagree with your point, but in this case it's just William Cohan once again being a complete tool. He'd go after your grandmother for assault on a public official if she complained about a tax bill. He's been going after Robert Kahre for years, this isn't the first time. This latest round reeks of vindictiveness over having his case completely thrown out the last time he tried it.
Here's a little more background if you're interested.
Interesting. You seem to have given this some thought, but you may be starting with some skewed assumptions.
People seem to think that party politics has civil war as some kind of eventuality, and merrily throw out the idea that it's time for a revolution.
I don't think it's really party politics that people view as leading to radical civil / revolutionary conflict, but rather that the duopoly created by the party system has developed it's own set of elite rulers that are completely out of touch with the views of the general populace. It's not the entrenched positions of the opposing parties leading to conflict, it's the entrenchment of the two parties in the political system, and behavior of leaders in both parties.
I mean, really. You think a country of 300 million people would fight itself before reorganizing a political party structure? Really?
Many of these 300 million (maybe 3% ?) have been working within the parties and/or political structure for some time, and are being frustrated at every turn. It was not the results of the most recent election that led to this frustration, but the events that led to the choices given to the voters in recent cycles. Many people entered the party and political machines attempting to make real changes, only to be chewed up and spit out by the machinery.
Every single person, including the both of you two, seem to like the idea of tossing out a phrase like "me too, I'm in for the revolution", as if your token resistance to power structure is accomplishing anything.
You get the gist of the feeling, but you missed where it's coming from. Often it's coming not from "armchair revolutionaries" (although there are no doubt plenty of those), but also from activists who have been crushed between the rock of the entrenched political apparatchik and the hard place of apathy and ignorance in the populace.
Anyone who shares an earnest similar sentiment is completely out of touch with reality and does not, it seems, understand the political structures that have made great this country function so well for almost a quarter of a millennium.
I think you missed the memo on this one. The only thing "working" at this point is keeping the ruling class in charge. In case you haven't noticed, the government has converted itself from being a servant of the people to becoming their master. It's one of those boiling frog things, as this has been happening through several administrations. The parties are cooperating on this - it's not something either one will speak against.
I believe that the most apt phrase in these times is (probably mangling the quote from whoever first said it, but) "It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Hopefully it won't come to shooting or violence at all. There are plenty of educated patriots out here looking for a way to fix things, and while there may be revolution in the air, it's not a hot revolution - it's just a view that radical change is needed.
It was a mostly educated populace subjected to various transgressions which escalated to the point where self-governance was the only option.
Many of us still think it's still the only option, as anything else leads quickly to tyranny.
You are children in school, who dislike their somewhat strict teacher...
Not sure what this is alluding to. I was going to torture it as analogy, but that seems like a fruitless exercise in this environment. I will say this, though. If you think you are in a classroom, and are ready to sit quietly and do whatever the teacher tells you without challenging anything she has to teach, then you are part of the problem. Raise your hand and ask a few questions - try to think outside the box a bit. Hmmm... I guess I kind of did it anyway.
Is that still on? Seems to me they had a season (maybe it was actually 2), and then it just vanished.
You're right about it being sappy, but with the wife and I usually arguing about whether to watch something on Lifetime or HGTV vs. SciFi or Science channel, Kyle XY was one of those few shows we could both enjoy.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the way to have a scientific debate: state that the other side has an agenda, attack them as being dishonest, and ignore any analysis they attempt to present.
Yep, that's a much better way to do "science".
I never said anything about large farms.
It sounds like you don't know what a corporation is. Or does.
Forget perception. It improved the safety, and quality, of meat full stop.
I'm not so sure about that.
I cannot think of a single industry that I think would benefit me by being completely controlled by a few big players. But I can survive without Microsoft, Clear Channel, Disney, Hilton, GM, Verizon, and Amazon. I don't want to rely on them as the sole source of my food supply.
Plus, if you don't like it you can choose not to support the slave industry...
Well, as long as nobody is forced to support it, there isn't a slave industry.
And if the cows weren't forced to support it, there wouldn't be a meat industry either.
I tried to free my cow. She just stood there going "mooo". So I ate her.
CO2 is not a pollutant. We have real pollution we should be dealing with, that would actually have a deterministic impact on improving the environment. Instead, some want this giant new market for Wall Street to play around in that will most likely increase the US dependence on imports.
Then you're also supporting some huge new "track every edible product everywhere" scheme, which is nothing but a boon to giant corporate farming that will kill off farmer's markets and roadside vegetable/fruit stands (not to mention small sales at small farms). You know, place where you actually buy food from the people that pulled it out of the ground.
Sell crazy somewhere else. We've got all we need around here.
Reading the About page is useless. The impression I get is that this is a fancy marketing scheme for Rational products. Which, is business as usual for Rational...they market well to managers and are more trouble than they're worth to the people that have to actually use them.
You describe the very experience I had. Our manager decided we were going to do Rational. We spent lots of time and money on training, hardware, installation services, etc. Everybody hated it. The developers would deal with the ClearQuest windows interface okay, but when we tried to get the users to report issues using the web interface, they revolted, and so we developed our own solution with integration to the CQ back-end.
When ClearCase worked and everybody followed the plan, it was okay (but a HUGE resource hog, and nobody could work with it over VPN). But administration took a *lot* of time. On more than one occasion a computer would be re-imaged or a consultant would leave, and "checked-out" files that people needed were locked (meaning you can't even get a snapshot), and digging through the VOB to fix an issue like that was a PITA, even with some of the scripts I developed to deal with that and other issues.
Don't even get me started on all the crap we had to deal with using Rose. Some of the developers even started trying to do round-trip engineering. That was my 2nd experience with software that promised to do that and failed miserably (the first was Oracle Designer). Maybe it will be useful in the future. Here's a hint if you've never tried it yourself: get your design as close as you can, and generate your starter code from it, but if you think you're going to get an updated model after you've been coding for more than a couple of days, you're in for some major disappointment.
When that manager left, we started migrating to SubVersion, Trac, and some home-grown tools, and threw away just about everything else other the Requisite Pro (still too much documentation "locked" into that tool). It took us almost 2 years to extricate ourselves from that bloated garbage. We're much more productive now, though.
The interval between extinctions is 62 million years only if you accept ~30 millions of year of error margin. The current downfall of biodiversity is really fast compared to the time scale mentioned here. Its most likely reason has two legs, two arms, a big brain and a various set of forest-destroying machines as well as a bad habit of dumping various materials into the ocean.
You're right! It's people that is the problem. Please write your congressman and tell them to expand Cap'n Trade to cover Humans. All that human breathing is producing unacceptable levels of CO2.
We could put a life clock on everyone's hand, and only allow a few people selected by lottery to live past age 35. That should keep the population down enough to save planet Earth!
In other words, he took an issue that millions of people want a serious discussion about, so many that it became the most popular issue visitors to the site wanted to have a discuss, and he dismissed them as a joke.
If the issues of hemp prohibition and the opportunities available in reforming those restrictions aren't even worth discussing, it may indicate that Obama's agenda has very little to do addressing with the problems and concerns of average American citizens.
I'm fairly certain they're still ignoring the issue that the most people were interested in changing, legalization of marijuana.
California already voted on that. Then Washington told them they don't get to choose anymore.
There are efforts to fix that. Oddly enough, it's a joint effort by Barney Frank and Ron Paul. Talk about strange bedfellows!
That sounds like a bad idea. Not so much the dance classes, but actually meeting someone there. If you can't talk to chick drunk in a bar, no way you're going to strike up a conversation during dance lessons that will work out for you.
Here's what worked for me: find a cause, and volunteer. I got involved with Special Olympics, myself. Plenty of volunteer opportunities, and lots of rewards regardless of whether you meet anyone or not (but - you will). Just find something you can support. Local animal shelters are always looking for help. You can find soup kitchens and food banks, too, if you're into that, but less prospects for decent social interaction. Lots of community organizations get involved with fundraisers that involve beer trucks and bands - lots of opportunities there.
I think by "what the US wants", you mean "what certain interests in the US wants but can't get enough to support in Congress to get". As powerful and wealthy as these people are, the draconian measures are *not* something that most people in the US wants. That's why they are using this "secret treaty" technique to try to get their rules put in place.
To have a functioning Republic, governed by the will of the people, there should be 3 stages of adult life encouraged by society:
Unfortunately, even those people with great success, that are willing and able to teach what they know to the next generation, are totally shoved out and discouraged to even try it. Most are told (after retiring from a successful career, mind you) that they need to go back to school for 4 years to even qualify!! What's with that??
That's why we end up with "career" teachers - they are often the ones that aren't even competent enough to make it in their chosen career, so they end up with a teaching certification to "fall back on" - and that's what they do.
Apologies to those very excellent and competent teachers that are out there - don't mean to generalize here.
Read The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America
They've staged a long and protracted anti-education war in government for 3 decades.
Bah! Pure hate-filled fear-mongering garbage.
Try this one instead, if you want to be a real history of public education in America: http://www.amazon.com/deliberate-dumbing-down-america-Chronological/dp/0966707109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245441759&sr=1-1
and most of them can be traced to certain groups (*cough*progressives*cough*) waging a 50 year war on public education, and people refusing to see and treat education as what they think it is: an investment in the future new world order, which requires a compliant and ignorant populace.
It's volcanoes fault is a classic rationalize. There have been far worse volcanic episodes in the last flew million years without causing the spike we have seen in CO2. The increase in CO2 mirrors the onset of industrialization. Deal with it. In the short term acidification is probably a far worse problem than actual warming and ironically in the long run it's the most frightening. Also simply blocking sunlight seems like an extreme solution when we depend on the sun for food. The extreme end of that scale is called night. Which is easier in the end, behaving responsibly or spending trillions of dollars on unproven techniques for undoing the damage we are doing? If we'd simply spend the money spent on avoiding the issues on actual solutions we could fix the problem. I recently heard that it will likely cost an additional trillion dollars for carbon sequestering so we can keep burning coal, a trillion dollars! And that's just an estimate since it's also unproven technology. Is it smarter to keep spending trillions of dollars on the status quo or to fix the problem once and for all?
That's a good argument, until you consider the fact that stopping the use of fossil fuels (and insisting that everybody live like serfs in the dark ages - except for the Lords like Al Gore, of course, who need jets) has no guarantee of actually fixing anything. All you're saying is that we should stop putting out CO2 (should we stop breathing, too?), because this might mitigate some possible effects of global climate change in the long run.
Frankly, rather than reducing the output of CO2 (which makes plants grow), I'd rather concentrate on stopping other truly harmful pollution, like agricultural run-off of phosphorous, which we know for sure is harmful and can guarantee to have benefits if we stop it.
Good job, sir! Very insightful.
There is a plummeting of amphibian populations from toxins. There is MTBE in breast milk (a rocket fuel additive). There are plenty of species about to go extinct from habitat destruction. There is plenty to worry about.
And this is the one of the main reasons I am opposed to the ClimateChange hoax. It diverts attention from these issues, and other serious ones like proper disposal of waste products from electronics, and agricultural run-off that is poisoning our bays and oceans. These are things that have effective solutions available. Instead the hucksters and the ignorant masses they have following them along are intent on using vast resources in a vain attempt to change the global climate of the Earth.
Arrogant foolishness at best. Let's instead concentrate on reducing actual pollution instead of creating boogeymen that can never be defeated.
Whether what the defendent is accused of by the prosecution is a violation of the tax code is a question of law, and hence to be settled by judges. Exactly what he did is a matter of fact, to be settled by a jury. (In practice, juries do interpret the law to some extent, and cannot be held liable for rendering verdicts not according to the law.) Therefore, threatening the jury would seem to be irrelevant to the tax code.
I'm not real clear what you're responding to, here. The case is not about jury threatening or anything, that's just an ancillary issue ultimately caused by justified fear and loathing of the IRS, that lead some folks to make unjustified comments about the jury, and the prosecutor going off on a tangent because he thought he smelled a new case he could drum up against someone.
In fact the case won't even revolve around the tax code - that's not really at issue. The case is about whether the defendants thought their actions were allowed under the tax code, and were knowingly lying and running a criminal enterprise. It's probably going to be a tough sell to any jury, since the IRS seemed to be okay with the idea, or at least unsure about it. Besides, they have been doing this for many years, and were dragged into court about it before and were cleared of all charges.
That would be true if we were all a bunch of mindless zombies and the law was a completely clear and undebatable codex that needed no real-world interpretation. In the REAL world common sense can, does, and should play a role in the law and its interpretation. This sort of "letter of the law" mentality is what leads to stupid shit like kids getting expelled from school for bringing plastic knives in with their lunch (because TECHNICALLY they did indeed "bring a knife to school"). What it comes down to this case isn't "Was he technically following the exact letter of the law?" It comes down to "Would a jury of reasonable peers conclude that this man was willfully engaging in tax evasion?" And I think it's clear that the answer to the latter question is, in the mind of anything resembling a reasonable human being, a resounding "Yes."
BZZZZZT! Sorry, massive fail. Tax code is all about the letter of the law. That's why people pay tax accountants and tax attorneys all the time to help them find those loopholes. Perfectly accepted behavior of the rich and politicians (although it seems a lot of politicians lately have been trying to use loopholes that really aren't there).
These guys aren't wealthy or powerful politicians - they are working people that found a loophole for themselves. I applaud them for it. This is more like a case of malicious prosecution, as this is not the first time Bill Cohen has tried to put these guys in jail - they were acquitted last time for using exactly this avoidance procedure.
They do not have point of asking for ALL information of EVERY ONE that posted. This includes Credit Card Numbers, ISP, and Addresses for every poster.
If they tailored request to those few (I read three) that actually crossed the line into threatening, then it is what you say.
I guess the prosecutors eventually got that exact message, because they have now narrowed the subpoena to just two posters.
I don't really disagree with your point, but in this case it's just William Cohan once again being a complete tool. He'd go after your grandmother for assault on a public official if she complained about a tax bill. He's been going after Robert Kahre for years, this isn't the first time. This latest round reeks of vindictiveness over having his case completely thrown out the last time he tried it.
Here's a little more background if you're interested.
Interesting. You seem to have given this some thought, but you may be starting with some skewed assumptions.
People seem to think that party politics has civil war as some kind of eventuality, and merrily throw out the idea that it's time for a revolution.
I don't think it's really party politics that people view as leading to radical civil / revolutionary conflict, but rather that the duopoly created by the party system has developed it's own set of elite rulers that are completely out of touch with the views of the general populace. It's not the entrenched positions of the opposing parties leading to conflict, it's the entrenchment of the two parties in the political system, and behavior of leaders in both parties.
I mean, really. You think a country of 300 million people would fight itself before reorganizing a political party structure? Really?
Many of these 300 million (maybe 3% ?) have been working within the parties and/or political structure for some time, and are being frustrated at every turn. It was not the results of the most recent election that led to this frustration, but the events that led to the choices given to the voters in recent cycles. Many people entered the party and political machines attempting to make real changes, only to be chewed up and spit out by the machinery.
Every single person, including the both of you two, seem to like the idea of tossing out a phrase like "me too, I'm in for the revolution", as if your token resistance to power structure is accomplishing anything.
You get the gist of the feeling, but you missed where it's coming from. Often it's coming not from "armchair revolutionaries" (although there are no doubt plenty of those), but also from activists who have been crushed between the rock of the entrenched political apparatchik and the hard place of apathy and ignorance in the populace.
Anyone who shares an earnest similar sentiment is completely out of touch with reality and does not, it seems, understand the political structures that have made great this country function so well for almost a quarter of a millennium.
I think you missed the memo on this one. The only thing "working" at this point is keeping the ruling class in charge. In case you haven't noticed, the government has converted itself from being a servant of the people to becoming their master. It's one of those boiling frog things, as this has been happening through several administrations. The parties are cooperating on this - it's not something either one will speak against.
I believe that the most apt phrase in these times is (probably mangling the quote from whoever first said it, but) "It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Hopefully it won't come to shooting or violence at all. There are plenty of educated patriots out here looking for a way to fix things, and while there may be revolution in the air, it's not a hot revolution - it's just a view that radical change is needed.
It was a mostly educated populace subjected to various transgressions which escalated to the point where self-governance was the only option.
Many of us still think it's still the only option, as anything else leads quickly to tyranny.
You are children in school, who dislike their somewhat strict teacher...
Not sure what this is alluding to. I was going to torture it as analogy, but that seems like a fruitless exercise in this environment. I will say this, though. If you think you are in a classroom, and are ready to sit quietly and do whatever the teacher tells you without challenging anything she has to teach, then you are part of the problem. Raise your hand and ask a few questions - try to think outside the box a bit. Hmmm... I guess I kind of did it anyway.
but it comes as no surprise to me that a seemingly unrelated government agency is going after these guys.
The FTC has the authoring to go after people running "illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams". That's part of their mission.
Looks like somebody at the FTC found out that those penis enlargement pills don't work at all.
Wait - I'm confused. Can't they just ask the brain-sucking aliens to chip in a few more bucks?
Is that still on? Seems to me they had a season (maybe it was actually 2), and then it just vanished.
You're right about it being sappy, but with the wife and I usually arguing about whether to watch something on Lifetime or HGTV vs. SciFi or Science channel, Kyle XY was one of those few shows we could both enjoy.
Pure capitalism is just like pure socialism, ineffectual, untried, and inhumane. It's naive dogma.
Nice strawman you've got, there.