More OT:
I think you're right on track with your prediction of the eventual collapse of the US economic system, and the end result of fascism (or at least some form of authoritarian government). In fact, we can see a microcosm of such a development in California.
California has lost much of its tech industry and other business out of state (or country). They have generous social programs and high tax rates that their shrinking economic base can no longer support. And they have huge amounts of uncontrolled immigration. A disaster in the making.
The people of the state have started to look for an answer to the problem, and the answer they have come up with is: "let's find a strong authoritarian leader to clean up the mess." Now, I'm not saying the reason Arnold is governor is because he's a "facist". He is not. But "the Terminator" gives the impression of being a strong leader. And people are willing to trade their liberty for economic well being and protection.
but there is still no longer a need for the electoral college,
It's unlikely that the electoral college will ever be changed. It would require a constitutional amendment to pass. It takes 3/4 of all the states to vote to change the constitution. The small states have no reason to vote for a change as it would decrease their representation.
One summer I worked in a fruit dehydration warehouse. The day was spent shoveling little chips of dried friut into shipping boxes (apples, apricots, cherries, whatever). It was always over a 100 degrees F in the warehouse, thanks to the ovens. And it was humid as hell due to all the fruit drying. I remember one time when it got to 125 degrees inside. We could only work for about 5 minutes at a time, and then have to take water breaks.
Of course then all companies would move their headquaters to the caymans.
Why couldn't they write the law such that any company that does business in the USA must obey our laws? Getting access to the USA market is a privelege, not a right. State side, it works that way now in California now. Companies that do business in California must obey the law there whether they are hedquarterd there or not.
Jeez, how many more companies and people are SCO trying to piss off... I wonder wtf is driving them to cause all this trouble
SCO knows that without the lawsuits they have a losing business model. If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em, and hope that 1)One of the charges stick, or 2)Somebody buys you out.
This isn't the first time that someone has tried this.
??? Gandalf never usurped Denethor's authority in the book, until it was clear that Denethor had gone mad and intended to kill Faramir. If you'll remember, it was Denethor who was in control of the city, and it was he who had the torches lit. In fact they were lit before Gandalf and Pippen arrived.
I loved the movie, and thought they did an awesome job overall. Having said that, here's some of what I didn't care for:
They made Denethor a complete prick, and didn't explain why he went mad. In the book it's clear that Denethor was origionaly a strong and honorable man, but that he had a nervous breakdown because of the immense pressure he was facing - such as: Contesting the will of Sauron with the Palantir, the recent death of Boromor, the "impending" death of Farimir, worry of Aragorn taking the throne, etc. The movie prortays little of this. He's just made out to be a selfish power-hungry ass wipe.
Along those same lines - It was out of character for Gandalf to usurp the control of Gondor, and overrule the authority
of Denethor, regardless of Denethor's mental state. The best example of this is when he sends Pippen up to light the torch. Even if Denethor is mad, there were others in the city who could have been consulted. It was completely out of character for Gandalf to use an ends-justify-the-means approach - even if it involves a fun scene with a clever hobbit.
Yeah I know she's cute, but Liv Tyler was annoying again. The pouting and crying got old real quick. At least they didn't bother us with another Aragorn/Arwen flash back scene.
Re:Now theres a fuckup waiting to happen?
on
Living on Mars Time
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· Score: 1
A day thats still 24 hours long, but 39 minutes longer than an earth day? Is that Earth or Mars minutes now?
Maybe we can redirect an appropriately sized asteroid to hit Mars and increase the planet's rotation speed by 39 minutes.
Or heck, redirect one towards earth to slow us down.:)
Howard Dean quotes from 12-1-03 interview with Chris Matthews:
"'...all of us were in favor of this resolution that was a preemptive unilateral attacks on Iraq. I was not.'"
"...Vermont is the only state in the country where everybody has the same rights as everyone else."
"
The temperament-We'll leave intellect out of it, but there temperament's fine most of the time. Most of the time.
"Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight."
Yeah, the Oregon sales tax is nice. I live about 30 minutes from Ontario, OR. If I'm purchasing any Wal-mart item that costs more than about $300.00, I make a special trip.:) Unfortunatly Ontario doesn't have any of the big name electronics stores...
Yeah, this is pretty common. Microsoft does this all the time with their retail software and the X-BOX.
What annoys me Mail-In-Rebates. It seems like all of the advertized prices for Best Buy, Comp-USA, Staples, yada yada, require rebates. Some require two or more. Rebates suck because you have pay up front, go to the trouble of mailing them in, and then you have to wait 4-6 weeks and hope. Plus you get nailed for the full price on the sales tax.
Re:A comprehensive discussion of gerrymandering...
on
Gerrymandering by Computer
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· Score: 5, Informative
One good way to minimize gerrymandering is to create compact districts. This is a requirement that districts be roughly uniform in shape (like a hexagon or circle). This doesn't prevent all gerrymandering, but makes it much more difficult. Typically gerrymandered districst are easy to spot, because they come in odd shapes.
Definitely missing the Amiga on that list. Chuck the "APPLE NEWTON MESSAGE PAD".
Agreed. And they make a big deal about how the 1992 "Tandy Sensation" came with both sound and SVGA graphics. Yet the Amiga had both of those at least 5 years earlier. Also - "Sim City" came out on the Amiga before it came out on the C64 as the article states.
Missing from the list:
Amiga
Atari ST
Vic20
Radio Shack TRS80 and CoCo
Re:Imagine this other African language.....
on
Whistle While You Work
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· Score: 3, Funny
I wonder if the intro to the Andy Griffeth Show is really a secret whistling message.
Maybe when Opie is walking by with the fishing pole the whistling code is saying "drugs, sex and rock 'n roll".
Don't forget Dan Rather. He has actually held fund raisers for the democratic party. And check out this quote from Dan.
"When you nominate someone to be Attorney General... who you know is going to raise questions, rightly or wrongly, justifiably or otherwise about race relations, quote 'a hardline stance on a woman's right to choose' on abortion; when you appoint somebody, nominate someone, to be head of the Interior Department who says, 'Listen, it's alright for people who own private land to pollute,' I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I am saying that a lot are going to say, 'Wait a minute, this is not uniter-divider country."
They are not buddies. Gollum simply knows where she lives and leads the hobbits into her lair, knowing they'll be eaten. At no time does he make some kind of deal with her, as you seem to be suggesting.
In the book Gollum actualy goes ahead of the hobbits and warns Shelob that they're coming. There is a deal made. The deal is - gollum brings the two hobbits, and Shelob gets to kill and eat them. In return Gollum gets any possesions they may have (ie the ring). Shelob doesn't care about the ring. Like the balrog, her evil is old and independent of Sauron.
Hmmmm did you actually *watch* the movie? When Gandalf visits Saruman he hasn't started to chop down trees or allow his orcs to roam free yet. He did not know the ring had been found. Rather he was secretly looking for it himself. Meanwhile, knowing any info on it would come to him since he was known to know the most about the ring, he kept up the guise of a good wizard. Only after gandalf tells him it's been found does he openly let the orcs out and start his scortched earth policy.
In this case the movie is more plausible than the books. The books make clear that Saruman has been destroying the trees for some time.
Sauron would have seen the eagles coming. Nazgul were patrolling the skys of mordor and Mount doom is quite a bit into the heart of the country. No easy task to sneak an eagle in under the radar. Especially since the Eagles were quite certainly known enemies of Sauron.
Yes, but at first the Nazgul rode horses instead of flying. And but there was a time when the Nazgul were out of comission - during the council of Elrond. That's when they could have taken the Eagle into Mordor.
Anyway's thanks for the dialouge, I am a fan of the books, BTW.:)
-Why does Bilbo turn almost instantly old and feeble after he gives up the ring, but when Gollum gives up the ring he doesn't get any older?
-Speaking of Gollum, how does he become buddies with Shelob? I kinda got the impression that she was an "eat first and ask questions later" spider. She should have eaten Gollum the first time they met.
-What do the orcs eat? There's no food in Moria, and Mordor is barren, and wherever the orcs go they slash and burn. At least in Warcraft the orcs are required to build little farms.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're right on track with your prediction of the eventual collapse of the US economic system, and the end result of fascism (or at least some form of authoritarian government). In fact, we can see a microcosm of such a development in California.
California has lost much of its tech industry and other business out of state (or country). They have generous social programs and high tax rates that their shrinking economic base can no longer support. And they have huge amounts of uncontrolled immigration. A disaster in the making.
The people of the state have started to look for an answer to the problem, and the answer they have come up with is: "let's find a strong authoritarian leader to clean up the mess." Now, I'm not saying the reason Arnold is governor is because he's a "facist". He is not. But "the Terminator" gives the impression of being a strong leader. And people are willing to trade their liberty for economic well being and protection.
Scary....
It's unlikely that the electoral college will ever be changed. It would require a constitutional amendment to pass. It takes 3/4 of all the states to vote to change the constitution. The small states have no reason to vote for a change as it would decrease their representation.
One summer I worked in a fruit dehydration warehouse. The day was spent shoveling little chips of dried friut into shipping boxes (apples, apricots, cherries, whatever). It was always over a 100 degrees F in the warehouse, thanks to the ovens. And it was humid as hell due to all the fruit drying. I remember one time when it got to 125 degrees inside. We could only work for about 5 minutes at a time, and then have to take water breaks.
Why not take the Mrs along too? It would give you something to do after the latency was too much for online gaming.
Why couldn't they write the law such that any company that does business in the USA must obey our laws? Getting access to the USA market is a privelege, not a right. State side, it works that way now in California now. Companies that do business in California must obey the law there whether they are hedquarterd there or not.
Here's another link (about 2/3 down page) to the scream, at least until it dies as well. :)
SCO knows that without the lawsuits they have a losing business model. If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em, and hope that 1)One of the charges stick, or 2)Somebody buys you out.
This isn't the first time that someone has tried this.
??? Gandalf never usurped Denethor's authority in the book, until it was clear that Denethor had gone mad and intended to kill Faramir. If you'll remember, it was Denethor who was in control of the city, and it was he who had the torches lit. In fact they were lit before Gandalf and Pippen arrived.
They made Denethor a complete prick, and didn't explain why he went mad. In the book it's clear that Denethor was origionaly a strong and honorable man, but that he had a nervous breakdown because of the immense pressure he was facing - such as: Contesting the will of Sauron with the Palantir, the recent death of Boromor, the "impending" death of Farimir, worry of Aragorn taking the throne, etc. The movie prortays little of this. He's just made out to be a selfish power-hungry ass wipe.
Along those same lines - It was out of character for Gandalf to usurp the control of Gondor, and overrule the authority of Denethor, regardless of Denethor's mental state. The best example of this is when he sends Pippen up to light the torch. Even if Denethor is mad, there were others in the city who could have been consulted. It was completely out of character for Gandalf to use an ends-justify-the-means approach - even if it involves a fun scene with a clever hobbit.
Yeah I know she's cute, but Liv Tyler was annoying again. The pouting and crying got old real quick. At least they didn't bother us with another Aragorn/Arwen flash back scene.
Maybe we can redirect an appropriately sized asteroid to hit Mars and increase the planet's rotation speed by 39 minutes.
Or heck, redirect one towards earth to slow us down. :)
That means you're doing over 150 miles per hour. You deserve a ticket. :)
"'...all of us were in favor of this resolution that was a preemptive unilateral attacks on Iraq. I was not.'"
"...Vermont is the only state in the country where everybody has the same rights as everyone else."
" The temperament-We'll leave intellect out of it, but there temperament's fine most of the time. Most of the time.
"Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight."
You must really be looking forward to watching "The Passion". :)
Yeah, the Oregon sales tax is nice. I live about 30 minutes from Ontario, OR. If I'm purchasing any Wal-mart item that costs more than about $300.00, I make a special trip. :) Unfortunatly Ontario doesn't have any of the big name electronics stores...
Yeah, this is pretty common. Microsoft does this all the time with their retail software and the X-BOX.
What annoys me Mail-In-Rebates. It seems like all of the advertized prices for Best Buy, Comp-USA, Staples, yada yada, require rebates. Some require two or more. Rebates suck because you have pay up front, go to the trouble of mailing them in, and then you have to wait 4-6 weeks and hope. Plus you get nailed for the full price on the sales tax.
One good way to minimize gerrymandering is to create compact districts. This is a requirement that districts be roughly uniform in shape (like a hexagon or circle). This doesn't prevent all gerrymandering, but makes it much more difficult. Typically gerrymandered districst are easy to spot, because they come in odd shapes.
I'm wondering, and maybe you know - why was Joseph's line important, since technically he would only be Jesus' step-dad?
Agreed. Casey Kasem should not be a hobbit voice.
Nit #2: Gondalf did not fall at the end of the movie, it was more like 2/3 the way through. :)
Agreed. And they make a big deal about how the 1992 "Tandy Sensation" came with both sound and SVGA graphics. Yet the Amiga had both of those at least 5 years earlier. Also - "Sim City" came out on the Amiga before it came out on the C64 as the article states.
Missing from the list:
Amiga
Atari ST
Vic20
Radio Shack TRS80 and CoCo
Maybe when Opie is walking by with the fishing pole the whistling code is saying "drugs, sex and rock 'n roll".
"When you nominate someone to be Attorney General... who you know is going to raise questions, rightly or wrongly, justifiably or otherwise about race relations, quote 'a hardline stance on a woman's right to choose' on abortion; when you appoint somebody, nominate someone, to be head of the Interior Department who says, 'Listen, it's alright for people who own private land to pollute,' I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I am saying that a lot are going to say, 'Wait a minute, this is not uniter-divider country."
In the book Gollum actualy goes ahead of the hobbits and warns Shelob that they're coming. There is a deal made. The deal is - gollum brings the two hobbits, and Shelob gets to kill and eat them. In return Gollum gets any possesions they may have (ie the ring). Shelob doesn't care about the ring. Like the balrog, her evil is old and independent of Sauron.
In this case the movie is more plausible than the books. The books make clear that Saruman has been destroying the trees for some time.
Sauron would have seen the eagles coming. Nazgul were patrolling the skys of mordor and Mount doom is quite a bit into the heart of the country. No easy task to sneak an eagle in under the radar. Especially since the Eagles were quite certainly known enemies of Sauron.
Yes, but at first the Nazgul rode horses instead of flying. And but there was a time when the Nazgul were out of comission - during the council of Elrond. That's when they could have taken the Eagle into Mordor.
Anyway's thanks for the dialouge, I am a fan of the books, BTW. :)
-Why does Bilbo turn almost instantly old and feeble after he gives up the ring, but when Gollum gives up the ring he doesn't get any older?
-Speaking of Gollum, how does he become buddies with Shelob? I kinda got the impression that she was an "eat first and ask questions later" spider. She should have eaten Gollum the first time they met.
-What do the orcs eat? There's no food in Moria, and Mordor is barren, and wherever the orcs go they slash and burn. At least in Warcraft the orcs are required to build little farms.