Christ dude, living inside China with a state-run media, super-thorough censorship, no access to 'subversive' political thought, and a daily threat of all levels of harm to dissenters has destroyed your ability to judge the relative merits of political systems. If you haven't lived there your whole life you might value freedom enough to understand that a little spam is well worth political freedom. Besides, I use a free spam-blocking service, where is your propoganda-blocking or information-freeing service? I have thousands of uncensored news and opinion source, what about you?
And please god don't come back saying western governments have censorship too, because 99% of censorship in (truly) free nations is voluntary blocking of inappropriate material by parents for their own children. Political censorship is relatively rare (well maybe not in France) and well debated, and is always open to change by political action by free people. Those who off-the-cuff compare American and European censorship with countries like China's prove their inability to come up with a fact-based argument.
I'd spend $1 trillion in Iraq if it meant transforming the Middle East in a way that led in time to the elimination of tyranny there, and the end of state support for Wahabbism. This is the neocon's long term strategy. I just wish he would explain this clearly to the American people. The alternative is to let political opportunists exploit every failure and every loss along the way as pointless, and to characterize the effort in Iraq as "Bush's little war."
Add welfare reform to that list a humongeous no-no for liberals.
But the premise here is wrong, in fact non-defense spending increased by a whopping 15% on average each year during Clinton's term, in contrast the increase in non-defense spending in this year's budget under Bush is only 2%. Last year it was I think 8%, and the year before something like 13%.
So unless you want to call defense spending illegitimate (as no doubt many liberals do), this big-spending Bush is a load of crap.
As for the increased deficit, 90% of that is because of the massive implosion of the technobubble, 9/11 attacks, and increased defense spending. The non-defense growth rate of federal spending has actually been a tiny 2% increase this past year, as compared with 15% during the Clinton years (while he slashed the military by 75%). The other 10% has been in tax cuts that, combined with lower interest rates have lifted the economy out of recession. So, in the long run they very easily pay for themselves in increased revenues due to a stronger economy.
However, these estimates also use payroll counts reports from employers. This inflates the unemployment rate because the growing number of contract workers don't show up on anyone's payroll. Maybe this is the reason a lot of people give up on unemployment insurance, because they have become contract workers.
First off, our relationship with naturally occuring forest fires need to change in a big way (and not by cutting down all the trees as our idiotic president suggested recently).
For a century we've been preventing forests from burning, a natural and necessary process because tree-hugging extremists can't bare to let them burn. I'm pretty sure the President's plan is not intended to make more trees, it's to cut down on the number of trees there are because these fires are becoming impossible to contain. We obviously can't burn them ourselves, we don't have the resources, so the smart, market way would to be to allow timber companies to thin out the overpopulated areas. Otherwise, these huge, deadly fires will continue to grow and kill more people and destroy more property.
No, noone wants China to be our 'lackeys,' we do want freedom and prosperity for the Chinese people. However, these real reason the fascist Chinese government is doing all of these projects is to increase nationalistic sentiment in China and to make the people forget they are slaves living in an oppressive and dangerous police state.
These are the exact same tactics Hitler used to keep his people focused, and we fear they will end in the same horrible way. If the true motivation was to improve the condition of the Chinese people, that would be great, but in a fascist dictatorship that will never be the case.
Well, U. S. forces also seem to be 90% of the force. As the leaders of the offensive, we are also charged w/ *taking groud* instead of support roles or defensive ones...so of course friendly fire incidents are much more common for us, so is killing the bad guys.
Also our forces have trouble communicating and coordinating w/ other countries' forces since our communications and battlefield tracking systems do not integrate well at all.
Re:Permanent eyesores & small impact
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 0
the containers used to transport the spent nuclear fuel are virtually indestructible, they have been rated to withstand several simultaneous impacts by 747s w/o suffering even a leak. And besides every day stupidity type accidents, nuclear power hasn't killed anyone for 20 years, and probably won't. Plus, with a little hardening in the right places, nuclear power plants can be made impervious to terrorist attack, wind power plants would be prohibitively expensive to guard since they are spread out over such a large area. A terrorist could plant a bomb and just walk away, one or two unexpecting guards won't have any deterrence effect at all.
Re:Clarifications on my part
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 0
Well, then what are the risks? Outside terrorists, there are none. Nuclear plants don't explode, don't kill wildlife, and the containers they use to ship the small amount of waste they produce are almost indestructible, you could ram *several* 747s right into one simultaneously and it would not be punctured. And I'm sure you could detonate a nuclear weapon right on top of Yucca mountain and there would be nothing more than a small dent. Nuclear power plants also take up *much* less space and can be placed on some crappy piece of land noone needs. Heck, if not for terrorism, nuclear power would easily be the cheapest, easiest, safest power solution. It still is, mind you, but it would much more pronounced w/o all the security terrorisism warrants. Those bastards.
'stability' between 1965 and 1980? Those were years of massive economic contraction and rampant stagflation! When Reagan took office in 1981 cut taxes enormously and moderately deregulated, stagflation disappeared, something that was supposedly impossible according to government-loving liberals. And expect for a very minor bump in the late 90s, for 20 years the economy expanded like crazy, especially in the later years as a result of both the deregulation of after the Republican revolution and the Technological revolution after 1994.
So, sure, the deficit expanded and contracted during those 20 years, but that is simply irrelevant if they result in an expansion in the economy, as every tax cut in the last century has. Liberals concentrate on the cost (to the government, screw the people) of tax cuts, and simply ignore that they are in fact an investment in future growth - the object is to borrow $5 now to make $50 a few years from now. A balanced budget is NOT the end, the real economy is, a fact from which liberals are trying to divert your attention. In fact, the only reason liberals want a balanced budget now is to stop tax cuts because they want to spend that money on new 'programs' that won't have the slightest impact on the economy other than to require more tax increases as their costs burgeon in the years to follow.
The current deficit, while large in dollar terms, is is only 3% of GDP. It is O.K. to run deficits when the purpose is to defend the country or to pump money into the economy so as to cause economic growth. I work in the auto industry, and people I talk to all over the U.S. have been telling me that business has been picking up for the last several months, a result of the restructuring businesses have gone through, the recent tax cuts, and the very agressive actions Bush has taken in this war. I think in another 18 months the tech bubble (which burst *before* Bush took office and is the source of this economic downturn) will have taken its full toll, an we will all look back and be glad those tax cuts where there to give investors and businesses back some flexibility. Contrary to all the panicy talk from liberals, the Bush tax cuts are only costing about $85 billion a year, so a very small increase in the growth rate of the economy over 10 years will eliminate their cost entirely. Also, they are depriving liberals of those very same funds they would use to grow the size of the government, the wonderful side-effect of tax cuts .
Re:The sky is not falling
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 0
when did they say that? their policy has in fact been to let it _fall_ free from government manupulation, increasing others' ability to purchase our exports, creating jobs and forcing the Europeans to take measures to help their economies instead of relying purely on America (again).
Free? For every bit of that stuff you pay at least triple in taxes and the bureacracy it creates. I guess if you don't see it, you feel more 'comfortable' and can then stick your head in the sand and pretend you never paid for it.
This kind of big 'mothering' is why unemployment in Europe remains unbelievably high. Most economists consider ~4% as 'zero' unemployment, and for the U.S., the current rate of ~6% (2% real) is quite high. But in the workers' paradise of Europe, 9%-16% is standard, even during *good* economic times. What good does universal access to university do you when there are no jobs afterwards? I guess you could always come over here...
If you can't read source code, I'll bet you can pay someone else to read it for you. Or perhaps they'd take some custom art in exchange. That's the cool thing about a market economy.
Actually, that's bartering, and it's usually illegal because it avoids taxes.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Christ dude, living inside China with a state-run media, super-thorough censorship, no access to 'subversive' political thought, and a daily threat of all levels of harm to dissenters has destroyed your ability to judge the relative merits of political systems. If you haven't lived there your whole life you might value freedom enough to understand that a little spam is well worth political freedom. Besides, I use a free spam-blocking service, where is your propoganda-blocking or information-freeing service? I have thousands of uncensored news and opinion source, what about you?
And please god don't come back saying western governments have censorship too, because 99% of censorship in (truly) free nations is voluntary blocking of inappropriate material by parents for their own children. Political censorship is relatively rare (well maybe not in France) and well debated, and is always open to change by political action by free people. Those who off-the-cuff compare American and European censorship with countries like China's prove their inability to come up with a fact-based argument.
I'd spend $1 trillion in Iraq if it meant transforming the Middle East in a way that led in time to the elimination of tyranny there, and the end of state support for Wahabbism. This is the neocon's long term strategy. I just wish he would explain this clearly to the American people. The alternative is to let political opportunists exploit every failure and every loss along the way as pointless, and to characterize the effort in Iraq as "Bush's little war."
Add welfare reform to that list a humongeous no-no for liberals. But the premise here is wrong, in fact non-defense spending increased by a whopping 15% on average each year during Clinton's term, in contrast the increase in non-defense spending in this year's budget under Bush is only 2%. Last year it was I think 8%, and the year before something like 13%. So unless you want to call defense spending illegitimate (as no doubt many liberals do), this big-spending Bush is a load of crap.
"Christain oil barons
But you imply they aren't a worthless part.
As for the increased deficit, 90% of that is because of the massive implosion of the technobubble, 9/11 attacks, and increased defense spending. The non-defense growth rate of federal spending has actually been a tiny 2% increase this past year, as compared with 15% during the Clinton years (while he slashed the military by 75%). The other 10% has been in tax cuts that, combined with lower interest rates have lifted the economy out of recession. So, in the long run they very easily pay for themselves in increased revenues due to a stronger economy.
So Christians don't count toward 'diversity?' Oh, that's right, libs are only concerned about skin color diversity.
Americans also tend to think that their way of doing things is better, in all situations and culture, than any other methods currently in use.
No, we don't. But, by the condescending tone of all these anti-American posts, it certainly seems like you guys do.
3ivx is a free, and much less buggy divx codec:
http://www.3ivx.com/
However, these estimates also use payroll counts reports from employers. This inflates the unemployment rate because the growing number of contract workers don't show up on anyone's payroll. Maybe this is the reason a lot of people give up on unemployment insurance, because they have become contract workers.
First off, our relationship with naturally occuring forest fires need to change in a big way (and not by cutting down all the trees as our idiotic president suggested recently).
For a century we've been preventing forests from burning, a natural and necessary process because tree-hugging extremists can't bare to let them burn. I'm pretty sure the President's plan is not intended to make more trees, it's to cut down on the number of trees there are because these fires are becoming impossible to contain. We obviously can't burn them ourselves, we don't have the resources, so the smart, market way would to be to allow timber companies to thin out the overpopulated areas. Otherwise, these huge, deadly fires will continue to grow and kill more people and destroy more property.
now how is what I just said flame bait???
No, noone wants China to be our 'lackeys,' we do want freedom and prosperity for the Chinese people. However, these real reason the fascist Chinese government is doing all of these projects is to increase nationalistic sentiment in China and to make the people forget they are slaves living in an oppressive and dangerous police state.
These are the exact same tactics Hitler used to keep his people focused, and we fear they will end in the same horrible way. If the true motivation was to improve the condition of the Chinese people, that would be great, but in a fascist dictatorship that will never be the case.
You could easily filter those out then, and then only trust readings fitting into a realistic pattern.
Well, U. S. forces also seem to be 90% of the force. As the leaders of the offensive, we are also charged w/ *taking groud* instead of support roles or defensive ones...so of course friendly fire incidents are much more common for us, so is killing the bad guys.
Also our forces have trouble communicating and coordinating w/ other countries' forces since our communications and battlefield tracking systems do not integrate well at all.
I think a jamming system like this throught the country, especially near the coastal and strategic areas, would be a great defensive measure.
Well, they're sure as hell not developing a new engine in a couple of months. Of course it's the same engine, maybe with a few tweaks.
Oh yeah, that MUST be it.
the containers used to transport the spent nuclear fuel are virtually indestructible, they have been rated to withstand several simultaneous impacts by 747s w/o suffering even a leak. And besides every day stupidity type accidents, nuclear power hasn't killed anyone for 20 years, and probably won't. Plus, with a little hardening in the right places, nuclear power plants can be made impervious to terrorist attack, wind power plants would be prohibitively expensive to guard since they are spread out over such a large area. A terrorist could plant a bomb and just walk away, one or two unexpecting guards won't have any deterrence effect at all.
Well, then what are the risks? Outside terrorists, there are none. Nuclear plants don't explode, don't kill wildlife, and the containers they use to ship the small amount of waste they produce are almost indestructible, you could ram *several* 747s right into one simultaneously and it would not be punctured. And I'm sure you could detonate a nuclear weapon right on top of Yucca mountain and there would be nothing more than a small dent. Nuclear power plants also take up *much* less space and can be placed on some crappy piece of land noone needs. Heck, if not for terrorism, nuclear power would easily be the cheapest, easiest, safest power solution. It still is, mind you, but it would much more pronounced w/o all the security terrorisism warrants. Those bastards.
'stability' between 1965 and 1980? Those were years of massive economic contraction and rampant stagflation! When Reagan took office in 1981 cut taxes enormously and moderately deregulated, stagflation disappeared, something that was supposedly impossible according to government-loving liberals. And expect for a very minor bump in the late 90s, for 20 years the economy expanded like crazy, especially in the later years as a result of both the deregulation of after the Republican revolution and the Technological revolution after 1994.
So, sure, the deficit expanded and contracted during those 20 years, but that is simply irrelevant if they result in an expansion in the economy, as every tax cut in the last century has. Liberals concentrate on the cost (to the government, screw the people) of tax cuts, and simply ignore that they are in fact an investment in future growth - the object is to borrow $5 now to make $50 a few years from now. A balanced budget is NOT the end, the real economy is, a fact from which liberals are trying to divert your attention. In fact, the only reason liberals want a balanced budget now is to stop tax cuts because they want to spend that money on new 'programs' that won't have the slightest impact on the economy other than to require more tax increases as their costs burgeon in the years to follow.
The current deficit, while large in dollar terms, is is only 3% of GDP. It is O.K. to run deficits when the purpose is to defend the country or to pump money into the economy so as to cause economic growth. I work in the auto industry, and people I talk to all over the U.S. have been telling me that business has been picking up for the last several months, a result of the restructuring businesses have gone through, the recent tax cuts, and the very agressive actions Bush has taken in this war. I think in another 18 months the tech bubble (which burst *before* Bush took office and is the source of this economic downturn) will have taken its full toll, an we will all look back and be glad those tax cuts where there to give investors and businesses back some flexibility. Contrary to all the panicy talk from liberals, the Bush tax cuts are only costing about $85 billion a year, so a very small increase in the growth rate of the economy over 10 years will eliminate their cost entirely. Also, they are depriving liberals of those very same funds they would use to grow the size of the government, the wonderful side-effect of tax cuts .
when did they say that? their policy has in fact been to let it _fall_ free from government manupulation, increasing others' ability to purchase our exports, creating jobs and forcing the Europeans to take measures to help their economies instead of relying purely on America (again).
The Brits don't count, they're the only people over there with a somewhat sane economic policy. Plus they're the only ones with any balls left.
Free? For every bit of that stuff you pay at least triple in taxes and the bureacracy it creates. I guess if you don't see it, you feel more 'comfortable' and can then stick your head in the sand and pretend you never paid for it.
This kind of big 'mothering' is why unemployment in Europe remains unbelievably high. Most economists consider ~4% as 'zero' unemployment, and for the U.S., the current rate of ~6% (2% real) is quite high. But in the workers' paradise of Europe, 9%-16% is standard, even during *good* economic times. What good does universal access to university do you when there are no jobs afterwards? I guess you could always come over here...
I ran about 207kB/s the whole way, sweet.
actually it's equivalent to being given a car free, then complaining you can't get the hood open.
If you can't read source code, I'll bet you can pay someone else to read it for you. Or perhaps they'd take some custom art in exchange. That's the cool thing about a market economy.
;)
Actually, that's bartering, and it's usually illegal because it avoids taxes.