People are grudgingly accepting the ads before the movies.
Speak for yourself. If you download a movie you don't have crappy ads, no people talking or getting up and walking past you, you can pause the movie to go pee, the food at home is not 5x the normal selling price, and there is no requirement for you to wear pants. Why would I pay money to be so inconvenienced? Watching movies at the theaters is such an awful experience that I avoid it like the plague.
Insert CD, open iTunes, import CD, sync to iPhone.
And the setting to make that your song a ringtone is where? Cingular won't allow apple to set songs as ringtones because it interferes with their business model of squeezing every last penny out of your pocket. The grandparent was commenting on custom ringtones, not making the iphone act as an ipod.
The problem is that prince signed a contract. He told his label that he would play by their rules. The rules may suck, but then he shouldn't have signed the deal. If prince doesn't like the legally binding document he signed himself then he only has himself to blame.
I think anyone with a decent knowledge of history knows that Christians, generally, have done quite a lot of bad things. Your point, though, is that some of those bad things are intrinsic to Christianity, isn't it? That's a point which would require more specific support.
One simply needs to quote portions of the bible where death is a punishment and then find examples where this occurs in history. "God told me to do it" is not the only excuse for bad things in history, but it contributed to it.
You quote the modern definition of an indulgence instead of its historic use. Of course the Catholic church today is going to go out of it's way to define it in a kinder and gentler fashion than the original. When you go to St. Peter's Basillica think of John Tetzel's phrase "As soon a coin in coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs"
Dying for something one knows to be false is tragic, but dying honestly is far more honorable than knowingly cheating people for money. Yes most of the early Scientologist leaders knew they were duping people. The early rabbi's were espousing their religion in order to gain profit. Leviticus contains animal sacrifice where the fatty parts of the animal must be given to the priest who offered up the animal to God. It would appear that these early priests were using their religion for personal profit (free juicy sheep parts). What makes you think the early leaders of Christianity believed in their own religion or did not have personal profit in mind? Looking at Leviticus it sure looks like a great way to get free sheep parts. Sure the masses that the leaders converted thought it was all true. The question is: Did the leaders believe it (which is hard to know). If I were alive then I might be tempted to become a priest in order to enjoy the free meals and easier lifestyle. Regardless of whether Christianity or Scientology was believed it was a good way to get rich. Today the Vatican does not contain the humble house of God. It contains very extravagant buildings which show off the wealth of the religious leaders. Early Christian leaders could have believed in their religion just as much as early Scientologists. The motivation was financial for them. When they duped their victim they not only got a financial gain but also had their believers disobey roman laws which led them to be thrown to the lions.
Perhaps, but there are substantial disagreements between Scientology and Christianity in areas like soteriology (the nature of salvation) and anthropology (the nature of man) which, at least in Christianity, also depend on the nature of God. An easy example of a disagreement: Scientology holds that spiritual salvation depends on one's self and one's fellows (and "brotherhood with the universe"), whereas Christianity holds that spiritual salvation depends on Christ. If Scientologists know the latter and still say there is no conflict, then they are not being honest. If you decided to believe in both religions you would simply adopt the theory that salvation depends on both and that you should both believe in Christ, and brotherhood and the Universe. The intolerance would come from the religion that states that people that do not believe your salvation strategy should be converted (perhaps violently inquisition style) instead of allowed to believe both.
It's important to distinguish between paying for indulgences and obtaining indulgences in another fashion (i.e. performing acts of piety, as one can still do today), as what I wrote makes sense only when that distinction is made. Additionally, as they are not a characteristic of Eastern Christianity, one cannot describe them as fundamental to Christianity as a whole. Are they fundamental to Western Christianity specifically? Even that is a very difficult argument to make, as there they are considered neither sufficient nor even necessary for salvation. Indulgences are not needed for salvation. Indulgences were little slips of paper that the catholic church would give you after you paid money to the church and were not acts of piety. These slips of paper would forgive you in the eyes of god for sins you had committed. For every sin that you committed you would be sent into purgatory. In purgatory you would burn for a sufficient amount of time (determined by your loving God) and then sent up to heaven for your eternal salvation. Rich men could therefore sin away as long as they paid the church to give them indulgences and thus buy their way out of purgatory. The poor could not pay their way out of purgatory. This is part of the reason Martin Luther was mad at the church. The reason that I singled out western Christianity is because Western Christianity is found in most of Europe and in the US. Eastern is in places like Russia. You appear to be attempting to disregard my point arguing a technicality instead of attempting to understand it. If I need to provide evidence that the Eastern Orthodox church did bad things too in order to fully prove my point then I guess I can. Hopefully you will research the issue so that I don't have to.
It does sound like I successfully made my point that the early Christians weren't in it for the money. You are correct. The early Christians were in it for the stupid instead of the money.
It sounds like Scientologists' leaders know that their false belief system is not worth dying over and is incredibly profitable. ...and you find this admirable? It makes more sense to make money off of something that is false than to die for something that is false. My point was that the early scientologists appeared to be making money instead of dieing. If I had a choice between starting a religion where I must die and one where I am rich and get to live how I want, I'll take the second.
Perhaps Scientology entirely rejects reason, but Christianity does not. Mutually exclusive propositions cannot simultaneously be true, and belief systems containing mutually exclusive propositions are necessarily incompatible, though one remains free to acknowledge common ground. Scientology states that you can believe in god, original sin, the virgin birth, resurrection of Jesus, the devil, or whatever other religious beliefs you want so long as you also believe in Xenu the alien that killed other aliens and dumped their souls into a volcano in Hawaii. You can just as easily believe in Zeus, unicorns, Jihad, the torrah. You can chose any other religion even if it say not to believe in other gods. The reason is because Scientology does not have a god. Xenu is an alien and you could simply say god made Xenu. Yes you could be an intolerant Scientologist if you were also Christian, but that is due to your Christianity not your Scientology.
Scientology's positions are a lot more comprehensive than simply avoiding certain drugs. Perhaps I wrote something after drugs.... Oh yeah. I wrote etc. That is because I didn't feel like writing out all the crazy crap they believe.
I do not think most people who have tried to leave Scientology would describe the organization as "tolerant". I said Scientology was better in theory and it was debatable between which was worse in practice between Scientology and Christianity. If you want to misread what I said as defending Scientology as a tolerant religion when it is put into practice then I guess my only response is to ask you to reread what I wrote and understand it this time.
the Bible was still being written, and edited. So my guess is those people did not believe that the Bible was the inerrant word of God The reason that Christians were slaughtered in the Colosseums is because they refused to accept the emperor as God. It was not a problem for the polytheist to tack on one more god since they already had gods for everything else. Christians believed in only one God. They believed it because they were told so by someone that could read the scriptures or because they read them themselves. They believed it so much that they were willing to die for it.
It has spent centuries struggling with the relationship between reason and faith, both of which it has historically considered to be important.
Well Christianity has had this problem of contradicting statements within the Bible and with reality. It often tries to find ways to come to the conclusion that the Bible is still correct. Christians have to explain why "an eye for an eye" and "treat others as you would like to be treated" come from the same God (the omnipotent God made a boo boo the first time around so he impregnated a virgin so that his son could fix things). Considering just about any moral code can be justified by the teachings in the bible, one simply needs to pick and chose which ones that conform to their own moral code and throw out the rest. Calling that process Scholasticism is fine with me.
The spanish prisoner does not ask me to die for him, either; is that a point in his favor? I think that stealing is morally wrong. Early Christianity stole the will to live from its early believers. Stealing money and life are both bad. The second is worse. Maybe you could say two points off for early Christians and one point off for early Scientologists.
helps illustrate the difference between Scientology and religions
I think this separates the tactics of Scientology and other religions. Some religions have you blow yourself up in a crowded square filled with infidels. Some religions have inquisitions and crusades. The ruthlessness of the tactics used does not mean that something is not a religion. Scientology is a religion. It is a religion with ruthless psychological and financial tactics, but still a religion.
"And yes, I'm posting anonymously. Mojo this evil is freaking SCARY."
Well I don't care. I'll post it non anonymously. Scientology is an evil deluded lifestyle that corrupts the mind. I think we should simply tax the crap out of Scientology because it acts as a drain on society. If the financial foundation that Scientology stands on crumbles then the whole thing will collapse.
"Christianity offered the hope that truth, justice and love were inseparable."
That is not a main tenant of the bible or of Christianity. Especially truth with its most obvious example of the persecution of Copernicus. According to Christianity the Bible is the expressed written word of god. Anything that contradicts the bible is therefore not truth and instead blasphemy. The dogma of Christianity is not truth, love, or justice. It is plain and simple dogma.
The fact that the founders of Scientology failed to die over their beliefs is a testament to the sensibility of their belief system. Radical Muslims want people to die over religion. The fact that the founders of Scientology set the example that one should not die for their religion is a point in their favor.
"Paying one's way into heaven was never a fundamental part of Christianity; the closest thing that happened historically was the selling of indulgences"
Well you provided the example that proves your point wrong right after stating your point. Indulgences were historically a fundamental part of Christianity (western and not eastern). Paying indulgences was a way of avoiding purgatory and going to heaven sooner after you died. It is completely correct to state that paying your way into heaven was historically a fundamental part of Christianity. You can place qualifiers on that statement such as "it only happened for a certain period of that history", but that doesn't change the fact that it happened and that "Paying one's way into heaven was a fundamental part of Christianity".
the two religions (if Scientology can be called that) differ greatly in their fundamentals...how many Christians (particularly the leadership!) could expect to be (and generally were) killed for their religion? Money really was the least of their concerns...
Let me get this straight. They both had false beliefs, one group made money and another died. The conclusion is that Christianity is better? It sounds like Scientologists' leaders know that their false belief system is not worth dying over and is incredibly profitable. It sounds like you providing proof for the exact opposite point that you were trying to make.
Hell. Scientology in principle (and not practice... in practice is debatable which one comes on top) is BETTER than Christianity. Scientology does not tell you that other belief systems are wrong because they are different. You could have other beliefs and to be a Scientologist you simply have to believe their crazy ideas (don't take certain drugs etc.). In that way Scientology is more tolerant and less prone to violence.
I think Scientology can be described as a religion. There is little that can be said that proves one more right than the other. Christianity, Scientology and unicorns are all equally improbable. Belief in any must be faith based and faith based belief systems are religious. Belief in unicorns is probably the most moral of the 3.
Why is the most defensible version of ID, the smallest definition possible, the most interesting? I find the fact that most people who believe in creationism or ID have a larger view and a much more indefensible set of beliefs much more interesting.
All governments are evil I don't think the government of Denmark is evil.
That's not good, and that's not bad: it's a fact of life.
When a government does something immoral it is bad. It is not good, and it should not be accepted as a fact of life.
It is obvious that you have an extremely pessimistic point of view. Your pessimism feeds your defeatism. It is really quite sad that you would accept defeat and not strive for something better.
My HP ink cartridge only works in my model of HP printer. Should that also be illegal? The fact that HP will sue you if you make a compatible ink cartage should be illegal.
Or hitting closer to home on your exampe, the ECU in my Ford only works in a Ford Exporer(sic). So it should be illegal for Ford to sell that ECU? That doesn't make sense. If ford is able to sue someone for making a compatible and competing ECU, I think that should in fact be illegal. Legally enforceable monopolies should be illegal.
It's not that the product only works with another product that makes Norway dislike it. It's more a case of where Apple is creating an (arguably) unnecessary technological limitation whose (arguably) primary purpose is to prevent competition. The reality of the situation is that the DRM is not there to prevent competition as its primary purpose. (though certainly Apple realizes this is helping prevent competition) but that the actual primary reason for the DRM is to satisfy the recording industry's conditions for playing ball with Apple. The RIAA is actually using the DMCA and is the one forcing Apple to use FairPlay, to help prevent competition and profit losses in their music market. But you don't see norway going after the RIAA, even though they have just as much (if not more) excuse to do so.
I actually don't see it that way. I think Norway doesn't like the forced vendor lock in. The RIAA isn't forcing apple to use fairplay. If apple suddenly liked playforsure, the RIAA and Norway would probably not object to apple switching to some other DRM scheme. The RIAA simply wants to make as much money as possible, and Norway just wants to avoid vendor lock in.
The thing is the RIAA is only in America (hence the last A). Norway doesn't care what apple does in other countries. It only cares what apple does in its country.
The market price allocation of goods and services is the best that humankind has come up with in the last 4,000 years of recorded history, and the only one that matches production to demand, because it is the only scheme that accounts for human nature and motivations.
If someone wanted to maximize profits and economic efficiency, studying the economics of the situation would be great. In order to find out what is best for the consumer one should use common sense instead of economic theory. Economic theory contains various models to predict supply, demand, production and consumption, yet there is no gauge for happiness or personal freedoms.
I guess the best example that I can come up with is emission and pollution controls. If you can squeeze out a little more profit from polluting then that's what economic theory tells you to do. That is why there are agencies like the EPA to prevent abuse. If AT&T doesn't like my VOIP service because they want to push their own VOIP service, they will simply make all connections that my VOIP service makes over any portion of their network go extremely slow (or not at all). All of the sudden AT&T is making censorship decisions that they shouldn't be making. Net neutrality is there to protect free speech on the internet. Economic theory would give AT&T kudos for a job well done where common sense states that AT&T is being a massive jerk and something should be done to stop them.
The reasons for net neutrality include protecting free speech, and preventing monopoly forces from tramping on both competitors and consumers. Advocates of net neutrality are not sitting around thinking "ISPs are not matching production to demand!!! That SUX0RS!!"
A cut in the capitol gains tax is a targeted cut in the taxes of the rich. Currently if I was sitting on a huge pile of cash and invested all my money and then lived off the gains of that money I would pay in taxes about 15% of my gains because that money is taxed as a capitol gain instead of as actual income. Considering that the income tax rate for people in the top 35% in America is around 33%, you would be stupid to make your money through a normal income. A lot of CEOs like getting paid in stocks because when they sell the stocks they pay capital gains taxes instead of income tax(need to double check, but I'm pretty sure that's the case).
You can try and argue that a cut in the capital gains tax helps everyone, but you simply need to look at who can afford to invest in stocks and who benefits the most. A capital gains cut is definitely a targeted tax cut for the rich. I should know better than to post a response to someone who uses conservative blogs for their analogies. Of course you think bush's tax cuts were wonderful, your ideology forces you to.
I am seriously in awe of such an informative and well thought out response to a typical slashdot post (no research/seat of the pants/here is my opinion, isn't it great). I guess the only thing to ask therefore is how you managed to post on slashdot.
"None of those last three will play my FairPlay music. While I accept the limitations of the player, it's simply frustrating at times."
Limitations of the player? I think it would be more accurate to describe it as a limitation of the music files. Those music files are designed to be as limited as possible so that they only work on ipods. If apple sold mp3s then people could buy other players. Apple doesn't let other companies decode their protected format in order to keep their monopoly.
From what I've read electric cars are better for the environment than gas even when one considers that most of the energy produced to power the car is produced by coal firing plants(in the US).
Hydrogen is a replacement for the battery in an electric car. It's actually a really bad replacement because an electric car can be refueled at home while most people won't do home hydrolysis.
Hydrogen is not the fuel of the future. Hydrogen is the solution that is pushed by oil companies and the auto industry. It is a perfect technology for them. By proposing a solution that is nowhere near complete, profits from the internal combustion engine and oil can be reaped while the consumer waits for the companies to deliver.
I don't believe your numbers. Apple could rake in less profit to offset higher wages. The thing is that corporations are set up to maximize profit. Maximizing profit means they go for the cheapest labor and parts possible. Human rights go right out the window if they get in the way of corporate profits. Apple could afford to pay their workers more. They chose not to. That money is collected in profits or spent on massive advertising campaigns.
Slave labor is not the fault of the consumers. They cannot go buy expensive items built by Unions anymore. This lack of choice is not their fault. If the only options available involve slave labor then how is that the fault of the consumer? Forcing corporations to offer more alternatives sounds like a great way to combat slave labor.
Um... If you are running windows then what prevented Microsoft from having this feature installed from the beginning? Microsoft can always bundle that sort of thing in an update anyhow. I don't see how WGA changes things.
Slashdot Mirror
Speak for yourself. If you download a movie you don't have crappy ads, no people talking or getting up and walking past you, you can pause the movie to go pee, the food at home is not 5x the normal selling price, and there is no requirement for you to wear pants. Why would I pay money to be so inconvenienced? Watching movies at the theaters is such an awful experience that I avoid it like the plague.
You're joking, right?
Insert CD, open iTunes, import CD, sync to iPhone.
And the setting to make that your song a ringtone is where? Cingular won't allow apple to set songs as ringtones because it interferes with their business model of squeezing every last penny out of your pocket. The grandparent was commenting on custom ringtones, not making the iphone act as an ipod.
The problem is that prince signed a contract. He told his label that he would play by their rules. The rules may suck, but then he shouldn't have signed the deal. If prince doesn't like the legally binding document he signed himself then he only has himself to blame.
Considering you have to sue to get good treatment it sounds more like a chicken and egg problem.
One simply needs to quote portions of the bible where death is a punishment and then find examples where this occurs in history. "God told me to do it" is not the only excuse for bad things in history, but it contributed to it.
You quote the modern definition of an indulgence instead of its historic use. Of course the Catholic church today is going to go out of it's way to define it in a kinder and gentler fashion than the original. When you go to St. Peter's Basillica think of John Tetzel's phrase "As soon a coin in coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs"
Dying for something one knows to be false is tragic, but dying honestly is far more honorable than knowingly cheating people for money. Yes most of the early Scientologist leaders knew they were duping people. The early rabbi's were espousing their religion in order to gain profit. Leviticus contains animal sacrifice where the fatty parts of the animal must be given to the priest who offered up the animal to God. It would appear that these early priests were using their religion for personal profit (free juicy sheep parts). What makes you think the early leaders of Christianity believed in their own religion or did not have personal profit in mind? Looking at Leviticus it sure looks like a great way to get free sheep parts. Sure the masses that the leaders converted thought it was all true. The question is: Did the leaders believe it (which is hard to know). If I were alive then I might be tempted to become a priest in order to enjoy the free meals and easier lifestyle. Regardless of whether Christianity or Scientology was believed it was a good way to get rich. Today the Vatican does not contain the humble house of God. It contains very extravagant buildings which show off the wealth of the religious leaders. Early Christian leaders could have believed in their religion just as much as early Scientologists. The motivation was financial for them. When they duped their victim they not only got a financial gain but also had their believers disobey roman laws which led them to be thrown to the lions. Perhaps, but there are substantial disagreements between Scientology and Christianity in areas like soteriology (the nature of salvation) and anthropology (the nature of man) which, at least in Christianity, also depend on the nature of God. An easy example of a disagreement: Scientology holds that spiritual salvation depends on one's self and one's fellows (and "brotherhood with the universe"), whereas Christianity holds that spiritual salvation depends on Christ. If Scientologists know the latter and still say there is no conflict, then they are not being honest. If you decided to believe in both religions you would simply adopt the theory that salvation depends on both and that you should both believe in Christ, and brotherhood and the Universe. The intolerance would come from the religion that states that people that do not believe your salvation strategy should be converted (perhaps violently inquisition style) instead of allowed to believe both.I meant to say Galileo. Sorry
the Bible was still being written, and edited. So my guess is those people did not believe that the Bible was the inerrant word of God The reason that Christians were slaughtered in the Colosseums is because they refused to accept the emperor as God. It was not a problem for the polytheist to tack on one more god since they already had gods for everything else. Christians believed in only one God. They believed it because they were told so by someone that could read the scriptures or because they read them themselves. They believed it so much that they were willing to die for it. It has spent centuries struggling with the relationship between reason and faith, both of which it has historically considered to be important.Well Christianity has had this problem of contradicting statements within the Bible and with reality. It often tries to find ways to come to the conclusion that the Bible is still correct. Christians have to explain why "an eye for an eye" and "treat others as you would like to be treated" come from the same God (the omnipotent God made a boo boo the first time around so he impregnated a virgin so that his son could fix things). Considering just about any moral code can be justified by the teachings in the bible, one simply needs to pick and chose which ones that conform to their own moral code and throw out the rest. Calling that process Scholasticism is fine with me.
The spanish prisoner does not ask me to die for him, either; is that a point in his favor? I think that stealing is morally wrong. Early Christianity stole the will to live from its early believers. Stealing money and life are both bad. The second is worse. Maybe you could say two points off for early Christians and one point off for early Scientologists.I think this separates the tactics of Scientology and other religions. Some religions have you blow yourself up in a crowded square filled with infidels. Some religions have inquisitions and crusades. The ruthlessness of the tactics used does not mean that something is not a religion. Scientology is a religion. It is a religion with ruthless psychological and financial tactics, but still a religion.
Well I don't care. I'll post it non anonymously. Scientology is an evil deluded lifestyle that corrupts the mind. I think we should simply tax the crap out of Scientology because it acts as a drain on society. If the financial foundation that Scientology stands on crumbles then the whole thing will collapse.
That is not a main tenant of the bible or of Christianity. Especially truth with its most obvious example of the persecution of Copernicus. According to Christianity the Bible is the expressed written word of god. Anything that contradicts the bible is therefore not truth and instead blasphemy. The dogma of Christianity is not truth, love, or justice. It is plain and simple dogma.
The fact that the founders of Scientology failed to die over their beliefs is a testament to the sensibility of their belief system. Radical Muslims want people to die over religion. The fact that the founders of Scientology set the example that one should not die for their religion is a point in their favor.
Well you provided the example that proves your point wrong right after stating your point. Indulgences were historically a fundamental part of Christianity (western and not eastern). Paying indulgences was a way of avoiding purgatory and going to heaven sooner after you died. It is completely correct to state that paying your way into heaven was historically a fundamental part of Christianity. You can place qualifiers on that statement such as "it only happened for a certain period of that history", but that doesn't change the fact that it happened and that "Paying one's way into heaven was a fundamental part of Christianity".
the two religions (if Scientology can be called that) differ greatly in their fundamentals...how many Christians (particularly the leadership!) could expect to be (and generally were) killed for their religion? Money really was the least of their concerns...Let me get this straight. They both had false beliefs, one group made money and another died. The conclusion is that Christianity is better? It sounds like Scientologists' leaders know that their false belief system is not worth dying over and is incredibly profitable. It sounds like you providing proof for the exact opposite point that you were trying to make.
Hell. Scientology in principle (and not practice... in practice is debatable which one comes on top) is BETTER than Christianity. Scientology does not tell you that other belief systems are wrong because they are different. You could have other beliefs and to be a Scientologist you simply have to believe their crazy ideas (don't take certain drugs etc.). In that way Scientology is more tolerant and less prone to violence.
I think Scientology can be described as a religion. There is little that can be said that proves one more right than the other. Christianity, Scientology and unicorns are all equally improbable. Belief in any must be faith based and faith based belief systems are religious. Belief in unicorns is probably the most moral of the 3.
Why is the most defensible version of ID, the smallest definition possible, the most interesting? I find the fact that most people who believe in creationism or ID have a larger view and a much more indefensible set of beliefs much more interesting.
Doesn't tor make your browsing really slow? Are you able to watch videos from places like youtube? I tried using tor and it was painfully slow.
When a government does something immoral it is bad. It is not good, and it should not be accepted as a fact of life.
It is obvious that you have an extremely pessimistic point of view. Your pessimism feeds your defeatism. It is really quite sad that you would accept defeat and not strive for something better.
I actually don't see it that way. I think Norway doesn't like the forced vendor lock in. The RIAA isn't forcing apple to use fairplay. If apple suddenly liked playforsure, the RIAA and Norway would probably not object to apple switching to some other DRM scheme. The RIAA simply wants to make as much money as possible, and Norway just wants to avoid vendor lock in.
The thing is the RIAA is only in America (hence the last A). Norway doesn't care what apple does in other countries. It only cares what apple does in its country.
If someone wanted to maximize profits and economic efficiency, studying the economics of the situation would be great. In order to find out what is best for the consumer one should use common sense instead of economic theory. Economic theory contains various models to predict supply, demand, production and consumption, yet there is no gauge for happiness or personal freedoms.
I guess the best example that I can come up with is emission and pollution controls. If you can squeeze out a little more profit from polluting then that's what economic theory tells you to do. That is why there are agencies like the EPA to prevent abuse. If AT&T doesn't like my VOIP service because they want to push their own VOIP service, they will simply make all connections that my VOIP service makes over any portion of their network go extremely slow (or not at all). All of the sudden AT&T is making censorship decisions that they shouldn't be making. Net neutrality is there to protect free speech on the internet. Economic theory would give AT&T kudos for a job well done where common sense states that AT&T is being a massive jerk and something should be done to stop them.
The reasons for net neutrality include protecting free speech, and preventing monopoly forces from tramping on both competitors and consumers. Advocates of net neutrality are not sitting around thinking "ISPs are not matching production to demand!!! That SUX0RS!!"
A cut in the capitol gains tax is a targeted cut in the taxes of the rich. Currently if I was sitting on a huge pile of cash and invested all my money and then lived off the gains of that money I would pay in taxes about 15% of my gains because that money is taxed as a capitol gain instead of as actual income. Considering that the income tax rate for people in the top 35% in America is around 33%, you would be stupid to make your money through a normal income. A lot of CEOs like getting paid in stocks because when they sell the stocks they pay capital gains taxes instead of income tax(need to double check, but I'm pretty sure that's the case).
You can try and argue that a cut in the capital gains tax helps everyone, but you simply need to look at who can afford to invest in stocks and who benefits the most. A capital gains cut is definitely a targeted tax cut for the rich. I should know better than to post a response to someone who uses conservative blogs for their analogies. Of course you think bush's tax cuts were wonderful, your ideology forces you to.so true... The commercials are creepy, weird, and they don't make me excited about gaming at all.
Star Wars virgin (-1 redundant)
I am seriously in awe of such an informative and well thought out response to a typical slashdot post (no research/seat of the pants/here is my opinion, isn't it great). I guess the only thing to ask therefore is how you managed to post on slashdot.
Limitations of the player? I think it would be more accurate to describe it as a limitation of the music files. Those music files are designed to be as limited as possible so that they only work on ipods. If apple sold mp3s then people could buy other players. Apple doesn't let other companies decode their protected format in order to keep their monopoly.
You are already paying 2x for oil than you were a few years ago:r aphs/Slide5.GIF
http://www.atg.wa.gov/consumer/gasprices/images/g
Oil prices are not dropping anytime soon. Have fun with that.
From what I've read electric cars are better for the environment than gas even when one considers that most of the energy produced to power the car is produced by coal firing plants(in the US).
Hydrogen is a replacement for the battery in an electric car. It's actually a really bad replacement because an electric car can be refueled at home while most people won't do home hydrolysis.
Hydrogen is not the fuel of the future. Hydrogen is the solution that is pushed by oil companies and the auto industry. It is a perfect technology for them. By proposing a solution that is nowhere near complete, profits from the internal combustion engine and oil can be reaped while the consumer waits for the companies to deliver.
The major car manufacturers made electric cars before. GM did in 1996:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV1
Honda did in 1997:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus
toyota in 1997:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
Ford in 1998:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_EV
There is just too much money to be made using the internal combustion engine (oil filter, oil, gas, exhaust, spark plugs, and much much more). There is no rush to switch to a different technology from an automaker or oil companies point of view.
I don't believe your numbers. Apple could rake in less profit to offset higher wages. The thing is that corporations are set up to maximize profit. Maximizing profit means they go for the cheapest labor and parts possible. Human rights go right out the window if they get in the way of corporate profits. Apple could afford to pay their workers more. They chose not to. That money is collected in profits or spent on massive advertising campaigns.
Slave labor is not the fault of the consumers. They cannot go buy expensive items built by Unions anymore. This lack of choice is not their fault. If the only options available involve slave labor then how is that the fault of the consumer? Forcing corporations to offer more alternatives sounds like a great way to combat slave labor.
Ow. Thant link hurt my grounded in reality bone.
Um... If you are running windows then what prevented Microsoft from having this feature installed from the beginning? Microsoft can always bundle that sort of thing in an update anyhow. I don't see how WGA changes things.