For all practical purposes, in the last presidential election there was a choice between only two men, both of them delusional. Gore's delusions were far more dangerous.
The South fired first, on Fort Sumter. That was the only excuse Lincoln needed for a legal war.
What do you mean "suspending the Constitution"? Lincoln (in my opinion wrongly) suspended habeus corpus, but that is explicitly permitted by the Constitution.
Lincoln did some good (opposing slavery and keeping the union together) but the bad he did along the way has also caused a lot of damage.
Most irritating is the almost religious reverence many people have for Lincoln, particularly residents of Illinois.
Last time I looked, about 5 years ago, 15% of federal taxes went to the military, 15% to interest payments. Add to that 5% for what it should take to run the legislature, courts, the executive's office, the patent & copyright office, and some (minimal) other things and you have the whole list of what the Feds should do. Everything else does more harm than if the money were received by the gov't. and destroyed. 65% waste before even looking at the details.
Similar analysis works on state, county, and local scales, except that the smaller scale systems aren't usually so bad, particularly in small towns where everyone knows what's happening. Even they have public schools, an egregious (but time honored) theft from those who choose not to burden others with their children. (If you make 'em, pay for 'em: private school or home school.)
Yes, the US has lower taxes than most other places, and that's a large part of why the US is better. It is also a huge clue to how to improve the US even more: less government spending and less taxation.
Your comments are far superior to most on this subject, but...
Damnation to society. Once a child is born - no longer a parasite, but acting to some degree as a human being (i.e. a rational animal) - it has value to itself, and that self-ownership is the only primary source of prohibition of murder.
Contributions to my life that I did not request do not constitute ownership of me or a debt for me.
The making of a child creates a responsibilty of the parents to care for the child.
The soul gets installed after it's downloaded but before it's executed. If it comes as source code, it must also be compiled, usually with a "make" script (R-rated).
Most octane boosters are primarily toluene. A few tankfulls and your plugs will be fouled, and you probably won't be doing any good for your valves, either.
As far as I know, most 4 cylinder engines have belts instead of chains. Recommended replacement interval is only 60k miles on my Toyota Tercel, and costs at least $100 to replace (labor intensive). In my opinion, this is a designed-in failure mechanism and a valid reason not to buy a particular variety of car. By the way, I've been told that Volvos use a gear-only mechanism.
I don't know specifically about your Passat Wagon, but the modern station wagons I've seen just don't make the grade. In the 1960s, 2 seat station wagons were 6 passenger cars and 3 seaters (like the 1960 Rambler Ambassador) held 8 or 9 adults. With rear seats folded down, a 4x8 sheet of plywood lay entirely inside the car, flat between the wheel wells. Most minivans and small SUVs can't even do that.
Many cars retard spark timing if preignition is sensed. Usually, this is caused by too low octane gasoline and in turn causes lower power and lower milage.
The RCA technology was pretty poor. They claimed quality equivalent to laserdisc, but their technique was mechanical: a needle tracing bumps on a plastic disc, similar to a normal phonograph record. Each playing degraded the disc. If I remember RCA's claim at the time, they said that noone would ever want to see a film more than about 20 times, anyway.
Wise people know that owning a copy protects against censorship. Ten years from now, the owner of some movie might decide he doesn't want anyone to see it because his wife was naked in the film or he no longer likes its politics. If there's nothing but video-on-demand, POOF! and the film is gone, possibly forever. Widespread ownership is good.
Feeding the hungry is an endless sinkhole from which nothing returns. If you want to improve worldwide nutrition, support biotech companies like Eden Biosciences: buy their product, buy their stock, promote their technology to those in ignorance.
The value of the company IS the shareholder equity.
There are many different meanings of value, even many different technical meanings. Market value (market capitalization) is shares outstanding times share price and makes more sense in many circumstances. Shareholder equity is closer to liquidation value and is not very meaningful for a going concern.
It is shady. The company has cash earning interest, the customer has a certificate losing value in exact proportion to the currency it's denominated in. I've received gift certificates for goods from companies that offered nothing I wanted, and had to wait years until they got something I liked.
A gift certificate is like an anonymous savings account that bears no interest and can only be used at one company.
Why do we allow the wealthy to bend us over and rob us, and then fawn all over them at their parole parties? Why do we beleive that a CEO really "earns" a salary plus benefits in the tens of millions of dollars, while the average worker gets his jib outsourced?
These questions are not related. Not that it should be considered good, but corporate theft is slower and less obviously painful than a knifing. Celebrating crooks at their parole is something that people of bad character have done for centuries.
Some CEOs are worth their millions. Some of them can cause their companies to make many more millions of dollars than anyone else at that company or anyone else they're likely to be able to hire. They deserve a significant part of the difference.
Well, just recording the film you paid to see is victimless, but that would be a foolish activity by itself. (Although your recording activity may make the viewing experience of someone near you less pleasant; I suppose there's a little damage there.)
The reasonable presumption is that you or someone else is going to see what you recorded, and that person would otherwise be paying to see the movie (perhaps not for the first time.) That is where the damage comes in, and the activity is no longer victimless. There's an issue of practicality from the standpoint of law enforcement here. Although the actual loss is primarily brought about by viewing the illegally obtained video, the viewing usually occurs in private and cannot be proven without violating the property rights of the owner of the property where the viewing takes place. But because there is no reasonable legal use for the recording, that is where the law can focus.
The use of logic and reasonable expectations is not foreign to the legal system.
The national debt is roughly on track with the GDP. It's not good, but it's not the disaster you seem to think it is.
The federal legislature has more than enough time to deal with many issues. Do not encourage them to take on more, because about 70% of federal money aready does more damage than good, and new activity all goes to the damage side.
Do you also consider burglary and shoplifting to be not criminal? Extortion? Stock fraud? Insurance fraud?
There has to be some penalty beyond actual losses or there isn't much risk for the perpetrator. This type of action isn't accidental, there is obvious malice of forethought.
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For all practical purposes, in the last presidential election there was a choice between only two men, both of them delusional. Gore's delusions were far more dangerous.
What do you mean "suspending the Constitution"? Lincoln (in my opinion wrongly) suspended habeus corpus, but that is explicitly permitted by the Constitution.
Lincoln did some good (opposing slavery and keeping the union together) but the bad he did along the way has also caused a lot of damage.
Most irritating is the almost religious reverence many people have for Lincoln, particularly residents of Illinois.
Similar analysis works on state, county, and local scales, except that the smaller scale systems aren't usually so bad, particularly in small towns where everyone knows what's happening. Even they have public schools, an egregious (but time honored) theft from those who choose not to burden others with their children. (If you make 'em, pay for 'em: private school or home school.)
Yes, the US has lower taxes than most other places, and that's a large part of why the US is better. It is also a huge clue to how to improve the US even more: less government spending and less taxation.
Damnation to society. Once a child is born - no longer a parasite, but acting to some degree as a human being (i.e. a rational animal) - it has value to itself, and that self-ownership is the only primary source of prohibition of murder.
Contributions to my life that I did not request do not constitute ownership of me or a debt for me.
The making of a child creates a responsibilty of the parents to care for the child.
The practice of abortion was widespread in ancient times as a method of birth control. Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p.85 (1986)
No where in the Bible does it specifically state masturbation is sinful.
Not explicitly, but there's a passage about sowing seed on barren ground that's often presumed to be critical of masturbation.
A cell clump (1 soul?) can split into two (2 souls?) and in rare cases fuse back together (1 soul again?)
Two types of people promote belief in souls: malicious liars and those who refuse to think. I mean you.
The soul gets installed after it's downloaded but before it's executed. If it comes as source code, it must also be compiled, usually with a "make" script (R-rated).
Vote for Bush: be enslaved by religious tyranny.
Vote for anyone else: have no practical effect.
I'll vote for Bush, reluctantly.
PINs are integers, so of course they're rational. A PI is transcendental, definitely not rational.
Most octane boosters are primarily toluene. A few tankfulls and your plugs will be fouled, and you probably won't be doing any good for your valves, either.
As far as I know, most 4 cylinder engines have belts instead of chains. Recommended replacement interval is only 60k miles on my Toyota Tercel, and costs at least $100 to replace (labor intensive). In my opinion, this is a designed-in failure mechanism and a valid reason not to buy a particular variety of car. By the way, I've been told that Volvos use a gear-only mechanism.
I don't know specifically about your Passat Wagon, but the modern station wagons I've seen just don't make the grade. In the 1960s, 2 seat station wagons were 6 passenger cars and 3 seaters (like the 1960 Rambler Ambassador) held 8 or 9 adults. With rear seats folded down, a 4x8 sheet of plywood lay entirely inside the car, flat between the wheel wells. Most minivans and small SUVs can't even do that.
Many cars retard spark timing if preignition is sensed. Usually, this is caused by too low octane gasoline and in turn causes lower power and lower milage.
The RCA technology was pretty poor. They claimed quality equivalent to laserdisc, but their technique was mechanical: a needle tracing bumps on a plastic disc, similar to a normal phonograph record. Each playing degraded the disc. If I remember RCA's claim at the time, they said that noone would ever want to see a film more than about 20 times, anyway.
Home videos and hi-res photograph storage can account for a lot of consumer hard disk purchases.
Wise people know that owning a copy protects against censorship. Ten years from now, the owner of some movie might decide he doesn't want anyone to see it because his wife was naked in the film or he no longer likes its politics. If there's nothing but video-on-demand, POOF! and the film is gone, possibly forever. Widespread ownership is good.
Feeding the hungry is an endless sinkhole from which nothing returns. If you want to improve worldwide nutrition, support biotech companies like Eden Biosciences: buy their product, buy their stock, promote their technology to those in ignorance.
The world is not overpopulated and your understanding of resources is fundamentally flawed.
There are many different meanings of value, even many different technical meanings. Market value (market capitalization) is shares outstanding times share price and makes more sense in many circumstances. Shareholder equity is closer to liquidation value and is not very meaningful for a going concern.
A gift certificate is like an anonymous savings account that bears no interest and can only be used at one company.
These questions are not related. Not that it should be considered good, but corporate theft is slower and less obviously painful than a knifing. Celebrating crooks at their parole is something that people of bad character have done for centuries.
Some CEOs are worth their millions. Some of them can cause their companies to make many more millions of dollars than anyone else at that company or anyone else they're likely to be able to hire. They deserve a significant part of the difference.
The reasonable presumption is that you or someone else is going to see what you recorded, and that person would otherwise be paying to see the movie (perhaps not for the first time.) That is where the damage comes in, and the activity is no longer victimless. There's an issue of practicality from the standpoint of law enforcement here. Although the actual loss is primarily brought about by viewing the illegally obtained video, the viewing usually occurs in private and cannot be proven without violating the property rights of the owner of the property where the viewing takes place. But because there is no reasonable legal use for the recording, that is where the law can focus.
The use of logic and reasonable expectations is not foreign to the legal system.
The federal legislature has more than enough time to deal with many issues. Do not encourage them to take on more, because about 70% of federal money aready does more damage than good, and new activity all goes to the damage side.
There has to be some penalty beyond actual losses or there isn't much risk for the perpetrator. This type of action isn't accidental, there is obvious malice of forethought.
But worst case, quicksort is O(n^2).