Every politician in power to fix the NSA ends up silenced or in support of them. Why is that?? How do they convince them to change their positions? Can it simply be they all are lying before they get into a position of power?
Don't dilute yourself, petro-power is heavily subsidized. From getting it to processing to transport to construction and even the regulations. I'm not in CA but we don't have much in the way of green energy welfare but we have it for traditional fuels. We have a ton of ethanol BS and that is a total scam. If you start putting prices on pollution and the damages it causes that we almost completely ignore, then we are really paying a huge price for petro-power... even if you can't clearly arrive at a PRICE it has a significant REAL WORLD "cost".
Democratic politics are always partially a game of points. Idealists who don't care to play the game don't keep or win office. Today's system is corrupt and no longer a functioning democracy (has been for over a decade) but even a functioning democracy is not clean pretty thing. It's brutal.
Lawyers are the scum of the earth. Lawyers and their lobbyists (most politicians) add costs to EVERYTHING. It's not the usual kind of corruption; it's a kind that the public seems completely ignorant of. Our culture helps support the lawyer nightmare in which we live. Fixing anything today in this messed up system is kind of hopeless.
Alaska hasn't the oil to solve our problems. You do realize we have an export ban in place on that oil right?? Canada has it's own corrupting forces to contend with; likely our multinationals (and our government) are part of their problems. I brought up Canada because I've read their nuclear industry WORKS and is far better than the USA (is that a surprise? Canada beats the US at many things.) Canadian nuclear isn't cheap either but it is better run.
You don't need the world to agree on 1 solution at the same levels. China and the USA could make a huge impact if they just did something; since the USA out sourced it's pollution to China, that pollution is actually ours too. We do more harm than most the nations combined. You don't need everybody to do the same things or the same amount. We could simply regulate to stop externalized pollution and that would greatly reduce the benefit of outsourcing to China... but since they own so much of us... it is kind of hard since we are so intertwined at this point. It's like it was a plan... well it was a plan to control us; we were totally out smarted. Obviously, that takes lawyers, government, overhead... but that is how government functions - if government doesn't work because it's tools are all broken, then we collectively lack the tools to fix anything.
I like to think what people will fight over when Oil isn't the #1 commodity... Coffee is the #2 commodity. perhaps we'll fight over that.... if we don't ruin all the water there bye making that get the #1 spot.
Interesting. Some truth must be in there somewhere...
One theory I've heard is that community is dead. A diverse community is possible but it has to be a functioning community with some common shared things between them. The common traits are gone in the schools and education and well, everything else has been gone for more than a generation. People don't know the neighbors, have community activities, even their religious activities are individualized and limited so those little communities are much weaker; those were the last hold outs (unless you are in a cult or something.)
Diversity isn't the source of the problem but maybe it's a factor-- it would seem the greater threat would be not getting people together and sharing some common experiences.
All I notice today is common consumption, movies, etc. people can talk about movies and maybe a few books at the rare gathering. not much else and not there are not many gatherings wither for that matter. People do WORK too many hours and then need the off time for other BS -- that has to contribute to the undermining of community more.
The court is corrupt; their reasoning is often quite poor for educated, experienced and honorable judges. That is no more likely to be true than a Priest is safe around children; the title doesn't give them unquestionable character.
A group of people is entirely different than a legal corporation! I can't believe they'd do something so idiotic... while I expected the result, I found their justification embarrassingly flawed; I expected better BS.
The history of the word "corporation" is NOT the same as a legal corporation. It's just a word given to it, it could have been any word. It is not simply "a group of people" and never has been
Besides, the legal entities between unions, activists, religions, and corporations are fundamentally different in their purposes and needs - they should not be equated and to lump them together just because they (almost always) involve multiple people is gross over simplification. In addition, activists and religions have much less need for a legal entity for their survival - they can actually thrive simply as "a group of people."
I find the reasoning as flawed as religious / traditional marriage vs legal marriage being the same thing; when they are only similar by name and history (in that the law sprung from the commonality between popular religions.)
1) BUSINESS COST. Shell already has said it's not profitable to extract frack gas at current prices. This is with extensive deregulation, circumvention, and violations. The industry wastes massive amounts during extraction which they don't even consider worth the cost to recover. Shale oil is never cheap; it requires high oil prices and that is with the poor regulation it has today. Deep water is less bad but also expensive, they don't take precautions or figure out how to do it safely... that one might be profitable after regulation. In addition, reality makes theses difficult methods take more energy to extract and process even if you somehow found cheap solutions it still takes huge amounts of energy. I suppose the middle ground is ignoring or eliminating regulations or subsidies? (all of which are unethical.)
2) As the USA falls further into despotism (the plutocratic form) functional regulation dies and it is replaced with propaganda. Religious (economic) "tough love" or "poison is good for you," take your pick. No acceptable middle ground between slow death or fast death.
3) Global warming becomes a bigger unchecked problem and people are starting to notice the impacts... which are not yet at a level of an invasion (which always motivates/necessitates a response.) There is no middle ground; other than procrastinating by surrendering territory which makes the inevitable fight more difficult.
Now proper regulation would raise costs significantly and put pressure on finding REAL solutions sooner which is why environmentalists want to use them to prohibit dirty industry growth; HOWEVER, we are actually beyond that point today where industry has to corrupt the whole system to continue to be profitable. Yes there is still cheap oil still pumping but demand far exceeds it so much that even the Saudis are doing offshore extraction to keep up when they claim to have plenty of life left in the ground (either they are lying or desperate to meet demand...as if higher demand was their problem to solve...) By corrupting the system we've made the transition even more painful than it would have been. Naturally, industry also been a part of saying alternatives are not perfect enough to start using them while it undermines and stalls.
Nuclear power is a great example. A still functioning regulatory system makes nuclear power more costly than solar PV. This is still the case with the large government subsidies involved in that industry already. There is no reason nuclear couldn't be run by the gov for baseload power as a non-profit, at a loss. The military handles it's nuclear power better and a base load power grid is a national security issue... Perhaps better designs would be possible, I keep hearing other nations do a better job deciding such things; like Canada for example.
Racism will never end because it is political and as long as humans are involved, it's going to be political. Race has nothing to do with it; it's human tribalism and political. There are cultures with "racism" where both sides are genetically the same but each side identifies with a different tribe and they will subscribe to stereotypes with false racial rationalizations as well. It's like thinking Republicans are rich evil fucks when most of them are just gullible suckers.
I know people who toss the remote and buy new when the batteries wear out.
Unless it produces items with an idiot proof phone app which automatically are assembled and functional after printing, I can't see them using it. It better have a big "ink" tank because some people will buy a new printer when it goes empty...
The Democrats were the last party to still have some reasonable positions against the plutocracy but they failed for too long. Now they have been captured on this issue too. Likely they were the last few times because a lot of times they make motions KNOWING it will totally fail big time - it's a political move so they can look honest and raise some money.... from people thinking they are legit and from corps afraid that they might be a legitimate risk.
Do you think it was needed in the past when racism was stronger and had a strong grip on the whole system? (I do, systematic problems need strong systematic solutions that are less than ideal... realistically, no org system runs ideally anyhow.)
Today is not as bad as 50 years ago. It'll never go away because there are always a percentage thoughtless fools who raise their children the same way... and most children do not grow up questioning their parents enough.
Also, the thinking is probably along the line of theaters which charge at least $5 to see something immediately instead of waiting for rental. This is competing with theaters not with rentals -- and he must go up against the stigma of direct to rental movies (which are usually crap.)
Movies make their money back BEFORE getting to rental. They spend about 1/3 marketing the things so that they make it back with the theaters or if it's a failure, they can make it back during rentals. Not all, but it seems like most do.
Power lines are shared. If I go off the grid that powerline is still going to run down my street. They don't have any justification for the fees they are imposing at this point when only a few people are putting power back into the lines. When areas progress to the point there the line costs are greater than the usage then they can raise prices to make it worth maintaining but before that point it's just an excuse to attack the competition they've never had to deal with before.
Furthermore, base rates are itemized on the bill to cover grid costs already and it has been this way for a long long time. Unless more powerlines are going down or they need expensive regulation gear or upgrades, then the connection fee to cover the grid costs should remain the same for everybody (unless your state lets them charge you by your actual location's cost - which I doubt because rural areas rarely pay the actual cost for their lines.)
Power Utilities are heavily (often poorly) regulated services which should have been publicly owned in the first place. The private ones get all kinds of welfare and free money gaming and corrupting the system. There is no reason they have to remain profitable; they can be regulated to bankruptcy and at that point the public can take them over while we all transition to clean energy. We should not hold back progress just so one corrupt old industry can stay profitable forever. The horse and buggy and iceman went out of business and coal can too. Besides, it's not like they invest in modern infrastructure; they just keep the lines going cheaply as possible and wait for disasters to get gov bailouts to do half ass upgrades.
I distinctly remember that there are laws regulating (banning) remote controlled model planes that fly out of your range of sight. These "drones" are just remote controlled planes over greater distances and with the automatically positioning ones they can fly themselves programmatically but it is still you picking the moves it makes and your computer that does those moves for you. It is similar to a computerized controller helping you fly a model better; which existed arguably since control mechanisms 1st started to do really minor corrections or medium ones like turning around when out of range. I don't see how new laws would be needed for those so called "drones." It's under the toy plane rules until it has no remote controlling computer.
Self contained without the need for communication during the flight makes it another thing probably needing new rules. Not a toy remote control aircraft anymore. Ultralights are the least regulated thing I can think of but they are human piloted and unless that is the definition... couldn't an autonomous "drone" be labeled an ultralight instead of a normal aircraft?
One ruling in 1 case doesn't make a broad answer on this matter. Maybe that 1 case might be OK; but you'd have to be full of shit to think that any FAA laws only applied to directly human controlled aircraft. The intent of those laws should be obvious even if the letter is not. They never imagined these safety regulations up thinking of only 1 kind of plane and not have them apply to helicopters or jets - they are primarily for safety. New rules on these are needed; however, I can't imagine how the FAA can't have authority. (Ultralights which have almost no rules are still under FAA.)
This is merely an attempt to attack the messenger. An honest critic would do their own scientific work to discredit it and get peer review. The only purpose of anal probing him is to find something scandalous (even personal) like that cooked up email scandal years back which they dragged out for years into some global super conspiracy.
He might be fooling around with an intern and that is in the emails or the HINT of it is in there... So then he must be made an example so others fear them.
You people are no more education experts because you were students than you are dental experts because you've had cavities!
It has little to do with the political parties. The political system is a big factor in today's problems but it is not the parties who are to blame; other than for their contribution to a dysfunctional political process and for their pandering to an ignorant public demanding idiotic things with no basis in reality. Things were better when only 1 party pandered and education was much lower of importance to voters. It became important as everybody wanted their brat to have more earning potential. People don't really want their kid to THINK, they want them to get a high paying career (the nutty sports parents are a good example.)
There is plenty of science on how poor kids are greatly impacted by their lifestyle; it has more impact than the education system; but it is far easier to blame things disconnected from your responsibilities! The conditions under which poor children live are collectively OUR responsibility; and that goes for abused and messed up children who are not poor but who damage the learning environment. We can't demand responsibility from parents or their children for their actions-- that doesn't poll well, so as a result any successful politician of either side picks the best lies to tell the voters.
Doesn't matter if you vote for those who "reform" the system or hire private; they both pitch a set of metrics to sell the parent - and selling is not the goal. Public education didn't put anything into marketing itself in the past; but now public elementary schools budget for marketing (which just reflects a larger societal problem.)
Then you have the matter of trying to succeed 100% with no margin of error. It's a great example of perfect being the enemy of good. You can break a good thing by trying to get that last few % not to mention all the effort and resources that last few % can cost... Yeah, I'm saying it is ok to have an acceptable failure rate. It happened in the past and they got us here to our constant reform mess when we are going down hill trying to perfect it... or more like perfect the perception of it.
This has nothing to do with oversight or the public needing to know. It's a heavily funded attack to lynch everybody involved.
A public official should lose all privacy; however, this is a researcher who got some public money and who has scientific work that is public enough for others to test it (aka do science) additional information on ALL his work and ALL his email over that span is not necessary. The published science can be checked which is what he was paid to do. If something is wrong with it, it should be found by others.
Emails of other work and most likely comments using the email account can be gone over by propagandists and used to ruin his life - even if there is nothing actually objectionable. If he has emails that are not work related in the account, they'll jump on those too. Who would want public funding to do science if they were going to be scrutinized 10x as much as politician?? It's their scientific work that we want and that has to be open in order to be science and not preaching.
I would agree; however, Carter did come out from nowhere and upset all the wrong people. Lucky for him he wasn't powerful enough to do much against the rotten system because he would have ended up like JFK (and if you believe in magic bullets just stop now and go back to reality TV.)
I think Carter was decent and I think he was of the same character then as he is today but put in an impossible situation. Eisenhower was much earlier and his "Industrial Military Complex" was unstoppable.
Carter is how the last President should look. When the system falls apart, it is going to not look good for everybody involved in it whether or not they helped or harmed demise. Rome's fall involved a lot of assassinations and failures as the corrupt system fought to maintain the status quo. It is far easier than trying to make a broken system work while controlling it enough so nothing might actually change.
While the public fights "culture wars," essentially fighting over which brand of cigarette is better, both sides get cancer.
Carter was the last President; after him, it has been a complete sham. One reason he had it so bad is because he went up stream against a system that was near death.
You only have power in a corrupt system as long as you go with the flow; it's empty power but it is enough to still attract tools. Like a C or B movie villain's 2nd in command, the second he falls out of line all that power does nothing to stop a dramatic (and cliche) example from being made of them.
You might think it won't happen to you but it only takes a few decades for things to go horribly horribly wrong (see German history...Nazi...) You might think your modern citizens are somehow wiser or smarter or more evolved-- well, maybe so (debatable) but the techniques used HAVE evolved.
People escaped, people resisted, and underground networks were extremely important in winning WW2. Will such things even be possible in the future? If your nation has the system already active and in place, it is just another weapon which can be turned against you in the worst of situations. People probably can't imagine the creative abuses that can be done now and will become possible.
Chaos and insecurity must be tolerated -- you'll never get completely safe and the risk of it going bad is so great long term it is an extremely foolish move to box people in. People are so easy to scare and so extremely cowardly - some fear is ok but a lot of it these days it is BS and people need to "grow a pair". Perhaps if everybody had to spend a few years commuting by bicycle to work among the traffic they'd learn to manage some risk.
Go ahead and buy many guns....useless move. does not prevent anything and it can't resist much either.
There are these things called cars, they let people travel between cities and this is especially easy in a metro area made up of suburbs. Walmart can do just fine with no citizens in my town supporting them. Frankly, I think the majority were against Walmart because it is trashy and while they may go there they don't want one in their backyard. Not that the reason matters-- most people didn't want it and their liberty (government in this case) was taken from them. Sadly, most people will not think beyond their own selfish and short term interests which is why Walmart and China can destroy the economy here - it's no more their fault than it is a drug dealer's fault his clients slowly die or overdose.
Crony capitalism happens when citizens neglect their civic duty. It is true that a democratic system is going to create majorities who look out for their own interests but that is not crony capitalism... which requires "cronies" it does produce somewhat similar situations where you have for example, senators fighting for the F-22 because of the economic hit to their state. They are doing their jobs in that case and the majority of their state is probably along with them and the crony... It's not simplistically crony capitalism, it is also democracy. A functioning system would make it impossible to wield unwarranted power. Two pro F-22 senators will lose such a fight... unless the crony / corp is too big and can undermine democracy-- 100% of a single state's people would still be a minority at a national level. Again back to the point, a functioning system MUST limit and somewhat balance power. city, state, fed, etc. If the majority wants it, it is not cronyism. duh.
Me a control freak? huh... You must be much further towards anarchism than I am. Perhaps you should go to politicalcompass.org and see where you rank. I'm quite far from authoritarian. This is like arguing with Anarchists. You should try that sometime... I have... except you will probably be right at home with them.
YOU can move to another country. It is not much worse than having to move between cities or states. Not that the world has many places left out of the reach of the expanding US backed policies / laws... I suppose... you could be reacting to finally learning the evils of the American Empire which is causing a natural over reaction fueling your anti-authority positions; ironically, fighting for the cronies who've hijacked the system... when it's a strong system that is necessary to reign them in.
As far as being a quitter. sometimes, yes that is the right choice. Other times it is too important to let 1-2 jerks ruin it for everybody else.
I only have local gov experience. It doesn't take much money before the game is all about power. I don't assume that all the wealthy are distracted by the money game; some realize it's just a means to power and power is what they really are addicted to. Luckily, it seems that many are stuck on their money addiction or things would be so much worse than they are. Bigger government isn't much different than little government; similar organizational problems and human nature - I doubt you have significantly more insight.
Public funding of the press: A flawed society will produce flawed results no matter how perfect the system is - it runs on human power. Public funding of the press is not a big problem. If you can't do it right then you are already SOL. Funding the press today in the USA isn't going to save this sinking ship. It is too late. This is how democracies die, they are slowly undermined and people don't notice problems until things are too far gone... so patches appease them and prolong the inevitable fall into despotism in the cycle of life for all democracies. My point is, the founders were wise to fund the press with no strings attached and to separate it as much as they could from government power. Today we have a completely separate press that is still a corrupt lapdog, so arguing that complete separation works should feel really foolish. Citing already failed societies as an example of why something doesn't work is a poor argument. Well, Linux really sucks -- because on my old computer it crashes all the time.... (never mind that nothing runs well on it because it's practically dead.)
Walmart - my city didn't want one; it was our right to not want them. My city fought them and LOST because ultimately it came down to a lawsuit that we would likely win AFTER bankrupting the city. The point is you don't have real freedom if you can be squished at will. No, Walmart doesn't have more rights than the citizens of my city.
I am a participant, an active responsible citizen and any civil society has a government by which the citizens' collective power is manifest. We the people give the government it's power; and that applies to all kinds - the oppressive tyrants only rule at the submission of their citizens (until they rise up - the power always is theirs.) If people do not participate and good people don't get involved then ONLY the self-motivated parties seeking power will run the show. My theory is that the more successful the democracy the shorter lived it will be until it starts into despotism; a happy content citizenry is not vigilant. Politics is not pleasant. never will be. reality sucks; so suck it up stop escaping to the TV people!
Surely you must have volunteered or been part of things where nobody cared to be in charge except the jerk everybody hated because they were a control freak? Next time others having learned their lesson step up. Same kind of thing but a smaller scale. Often, if it's not bad enough people will just tolerate the bad situation because to unseat the jerk is more effort than it would have to stepped up in the 1st place.
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Every politician in power to fix the NSA ends up silenced or in support of them. Why is that?? How do they convince them to change their positions? Can it simply be they all are lying before they get into a position of power?
Don't dilute yourself, petro-power is heavily subsidized. From getting it to processing to transport to construction and even the regulations. I'm not in CA but we don't have much in the way of green energy welfare but we have it for traditional fuels. We have a ton of ethanol BS and that is a total scam. If you start putting prices on pollution and the damages it causes that we almost completely ignore, then we are really paying a huge price for petro-power... even if you can't clearly arrive at a PRICE it has a significant REAL WORLD "cost".
Democratic politics are always partially a game of points. Idealists who don't care to play the game don't keep or win office. Today's system is corrupt and no longer a functioning democracy (has been for over a decade) but even a functioning democracy is not clean pretty thing. It's brutal.
Lawyers are the scum of the earth. Lawyers and their lobbyists (most politicians) add costs to EVERYTHING. It's not the usual kind of corruption; it's a kind that the public seems completely ignorant of. Our culture helps support the lawyer nightmare in which we live. Fixing anything today in this messed up system is kind of hopeless.
Alaska hasn't the oil to solve our problems. You do realize we have an export ban in place on that oil right??
Canada has it's own corrupting forces to contend with; likely our multinationals (and our government) are part of their problems. I brought up Canada because I've read their nuclear industry WORKS and is far better than the USA (is that a surprise? Canada beats the US at many things.) Canadian nuclear isn't cheap either but it is better run.
You don't need the world to agree on 1 solution at the same levels. China and the USA could make a huge impact if they just did something; since the USA out sourced it's pollution to China, that pollution is actually ours too. We do more harm than most the nations combined. You don't need everybody to do the same things or the same amount. We could simply regulate to stop externalized pollution and that would greatly reduce the benefit of outsourcing to China... but since they own so much of us... it is kind of hard since we are so intertwined at this point. It's like it was a plan... well it was a plan to control us; we were totally out smarted. Obviously, that takes lawyers, government, overhead... but that is how government functions - if government doesn't work because it's tools are all broken, then we collectively lack the tools to fix anything.
I like to think what people will fight over when Oil isn't the #1 commodity... Coffee is the #2 commodity. perhaps we'll fight over that.... if we don't ruin all the water there bye making that get the #1 spot.
Interesting. Some truth must be in there somewhere...
One theory I've heard is that community is dead. A diverse community is possible but it has to be a functioning community with some common shared things between them. The common traits are gone in the schools and education and well, everything else has been gone for more than a generation. People don't know the neighbors, have community activities, even their religious activities are individualized and limited so those little communities are much weaker; those were the last hold outs (unless you are in a cult or something.)
Diversity isn't the source of the problem but maybe it's a factor-- it would seem the greater threat would be not getting people together and sharing some common experiences.
All I notice today is common consumption, movies, etc. people can talk about movies and maybe a few books at the rare gathering. not much else and not there are not many gatherings wither for that matter. People do WORK too many hours and then need the off time for other BS -- that has to contribute to the undermining of community more.
The court is corrupt; their reasoning is often quite poor for educated, experienced and honorable judges. That is no more likely to be true than a Priest is safe around children; the title doesn't give them unquestionable character.
A group of people is entirely different than a legal corporation! I can't believe they'd do something so idiotic... while I expected the result, I found their justification embarrassingly flawed; I expected better BS.
The history of the word "corporation" is NOT the same as a legal corporation. It's just a word given to it, it could have been any word. It is not simply "a group of people" and never has been
Besides, the legal entities between unions, activists, religions, and corporations are fundamentally different in their purposes and needs - they should not be equated and to lump them together just because they (almost always) involve multiple people is gross over simplification. In addition, activists and religions have much less need for a legal entity for their survival - they can actually thrive simply as "a group of people."
I find the reasoning as flawed as religious / traditional marriage vs legal marriage being the same thing; when they are only similar by name and history (in that the law sprung from the commonality between popular religions.)
1) BUSINESS COST. Shell already has said it's not profitable to extract frack gas at current prices. This is with extensive deregulation, circumvention, and violations. The industry wastes massive amounts during extraction which they don't even consider worth the cost to recover. Shale oil is never cheap; it requires high oil prices and that is with the poor regulation it has today. Deep water is less bad but also expensive, they don't take precautions or figure out how to do it safely... that one might be profitable after regulation. In addition, reality makes theses difficult methods take more energy to extract and process even if you somehow found cheap solutions it still takes huge amounts of energy. I suppose the middle ground is ignoring or eliminating regulations or subsidies? (all of which are unethical.)
2) As the USA falls further into despotism (the plutocratic form) functional regulation dies and it is replaced with propaganda. Religious (economic) "tough love" or "poison is good for you," take your pick. No acceptable middle ground between slow death or fast death.
3) Global warming becomes a bigger unchecked problem and people are starting to notice the impacts... which are not yet at a level of an invasion (which always motivates/necessitates a response.) There is no middle ground; other than procrastinating by surrendering territory which makes the inevitable fight more difficult.
Now proper regulation would raise costs significantly and put pressure on finding REAL solutions sooner which is why environmentalists want to use them to prohibit dirty industry growth; HOWEVER, we are actually beyond that point today where industry has to corrupt the whole system to continue to be profitable. Yes there is still cheap oil still pumping but demand far exceeds it so much that even the Saudis are doing offshore extraction to keep up when they claim to have plenty of life left in the ground (either they are lying or desperate to meet demand...as if higher demand was their problem to solve...) By corrupting the system we've made the transition even more painful than it would have been. Naturally, industry also been a part of saying alternatives are not perfect enough to start using them while it undermines and stalls.
Nuclear power is a great example. A still functioning regulatory system makes nuclear power more costly than solar PV. This is still the case with the large government subsidies involved in that industry already. There is no reason nuclear couldn't be run by the gov for baseload power as a non-profit, at a loss. The military handles it's nuclear power better and a base load power grid is a national security issue... Perhaps better designs would be possible, I keep hearing other nations do a better job deciding such things; like Canada for example.
Interesting.
Racism will never end because it is political and as long as humans are involved, it's going to be political. Race has nothing to do with it; it's human tribalism and political. There are cultures with "racism" where both sides are genetically the same but each side identifies with a different tribe and they will subscribe to stereotypes with false racial rationalizations as well. It's like thinking Republicans are rich evil fucks when most of them are just gullible suckers.
I know people who toss the remote and buy new when the batteries wear out.
Unless it produces items with an idiot proof phone app which automatically are assembled and functional after printing, I can't see them using it. It better have a big "ink" tank because some people will buy a new printer when it goes empty...
The Democrats were the last party to still have some reasonable positions against the plutocracy but they failed for too long. Now they have been captured on this issue too. Likely they were the last few times because a lot of times they make motions KNOWING it will totally fail big time - it's a political move so they can look honest and raise some money.... from people thinking they are legit and from corps afraid that they might be a legitimate risk.
Do you think it was needed in the past when racism was stronger and had a strong grip on the whole system? (I do, systematic problems need strong systematic solutions that are less than ideal... realistically, no org system runs ideally anyhow.)
Today is not as bad as 50 years ago. It'll never go away because there are always a percentage thoughtless fools who raise their children the same way... and most children do not grow up questioning their parents enough.
Bigoted, nationalistic, tribal, and evil but not racist.
Also, the thinking is probably along the line of theaters which charge at least $5 to see something immediately instead of waiting for rental. This is competing with theaters not with rentals -- and he must go up against the stigma of direct to rental movies (which are usually crap.)
Movies make their money back BEFORE getting to rental. They spend about 1/3 marketing the things so that they make it back with the theaters or if it's a failure, they can make it back during rentals. Not all, but it seems like most do.
Power lines are shared. If I go off the grid that powerline is still going to run down my street. They don't have any justification for the fees they are imposing at this point when only a few people are putting power back into the lines. When areas progress to the point there the line costs are greater than the usage then they can raise prices to make it worth maintaining but before that point it's just an excuse to attack the competition they've never had to deal with before.
Furthermore, base rates are itemized on the bill to cover grid costs already and it has been this way for a long long time. Unless more powerlines are going down or they need expensive regulation gear or upgrades, then the connection fee to cover the grid costs should remain the same for everybody (unless your state lets them charge you by your actual location's cost - which I doubt because rural areas rarely pay the actual cost for their lines.)
Power Utilities are heavily (often poorly) regulated services which should have been publicly owned in the first place. The private ones get all kinds of welfare and free money gaming and corrupting the system. There is no reason they have to remain profitable; they can be regulated to bankruptcy and at that point the public can take them over while we all transition to clean energy. We should not hold back progress just so one corrupt old industry can stay profitable forever. The horse and buggy and iceman went out of business and coal can too. Besides, it's not like they invest in modern infrastructure; they just keep the lines going cheaply as possible and wait for disasters to get gov bailouts to do half ass upgrades.
I distinctly remember that there are laws regulating (banning) remote controlled model planes that fly out of your range of sight. These "drones" are just remote controlled planes over greater distances and with the automatically positioning ones they can fly themselves programmatically but it is still you picking the moves it makes and your computer that does those moves for you. It is similar to a computerized controller helping you fly a model better; which existed arguably since control mechanisms 1st started to do really minor corrections or medium ones like turning around when out of range. I don't see how new laws would be needed for those so called "drones." It's under the toy plane rules until it has no remote controlling computer.
Self contained without the need for communication during the flight makes it another thing probably needing new rules. Not a toy remote control aircraft anymore. Ultralights are the least regulated thing I can think of but they are human piloted and unless that is the definition... couldn't an autonomous "drone" be labeled an ultralight instead of a normal aircraft?
One ruling in 1 case doesn't make a broad answer on this matter. Maybe that 1 case might be OK; but you'd have to be full of shit to think that any FAA laws only applied to directly human controlled aircraft. The intent of those laws should be obvious even if the letter is not. They never imagined these safety regulations up thinking of only 1 kind of plane and not have them apply to helicopters or jets - they are primarily for safety. New rules on these are needed; however, I can't imagine how the FAA can't have authority. (Ultralights which have almost no rules are still under FAA.)
We have no right to the information.
This is merely an attempt to attack the messenger. An honest critic would do their own scientific work to discredit it and get peer review. The only purpose of anal probing him is to find something scandalous (even personal) like that cooked up email scandal years back which they dragged out for years into some global super conspiracy.
He might be fooling around with an intern and that is in the emails or the HINT of it is in there... So then he must be made an example so others fear them.
No. I reply to the post that looks like it'll get noticed quicker by the moderators. don't take it personal.
Who are they backing for president?
You people are no more education experts because you were students than you are dental experts because you've had cavities!
It has little to do with the political parties. The political system is a big factor in today's problems but it is not the parties who are to blame; other than for their contribution to a dysfunctional political process and for their pandering to an ignorant public demanding idiotic things with no basis in reality. Things were better when only 1 party pandered and education was much lower of importance to voters. It became important as everybody wanted their brat to have more earning potential. People don't really want their kid to THINK, they want them to get a high paying career (the nutty sports parents are a good example.)
There is plenty of science on how poor kids are greatly impacted by their lifestyle; it has more impact than the education system; but it is far easier to blame things disconnected from your responsibilities! The conditions under which poor children live are collectively OUR responsibility; and that goes for abused and messed up children who are not poor but who damage the learning environment. We can't demand responsibility from parents or their children for their actions-- that doesn't poll well, so as a result any successful politician of either side picks the best lies to tell the voters.
Doesn't matter if you vote for those who "reform" the system or hire private; they both pitch a set of metrics to sell the parent - and selling is not the goal. Public education didn't put anything into marketing itself in the past; but now public elementary schools budget for marketing (which just reflects a larger societal problem.)
Then you have the matter of trying to succeed 100% with no margin of error. It's a great example of perfect being the enemy of good. You can break a good thing by trying to get that last few % not to mention all the effort and resources that last few % can cost... Yeah, I'm saying it is ok to have an acceptable failure rate. It happened in the past and they got us here to our constant reform mess when we are going down hill trying to perfect it... or more like perfect the perception of it.
This has nothing to do with oversight or the public needing to know. It's a heavily funded attack to lynch everybody involved.
A public official should lose all privacy; however, this is a researcher who got some public money and who has scientific work that is public enough for others to test it (aka do science) additional information on ALL his work and ALL his email over that span is not necessary. The published science can be checked which is what he was paid to do. If something is wrong with it, it should be found by others.
Emails of other work and most likely comments using the email account can be gone over by propagandists and used to ruin his life - even if there is nothing actually objectionable. If he has emails that are not work related in the account, they'll jump on those too. Who would want public funding to do science if they were going to be scrutinized 10x as much as politician?? It's their scientific work that we want and that has to be open in order to be science and not preaching.
Unicomp made those IBM keyboards. still in business still making those keyboards. I have one. still loud but work great.
I would agree; however, Carter did come out from nowhere and upset all the wrong people. Lucky for him he wasn't powerful enough to do much against the rotten system because he would have ended up like JFK (and if you believe in magic bullets just stop now and go back to reality TV.)
I think Carter was decent and I think he was of the same character then as he is today but put in an impossible situation. Eisenhower was much earlier and his "Industrial Military Complex" was unstoppable.
Carter is how the last President should look. When the system falls apart, it is going to not look good for everybody involved in it whether or not they helped or harmed demise. Rome's fall involved a lot of assassinations and failures as the corrupt system fought to maintain the status quo. It is far easier than trying to make a broken system work while controlling it enough so nothing might actually change.
While the public fights "culture wars," essentially fighting over which brand of cigarette is better, both sides get cancer.
Carter was the last President; after him, it has been a complete sham. One reason he had it so bad is because he went up stream against a system that was near death.
You only have power in a corrupt system as long as you go with the flow; it's empty power but it is enough to still attract tools. Like a C or B movie villain's 2nd in command, the second he falls out of line all that power does nothing to stop a dramatic (and cliche) example from being made of them.
Nobody means literal democracy when they refer to it. They almost always mean the kind of thing we used to have in the USA.
Oligarchy- DUH.
Only good part is those of us who get to say "I told you so" over and over as more people wake up. (It loses it's fun by the time it gets popular.)
You might think it won't happen to you but it only takes a few decades for things to go horribly horribly wrong (see German history...Nazi...) You might think your modern citizens are somehow wiser or smarter or more evolved-- well, maybe so (debatable) but the techniques used HAVE evolved.
People escaped, people resisted, and underground networks were extremely important in winning WW2. Will such things even be possible in the future? If your nation has the system already active and in place, it is just another weapon which can be turned against you in the worst of situations. People probably can't imagine the creative abuses that can be done now and will become possible.
Chaos and insecurity must be tolerated -- you'll never get completely safe and the risk of it going bad is so great long term it is an extremely foolish move to box people in. People are so easy to scare and so extremely cowardly - some fear is ok but a lot of it these days it is BS and people need to "grow a pair". Perhaps if everybody had to spend a few years commuting by bicycle to work among the traffic they'd learn to manage some risk.
Go ahead and buy many guns....useless move. does not prevent anything and it can't resist much either.
There are these things called cars, they let people travel between cities and this is especially easy in a metro area made up of suburbs. Walmart can do just fine with no citizens in my town supporting them. Frankly, I think the majority were against Walmart because it is trashy and while they may go there they don't want one in their backyard. Not that the reason matters-- most people didn't want it and their liberty (government in this case) was taken from them. Sadly, most people will not think beyond their own selfish and short term interests which is why Walmart and China can destroy the economy here - it's no more their fault than it is a drug dealer's fault his clients slowly die or overdose.
Crony capitalism happens when citizens neglect their civic duty. It is true that a democratic system is going to create majorities who look out for their own interests but that is not crony capitalism... which requires "cronies" it does produce somewhat similar situations where you have for example, senators fighting for the F-22 because of the economic hit to their state. They are doing their jobs in that case and the majority of their state is probably along with them and the crony... It's not simplistically crony capitalism, it is also democracy. A functioning system would make it impossible to wield unwarranted power. Two pro F-22 senators will lose such a fight... unless the crony / corp is too big and can undermine democracy-- 100% of a single state's people would still be a minority at a national level. Again back to the point, a functioning system MUST limit and somewhat balance power. city, state, fed, etc. If the majority wants it, it is not cronyism. duh.
Me a control freak? huh... You must be much further towards anarchism than I am. Perhaps you should go to politicalcompass.org and see where you rank. I'm quite far from authoritarian. This is like arguing with Anarchists. You should try that sometime... I have... except you will probably be right at home with them.
YOU can move to another country. It is not much worse than having to move between cities or states. Not that the world has many places left out of the reach of the expanding US backed policies / laws... I suppose... you could be reacting to finally learning the evils of the American Empire which is causing a natural over reaction fueling your anti-authority positions; ironically, fighting for the cronies who've hijacked the system... when it's a strong system that is necessary to reign them in.
As far as being a quitter. sometimes, yes that is the right choice. Other times it is too important to let 1-2 jerks ruin it for everybody else.
I only have local gov experience. It doesn't take much money before the game is all about power. I don't assume that all the wealthy are distracted by the money game; some realize it's just a means to power and power is what they really are addicted to. Luckily, it seems that many are stuck on their money addiction or things would be so much worse than they are. Bigger government isn't much different than little government; similar organizational problems and human nature - I doubt you have significantly more insight.
Public funding of the press: A flawed society will produce flawed results no matter how perfect the system is - it runs on human power. Public funding of the press is not a big problem. If you can't do it right then you are already SOL. Funding the press today in the USA isn't going to save this sinking ship. It is too late. This is how democracies die, they are slowly undermined and people don't notice problems until things are too far gone... so patches appease them and prolong the inevitable fall into despotism in the cycle of life for all democracies. My point is, the founders were wise to fund the press with no strings attached and to separate it as much as they could from government power. Today we have a completely separate press that is still a corrupt lapdog, so arguing that complete separation works should feel really foolish. Citing already failed societies as an example of why something doesn't work is a poor argument. Well, Linux really sucks -- because on my old computer it crashes all the time.... (never mind that nothing runs well on it because it's practically dead.)
Walmart - my city didn't want one; it was our right to not want them. My city fought them and LOST because ultimately it came down to a lawsuit that we would likely win AFTER bankrupting the city. The point is you don't have real freedom if you can be squished at will. No, Walmart doesn't have more rights than the citizens of my city.
I am a participant, an active responsible citizen and any civil society has a government by which the citizens' collective power is manifest. We the people give the government it's power; and that applies to all kinds - the oppressive tyrants only rule at the submission of their citizens (until they rise up - the power always is theirs.) If people do not participate and good people don't get involved then ONLY the self-motivated parties seeking power will run the show. My theory is that the more successful the democracy the shorter lived it will be until it starts into despotism; a happy content citizenry is not vigilant. Politics is not pleasant. never will be. reality sucks; so suck it up stop escaping to the TV people!
Surely you must have volunteered or been part of things where nobody cared to be in charge except the jerk everybody hated because they were a control freak? Next time others having learned their lesson step up. Same kind of thing but a smaller scale. Often, if it's not bad enough people will just tolerate the bad situation because to unseat the jerk is more effort than it would have to stepped up in the 1st place.