Ok I may have been reaching with the Nintendo Power Glove since I remember it as a kid and don't know the specifics behind it other than the impressive hacking done with it in the late 90s as a controller for a quarter million dollar VR machine of the day.
Motion capture caught on with the Wii not the Kinect; have you been in a cave? Or does that huge success not count because YOU were not interested?
0) Failure in school is constant and brutal to self-esteem - always evaluated and never taught how to deal with failure. A few meaningless phrases at best which have no follow through. To compensate sometimes people do moronic policies like "never say negative things about failure" when actual TRAINING by child psychologists is needed. Teachers should take a whole 4 credit course on the topic. The child's emotional mindset is the biggest factor above all else; genetics has almost nothing to do with it (sorry ignorant parents but your child isn't "special" unless they are autistic...)
1) Science fair projects involve TIME and MONEY outside of school. I've gone to inner city schools where half were below the poverty line. One of my friends had to care for the whole family as the oldest boy (his father died in front of him in a camp in Laos.) He turned out well considering how bad his life was. Not all are so lucky. His homework was non-existent and school had to provide his pencils and paper. HE WAS SMART and mature for his age but only a C-B student; not his fault.
2) Disturbed kids are sometimes born that way, but most the time its their home life; the only thing you can do is fix their parents or move them to another home. A state orphanage would even be better; I've grown up with a few of these kids as well. The schools don't have psychologists and while they should it couldn't fix a large range of environmental problems. Three gradeschool kids I knew are in prison now; it was no surprise they were foobar back then - beyond teacher help, they needed padded rooms or something. Today they'd have been in the criminal system for assaulting teachers before 10 years of age - somehow I don't think that would have helped them; but not doing that in my day didn't help them either.
3) I have family who've had to live through this movement of our Republicans trying to embrace the education issue making it a partisan political football that used to be just given over to the other side. Since this battle for votes began on the issue its WORSENED education in the USA as ignorant political slogans and ignorant parents herd to whatever sounds good to their ignorant minds. You are not a dental expert because you have been to the dentist anymore than you are an expert at education because you've been educated. Worthless statistics and foolish analogies always become the foundation of politicization of issues. You can't measure a quality education in a quantitative way such that political policies can be debated (leaving aside the fact that there is no civil debate in the USA anymore.) "Juking" the stats is the name of the political game and everybody does it. When you base things on simplistic metrics you encourage hacking of those metrics. Furthermore, the other issue is "cutting edge" crap - the USA was ahead of the world but the world has recovered from WW2 and the 3rd world is improving at FASTER rates than the 1st world ever did. See GapMinder.org and learn something about it. You can't be on top when everybody else gets to the summit as well; there isn't much more to climb and even if you reach the peak of human capacity the gap will NOT be as large as it was in the past.
Lots of issues involved here. Plus a lot of people only see education as JOBs - which warps the whole thing into industry looking for new cogs for the corporate machine and not actual thinkers--- unless you are elite and can afford to send your brat to a private school which teaches management or marketing -- "practical" school is job skills training to way too many people and that is NOT the biggest benefit it has provided but its where we are heading. I expect to see private/charter schools by walmart or mcdonald's within my lifetime with single minded goals (it won't be quite that simple but the influence will become noticeable enough.)
Obama getting the prize was a message and encouragement for the USA (and an FU to the American rightwing) to move in the right direction which was a horrible MISTAKE but it does not lower the prize forever or mean the next people are less deserving. His acceptance / defiant speech was more of a disgrace than awarding it to him.
1) The prize has been given by DIFFERENT people over its lifespan - its not going to be perfect all the time.
2) Symbolic and abusive use of the Nobel has happened before; for example, the worst one that I know of was when they gave the Nobel prize to Henry Kissinger also given too early into his career (the guy seemed to bring death everywhere he was involved.) Those committee members are gone now. They won't impose a grace period because sometimes it may make sense to award one early - such as last year's Chinese winner or that Iranian lady who probably had it save her life.
3) The Nobel for Economics is not a legit prize and yet the banks funding it have perpetuated this fake prize for decades - it lets them promote their economic agenda; good or ill it was an addition.
4) NOBODY deserves the award more this year than WikiLeaks. period. well, unless you think peace and order is more important than truth and freedom.
This is a good time to promote the Right Livelihood Award (The Alternative Nobel) which is given to anybody not just scientists some approved of economist (I'd never call that science) and 1 politician/activist.
Hey off the top of my head I listed a lot of good ideas. I won't say they are all perfect but I don't think that any of them are so bad as to be totally dismissed in seconds-- some people might but then which ones would differ by the person.
I'm American, yes I think we have a lot of stupid people more than many other nations; because of many reasons I'll not get into. its not genetic, its due to them not having to think and their minds getting fat like their bodies are.
My driving test was easy and i did nothing to prepare and passed it 1st time. It is pathetic and I shouldn't have been able to do that. All that we've both said on it does bolster your position on Americans being too stupid to drive in circles (roundabouts);however, I do not think people are THAT stupid, they merely need to get used to the process and learn how which is an easier lesson than the act of driving is itself and I think its no more difficult than a 4 way stop. If you were correct, than I can't see how we don't have multiple car pile ups at every 5-6 way intersection... In my state we are putting in roundabouts and people are confused but slowly are adapting with plenty of bitching (but saying it'll cost more taxes to "fix" them usually shuts the people up a bit.)
Roundabouts are no-brainer solutions to high insurance costs, high numbers of fatal accidents being at intersections, and high infrastructure costs for lights. Estimates here were $600 per year per intersection for my city. We have been installing LED bulbs because of the $100s estimated costs for replacing bulbs (labor costs, insurance for labor, multiple trucks, etc.) No drunk can quickly drive over our roundabouts - in some cases they'll smash into something in the middle.
Roundabouts are not something that can be instantly dismissed as being a stupid idea; and we have more intersections and more space in the suburbs around the city than in the city.
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We are capable of stable secure software that could drive cars. Clearly you are not familiar with the level of regulation that keeps military and especially medical software running as well as it does. You couldn't pull it off if you applied linux level quality; forget microsoft. I won't get into implementation but like I said it can be done today without huge advancements if the infrastructure was put in place-- Your Skycars running on tracks would be an example of 1 design where computers could handle it safely (because it would be a simple problem.)
I had these arguments with other skytran like inventors in the past⦠maybe I talked with the skytran guy? I don't remember. You do realize that running a 2nd road network to every house is not possible anymore right? During the depression and all the good times afterwards allowed us to build the network we have today and the prosperity, foresight, and government investment will not exist in the USA tomorrow or likely even in the next 100 years. We foolishly designed our urban sprawl and city zoning around the most wasteful times in this nation's history. That is going to harm us; especially any new designs like your Skytran.
I've been in cities with great mass transit. It is not HORRIBLE like in the USA where it seems like we are not allowed to have a competent system. As costs go up perhaps less americans can be spoiled with a personal transit system (cars plus road network.) If I lived in say, Montreal, CA - I'd not even want a car (but then I'd also avoid suburbs since they only speak French out there.)
I'm in MN and we have 1 light rail system; cost a ton as well because of property costs-- our stupid ancestors sold our land with the trolley cars and trains and now we are unable to afford buying it all back again. (GM had a part in screwing us BTW.) We have 1 commuter train (using existing rails) and another light rail coming up soon at huge expense. Let me tell you from experience, businesses are hurt during construction-- duh... but afterwards the area changes and businesses are
1) it was developed and researched outside microsoft - they bought the tech and payed to have it mass produced; the concepts involved are even older.
2) The motion capture craze was created by Nintendo years ago and before that they attempted the idea with the failed power glove because the tech wasn't good enough back then to pull it off. (Although I saw a university VR lab put that glove to use as a 6degree motion controller)
3) Kinect is not that innovative, its an improvement to an existing idea of Nintendo's. Arguably, its not even an improvement because for many Wii games you only need the acceleration motions to play just fine and after the 1st hours of swinging around like an idiot I discovered I could do just as well sitting down using much smaller motions. I'm not just talking about the simple applications where the motion is really simple. Its more flexible to different styles of input. The kinect is a literal minded approach to somebody who doesn't quite "get it" which is typical Microsoft thinking. Take the motion thing and throw money at it and buy everything that lets you technically do the thing as well or better at an initially HUGE expense. They miss the concept of your natural inclination to move the controller about while STILL holding a controller and go 150% for capturing my body's motion. Its great for dance and stuff but its targeting an even SMALLER niche than nintendo's technically limited approach. If Nintendo did kinect, it would be done better because they are the true creative thinkers.
I listed a bunch of ideas all of which likely would have some positive impact and many better than the few tired lines that ALWAYS come up and stifle discussion. "New" ideas need to get some daylight.
Are people SO STUPID that we can only handle a few ideas and claim those few answers solve 100% of the problems setting up easy rebuttals in a pointless cycle that ruins all progress? Clearly the parent thinks people are too stupid because driving in a circle (roundabout) is too confusing!
My response to anti roundabout people-- yeah, your right, Americans are not as smart as Europeans (or French) and I'd rather total my car so I can get a new one instead of just banging my fenders back into shape.
---- points of issue with parent responses (since everybody else is stuck only defending conventional talking points:)
Car safety design; only caused by force of government, find that the BIG SUVs and heavy vehicles do not have the 5 star ratings. They only look safer and their gains from size are minimal, its almost entirely smart design that makes them TEST safe. MASS doesn't help you if the other guy is also an SUV or is driving faster (F=ma) or has a side impact (much lower G force threshold for instant death.) Carbon Fiber is not needed.... unless you want a big SUV... there should be a weight cap and we should be TAXED by weight since weight is one of the biggest factors that wear down the roads (as does speed). F=ma...
Cars in the USA only are about as safe as the government regulations and they fought that at every point and it did raise car costs already while lowering insurance rates etc. We've had the debate long ago and we finally benefited from "my side" winning. We can go further until we overshoot but we haven't done that. The mandates are lower speed than the EU but we drive faster over here; since we drive faster we should at least meet EU standards or start driving slower than they do. My car may have a high rating but its only for 30mph because that is all they were regulated to do.
Since about 40% of fatal accidents are caused by DUI, I have a hard time thinking your stats are being applied correctly. I couldn't care less about low speed damaged cars; that is an insurance problem-- what really fuels the debate on is the DEATH RATE and the serious injuries! The majority of accidents are the "low" speed ones; likely every kind of accident has its majority share in the low speed category, except probably car on car fatalities. BTW, I define high speed based on what the car can't protect you really well; which in the USA is probably >30mph. Like I said, they are not safe at highway speeds. I can kill you in your truck with my compact car with me living and within the speed limit! I know a cop and he's seen it (aside from what I've said in this post which can explain how that is possible.)
--- Computers will get better with time and they have been. slashdot? of all places to claim CS has limits to improving our lives.... Computers could drive our cars TODAY; I won't get into implementation issues but one could design a system that would out do humans TODAY; it would be expensive and would have to ban other forms of traffic. I didn't specify the conditions for computer controlled cars; it only gets more flexible and cheaper as the technology advances.
--- SkyTran-- you should post this elsewhere so more people will see it!
That being said, I still think its silly; I've actually met with 2 inventors of such systems.
1) fanatic individualism causes a lot of stupid ideas. having to SHARE something makes it much more affordable. trains or mini trains (bus size) The formerly richest nation could afford to pave everything and get everybody an affordable car but this is not the case for everybody or probably even sustainable for this nation in the future. Sharing transport saves. We can't even do upkeep on our aging road system and bridges today.
2) mono rails are expensive. cable car is the cheapest method; think about it; goo
Driver's license required to start the car; forget keys. mine already has an encrypted magnetic strip, its possible already to setup something to handle the swiping etc. Suspended license would disable ability to start any cars.
Complex starting process on par with driving... like an IQ test to start your car. people too stupid shouldn't be able to drive anyhow.
FREE mass transit if you FAIL a test!
FREE taxi if you FAIL a test (wonder what the total costs would be compared to the damage caused?)
Fingerprint to start a car-- I don't like the idea but would fit will into this method-- it doesn't have any real privacy issues in itself. your car's black box records a lot more than people realize already; we could use some laws limiting those along with OnStar (don't the inactive onstars still track you if you are a "person of interest"?)
DWI people take hypnosis classes and just make themselves fake drunk when they want to drink; but don't actually drink. (not that this would work since probably the 50% that don't learn are alcoholics-- it isn't one of the worst drugs for no reason.)
use more Roundabouts!! the bad accidents are at the intersections with some idiot running the light or stop sign at high speeds
beef up cars -- they only have to handle about 30 mph; its slower in the USA than EU last I heard.
Slow down car speeds. lower limits, throttle max speeds. Its not the drunk that kills its the car...moving quickly. (to borrow from the gun debate)
Automatic speed limiting based upon the speed limit signs. many ways to implement this without tracking. I'm I the only person SICK of tracking complaints from people who carry CELL PHONES?? WTF! don't these nimrods realize every minute of their life is logged on multiple cell towers probably along with signal strength and other data and is kept for YEARS (possibly forever) and it has been used in court for a long time already-- I bet they can pin point you pretty well now-- back when I 1st heard court case using it they could nail you down to a tower's range.
Automatic breaking at stop signs.
Automatic assessment of driving skills by the car as you get going. It probably will figure you out within a few blocks. This can increase how aggressive its other automatic features work.
More (gov) research into automatically driving cars. Eventually nobody needs to drive except the gearheads; who after a DWI lose the privilege.
Invent an undrunk drug... which will likely end up abused in another way....
Stop putting drunks in jail? put them in other programs. A lot of people drink to IMPAIR their judgment a little (or lot) so why is it a surprise when they make stupid decisions?
Fine the bar for each DWI traced back to them. Ha, like the free market would help much to solve the problem...other than lobby to repeal that idea.
Develop a drug that makes you allergic to alcohol. put them on it. (we do this for mental cases- it works ok....just ok.)
Bigger punishments for driving without a license. In MOST the USA you can't get bye without a car; and most are too clueless to realize there is lame mass transit-- they'll drive without a license because they won't walk a few blocks and lose an hour of time a day (which they'll spend watching TV or drinking.) SO: Provide free info and free passes for alternative transit to DWI people without licenses. Yes, it sounds backwards but perhaps we are backwards...
If they are single, impound the car.
Censor mainstream media / movies portrayal of alcohol use; attempt to change the culture with a big campaign over a long period of time. Smoking is all but banned in the media. Not a ban, but only responsible use or villains... etc. some sheeple will go for it.
Teach responsible drinking in HIGH SCHOOL. Lower drinking age to 16... at least 18. its not like the ban is doing anything other than helping encourage bad habits and breaking of the law
1) All government emails are released regardless; except security issues which are DELAYED x years 2) All private emails are recorded solely for litigation and archival purposes. 3) use private emails for government business is prohibited and punishable by mandatory JAIL TIME upon completion of the job. Yes, I think every gov should spend a week in jail for their mistakes... but the number grows rapidly as the infraction count gets higher!
Idiocy and ineptitude are the easiest defense and with so many sympathetic people (who understand ineptitude...) there are hardly any consequences for unintentional acts. Kill somebody with a DWI and you get extra punishment simply because it otherwise you could kill people easily by just getting a little drunk (well some people would have trouble at that level while others are minimally impacted by the DWI alcohol levels.) Seems to me that similar measures should be applied in other areas.
You are not thinking clearly. You even quoted the word "Next" in my sentence! I said NEXT after medical, the biggest part of the that "entitlement" spending is medical. I said so just before that and then the next line started with NEXT. WTF? Military spending is a huge problem and I'd argue a bigger mess to fix and undermines our government and our economy in bigger ways than just the spending aspects. So we can't address the HUGE military problem because there is a bigger fiscal problem??
Entitlement programs are a big part of what government DOES, you may not think so but all the 1st world nations do and this one does a lot of it as well (we just do it stupidly.) When things change such as the baby boomers retiring or swings in other factors we must adapt. Government works on a long term scale it can adapt by raising taxes and fixing loopholes both of which have been overly neglected AND it can go into debt for long periods of time.
There is NOTHING WRONG with going into debt until the baby boomers die to help take care of them. There is something wrong with going into debt over unnecessary wars, a crazy large military, oil subsidies, and especially tax cuts - you don't dig yourself out of a hole by making the hole bigger....
FYI: government revenue is directly tied to the economy. economic depression therefore creates a deficit. Do we loan ourselves money until times get better? Everybody seems to think we will recover (I don't but that's another issue) so why can't we BUFFER the problems to keep at least 1 thing running smoothly? Cutting entitlements has a negative economic impact; in fact, tax cuts is one of the weakest economy boosters while unemployment insurance is many times more beneficial (proven) but we don't care about facts... its dogma and belief that matter.... well actually its not:
The REAL purpose is to make the hole so big that its a crisis and then exploiting that crisis to privatize government even more which is what is going on here. I've seen it used a bunch of ways, my local gov will fuckup something on purpose so the mayor's buddy can get a contract to take it over at 30% over previous cost. Its called disaster capitalism and it works for natural and intentional disasters. This sudden fiscal responsibility professed by the Republicans is a sham - have people forgot the Bush years already? They WANT your social security and they also WANT your government insurance plan for unemployment to be in the pocket's of their masters and making government go foobar is 1 way to do that (I know a big GOP man in my state and on some issues this is exactly their plan; they actively want to break public schools here by ruining them -- its their actual plan.)
The DFL, well that party is not so honest either and is migrating to the same corporate masters over time as well; they are such a mess that its not as bad over there yet. Funny but a real republican is more at home in the DFL than today's GOP.
>Trouble is...when exactly did taxes evolve to become a method for the government to influence citizen behavior??
Before the beginning: Remember the Tea Tax that caused the famious tea party which has now been hijacked by the clueless?
Import and Export taxes used to help nations, now its "protectionism" and anti-free trade to do so-- they've existed forever, some for good reasons some for economic warfare. Now we have subsidies and other schemes we tend to favor in place of obvious import/export taxes. Local taxation has been used in similar ways since the invention of taxation.
It has always been about manipulating behavior; it can start out as revenue but it never stays that way and I doubt it can get out of a committee without that coming into discussion -- if you've been in committees you'd know it is nearly impossible for such things not to come up.
Flat taxation is impossible. Social Security is the closest we will ever get to that (and the rich still don't pay but its flat for the rest of us) and it has been under attack since day 1 to complicate and/or ruin it ever since-- not just for the profits/exploitation but also because of the potential POWER of complicated policies; like we have on everything else. You CANT remove the power that comes with tax policy its just way too tempting -- its also far more acceptable than policing people's behaviors (except drugs - for them we love Authoritarianism.)
Rule #1: assume the primary messages put out by any politician is a diversion.
Businesses are trying to tell you how to live your life; more often they are manipulating your life--- if not just shortening your life without you knowing it. Since the 70s businesses have had think tanks suckering people like you into fighting for them and against yourself. It is a conspiracy and it has billions of dollars making up the slogans you are born and raised with which may have hints of truth but whose purpose is not in your best interest. Bacon with eggs was created by the pig lobby which had a surplus at the time... so now the two foods are intertwined traditionally not for any good reason other than some marketing guy thought of it.
Child credits are generally thought to be NICE for parents; that was the intention. But then it was complicated by extra things to go after minorities as well as the poor. Its not easy to fairly implement something on this issue that is simple, it has to be complex enough to make political manipulation easy.
The debt to GDP ratio may be the highest since the 1940s but in the 1940s the debt was OVER 100% of the GDP. I do not think we can go as high because we've foolishly messed up many other factors as we shifted towards corporatism ("right") since then; just go read some of the initiatives of the past on the "right" and see how they'd be called communists today. WE CAN HANDLE A LARGER DEBT and anybody saying otherwise is ignorant or dishonest, one only needs to look at history for proof. Like I said, I don't think we could go as high but we are not even close.
Also, a repeating theme going on is how the IMF, World Bank, and well, the bankers in general are pushing our policies around like they've done to 3rd world nations for the last century--- except now they are not helping our nation by screwing millions of poor nations they are doing it to us; before one could argue we were the masters and they are biting our hands except I think they in many ways always were the master and simply have enough power and influence they no longer require our help.
Since we no longer have the power we used to have, perhaps we can't do as many things as we did in the past. There is a chess game going on and you are all mere pawns.... I suppose you should enjoy your lowly position because the more you know, the more helpless you feel.
I got sick of people when they complained about jobs during the heathcare fight not realizing it is the single biggest problem for this economy. Next is the insane military industrial complex. Plus 1/3 are hopeless idiots (death panels etc.) We couldn't get sanity from an all DFL situation we are not going to do better now when the other side is hijacked by that idiotic 1/3.
The USA pays its bills, there is no legit reason to drop the credit rating; its a power game.
No, I'm not some spending freak but all the propaganda is so 1 sided on this issue and people just thoughtlessly follow the herd. The ONLY time debt should be acceptable is during bad times.... We can't even admit we've been in a depression just barely avoiding a big depression which is still possible and has not been prevented, only averted temporarily. Sure, Ron Paul people probably are correct about the Fed but you can't fix that problem without a massive collapse during the transition which is why it is impossible before a big collapse. Say you gave the gov back its constitutional power to manage money, today that wouldn't differ much since the banks run so much of our government for themselves. Plus, we've ruined our economy where the majority of it is now finanicial gambling not small business like it was 10 years ago - if you fix the banking and the markets to work properly again and serve their purpose, you'll remove almost half our economy and take away much of the reason for having dollars.... and we have too any dollars thanks to those decades of forcing the world to buy oil in dollars. (And people wonder why we kiss the ass of Saudi Arabia...)
Realistically, none of this issues are worth your time - the system does not function and as a result it is unable to do an adequate job solving any problems-- they prefer to placate and push the buck onto the next politician. (Like how Greenspan jumped ship then played dumb when it sunk...) You need to fix the political system 1st and foremost or our crash landing will continue (if lucky, otherwise it'll just be a crash/collapse.) Obama also realizes this to some degree which is why he fought healthcare against even his own staff and party and continues to try to bend over backwards to make the republicans civil - its about all he can do.... except he doesn't seem to be forceful on fixing the political system at all - just some words here and there... No surprise; he probably doesn't think it is as bad as it really is simply because he made it to the top (not realizing he was only allowed to make it because he wasn't disruptive or a real threat.) OR he gave up on trying to fix such a hopeless mess that will require riots and violence (by sane people
Many elements of a great film or story are accidental or gain from their vague nature - its the interpretative parts that make up good ART. Its intriguing and inspiring when done correctly. The genius is not in creating every perfect detail viewers notice its in knowing what to leave OUT (a somewhat similar concept to the importance of negative space - but this is mental negative space.)
Star Wars benefited greatly by constraints and people standing up to an idiot producer with good general concepts who was not yet corrupted by commercial aspects of his profession. But also, in extending it even without the huge influences outside the art form you have a destructive pattern that emerges:
Problem is that when making sequels an editing of the success occurs to try to maximize the good parts (in opinion) and even worse they try to please demographics by highlighting everything surveys point to. They lose contrast because the low points make the high points better. Usually when something is hugely popular the exact reasons are not known but it is dissected and the "good" parts are copied and they try to make them even bigger as if that will make the whole work better-- but it was the whole work that people liked and it was influenced by the elements less popular.
The matrix had plenty of good philosophy tie ins as well as political etc-- it was fine on its own; it was asking a lot to meet that level and EXTEND it further. Animal Farm was a great book; Animal Farm 2 wouldn't likely have the depth of knowledge to draw from to make the connections and take it further at the same level - that is more difficult than doing the 1st one.
Its all just a machine that uses plot books like the sitcoms and soaps do and highlights the elements the survey's said were "cool" largely just using the world previously imagined with quite often uncreative additions and extensions to the existing work.
I wish somebody would make sequel versions of famious paintings to illustrate my point...
Lets just separate them for 100s of years until they cool down... 2 nations with a big wall.... that will work! We just have to get them to agree where to put the wall;-) How about along the legal borders? oh...wait...
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. Wikileaks can't win. If they release unedited source materials they get attacked, if they work with the major newspapers to edit the releases they get attacked. Not even honest attacks, the big ones lately have been easy to disprove but they continued to be promoted. The whole point of the military plot to undermine Wikileaks was to remove their credibility and likability; which they are doing whether or not their hands are directly involved in the things going on.
Wikileaks suffered from lack of visibility until the massive attack was recently launched; all those useful leaks over the years and people didn't know who they were or what they were doing until now --- but they heard about some of the news stories powered by their work over that span. People must know what they are doing or they won't know why to support them or oppose them (although people seem just fine opposing those they know nothing about.)
Some people, possibly most Americans are stupid; HALF are below average....
The rest of us get upset when you tell use the obvious and are just being argumentative and literal minded. It is a democracy just like the "1st democracy" in ROME thousands of years ago-- not literally democracy (narrow minded) because that was NOT possible millenniums ago in "simple society."
Democracy picks the reps, there are various systems on how that works (largely hacked.) The reps democratically vote for you with various systems on that (largely hacked, or DoS in the US Senate.) Repeated all over at all levels is the democratic process (functioning or not) because its fundamentally democratic; but practically not an extremely ideal literal minded implementation which is impossible and not worth serious consideration.
Your distribution is not linux! It came with more than just the kernel. Or its not linux, its compiled linux-- only the kernel source code is linux...
Amy Goodman probably already gets death threats from foxtards.
They bribe to get ISO to approve the format which nobody does yet on a fast track when they already have one that had to do the process. It shows ISO isn't honest and doesn't function well enough to sustain an attack.
They bribe governments to start Microsoft addictions at low prices and high bribes or even charity "donations." Now with governments having over a decade of problems with their Microsoft addictions started looking for standardization to avoid many big problems CAUSED by Microsoft we have Microsoft bribing them to solve the problems they created by standardizing upon...Microsoft!
Fractional lending involves over leverage and yes that happens plenty; the limitations/regulations on that fraction as well as a physical limitation prevented the downward spirals around the world competing for investment and economic growth; so the next logical step was to remove the limitations and by going abstract as well as moving conceptually from CREDIT to DEBT allowed lending to continue towards the maximum levels possible-- trumping the escalation that was going on already. Its less a matter of GOLD and more one of the continual progression down into the rabbit hole with no utopia in sight and the path is not infinite.
We never really moved far from the physical, we simply moved from the 1 fixed item of gold to whatever makes your money worth using which was OIL -- its all about oil dollars and how you needed dollars to buy oil until recent years as it migrates and diversifies plus other factors undermine the reasons to have dollars; lowering their relative value in addition to the high (and unreported) inflation etc. It'll get worse as OIL becomes less important and US exports continue to dry up-- the only thing left will be the US Stock exchanges (Casinos) which operate in dollars. We need to corner the COFFEE market with US dollars to make up for the OIL decline (the 2nd most traded commodity) or we could enter into water privatization which some want to create as the new OIL. The next generation of this game is likely to move away from a few global necessities like coffee, water, maybe CO2 but some sort of system around the economic growth of nations which has nothing to do with lifestyle or even probably production - more like new gambling games as we see new games invented in the USA, almost desperately (Enron)-- nations competing for "investment" to raise the value in their money; again something we see more and more in the USA-- the old capital system being dumped by the investors and left for small banks and the government to do loans because they are less and less interested in REAL items. (to the point where they don't even bother to hold onto the paper work for your house they want to kick you out from.)
I'm possibly not being as clear as I'd like on this; hope the general idea is there. I can't see it becoming completely baseless but it can be so removed from the tangible you never know what you bought.... Maybe it could be almost entirely devoid of reality?
As much as I agree not on the grounds that there is a huge difference between the two systems for which I do not think there is (somebody else explained that) I do not agree that the old system would have greatly benefited us if we had kept it - it does not matter how good either one would be long term because the decisions and victors are decided over the short term moves (as in decades not centuries or an idealistic forever.)
Fractional lending started outside the USA, and it allowed the banks to get richer and the boosted economy with more capital than actually existed. This resulted in many good things along with the bad which resulted in more fractional lending and an increase in the whole pattern. Others wanted it too so they followed along. These things happen because the rich as well as much of the public cares only about their job their kids and their personal wealth - eventually the promise of a better economy wins (along with greed etc.) The system which becomes a casino with good payout draws external "capital" into the game -- so the USA played loose with too many things and brought in greed from around the world while making fake wealth riding on the wave of excitement over easy money. depressions, many recessions... and other problems resulted.
A part of the wealth of the USA and its edge over other nations was created by playing these unscrupulous games and it continues to extremes today with seemingly no limits where it will collapse or show restraint (the "reforms" didn't even put is back in order, not that we were before but we are not even back there.) At this point its not creating much real wealth or benefits; we are past the point of diminishing returns; however, we can't back up, go into deflation, negative "growth" on the intangible stuff that makes up about half or more the economy without lowering the capital investment etc. Everything is in such a complex interconnected web its not something we can safely diffuse.
This is where I agree with you, the previous system while not differing greatly was tangible and understandable and it was simple. The more complexity the less we can regulate and restrain problems. So I'm for something manageable at the expense of the benefits - because especially in a democracy, the public needs to be able to understand enough to hire (elect) competent management. Now even professors on the stuff can't understand the things going on, forget about regulators, the press and the public - so a minority exploits the knowledge (likely because they made it and couldn't understand it themselves if they hadn't designed it.)
So while its all fine and good to talk about ideals and believe that things were previously different when they were not - we get a lot of good along with the bad which means that most people will make the bad decisions just like how Casinos never have a shortage of suckers.
The largest Washington protests not only got downplayed but some of the biggest in history were almost entirely ignored. I'm thinking of some of the early anti war protests that hardly had coverage and many people I knew didn't know about them or that they outnumbered most (perhaps all) the Vietnam protests in size.
I've been to some protests and while they were only a few thousand, I knew how many people where there because I know how big a crowd that size is (my high school as that large) but the local news ranged from thousand down to 500. Fox news was there and their man gathered the 6-8 republican supporters against the back of our crowd and filmed them as a group which was portrayed as non-staged and because of the direction didn't give as much of a picture as to how few of them there were. I know because I was board and counted all them that afternoon. (Assuming they wouldn't just stand around looking like they were with the protesters and would have opposing signage.) I also followed around the fox news guy to see what he was up to; along with spotting 4 undercover cops (that makes a fun game.)
Yet when Glenn Beck or or some tea baggers are less than 15k in size they get more attention than 100k do.
The system will not allow somebody get elected who is threatens to disrupt those in power today. The best you can do is end up in a few party primaries like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich and quickly be marginalized by the party elite, the press, the tv media, and even big donors. You think its bad for 3rd parties? Well, the people within the parties get calmly screwed and setup in more covert ways-- With Nader, all you get is some transparency because they have no incentive to be as nice.... That is, if you pay attention to the 3rd party at all because the press sure does not tell you about the dirty tricks.
Obama could be great; however, it does not matter about him personally or what he tries to accomplish - he is a pragmatist and totally willing to compromise over ideals, ethics, etc. THAT is why he was allowed to proceed despite being an untested outsider -- Hillary would have won if Obama couldn't be managed. (The party elite were largely in her camp at the beginning- but they are just 1 of the weaker factions.)
Palin's personal email had nothing to do with the "sanctity" of the election process! I object even to the use of sanctity, the election process is a joke and is so violated he could have hacked some voting machines and not lowered it much.
Reporters looking for a meaningless scandal or Fox "news" trying to wreak the opposition are doing the same thing with the same intent as much as possible within the law --- following around politicians with long range mics trying to record something -- "reporting" anything they happen to pick up instead of chucking the footage of a candidate farting or tripping as being irrelevant.
Palin's inability to secure her own email with a decent password was her fault. They should be glad he didn't just watch and inform the democrats what she was up to (nothing, she wasn't doing 'strategery' so not likely much there.)
What about comedians? or interviewers? They didn't even have to try to make her look stupid but when they did--- they had huge results--- possibly trying to affect the national election (or get ratings.) For example, the Canadian radio show that committed fraud in the name of comedy by calling Palin as the president of France and making her look bad (which again she helped.)
This kid should have been treated like anybody else messing with a public official-- the fact Palin was running for a high position shouldn't matter. If he broke into YOUR email account you'd be lucky if the police even bothered to visit him.... or even his boss's email for that matter.
California has a 1 year budget cycle that has to be fought out all the time which wastes time; it should be 2 year cycles. It takes 2/3 vote to get budgets which means its not majority rule its super majority and it has been in worse shape for years than the broken filibuster US senate has been for just 2 years. They don't have a filibuster problem, they wrote the problem INTO the process.
Most the CA budget is set by laws not by the budgeting process. This makes it even more difficult to adapt/change quickly because so much of it is allocated in a distributed way that is time consuming to touch and independent of other budgetary concerns. If you want to cut something its a big fight that has to happen outside the budget debate so the actual planning of just how much you need to compromise among many areas is removed-- its hard to say I need to cut down on eating out when I can't also consider all the other items I spend money on and make a relative judgment. This is why budgeting needs to have a lot of things available on the table during the process.
Taxes are based on the economy. bad economy. people are so selfish and short sighted they see surplus and want it back instead of saving for rainy days. We can run on debt until times get better; however, the reality is that people in the know have figured out that we will never get back to the good times of decades past so they are for a change thinking ahead; while others just want to gut public service from the government because they view government as for the corporations and not for the people.
Then there is the illegal immigrant problem in CA which harms the economy and lowers tax revenue while adding government expenses. sorry but that is how it is. Make them legal and you boost revenue and the economy; however, then the cheap bastards will hire more illegals (because they are cheap to exploit) so you need to punish people who exploit illegals (or at least make them pay min wage and register with gov for tax purposes.) Now, I don't think the problem is #1 but its a contributing factor and hardly anybody can reasonably debate the issue because emotional mobs on either side (or both) go after them. The immigrant quota system is totally wrong but I don't see that getting fixed anytime soon either; its too long term for citizens to contemplate.
CA also needs to raise taxes. selfish pricks want everything for nothing; well the rich want no taxes and think they need nothing because they have all the money (yet seem to forget police/fire and tons of gov services they do benefit from directly; probably unaware of what an indirect benefit even is.)
CA has HIGH sales taxes. This should be lowered and income taxes should rise. I shouldn't have to explain the benefits of this; if you need it, then you probably need to learn some more.
CA doesn't get enough federal AID. They pay more in federal taxes than they get back unlike every southern state-- CA state may be broke but its people support all the broke ass states in the nation who get tons of federal support to keep them from going broke. I'd be just fine with CA protecting its people from underpaying their federal income tax - which they could do.... what a fight that would be! I'm ok because I'm in MN and we also support the loser states federally so losing CA's money wouldn't change it much for us; we are shafted by the south as well.
Some people seem to revel in CA going down but they are an economic powerhouse helping prop this nation up; they are 8th in the world if considered with other countries. That is a big economy people! They can afford some tax increases with a few cuts-- its not so much about cutting as it is the system is broken and that results in these problems. Common sense is to TREAT THE DISEASE not just amputate (and become like Louisiana; government does impact the well being of the state, its not just the weather in CA that attracts people.)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok I may have been reaching with the Nintendo Power Glove since I remember it as a kid and don't know the specifics behind it other than the impressive hacking done with it in the late 90s as a controller for a quarter million dollar VR machine of the day.
Motion capture caught on with the Wii not the Kinect; have you been in a cave? Or does that huge success not count because YOU were not interested?
0) Failure in school is constant and brutal to self-esteem - always evaluated and never taught how to deal with failure. A few meaningless phrases at best which have no follow through. To compensate sometimes people do moronic policies like "never say negative things about failure" when actual TRAINING by child psychologists is needed. Teachers should take a whole 4 credit course on the topic. The child's emotional mindset is the biggest factor above all else; genetics has almost nothing to do with it (sorry ignorant parents but your child isn't "special" unless they are autistic...)
1) Science fair projects involve TIME and MONEY outside of school. I've gone to inner city schools where half were below the poverty line. One of my friends had to care for the whole family as the oldest boy (his father died in front of him in a camp in Laos.) He turned out well considering how bad his life was. Not all are so lucky. His homework was non-existent and school had to provide his pencils and paper. HE WAS SMART and mature for his age but only a C-B student; not his fault.
2) Disturbed kids are sometimes born that way, but most the time its their home life; the only thing you can do is fix their parents or move them to another home. A state orphanage would even be better; I've grown up with a few of these kids as well. The schools don't have psychologists and while they should it couldn't fix a large range of environmental problems. Three gradeschool kids I knew are in prison now; it was no surprise they were foobar back then - beyond teacher help, they needed padded rooms or something. Today they'd have been in the criminal system for assaulting teachers before 10 years of age - somehow I don't think that would have helped them; but not doing that in my day didn't help them either.
3) I have family who've had to live through this movement of our Republicans trying to embrace the education issue making it a partisan political football that used to be just given over to the other side. Since this battle for votes began on the issue its WORSENED education in the USA as ignorant political slogans and ignorant parents herd to whatever sounds good to their ignorant minds. You are not a dental expert because you have been to the dentist anymore than you are an expert at education because you've been educated. Worthless statistics and foolish analogies always become the foundation of politicization of issues. You can't measure a quality education in a quantitative way such that political policies can be debated (leaving aside the fact that there is no civil debate in the USA anymore.) "Juking" the stats is the name of the political game and everybody does it. When you base things on simplistic metrics you encourage hacking of those metrics. Furthermore, the other issue is "cutting edge" crap - the USA was ahead of the world but the world has recovered from WW2 and the 3rd world is improving at FASTER rates than the 1st world ever did. See GapMinder.org and learn something about it. You can't be on top when everybody else gets to the summit as well; there isn't much more to climb and even if you reach the peak of human capacity the gap will NOT be as large as it was in the past.
Lots of issues involved here. Plus a lot of people only see education as JOBs - which warps the whole thing into industry looking for new cogs for the corporate machine and not actual thinkers--- unless you are elite and can afford to send your brat to a private school which teaches management or marketing -- "practical" school is job skills training to way too many people and that is NOT the biggest benefit it has provided but its where we are heading. I expect to see private/charter schools by walmart or mcdonald's within my lifetime with single minded goals (it won't be quite that simple but the influence will become noticeable enough.)
Obama getting the prize was a message and encouragement for the USA (and an FU to the American rightwing) to move in the right direction which was a horrible MISTAKE but it does not lower the prize forever or mean the next people are less deserving. His acceptance / defiant speech was more of a disgrace than awarding it to him.
1) The prize has been given by DIFFERENT people over its lifespan - its not going to be perfect all the time.
2) Symbolic and abusive use of the Nobel has happened before; for example, the worst one that I know of was when they gave the Nobel prize to Henry Kissinger also given too early into his career (the guy seemed to bring death everywhere he was involved.) Those committee members are gone now. They won't impose a grace period because sometimes it may make sense to award one early - such as last year's Chinese winner or that Iranian lady who probably had it save her life.
3) The Nobel for Economics is not a legit prize and yet the banks funding it have perpetuated this fake prize for decades - it lets them promote their economic agenda; good or ill it was an addition.
4) NOBODY deserves the award more this year than WikiLeaks. period. well, unless you think peace and order is more important than truth and freedom.
This is a good time to promote the Right Livelihood Award (The Alternative Nobel) which is given to anybody not just scientists some approved of economist (I'd never call that science) and 1 politician/activist.
Hey off the top of my head I listed a lot of good ideas. I won't say they are all perfect but I don't think that any of them are so bad as to be totally dismissed in seconds-- some people might but then which ones would differ by the person.
I'm American, yes I think we have a lot of stupid people more than many other nations; because of many reasons I'll not get into. its not genetic, its due to them not having to think and their minds getting fat like their bodies are.
My driving test was easy and i did nothing to prepare and passed it 1st time. It is pathetic and I shouldn't have been able to do that. All that we've both said on it does bolster your position on Americans being too stupid to drive in circles (roundabouts) ;however, I do not think people are THAT stupid, they merely need to get used to the process and learn how which is an easier lesson than the act of driving is itself and I think its no more difficult than a 4 way stop. If you were correct, than I can't see how we don't have multiple car pile ups at every 5-6 way intersection... In my state we are putting in roundabouts and people are confused but slowly are adapting with plenty of bitching (but saying it'll cost more taxes to "fix" them usually shuts the people up a bit.)
Roundabouts are no-brainer solutions to high insurance costs, high numbers of fatal accidents being at intersections, and high infrastructure costs for lights. Estimates here were $600 per year per intersection for my city. We have been installing LED bulbs because of the $100s estimated costs for replacing bulbs (labor costs, insurance for labor, multiple trucks, etc.) No drunk can quickly drive over our roundabouts - in some cases they'll smash into something in the middle.
Roundabouts are not something that can be instantly dismissed as being a stupid idea; and we have more intersections and more space in the suburbs around the city than in the city.
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We are capable of stable secure software that could drive cars. Clearly you are not familiar with the level of regulation that keeps military and especially medical software running as well as it does. You couldn't pull it off if you applied linux level quality; forget microsoft. I won't get into implementation but like I said it can be done today without huge advancements if the infrastructure was put in place-- Your Skycars running on tracks would be an example of 1 design where computers could handle it safely (because it would be a simple problem.)
I had these arguments with other skytran like inventors in the past⦠maybe I talked with the skytran guy? I don't remember. You do realize that running a 2nd road network to every house is not possible anymore right? During the depression and all the good times afterwards allowed us to build the network we have today and the prosperity, foresight, and government investment will not exist in the USA tomorrow or likely even in the next 100 years. We foolishly designed our urban sprawl and city zoning around the most wasteful times in this nation's history. That is going to harm us; especially any new designs like your Skytran.
I've been in cities with great mass transit. It is not HORRIBLE like in the USA where it seems like we are not allowed to have a competent system. As costs go up perhaps less americans can be spoiled with a personal transit system (cars plus road network.) If I lived in say, Montreal, CA - I'd not even want a car (but then I'd also avoid suburbs since they only speak French out there.)
I'm in MN and we have 1 light rail system; cost a ton as well because of property costs-- our stupid ancestors sold our land with the trolley cars and trains and now we are unable to afford buying it all back again. (GM had a part in screwing us BTW.) We have 1 commuter train (using existing rails) and another light rail coming up soon at huge expense. Let me tell you from experience, businesses are hurt during construction-- duh... but afterwards the area changes and businesses are
1) it was developed and researched outside microsoft - they bought the tech and payed to have it mass produced; the concepts involved are even older.
2) The motion capture craze was created by Nintendo years ago and before that they attempted the idea with the failed power glove because the tech wasn't good enough back then to pull it off. (Although I saw a university VR lab put that glove to use as a 6degree motion controller)
3) Kinect is not that innovative, its an improvement to an existing idea of Nintendo's. Arguably, its not even an improvement because for many Wii games you only need the acceleration motions to play just fine and after the 1st hours of swinging around like an idiot I discovered I could do just as well sitting down using much smaller motions. I'm not just talking about the simple applications where the motion is really simple. Its more flexible to different styles of input. The kinect is a literal minded approach to somebody who doesn't quite "get it" which is typical Microsoft thinking. Take the motion thing and throw money at it and buy everything that lets you technically do the thing as well or better at an initially HUGE expense. They miss the concept of your natural inclination to move the controller about while STILL holding a controller and go 150% for capturing my body's motion. Its great for dance and stuff but its targeting an even SMALLER niche than nintendo's technically limited approach. If Nintendo did kinect, it would be done better because they are the true creative thinkers.
I listed a bunch of ideas all of which likely would have some positive impact and many better than the few tired lines that ALWAYS come up and stifle discussion. "New" ideas need to get some daylight.
Are people SO STUPID that we can only handle a few ideas and claim those few answers solve 100% of the problems setting up easy rebuttals in a pointless cycle that ruins all progress? Clearly the parent thinks people are too stupid because driving in a circle (roundabout) is too confusing!
My response to anti roundabout people-- yeah, your right, Americans are not as smart as Europeans (or French) and I'd rather total my car so I can get a new one instead of just banging my fenders back into shape.
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points of issue with parent responses (since everybody else is stuck only defending conventional talking points:)
Car safety design; only caused by force of government, find that the BIG SUVs and heavy vehicles do not have the 5 star ratings. They only look safer and their gains from size are minimal, its almost entirely smart design that makes them TEST safe. MASS doesn't help you if the other guy is also an SUV or is driving faster (F=ma) or has a side impact (much lower G force threshold for instant death.) Carbon Fiber is not needed.... unless you want a big SUV... there should be a weight cap and we should be TAXED by weight since weight is one of the biggest factors that wear down the roads (as does speed). F=ma...
Cars in the USA only are about as safe as the government regulations and they fought that at every point and it did raise car costs already while lowering insurance rates etc. We've had the debate long ago and we finally benefited from "my side" winning. We can go further until we overshoot but we haven't done that. The mandates are lower speed than the EU but we drive faster over here; since we drive faster we should at least meet EU standards or start driving slower than they do. My car may have a high rating but its only for 30mph because that is all they were regulated to do.
Since about 40% of fatal accidents are caused by DUI, I have a hard time thinking your stats are being applied correctly. I couldn't care less about low speed damaged cars; that is an insurance problem-- what really fuels the debate on is the DEATH RATE and the serious injuries!
The majority of accidents are the "low" speed ones; likely every kind of accident has its majority share in the low speed category, except probably car on car fatalities. BTW, I define high speed based on what the car can't protect you really well; which in the USA is probably >30mph. Like I said, they are not safe at highway speeds. I can kill you in your truck with my compact car with me living and within the speed limit! I know a cop and he's seen it (aside from what I've said in this post which can explain how that is possible.)
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Computers will get better with time and they have been. slashdot? of all places to claim CS has limits to improving our lives.... Computers could drive our cars TODAY; I won't get into implementation issues but one could design a system that would out do humans TODAY; it would be expensive and would have to ban other forms of traffic. I didn't specify the conditions for computer controlled cars; it only gets more flexible and cheaper as the technology advances.
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SkyTran-- you should post this elsewhere so more people will see it!
That being said, I still think its silly; I've actually met with 2 inventors of such systems.
1) fanatic individualism causes a lot of stupid ideas. having to SHARE something makes it much more affordable. trains or mini trains (bus size) The formerly richest nation could afford to pave everything and get everybody an affordable car but this is not the case for everybody or probably even sustainable for this nation in the future. Sharing transport saves. We can't even do upkeep on our aging road system and bridges today.
2) mono rails are expensive. cable car is the cheapest method; think about it; goo
Other partial or complete solutions in 15 min:
Better mass transit.
Driver's license required to start the car; forget keys. mine already has an encrypted magnetic strip, its possible already to setup something to handle the swiping etc. Suspended license would disable ability to start any cars.
Complex starting process on par with driving... like an IQ test to start your car. people too stupid shouldn't be able to drive anyhow.
FREE mass transit if you FAIL a test!
FREE taxi if you FAIL a test (wonder what the total costs would be compared to the damage caused?)
Fingerprint to start a car-- I don't like the idea but would fit will into this method-- it doesn't have any real privacy issues in itself. your car's black box records a lot more than people realize already; we could use some laws limiting those along with OnStar (don't the inactive onstars still track you if you are a "person of interest"?)
DWI people take hypnosis classes and just make themselves fake drunk when they want to drink; but don't actually drink. (not that this would work since probably the 50% that don't learn are alcoholics-- it isn't one of the worst drugs for no reason.)
use more Roundabouts!! the bad accidents are at the intersections with some idiot running the light or stop sign at high speeds
beef up cars -- they only have to handle about 30 mph; its slower in the USA than EU last I heard.
Slow down car speeds. lower limits, throttle max speeds. Its not the drunk that kills its the car...moving quickly. (to borrow from the gun debate)
Automatic speed limiting based upon the speed limit signs. many ways to implement this without tracking. I'm I the only person SICK of tracking complaints from people who carry CELL PHONES?? WTF! don't these nimrods realize every minute of their life is logged on multiple cell towers probably along with signal strength and other data and is kept for YEARS (possibly forever) and it has been used in court for a long time already-- I bet they can pin point you pretty well now-- back when I 1st heard court case using it they could nail you down to a tower's range.
Automatic breaking at stop signs.
Automatic assessment of driving skills by the car as you get going. It probably will figure you out within a few blocks. This can increase how aggressive its other automatic features work.
More (gov) research into automatically driving cars. Eventually nobody needs to drive except the gearheads; who after a DWI lose the privilege.
Invent an undrunk drug... which will likely end up abused in another way....
Stop putting drunks in jail? put them in other programs. A lot of people drink to IMPAIR their judgment a little (or lot) so why is it a surprise when they make stupid decisions?
Fine the bar for each DWI traced back to them. Ha, like the free market would help much to solve the problem...other than lobby to repeal that idea.
Develop a drug that makes you allergic to alcohol. put them on it. (we do this for mental cases- it works ok....just ok.)
Bigger punishments for driving without a license. In MOST the USA you can't get bye without a car; and most are too clueless to realize there is lame mass transit-- they'll drive without a license because they won't walk a few blocks and lose an hour of time a day (which they'll spend watching TV or drinking.) SO:
Provide free info and free passes for alternative transit to DWI people without licenses. Yes, it sounds backwards but perhaps we are backwards...
If they are single, impound the car.
Censor mainstream media / movies portrayal of alcohol use; attempt to change the culture with a big campaign over a long period of time. Smoking is all but banned in the media. Not a ban, but only responsible use or villains... etc. some sheeple will go for it.
Teach responsible drinking in HIGH SCHOOL. Lower drinking age to 16... at least 18. its not like the ban is doing anything other than helping encourage bad habits and breaking of the law
1) All government emails are released regardless; except security issues which are DELAYED x years
2) All private emails are recorded solely for litigation and archival purposes.
3) use private emails for government business is prohibited and punishable by mandatory JAIL TIME upon completion of the job. Yes, I think every gov should spend a week in jail for their mistakes... but the number grows rapidly as the infraction count gets higher!
Idiocy and ineptitude are the easiest defense and with so many sympathetic people (who understand ineptitude...) there are hardly any consequences for unintentional acts. Kill somebody with a DWI and you get extra punishment simply because it otherwise you could kill people easily by just getting a little drunk (well some people would have trouble at that level while others are minimally impacted by the DWI alcohol levels.) Seems to me that similar measures should be applied in other areas.
You are not thinking clearly. You even quoted the word "Next" in my sentence! I said NEXT after medical, the biggest part of the that "entitlement" spending is medical. I said so just before that and then the next line started with NEXT. WTF? Military spending is a huge problem and I'd argue a bigger mess to fix and undermines our government and our economy in bigger ways than just the spending aspects. So we can't address the HUGE military problem because there is a bigger fiscal problem??
Entitlement programs are a big part of what government DOES, you may not think so but all the 1st world nations do and this one does a lot of it as well (we just do it stupidly.) When things change such as the baby boomers retiring or swings in other factors we must adapt. Government works on a long term scale it can adapt by raising taxes and fixing loopholes both of which have been overly neglected AND it can go into debt for long periods of time.
There is NOTHING WRONG with going into debt until the baby boomers die to help take care of them. There is something wrong with going into debt over unnecessary wars, a crazy large military, oil subsidies, and especially tax cuts - you don't dig yourself out of a hole by making the hole bigger....
FYI: government revenue is directly tied to the economy. economic depression therefore creates a deficit. Do we loan ourselves money until times get better? Everybody seems to think we will recover (I don't but that's another issue) so why can't we BUFFER the problems to keep at least 1 thing running smoothly? Cutting entitlements has a negative economic impact; in fact, tax cuts is one of the weakest economy boosters while unemployment insurance is many times more beneficial (proven) but we don't care about facts... its dogma and belief that matter.... well actually its not:
The REAL purpose is to make the hole so big that its a crisis and then exploiting that crisis to privatize government even more which is what is going on here. I've seen it used a bunch of ways, my local gov will fuckup something on purpose so the mayor's buddy can get a contract to take it over at 30% over previous cost. Its called disaster capitalism and it works for natural and intentional disasters. This sudden fiscal responsibility professed by the Republicans is a sham - have people forgot the Bush years already? They WANT your social security and they also WANT your government insurance plan for unemployment to be in the pocket's of their masters and making government go foobar is 1 way to do that (I know a big GOP man in my state and on some issues this is exactly their plan; they actively want to break public schools here by ruining them -- its their actual plan.)
The DFL, well that party is not so honest either and is migrating to the same corporate masters over time as well; they are such a mess that its not as bad over there yet. Funny but a real republican is more at home in the DFL than today's GOP.
>Trouble is...when exactly did taxes evolve to become a method for the government to influence citizen behavior??
Before the beginning: Remember the Tea Tax that caused the famious tea party which has now been hijacked by the clueless?
Import and Export taxes used to help nations, now its "protectionism" and anti-free trade to do so-- they've existed forever, some for good reasons some for economic warfare. Now we have subsidies and other schemes we tend to favor in place of obvious import/export taxes. Local taxation has been used in similar ways since the invention of taxation.
It has always been about manipulating behavior; it can start out as revenue but it never stays that way and I doubt it can get out of a committee without that coming into discussion -- if you've been in committees you'd know it is nearly impossible for such things not to come up.
Flat taxation is impossible. Social Security is the closest we will ever get to that (and the rich still don't pay but its flat for the rest of us) and it has been under attack since day 1 to complicate and/or ruin it ever since-- not just for the profits/exploitation but also because of the potential POWER of complicated policies; like we have on everything else. You CANT remove the power that comes with tax policy its just way too tempting -- its also far more acceptable than policing people's behaviors (except drugs - for them we love Authoritarianism.)
Rule #1: assume the primary messages put out by any politician is a diversion.
Businesses are trying to tell you how to live your life; more often they are manipulating your life--- if not just shortening your life without you knowing it. Since the 70s businesses have had think tanks suckering people like you into fighting for them and against yourself. It is a conspiracy and it has billions of dollars making up the slogans you are born and raised with which may have hints of truth but whose purpose is not in your best interest. Bacon with eggs was created by the pig lobby which had a surplus at the time... so now the two foods are intertwined traditionally not for any good reason other than some marketing guy thought of it.
Child credits are generally thought to be NICE for parents; that was the intention. But then it was complicated by extra things to go after minorities as well as the poor. Its not easy to fairly implement something on this issue that is simple, it has to be complex enough to make political manipulation easy.
The debt to GDP ratio may be the highest since the 1940s but in the 1940s the debt was OVER 100% of the GDP. I do not think we can go as high because we've foolishly messed up many other factors as we shifted towards corporatism ("right") since then; just go read some of the initiatives of the past on the "right" and see how they'd be called communists today. WE CAN HANDLE A LARGER DEBT and anybody saying otherwise is ignorant or dishonest, one only needs to look at history for proof. Like I said, I don't think we could go as high but we are not even close.
Also, a repeating theme going on is how the IMF, World Bank, and well, the bankers in general are pushing our policies around like they've done to 3rd world nations for the last century--- except now they are not helping our nation by screwing millions of poor nations they are doing it to us; before one could argue we were the masters and they are biting our hands except I think they in many ways always were the master and simply have enough power and influence they no longer require our help.
Since we no longer have the power we used to have, perhaps we can't do as many things as we did in the past. There is a chess game going on and you are all mere pawns.... I suppose you should enjoy your lowly position because the more you know, the more helpless you feel.
I got sick of people when they complained about jobs during the heathcare fight not realizing it is the single biggest problem for this economy. Next is the insane military industrial complex. Plus 1/3 are hopeless idiots (death panels etc.) We couldn't get sanity from an all DFL situation we are not going to do better now when the other side is hijacked by that idiotic 1/3.
The USA pays its bills, there is no legit reason to drop the credit rating; its a power game.
No, I'm not some spending freak but all the propaganda is so 1 sided on this issue and people just thoughtlessly follow the herd. The ONLY time debt should be acceptable is during bad times.... We can't even admit we've been in a depression just barely avoiding a big depression which is still possible and has not been prevented, only averted temporarily. Sure, Ron Paul people probably are correct about the Fed but you can't fix that problem without a massive collapse during the transition which is why it is impossible before a big collapse. Say you gave the gov back its constitutional power to manage money, today that wouldn't differ much since the banks run so much of our government for themselves. Plus, we've ruined our economy where the majority of it is now finanicial gambling not small business like it was 10 years ago - if you fix the banking and the markets to work properly again and serve their purpose, you'll remove almost half our economy and take away much of the reason for having dollars.... and we have too any dollars thanks to those decades of forcing the world to buy oil in dollars. (And people wonder why we kiss the ass of Saudi Arabia...)
Realistically, none of this issues are worth your time - the system does not function and as a result it is unable to do an adequate job solving any problems-- they prefer to placate and push the buck onto the next politician. (Like how Greenspan jumped ship then played dumb when it sunk...) You need to fix the political system 1st and foremost or our crash landing will continue (if lucky, otherwise it'll just be a crash/collapse.) Obama also realizes this to some degree which is why he fought healthcare against even his own staff and party and continues to try to bend over backwards to make the republicans civil - its about all he can do.... except he doesn't seem to be forceful on fixing the political system at all - just some words here and there... No surprise; he probably doesn't think it is as bad as it really is simply because he made it to the top (not realizing he was only allowed to make it because he wasn't disruptive or a real threat.) OR he gave up on trying to fix such a hopeless mess that will require riots and violence (by sane people
Many elements of a great film or story are accidental or gain from their vague nature - its the interpretative parts that make up good ART. Its intriguing and inspiring when done correctly. The genius is not in creating every perfect detail viewers notice its in knowing what to leave OUT (a somewhat similar concept to the importance of negative space - but this is mental negative space.)
Star Wars benefited greatly by constraints and people standing up to an idiot producer with good general concepts who was not yet corrupted by commercial aspects of his profession. But also, in extending it even without the huge influences outside the art form you have a destructive pattern that emerges:
Problem is that when making sequels an editing of the success occurs to try to maximize the good parts (in opinion) and even worse they try to please demographics by highlighting everything surveys point to. They lose contrast because the low points make the high points better. Usually when something is hugely popular the exact reasons are not known but it is dissected and the "good" parts are copied and they try to make them even bigger as if that will make the whole work better-- but it was the whole work that people liked and it was influenced by the elements less popular.
The matrix had plenty of good philosophy tie ins as well as political etc-- it was fine on its own; it was asking a lot to meet that level and EXTEND it further. Animal Farm was a great book; Animal Farm 2 wouldn't likely have the depth of knowledge to draw from to make the connections and take it further at the same level - that is more difficult than doing the 1st one.
Its all just a machine that uses plot books like the sitcoms and soaps do and highlights the elements the survey's said were "cool" largely just using the world previously imagined with quite often uncreative additions and extensions to the existing work.
I wish somebody would make sequel versions of famious paintings to illustrate my point...
Lets just separate them for 100s of years until they cool down... 2 nations with a big wall.... that will work! We just have to get them to agree where to put the wall ;-) How about along the legal borders? oh...wait...
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act
George Orwell
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
Wikileaks can't win. If they release unedited source materials they get attacked, if they work with the major newspapers to edit the releases they get attacked. Not even honest attacks, the big ones lately have been easy to disprove but they continued to be promoted. The whole point of the military plot to undermine Wikileaks was to remove their credibility and likability; which they are doing whether or not their hands are directly involved in the things going on.
Wikileaks suffered from lack of visibility until the massive attack was recently launched; all those useful leaks over the years and people didn't know who they were or what they were doing until now --- but they heard about some of the news stories powered by their work over that span. People must know what they are doing or they won't know why to support them or oppose them (although people seem just fine opposing those they know nothing about.)
Some people, possibly most Americans are stupid; HALF are below average....
The rest of us get upset when you tell use the obvious and are just being argumentative and literal minded. It is a democracy just like the "1st democracy" in ROME thousands of years ago-- not literally democracy (narrow minded) because that was NOT possible millenniums ago in "simple society."
Democracy picks the reps, there are various systems on how that works (largely hacked.) The reps democratically vote for you with various systems on that (largely hacked, or DoS in the US Senate.) Repeated all over at all levels is the democratic process (functioning or not) because its fundamentally democratic; but practically not an extremely ideal literal minded implementation which is impossible and not worth serious consideration.
Your distribution is not linux! It came with more than just the kernel. Or its not linux, its compiled linux-- only the kernel source code is linux...
Amy Goodman probably already gets death threats from foxtards.
They bribe to get ISO to approve the format which nobody does yet on a fast track when they already have one that had to do the process. It shows ISO isn't honest and doesn't function well enough to sustain an attack.
They bribe governments to start Microsoft addictions at low prices and high bribes or even charity "donations." ...Microsoft!
Now with governments having over a decade of problems with their Microsoft addictions started looking for standardization to avoid many big problems CAUSED by Microsoft we have Microsoft bribing them to solve the problems they created by standardizing upon
Corruption and ignorance continues well funded.
Fractional lending involves over leverage and yes that happens plenty; the limitations/regulations on that fraction as well as a physical limitation prevented the downward spirals around the world competing for investment and economic growth; so the next logical step was to remove the limitations and by going abstract as well as moving conceptually from CREDIT to DEBT allowed lending to continue towards the maximum levels possible-- trumping the escalation that was going on already. Its less a matter of GOLD and more one of the continual progression down into the rabbit hole with no utopia in sight and the path is not infinite.
We never really moved far from the physical, we simply moved from the 1 fixed item of gold to whatever makes your money worth using which was OIL -- its all about oil dollars and how you needed dollars to buy oil until recent years as it migrates and diversifies plus other factors undermine the reasons to have dollars; lowering their relative value in addition to the high (and unreported) inflation etc. It'll get worse as OIL becomes less important and US exports continue to dry up-- the only thing left will be the US Stock exchanges (Casinos) which operate in dollars. We need to corner the COFFEE market with US dollars to make up for the OIL decline (the 2nd most traded commodity) or we could enter into water privatization which some want to create as the new OIL. The next generation of this game is likely to move away from a few global necessities like coffee, water, maybe CO2 but some sort of system around the economic growth of nations which has nothing to do with lifestyle or even probably production - more like new gambling games as we see new games invented in the USA, almost desperately (Enron)-- nations competing for "investment" to raise the value in their money; again something we see more and more in the USA-- the old capital system being dumped by the investors and left for small banks and the government to do loans because they are less and less interested in REAL items. (to the point where they don't even bother to hold onto the paper work for your house they want to kick you out from.)
I'm possibly not being as clear as I'd like on this; hope the general idea is there. I can't see it becoming completely baseless but it can be so removed from the tangible you never know what you bought.... Maybe it could be almost entirely devoid of reality?
As much as I agree not on the grounds that there is a huge difference between the two systems for which I do not think there is (somebody else explained that) I do not agree that the old system would have greatly benefited us if we had kept it - it does not matter how good either one would be long term because the decisions and victors are decided over the short term moves (as in decades not centuries or an idealistic forever.)
Fractional lending started outside the USA, and it allowed the banks to get richer and the boosted economy with more capital than actually existed. This resulted in many good things along with the bad which resulted in more fractional lending and an increase in the whole pattern. Others wanted it too so they followed along. These things happen because the rich as well as much of the public cares only about their job their kids and their personal wealth - eventually the promise of a better economy wins (along with greed etc.) The system which becomes a casino with good payout draws external "capital" into the game -- so the USA played loose with too many things and brought in greed from around the world while making fake wealth riding on the wave of excitement over easy money. depressions, many recessions... and other problems resulted.
A part of the wealth of the USA and its edge over other nations was created by playing these unscrupulous games and it continues to extremes today with seemingly no limits where it will collapse or show restraint (the "reforms" didn't even put is back in order, not that we were before but we are not even back there.) At this point its not creating much real wealth or benefits; we are past the point of diminishing returns; however, we can't back up, go into deflation, negative "growth" on the intangible stuff that makes up about half or more the economy without lowering the capital investment etc. Everything is in such a complex interconnected web its not something we can safely diffuse.
This is where I agree with you, the previous system while not differing greatly was tangible and understandable and it was simple. The more complexity the less we can regulate and restrain problems. So I'm for something manageable at the expense of the benefits - because especially in a democracy, the public needs to be able to understand enough to hire (elect) competent management. Now even professors on the stuff can't understand the things going on, forget about regulators, the press and the public - so a minority exploits the knowledge (likely because they made it and couldn't understand it themselves if they hadn't designed it.)
So while its all fine and good to talk about ideals and believe that things were previously different when they were not - we get a lot of good along with the bad which means that most people will make the bad decisions just like how Casinos never have a shortage of suckers.
Those links were great!
The largest Washington protests not only got downplayed but some of the biggest in history were almost entirely ignored. I'm thinking of some of the early anti war protests that hardly had coverage and many people I knew didn't know about them or that they outnumbered most (perhaps all) the Vietnam protests in size.
I've been to some protests and while they were only a few thousand, I knew how many people where there because I know how big a crowd that size is (my high school as that large) but the local news ranged from thousand down to 500. Fox news was there and their man gathered the 6-8 republican supporters against the back of our crowd and filmed them as a group which was portrayed as non-staged and because of the direction didn't give as much of a picture as to how few of them there were. I know because I was board and counted all them that afternoon. (Assuming they wouldn't just stand around looking like they were with the protesters and would have opposing signage.) I also followed around the fox news guy to see what he was up to; along with spotting 4 undercover cops (that makes a fun game.)
Yet when Glenn Beck or or some tea baggers are less than 15k in size they get more attention than 100k do.
let me help you with this:
http://politicalcompass.org/
The system will not allow somebody get elected who is threatens to disrupt those in power today. The best you can do is end up in a few party primaries like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich and quickly be marginalized by the party elite, the press, the tv media, and even big donors. You think its bad for 3rd parties? Well, the people within the parties get calmly screwed and setup in more covert ways-- With Nader, all you get is some transparency because they have no incentive to be as nice.... That is, if you pay attention to the 3rd party at all because the press sure does not tell you about the dirty tricks.
Obama could be great; however, it does not matter about him personally or what he tries to accomplish - he is a pragmatist and totally willing to compromise over ideals, ethics, etc. THAT is why he was allowed to proceed despite being an untested outsider -- Hillary would have won if Obama couldn't be managed. (The party elite were largely in her camp at the beginning- but they are just 1 of the weaker factions.)
Palin's personal email had nothing to do with the "sanctity" of the election process! I object even to the use of sanctity, the election process is a joke and is so violated he could have hacked some voting machines and not lowered it much.
Reporters looking for a meaningless scandal or Fox "news" trying to wreak the opposition are doing the same thing with the same intent as much as possible within the law --- following around politicians with long range mics trying to record something -- "reporting" anything they happen to pick up instead of chucking the footage of a candidate farting or tripping as being irrelevant.
Palin's inability to secure her own email with a decent password was her fault. They should be glad he didn't just watch and inform the democrats what she was up to (nothing, she wasn't doing 'strategery' so not likely much there.)
What about comedians? or interviewers? They didn't even have to try to make her look stupid but when they did--- they had huge results--- possibly trying to affect the national election (or get ratings.) For example, the Canadian radio show that committed fraud in the name of comedy by calling Palin as the president of France and making her look bad (which again she helped.)
This kid should have been treated like anybody else messing with a public official-- the fact Palin was running for a high position shouldn't matter. If he broke into YOUR email account you'd be lucky if the police even bothered to visit him.... or even his boss's email for that matter.
California has a 1 year budget cycle that has to be fought out all the time which wastes time; it should be 2 year cycles. It takes 2/3 vote to get budgets which means its not majority rule its super majority and it has been in worse shape for years than the broken filibuster US senate has been for just 2 years. They don't have a filibuster problem, they wrote the problem INTO the process.
Most the CA budget is set by laws not by the budgeting process. This makes it even more difficult to adapt/change quickly because so much of it is allocated in a distributed way that is time consuming to touch and independent of other budgetary concerns. If you want to cut something its a big fight that has to happen outside the budget debate so the actual planning of just how much you need to compromise among many areas is removed-- its hard to say I need to cut down on eating out when I can't also consider all the other items I spend money on and make a relative judgment. This is why budgeting needs to have a lot of things available on the table during the process.
Taxes are based on the economy. bad economy. people are so selfish and short sighted they see surplus and want it back instead of saving for rainy days. We can run on debt until times get better; however, the reality is that people in the know have figured out that we will never get back to the good times of decades past so they are for a change thinking ahead; while others just want to gut public service from the government because they view government as for the corporations and not for the people.
Then there is the illegal immigrant problem in CA which harms the economy and lowers tax revenue while adding government expenses. sorry but that is how it is. Make them legal and you boost revenue and the economy; however, then the cheap bastards will hire more illegals (because they are cheap to exploit) so you need to punish people who exploit illegals (or at least make them pay min wage and register with gov for tax purposes.) Now, I don't think the problem is #1 but its a contributing factor and hardly anybody can reasonably debate the issue because emotional mobs on either side (or both) go after them. The immigrant quota system is totally wrong but I don't see that getting fixed anytime soon either; its too long term for citizens to contemplate.
CA also needs to raise taxes. selfish pricks want everything for nothing; well the rich want no taxes and think they need nothing because they have all the money (yet seem to forget police/fire and tons of gov services they do benefit from directly; probably unaware of what an indirect benefit even is.)
CA has HIGH sales taxes. This should be lowered and income taxes should rise. I shouldn't have to explain the benefits of this; if you need it, then you probably need to learn some more.
CA doesn't get enough federal AID. They pay more in federal taxes than they get back unlike every southern state-- CA state may be broke but its people support all the broke ass states in the nation who get tons of federal support to keep them from going broke. I'd be just fine with CA protecting its people from underpaying their federal income tax - which they could do.... what a fight that would be! I'm ok because I'm in MN and we also support the loser states federally so losing CA's money wouldn't change it much for us; we are shafted by the south as well.
Some people seem to revel in CA going down but they are an economic powerhouse helping prop this nation up; they are 8th in the world if considered with other countries. That is a big economy people! They can afford some tax increases with a few cuts-- its not so much about cutting as it is the system is broken and that results in these problems. Common sense is to TREAT THE DISEASE not just amputate (and become like Louisiana; government does impact the well being of the state, its not just the weather in CA that attracts people.)