I work with [GM] and they squeeze every penny they can from suppliers in order to maximize their profit.
Correct. Imagine you're a Tier1 supplier for GM. GM suddenly tells you:
You MUST cut 5% off the price of part "45-293d (rotor assy)" or we'll find another supplier.
And then GM does it to you again the next year. Then the next. Then... well, you get the idea.
This 5%/yr reduction and net180 terms are morally criminal. The Big3 automakers love it, and have invested a good amount in B2B arrangements to continue this (their) advantage.
Helpful hint that no one does. Here's how to turn into a "rich person" while keeping sane. If you save just 10% of your income, starting today, each year, in 20-30 years, you'll be right there... but you'll have done it organically and have your common sense about you.
FUCKING RADICAL! If you go around advising people to save money, you'll WRECK THE ECONOMY! People have to SPEND SPEND SPEND in order to support the economy. TERRORIST!! Just buy an SUV, and everything will be A-OK. AAAAAAGH! It's the END OF THE WOOOOOORLD!
I don't have a link readily available, but it seems that 1 billion birds are killed in the US annually by collisions with windows. I am hard pressed, therefore, to care about the occasional bird or bat being accidentally thwacked by a wind-turbine blade. We should dot the US with these turbines.
This is the goddamn thing that people can't get into their heads. The same thing happening to information networks is happening to business in general. As long as people try to increase the velocity of transactions, they invariably open themselves up to more fraud. After all, we now live in the age of "identity fraud"... all made possible by merchants who want to do business with a voice and a number, instead of a verifiable person and cash.
The DPH is coming, and it'll happen EXACTLY as you've painted it: some little switch left in the wrong position on the wrong day. And then people will die, the talking heads will start assessing blame, and the fucking Congress will pass laws making certain citizen actions strong felonies... all because some corporate executive wanted to save another 5% this year on his IT support costs.
In 2002, the US Congress voted on, and passed, the "Iraq War Resolution"; go google it. Was it a "Declaration"? No. But it was good enough to satisfy the Congress itself that GWB was granted all the power he needed to wage war in Iraq (via the terminology of simply using the US military). The SCOTUS hasn't even burped on the issue.
BTW, both Kerry and Edwards voted YES on that Resolution (as well did Feinstein, Lieberman, Clinton, Rockefeller, and in total about 77 Senators who really should have known better). Hence, both Kerry and Edwards are equally responsible for the invasion of Iraq, as Bush is. THEY gave Bush a "blank check" for using the US military against Iraq.
Yet nobody is doing anything to stop the price runup's.
Not to nitpick your reasonable complaints, but it is up to YOU to not indulge in the SUV insanity in America. There are over 20 million of those fucking things on America's roads, and the sales are continuing. THOSE are what's "driving" up the price of gasoline. And there's nothing you're particularly willing to do about it ("waah! individual rights! if I wanna buy a gas-guzzler, that's my choice! waah!")...
... so you're going to have to fucking ADAPT. YOU are the one who is going to have to go out and get a more energy-efficient vehicle. YOU are the one who has to "vote with your OWN dollar" and convince auto manufacturers to make a "people mover" vehicle that weighs 600LB dripping wet and gets 80mpg.
That senator or govenor you're voting in may have more ambitions than just helping your state or their constituents.
Bush's real constituents are the wealthy, and particularly the oil-wealth families in America and abroad in Europe. Kerry's real constituents are the wealthy, particularly the urban financial families... again, in America and abroad in Europe. Neither of these candidates give a flying fuck about some welder working in an auto factory in Toledo OH.
Knowing these facts, it is simply bizarre that about 100 million people (about 99 million who are NOT in the constituencies noted above) will cast votes for one or another these candidates.
Damned straight. Iraq was disarmed, and -- oh, lookie what happened: IT WAS INVADED. If there's anything that the Neo-Conservatives in America have taught North Korea and Iran, is that they'd better ramp up their nuclear weapons programs before 100K troops show up at their borders, looking to "democratize" them. {spit}
My country has gone completely insane. It's the Vietnam War all over again. And we Americans are going to get what's coming to us, in spades. America has richly earned a "suitcase nuke" arriving covertly in a shipping container in NY harbor. BOOM!
Not after the standard Microsoft DRM-enabled photocopier hits the office floor. But this tongue-in-cheekiness reminds me that copiers apparently DO reject copying of certain items like currency. How long, honestly, do you think it will take before America concedes the point and puts a "document authorization mark" (like the 2D barcodes used by UPS) on each document made, which copiers will check before copying? Sure, we have billions and billions of pages of "legacy" documents with no such mark, but they could be stamped... and we can see where this is going.
I can only assume Ballmer's got an MBA (too lazy to goog for it now)... so I can then only assume that after 6 years of college, this man is unable to distinguish copyright infringement from actual theft.
Or that those criminals represent a very small minority of the population and therefore we should not increase the number of laws restricting the freedom of the rest of us "do-gooders"?
Correct. If you have enough laws, you make everyone into a criminal. Is that stable? No.
Thankfully we have idiotic cunts like you to put us in our place.
Correct.
But don't worry about my opinion, because I'm just a "complete moron".
Very correct.
The vast majority of Americans are good, intelligent, hard working people.
Incorrect. The vast majority of Americans are insular and channel their tax payments into a vast military machine that attacks the rest of the world with disturbing frequency. Polls in 2002 showed that a majority of Americans so-polled thought that Iraq was DIRECTLY INVOLVED involved in the 911 attacks. The majority of Americans also believe in a universe-spanning supreme being that provides no evidence for its existence WHATSOEVER. All this, and more, makes Americans the best-educated MORONS that money can buy. They are filled with highly selective facts, and essentially no wisdom.
And that probably applies to you as well. Methinks thou dost protest too much, fuckface. But all this will become academic when the first suitcase nuke goes off in one of America's cities. After that, it's every man for himself, and I'm going to rather enjoy seeing someone like you through the sights of my CETME.308 battle rifle. {tip of the hat} Later, loser!
I despise the Two-Party Duopoly as much as anyone can, but IRV doesn't subtract rights or options for the electorate. For myself, if IRV were used in the upcoming Presidential election, I'd still choose Ralph Nader only, since he's the only person I really want in the office. Those who don't like IRV can still choose to exercise the single-target vote.
will be effectively countered by my donations to both mainstream parties
If that mechanism is actually in place and has such force, then you will equally find yourself outbid by America's corporations, since you are the "poor, powerless slob" to THEM. Catch a clue, do yourself a favor, and get rid of "bribocracy" thinking.
Now, if we close all of our overseas bases of operation, and we get attacked, where does that leave us?
You've paid hundreds of billions of dollars for a nuclear navy, with many carrier groups holding the finest naval aviators in the world, with nuclear power plants that allow them to cruise for years... and you have the utter gall to think that this has no force? What the hell do you think a nuclear aircraft carrier IS, anyway? It sure as fuck isn't a DEFENSIVE weapon; carriers are meant to bring an entire air force to other nations in the world and attack them.
The 20th Century was filled with examples of American ships offshore of other people's countries, bombarding targets inland. Get a sense of perspective, Ace.
You are simply shitting me. We in America are blessed:
coal
natural gas
nuclear
oil
hydroelectric
solar
wind
tides
geothermal
biomass
We have a vast array of options in generating electrical power, centrally and distributed. Just because there's a status quo of coal+ng+nuclear, doesn't mean that we can't change that. In fact, with ever increasing demand, new plant must (*) be installed all the time... providing continual opportunity to change the character of America's electrical infrastructure.
We can mix generation sources with spread, to achieve harmony with regional differences with pollution controls and cost variables. But it's going to take work and time... and good gosh, it may actually threaten short-term utility profits. But that's OK -- that's what the power of government is for: to force the Capitalists to make the investments in the country's future that they can also enjoy with the rest of us.
(*) California has discovered that you MUST plan for a future of increased energy demand (combined with plans for conservation). So, in skipping over the "must" in building generation plants, they could only encounter the "must" of paying high prices for their power. One way or another, you MUST pay for the future in energy. Californians are fucking morons. They are still putting off the day of full energy reckoning.
Iraq is not a US, EU or UN state; it is a soverign country.
Very few people in America actually believe that. And in practical terms, sovereignty cannot be exercised until Iraq purges itself of foreign military elements. In a sick way, I can only blame the Iraqis for this; they failed to squash their own asshole leader (Hussein), and opened themselves up to invasion by another asshole leader (GWB). But in counterpoint, Iraqis may find it a little easier to purge the American military, than to purge its own embedded leadership; Americans after all are foreign invaders in Iraq, and (despite current American "thought") that is an anathema to the native citizens.
GWB is all too likely to continue being the US President. That means that Iran will be invaded by early 2006 at the latest. Sovereignty in the Middle East is simply an endangered species, and it won't be restored until the necessary event takes place: a suitcase nuke goes off in New York City.
No, she's just taking the least measurable swipe at a tiny tentacle of the Bush Administration, just as a symbolic gesture since, you know, everybody has to support the President in a time of war, haven't you heard?
Compared to the Democrats for the last 3 years, I've seen jellyfish with more spine. As a recent article on Counterpunch said, Democrats attack Nader more forcefully than the Bush Administration. That oughta tell you all you need to know.
I think he is implying that a mature and stable society would not make wholesale, knee-jerk changes to the rules of law because of one out of 260 million people commits an aberrant act.
YES, YES, FOR THE LUVAGOD! That's exactly it.
Why do so many people get confused by my sig? I swear, Americans are about as dense as the depleted uranium they are busily firing all over Afghanistan and Iraq.
Imagine a society where murdering people is illegal.
Then imagine someone murders someone.
Continue to imagine that the legal system prosecutes the suspect.
Are you catching on yet, cupcake? Or are you under the vastly unwise and mistaken impression that continued law breaking is not evidence that more law is needed?
I mean, fuuuuck, you Americans are complete morons. How on Earth do you survive? I was born here, I live here, but I still can't figure out how the rest of you all get through the day without falling under a bus or something.
Using SOA we can engineer wireless web services to deliver frictionless communities. It will allow us to optimize out-of-the-box portals and extend our enterprise [...] TCO will be minimied due to the increasing ability to drive magnetic markets.
YOU'RE HIRED! Is $120K, plus relocation, plus expenses, plus company car, plus capuccino maker, plus 10K stock options, too little?
{SMACK}
Oh shit, that's right, it's after 2002 and "we now know" the New Economy was a complete fraud. Get out of my sight and bring me another tall double latte.
I recall a couple of photos (in Nat'l Geographic?) from some folks who were on Rainier when St. Helens blew. The 1st photo showed a person in the foreground, with the initial burst out of St. Helens in the background. The 2nd photo showed the foreground person being knocked on her ass, while the background showed St. Helen's burst pluming upward rapidly.
Like any earthquake in the area, St. Helens can affect Rainier. The question is: Is Rainier stable enough to shrug these off? In 1980, the answer to that question was YES. It seems likely that if St. Helens' next eruption is as moderate as is being predicted, combined with Rainier's continued quiescence, then the answer will still be YES.
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I work with [GM] and they squeeze every penny they can from suppliers in order to maximize their profit.
... well, you get the idea.
Correct. Imagine you're a Tier1 supplier for GM. GM suddenly tells you:
You MUST cut 5% off the price of part "45-293d (rotor assy)" or we'll find another supplier.
And then GM does it to you again the next year. Then the next. Then
This 5%/yr reduction and net180 terms are morally criminal. The Big3 automakers love it, and have invested a good amount in B2B arrangements to continue this (their) advantage.
Helpful hint that no one does. Here's how to turn into a "rich person" while keeping sane. If you save just 10% of your income, starting today, each year, in 20-30 years, you'll be right there... but you'll have done it organically and have your common sense about you.
FUCKING RADICAL! If you go around advising people to save money, you'll WRECK THE ECONOMY! People have to SPEND SPEND SPEND in order to support the economy. TERRORIST!! Just buy an SUV, and everything will be A-OK. AAAAAAGH! It's the END OF THE WOOOOOORLD!
I don't have a link readily available, but it seems that 1 billion birds are killed in the US annually by collisions with windows. I am hard pressed, therefore, to care about the occasional bird or bat being accidentally thwacked by a wind-turbine blade. We should dot the US with these turbines.
You deserve the long-coveted "Score:6".
... all made possible by merchants who want to do business with a voice and a number, instead of a verifiable person and cash.
... all because some corporate executive wanted to save another 5% this year on his IT support costs.
This is the goddamn thing that people can't get into their heads. The same thing happening to information networks is happening to business in general. As long as people try to increase the velocity of transactions, they invariably open themselves up to more fraud. After all, we now live in the age of "identity fraud"
The DPH is coming, and it'll happen EXACTLY as you've painted it: some little switch left in the wrong position on the wrong day. And then people will die, the talking heads will start assessing blame, and the fucking Congress will pass laws making certain citizen actions strong felonies
An apt metaphor. Following it, we have to consider how we individuals could get stung, hence how we can avoid such a fate.
In 2002, the US Congress voted on, and passed, the "Iraq War Resolution"; go google it. Was it a "Declaration"? No. But it was good enough to satisfy the Congress itself that GWB was granted all the power he needed to wage war in Iraq (via the terminology of simply using the US military). The SCOTUS hasn't even burped on the issue.
BTW, both Kerry and Edwards voted YES on that Resolution (as well did Feinstein, Lieberman, Clinton, Rockefeller, and in total about 77 Senators who really should have known better). Hence, both Kerry and Edwards are equally responsible for the invasion of Iraq, as Bush is. THEY gave Bush a "blank check" for using the US military against Iraq.
Yet nobody is doing anything to stop the price runup's.
...
... so you're going to have to fucking ADAPT. YOU are the one who is going to have to go out and get a more energy-efficient vehicle. YOU are the one who has to "vote with your OWN dollar" and convince auto manufacturers to make a "people mover" vehicle that weighs 600LB dripping wet and gets 80mpg.
... again, in America and abroad in Europe. Neither of these candidates give a flying fuck about some welder working in an auto factory in Toledo OH.
Not to nitpick your reasonable complaints, but it is up to YOU to not indulge in the SUV insanity in America. There are over 20 million of those fucking things on America's roads, and the sales are continuing. THOSE are what's "driving" up the price of gasoline. And there's nothing you're particularly willing to do about it ("waah! individual rights! if I wanna buy a gas-guzzler, that's my choice! waah!")
That senator or govenor you're voting in may have more ambitions than just helping your state or their constituents.
Bush's real constituents are the wealthy, and particularly the oil-wealth families in America and abroad in Europe. Kerry's real constituents are the wealthy, particularly the urban financial families
Knowing these facts, it is simply bizarre that about 100 million people (about 99 million who are NOT in the constituencies noted above) will cast votes for one or another these candidates.
America is doomed.
Notice the reference to oil... Not to the safety of the United States' populace. Oil. Cute.
Operation
Iraqi
Liberation
It would also help to not be sitting above significant oil reserves.
Damned straight. Iraq was disarmed, and -- oh, lookie what happened: IT WAS INVADED. If there's anything that the Neo-Conservatives in America have taught North Korea and Iran, is that they'd better ramp up their nuclear weapons programs before 100K troops show up at their borders, looking to "democratize" them. {spit}
My country has gone completely insane. It's the Vietnam War all over again. And we Americans are going to get what's coming to us, in spades. America has richly earned a "suitcase nuke" arriving covertly in a shipping container in NY harbor. BOOM!
Not after the standard Microsoft DRM-enabled photocopier hits the office floor. But this tongue-in-cheekiness reminds me that copiers apparently DO reject copying of certain items like currency. How long, honestly, do you think it will take before America concedes the point and puts a "document authorization mark" (like the 2D barcodes used by UPS) on each document made, which copiers will check before copying? Sure, we have billions and billions of pages of "legacy" documents with no such mark, but they could be stamped ... and we can see where this is going.
I can only assume Ballmer's got an MBA (too lazy to goog for it now) ... so I can then only assume that after 6 years of college, this man is unable to distinguish copyright infringement from actual theft.
Once the US finds another "Cybersecurity Chief", you are soooooo busted!
Or that those criminals represent a very small minority of the population and therefore we should not increase the number of laws restricting the freedom of the rest of us "do-gooders"?
.308 battle rifle. {tip of the hat} Later, loser!
Correct. If you have enough laws, you make everyone into a criminal. Is that stable? No.
Thankfully we have idiotic cunts like you to put us in our place.
Correct.
But don't worry about my opinion, because I'm just a "complete moron".
Very correct.
The vast majority of Americans are good, intelligent, hard working people.
Incorrect. The vast majority of Americans are insular and channel their tax payments into a vast military machine that attacks the rest of the world with disturbing frequency. Polls in 2002 showed that a majority of Americans so-polled thought that Iraq was DIRECTLY INVOLVED involved in the 911 attacks. The majority of Americans also believe in a universe-spanning supreme being that provides no evidence for its existence WHATSOEVER. All this, and more, makes Americans the best-educated MORONS that money can buy. They are filled with highly selective facts, and essentially no wisdom.
And that probably applies to you as well. Methinks thou dost protest too much, fuckface. But all this will become academic when the first suitcase nuke goes off in one of America's cities. After that, it's every man for himself, and I'm going to rather enjoy seeing someone like you through the sights of my CETME
I despise the Two-Party Duopoly as much as anyone can, but IRV doesn't subtract rights or options for the electorate. For myself, if IRV were used in the upcoming Presidential election, I'd still choose Ralph Nader only, since he's the only person I really want in the office. Those who don't like IRV can still choose to exercise the single-target vote.
will be effectively countered by my donations to both mainstream parties
If that mechanism is actually in place and has such force, then you will equally find yourself outbid by America's corporations, since you are the "poor, powerless slob" to THEM. Catch a clue, do yourself a favor, and get rid of "bribocracy" thinking.
Now, if we close all of our overseas bases of operation, and we get attacked, where does that leave us?
... and you have the utter gall to think that this has no force? What the hell do you think a nuclear aircraft carrier IS, anyway? It sure as fuck isn't a DEFENSIVE weapon; carriers are meant to bring an entire air force to other nations in the world and attack them.
You've paid hundreds of billions of dollars for a nuclear navy, with many carrier groups holding the finest naval aviators in the world, with nuclear power plants that allow them to cruise for years
The 20th Century was filled with examples of American ships offshore of other people's countries, bombarding targets inland. Get a sense of perspective, Ace.
- coal
- natural gas
- nuclear
- oil
- hydroelectric
- solar
- wind
- tides
- geothermal
- biomass
We have a vast array of options in generating electrical power, centrally and distributed. Just because there's a status quo of coal+ng+nuclear, doesn't mean that we can't change that. In fact, with ever increasing demand, new plant must (*) be installed all the timeWe can mix generation sources with spread, to achieve harmony with regional differences with pollution controls and cost variables. But it's going to take work and time
(*) California has discovered that you MUST plan for a future of increased energy demand (combined with plans for conservation). So, in skipping over the "must" in building generation plants, they could only encounter the "must" of paying high prices for their power. One way or another, you MUST pay for the future in energy. Californians are fucking morons. They are still putting off the day of full energy reckoning.
Iraq is not a US, EU or UN state; it is a soverign country.
Very few people in America actually believe that. And in practical terms, sovereignty cannot be exercised until Iraq purges itself of foreign military elements. In a sick way, I can only blame the Iraqis for this; they failed to squash their own asshole leader (Hussein), and opened themselves up to invasion by another asshole leader (GWB). But in counterpoint, Iraqis may find it a little easier to purge the American military, than to purge its own embedded leadership; Americans after all are foreign invaders in Iraq, and (despite current American "thought") that is an anathema to the native citizens.
GWB is all too likely to continue being the US President. That means that Iran will be invaded by early 2006 at the latest. Sovereignty in the Middle East is simply an endangered species, and it won't be restored until the necessary event takes place: a suitcase nuke goes off in New York City.
Is she really that naive?
No, she's just taking the least measurable swipe at a tiny tentacle of the Bush Administration, just as a symbolic gesture since, you know, everybody has to support the President in a time of war, haven't you heard?
Compared to the Democrats for the last 3 years, I've seen jellyfish with more spine. As a recent article on Counterpunch said, Democrats attack Nader more forcefully than the Bush Administration. That oughta tell you all you need to know.
I think he is implying that a mature and stable society would not make wholesale, knee-jerk changes to the rules of law because of one out of 260 million people commits an aberrant act.
YES, YES, FOR THE LUVAGOD! That's exactly it.
Why do so many people get confused by my sig? I swear, Americans are about as dense as the depleted uranium they are busily firing all over Afghanistan and Iraq.
Imagine a society where murdering people is illegal.
Then imagine someone murders someone.
Continue to imagine that the legal system prosecutes the suspect.
Are you catching on yet, cupcake? Or are you under the vastly unwise and mistaken impression that continued law breaking is not evidence that more law is needed?
I mean, fuuuuck, you Americans are complete morons. How on Earth do you survive? I was born here, I live here, but I still can't figure out how the rest of you all get through the day without falling under a bus or something.
Using SOA we can engineer wireless web services to deliver frictionless communities. It will allow us to optimize out-of-the-box portals and extend our enterprise [...] TCO will be minimied due to the increasing ability to drive magnetic markets.
YOU'RE HIRED! Is $120K, plus relocation, plus expenses, plus company car, plus capuccino maker, plus 10K stock options, too little?
{SMACK}
Oh shit, that's right, it's after 2002 and "we now know" the New Economy was a complete fraud. Get out of my sight and bring me another tall double latte.
I recall a couple of photos (in Nat'l Geographic?) from some folks who were on Rainier when St. Helens blew. The 1st photo showed a person in the foreground, with the initial burst out of St. Helens in the background. The 2nd photo showed the foreground person being knocked on her ass, while the background showed St. Helen's burst pluming upward rapidly.
Like any earthquake in the area, St. Helens can affect Rainier. The question is: Is Rainier stable enough to shrug these off? In 1980, the answer to that question was YES. It seems likely that if St. Helens' next eruption is as moderate as is being predicted, combined with Rainier's continued quiescence, then the answer will still be YES.