This is not at all ready to replace Word. I have to read and edit (often quite heavily...sigh) dozens of student papers at a time and Word is superb at making that process fast and smooth. Writely would have me pulling out my hair in no time because it is far too sluggish (not to mention simply not as good at editing and commenting).
It is probably great for people who don't do much word processing but until it gets significantly faster it is simply not a good substitute for the desktop version of Word.
oh.. as an aside, Open Office also falls far short of Word in the editing/commenting department. This sucks but it is the only thing keeping me from being able to switch to, say, Linux.
25 years ago if you wanted to attend college in China you needed to score high on the entrance exam. Even then only about 4 or 5 in 100 were successful. The percentage of high quality schools to lower quality schools was relatively high.
Today there are MANY more lower and mid-level quality schools (like where there used to be 3 or 4 schools in a large city there are now 20 or 30) and out of 100 students desiring to attend college, probably 70 or 80 will qualify. If you have enough money, and many Chinese today have enough, you can get in somewhere for sure or you can attend school overseas. The gist of it, if you want to go to college you can (of course that has to be qualified by the sad fact that if you are one of the 800 million or so peasants who don't have much money you must rely on your test scores alone. You can still go, you just have to do OK on the exam).
One part of the real issue is that the best schools (Beijing University, aka Bei Da, for example) are still very difficult to qualify for. Not too dissimilar from Harvard or Oxford or some such institution. The other, perhaps more important, part of the real issue is that failing to attend college is a sure ticket to poverty while making it into a top school is like winning the lottery... i.e. you are set. Given the radical disparity of income levels in China (think, 80% live like poor Appalachians in a tar paper shack while a tiny minority command more money than the robber barons of old and even the moderately wealthy may make enough in one year to equal the lifetime savings of a poor farmer, of which there are many) and the fact that wealthier city dwellers have access to much better education, healthcare, food, general infrastructure and luxuries than poorer rural residents, it is not surprising that pressure to make it into the better schools is high.
You also have to consider that fact that doing well on the "Big Exam" has been a potent force for status and prestige in China for many hundreds of years. Before modern times it was the Imperial Exam that everyone wanted to excel in. People would live and die by their scores on that exam and it's influence on the lives of those who succeeded and those who failed is legendary. The college entrance exam is the "Big Exam" of today and, while not as huge a deal (and not as exclusive) as the old Imperial Exam it is nonetheless something that those eager to go to college place a tremendous amount of focus on.
Last, there is nothing in the U.S. that really compares, in regards to significance, the power of China's entrance exam. Not the SAT/ACT or even the GRE and it's various forms. This makes it difficult for most Americans to relate to the real power of this exam.
Exactly! I get so fed up with the anti-chinese bias that plays out here on Slashdot. I am a white American, a former journalist no less, who speaks Chinese, travels to China frequently, has spent months at a time living there and has a wife (who IS Chinese) who does research into media bias (re: China and the U.S... both ways, China has tons of bias but the U.S., most likely suprisingly for many of you, is NO better. Not almost as bad, not kind of bad but no better at all).
I'd estimate that only a tiny percentage of American's have even the faintest clue of what life in China is really like and they don't realize it. Worse, they genuinely think they know. Ugh, it's painful to listen to them.
I was quite happy to see this article. About time someone found an effective way to show this bias... not that most china bashers will pay attention... they already "know" the truth.
p.s. now regarding your father... he needs a reality check as well or he'll be just as unreasonable as the china-bashers here on Slashdot.
"...the Japanese were getting A-bombed..."? Huh? What? The Japanese were engaging in a rascist orgy of murder, destruction and enslavement throughout the far east and south pacific. The white guys (whom the Japanese had attacked) simply stopped them (and then propped up the government, funded the regrowth of their industry, secured their borders and basically gave them the tools necessary to become the economic power that Japan is today)... and the a-bomb, which saved the lives of a lot of those savior white guys, was instrumental in that. Don't ignore all the bad things that the white guys have done but don't apply your B.S. filter to the good things either. The a-bomb was a bullet to the head of a racist international, rapist-murderer. Oh, and if you still think the a-bomb was a bad thing, ask some elderly Chinese or Koreans (i.e. people who actually lived through what the Japanese did) what they think about it. Might find they wish the white guys had had a few dozen more a-bombs to drop.
My kids dread arrival at my house? Total buzz kill, dude. However, seeing as how we have tons of GBA games, PC Games, console and even a few crufty old board games (ever play Middle Earth Risk? Rocks.) and seeing as how in my pre-parent days I honed my geek gaming skills on the likes of AD&D, Steve Jackson Games, GURPS, Call of Cthulu, Squad Leader, Soccer, Racquetball, Football (yes! Sports that encourage fitness!!) and more recently America's Army, yadda yadda, blah, blah AND seeing as how the kids have their pick of (wireless) Mac, PC or Linux (Ubuntu) use for their interweb needs AND seeing as how we like good tunes played loudly (well, OK, my wife has crap taste in music... she grew up in China during the cultural revolution so I cut her some slack), tasty snacks available in abundance and not getting up too early (unless one really wants to) AND seeing as how the house is spacious and comfy (i.e. no B.S. pottery barn decorated "Don't touch that!" rooms)... I think the kids actually look forward to being home.;)
You left out all of the countries the U.S. has invaded... typical.
Anyway, I will call bullsh!t on you and here is why: Tibet has been part of China for hundreds of years (and if you still insist on claiming Tibet was a separate country then realize that to the Chinese, it is not thus it is not an invasion to them. Important psychological point if nothing else). The only violence with India and the old USSR involved border disputes, not invasions. Korea?! Hello!!! The U.S. crossed the 38th parallel and parked on the Korea/China border, all while U.S. commander Gen. MacArthur spoke publicly about wanting to nuke China. It was only after all of that that China went into Korea. What the hell do you expect them to do? If China had been parked on the Rio Grande while their commander threatened nukes, wouldn't we move to push them back? Vietnam is the only example of China invading another country. Period (and that invasion was, in part, precipitated by cross border violence so it wasn't like China just went to kick ass). Compare that to the U.S. and China comes across as a hell of a lot better international neighbor than the U.S. Oh, and your "etc."... what is that about? There are no etceteras. You, Mr. Anonymous Coward, are simply a typical example of western (American, really) ignorance. Sad but simply part of the majority.
1. I would be surprised if the U.S. is not doing pretty much the same thing to China. Does anyone seriously think that this is a 1 way thing?
2. Why is everyone getting so worked up over the "threat" China poses? Economically, yes, China has and will continue to have a huge impact on us. However, look at which country is famous for invading others and which has almost no history of armed intervention at all! Since the establishment of Communist China in 1949 how many countries has China invaded/militarily intervened in? In that same period how many has the U.S. invaded/militarily intervened in? Pretty obvious who the real threat is.
Bzzt... wrong. The Amish restaurant near my house (I live an area with huge herds of Amish) uses Windows at their registers.
I'll buy the DVD in China... this weekend...for $1
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Star Wars Sickout
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Since I'm going to be in Shanghai next week I will just pick up a copy of the DVD as it's probably been out for a few weeks now..lol.
I saw Shrek2 for sale there at least a month BEFORE the movie even opened in the U.S. It cost about $1.25 and was not some crap screen grab, rather it was just as good as any legal DVD. I was stunned and couldn't figure out how the heck they got a perfect copy before anything was released! I mean, after the DVD is out sure... but before the movie even hit the screens? Sheesh!
I saw something on CNN about it later but I remember it was available a month or more before CNN was claiming it had been seen on the streets. Someone has some serious connections and/or deeeep pockets.
This Developmental "Evolution" stuff is very much in doubt. I propose that people consider the concept of Developmental Creation Science.
Yes. It's the theory that much technological development was supernaturally begat by a Creator. The idea that man develops technology in an evolutionary manner is just absurd! Each of the major kinds of technology was created functionally complete from the beginning and did not "evolve" from some other kind of technology.
Oh, and I think kids should be taught this in school. It's time for them to stop thinking they can control anything. Just let go and let God (so if God intends for them to develop some form of new technology, he'll dump it in their lap. Until that time, they should just sit tight. Maybe take up macrame or watch more TV).
Oh yeah. Vote Republican and join the Pro-Life/Pro-War coalition: We take the hyp out of hypocrisy.
I was interested in Firefly after reading your comment. However, Firefly's website says, "To run Firefly you will need Windows 98 Second Edition or greater".
That decides it for me as I am a Mac user. It appears I don't have an option to Skype.
The law, meant to cover auctioneers in the state of Ohio, accidentally included ebayers simply because they too sell at auction.
It was unintended and the creator of the bill, once the full ramifications of it were pointed out in the media, said that it would be fixed ASAP to exclude ebayers. It will not be passed in to law and was never meant to affect ebay sellers.
This was in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this past Sunday. The issue is moot (now, the issue of politicians who don't have much of a clue, that is ripe for discussion).
I recently moved away from Florida. While there, the drinkable ground water level dropped significantly each year.
The aquifer that supplies that region extends up into Georgia and slopes downhill into Florida. As more water is sucked out for use by Floridians (for lawns, golf courses and industry) brackish water is drawn in, permanantly contaminating the aquifer. This trend is moving steadily south as the water level drops each year and can be seen by maping the increase in private wells contaminated by salt water (something I was involved in when I lived and worked down there). The trend is startling and rapid. Any increase like the one mentioned in the article will only exacerbate this growing problem.
The aquifer cannot recover from this and increases in temperature (already barely tolerable down there, in my opinion) combined with Florida's constant growth in population (inexplicable to me:) all point to trouble in the future with the water supply down there (although some of the worst water abusers were paper pulp mills and golf courses, rather than private citizens).
The article says, "The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate..."
That means 420 responded. If 200 claim they are being coerce, that is a rather more significant percentage than I expected.
A previous commenter said that since only 200 claimed this coercion, the majority were NOT coerced. Looks to me like the significant figure here is that 48% of this group of scientists are claiming they have been pressured to change results. That is pretty significant in my view.
p.s. Upon further reflection, to be fair, 48% IS a minority so I suppose the pro-Bush crowd can still path themselves on the back and claim their version of the moral high ground. At this rate, the U.S. will soon enough be drilling for oil without restraint, be pro-life while killing thousands of non-americans, be purging "closed minded" evolutionists from our public school faculties and teaching our children that dinosaurs are, in fact, Jesus Horses (hee, hee... I love that one. Courtesy John Stewart). Yee haw. Go U.S.A.
LOL... you seem a tad thick in the head my friend. Let me broaden the argument a bit so you can see past your over simplifications.
If they can charge me over $4 a minute for my stupid mistake, I think I should be allowed to charge them every time they over-billed me. Say, 15% of the overage. I should also be allowed to charge them, say, $4 a minute, for the time I had to waste hanging on the phone waiting for customer service to fix their ignorant billing mistakes. Given the number of mistakes they made (always in their favor, of course) they would have been paying me to use their service.
Unfortunately, I cannot do any of this. I can, however, complain. Thus my posts here. Until they are willing to pay up for their own stupidity, why should I have to pay for mine?
Let me turn your own words around on you... If they screw up they need to pay. We get tired of dealing with simple minded customer service hacks.
Next time, boy, think before you post.
You have to dial the usual 011 to get out of the States then the country code and then a city code (although Macau doesn't have a city code), then the actual number.
No matter, it was poor customer relations to claim I was calling phone sex. Especially when it was really Sprint themselves who were doing the charging. Also, over $4 dollars a minute! Shouldn't that be illegal? Oh well, I learned my lesson and will forever avoid Sprint.
It was 853 (Macau). The call was to a number at the University of Macau. A normal, easily accessible rate for Macau, at the time, was 15 cents per minute.
Sprint charging me over $4 per minute was criminal, in my opinion. Yes I screwed up by not dialing properly but Sprint charging me so much per minute was ridiculous.
Anyone going with Sprint should just be aware that they aren't a customer friendly organization.
But I was a VICTIM!! You can't blame me!!!....LOL, kidding... Seriously, you are right, I was almost as pissed at myself as my wife was.
My own stupidity is a known quantity to me, however. My beef is, in part, that Sprint was perfectly happy to charge a rate that was so high it was extortion and they were unwilling to work with me. My MAJORbeef was that they implied I was calling a phone sex line and, joking about pr0n aside, that is something I find very offensive (and something they could have verified was not true).
Thus, they lost a customer AND get to share the blame with me!:)
Sprint. I remember them well. They provided my long distance and cell for a year. That year will go down in my memory as 365 days of Sprint pooping on me.
Without gettng into the gory details (heck the poop reference was gore enough) of lousy customer service, poor cellular coverage, overbilling, etc. I will present you with the straw (assuming straws weigh several tons and are made of steel) that broke this camel's back.
My wife was in Macau for a week. When I called her I somehow missdialed or simply forgot to dial the access code we normally used for long distance. The call was thus carried by my normal long distance provider, Sprint. We spoke for about 45 minutes.
When the next phone bill came we found that Sprint charged us over $4 per minute! After my wife pried me off of the ceiling, sedated me and cleaned the angry froth off my chin, I called to complain. The call went no where so I spoke to a manager who promptly suggested that I had been calling a phone sex line! (The nerve! Why would I pay for phone sex when there is so much free pr0n on the web?) The number went to a university in Macau for crying out loud! They could easily see/check that.
In the end, they refused to cut the bill at all and I dropped Sprint, vowed never to use them again and promised to do what I am doing here. Spread the word. Oh, and to get back on topic, I guess I won't be using Nextel either, now.
If you thought Ashcroft was a good Attorney General you should see his work as a singer/songwriter! You'll be saying "Holy Sh*t! Is that for real?!"
Give this a listen and I think you'll agree that, in spite of the painfully strained warbling and occasional screechy howl, he makes a much better singer than... well, than an Attorney General
Personally, I find his work to be similar to, but not quite as good as, such other unknown crooners as Seymor Weiner, Fanny Mussel, Uwe Fuchs, Stu Padassol (the one from Gaysport, Ohio, not the one from Dripping Springs, Texas) and the late, almost great, Pat Mydic.
People THINK they do but to someone like me (i.e. a white guy who spends months at a time each year in China, is married to a Chinese woman, is well versed in China's history both recent and ancient and speaks Mandarin), listening to American folks discuss China is almost always very frustrating.
The country is not nearly as oppressive as some of you seem to think. Communism is really just a WORD over there... not an ideology... not anymore. Yes the government has it's problems and for the most part are not too well liked but daily life in China (well, for city dwelling, college educated people anyway) is little different from life here. People own pets, they don't eat them, they have cars, cell phones, high speed internet, live (and thus, not so controlled by the government) news on TV, they go shopping, walk in the park, meet friends for coffee, hit the clubs on Friday and Saturday night or go see a soccer match, whatever.
Many places in China would strike the most ardent neo-conservative as the very height of capitalism. Contrary to what one person posted you CAN talk about/criticise/make fun of the government. I have talked with so very many Chinese about their government and they are usually quite frank. No one is hiding behind their hand whispering, no one is "disappeared". Last time I was there (May-August 2004) there were even some fairly large labor protests in a nortern city. Protests that were not crushed, put down, blocked. We just don't hear about this sort of stuff in the states. Viewed objectively (my wife, a professor of communications, has done much research in the area of media coverage between China and the USA), our government's opinions regarding China, the average citizens beliefs on China and the stories we get about China from our media leave us with a general impression that is, quite simply, wrong and negatively biased.Statistically about equal to the bias you would find in the Chinese press about the USA.
Technologically, China IS rapidly pulling ahead of the U.S.A. in many areas (cell phone technology and IT in particular) and China has it's "Microsofts" waiting in the wings eyeing the world market (the Lenovo Group (formerly known as Legend Group) in particular). Bottom line is, most Americans don't know enough about China to make any sort of accurate commentary regarding it. Yes there are many problems in China and with it's government but it is much closer to life here (once again, in the cities, not the countryside) than you probably think.
$25? I smirk in your general direction!
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I use onesuite.com and pay 2.5 cents a minute within the USA. I pay that same rate for calls to China.
That means that for your "competitive" $25 a month, I could make over 16 and a half hours of calls (to just about anywhere in the world... from any phone... at any time of day... on a regular, echo free phone line no less... and no I don't have to enter a bulky code every time I call... calls from my home automatically bypass the need for a code).
None of the options presented here are that cheap and convenient and until they can at least come close, I will stick with my onesuite.com (which I've used for 2 years now).
Slashdot Mirror
This is not at all ready to replace Word. I have to read and edit (often quite heavily...sigh) dozens of student papers at a time and Word is superb at making that process fast and smooth. Writely would have me pulling out my hair in no time because it is far too sluggish (not to mention simply not as good at editing and commenting).
It is probably great for people who don't do much word processing but until it gets significantly faster it is simply not a good substitute for the desktop version of Word.
oh.. as an aside, Open Office also falls far short of Word in the editing/commenting department. This sucks but it is the only thing keeping me from being able to switch to, say, Linux.
25 years ago if you wanted to attend college in China you needed to score high on the entrance exam. Even then only about 4 or 5 in 100 were successful. The percentage of high quality schools to lower quality schools was relatively high.
Today there are MANY more lower and mid-level quality schools (like where there used to be 3 or 4 schools in a large city there are now 20 or 30) and out of 100 students desiring to attend college, probably 70 or 80 will qualify. If you have enough money, and many Chinese today have enough, you can get in somewhere for sure or you can attend school overseas. The gist of it, if you want to go to college you can (of course that has to be qualified by the sad fact that if you are one of the 800 million or so peasants who don't have much money you must rely on your test scores alone. You can still go, you just have to do OK on the exam).
One part of the real issue is that the best schools (Beijing University, aka Bei Da, for example) are still very difficult to qualify for. Not too dissimilar from Harvard or Oxford or some such institution. The other, perhaps more important, part of the real issue is that failing to attend college is a sure ticket to poverty while making it into a top school is like winning the lottery... i.e. you are set. Given the radical disparity of income levels in China (think, 80% live like poor Appalachians in a tar paper shack while a tiny minority command more money than the robber barons of old and even the moderately wealthy may make enough in one year to equal the lifetime savings of a poor farmer, of which there are many) and the fact that wealthier city dwellers have access to much better education, healthcare, food, general infrastructure and luxuries than poorer rural residents, it is not surprising that pressure to make it into the better schools is high.
You also have to consider that fact that doing well on the "Big Exam" has been a potent force for status and prestige in China for many hundreds of years. Before modern times it was the Imperial Exam that everyone wanted to excel in. People would live and die by their scores on that exam and it's influence on the lives of those who succeeded and those who failed is legendary. The college entrance exam is the "Big Exam" of today and, while not as huge a deal (and not as exclusive) as the old Imperial Exam it is nonetheless something that those eager to go to college place a tremendous amount of focus on.
Last, there is nothing in the U.S. that really compares, in regards to significance, the power of China's entrance exam. Not the SAT/ACT or even the GRE and it's various forms. This makes it difficult for most Americans to relate to the real power of this exam.
How are you doing this? Doesn't to work for me.
Exactly! I get so fed up with the anti-chinese bias that plays out here on Slashdot. I am a white American, a former journalist no less, who speaks Chinese, travels to China frequently, has spent months at a time living there and has a wife (who IS Chinese) who does research into media bias (re: China and the U.S... both ways, China has tons of bias but the U.S., most likely suprisingly for many of you, is NO better. Not almost as bad, not kind of bad but no better at all). I'd estimate that only a tiny percentage of American's have even the faintest clue of what life in China is really like and they don't realize it. Worse, they genuinely think they know. Ugh, it's painful to listen to them.
I was quite happy to see this article. About time someone found an effective way to show this bias... not that most china bashers will pay attention... they already "know" the truth.
p.s. now regarding your father... he needs a reality check as well or he'll be just as unreasonable as the china-bashers here on Slashdot.
"...the Japanese were getting A-bombed..."? Huh? What? The Japanese were engaging in a rascist orgy of murder, destruction and enslavement throughout the far east and south pacific. The white guys (whom the Japanese had attacked) simply stopped them (and then propped up the government, funded the regrowth of their industry, secured their borders and basically gave them the tools necessary to become the economic power that Japan is today)... and the a-bomb, which saved the lives of a lot of those savior white guys, was instrumental in that. Don't ignore all the bad things that the white guys have done but don't apply your B.S. filter to the good things either. The a-bomb was a bullet to the head of a racist international, rapist-murderer.
Oh, and if you still think the a-bomb was a bad thing, ask some elderly Chinese or Koreans (i.e. people who actually lived through what the Japanese did) what they think about it. Might find they wish the white guys had had a few dozen more a-bombs to drop.
My kids dread arrival at my house? Total buzz kill, dude. However, seeing as how we have tons of GBA games, PC Games, console and even a few crufty old board games (ever play Middle Earth Risk? Rocks.) and seeing as how in my pre-parent days I honed my geek gaming skills on the likes of AD&D, Steve Jackson Games, GURPS, Call of Cthulu, Squad Leader, Soccer, Racquetball, Football (yes! Sports that encourage fitness!!) and more recently America's Army, yadda yadda, blah, blah AND seeing as how the kids have their pick of (wireless) Mac, PC or Linux (Ubuntu) use for their interweb needs AND seeing as how we like good tunes played loudly (well, OK, my wife has crap taste in music... she grew up in China during the cultural revolution so I cut her some slack), tasty snacks available in abundance and not getting up too early (unless one really wants to) AND seeing as how the house is spacious and comfy (i.e. no B.S. pottery barn decorated "Don't touch that!" rooms)... I think the kids actually look forward to being home. ;)
Ugh. The "mortar" on that icon makes it look as if Peter North mistook it for one of his co-stars.
Wouldn't hackers simply go through a shell account in some other, unblocked, country?
You left out all of the countries the U.S. has invaded... typical.
Anyway, I will call bullsh!t on you and here is why:
Tibet has been part of China for hundreds of years (and if you still insist on claiming Tibet was a separate country then realize that to the Chinese, it is not thus it is not an invasion to them. Important psychological point if nothing else). The only violence with India and the old USSR involved border disputes, not invasions. Korea?! Hello!!! The U.S. crossed the 38th parallel and parked on the Korea/China border, all while U.S. commander Gen. MacArthur spoke publicly about wanting to nuke China. It was only after all of that that China went into Korea. What the hell do you expect them to do? If China had been parked on the Rio Grande while their commander threatened nukes, wouldn't we move to push them back? Vietnam is the only example of China invading another country. Period (and that invasion was, in part, precipitated by cross border violence so it wasn't like China just went to kick ass). Compare that to the U.S. and China comes across as a hell of a lot better international neighbor than the U.S. Oh, and your "etc."... what is that about? There are no etceteras. You, Mr. Anonymous Coward, are simply a typical example of western (American, really) ignorance. Sad but simply part of the majority.
1. I would be surprised if the U.S. is not doing pretty much the same thing to China. Does anyone seriously think that this is a 1 way thing?
2. Why is everyone getting so worked up over the "threat" China poses? Economically, yes, China has and will continue to have a huge impact on us. However, look at which country is famous for invading others and which has almost no history of armed intervention at all! Since the establishment of Communist China in 1949 how many countries has China invaded/militarily intervened in? In that same period how many has the U.S. invaded/militarily intervened in? Pretty obvious who the real threat is.
Bzzt... wrong. The Amish restaurant near my house (I live an area with huge herds of Amish) uses Windows at their registers.
Since I'm going to be in Shanghai next week I will just pick up a copy of the DVD as it's probably been out for a few weeks now..lol. I saw Shrek2 for sale there at least a month BEFORE the movie even opened in the U.S. It cost about $1.25 and was not some crap screen grab, rather it was just as good as any legal DVD. I was stunned and couldn't figure out how the heck they got a perfect copy before anything was released! I mean, after the DVD is out sure... but before the movie even hit the screens? Sheesh! I saw something on CNN about it later but I remember it was available a month or more before CNN was claiming it had been seen on the streets. Someone has some serious connections and/or deeeep pockets.
This Developmental "Evolution" stuff is very much in doubt. I propose that people consider the concept of Developmental Creation Science.
Yes. It's the theory that much technological development was supernaturally begat by a Creator. The idea that man develops technology in an evolutionary manner is just absurd! Each of the major kinds of technology was created functionally complete from the beginning and did not "evolve" from some other kind of technology.
Oh, and I think kids should be taught this in school. It's time for them to stop thinking they can control anything. Just let go and let God (so if God intends for them to develop some form of new technology, he'll dump it in their lap. Until that time, they should just sit tight. Maybe take up macrame or watch more TV).
Oh yeah. Vote Republican and join the Pro-Life/Pro-War coalition: We take the hyp out of hypocrisy.
I was interested in Firefly after reading your comment. However, Firefly's website says, "To run Firefly you will need Windows 98 Second Edition or greater".
That decides it for me as I am a Mac user. It appears I don't have an option to Skype.
The law, meant to cover auctioneers in the state of Ohio, accidentally included ebayers simply because they too sell at auction.
It was unintended and the creator of the bill, once the full ramifications of it were pointed out in the media, said that it would be fixed ASAP to exclude ebayers. It will not be passed in to law and was never meant to affect ebay sellers.
This was in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this past Sunday. The issue is moot (now, the issue of politicians who don't have much of a clue, that is ripe for discussion).
I recently moved away from Florida. While there, the drinkable ground water level dropped significantly each year.
The aquifer that supplies that region extends up into Georgia and slopes downhill into Florida. As more water is sucked out for use by Floridians (for lawns, golf courses and industry) brackish water is drawn in, permanantly contaminating the aquifer. This trend is moving steadily south as the water level drops each year and can be seen by maping the increase in private wells contaminated by salt water (something I was involved in when I lived and worked down there). The trend is startling and rapid. Any increase like the one mentioned in the article will only exacerbate this growing problem.
The aquifer cannot recover from this and increases in temperature (already barely tolerable down there, in my opinion) combined with Florida's constant growth in population (inexplicable to me :) all point to trouble in the future with the water supply down there (although some of the worst water abusers were paper pulp mills and golf courses, rather than private citizens).
The article says, "The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate..."
That means 420 responded. If 200 claim they are being coerce, that is a rather more significant percentage than I expected.
A previous commenter said that since only 200 claimed this coercion, the majority were NOT coerced. Looks to me like the significant figure here is that 48% of this group of scientists are claiming they have been pressured to change results. That is pretty significant in my view.
p.s. Upon further reflection, to be fair, 48% IS a minority so I suppose the pro-Bush crowd can still path themselves on the back and claim their version of the moral high ground. At this rate, the U.S. will soon enough be drilling for oil without restraint, be pro-life while killing thousands of non-americans, be purging "closed minded" evolutionists from our public school faculties and teaching our children that dinosaurs are, in fact, Jesus Horses (hee, hee... I love that one. Courtesy John Stewart). Yee haw. Go U.S.A.
LOL... you seem a tad thick in the head my friend. Let me broaden the argument a bit so you can see past your over simplifications. If they can charge me over $4 a minute for my stupid mistake, I think I should be allowed to charge them every time they over-billed me. Say, 15% of the overage. I should also be allowed to charge them, say, $4 a minute, for the time I had to waste hanging on the phone waiting for customer service to fix their ignorant billing mistakes. Given the number of mistakes they made (always in their favor, of course) they would have been paying me to use their service. Unfortunately, I cannot do any of this. I can, however, complain. Thus my posts here. Until they are willing to pay up for their own stupidity, why should I have to pay for mine? Let me turn your own words around on you... If they screw up they need to pay. We get tired of dealing with simple minded customer service hacks. Next time, boy, think before you post.
You have to dial the usual 011 to get out of the States then the country code and then a city code (although Macau doesn't have a city code), then the actual number.
No matter, it was poor customer relations to claim I was calling phone sex. Especially when it was really Sprint themselves who were doing the charging. Also, over $4 dollars a minute! Shouldn't that be illegal? Oh well, I learned my lesson and will forever avoid Sprint.
It was 853 (Macau). The call was to a number at the University of Macau. A normal, easily accessible rate for Macau, at the time, was 15 cents per minute.
Sprint charging me over $4 per minute was criminal, in my opinion. Yes I screwed up by not dialing properly but Sprint charging me so much per minute was ridiculous.
Anyone going with Sprint should just be aware that they aren't a customer friendly organization.
But I was a VICTIM!! You can't blame me!!!....LOL, kidding... Seriously, you are right, I was almost as pissed at myself as my wife was.
My own stupidity is a known quantity to me, however. My beef is, in part, that Sprint was perfectly happy to charge a rate that was so high it was extortion and they were unwilling to work with me. My MAJORbeef was that they implied I was calling a phone sex line and, joking about pr0n aside, that is something I find very offensive (and something they could have verified was not true).
Thus, they lost a customer AND get to share the blame with me! :)
Sprint. I remember them well. They provided my long distance and cell for a year. That year will go down in my memory as 365 days of Sprint pooping on me.
Without gettng into the gory details (heck the poop reference was gore enough) of lousy customer service, poor cellular coverage, overbilling, etc. I will present you with the straw (assuming straws weigh several tons and are made of steel) that broke this camel's back.
My wife was in Macau for a week. When I called her I somehow missdialed or simply forgot to dial the access code we normally used for long distance. The call was thus carried by my normal long distance provider, Sprint. We spoke for about 45 minutes.
When the next phone bill came we found that Sprint charged us over $4 per minute! After my wife pried me off of the ceiling, sedated me and cleaned the angry froth off my chin, I called to complain. The call went no where so I spoke to a manager who promptly suggested that I had been calling a phone sex line! (The nerve! Why would I pay for phone sex when there is so much free pr0n on the web?) The number went to a university in Macau for crying out loud! They could easily see/check that.
In the end, they refused to cut the bill at all and I dropped Sprint, vowed never to use them again and promised to do what I am doing here. Spread the word. Oh, and to get back on topic, I guess I won't be using Nextel either, now.
If you thought Ashcroft was a good Attorney General you should see his work as a singer/songwriter! You'll be saying "Holy Sh*t! Is that for real?!"
Give this a listen and I think you'll agree that, in spite of the painfully strained warbling and occasional screechy howl, he makes a much better singer than... well, than an Attorney General
"Let The Eagle Soar" - words and muzak by John Ashcroft
Personally, I find his work to be similar to, but not quite as good as, such other unknown crooners as Seymor Weiner, Fanny Mussel, Uwe Fuchs, Stu Padassol (the one from Gaysport, Ohio, not the one from Dripping Springs, Texas) and the late, almost great, Pat Mydic.
Very few Americans know much at all about China.
People THINK they do but to someone like me (i.e. a white guy who spends months at a time each year in China, is married to a Chinese woman, is well versed in China's history both recent and ancient and speaks Mandarin), listening to American folks discuss China is almost always very frustrating.
The country is not nearly as oppressive as some of you seem to think. Communism is really just a WORD over there... not an ideology... not anymore. Yes the government has it's problems and for the most part are not too well liked but daily life in China (well, for city dwelling, college educated people anyway) is little different from life here. People own pets, they don't eat them, they have cars, cell phones, high speed internet, live (and thus, not so controlled by the government) news on TV, they go shopping, walk in the park, meet friends for coffee, hit the clubs on Friday and Saturday night or go see a soccer match, whatever.
Many places in China would strike the most ardent neo-conservative as the very height of capitalism. Contrary to what one person posted you CAN talk about/criticise/make fun of the government. I have talked with so very many Chinese about their government and they are usually quite frank. No one is hiding behind their hand whispering, no one is "disappeared". Last time I was there (May-August 2004) there were even some fairly large labor protests in a nortern city. Protests that were not crushed, put down, blocked. We just don't hear about this sort of stuff in the states. Viewed objectively (my wife, a professor of communications, has done much research in the area of media coverage between China and the USA), our government's opinions regarding China, the average citizens beliefs on China and the stories we get about China from our media leave us with a general impression that is, quite simply, wrong and negatively biased.Statistically about equal to the bias you would find in the Chinese press about the USA.
Technologically, China IS rapidly pulling ahead of the U.S.A. in many areas (cell phone technology and IT in particular) and China has it's "Microsofts" waiting in the wings eyeing the world market (the Lenovo Group (formerly known as Legend Group) in particular). Bottom line is, most Americans don't know enough about China to make any sort of accurate commentary regarding it. Yes there are many problems in China and with it's government but it is much closer to life here (once again, in the cities, not the countryside) than you probably think.
I use onesuite.com and pay 2.5 cents a minute within the USA. I pay that same rate for calls to China.
That means that for your "competitive" $25 a month, I could make over 16 and a half hours of calls (to just about anywhere in the world... from any phone... at any time of day... on a regular, echo free phone line no less... and no I don't have to enter a bulky code every time I call... calls from my home automatically bypass the need for a code).
None of the options presented here are that cheap and convenient and until they can at least come close, I will stick with my onesuite.com (which I've used for 2 years now).