Civil disobedience isn't about a single crackpot with an imagined grievance with authority and taking it on in a covert manner. That won't get you anywhere. The point of it is, justified in hindsight or not, acting as part of community which opposes what it perceives to be injustice by government. Only through solidarity would you have any chance of impact.
Violence and vandalism are not necessary, and more creative solutions can have far greater results. Want to be noticed- get a hundred townspeople to safely close off the intersection late at night and just get the camera to issue a thousand violations. Make sure to invite the press. That'll get your point across.
You could argue that the professor was actually doing a great job there, by encouraging you college kids to grow up and be proactive about your education. A little warning could be nice, but it's not how the real world works.
They're called e-x-a-m-p-l-e-s, dickhead, because I'm not your fucking research assistant. If you want an exhaustive course on our benefits from US-Israel relations you're in the wrong place.
You do note the part about having family in the region? I have friends over multiple borders there.
Yes I noted that and it doesn't change the fact you went completely off topic to discuss what your interest was. Thing is, I actually served in Israel's military, and I was not impressed by what you had to say. I was also about as liberal as they get over there and was politically active over a decade ago, even getting to serve as a voting member at one convention. I have advocated for a state for Palestinians long before the right wing stopped calling us traitors for that belief (they still do for plenty of reasons including "allowing" Arabs into "our" party), the abandonment of settlements, and refraining from useless military actions which would serve mostly to piss off the Arabs. Plenty of us exist, we're just tired of arguing with those idiots from Likud. So please don't assume as the more vocal Arabs on the Internet tend to that all Israelis would love nothing more than to send the palestinians packing.
Blaming Israel isn't necessarily racist though the narrative often stems there, especially on those occasions when American Jews are blamed only by association through religion. I had no intention of calling you a racist and apologize if offense was taken. Alongside its religious fanatics who actually want to try to conquer Jordan (*rolls eyes*), Israel has its share of Jewish racists, both groups I'm eager to denounce as a deplorable bunch of asshats.
The key thing is that Israel is used as a convenient excuse for anything Arabs dislike. When they despise their dictators, it's because of American support for their "zionist-controlled leaders" (where the support is actually meant for the country, and even if it's actually helping the people). They don't take political responsibility and actually stand up and vote out incompetent generals who have no place in government. Instead, taking Egypt for an example, the uneducated either tow the nationalist line and actually believe nonsense such as the ridiculous "Egypt won in 1967" lie, or they turn to the religious Muslim Brotherhood which preaches exactly the same "need" for religious majority that Israeli right-wingers do and that Arabs hate about Israel.
So yes- it's disheartening to hear someone, who I'm sure is reasonable, parrot the same nonsense that Al Queada does about the "reasons" it's in an extremist crusade (speaking of which, they're still pissed off at *Americans* because of the crusades, though of course have no problem with Muslim-based military expansion- go figure). If Bin Laden truly believed Israel was the source of his imagined grievance, don't you think he'd actually try to fight there rather than Iraq, which was on its way to becoming a stable democracy? The truth is AQ's mission and selected targets have absolutely nothing to do with the political cooperation we have with Israel. It's instead relegated to a tool for recruitment among a wide population of uneducated boys who have been told the lies for decades.
Again- Israel only an excuse and by continuing to declare it as tantamount to fact, one serves no cause but the terrorists'. Abandoning ties with Israel won't do anything to chance perception of the US- we'll neither be believed that we did (because now we're "supporting them secretly- muhahaha"), nor stop being accused that "Amerika" is still "run by the Jews". We could *try* it and witness how epicly fail the idea was, but that would only serve to stress American-Israeli relations, which of course runs counter to the American desire to have what meager influence it can have on Israel and won't help our economy either.
Generally speaking, you're right about Afghanistan. But Israel is certainly not the root of the problem we're tied down with there. Ignorance and extremism are reasons why Afghan men, who despite having real problems to worry about, would join the insurgency. Education can't be stressed enough, and while the example ensuring girls can
Either learn to read or to not twist my words around to suit your narrative. I didn't say "not important", nor am I in the position to define the US' actual long-term strategy beyond examples for you. I pointed out your mistakes, no more. I'm not here to educate you, certainly not if you won't listen. Good day.
I read your link. What are these "big interests"? It starts out by saying we need Israel's help to stop Iran from getting nukes. Oh, is that why we've been supporting them all these decades?
"Starts out"? That's your counterargument? If you actually "read my link" you would have seen a short list of many technologies the US has been supplied by Israel. Cooperating with Iran is just one example of the potential benefits for which America maintains a strong relationship with Israel. The reason for long-term support is fostering the potential, not just specific partnerships. Of course one needs to be a strategic thinker to understand these things, and you've demonstrated a weakness in that area.
it's not just the nonsense you hear about... (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast
Actually it does mention the democracy angle.
Note my use of the word "just". I didn't say there is no basis in truth used for these examples of anti-zionist propaganda, just that none of them have anywhere near the importance ascribed to them. Sorry your silly arguments don't work on me, but you're not dealing with your usual mindless partisan opponent.
The post I responded to was a rant written by an ignorant person who thinks they understand war because they watch the news, and who started on topic and veered off very quickly to introduce their personal agenda into the discussion. Yours was just a lot of nonsense mixed into a wall of f-bombs.
If you ever want to have a real discussion, pick up a few history books, then a dictionary, and come back to sit at the adult table.
You and other morons paint a distorted picture where the US only gives and gives and gives to Israel without getting anything in return. America has big interests in Israel- it's not just the nonsense you hear about from idiots on the Internet (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast, zionists ruling "amerika", etc.). At the same time it's crucial to remember that the Arabs are NOT our friends, or even each others'- they can't agree on anything other than their common hatred for Israel.
You obviously don't understand a thing and just decided to butt in to make your stupid anti-zionist rant. Let's point out why people should ignore you, shall we?
Afghanistan, like many Mideastern countries is blessed with neither a homogeneous population, nor a long history of belief in the rule of law. Add to that its society's fierce tribal bonds and your suggestion that Afghani forces can easily handle anti-insurgent operations on their own is clearly idiotic.
Your understanding of Israel is also deeply flawed, not only in the baseless accusations, but because Israel has never, and likely will never "do as America commands". It has its own interests at heart, and it cannot be swayed from the conviction to maintain a safe haven for the Jewish people. Israel has beaten back the Arabs during a US embargo before with far less capacity than it has now (it was behind Arabs in both technology and quantity back then, where today it far surpasses them), so stopping aid won't have an effect for a very long time. What we need less of is the anti-semitic rhetoric used by Palestinian terror organizations and people like yourself who parrot their hateful propaganda and make Israel doubt Palestinians could handle running their own state.
In the videos I've watched, most people directly in front of the device aren't doing anything other than covering their ears. Only a few are actually moving away, which is the device's intended effect.
Looks more like a device with mediocre performance to me, and isn't going to help the police do their job to disband unruly protests. I'm thinking those protesters are crybabies who were coddled. If they prefer tear gas and batons, no problem- those are tried and true methods of getting people to do what the police want. Hearing damage? Ha! I'm a liberal but I gotta say: grow a pair, hippies.
People have done this and got bored with it 2 years ago or more.
If you had RTFP, you'd know that Google's patent application was initially filed in Dec., 2004. That's a little over 2 years ago in case you couldn't figure it out.
I'm a bit out of date on the nuts and bolts,..., but my guess is that they can only track hover actions not raw mouse data
If you mean "raw mouse data" as in bits coming down the wire from the mouse (or receiver for wireless), they definitely can't get at that.
Assuming no software is downloaded, web sites only have access to stuff the browser gives them. This is in the form of actions (mouse move, clicks, etc) and keyboard codes/characters being performed on a Javascript object (e.g. a textbox, buttons or the page itself). Assume any input done while a browser is active could be tracked by the page in the current tab.
As to the Google Toolbar, what user interaction it gets depends on each browser if it's installed as an extension. Now if you run an external executable installer downloaded from Google, that can hide malware just as any software you install (or CD you buy from Sony), and your only protection is not to install it. If you mistrust the toolbar, mistrust anything by Google. And while you're at it, mistrust Microsoft Office, iTunes and every other bit of closed source software as well.
As with all the various habits mentioned in this topic, your case will either be factored into the algorithm, or disable it for you if you are truly too random for the algorithm. There's no reason to assume the algorithm won't be personally tailored to the extent you provide a unique visitor profile.
People tend to forget that algorithms are where Google excels. They shouldn't to be underestimated so easily.
"Cyber spies" use social methods (e.g. social engineering) which are not technological in nature. The term isn't meaningful except to explain that computers are used in the attack given how skewed public perceptions of the word "spy" are towards 007.
I buy grumpy, though your point about my personal most likely area of contribution is entirely valid.
That said, expanding the player base is critical for large companies like Blizzard. Ignoring my feedback is just as stupid as ignoring that of good players. For this reason, you make no sense in the rest of your post.
I'd agree if you suggested it would be childish of me to complain about not getting invited to the beta given I provide no good reason for Blizzard to pick me for a Starcraft beta, but that's wasn't my complaint.
Who wants to play quakelive against bots? What would be the point?
I do, especially when I first start out.
Years back I was interested enough to take a look at "America's Army" to see what all the fuss was about and I quit and uninstalled before the first match was even over. It felt complicated, my mission was unknown, and the other players didn't know not to expect anything of a guy who not only just started playing but hasn't been an FPS guy since playing Doom2 over the network in high school.
I got a beta invite to Starcraft2 and ran into the exact same problem. Having never played the original I definitely wanted to give it a test run before purchasing. The beta doesn't include campaign mode, which is understandable, but doesn't have even the first mission of the tutorial where you learn to just move units around and what your resources are. I'm glad for serious players that Blizzard had the wisdom to tier their players so I never play someone who's been playing Starcraft for a decade, but I was still an annoying scrub to another beginning player who could have been just one not-so-god-awful-player- away from the next tier up. Given the awful zerging I got, I've very little interest in buying the game.
Multiplayer is great for going beyond the basics, but there are plenty of players who don't or won't. I've got a life and only play a game for a few dozen hours, so I do want the easy-to-medium level AI.
The market's solution were said to have involved far more "kinds of trouble", as you put it, than we've seen. That's why government stepped in. They weren't, as your counter-strawman suggests, intending to simply maintain a troublesome market actor.
The right price to charge for it is approximately what it costs
But that's exactly where I believe the problem lies.
When Ben Franklin set up a postal system the value of transportation of mail was so great that it could be easily profitable. With today's technology, there's very little point sending utility bills through the mail when it costs far less to run a web server sending email. Raising rates has only make it more worthwhile for me to abandon snail mail and make all my bill payments online.
I wonder if at some point in the non-distant future it would probably make more sense for the government to promote Internet availability and education in rural areas than continuing an outdated system of information dissemination. I don't know that packages should even fit into the equation.
It's self-funded, so yes, it IS supposed to break even. And the rates have always been quite a lot lower than private services, so I'd say it has always been worth it so far.
I assume you expect museums to support themselves only on $16 "suggested admission" fees? Just because an organization collects money from patrons to help support itself doesn't make that funding exclusive. Even for-profit corporations can rely on other sources of revenue like subsidies.
And your suggestion that it's necessary to have "individual billing" is wrong, because plenty types of billings are not done on individual basis. Garbage collection, for example, is done per. ton(ne) and is charged indirectly through the municipality. You could have private paramilitary organizations perform services for the government on a per-service basis. It's just an idea we're not comfortable with.
Work is a trade of my time and energy (mental and physical) for money. Not suffering.
Exactly. Suffering is related only in the case of those idiot MBAs who think that paying a salary makes them own their employees as if they'd rented slaves. Reminds me of how Mike Rowe's TED talk where he discusses the guys doing dirty jobs (seek to ~11:00 if you're pressed for time). He claims they're much happier than us desk workers, and they're the ones we'd assume are "suffering" the most.
given the evidence everywhere in the western world... Socialism requires the creation of social programs which, in turn, need to be funded
That's anecdotal evidence, and not much of it. And you're ignoring my point that spending is not strictly a social thing. Granted, expenses related to social programs require spending, but it does not follow that this spending necessarily must exceed tax revenue. Your implication to the contrary is what is disingenuous.
However, to qualify as an investment, there must be a "return" on it - in the form of increased economic output, quality of life, or some other benefit - that outweighs the cost of that investment
You're making the same mistake I commented on earlier: "spending does not equal spending". You're confusing the two here. You also ignore the fact that investment carries risk, so no, there's no "must" on the return. As to "private investment of that money", the private sector was not in fact spending- neither business, which clamped up and stopped investing in their business and laying off people, as well as individuals who pulled money out of the market, thus reducing their investment. So, yes, if investment was to be made, it would be public.
A country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio is in danger of being unable to pay the interest on its debt
Irrelevant, since acquiring more debt is pointless as you point out yourself in trying to getting out of debt.
All the more reason to stop planning new entitlement programs.... get the most votes by enacting social programs
Who's planning new entitlement programs? You can try to argue that healthcare reform is a new program, but you'd be wrong for many reasons. Your description of them as deficit spending is also wrong, because at the moment they are still fully paid for by employment taxes. Insolvency hasn't come yet.
As for sarcasm, there's a massive difference between the right wing propaganda we've seen since Obama took office and anything democrats have done to advance their issues. And comparing Fox to MSNBC takes a serious right-wing bias and inferiority complex. Olbermann and Maddow are about as liberal as you can get, but they don't deceive viewers into thinking they're objective newscasters or even as more serious than Jon Stewart. So you're sarcasm fails when you compared that rant to stuff said by real crazies.
The people in charge who want to use this spill to pass further regulations were the people in charge when the regulations were not being enforced.
Strangeness. (1) I don't think those specific regulations were in place during this administration. It takes a long time to enact changes, and a shift in parties is not reason to rebuild the executive branch from scratch. Bush was wrong to politicize sub-executive hiring because it's bad governance. (2) If they were enacted recently, nobody said they weren't a mistake, requiring a change after discovering problems. The alternative, which you're proposing is the elimination of regulation, which was the philosophy of a minority of voters during the last election for president. If and when you get back in the majority, you can go back to deregulation and the destruction, we the current majority, find it wreaks. That's kind of what democracy is about, you get voted in and get to do things your way, sad as it might make you a month into his term.
I love how its the fault of people who don't like government regulations that the people who favor government regulations failed to enforce the regulations.
As clever as that may have sounded to you, it's plain wrong.
Try this: if government regulators really cared for regulation, don't you think they'd regulate regularly? What you're saying is that all public sector employees are rabid liberals. That's an outlandish statement to make, unless you're one of those crazies who think liberals are everywhere and out to get them.
No, they're influenced by things average human beings are influenced by. Money, power, stupidity, laziness, etc. That's what needs fixing- the ability for those to influence what government does to not do their jobs. What that takes I have no idea, but your being glib isn't helping.
Slashdot Mirror
Civil disobedience isn't about a single crackpot with an imagined grievance with authority and taking it on in a covert manner. That won't get you anywhere. The point of it is, justified in hindsight or not, acting as part of community which opposes what it perceives to be injustice by government. Only through solidarity would you have any chance of impact.
Violence and vandalism are not necessary, and more creative solutions can have far greater results. Want to be noticed- get a hundred townspeople to safely close off the intersection late at night and just get the camera to issue a thousand violations. Make sure to invite the press. That'll get your point across.
You could argue that the professor was actually doing a great job there, by encouraging you college kids to grow up and be proactive about your education. A little warning could be nice, but it's not how the real world works.
Societies like that do not .... [rant rant rant rant]
And you've seen an example of this fictional society you fear... where?
They're called e-x-a-m-p-l-e-s, dickhead, because I'm not your fucking research assistant. If you want an exhaustive course on our benefits from US-Israel relations you're in the wrong place.
You do note the part about having family in the region? I have friends over multiple borders there.
Yes I noted that and it doesn't change the fact you went completely off topic to discuss what your interest was. Thing is, I actually served in Israel's military, and I was not impressed by what you had to say. I was also about as liberal as they get over there and was politically active over a decade ago, even getting to serve as a voting member at one convention. I have advocated for a state for Palestinians long before the right wing stopped calling us traitors for that belief (they still do for plenty of reasons including "allowing" Arabs into "our" party), the abandonment of settlements, and refraining from useless military actions which would serve mostly to piss off the Arabs. Plenty of us exist, we're just tired of arguing with those idiots from Likud. So please don't assume as the more vocal Arabs on the Internet tend to that all Israelis would love nothing more than to send the palestinians packing.
Blaming Israel isn't necessarily racist though the narrative often stems there, especially on those occasions when American Jews are blamed only by association through religion. I had no intention of calling you a racist and apologize if offense was taken. Alongside its religious fanatics who actually want to try to conquer Jordan (*rolls eyes*), Israel has its share of Jewish racists, both groups I'm eager to denounce as a deplorable bunch of asshats.
The key thing is that Israel is used as a convenient excuse for anything Arabs dislike. When they despise their dictators, it's because of American support for their "zionist-controlled leaders" (where the support is actually meant for the country, and even if it's actually helping the people). They don't take political responsibility and actually stand up and vote out incompetent generals who have no place in government. Instead, taking Egypt for an example, the uneducated either tow the nationalist line and actually believe nonsense such as the ridiculous "Egypt won in 1967" lie, or they turn to the religious Muslim Brotherhood which preaches exactly the same "need" for religious majority that Israeli right-wingers do and that Arabs hate about Israel.
So yes- it's disheartening to hear someone, who I'm sure is reasonable, parrot the same nonsense that Al Queada does about the "reasons" it's in an extremist crusade (speaking of which, they're still pissed off at *Americans* because of the crusades, though of course have no problem with Muslim-based military expansion- go figure). If Bin Laden truly believed Israel was the source of his imagined grievance, don't you think he'd actually try to fight there rather than Iraq, which was on its way to becoming a stable democracy? The truth is AQ's mission and selected targets have absolutely nothing to do with the political cooperation we have with Israel. It's instead relegated to a tool for recruitment among a wide population of uneducated boys who have been told the lies for decades.
Again- Israel only an excuse and by continuing to declare it as tantamount to fact, one serves no cause but the terrorists'. Abandoning ties with Israel won't do anything to chance perception of the US- we'll neither be believed that we did (because now we're "supporting them secretly- muhahaha"), nor stop being accused that "Amerika" is still "run by the Jews". We could *try* it and witness how epicly fail the idea was, but that would only serve to stress American-Israeli relations, which of course runs counter to the American desire to have what meager influence it can have on Israel and won't help our economy either.
Generally speaking, you're right about Afghanistan. But Israel is certainly not the root of the problem we're tied down with there. Ignorance and extremism are reasons why Afghan men, who despite having real problems to worry about, would join the insurgency. Education can't be stressed enough, and while the example ensuring girls can
Either learn to read or to not twist my words around to suit your narrative. I didn't say "not important", nor am I in the position to define the US' actual long-term strategy beyond examples for you. I pointed out your mistakes, no more. I'm not here to educate you, certainly not if you won't listen. Good day.
America has big interests in Israel
I read your link. What are these "big interests"? It starts out by saying we need Israel's help to stop Iran from getting nukes. Oh, is that why we've been supporting them all these decades?
"Starts out"? That's your counterargument? If you actually "read my link" you would have seen a short list of many technologies the US has been supplied by Israel. Cooperating with Iran is just one example of the potential benefits for which America maintains a strong relationship with Israel. The reason for long-term support is fostering the potential, not just specific partnerships. Of course one needs to be a strategic thinker to understand these things, and you've demonstrated a weakness in that area.
it's not just the nonsense you hear about ... (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast
Actually it does mention the democracy angle.
Note my use of the word "just". I didn't say there is no basis in truth used for these examples of anti-zionist propaganda, just that none of them have anywhere near the importance ascribed to them. Sorry your silly arguments don't work on me, but you're not dealing with your usual mindless partisan opponent.
The post I responded to was a rant written by an ignorant person who thinks they understand war because they watch the news, and who started on topic and veered off very quickly to introduce their personal agenda into the discussion. Yours was just a lot of nonsense mixed into a wall of f-bombs.
If you ever want to have a real discussion, pick up a few history books, then a dictionary, and come back to sit at the adult table.
You and other morons paint a distorted picture where the US only gives and gives and gives to Israel without getting anything in return. America has big interests in Israel- it's not just the nonsense you hear about from idiots on the Internet (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast, zionists ruling "amerika", etc.). At the same time it's crucial to remember that the Arabs are NOT our friends, or even each others'- they can't agree on anything other than their common hatred for Israel.
You obviously don't understand a thing and just decided to butt in to make your stupid anti-zionist rant. Let's point out why people should ignore you, shall we?
Afghanistan, like many Mideastern countries is blessed with neither a homogeneous population, nor a long history of belief in the rule of law. Add to that its society's fierce tribal bonds and your suggestion that Afghani forces can easily handle anti-insurgent operations on their own is clearly idiotic.
Your understanding of Israel is also deeply flawed, not only in the baseless accusations, but because Israel has never, and likely will never "do as America commands". It has its own interests at heart, and it cannot be swayed from the conviction to maintain a safe haven for the Jewish people. Israel has beaten back the Arabs during a US embargo before with far less capacity than it has now (it was behind Arabs in both technology and quantity back then, where today it far surpasses them), so stopping aid won't have an effect for a very long time. What we need less of is the anti-semitic rhetoric used by Palestinian terror organizations and people like yourself who parrot their hateful propaganda and make Israel doubt Palestinians could handle running their own state.
In the videos I've watched, most people directly in front of the device aren't doing anything other than covering their ears. Only a few are actually moving away, which is the device's intended effect.
Looks more like a device with mediocre performance to me, and isn't going to help the police do their job to disband unruly protests. I'm thinking those protesters are crybabies who were coddled. If they prefer tear gas and batons, no problem- those are tried and true methods of getting people to do what the police want. Hearing damage? Ha! I'm a liberal but I gotta say: grow a pair, hippies.
People have done this and got bored with it 2 years ago or more.
If you had RTFP, you'd know that Google's patent application was initially filed in Dec., 2004. That's a little over 2 years ago in case you couldn't figure it out.
I'm a bit out of date on the nuts and bolts, ..., but my guess is that they can only track hover actions not raw mouse data
If you mean "raw mouse data" as in bits coming down the wire from the mouse (or receiver for wireless), they definitely can't get at that.
Assuming no software is downloaded, web sites only have access to stuff the browser gives them. This is in the form of actions (mouse move, clicks, etc) and keyboard codes/characters being performed on a Javascript object (e.g. a textbox, buttons or the page itself). Assume any input done while a browser is active could be tracked by the page in the current tab.
As to the Google Toolbar, what user interaction it gets depends on each browser if it's installed as an extension. Now if you run an external executable installer downloaded from Google, that can hide malware just as any software you install (or CD you buy from Sony), and your only protection is not to install it. If you mistrust the toolbar, mistrust anything by Google. And while you're at it, mistrust Microsoft Office, iTunes and every other bit of closed source software as well.
As with all the various habits mentioned in this topic, your case will either be factored into the algorithm, or disable it for you if you are truly too random for the algorithm. There's no reason to assume the algorithm won't be personally tailored to the extent you provide a unique visitor profile.
People tend to forget that algorithms are where Google excels. They shouldn't to be underestimated so easily.
And you're slow :)
I'm glad I was born before graphical interfaces so that I don't my mouse on actions where it's slower and less precise than my keyboard.
That and I'm not terrified of C or Assembly either.
"Cyber spies" use social methods (e.g. social engineering) which are not technological in nature. The term isn't meaningful except to explain that computers are used in the attack given how skewed public perceptions of the word "spy" are towards 007.
I buy grumpy, though your point about my personal most likely area of contribution is entirely valid.
That said, expanding the player base is critical for large companies like Blizzard. Ignoring my feedback is just as stupid as ignoring that of good players. For this reason, you make no sense in the rest of your post.
I'd agree if you suggested it would be childish of me to complain about not getting invited to the beta given I provide no good reason for Blizzard to pick me for a Starcraft beta, but that's wasn't my complaint.
Consider Super Mario Bros. a game made what? Nearly 30 years ago? It is still as playable today as is was in the 80s
It just requires a LOT of blowing on the cartridge. :)
Who wants to play quakelive against bots? What would be the point?
I do, especially when I first start out.
Years back I was interested enough to take a look at "America's Army" to see what all the fuss was about and I quit and uninstalled before the first match was even over. It felt complicated, my mission was unknown, and the other players didn't know not to expect anything of a guy who not only just started playing but hasn't been an FPS guy since playing Doom2 over the network in high school.
I got a beta invite to Starcraft2 and ran into the exact same problem. Having never played the original I definitely wanted to give it a test run before purchasing. The beta doesn't include campaign mode, which is understandable, but doesn't have even the first mission of the tutorial where you learn to just move units around and what your resources are. I'm glad for serious players that Blizzard had the wisdom to tier their players so I never play someone who's been playing Starcraft for a decade, but I was still an annoying scrub to another beginning player who could have been just one not-so-god-awful-player- away from the next tier up. Given the awful zerging I got, I've very little interest in buying the game.
Multiplayer is great for going beyond the basics, but there are plenty of players who don't or won't. I've got a life and only play a game for a few dozen hours, so I do want the easy-to-medium level AI.
The market's solution were said to have involved far more "kinds of trouble", as you put it, than we've seen. That's why government stepped in. They weren't, as your counter-strawman suggests, intending to simply maintain a troublesome market actor.
The right price to charge for it is approximately what it costs
But that's exactly where I believe the problem lies.
When Ben Franklin set up a postal system the value of transportation of mail was so great that it could be easily profitable. With today's technology, there's very little point sending utility bills through the mail when it costs far less to run a web server sending email. Raising rates has only make it more worthwhile for me to abandon snail mail and make all my bill payments online.
I wonder if at some point in the non-distant future it would probably make more sense for the government to promote Internet availability and education in rural areas than continuing an outdated system of information dissemination. I don't know that packages should even fit into the equation.
It's self-funded, so yes, it IS supposed to break even. And the rates have always been quite a lot lower than private services, so I'd say it has always been worth it so far.
I assume you expect museums to support themselves only on $16 "suggested admission" fees? Just because an organization collects money from patrons to help support itself doesn't make that funding exclusive. Even for-profit corporations can rely on other sources of revenue like subsidies.
And your suggestion that it's necessary to have "individual billing" is wrong, because plenty types of billings are not done on individual basis. Garbage collection, for example, is done per. ton(ne) and is charged indirectly through the municipality. You could have private paramilitary organizations perform services for the government on a per-service basis. It's just an idea we're not comfortable with.
There's a trivial solution to that- erase all moderation on edit.
Work is a trade of my time and energy (mental and physical) for money. Not suffering.
Exactly. Suffering is related only in the case of those idiot MBAs who think that paying a salary makes them own their employees as if they'd rented slaves.
Reminds me of how Mike Rowe's TED talk where he discusses the guys doing dirty jobs (seek to ~11:00 if you're pressed for time). He claims they're much happier than us desk workers, and they're the ones we'd assume are "suffering" the most.
given the evidence everywhere in the western world ... Socialism requires the creation of social programs which, in turn, need to be funded
That's anecdotal evidence, and not much of it. And you're ignoring my point that spending is not strictly a social thing. Granted, expenses related to social programs require spending, but it does not follow that this spending necessarily must exceed tax revenue. Your implication to the contrary is what is disingenuous.
However, to qualify as an investment, there must be a "return" on it - in the form of increased economic output, quality of life, or some other benefit - that outweighs the cost of that investment
You're making the same mistake I commented on earlier: "spending does not equal spending". You're confusing the two here. You also ignore the fact that investment carries risk, so no, there's no "must" on the return. As to "private investment of that money", the private sector was not in fact spending- neither business, which clamped up and stopped investing in their business and laying off people, as well as individuals who pulled money out of the market, thus reducing their investment. So, yes, if investment was to be made, it would be public.
A country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio is in danger of being unable to pay the interest on its debt
Irrelevant, since acquiring more debt is pointless as you point out yourself in trying to getting out of debt.
All the more reason to stop planning new entitlement programs.... get the most votes by enacting social programs
Who's planning new entitlement programs? You can try to argue that healthcare reform is a new program, but you'd be wrong for many reasons. Your description of them as deficit spending is also wrong, because at the moment they are still fully paid for by employment taxes. Insolvency hasn't come yet.
As for sarcasm, there's a massive difference between the right wing propaganda we've seen since Obama took office and anything democrats have done to advance their issues. And comparing Fox to MSNBC takes a serious right-wing bias and inferiority complex. Olbermann and Maddow are about as liberal as you can get, but they don't deceive viewers into thinking they're objective newscasters or even as more serious than Jon Stewart. So you're sarcasm fails when you compared that rant to stuff said by real crazies.
The people in charge who want to use this spill to pass further regulations were the people in charge when the regulations were not being enforced.
Strangeness. (1) I don't think those specific regulations were in place during this administration. It takes a long time to enact changes, and a shift in parties is not reason to rebuild the executive branch from scratch. Bush was wrong to politicize sub-executive hiring because it's bad governance. (2) If they were enacted recently, nobody said they weren't a mistake, requiring a change after discovering problems. The alternative, which you're proposing is the elimination of regulation, which was the philosophy of a minority of voters during the last election for president. If and when you get back in the majority, you can go back to deregulation and the destruction, we the current majority, find it wreaks. That's kind of what democracy is about, you get voted in and get to do things your way, sad as it might make you a month into his term.
I love how its the fault of people who don't like government regulations that the people who favor government regulations failed to enforce the regulations.
As clever as that may have sounded to you, it's plain wrong.
Try this: if government regulators really cared for regulation, don't you think they'd regulate regularly? What you're saying is that all public sector employees are rabid liberals. That's an outlandish statement to make, unless you're one of those crazies who think liberals are everywhere and out to get them.
No, they're influenced by things average human beings are influenced by. Money, power, stupidity, laziness, etc. That's what needs fixing- the ability for those to influence what government does to not do their jobs. What that takes I have no idea, but your being glib isn't helping.