It sounds like Google is adding more functionality to Microsoft Office, free of charge. What am I missing?
For a moment don't be Microsoft, be Google: Think three steps ahead.
Today Google is making Office do something Microsoft still hasn't implemented for companies too small (or too smart) to use Sharepoint. Tomorrow the company's employees are editing documents from anywhere, changing their ideas of what the Internet can do (RIA) and that you don't actually need Office to read a.doc[x]. The next day the boss realizes Google has something to offer and it's much cheaper and often higher quality than the stuff he's been licensing from Microsoft.
It's not guaranteed to work, but there's nothing to lose. Worst-case scenario? Nobody buys the service, Google wasted a teeny tiny fraction of its $35B cash on-hand, shuts it down and Office is offline again. No biggie.
Plus, Google called Microsoft Office not just "cumbersome", but "legacy". Them's fightin' words.
The House actually has quite a few non-lawyers, including doctors and engineers. Republicans paraded a lot of doctors on the House floor during their assault on the healthcare bill. Didn't make their rhetoric any more interesting, or more professional, it was just a convenient appeal to authority.
You're missing the point. When I mentioned copyright I was talking about digital copyrights, which should not be based on physical copyright law- they have yet to figure out why the two are very different. Legislation does suffer from chronic obsolescence and lawmakers are constantly playing catch-up with an ever-evolving world. Financial derivatives, predatory lending, E coli outbreaks, genetically modified food, stem cell research, telemarketing, SPAM, "cyberwarfare" and on and on- they're always too late to introduce legislation and it often takes disaster before something get done. It's nice and populist to go blaming Disney here, but that's the whole other special interest issue which I discussed elsewhere. Focus.
You didn't even get 5 pages in if you missed the table of contents. You see, a "table of contents" is a section at the beginning of long texts which contains a bullet list of each topic discussed later on in detail. It's very organized and understandable and it makes very clear what's in the bill, not that that stops idiots from parroting the nonsense Republicans made up, such as "the bill is 3000 pages long!!!! (and mandates death panels!!!)". It's even in the same order as the text itself(!) so you can use the TOC to jump from place to place in the bill (and not need to read 250,000 words), which then lets you calculate the percent of tribal matter (of which I have no interest, so no- of course I didn't bother reading anything in the last 300+ pages in the bill). I can see how it would be beyond your grasp, but I personally don't happen to need someone else to perform the calculation. I did it in two minutes by downloading the bill's PDF, searching for "Division D", then doing some really fancy fourth-grade arithmetic. That thing you're doing with your ignorance is called 'projection', by the way.
Make all the excuses you want about why you refuse to take responsibility to know what you're voting on- I'm not impressed by how "valuable" your time or *snort* "sanity" are (apparently not enough to stop wasting both here). If you really want to help people keep a roof over their head, you should abstain from political activity until you can spare a few minutes to form a proper opinion so you don't cheap the voice of actually-valuable members of society.
I didn't suggest you need unanimous consent in a convention, which was yet another hair-brained idea considering how often those things happen (that would be a big fat "never", so good luck with that). I was actually making fun of you, pointing out that you're overestimating the value of your ideas . It's called "reading comprehension"- try it.
PS- I did notice you've abandoned your little "test" idea. Good show. It may have been more classy to concede the point, rather than just spouting a bunch of irrelevant nonsense in an attempt to salvage what I can only assume you think is "dignity".
Even your silly example isn't objective and you're terribly naive to think the only questions that will be asked are binary and that the people writing the questions will be non-partisan. What's the correct answer to "does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establish death panels?" Who's in charge of deciding there aren't? Are these the same people who define the term "death panel", or is that someone else's responsibility? Do we allow for citizens to petition the supreme court to appeal either of these decisions? And since you're basically creating a lottery which costs nothing to enter, when you get a few hundred thousand duplicates of that question who determines it's actually the same question? Who determines whether questions are good ones or a nuisance? Must I keep going?
Same with the 3000 odd page healthcare bill
Yawn. That tired meme again? It was nowhere near 3000, and like all legislation it was also at far less than 200 words-per-page due to double spacing, wide margins, and more reams of whitespace. Then, considering it's written in legalese which takes more than thirty words to say "all", it's not that daunting to people who graduated high school, not to mention law school. Did you even know that nearly 18% was dedicated strictly to American Indian affairs? Insisting on complaining about how long it was despite never looking at the contents just shows how useless voters' opinions are, and how representative government is necessary for getting anything more complicated than picking your nose done. No arbitrary number can be chosen as an upper limit on the length for all bills, and doing that just means they would split up one very large bill into multiple not-quite-so-large bills, which accomplishes nothing other than creating even more paperwork.
Fuckin right it would. That's exactly what we need, too.
No, it's really not. Congress is already incapable of keeping up with the constantly changing world (and lawyers find loopholes as soon as laws are passed). Just look at technology and copyright to see how hopelessly backed up legislative progress is. Sure, there are a lot of junk bills, but the solution isn't to throw a wrench into the lawmaking process which doesn't do anything other than waste their time (and here I thought you didn't like paying taxes...). The answer is to stop special interests from being able to write the excessive legislation and having their pocket congressmen rubber-stamp it into the hopper in the first place.
However, even if you removed all of congress, the next batch would do the same exact shit, and there is no way around that, except the threat and follow through of violent retaliation.
Drama queen much? There's something to be said for precedent. You don't have to jump straight to murder when you haven't bothered to try anything reasonable first. The whole House is removed every two years. Is it their fault you keep voting for congressmen you don't like?
It's also pointless suggesting that you could do better by enacting federal law through state legislatures. All you'd do is make your local legislature more corrupt after filling the power vacuum. How exactly are they any more immune to special interests? And how do you propose keeping the executive branch in check after abolishing the legislative? There's also the minor detail of rewriting the constitution to remove article two. No big deal- I'm sure you've already got a draft which could stand judicial scrutiny, not to mention unanimous ratification by the states. I mean, all these ideas are just that ironclad.
...Second, the legislative branch was given appropriations power for precisely the reason of having the ability to ensure which things got funded during tough times.
Bullshit. There's nothing about "tough times" in the Constitution. You made that up to make it sound like the Republicans are acting responsibly by going the wrong way about using Congress' power of the purse. Which idiot Fox News contributor fed you that "fact" ?
There's a lot of folks (myself included) who actually wouldn't consider a "government shutdown" to be a bad thing. There's plenty of people who think the government is way too big, has its fingers way too deep into every aspect of American life, and that shutting down the government is a forcible extraction of those fingers.
I sure hope you're ready to house and feed a few military families for the duration, because I can't afford to at the moment. Shutdowns mean they won't get paychecks, nor will people on Social Security. You want to reduce the size of government, fine- Mr. Boehner has the power to repeal laws establishing government programs and he should work to do just that. Avoiding passing the whole budget isn't a reasonable way to change small parts of it. Shutdowns are the act of a selfish child shirking responsibility.
The sentiment today is a whole lot different than it was the last time around. Sure, there was some small-government opining, but it was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today.
I'm with you there. The fervor pitch of the crazies in the Tea Party who make unreasonable demands ending with "or else", is simply undemocratic. Again, disagreement is not a good reason for a shutdown either. Having control of only half of Congress doesn't give you much power- they need to reread the Article 1, Section 7 and abandon this infantile fantasy that they should be able to do whatever they want because they have a majority the House for two years.
Let's ignore the fact that there aren't always "right" and "wrong" answers, nor can you assure that the questions being asked are objective, nor could (or should) you keep federal legislation monosyllabic enough for the average Joe. The real problem with this suggestion is that expecting them to submit to testing demeans not just them but us. We must expect more from ourselves first.
We already have tests for our representatives. You can ask them questions directly and through the press and view their voting record yourself before you reelect them. The problem isn't that they aren't tested, but that we grade on a curve by being ultra-partisan, disengaged, or worse- by watching FOX News.
To get rid of stupid politicians, you'll first need smarter voters. Jefferson and Madison told us this two centuries ago.
That would be true if a politician's voters actually voted based on position themselves, rather than being swayed by rhetoric and television commercials.
It doesn't have anything to do with being a moderate. An arch-conservative can just as well be forced to vote for a position more moderate than their own. But since the Republican party was hijacked by the far-right, we've more often seen this happen in the Democratic party, such as when many liberals were forced to abandon their position of single-payer for Obama's far more moderate compromise.
The point is that action doesn't define position, it happens despite personal position, because most politicians' conviction isn't considered important enough to resign over (which is a whole other problem with politics). If politicians were not at the mercy of a political party and special interests to win reelection they would have the freedom to act in accordance with their beliefs. Then they'd only have to worry about committee assignments, but that is often just another aspect of the campaign finance problem.
The FCC is part of the "executive branch". Congressmen are the "legislative branch". Those are two different things with two different but complementing jobs.
The FCC isn't just there to compose regulation (not the same as legislation) and nicely ask Comcast and Time Warner to comply. It's there to monitor them and smack them on the nose when they don't, including pursuing violators all the way up to SCOTUS. It also must make sure citizens know our rights and have the ability to submit complaints when we believe we are being wronged. Ever submit a complaint about telemarketers calling you despite being on the do-not-call registry or have AT&T put fake charges on your bill? Someone has to be payed to process that complaint.
Perhaps for once voters could understand something about their government instead of just screwing it up with random kneejerk opinions?
This assumes first that all governments will share the technological limitations of the Mubarak government. What the authoritarian government in Egypt did was very simplistic compared to what Iran does, not to mention China. Iran selectively disables content and Twitter hashtags are no match for the Great FireWall which is a massive content filter designed specifically to maintain its power though suppression of speech and knowledge. Also think about various countries' existing mandates for identified connections where you can't participate in online political dissent anonymously and your government has the ability to strike at opposition leaders early and nip revolutions in the bud.
Secondly it assumes that all revolutions follow an identical pattern (hint: they don't). Sure you're right that a ham-fisted "cutting off" might sometimes be useful to the progress of a revolutionary movement, like the generally-ignored curfew in Egypt, as could be turning off electricity or even more extreme services. But that's neither an assured result, nor how sophisticated regimes act today or will in the post-Mubarak world of which Secretary Clinton spoke.
The Daily Show is a COMEDY Show. Jon Stewart doesn't pretend otherwise. His job is to skewer the news.
Beck (and Fox) pretend otherwise.
It's not just that it's a comedy of the news. It's self-described as "fake news" and some their best material is when they divert from fact and make up nonsense. Jon tends to make fart jokes and laugh at the nonsense he tells. Contrast that to Beck who fakes tears and fear to inspire those in his flock. Stewart has said he doesn't want (or believe) people get actual news from his show. Studies have backed this up:
The survey also suggests Daily Show viewers are highly informed, an indication that The Daily Show is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs.
If you want to compare The Daily Show to a right-wing equivalent, you want the "1/2 hour news hour", but that one was canceled after being dragged on for months despite pitiful ratings out of the gate. And as we all know from watching Beck and O'Reilly, ratings are the true barometer for what's good and true.
Michael Moore warned about the loss of jobs due to offshoring and increasing medical costs. Rightwing partisan dimwits just replied with fat jokes and chest-thumping chanting of "USA #1!!!1." That didn't help us avoid our current unemployment situation, or find a compromise with Democrats on a health reform you could live with, instead your "leaders" used "death panel" fear-mongering instead of discussing actual supposed problems with the reform. Boehner is still making the problem worse despite claiming to care about jobs and at the moment he's only interested in wasting time on abortion and empty political gestures to "repeal" Obama's reform and replace it with something he still hasn't disclosed to his voters. Gore's movie may or may not be correct, but he's telling the truth as he understands it, which he believes will have dire consequences. Instead of addressing the claims he presented, Republicans looked at the situation with ignorant optimism and simply assumed there's nothing wrong with the world because the "tide's still going out and coming in with no miscommunication" and have also ignored calls from even military leaders on the need to address the energy problem because only hippies should care about "being green."
Contrast these liberals to Beck, who intentionally and knowingly tells lies to make money and you see the difference.
Not unless the argument is that it causes a positive benefit to the economy and thus is good for society.
I don't read a positive spin. so I don't think that was being argued, but rather that perhaps there is collusion between the manufacturers, bloatware vendors, and tech support firms to the detriment of consumers.
True. I would assume that continuing to launch payload into orbit would be part of the business plan- there's still a lot of demand for that, it pays well, and it's no harder than launching the shuttle in the first place. Otherwise they had better extend life support to the payload bay and fly tourists in bulk.
The "power" of prophets is not inherent. It is merely borrowed from God. Hercules is very different because he was supposedly an actual demi-god, being half god and half man. That concept is heretical to Muslims, who don't believe Jesus was anything other than a man (Quran 112:1-4).
If you're going to skew definitions to suit your argument you'll find yourself without anyone to talk to very quickly.
Prophets do supernatural things- that's part of what makes them credible messengers. Moses did some pretty wild stuff in Exodus. Would you argue he was a god too?
Jesus fucking christ. So I used the word 'nonsense'. Who cares? If that was the main point of my post or the thread you'd have something to keep replying about but it really wasn't. I wasn't trying to teach a Christian about their own dogma but pointed out a fundamental fact differentiating it from Islam and more importantly, why selling religious trinkets isn't necessarily sacriligious regardless of the faith to which they pertain. Give it a rest and quit trying to get me to placate fundamentalists who can't handle even the smallest hint of criticism. And don't blame me for them being stupid and picking fights with each other over every stupid little crap their priests make up.
Oh you don't have to tell me- I'm well aware of how idiotic and destructive some parts of Islamic interpretation have been. Same for a certain amount of Jewish thought. All religion shares in the nonsensical especially as it gets further removed from original texts. But I stand by my point of view that the trinity tops it all from my point of view from outside of any faith. If somebody want to launch into a rant reciting dogma they're just as free to do so.
Respect for religion is very overrated. So long as I stand by your freedom to practice your religion, I'm content with my attitude and don't care for your very respectful suggestion. If someone can't handle such a minor challenge to their faith, they're not worthy of calling themselves a Christian/Muslim/etc, because they're only one by birth rather than choice. I'm not trying to give offense, so I don't care if somebody chooses to be offended. Especially those religious groups who continue to persecute me as a heretic for not bowing and scraping as they do.
Revered as both are by Muslims, the prophet, Muhammad, is not the same as Allah. You're confusing Islam with the nonsense that is Christian dogma.
If you're aiming for self-righteously arrogant, at least get your facts straight.
As for "making a buck off him", that doesn't apply to providing an actual service. If you fake evidence of historical fact then yeah you're going to hell. Otherwise, you're just another businessman selling t-shirts and key chains.
No... science is being *questioned* and that's a Good Thing. Now, what we need is people who can answer the questions with supporting evidence, and an explanation...
No, it's not really. Science is accused not of being wrong in lieu of a better theory, but rather of being a conspiracy. Further, this accusation is not being made by dissenting scientists, but by those who view the bible as fact and/or have a political agenda.
That's not new, of course- just ask Galileo. What's new is that this new form of oppression of science is abusing scientific terminology in this "scientific questioning" myth to disguise its religious nature ala "Of Pandas and People." What's sad is how people are so uneducated that they fall for such an obvious rhetorical trick.
Refusing to teach it because of the political and ideological issues surrounding the debate is most certainly a valid stance for a teacher to take - a teacher shouldnt have to put up with hate mail or threats or harrassment any more than the rest of us. By forcing them to teach it, you are forcing them to open themselves up to attack.
So your argument is that the proper way to stop harassment by religious nuts is to let them have their way regardless of the fact that they chose to resort to violence in response a teacher doing their job? That's a ridiculous and morally offensive suggestion.
Teachers in primary education are generally not responsible for determining what goes into the curriculum, and when they do have such authority it's their duty to give their students an appropriate and unbiased education on the subject matter. It is not their place to pick and choose topics based on what parents or they themselves (or random crusading crackpots) believe. So long as they are not being intentionally provocative (e.g. advocating for or against abortion or claiming there is or is no god) they are not "opening themselves up to attack" as you claimed, and suggesting they are betrays a disturbing lack of objectivity, civility and respect for the law.
Again, stock options are a performance ensurer because they cannot be immediately sold for cash and they are taxed when "exercised"- when they actually acquired under fair market value. They're not a form of tax evasion "scam" as alleged by bitter/jealous people on Slashdot including the illiterate person who wrote the summary.
As to your friend dividends are earned on previously-gained property, namely stocks, and are thus not a form of personal compensation (a corporation cannot give it to only a few select shareholders). When your friend's "holdings" were gained they were taxed (either himself or his family and perhaps even again when gifted to- or inherited by him) and his dividends continue to be taxed as do additional gains when his stock is sold at a higher price. What more do you want from him as far as addional types of taxes on his property?
Now if you want to discuss increasing taxes on capital gains and such that's great- I agree they are too low and it only serves to unbalance the burden further. I'm all for the estate tax as well, which may still not have forced your rich buddy to work, but even a low rate causes the Republican crazies to scream bloody murder so good luck pushing it any higher.
But this discussion is about income taxes and this example has nothing to do with the morality behind $1 salaries.
"Figurehead" is inappropriate when discussing people who actively work such as Jobs, Brin, et al. You're taking your frustration out on the wrong corporate execs. "Bonuses" when we're talking about stock options is an appropriate form of compensation, considering it requires that they perform well at their job. It's inappropriate to argue against those unless you work for the company and have a point to make about internal pay equity. When you consider that Google has been consistently beating analyst expectations with consistently increasing revenues, and that they've never had to lay off people during the recession, there's absolutely no merit to such an argument. "Decreased tax burden" is an outright lie. You'll reduce your tax burden by quitting your job. But why would you do that?
Pick an argument, and argue it honestly. Don't change your argument to "morale and leadership" because I brought it up and countered your original point.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like Google is adding more functionality to Microsoft Office, free of charge. What am I missing?
For a moment don't be Microsoft, be Google: Think three steps ahead.
Today Google is making Office do something Microsoft still hasn't implemented for companies too small (or too smart) to use Sharepoint. .doc[x].
Tomorrow the company's employees are editing documents from anywhere, changing their ideas of what the Internet can do (RIA) and that you don't actually need Office to read a
The next day the boss realizes Google has something to offer and it's much cheaper and often higher quality than the stuff he's been licensing from Microsoft.
It's not guaranteed to work, but there's nothing to lose. Worst-case scenario? Nobody buys the service, Google wasted a teeny tiny fraction of its $35B cash on-hand, shuts it down and Office is offline again. No biggie.
Plus, Google called Microsoft Office not just "cumbersome", but "legacy". Them's fightin' words.
Oh, so you didn't actually read it.
No, that's just your failure to comprehend what I wrote yet again and assuming everyone is as lazy as you.
Sorry, I'm out of time trying to get anything through that thick skull of yours.
The House actually has quite a few non-lawyers, including doctors and engineers. Republicans paraded a lot of doctors on the House floor during their assault on the healthcare bill. Didn't make their rhetoric any more interesting, or more professional, it was just a convenient appeal to authority.
You're missing the point. When I mentioned copyright I was talking about digital copyrights, which should not be based on physical copyright law- they have yet to figure out why the two are very different. Legislation does suffer from chronic obsolescence and lawmakers are constantly playing catch-up with an ever-evolving world. Financial derivatives, predatory lending, E coli outbreaks, genetically modified food, stem cell research, telemarketing, SPAM, "cyberwarfare" and on and on- they're always too late to introduce legislation and it often takes disaster before something get done. It's nice and populist to go blaming Disney here, but that's the whole other special interest issue which I discussed elsewhere. Focus.
You didn't even get 5 pages in if you missed the table of contents. You see, a "table of contents" is a section at the beginning of long texts which contains a bullet list of each topic discussed later on in detail. It's very organized and understandable and it makes very clear what's in the bill, not that that stops idiots from parroting the nonsense Republicans made up, such as "the bill is 3000 pages long!!!! (and mandates death panels!!!)". It's even in the same order as the text itself(!) so you can use the TOC to jump from place to place in the bill (and not need to read 250,000 words), which then lets you calculate the percent of tribal matter (of which I have no interest, so no- of course I didn't bother reading anything in the last 300+ pages in the bill). I can see how it would be beyond your grasp, but I personally don't happen to need someone else to perform the calculation. I did it in two minutes by downloading the bill's PDF, searching for "Division D", then doing some really fancy fourth-grade arithmetic. That thing you're doing with your ignorance is called 'projection', by the way.
Make all the excuses you want about why you refuse to take responsibility to know what you're voting on- I'm not impressed by how "valuable" your time or *snort* "sanity" are (apparently not enough to stop wasting both here). If you really want to help people keep a roof over their head, you should abstain from political activity until you can spare a few minutes to form a proper opinion so you don't cheap the voice of actually-valuable members of society.
I didn't suggest you need unanimous consent in a convention, which was yet another hair-brained idea considering how often those things happen (that would be a big fat "never", so good luck with that). I was actually making fun of you, pointing out that you're overestimating the value of your ideas . It's called "reading comprehension"- try it.
PS- I did notice you've abandoned your little "test" idea. Good show. It may have been more classy to concede the point, rather than just spouting a bunch of irrelevant nonsense in an attempt to salvage what I can only assume you think is "dignity".
How can that possibly not be objective?
Even your silly example isn't objective and you're terribly naive to think the only questions that will be asked are binary and that the people writing the questions will be non-partisan. What's the correct answer to "does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establish death panels?" Who's in charge of deciding there aren't? Are these the same people who define the term "death panel", or is that someone else's responsibility? Do we allow for citizens to petition the supreme court to appeal either of these decisions? And since you're basically creating a lottery which costs nothing to enter, when you get a few hundred thousand duplicates of that question who determines it's actually the same question? Who determines whether questions are good ones or a nuisance? Must I keep going?
Same with the 3000 odd page healthcare bill
Yawn. That tired meme again? It was nowhere near 3000, and like all legislation it was also at far less than 200 words-per-page due to double spacing, wide margins, and more reams of whitespace. Then, considering it's written in legalese which takes more than thirty words to say "all", it's not that daunting to people who graduated high school, not to mention law school. Did you even know that nearly 18% was dedicated strictly to American Indian affairs? Insisting on complaining about how long it was despite never looking at the contents just shows how useless voters' opinions are, and how representative government is necessary for getting anything more complicated than picking your nose done. No arbitrary number can be chosen as an upper limit on the length for all bills, and doing that just means they would split up one very large bill into multiple not-quite-so-large bills, which accomplishes nothing other than creating even more paperwork.
Fuckin right it would. That's exactly what we need, too.
No, it's really not. Congress is already incapable of keeping up with the constantly changing world (and lawyers find loopholes as soon as laws are passed). Just look at technology and copyright to see how hopelessly backed up legislative progress is. Sure, there are a lot of junk bills, but the solution isn't to throw a wrench into the lawmaking process which doesn't do anything other than waste their time (and here I thought you didn't like paying taxes...). The answer is to stop special interests from being able to write the excessive legislation and having their pocket congressmen rubber-stamp it into the hopper in the first place.
However, even if you removed all of congress, the next batch would do the same exact shit, and there is no way around that, except the threat and follow through of violent retaliation.
Drama queen much? There's something to be said for precedent. You don't have to jump straight to murder when you haven't bothered to try anything reasonable first. The whole House is removed every two years. Is it their fault you keep voting for congressmen you don't like?
It's also pointless suggesting that you could do better by enacting federal law through state legislatures. All you'd do is make your local legislature more corrupt after filling the power vacuum. How exactly are they any more immune to special interests? And how do you propose keeping the executive branch in check after abolishing the legislative? There's also the minor detail of rewriting the constitution to remove article two. No big deal- I'm sure you've already got a draft which could stand judicial scrutiny, not to mention unanimous ratification by the states. I mean, all these ideas are just that ironclad.
...Second, the legislative branch was given appropriations power for precisely the reason of having the ability to ensure which things got funded during tough times.
Bullshit. There's nothing about "tough times" in the Constitution. You made that up to make it sound like the Republicans are acting responsibly by going the wrong way about using Congress' power of the purse. Which idiot Fox News contributor fed you that "fact" ?
There's a lot of folks (myself included) who actually wouldn't consider a "government shutdown" to be a bad thing. There's plenty of people who think the government is way too big, has its fingers way too deep into every aspect of American life, and that shutting down the government is a forcible extraction of those fingers.
I sure hope you're ready to house and feed a few military families for the duration, because I can't afford to at the moment. Shutdowns mean they won't get paychecks, nor will people on Social Security. You want to reduce the size of government, fine- Mr. Boehner has the power to repeal laws establishing government programs and he should work to do just that. Avoiding passing the whole budget isn't a reasonable way to change small parts of it. Shutdowns are the act of a selfish child shirking responsibility.
The sentiment today is a whole lot different than it was the last time around. Sure, there was some small-government opining, but it was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today.
I'm with you there. The fervor pitch of the crazies in the Tea Party who make unreasonable demands ending with "or else", is simply undemocratic. Again, disagreement is not a good reason for a shutdown either. Having control of only half of Congress doesn't give you much power- they need to reread the Article 1, Section 7 and abandon this infantile fantasy that they should be able to do whatever they want because they have a majority the House for two years.
Let's ignore the fact that there aren't always "right" and "wrong" answers, nor can you assure that the questions being asked are objective, nor could (or should) you keep federal legislation monosyllabic enough for the average Joe. The real problem with this suggestion is that expecting them to submit to testing demeans not just them but us. We must expect more from ourselves first.
We already have tests for our representatives. You can ask them questions directly and through the press and view their voting record yourself before you reelect them. The problem isn't that they aren't tested, but that we grade on a curve by being ultra-partisan, disengaged, or worse- by watching FOX News.
To get rid of stupid politicians, you'll first need smarter voters. Jefferson and Madison told us this two centuries ago.
That would be true if a politician's voters actually voted based on position themselves, rather than being swayed by rhetoric and television commercials.
It doesn't have anything to do with being a moderate. An arch-conservative can just as well be forced to vote for a position more moderate than their own. But since the Republican party was hijacked by the far-right, we've more often seen this happen in the Democratic party, such as when many liberals were forced to abandon their position of single-payer for Obama's far more moderate compromise.
The point is that action doesn't define position, it happens despite personal position, because most politicians' conviction isn't considered important enough to resign over (which is a whole other problem with politics). If politicians were not at the mercy of a political party and special interests to win reelection they would have the freedom to act in accordance with their beliefs. Then they'd only have to worry about committee assignments, but that is often just another aspect of the campaign finance problem.
In a word: Enforcement.
The FCC is part of the "executive branch". Congressmen are the "legislative branch". Those are two different things with two different but complementing jobs.
The FCC isn't just there to compose regulation (not the same as legislation) and nicely ask Comcast and Time Warner to comply. It's there to monitor them and smack them on the nose when they don't, including pursuing violators all the way up to SCOTUS. It also must make sure citizens know our rights and have the ability to submit complaints when we believe we are being wronged. Ever submit a complaint about telemarketers calling you despite being on the do-not-call registry or have AT&T put fake charges on your bill? Someone has to be payed to process that complaint.
Perhaps for once voters could understand something about their government instead of just screwing it up with random kneejerk opinions?
"Nah, guess that's asking too much."
This assumes first that all governments will share the technological limitations of the Mubarak government. What the authoritarian government in Egypt did was very simplistic compared to what Iran does, not to mention China. Iran selectively disables content and Twitter hashtags are no match for the Great FireWall which is a massive content filter designed specifically to maintain its power though suppression of speech and knowledge. Also think about various countries' existing mandates for identified connections where you can't participate in online political dissent anonymously and your government has the ability to strike at opposition leaders early and nip revolutions in the bud.
Secondly it assumes that all revolutions follow an identical pattern (hint: they don't). Sure you're right that a ham-fisted "cutting off" might sometimes be useful to the progress of a revolutionary movement, like the generally-ignored curfew in Egypt, as could be turning off electricity or even more extreme services. But that's neither an assured result, nor how sophisticated regimes act today or will in the post-Mubarak world of which Secretary Clinton spoke.
The Daily Show is a COMEDY Show. Jon Stewart doesn't pretend otherwise. His job is to skewer the news.
Beck (and Fox) pretend otherwise.
It's not just that it's a comedy of the news. It's self-described as "fake news" and some their best material is when they divert from fact and make up nonsense. Jon tends to make fart jokes and laugh at the nonsense he tells. Contrast that to Beck who fakes tears and fear to inspire those in his flock. Stewart has said he doesn't want (or believe) people get actual news from his show. Studies have backed this up:
The survey also suggests Daily Show viewers are highly informed, an indication that The Daily Show is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs.
If you want to compare The Daily Show to a right-wing equivalent, you want the "1/2 hour news hour" , but that one was canceled after being dragged on for months despite pitiful ratings out of the gate. And as we all know from watching Beck and O'Reilly, ratings are the true barometer for what's good and true.
Michael Moore warned about the loss of jobs due to offshoring and increasing medical costs. Rightwing partisan dimwits just replied with fat jokes and chest-thumping chanting of "USA #1!!!1." That didn't help us avoid our current unemployment situation, or find a compromise with Democrats on a health reform you could live with, instead your "leaders" used "death panel" fear-mongering instead of discussing actual supposed problems with the reform. Boehner is still making the problem worse despite claiming to care about jobs and at the moment he's only interested in wasting time on abortion and empty political gestures to "repeal" Obama's reform and replace it with something he still hasn't disclosed to his voters. Gore's movie may or may not be correct, but he's telling the truth as he understands it, which he believes will have dire consequences. Instead of addressing the claims he presented, Republicans looked at the situation with ignorant optimism and simply assumed there's nothing wrong with the world because the "tide's still going out and coming in with no miscommunication" and have also ignored calls from even military leaders on the need to address the energy problem because only hippies should care about "being green."
Contrast these liberals to Beck, who intentionally and knowingly tells lies to make money and you see the difference.
Isn't that the old broken window fallacy?
Not unless the argument is that it causes a positive benefit to the economy and thus is good for society.
I don't read a positive spin. so I don't think that was being argued, but rather that perhaps there is collusion between the manufacturers, bloatware vendors, and tech support firms to the detriment of consumers.
True. I would assume that continuing to launch payload into orbit would be part of the business plan- there's still a lot of demand for that, it pays well, and it's no harder than launching the shuttle in the first place. Otherwise they had better extend life support to the payload bay and fly tourists in bulk.
...and they'd rather bitch about your code's harmless warnings than use your perfectly useful application.
The "power" of prophets is not inherent. It is merely borrowed from God. Hercules is very different because he was supposedly an actual demi-god, being half god and half man. That concept is heretical to Muslims, who don't believe Jesus was anything other than a man (Quran 112:1-4).
If you're going to skew definitions to suit your argument you'll find yourself without anyone to talk to very quickly.
Prophets do supernatural things- that's part of what makes them credible messengers. Moses did some pretty wild stuff in Exodus. Would you argue he was a god too?
Stating that something silly is a fact doesn't make it true. It just makes you sound silly.
Jesus fucking christ. So I used the word 'nonsense'. Who cares? If that was the main point of my post or the thread you'd have something to keep replying about but it really wasn't. I wasn't trying to teach a Christian about their own dogma but pointed out a fundamental fact differentiating it from Islam and more importantly, why selling religious trinkets isn't necessarily sacriligious regardless of the faith to which they pertain. Give it a rest and quit trying to get me to placate fundamentalists who can't handle even the smallest hint of criticism. And don't blame me for them being stupid and picking fights with each other over every stupid little crap their priests make up.
Oh you don't have to tell me- I'm well aware of how idiotic and destructive some parts of Islamic interpretation have been. Same for a certain amount of Jewish thought. All religion shares in the nonsensical especially as it gets further removed from original texts. But I stand by my point of view that the trinity tops it all from my point of view from outside of any faith. If somebody want to launch into a rant reciting dogma they're just as free to do so.
Respect for religion is very overrated. So long as I stand by your freedom to practice your religion, I'm content with my attitude and don't care for your very respectful suggestion. If someone can't handle such a minor challenge to their faith, they're not worthy of calling themselves a Christian/Muslim/etc, because they're only one by birth rather than choice. I'm not trying to give offense, so I don't care if somebody chooses to be offended. Especially those religious groups who continue to persecute me as a heretic for not bowing and scraping as they do.
Revered as both are by Muslims, the prophet, Muhammad, is not the same as Allah. You're confusing Islam with the nonsense that is Christian dogma.
If you're aiming for self-righteously arrogant, at least get your facts straight.
As for "making a buck off him", that doesn't apply to providing an actual service. If you fake evidence of historical fact then yeah you're going to hell. Otherwise, you're just another businessman selling t-shirts and key chains.
Maybe it's not Windows but DOS?
With a directory named "www.computerworlduk.com" ?
No... science is being *questioned* and that's a Good Thing. Now, what we need is people who can answer the questions with supporting evidence, and an explanation...
No, it's not really. Science is accused not of being wrong in lieu of a better theory, but rather of being a conspiracy. Further, this accusation is not being made by dissenting scientists, but by those who view the bible as fact and/or have a political agenda.
That's not new, of course- just ask Galileo. What's new is that this new form of oppression of science is abusing scientific terminology in this "scientific questioning" myth to disguise its religious nature ala "Of Pandas and People." What's sad is how people are so uneducated that they fall for such an obvious rhetorical trick.
Refusing to teach it because of the political and ideological issues surrounding the debate is most certainly a valid stance for a teacher to take - a teacher shouldnt have to put up with hate mail or threats or harrassment any more than the rest of us. By forcing them to teach it, you are forcing them to open themselves up to attack.
So your argument is that the proper way to stop harassment by religious nuts is to let them have their way regardless of the fact that they chose to resort to violence in response a teacher doing their job? That's a ridiculous and morally offensive suggestion.
Teachers in primary education are generally not responsible for determining what goes into the curriculum, and when they do have such authority it's their duty to give their students an appropriate and unbiased education on the subject matter. It is not their place to pick and choose topics based on what parents or they themselves (or random crusading crackpots) believe. So long as they are not being intentionally provocative (e.g. advocating for or against abortion or claiming there is or is no god) they are not "opening themselves up to attack" as you claimed, and suggesting they are betrays a disturbing lack of objectivity, civility and respect for the law.
Again, stock options are a performance ensurer because they cannot be immediately sold for cash and they are taxed when "exercised"- when they actually acquired under fair market value. They're not a form of tax evasion "scam" as alleged by bitter/jealous people on Slashdot including the illiterate person who wrote the summary.
As to your friend dividends are earned on previously-gained property, namely stocks, and are thus not a form of personal compensation (a corporation cannot give it to only a few select shareholders). When your friend's "holdings" were gained they were taxed (either himself or his family and perhaps even again when gifted to- or inherited by him) and his dividends continue to be taxed as do additional gains when his stock is sold at a higher price. What more do you want from him as far as addional types of taxes on his property?
Now if you want to discuss increasing taxes on capital gains and such that's great- I agree they are too low and it only serves to unbalance the burden further. I'm all for the estate tax as well, which may still not have forced your rich buddy to work, but even a low rate causes the Republican crazies to scream bloody murder so good luck pushing it any higher.
But this discussion is about income taxes and this example has nothing to do with the morality behind $1 salaries.
"Figurehead" is inappropriate when discussing people who actively work such as Jobs, Brin, et al. You're taking your frustration out on the wrong corporate execs.
"Bonuses" when we're talking about stock options is an appropriate form of compensation, considering it requires that they perform well at their job. It's inappropriate to argue against those unless you work for the company and have a point to make about internal pay equity. When you consider that Google has been consistently beating analyst expectations with consistently increasing revenues, and that they've never had to lay off people during the recession, there's absolutely no merit to such an argument.
"Decreased tax burden" is an outright lie. You'll reduce your tax burden by quitting your job. But why would you do that?
Pick an argument, and argue it honestly. Don't change your argument to "morale and leadership" because I brought it up and countered your original point.