I'm not a huge fan of unnecessary surgery. It would probably draw the ire of human rights watch. But it would force them to give everyone a free medical exam. not sure if that is an advantage or disadvantage.
Well, given the size of RFID chips these days (even the long distance readable style) it's more like an injection than surgery. In the arm. Not even reason to disrobe, or for that matter, no need for a medical exam...
Have you ever even SEEN an MRE? It's encased in what is basically a balloon- heavy PVC plastic filled with air cushioning the landing. Plus, due to their rather bricky cross section and light weight, they've got a lower terminal velocity than the human body. It would take a hell of a lot more than that to make the food in them non-recoverable.
Helicopters don't tend to fly at 1500 feet AGL unless they're getting shot at also.
Well, I was thinking they were being shot at, but apparently I was wrong about that.
The links you posted to are indeed indicative of the problems when there's a trade imbalance.
However, you've failed to link that to comparative advantage.
True, I thought it was obvious- the way comparative advantage is explained, there can NEVER be a trade imbalance, or rather, there can't be one where one country goes deeply in debt, because the comparative advantage on the export product is enough to keep the trade imbalance from happening.
This of course has now been proven to be total hogwash- it is possible for one side of the trade imbalance to have such a lower standard of living as to have a comparative advantage in any given manufactured good that they know how to make- thus completely destroying the economy of the country with the higher standard of living.
If you have a point to make, I don't feel you've fully explained the connection between trade imbalance and the idea that one nation can make/trade products better than other countries giving them tangible trading power.
Ah, but you see, that's only half the theory of comparative advantage. The other half is that no country can possibly have such a high standard of living that they no longer have a comparative advantage in any manufactured good- which is where the United States is at. That's the part that has been totaly disproven over the last 30 years; it's gotten to the point that the only limitation is shipping cost/technology, and now that is at about $4000/cargo container to anywhere in the world, it's not that much of a limitation.
In the USA, two factors most heavily affect the continued subsidization of agriculture: Lobbies and the electoral system. Powerful lobbying groups have huge sway over these problems, usually very large corporations who operate under the façade of being the small farmer. Through this, they yield the power of the college-electoral system through those American states with little else but primary industry, and unemployment is a huge electoral issue. Thus, this "farming the mailbox" is steadfast.
Absolutely agreed- but I've got a simple solution for it. Eliminate subsidies for farms that export. If the whole intent is war insurance, well, let's face it, exporting food that could be eaten here doesn't help the war effort. Part II would be All Agricultural Subsidies Should Be in The Form of Purchasing Food For MRE Production. MREs have a nice long shelf life (3-5 years), can be easily used as emergency humanitarian aid (you can drop them out of a helicopter from 1500 feet into water and they're still recoverable by refugees on the ground- slightly less into sand or dirt, but the same thing applies), and can also be used directly by our troops for the current war effort.
but there are definitely 40 million uninsured Americans (mostly poor). The uninsured Americans go straight to Emergency Rooms too, and for the same reasons that you mention.
Actually when I was uninsured, I was afraid to, and would do anything to avoid a trip to the ER- it would have ruined me financially for the next 40 years. Unlike an illegal alien, I can't avoid the bill collectors, and you can't go bankrupt for medical reasons anymore- so doing this as an American Citizen basically ends up making you a slave to the Hospital when they get a judgement against you garnishing all your future wages and SS payments, with interest.
I am a nativist- and if you'd just add one thing to the plan, I'd be for it: A unique ID RFID Chip that allows anybody with a reader to check warrent and employability status, implanted in the hand. Heck, I'd even support that for the natives. Make it readable at a reasonable distance (say, 50 feet) and you'd also have a way for the cops to track a suspect, plus we'd be able to find them to deport them, or deny them a job.
Oh, and one more thing- any employer found to be hiring the "unchipped" gets chipped himself, all of his assets taken away, and deported across the border into Mexico.
I think it would make sense to figure out what it usually costs for someone to illegally cross over (I've heard it's as expensive as $300). Just charge a bit less than that for a fast track work visa. take fingerprints and random DNA samples, photographs, etc. Give the work visa a 1 year expiration and hope that a vast majority of people go back to their country of origin once a year for christmas or easter or whatever. A valid non-expired work visa would enable a person to demand minimum wage and recieve basic services. To renew your visa you just go through the fast track again, it should be like going to the DMV. and the fast track ought to be a for-profit entity, the more effeciently you run it the greater your department profits. (give employees bonuses).
Add a unique, long distance readable, implantible RFID tag just in case they don't go home for the holidays or commit a crime- and I'd agree to it in a second.
The problem is, it isn't. Sustainable that is. It's based on certain countries being "consumer countries", basically living on huge amounts of debt, that come from the savings accounts of the "manufacturing countries". But just like the empty cargo containers clogging your local US port of choice (because all the trade is one-way, and nobody wants to pay to ship empty cargo containers back to China or whereever), this flow cannot continue to be unidirectional forever. It CAN and WILL eventually collapse. I'm not sure when, but it will.
The USA still has positive population growth, excluding immigration. That means that while there are more baby boomers than the generation that begat them (their parents), they also had more children, who also have had more children. There was an increase in the rate of population growth, hence the term "baby boom" and there was a slowing in the population increase. In other words, even with zero immigration, there are more hands to wipe than butts that need wiped.
Not when you ALSO remove the kids born to immigrants. Any given American Family dies out within 7 generations, currently- they simply stop breeding. The American baby boomers achieved ZPG (defined as Which is why, while I'm very much for isolationism and closing the borders, I'm also for international credit checks allowing in 500,000 immigrants/year- either that or eliminating abortion and enforcing marriage, which would accomplish the same thing demographically.
Looks like These guys have pretty close to your shopping list covered- they even have a phone with auto answer that has our friend, the standard 2.5mm universal headset port, which could be used for hooking up to the PA system.
Any link to WHY that is bogus, or even what the hell you're talking about (No, I can't RTFA, for some reason Oregon Department Of Transportation considers criticising the current government NSFW).
Anyone who is pissed about the outcome is just angry because everyone else didnt vote Bush out.
Well, halfway. We're actually pissed about the apparent IQ level it took to vote for Bush a 2nd time after so many incredible failures. We still have Abortion, we failed to make Gay Marriage unconstitutional, we spent 3 years prior to that election failing to capture one crazy old man in a cave, we let the Taliban escape to Pakistan and become strong again, we have the war in Iraq which was a complete failure, we have the lack of funding and support for our troops, we have absolutely no security at the border, and we have the incredible raise in future tax rates by paying for stuff on credit.
And that's just the stuff that people who voted FOR Bush care about- what Social Conservatives should care about. Bush's voter base is supposedly Social Conservatives, but we haven't seen one iota of movement on anything Social Conservatives care about. I don't see how anybody could justify voting for such a complete failure of a politician and human being. And that's what I'm mad about.
I also strongly suspect that the American people are smart enough to recognize a failure when they see one- and we didn't. The fact that you have the CEO of Diebold promising to do "everything in my power" to deliver Ohio to Bush is reason enough for suspicion of voter fraud, and we were DENIED a full and open debate on the subject by having a complete pansy as the opposing candidate. So bring all the manufactured "evidence" you want two years down the road- it won't stop a damned thing, it won't bring back our democracy, and it won't save the 6 million aborted babies' lives that have been sacrificed by this President.
Truth should always trump all other values. In all cases. Lying is a rephrensible sin to me, far worse than merely gaming the system.
Having said that- your repsonse to a lying media is to lie to them more and assure that the media is further from the truth, instead of trying to rectify the lie and create a more accurate system? Now that's sociopathic!
Well, from the looks of it to me- not Government Toadies, but rather right-wing-nut toadies due to people specifically lying to them in the exit poll.
It makes me wonder what would happen if we did require slip-verified electronic voting in this country, and allowed the news to have up-to-the-second networked totals untouched by human hands.
Could they be better in theory? Certainly! Could you get much better in practice? That's much less clear. It's not fair to compare Mythbusters to the show that exists in your head that has an infinite budget and unlimited access to the best experts of all kinds. That's not an alternative.
In fact, that's my main complaint with Mythbusters- they rarely have the time/and/or/budget to actually do a myth in depth. Personally, for instance, I'd like to see them get a hold of the high school science teacher who claimed to have built the rocket car- and tried his version, which was a rail car that leaped the track due to badly designed breaks and caused a collapse in an old mineshaft- thereby *perfecly* replicating the meta-myth of a 67 Impala embedded in a mountain.
The other guy proved it to me. People are not only dumb, but they are also liars, which explains the exit poll data but leaves me less trusting of my fellow man. This country deserves to lose the war- they're too stupid to know how to win.
Interesting- yet another American who thinks the truth and freedom of the press is something to play around with. You deserve the politicians who are in power- they completely agree with you. Personally, I think honesty about my opinions should always trump stupid little kid games- which does have a tendency to make me unpopular, but at the very least I can go to sleep at night knowing I'm not a liar.
Is shooting missiles with guidance system any different?
I thought what really matters is whether you deliberately aim at civilians or not.
Well, Hezebolah was doing both, so I guess that works (now whether or not they were hitting the civilians they were aiming at or not, is highly quesitonable- one would assume that their intent in attacking civilians in Israel was NOT to hit civilians in Palestine).
Many of the members of my community (Beaverton, OR) are highly paid specialists to whom analyzing a CDR for fradulent deleted records is child's play, so I might be biased.
It's a legitimate point that they can send all their DRM crap that they can't sell in the US into Canada because the Canadians forgot to ask a question? WTF? I guess profit really does trump ethics.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a huge fan of unnecessary surgery. It would probably draw the ire of human rights watch. But it would force them to give everyone a free medical exam. not sure if that is an advantage or disadvantage.
Well, given the size of RFID chips these days (even the long distance readable style) it's more like an injection than surgery. In the arm. Not even reason to disrobe, or for that matter, no need for a medical exam...
Huh? At 1500 feet, water is as hard as brick.
Have you ever even SEEN an MRE? It's encased in what is basically a balloon- heavy PVC plastic filled with air cushioning the landing. Plus, due to their rather bricky cross section and light weight, they've got a lower terminal velocity than the human body. It would take a hell of a lot more than that to make the food in them non-recoverable.
Helicopters don't tend to fly at 1500 feet AGL unless they're getting shot at also.
Well, I was thinking they were being shot at, but apparently I was wrong about that.
The links you posted to are indeed indicative of the problems when there's a trade imbalance. However, you've failed to link that to comparative advantage.
True, I thought it was obvious- the way comparative advantage is explained, there can NEVER be a trade imbalance, or rather, there can't be one where one country goes deeply in debt, because the comparative advantage on the export product is enough to keep the trade imbalance from happening.
This of course has now been proven to be total hogwash- it is possible for one side of the trade imbalance to have such a lower standard of living as to have a comparative advantage in any given manufactured good that they know how to make- thus completely destroying the economy of the country with the higher standard of living.
If you have a point to make, I don't feel you've fully explained the connection between trade imbalance and the idea that one nation can make/trade products better than other countries giving them tangible trading power.
Ah, but you see, that's only half the theory of comparative advantage. The other half is that no country can possibly have such a high standard of living that they no longer have a comparative advantage in any manufactured good- which is where the United States is at. That's the part that has been totaly disproven over the last 30 years; it's gotten to the point that the only limitation is shipping cost/technology, and now that is at about $4000/cargo container to anywhere in the world, it's not that much of a limitation.
In the USA, two factors most heavily affect the continued subsidization of agriculture: Lobbies and the electoral system. Powerful lobbying groups have huge sway over these problems, usually very large corporations who operate under the façade of being the small farmer. Through this, they yield the power of the college-electoral system through those American states with little else but primary industry, and unemployment is a huge electoral issue. Thus, this "farming the mailbox" is steadfast.
Absolutely agreed- but I've got a simple solution for it. Eliminate subsidies for farms that export. If the whole intent is war insurance, well, let's face it, exporting food that could be eaten here doesn't help the war effort. Part II would be All Agricultural Subsidies Should Be in The Form of Purchasing Food For MRE Production. MREs have a nice long shelf life (3-5 years), can be easily used as emergency humanitarian aid (you can drop them out of a helicopter from 1500 feet into water and they're still recoverable by refugees on the ground- slightly less into sand or dirt, but the same thing applies), and can also be used directly by our troops for the current war effort.
Almost all the money in China has been loaned to it be western (read US) financial institutions.
Uh, I think you've got that backwards. Next time you buy a car, try to find a part NOT stamped "Made in China".
but there are definitely 40 million uninsured Americans (mostly poor). The uninsured Americans go straight to Emergency Rooms too, and for the same reasons that you mention.
Actually when I was uninsured, I was afraid to, and would do anything to avoid a trip to the ER- it would have ruined me financially for the next 40 years. Unlike an illegal alien, I can't avoid the bill collectors, and you can't go bankrupt for medical reasons anymore- so doing this as an American Citizen basically ends up making you a slave to the Hospital when they get a judgement against you garnishing all your future wages and SS payments, with interest.
I am a nativist- and if you'd just add one thing to the plan, I'd be for it: A unique ID RFID Chip that allows anybody with a reader to check warrent and employability status, implanted in the hand. Heck, I'd even support that for the natives. Make it readable at a reasonable distance (say, 50 feet) and you'd also have a way for the cops to track a suspect, plus we'd be able to find them to deport them, or deny them a job.
Oh, and one more thing- any employer found to be hiring the "unchipped" gets chipped himself, all of his assets taken away, and deported across the border into Mexico.
I think it would make sense to figure out what it usually costs for someone to illegally cross over (I've heard it's as expensive as $300). Just charge a bit less than that for a fast track work visa. take fingerprints and random DNA samples, photographs, etc. Give the work visa a 1 year expiration and hope that a vast majority of people go back to their country of origin once a year for christmas or easter or whatever. A valid non-expired work visa would enable a person to demand minimum wage and recieve basic services. To renew your visa you just go through the fast track again, it should be like going to the DMV. and the fast track ought to be a for-profit entity, the more effeciently you run it the greater your department profits. (give employees bonuses).
Add a unique, long distance readable, implantible RFID tag just in case they don't go home for the holidays or commit a crime- and I'd agree to it in a second.
The one who noticed the hundreds of jobs created by the cleanup effort.
The problem is, it isn't. Sustainable that is. It's based on certain countries being "consumer countries", basically living on huge amounts of debt, that come from the savings accounts of the "manufacturing countries". But just like the empty cargo containers clogging your local US port of choice (because all the trade is one-way, and nobody wants to pay to ship empty cargo containers back to China or whereever), this flow cannot continue to be unidirectional forever. It CAN and WILL eventually collapse. I'm not sure when, but it will.
Too bad the last 35 years of empirical evidence has proven comparitive advantage to be an utter and malicious lie, told to young people in first world nations so that they don't notice their entire lifestyle is being financed on unsustainable international loans.
The USA still has positive population growth, excluding immigration. That means that while there are more baby boomers than the generation that begat them (their parents), they also had more children, who also have had more children. There was an increase in the rate of population growth, hence the term "baby boom" and there was a slowing in the population increase. In other words, even with zero immigration, there are more hands to wipe than butts that need wiped.
Not when you ALSO remove the kids born to immigrants. Any given American Family dies out within 7 generations, currently- they simply stop breeding. The American baby boomers achieved ZPG (defined as
Which is why, while I'm very much for isolationism and closing the borders, I'm also for international credit checks allowing in 500,000 immigrants/year- either that or eliminating abortion and enforcing marriage, which would accomplish the same thing demographically.
Looks like These guys have pretty close to your shopping list covered- they even have a phone with auto answer that has our friend, the standard 2.5mm universal headset port, which could be used for hooking up to the PA system.
Any link to WHY that is bogus, or even what the hell you're talking about (No, I can't RTFA, for some reason Oregon Department Of Transportation considers criticising the current government NSFW).
Anyone who is pissed about the outcome is just angry because everyone else didnt vote Bush out.
Well, halfway. We're actually pissed about the apparent IQ level it took to vote for Bush a 2nd time after so many incredible failures. We still have Abortion, we failed to make Gay Marriage unconstitutional, we spent 3 years prior to that election failing to capture one crazy old man in a cave, we let the Taliban escape to Pakistan and become strong again, we have the war in Iraq which was a complete failure, we have the lack of funding and support for our troops, we have absolutely no security at the border, and we have the incredible raise in future tax rates by paying for stuff on credit.
And that's just the stuff that people who voted FOR Bush care about- what Social Conservatives should care about. Bush's voter base is supposedly Social Conservatives, but we haven't seen one iota of movement on anything Social Conservatives care about. I don't see how anybody could justify voting for such a complete failure of a politician and human being. And that's what I'm mad about.
I also strongly suspect that the American people are smart enough to recognize a failure when they see one- and we didn't. The fact that you have the CEO of Diebold promising to do "everything in my power" to deliver Ohio to Bush is reason enough for suspicion of voter fraud, and we were DENIED a full and open debate on the subject by having a complete pansy as the opposing candidate. So bring all the manufactured "evidence" you want two years down the road- it won't stop a damned thing, it won't bring back our democracy, and it won't save the 6 million aborted babies' lives that have been sacrificed by this President.
It is simply never worth behaving irresponsibly yourself to force others to behave responsibly- it never quite seems to work.
Truth should always trump all other values. In all cases. Lying is a rephrensible sin to me, far worse than merely gaming the system.
Having said that- your repsonse to a lying media is to lie to them more and assure that the media is further from the truth, instead of trying to rectify the lie and create a more accurate system? Now that's sociopathic!
Well, from the looks of it to me- not Government Toadies, but rather right-wing-nut toadies due to people specifically lying to them in the exit poll.
It makes me wonder what would happen if we did require slip-verified electronic voting in this country, and allowed the news to have up-to-the-second networked totals untouched by human hands.
Could they be better in theory? Certainly! Could you get much better in practice? That's much less clear. It's not fair to compare Mythbusters to the show that exists in your head that has an infinite budget and unlimited access to the best experts of all kinds. That's not an alternative.
In fact, that's my main complaint with Mythbusters- they rarely have the time/and/or/budget to actually do a myth in depth. Personally, for instance, I'd like to see them get a hold of the high school science teacher who claimed to have built the rocket car- and tried his version, which was a rail car that leaped the track due to badly designed breaks and caused a collapse in an old mineshaft- thereby *perfecly* replicating the meta-myth of a 67 Impala embedded in a mountain.
The other guy proved it to me. People are not only dumb, but they are also liars, which explains the exit poll data but leaves me less trusting of my fellow man. This country deserves to lose the war- they're too stupid to know how to win.
I intentionally lie to exit pollers.
Interesting- yet another American who thinks the truth and freedom of the press is something to play around with. You deserve the politicians who are in power- they completely agree with you. Personally, I think honesty about my opinions should always trump stupid little kid games- which does have a tendency to make me unpopular, but at the very least I can go to sleep at night knowing I'm not a liar.
Is shooting missiles with guidance system any different?
I thought what really matters is whether you deliberately aim at civilians or not.
Well, Hezebolah was doing both, so I guess that works (now whether or not they were hitting the civilians they were aiming at or not, is highly quesitonable- one would assume that their intent in attacking civilians in Israel was NOT to hit civilians in Palestine).
Many of the members of my community (Beaverton, OR) are highly paid specialists to whom analyzing a CDR for fradulent deleted records is child's play, so I might be biased.
It's a legitimate point that they can send all their DRM crap that they can't sell in the US into Canada because the Canadians forgot to ask a question? WTF? I guess profit really does trump ethics.
Spaghetti code makes sense- it's just a lot harder for a human brain to follow. If you think like a computer, it's no problem to read it.