Doubtless the usual bunch of rednecks will protest that this is perfectly ok, after all, if someone is so stupid they're willing to base their vote on an such an offer, that's up to them
Well, they already do, to some extent. Except instead of a taco it was a $300 refund (he just didn't tell us about the $450 billion deficit first, that's all).
Until the scaled speed-up clock, one thing that was always odd in hockey games was penalties. If I'm playing with 5 minute periods, and my guy takes a penalty, he's in the box for 2 minutes. Thats 40% of the period! A minor penalty is only meant to be 10% of the period. The current trend in hockey games (EA at least) has been to always make the periods 20 minutes and do not change the penalties. Instead, the time scale is changed. If you play on 5 minute periods, the clock ticks 4 times as fast as normal, etc. I suppose they could also have adjusted the penalties to match the period length, but the newer EA games, IIRC, allow you to set many different period lengths. It would suck to have to think about a 42 second penalty if I happened to be playing on 7 minute periods.
That aside, most sports games have always ticked fast. I think this had to do with programming on lower systems such as the NES, where it was not worth the time to come up with a clock algorithm that was exact.
While the idea of 3rd parties inducing realignments as you outline seems plausible, I'm unsure of the effect this is having on the mainstream parties. Unfortunately, I don't know my history well enough to be able to talk about the effects of 3rd parties on elections in the past, when 3rd parties were much more active and accepted.
In the present, however, it does not seem like 3rd parties are causing the changes you describe. While it can certainly be said that the 2000 election would be different without the Green Party, I don't think that the Democratic party has co-opted the Green message. They have shifted slightly left with the resurgence of the liberal wing of the party, but they do not hold most of the progressive views that embody the Green Party. Nader chose to run again because he felt that the Democrats were still ignoring people.
In your theory, there is the assupmtion that the 3rd party and minority party's ideals are compatible. What if it is the case that the majority party is centrist, and the minority and 3rd parties are then on opposite sides of the majority party? I doubt they would coalesce into one coalition. In fact, one could say that this is what happened in 2000. The Democrats were more centrist than they had been in the past, and they had the GOP running from the right, and the Greens running from the left. While there is evidence of the GOP helping the Green party, I do not consider that to be a true coalition of the parties, merely dirty politics.
Did Ross Perot's run in 1992 cause the Republicans to change their message and allow for the 1994 "revolution"? I should do a bit of reading, but I think not. While Perot may have caused the GOP to rethink their strategy, he was not appealing to the religious right, but to those who disagreed with the economic policies of G.H.W Bush. While the GOP has talked big about fiscal responsibility, it hasn't produced. I suppose then we get into the question of perceived vs. real stances on the issues. The GOP would like to be perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility, but the Democratic party does the same, so I'm unsure how Perot sways either side here. The defecit was and is an issue, and I don't think there's any platform that says the defecit should get bigger.
So I guess my point was that while I think your idea is plausible, it does not seem, imo, to be supported by the past two presidential elections with 3rd party candidates.
This is true of any democracy, apart from the U.S, where people apparently feel that they must simply vote for either the guy most likely to win, or the other guy because they don't like one candidate.
First, let's make things clear. A presidential election is different from every other election held in the USA. The President is the only elected official that everyone votes for (chooses electors for, to be technical). In almost every state, electoral votes are awarded with a "winner take all" method. So, if you vote for a person who doesn't carry your state, your vote isn't considered on the national level. Combine this with the social desire to root for "the winning team" and it's easy to see why there is concern about 'wasted' votes.
Voting for third parties will not become viable in the USA until: Instant Runoff or Concordance voting is used, the Electoral College is changed (at least have all states proportion the EV votes to that state's popular vote), and third parties begin winning LOCAL offices. Not all of these need to happen, but the last one is very important, and it is beginning to occur in some areas of the country. Without elected officials in smaller offices, a voter is going to ask: Why am I going to vote for a Green or Libertarian for president? Most people know nothing about third parties. Sure, they can read the platforms, but go read the GOP and Democratic platforms and see if they match up to what the GOP and Democratic parties actually carry out. In this day and age, a platform is idealism and is directed towards the base, not undecided voters. The only people who care enough to read the platforms have usually made up their minds already. Experience in elected offices is much more important. Greens are easily painted as crazy liberals. Without elected officials to point to and say "Look at all the good they've done, and it wasn't crazy" the Greens will be held to that stereotype. The same goes for any other 3rd party. Why local offices? Local officials are much closer to the people, and generally do not run big media campaigns. Large ]cities are the exception to this, of course.
An additional problem is the problem of change. Both the GOP and Democrats want to change things in the country, and so does every 3rd party. Where the disagreement lies is not only the direction of the change, but the magnitude. The mainstream parties are typically interested in smaller, more incremental changes than 3rd parties. Smaller changes are easier to enact, and smaller changes also help to enforce the status quo. 3rd parties typically call for large changes. For example, the Libertarian Party would seek to re-legalize some drugs. While I happen to agree with this position, it is not something that is going to be easy to carry out with the mainstream public or a legislature that contains no members of your party.
While I am a registered Democrat, I do support the efforts of 3rd parties. However, I believe they need to start from the bottom and realize that it is highly unlikely that there will be a 'revolution' and a 3rd party president is elected without substantial numbers of other elected officials from the party.
From link (which is a 3 year old article): "See that," Berry says, pointing to the seeming nothingness pouring out of Polk's stack. "Someone can be sitting near a coal gasification plant and see nothing coming out of it. That's the goal." (In actuality, the clouds pouring from traditional plants are water vapor.
While most clouds you see coming from stacks are simply water vapor, a coal fired boiler emits a lot of particulate matter, which is harsh on the lungs, especially to those with asthma or other respiratory problems. The EPA has been focusing more on PM in the past few years. Facilities are now required to report PM emissions at 3 levels: Total PM, PM10 (PM 10 microns or smaller), and PM2.5 (PM 2.5 microns or smaller). PM2.5 emission reporting was added just this year, as it has been learned over the past 5-10 years that PM2.5 is much more harmful than less fine particulates. Current control measures for PM are in the 99% removal range, assuming the equipment is properly maintained.
Also, coal emits a lot more crap than oil or natural gas. By crap I mean trace amounts of nasty chemicals. Hydrochloric acid, hydroflouric acid, arsenic, mercury, lead, dioxins, etc. EPA's emission manual for coal combustion can be found here.
"Clean coal" may be a temporary measure as we begin to run out of natural gas and oil, but it is by no means a solution, as the CO2 problem is not solved.
It's the old ones (especially in places like China) that are the problem.
Yes, but the real problem is our reluctance to fund new energy initiatives and promote smart usage of energy. We waste outrageous amounts of energy in the USA. Research must not only be focused on new energy sources, but improved efficency in the transmission and use of that energy.
I reckon the libertarian party is a lot more likely to eliminate unnecessary expansions of government than the greens or any "left wing" group.
Okay sure, so maybe they'll get us out of DMCA. What about the FDA? FTC? SEC? EPA? OSHA? I happen to like those. Corporations are hit much, much harder by government regulations than any person, and that's a good thing (Though I doubt Martha thinks the SEC is a good thing right now..). Simply look back 80 years before all the items I mentioned above were created and look how the average person interacted with and was treated by corporations. Sure, it isn't perfect now, and corporations are still too free to step on people, but it's come a long way. The major remaining hurdle is to change the silly notion that, legally, corporations are the same as people.
NOTE: Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have signed copyright laws into effect. Even the DMCA was signed under Clinton's presidency. So you'll have to vote Green or some other left-left-wing party if you want to revoke some of these laws.
Not necessarily true. It is the case that the parties change their mind on issues from time to time. A simple example: Every democratic senator but one voted for the PATRIOT Act. Now there are very few who will defend the extension of PATRIOT or PATRIOT II.
It is very difficult to estimate how a law will actually be used. Part of that is because it is nearly impossible to predict how the courts will rule on the law. Legislation is an ongoing process. Legislators are rarely writing new laws. They spend most of their time revising what already exists. If they aren't made aware of a problem with legislation, they won't spend the time to fix it. While voting non-mainstream party will be a clue to your elected officials that you are discontent, it is more effective to let them know in a direct way: Call, write or fax your representative and let them know how you feel about the issues. You may be surprised at the result.
Charge up to 1.75UKP for a 10UKP withdrawl. Is this purposefully misleading to make you look like more of a victim, or do they charge a percentage of the withdrawl amount? If you're aware that the fee is flat, regardless of withdrawl amount, you're only hurting yourself by withdrawing only 10UKP. In the US, I have only seen flat fee ATMs. The highest fees I have seen are $3.50, and usually only in bars or other ultra-convenient locations. A convenience store ATM will usually be $2, and a competing bank's ATM will usually be $1.50.
The article said that ATMs has NOT reduced the number of branches or tellers, people do still prefer real life human contact and decision making to occur.
Does your conclusion follow from the data? I do not think so. I believe that the number of branches and tellers has increased simply due to continued development. Also, banks are now open longer than they used to be, requiring more tellers. Some banks are now open on Sunday, a practice that used to be unheard of, if not illegal due to Blue Laws. What would be interesting to look at is the number of tellers per branch, but that number would also be tainted due to increased service hours.
Where is the decision making when you use the teller? There's no decisions being made, at least for my transactions. I hand them the slip and cheques, they verify that I've signed and added correctly, then give me a receipt. The ATM is pretty much the same, except that the human verification step isn't happening in front of my eyes. This is something that may have been overlooked. A deposit to an ATM is the same as a deposit to a teller. Someone is still doing the work to take your forms and cheques out of the envelope, ensure that you've endorsed and added correctly, then sort the papers to be sent out. The ATM only saves the bank time/labor for withdrawls, which can be completely automated.
Another thing, are people with weak math skills more likely to use a teller, to ensure that they are there in the case of errors?
ihbt, but there's a clear distinction. Moving jobs to India doesn't change the work. The same work is being done, just by someone else, for much cheaper. Installing an ATM changes the work. It (theoretically, but not realistically; see posts in this thread) reduces the number of tellers needed and allows people to get cash from places other than banks. Offshoring offers no advantages save cost. ATMs offer the advantage of convenience.
Point of interest - everything Reagan did was passed by a Democratic congress. We can play that game all day. However, Clinton showed during the government shutdown that he was bigger than Congress, and historically the President has taken credit or flak for what happens on their watch, no matter what the makeup of Congress is. Perhaps I do misconstrue Gingrich though..
My whole point was that these blanket generalizations about republicans are simply a liberal mantra that, when repeated often enough, seem to make people believe they are actually true.
I'm not denying that others aren't just as guilty.
Yeah, you're just implying it, like an asshole. You could have just said "My whole point about blanket generalizations is that they are simply a mantra that, when repeated often enough, seem to make people believe they are actually true." And as you read slashdot, I'm sure you've heard of the term "meme" to describe this concept.
Look, I can come back with a list of 50 things that the press is ignoring with Bush, and you can come back with 50 more things, great. The press fails on both sides. They're not interested in either party, just their status quo and profits. And just to respond to your points:
1. Actually, this surprised me too. However, the commission was bi-partisan and that means that the GOP explicitly endorsed Gorelick's nomination. Bitching about it now seems like it would just be trying to draw attention away from, or discredit, the Commission's work. She should not have been on the panel, though.
2. This is a new item (at least to me, I've only heard it in the past week, on NPR no less, so fuck you and your hilarious liberal bias) and is slowly being reported.
3. The personal opinion of known partisans is not news, but was lightly reported through the primaries. But, why not interviews with people Bush knew from his partying past? Or his commanders from Alabama ANG? Or better yet: Fuck the past, let's focus on the present. What Bush and Kerry did 30 years ago is great, but it's not going to change anything now.
The discussions I've had with other conservative minded people never discussed eliminating programs that would help poor people
While run of the mill conservatives don't say this, the party leadership does. It is publicly documented that the Republican strategy for Medicare and other programs are to let them "wither on the vine" (the words of Newt Gingrich. While he is out of the party now, I don't think you can classify him as an asshole that represents a very vocal minority of the party's elected members, since he was elected Speaker by those members). And that's part of the problem here. I've been flame-y in this thread, but it does get to a more important point. Do Republican elected officials accurately represent the ideals and desires of Republican voters? In fact, one could ask that question of any party. However, I think it is more appropriate to the GOP, as much of their base is poor southerners, and it does not logically hold that a poor person would want to vote for the GOP (yes, there are cultural and moral issues involved, i realize).
Also note that Bill Clinton was a champion of welfare reform ("workfare") in both Arkansas and on the national level. The GOP takes the idea of Democrats helping others through welfare and other programs and construes it to mean that big bags of cash are simply being given to people year after year. This simply isn't the case, and it isn't what Democrats want. We want accountability and efficiency just as much as anyone else. However, we aren't willing to sacrifice the goal to do that. If you have to start out with an ugly government assistance program and refine it over time, that is better than never having the program at all.
Do you have reliable demographic research to show otherwise? I doubt either of us do, so why don't we agree to hate each other. At least Bush is a uniter, not a divider. Yay!
It's really not worth arguing about on slashdot, or how much evidence you might have to the contrary (or how much evidence you have showing many democrats actually fit that description), you're not going to change any minds here.
Nope, but it sure is a fun way to pass the time..:D
It goes right along with all republicans being: racist, cheap, uncaring, greedy, selfish, white, good old boy, stupid, misled, uniformed sheep.
And Democrats being liberal tree hugging, latee drinking, elite, volvo driving, tax and spending, etc. Don't try to imply that only Democrats do the name calling.
Last time I checked, I wasn't Hillary Clinton. The fact that most people in this country see taxes as the government stealing from them is a major part of the budget problem we currently have. No one wants to pay, but everyone wants the benefit. Thanks for playing!
But my guess is that you don't actually know any Republicans, so you choose to make wild generalizations.
Nope, I know them. I just love rhetoric and flamewars. Cheers!
Re:Similarities between democrat party, communists
on
Joe Trippi Interviewed
·
· Score: 1
Your post was going great.Until..
Two years ago, in the New Jersey race for the senate, the democrat candidate got replace by someone who didn't even run in the primaries. If I were a democrat, I would be fuming. "HEY! THAT'S NOT THE GUY WE NOMINATED! WHAT THE *** ARE YOU DOING?" But that's not the way the democrat party works. It's a top-down structure. "You little people better fall in line or you're not getting anything from the soup kitchen." "We're only doing this in your best interests. Remember, you're too stupid to make these kinds of decisions so we make them for you."
I am an NJ Democrat. We dropped "The Torch" Toricelli because he was not going to be elected. Lautenberg was a former Senator who the whole state knew. He served as a great progressive Senator for New Jersey and continues to do so today. There were very, very, few, if any, NJ Dems fuming at the switch. We would rather have kept the seat, which we did, than run someone who was going to lose. Statutory considerations aside, it was the right thing to do for the party, and there was a lot of support from the party members for the move. Your characterization of the move as a top-down declaration is patently false.
And two years before, the senate candidate running against John Ashcroft, probably the most conservative candidate to run for office since the 1800's, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Interestingly enough, several of Clinton's associates have died in plan crashes since he was elected.
No evidence for connections between any of these events. BTW, you assume Jean Carahan won on a sympathy vote? Or maybe it's just that the people of Missouri thought they had seen enough of Ashcoft as Governor and Senator, and figured out he was bad news. Or maybe the electorate simply changed. But no, let's use the most realistic and plausible theory: Clinton had Mel Carahan killed. Yeah.
But my point is, if you want to find corruption, look to the top of your party. Sandy Berger's recent behavior is only a small example of that.
Sandy Berger is a career policy maker. He is not a party leader in any capacity. Furthermore, while his actions regarding his notes on the so-called "Millenium memo" are certainly suspicious and deserve investigation, there is little indication that it is more than an honest mistake at this time. If you want conspiracy theories, why don't you look into the timing of the leak to the AP, as the investigation has been going on for several months. You can find out who leaked Valerie Palme's name to Bob Novak while you're at it. Thanks!
A blog? Hell I would be somewhat pleased if Bush would at least give a damn press conference every once in a while. He has given the least number of press conferences on record, 12. 12. That's over 4 years. 4 years where we had a major tax adjustment, a major terrorist attack, an offensive action against Afghanistan, an offensive unprovoked action against Iraq, a major Medicare adjustment, ballooning defecits, unemployment, a nuclear North Korea and Pakistan.. It's not like there isn't anything to talk about. Oh, how about we do it this way: Don't submit the questions ahead of time. Thanks.
P.S. To the press: Ask the tough questions, and demand answers. Thanks.
It is not 'supposed', it is the truth. Both CNN and ABC apologized for their treatment of the Dean scream clip, noting that it was not a realistic portrayal of the event. However, these apologies were lost in the 10 million replays of the clip.
What success did his campaign really have? Aside from charging up the angry Bush-haters, he made no headway with the mainstream.
Well, depending on who you ask, that is still defined as success. Charging up your base is extremely important and is the reason why the Congress has been trying to put that laughable gay bashing amendment into the Constitution.
Your base are the people that give you money. Money allows you to run the campaign. Running the campaign allows you to win. No base, no money, no campaign, no win. John Kerry, and more notably, Congressional candidates in battleground areas, have raised gobs of cash on the Internet, a trend that was started by Howard Dean, his staff, and his followers. For these Congressional races, a lot of money is coming from people who don't live in the district. This was a very rare occurrance before the Internet and Dean's campaign, and could prove to be consequential to the Democrats in retaking the Senate in 2004 and the House in 2006. Unsuccessful? Hardly.
Slashdot Mirror
Doubtless the usual bunch of rednecks will protest that this is perfectly ok, after all, if someone is so stupid they're willing to base their vote on an such an offer, that's up to them
Well, they already do, to some extent. Except instead of a taco it was a $300 refund (he just didn't tell us about the $450 billion deficit first, that's all).
Until the scaled speed-up clock, one thing that was always odd in hockey games was penalties. If I'm playing with 5 minute periods, and my guy takes a penalty, he's in the box for 2 minutes. Thats 40% of the period! A minor penalty is only meant to be 10% of the period. The current trend in hockey games (EA at least) has been to always make the periods 20 minutes and do not change the penalties. Instead, the time scale is changed. If you play on 5 minute periods, the clock ticks 4 times as fast as normal, etc. I suppose they could also have adjusted the penalties to match the period length, but the newer EA games, IIRC, allow you to set many different period lengths. It would suck to have to think about a 42 second penalty if I happened to be playing on 7 minute periods.
That aside, most sports games have always ticked fast. I think this had to do with programming on lower systems such as the NES, where it was not worth the time to come up with a clock algorithm that was exact.
While the idea of 3rd parties inducing realignments as you outline seems plausible, I'm unsure of the effect this is having on the mainstream parties. Unfortunately, I don't know my history well enough to be able to talk about the effects of 3rd parties on elections in the past, when 3rd parties were much more active and accepted.
In the present, however, it does not seem like 3rd parties are causing the changes you describe. While it can certainly be said that the 2000 election would be different without the Green Party, I don't think that the Democratic party has co-opted the Green message. They have shifted slightly left with the resurgence of the liberal wing of the party, but they do not hold most of the progressive views that embody the Green Party. Nader chose to run again because he felt that the Democrats were still ignoring people.
In your theory, there is the assupmtion that the 3rd party and minority party's ideals are compatible. What if it is the case that the majority party is centrist, and the minority and 3rd parties are then on opposite sides of the majority party? I doubt they would coalesce into one coalition. In fact, one could say that this is what happened in 2000. The Democrats were more centrist than they had been in the past, and they had the GOP running from the right, and the Greens running from the left. While there is evidence of the GOP helping the Green party, I do not consider that to be a true coalition of the parties, merely dirty politics.
Did Ross Perot's run in 1992 cause the Republicans to change their message and allow for the 1994 "revolution"? I should do a bit of reading, but I think not. While Perot may have caused the GOP to rethink their strategy, he was not appealing to the religious right, but to those who disagreed with the economic policies of G.H.W Bush. While the GOP has talked big about fiscal responsibility, it hasn't produced. I suppose then we get into the question of perceived vs. real stances on the issues. The GOP would like to be perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility, but the Democratic party does the same, so I'm unsure how Perot sways either side here. The defecit was and is an issue, and I don't think there's any platform that says the defecit should get bigger.
So I guess my point was that while I think your idea is plausible, it does not seem, imo, to be supported by the past two presidential elections with 3rd party candidates.
Dunno if the free speech zone was setup by the mayor, but Mayor Menino is a democrat. The governor of Mass., Mitt Romney, is a republican.
This is true of any democracy, apart from the U.S, where people apparently feel that they must simply vote for either the guy most likely to win, or the other guy because they don't like one candidate.
First, let's make things clear. A presidential election is different from every other election held in the USA. The President is the only elected official that everyone votes for (chooses electors for, to be technical). In almost every state, electoral votes are awarded with a "winner take all" method. So, if you vote for a person who doesn't carry your state, your vote isn't considered on the national level. Combine this with the social desire to root for "the winning team" and it's easy to see why there is concern about 'wasted' votes.
Voting for third parties will not become viable in the USA until: Instant Runoff or Concordance voting is used, the Electoral College is changed (at least have all states proportion the EV votes to that state's popular vote), and third parties begin winning LOCAL offices. Not all of these need to happen, but the last one is very important, and it is beginning to occur in some areas of the country. Without elected officials in smaller offices, a voter is going to ask: Why am I going to vote for a Green or Libertarian for president? Most people know nothing about third parties. Sure, they can read the platforms, but go read the GOP and Democratic platforms and see if they match up to what the GOP and Democratic parties actually carry out. In this day and age, a platform is idealism and is directed towards the base, not undecided voters. The only people who care enough to read the platforms have usually made up their minds already. Experience in elected offices is much more important. Greens are easily painted as crazy liberals. Without elected officials to point to and say "Look at all the good they've done, and it wasn't crazy" the Greens will be held to that stereotype. The same goes for any other 3rd party. Why local offices? Local officials are much closer to the people, and generally do not run big media campaigns. Large ]cities are the exception to this, of course.
An additional problem is the problem of change. Both the GOP and Democrats want to change things in the country, and so does every 3rd party. Where the disagreement lies is not only the direction of the change, but the magnitude. The mainstream parties are typically interested in smaller, more incremental changes than 3rd parties. Smaller changes are easier to enact, and smaller changes also help to enforce the status quo. 3rd parties typically call for large changes. For example, the Libertarian Party would seek to re-legalize some drugs. While I happen to agree with this position, it is not something that is going to be easy to carry out with the mainstream public or a legislature that contains no members of your party.
While I am a registered Democrat, I do support the efforts of 3rd parties. However, I believe they need to start from the bottom and realize that it is highly unlikely that there will be a 'revolution' and a 3rd party president is elected without substantial numbers of other elected officials from the party.
From link (which is a 3 year old article): "See that," Berry says, pointing to the seeming nothingness pouring out of Polk's stack. "Someone can be sitting near a coal gasification plant and see nothing coming out of it. That's the goal." (In actuality, the clouds pouring from traditional plants are water vapor.
While most clouds you see coming from stacks are simply water vapor, a coal fired boiler emits a lot of particulate matter, which is harsh on the lungs, especially to those with asthma or other respiratory problems. The EPA has been focusing more on PM in the past few years. Facilities are now required to report PM emissions at 3 levels: Total PM, PM10 (PM 10 microns or smaller), and PM2.5 (PM 2.5 microns or smaller). PM2.5 emission reporting was added just this year, as it has been learned over the past 5-10 years that PM2.5 is much more harmful than less fine particulates. Current control measures for PM are in the 99% removal range, assuming the equipment is properly maintained.
Also, coal emits a lot more crap than oil or natural gas. By crap I mean trace amounts of nasty chemicals. Hydrochloric acid, hydroflouric acid, arsenic, mercury, lead, dioxins, etc. EPA's emission manual for coal combustion can be found here.
"Clean coal" may be a temporary measure as we begin to run out of natural gas and oil, but it is by no means a solution, as the CO2 problem is not solved.
It's the old ones (especially in places like China) that are the problem.
Yes, but the real problem is our reluctance to fund new energy initiatives and promote smart usage of energy. We waste outrageous amounts of energy in the USA. Research must not only be focused on new energy sources, but improved efficency in the transmission and use of that energy.
I reckon the libertarian party is a lot more likely to eliminate unnecessary expansions of government than the greens or any "left wing" group.
Okay sure, so maybe they'll get us out of DMCA. What about the FDA? FTC? SEC? EPA? OSHA? I happen to like those. Corporations are hit much, much harder by government regulations than any person, and that's a good thing (Though I doubt Martha thinks the SEC is a good thing right now..). Simply look back 80 years before all the items I mentioned above were created and look how the average person interacted with and was treated by corporations. Sure, it isn't perfect now, and corporations are still too free to step on people, but it's come a long way. The major remaining hurdle is to change the silly notion that, legally, corporations are the same as people.
NOTE: Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have signed copyright laws into effect. Even the DMCA was signed under Clinton's presidency. So you'll have to vote Green or some other left-left-wing party if you want to revoke some of these laws.
Not necessarily true. It is the case that the parties change their mind on issues from time to time. A simple example: Every democratic senator but one voted for the PATRIOT Act. Now there are very few who will defend the extension of PATRIOT or PATRIOT II.
It is very difficult to estimate how a law will actually be used. Part of that is because it is nearly impossible to predict how the courts will rule on the law. Legislation is an ongoing process. Legislators are rarely writing new laws. They spend most of their time revising what already exists. If they aren't made aware of a problem with legislation, they won't spend the time to fix it. While voting non-mainstream party will be a clue to your elected officials that you are discontent, it is more effective to let them know in a direct way: Call, write or fax your representative and let them know how you feel about the issues. You may be surprised at the result.
Charge up to 1.75UKP for a 10UKP withdrawl. Is this purposefully misleading to make you look like more of a victim, or do they charge a percentage of the withdrawl amount? If you're aware that the fee is flat, regardless of withdrawl amount, you're only hurting yourself by withdrawing only 10UKP. In the US, I have only seen flat fee ATMs. The highest fees I have seen are $3.50, and usually only in bars or other ultra-convenient locations. A convenience store ATM will usually be $2, and a competing bank's ATM will usually be $1.50.
The article said that ATMs has NOT reduced the number of branches or tellers, people do still prefer real life human contact and decision making to occur.
Does your conclusion follow from the data? I do not think so. I believe that the number of branches and tellers has increased simply due to continued development. Also, banks are now open longer than they used to be, requiring more tellers. Some banks are now open on Sunday, a practice that used to be unheard of, if not illegal due to Blue Laws. What would be interesting to look at is the number of tellers per branch, but that number would also be tainted due to increased service hours.
Where is the decision making when you use the teller? There's no decisions being made, at least for my transactions. I hand them the slip and cheques, they verify that I've signed and added correctly, then give me a receipt. The ATM is pretty much the same, except that the human verification step isn't happening in front of my eyes. This is something that may have been overlooked. A deposit to an ATM is the same as a deposit to a teller. Someone is still doing the work to take your forms and cheques out of the envelope, ensure that you've endorsed and added correctly, then sort the papers to be sent out. The ATM only saves the bank time/labor for withdrawls, which can be completely automated.
Another thing, are people with weak math skills more likely to use a teller, to ensure that they are there in the case of errors?
ihbt, but there's a clear distinction. Moving jobs to India doesn't change the work. The same work is being done, just by someone else, for much cheaper. Installing an ATM changes the work. It (theoretically, but not realistically; see posts in this thread) reduces the number of tellers needed and allows people to get cash from places other than banks. Offshoring offers no advantages save cost. ATMs offer the advantage of convenience.
Mr. Bray is also a contributor for NPR's All Things Considered.
Hey, I'm only following the example our fine President Dick Cheney has set for us.
"Oh, fuck off" -- Vice President Dick Cheney to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), on the Senate floor.
Point of interest - everything Reagan did was passed by a Democratic congress. We can play that game all day. However, Clinton showed during the government shutdown that he was bigger than Congress, and historically the President has taken credit or flak for what happens on their watch, no matter what the makeup of Congress is. Perhaps I do misconstrue Gingrich though..
My whole point was that these blanket generalizations about republicans are simply a liberal mantra that, when repeated often enough, seem to make people believe they are actually true.
I'm not denying that others aren't just as guilty.
Yeah, you're just implying it, like an asshole. You could have just said "My whole point about blanket generalizations is that they are simply a mantra that, when repeated often enough, seem to make people believe they are actually true." And as you read slashdot, I'm sure you've heard of the term "meme" to describe this concept.
Look, I can come back with a list of 50 things that the press is ignoring with Bush, and you can come back with 50 more things, great. The press fails on both sides. They're not interested in either party, just their status quo and profits. And just to respond to your points:
1. Actually, this surprised me too. However, the commission was bi-partisan and that means that the GOP explicitly endorsed Gorelick's nomination. Bitching about it now seems like it would just be trying to draw attention away from, or discredit, the Commission's work. She should not have been on the panel, though.
2. This is a new item (at least to me, I've only heard it in the past week, on NPR no less, so fuck you and your hilarious liberal bias) and is slowly being reported.
3. The personal opinion of known partisans is not news, but was lightly reported through the primaries. But, why not interviews with people Bush knew from his partying past? Or his commanders from Alabama ANG? Or better yet: Fuck the past, let's focus on the present. What Bush and Kerry did 30 years ago is great, but it's not going to change anything now.
The discussions I've had with other conservative minded people never discussed eliminating programs that would help poor people
While run of the mill conservatives don't say this, the party leadership does. It is publicly documented that the Republican strategy for Medicare and other programs are to let them "wither on the vine" (the words of Newt Gingrich. While he is out of the party now, I don't think you can classify him as an asshole that represents a very vocal minority of the party's elected members, since he was elected Speaker by those members). And that's part of the problem here. I've been flame-y in this thread, but it does get to a more important point. Do Republican elected officials accurately represent the ideals and desires of Republican voters? In fact, one could ask that question of any party. However, I think it is more appropriate to the GOP, as much of their base is poor southerners, and it does not logically hold that a poor person would want to vote for the GOP (yes, there are cultural and moral issues involved, i realize).
Also note that Bill Clinton was a champion of welfare reform ("workfare") in both Arkansas and on the national level. The GOP takes the idea of Democrats helping others through welfare and other programs and construes it to mean that big bags of cash are simply being given to people year after year. This simply isn't the case, and it isn't what Democrats want. We want accountability and efficiency just as much as anyone else. However, we aren't willing to sacrifice the goal to do that. If you have to start out with an ugly government assistance program and refine it over time, that is better than never having the program at all.
Do you have reliable demographic research to show otherwise? I doubt either of us do, so why don't we agree to hate each other. At least Bush is a uniter, not a divider. Yay!
It's really not worth arguing about on slashdot, or how much evidence you might have to the contrary (or how much evidence you have showing many democrats actually fit that description), you're not going to change any minds here.
:D
Nope, but it sure is a fun way to pass the time..
It goes right along with all republicans being: racist, cheap, uncaring, greedy, selfish, white, good old boy, stupid, misled, uniformed sheep.
And Democrats being liberal tree hugging, latee drinking, elite, volvo driving, tax and spending, etc. Don't try to imply that only Democrats do the name calling.
Last time I checked, I wasn't Hillary Clinton. The fact that most people in this country see taxes as the government stealing from them is a major part of the budget problem we currently have. No one wants to pay, but everyone wants the benefit. Thanks for playing!
But my guess is that you don't actually know any Republicans, so you choose to make wild generalizations.
Nope, I know them. I just love rhetoric and flamewars. Cheers!
Your post was going great.Until..
Two years ago, in the New Jersey race for the senate, the democrat candidate got replace by someone who didn't even run in the primaries. If I were a democrat, I would be fuming. "HEY! THAT'S NOT THE GUY WE NOMINATED! WHAT THE *** ARE YOU DOING?" But that's not the way the democrat party works. It's a top-down structure. "You little people better fall in line or you're not getting anything from the soup kitchen." "We're only doing this in your best interests. Remember, you're too stupid to make these kinds of decisions so we make them for you."
I am an NJ Democrat. We dropped "The Torch" Toricelli because he was not going to be elected. Lautenberg was a former Senator who the whole state knew. He served as a great progressive Senator for New Jersey and continues to do so today. There were very, very, few, if any, NJ Dems fuming at the switch. We would rather have kept the seat, which we did, than run someone who was going to lose. Statutory considerations aside, it was the right thing to do for the party, and there was a lot of support from the party members for the move. Your characterization of the move as a top-down declaration is patently false.
And two years before, the senate candidate running against John Ashcroft, probably the most conservative candidate to run for office since the 1800's, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Interestingly enough, several of Clinton's associates have died in plan crashes since he was elected.
No evidence for connections between any of these events. BTW, you assume Jean Carahan won on a sympathy vote? Or maybe it's just that the people of Missouri thought they had seen enough of Ashcoft as Governor and Senator, and figured out he was bad news. Or maybe the electorate simply changed. But no, let's use the most realistic and plausible theory: Clinton had Mel Carahan killed. Yeah.
But my point is, if you want to find corruption, look to the top of your party. Sandy Berger's recent behavior is only a small example of that.
Sandy Berger is a career policy maker. He is not a party leader in any capacity. Furthermore, while his actions regarding his notes on the so-called "Millenium memo" are certainly suspicious and deserve investigation, there is little indication that it is more than an honest mistake at this time. If you want conspiracy theories, why don't you look into the timing of the leak to the AP, as the investigation has been going on for several months. You can find out who leaked Valerie Palme's name to Bob Novak while you're at it. Thanks!
A blog? Hell I would be somewhat pleased if Bush would at least give a damn press conference every once in a while. He has given the least number of press conferences on record, 12. 12. That's over 4 years. 4 years where we had a major tax adjustment, a major terrorist attack, an offensive action against Afghanistan, an offensive unprovoked action against Iraq, a major Medicare adjustment, ballooning defecits, unemployment, a nuclear North Korea and Pakistan.. It's not like there isn't anything to talk about. Oh, how about we do it this way: Don't submit the questions ahead of time. Thanks.
P.S. To the press: Ask the tough questions, and demand answers. Thanks.
It is not 'supposed', it is the truth. Both CNN and ABC apologized for their treatment of the Dean scream clip, noting that it was not a realistic portrayal of the event. However, these apologies were lost in the 10 million replays of the clip.
What success did his campaign really have? Aside from charging up the angry Bush-haters, he made no headway with the mainstream.
Well, depending on who you ask, that is still defined as success. Charging up your base is extremely important and is the reason why the Congress has been trying to put that laughable gay bashing amendment into the Constitution.
Your base are the people that give you money. Money allows you to run the campaign. Running the campaign allows you to win. No base, no money, no campaign, no win. John Kerry, and more notably, Congressional candidates in battleground areas, have raised gobs of cash on the Internet, a trend that was started by Howard Dean, his staff, and his followers. For these Congressional races, a lot of money is coming from people who don't live in the district. This was a very rare occurrance before the Internet and Dean's campaign, and could prove to be consequential to the Democrats in retaking the Senate in 2004 and the House in 2006. Unsuccessful? Hardly.