Okay, I like your replies. It's nice to debate with an adult every now and then on/.
Not that you are still convincing me over...
In a regime where shareholders were liable for corporate actions, how much more incentive would there have been for large shareholders, or groups of small ones, to have external auditors take a look at those books now and then?
In Enron's case? NONE!!! The people who were ripped off WERE the shareholders (AND employees). If the people who already have vested interest and HUGE incentives NOT to get cheated couldn't get the board to take things more seriously, then how would your suggestions change ANYTHING???
People whose loved ones have died while waiting for the FDA to be satisfied may disagree. People whose loved ones died, are dying, will die...
This argument is such a red herring that I can't believe someone reasonable as you are arguing for it. How could flooding the market with drugs that don't work, and even worse, kill you faster be of ANY help to these people? As it is, there are countless shady operators who bilk every penny from desparate people seeking non-existent cures. How could you argue that spending last few months of your life looking for cures that don't exist (most of these edge-of-science NEVER prove their efficacy) is better than spending quality time with your loved ones? Dying people are looking for ANY kind of life raft, it is WRONG to take advantage of that kind of situation.
Sure, the cost of going through the trials is expensive, but so is the benefit if the drug proves to be successful.
And after this little fiasco with Iraq, do you really believe that media has the people's best interest (cheerleaders for the industry is more like it)? How about their reporting about P2P and copyright? Have you seen any major media reporting FOR public domain? I haven't see it. Almost every article and report is about how bad piracy is.
Sure your local news exposes a bad Mexican restaurant every now and then, but how often is that? And how wide is the coverage? You'll be lucky if your local media checks 1% of the local restaurants in 5 years. How is that going to discourage shady operators from cutting corners?
Look, you can't promise that bad things won't happen, but you surely can limit it to small percentages. It is like sports. You can either play games with no rules where anything goes and be not enjoyable at all, or have some basic rules that all players can agree upon that is fair - which makes sports MUCH more enjoyable.
If you've read The Jungle (which is closest thing to investigative journalism at the time), how could you guarantee something like that won't happen again without regulation?
Greater threat? Excuse me? I think putting drug manufacturers through trials to prove its efficacy and safety is worthwhile trade for longer development time (isn't that what science is all about?).
No limited liability my ass. Name me the limitied liability law that prevents the Enron investors from suing Ken Lay. What does prevent investors from getting every dime that Ken Lay has is difficulty in proving his wrong doing (all rich people like Ken Lay have an army of lawyers to cover his ass), and rich-folk friendly bankruptsy laws that prevent you from getting certain class of assets from crooks like this. Which has NOTHING to do with regulations - it is all about how much money you have and how much influence you have over politicians.
The regulations are there to make the playing fields as even as possible. Without it, the rich and powerful will do whatever they want without fearing for the consequences. If you believe Joe Schmo with 2K in savings can sue someone like Ken Lay and actually win, you are living in the fantasy world.
And if you believe that it is possible to remove ALL layers of protection for the rich in our system, again, you are living in the fantasy world (first thing they would do is to outlaw class action lawsuits - which they are already trying).
Some people just don't study much history, do they? I think books like "The Jungle" should be a required reading for all citizens.
There is a VERY good reason why FDA exists. Just read the book and see what happens when there are no regulations and inspectors.
Greenspan (and many free market economists) also thought that free market forces were strong enough to discourage corporate fraud... that is until greedy bastards like Enron's of the world and dirty money managers like Janus milked billions from unsuspecting citizens. And how is suing bankrupt companies like Enron going to help the investors???
Also look at the herbal medicine market right now. There is absolutely no FDA control over it now and you have all these snake oil salesmen selling all kinds of pill that are now worth the plastic bottle it is shipped in (and in case of epehdra, killing people). Do we really want that kind of wild wild west mentality with cancer drugs?
What??? Using public airwaves to send for-pay content??? That is not right.
These broadcasters pay NOTHING to lease very VALUABLE public resource (air-waves). The arrangement has always been that for leasing for free, they MUST broadcast open and clear signals. This kind of encrypted services is clear violation of that agreement.
I have no problem if this company pays for the unused spectrum, but to use public resources to make profit seems like a very bad land grab by very greedy people.
Where the hell is FCC??? Oh, I forgot, they are in the pockets of the broadcasters...
This is the second time you have responded to point-by-point rebuttal of your absurd claims with nothing more than name calling (liberal...blah...left wing...blah...racial...blah).
If you are not smart enough defend your position and actually DEBATE the substances of your thoughts, you need to DROP your remote, step away from the FOX News channel, and stop just repeating what you hear from talking heads on TV.
Open up some books, essays, newspapers. Actually think about what you are trying to say. Research your positions to see if they are coherent and consistent. Then, and only then, will you be able to have an honest debate with someone who disagrees with your point of view and you can both walkaway with your knowledge enriched by the experience.
This will be my last response since I am getting NOTHING out of this and I will stop wasting my time with likes of you.
Hmmm... I am confused, you will have to set me straight. Does that mean Bush is a flaming liberal? Sure, he cut taxes (mostly to rich guys), but he has also increased the size of the government more than any other president has in history, and with the latest Medicare prescription bill, he has increased the benefits by any other president as well. With the current budget structure, US is about to be hit with about $10 trillion (that's with a "T") in budget deficits over next 10 years. And that's before the Boomers start retiring when things get REALLY worse. If that is not bad enough, Bush is proposing even MORE tax cuts and MORE spending measures.
Compare that to Dean's pledge to balance the budget by repealing Bush tax cuts (don't worry the rich won't go hungry anytime soon) and by cutting spending (the liberal wing of Democrats are already hammering him about how he is going to cut Medicare). That is EXACTLY what Reagan and Democrats in Congress did in mid 80's when deficits started spiraling out of control due to earlier tax cuts.
Dean is a fiscal REACTIONARY compared to Bush.
I see affirmative action (the race kind) as VERY compassionate compared to Bush's affirmative action (the kind where your daddy gets you into Yale then Havard Business School then out of draft to defend that dangerous terriotry called Texas).
Smartly designed regulation to make sure that everyone plays fair (and pay for their mistakes) is a KEY to a libertarian society. Otherwise you will have things like fleecing of investors (Enron, Tyco, and Mutual Funds) and stealing of taxpayer property (unfettered loggin, mining, superfund cleanup). Libertarian doesn't mean no rules, it means no more than rules than necessary. Bushies think libertarian means being free to reward their cronies with contracts and unfettered access to public property, but that is cronyism, not libertarianism.
FCC is a GREAT example of this. Instead of relaxing FCC's rules to LOWER the barrier of entry (e.g. low-power radio stations, more available licensing) which would be a libertarian and conservative thing to do, by repealing the ownership rule and raising the barrier of entry, you are making it harder and harder for Joe Averge to have ANY say in local communications market. I don't know how you can argue that is consistent with libertarian positions.
I don't know how ANYONE (including Dean) could do WORSE than what Bush has done so far as far as fiscal policies. He has cut over $200 billion in taxes to create 1.4 million jobs (at least that is what he is hoping). Hmmm, if you give me that money, I can create more than 1.4 million jobs. Heck, I can pay everyone $50k for doing nothing and I would still have billions left over.
You know what Federal bank and rest of the world thinks about the job Bush is doing? Federal Bank is so nervous they won't even raise the interest rates when they had 9% GDP growth (which nobody believes). China and Europeans are starting to dump dollars, which is bringing dollar lower and lower everyday. Gold is trading at over $400/ounce which means everybody and their mother is betting that serious inflation is right around the corner. And REAL interest rate is rising no matter what the feds do.
Yea, I feel better everynight thinking about this....
Bush's fiscal policies are a joke. I don't know how you can be scared of Dean when you SHOULD be scared shitless right now.
Dean is a compassionate libertarian and a fiscal conservative.
Being for grown people to be free to do what they want - civil union, pro-choice, gun rights (consistent, unlike many other "conservative" politicians) - makes him a libertarian.
Being a firm supporter of affirmative action and healthcare for all is from his compassionate (not the fake compassion Bush tries to sell all the time) liberal leanings.
He is for getting rid of the Bush tax cut because Bush is a credit card president who borrows and spends (more bureaucracy and spending growth than Clinton every DREAMED!!!) and only way to fix this run away deficit and out of control spending growth (remember there are not enough Democrats around to blame for this mess) is to act like a grown up and start collecting more revenue (Reagan did exactly the same in middle of his presidency). Which is EXACTLY what Dean did as a governor (funny how the same Bush fiscal policy left Texas in fiscal crisis over last couple of years).
Hmmm... a compassionate libertarian guy who is calling for the same fiscal actions that Reagan once endorsed... yea sounds like a flaming liberal to me!
Recently, it was found that the author of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" is a fraud. The guys has no degree in psychology, though he still calls himself a PhD (only thing remotely close is an honorary degree from somewhere where he gave a speech - but they don't have a graduate program).
The author for this book seems to be cut from the same cloth. Calls himself an "expert" but has nothing to back up that claim except for that he teaches it.
Most of the guns used in crime in NYC are usually traced back to the gun dealers in Connecticut, Virginia, and other east coast states with lax gun controls.
If NYC COULD controls the gun flow into the city (impossible), then their gun control laws would work just fine.
Before you guys start going around blaming everyone else, why don't you first start where it REALLY belongs - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU (Americans that is)!!!
Most of us here are in the 16 to 35 yo demographics. And we are, by far, the ones with the WORST voting record. Almost all of never vote. Oopdy Doo if you vote, but your fellow gen X and Y'ers are not.
You guys have to knowledge, money, numbers, and best of all the NETWORK of like-minded people to make a difference. But all you do is whine, moan, and complain (which is what gen X and Y'ers do best).
You want things to change? You can start by raising money, pick a candidate to challenge Orrin Hatch, and get EVERY gen X and Y'ers to vote against him. I guarantee if you can get 60% to 70% of gen X and Y to vote in Utah and 70% of those vote for the other guy, Hatch will be history.
But will you take that bold step? NO!!! You rather just sit in your cubicles or dorm rooms and complain. Big WHUP!
Orrin Hatch is a BIG ANTI-Microsoft guy. He is a strong supporter of the local Utah software industry (what used to be WordPerfect and Novell. And being the coporate whore that he is, was at the forefront of congressional leaders calling for Anti-Trust lawsuit against Microsoft (and collected many millions from Sun, Oracle, et al).
It is truly funny to see how "market conditions" warrant punishing Microsoft for anti-trust but als call for protection of RIAA...
The Energy Bill that the House just passed will have NO EFFECT whatsoever to prevent this blackout from happening again.
Even so, the Congre$$ sold the Energy Bill as a panacea for our energy problems while stuffing it with tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks and special interest provisions. Talk about porkaroma...
I am guessing your eyesight precludes from seeing past your flat nose...
If we followed your logic, we would have also said "what's the big deal about DNA? There so small and we have no idea what they do. Why spend ANY money on studying something so esoteric."
Of course, if we followed your shortsighted moronic advice, the new wave of medicine based on DNA (which is already a billion dollar industry) which took over 50 years to develop, would have been shelved as "interesting, but no cigar."
Some of the early works with Quantum Mechanics and Colliders are already paying divedends as it helps use make smaller and smaller computer chips. We are already on the cusp of starting the age of Quantum computing.
I am not going to even bother why one of the human specie's most noble goals is to understand the universe itself.
Thank goodness, scientist (and their supporters) routinely ignore your kind of rhetorics.
I have a DLP Projector I use at home mostly for watching movies and HDTV. I tried using it for some computer use, but it really wasn't worth it.
I have a 100in diagonal screen and reading on that screen for a long time causes a lot of eye strain because your eyes have to move around so much (at your usual distance from the screen).
It is great for gaming (especially when you have a bunch of friends over), and nice for occasional surfing, but not really suited for coding or anything serious.
You also have to remember that bulbs cost about $.20 to $.30 per hour, so why bother using it for something that may be done better with a smaller screen?
That said, I will never go back to regular TV. It save significant space in my family room. It is HUGE. And compared to Plasma screens (which lose 50% of brightness over 10 years), it is a better deal (even with bulb costs).
By the time this law is passed, I am pretty sure a virus programmed to download illegal copies of unreleased movies to unsuspecting dupes will be ready.
Just think about it; spread the virus to thousands and thousands of open computers then start downloading copies to their hard drive.
Then, just sit back as everybody and their grandma start getting taken away and put in shackles. Remember, you don't have to prove guilt! You only need evidence!
A couple of hundreds of those cases and I am pretty sure MPAA will be crying uncle. Only then will you see ANY REAL effort to craft a reasonable copyright laws.
I call BS.
Tell me what state you are talking about and I am sure I can call your BS point by point.
You go ahead and look at the average premium paid by the doctors over last 30 years. There is a STRONG correlation of premiums and the bond market.
There is also a study comparing between states with malpractice limit and those without and there is no difference in premium rates charged.
You can read an article about it here.
http://consumeraffairs.com/news03/med_mal.html
I rather be a lobbyst for slimy lawyers who represent those who go through medical hell than a corporate lackey who defend insurance companies who reap the benefits of up market than dump the risk to doctors on the down swing.
"My state, for instance, just passed malpractice caps on noneconomic damages... and even despite that, I'm in the process of losing my malpractice insurance"
That's because malpractice lawsuits have nothing to do with the recent increase in premiums!!!
The insurance companies lost a bundle in bonds and stocks and only way they can make it up is to raise the premiums. The campaign to minimize malpractice insurance was just a convenient ruse to defer their responsibility.
Most US citizens (and Republicans) bought it hook line and sinker.
Disagree.
A great thing about Chinese characters is that it is unerringly accurate. There are no double meanings, every character expresses a unique thought (i.e. head may mean human appendage, or top of a beer - no such confusion with Chinese characters there is one for each).
Only trouble with this system is that you have to learn 40,000 CHARACTERS to be able to communicate. Expressive and accurate, yes, but not very accessible.
Great thing about Hangul is that it is VERY easy to learn and VERY accessible. The problem is, with any phonetic alphabet, you have identical words with different meanings. Well, Koreans get around that by using Chinese characters for those clarifications (sometimes). However, the use of that clarification get rarer everyday (not many Korean teens want to learn 10k to 20k Chinese characters anymore).
Koreans only use Chinese characters sparingly today, mostly for clarification purposes (like when the words sound alike but have different meanings - Chinese characters come in handy since they have no duplicates).
The use of Chinese characters are becoming less and less common everyday.
You shouldn't believe everything in the text book
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There are disputed evidence of printing blocks used in Korea earlier than the Chinese.
The water clock I am talking about is a mechanical clock powered by water, not just a dripping kind (which isn't really much different than the hour glass).
I would be happy to explain Hangul to any interested party.
Hangul was developed by King Sejong in 1446. Until then Koreans had used Chinese characters for writing, but obviously using foreign characters was not the most efficient (or easy to learn). Kin Sejong set out the change all that (very fascinating character ? one of the most scientifically minded royal ever. Scientific achievements flourished under him). He tasked best scholars and scientists in the land to come up with a new Korean alphabet system.
The system that came up with is a phonetic alphabet system consisting of twenty eight letters (17 consonants and 11 vowels). The symbols were mostly driven from the shape of the lips of tongue when they made a particular sound (i.e. ?g? sound in Korean alphabet looks like ?7? just like how the tongue looks like when it makes that sound). In addition, similar sounds have similar looking symbols ? logical and easy to learn.
Unlike roman alphabets, where consonants and vowels are jumbled together to make a word (separated by spaces), Koreans recreate sounds by representing each syllables separately by combining a consonant, vowel, and an optional consonants for finishing the syllable. Then the syllables are grouped together to make a word (separated by spaces).
The strength of Hangul is that it can represent almost any sound. And because it is so phonetic, it is very easy to learn (I taught my wife how to read Korean over two nights ? of course she had no idea what they meant, but she could read them). In fact, the rules are so clear and easy to identify that it is the language of choice for many computer scientists working on AI. Most modern linguists have hailed it as the most scientific writing system in the world.
If you would like to learn more, I would recommend starting on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul). I guarantee you will find it fascinating.
As a Korean-American, I find your condenscending, ignorant view of Koreans to be offensive.
Koreans were the first to develop printing blocks, water clocks, submarines, etc. Not to mentions the most scientific and graceful written languauge in the world - Hangul.
Koreans are very proud of their scientific and artistic achievements. And you if actually spent ANY time learning about their 4000 years of culture and achievements, then you wouldn't be spewing your little ignorant diatribe.
Koreans are adopting to some (NOT ALL) western culture and methods because that makes them competitive in the modern economic world. And if you really want to nitpick, they are modeling themselves after Japan more than any other western country (yes, Japan modeled much from US, but I would argue they have improved much upon the original).
Read the reasoning for accepting this case more carefully. It is clear that the Supremes have no desire to decide whether or not "Under God" phrase should be included in the Pledge.
They took this case on an appeal based on whether or not the father had the legal standing to bring this case about (he is divorced and the wife has the custody - and she has no problem with the pledge).
In all likely case, the Supremes will throw this case out and rule that the father had no right to bring this case forward, and avoid whether or not "Under God" is valid.
Do you seriously think Scalia would recuse himself voluntarily if they were actually going to decide whether or not religious phrases should be included in a public display? NOT!!!
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Not that you are still convincing me over...
In a regime where shareholders were liable for corporate actions, how much more incentive would there have been for large shareholders, or groups of small ones, to have external auditors take a look at those books now and then?
In Enron's case? NONE!!! The people who were ripped off WERE the shareholders (AND employees). If the people who already have vested interest and HUGE incentives NOT to get cheated couldn't get the board to take things more seriously, then how would your suggestions change ANYTHING???
People whose loved ones have died while waiting for the FDA to be satisfied may disagree. People whose loved ones died, are dying, will die...
This argument is such a red herring that I can't believe someone reasonable as you are arguing for it. How could flooding the market with drugs that don't work, and even worse, kill you faster be of ANY help to these people? As it is, there are countless shady operators who bilk every penny from desparate people seeking non-existent cures. How could you argue that spending last few months of your life looking for cures that don't exist (most of these edge-of-science NEVER prove their efficacy) is better than spending quality time with your loved ones? Dying people are looking for ANY kind of life raft, it is WRONG to take advantage of that kind of situation.
Sure, the cost of going through the trials is expensive, but so is the benefit if the drug proves to be successful.
And after this little fiasco with Iraq, do you really believe that media has the people's best interest (cheerleaders for the industry is more like it)? How about their reporting about P2P and copyright? Have you seen any major media reporting FOR public domain? I haven't see it. Almost every article and report is about how bad piracy is.
Sure your local news exposes a bad Mexican restaurant every now and then, but how often is that? And how wide is the coverage? You'll be lucky if your local media checks 1% of the local restaurants in 5 years. How is that going to discourage shady operators from cutting corners?
Look, you can't promise that bad things won't happen, but you surely can limit it to small percentages. It is like sports. You can either play games with no rules where anything goes and be not enjoyable at all, or have some basic rules that all players can agree upon that is fair - which makes sports MUCH more enjoyable.
Not all rules are bad.
Greater threat? Excuse me? I think putting drug manufacturers through trials to prove its efficacy and safety is worthwhile trade for longer development time (isn't that what science is all about?).
No limited liability my ass. Name me the limitied liability law that prevents the Enron investors from suing Ken Lay. What does prevent investors from getting every dime that Ken Lay has is difficulty in proving his wrong doing (all rich people like Ken Lay have an army of lawyers to cover his ass), and rich-folk friendly bankruptsy laws that prevent you from getting certain class of assets from crooks like this. Which has NOTHING to do with regulations - it is all about how much money you have and how much influence you have over politicians. The regulations are there to make the playing fields as even as possible. Without it, the rich and powerful will do whatever they want without fearing for the consequences. If you believe Joe Schmo with 2K in savings can sue someone like Ken Lay and actually win, you are living in the fantasy world.
And if you believe that it is possible to remove ALL layers of protection for the rich in our system, again, you are living in the fantasy world (first thing they would do is to outlaw class action lawsuits - which they are already trying).
Some people just don't study much history, do they? I think books like "The Jungle" should be a required reading for all citizens. There is a VERY good reason why FDA exists. Just read the book and see what happens when there are no regulations and inspectors. Greenspan (and many free market economists) also thought that free market forces were strong enough to discourage corporate fraud... that is until greedy bastards like Enron's of the world and dirty money managers like Janus milked billions from unsuspecting citizens. And how is suing bankrupt companies like Enron going to help the investors??? Also look at the herbal medicine market right now. There is absolutely no FDA control over it now and you have all these snake oil salesmen selling all kinds of pill that are now worth the plastic bottle it is shipped in (and in case of epehdra, killing people). Do we really want that kind of wild wild west mentality with cancer drugs?
Awesome!!! Now I... I mean your friendly neighborhood peeping tom can have a lookie-lookie all you want without the hassles.
What??? Using public airwaves to send for-pay content??? That is not right. These broadcasters pay NOTHING to lease very VALUABLE public resource (air-waves). The arrangement has always been that for leasing for free, they MUST broadcast open and clear signals. This kind of encrypted services is clear violation of that agreement. I have no problem if this company pays for the unused spectrum, but to use public resources to make profit seems like a very bad land grab by very greedy people. Where the hell is FCC??? Oh, I forgot, they are in the pockets of the broadcasters...
If you are not smart enough defend your position and actually DEBATE the substances of your thoughts, you need to DROP your remote, step away from the FOX News channel, and stop just repeating what you hear from talking heads on TV.
Open up some books, essays, newspapers. Actually think about what you are trying to say. Research your positions to see if they are coherent and consistent. Then, and only then, will you be able to have an honest debate with someone who disagrees with your point of view and you can both walkaway with your knowledge enriched by the experience.
This will be my last response since I am getting NOTHING out of this and I will stop wasting my time with likes of you.
Compare that to Dean's pledge to balance the budget by repealing Bush tax cuts (don't worry the rich won't go hungry anytime soon) and by cutting spending (the liberal wing of Democrats are already hammering him about how he is going to cut Medicare). That is EXACTLY what Reagan and Democrats in Congress did in mid 80's when deficits started spiraling out of control due to earlier tax cuts.
Dean is a fiscal REACTIONARY compared to Bush.
I see affirmative action (the race kind) as VERY compassionate compared to Bush's affirmative action (the kind where your daddy gets you into Yale then Havard Business School then out of draft to defend that dangerous terriotry called Texas).
Smartly designed regulation to make sure that everyone plays fair (and pay for their mistakes) is a KEY to a libertarian society. Otherwise you will have things like fleecing of investors (Enron, Tyco, and Mutual Funds) and stealing of taxpayer property (unfettered loggin, mining, superfund cleanup). Libertarian doesn't mean no rules, it means no more than rules than necessary. Bushies think libertarian means being free to reward their cronies with contracts and unfettered access to public property, but that is cronyism, not libertarianism.
FCC is a GREAT example of this. Instead of relaxing FCC's rules to LOWER the barrier of entry (e.g. low-power radio stations, more available licensing) which would be a libertarian and conservative thing to do, by repealing the ownership rule and raising the barrier of entry, you are making it harder and harder for Joe Averge to have ANY say in local communications market. I don't know how you can argue that is consistent with libertarian positions.
I don't know how ANYONE (including Dean) could do WORSE than what Bush has done so far as far as fiscal policies. He has cut over $200 billion in taxes to create 1.4 million jobs (at least that is what he is hoping). Hmmm, if you give me that money, I can create more than 1.4 million jobs. Heck, I can pay everyone $50k for doing nothing and I would still have billions left over. You know what Federal bank and rest of the world thinks about the job Bush is doing? Federal Bank is so nervous they won't even raise the interest rates when they had 9% GDP growth (which nobody believes). China and Europeans are starting to dump dollars, which is bringing dollar lower and lower everyday. Gold is trading at over $400/ounce which means everybody and their mother is betting that serious inflation is right around the corner. And REAL interest rate is rising no matter what the feds do.
Yea, I feel better everynight thinking about this....
Bush's fiscal policies are a joke. I don't know how you can be scared of Dean when you SHOULD be scared shitless right now.
Dean is a compassionate libertarian and a fiscal conservative.
Being for grown people to be free to do what they want - civil union, pro-choice, gun rights (consistent, unlike many other "conservative" politicians) - makes him a libertarian.
Being a firm supporter of affirmative action and healthcare for all is from his compassionate (not the fake compassion Bush tries to sell all the time) liberal leanings.
He is for getting rid of the Bush tax cut because Bush is a credit card president who borrows and spends (more bureaucracy and spending growth than Clinton every DREAMED!!!) and only way to fix this run away deficit and out of control spending growth (remember there are not enough Democrats around to blame for this mess) is to act like a grown up and start collecting more revenue (Reagan did exactly the same in middle of his presidency). Which is EXACTLY what Dean did as a governor (funny how the same Bush fiscal policy left Texas in fiscal crisis over last couple of years).
Hmmm... a compassionate libertarian guy who is calling for the same fiscal actions that Reagan once endorsed... yea sounds like a flaming liberal to me!
You may be even more right than you think.
Recently, it was found that the author of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" is a fraud. The guys has no degree in psychology, though he still calls himself a PhD (only thing remotely close is an honorary degree from somewhere where he gave a speech - but they don't have a graduate program).
The author for this book seems to be cut from the same cloth. Calls himself an "expert" but has nothing to back up that claim except for that he teaches it.
Hmmm.... I think I will take a pass.
PHULEEZE...
Most of the guns used in crime in NYC are usually traced back to the gun dealers in Connecticut, Virginia, and other east coast states with lax gun controls.
If NYC COULD controls the gun flow into the city (impossible), then their gun control laws would work just fine.
Most of us here are in the 16 to 35 yo demographics. And we are, by far, the ones with the WORST voting record. Almost all of never vote. Oopdy Doo if you vote, but your fellow gen X and Y'ers are not.
You guys have to knowledge, money, numbers, and best of all the NETWORK of like-minded people to make a difference. But all you do is whine, moan, and complain (which is what gen X and Y'ers do best).
You want things to change? You can start by raising money, pick a candidate to challenge Orrin Hatch, and get EVERY gen X and Y'ers to vote against him. I guarantee if you can get 60% to 70% of gen X and Y to vote in Utah and 70% of those vote for the other guy, Hatch will be history.
But will you take that bold step? NO!!! You rather just sit in your cubicles or dorm rooms and complain. Big WHUP!
Uh... correction.
Orrin Hatch is a BIG ANTI-Microsoft guy. He is a strong supporter of the local Utah software industry (what used to be WordPerfect and Novell. And being the coporate whore that he is, was at the forefront of congressional leaders calling for Anti-Trust lawsuit against Microsoft (and collected many millions from Sun, Oracle, et al).
It is truly funny to see how "market conditions" warrant punishing Microsoft for anti-trust but als call for protection of RIAA...
The Energy Bill that the House just passed will have NO EFFECT whatsoever to prevent this blackout from happening again.
Even so, the Congre$$ sold the Energy Bill as a panacea for our energy problems while stuffing it with tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks and special interest provisions. Talk about porkaroma...
I am guessing your eyesight precludes from seeing past your flat nose... If we followed your logic, we would have also said "what's the big deal about DNA? There so small and we have no idea what they do. Why spend ANY money on studying something so esoteric." Of course, if we followed your shortsighted moronic advice, the new wave of medicine based on DNA (which is already a billion dollar industry) which took over 50 years to develop, would have been shelved as "interesting, but no cigar." Some of the early works with Quantum Mechanics and Colliders are already paying divedends as it helps use make smaller and smaller computer chips. We are already on the cusp of starting the age of Quantum computing. I am not going to even bother why one of the human specie's most noble goals is to understand the universe itself. Thank goodness, scientist (and their supporters) routinely ignore your kind of rhetorics.
I have a DLP Projector I use at home mostly for watching movies and HDTV. I tried using it for some computer use, but it really wasn't worth it. I have a 100in diagonal screen and reading on that screen for a long time causes a lot of eye strain because your eyes have to move around so much (at your usual distance from the screen). It is great for gaming (especially when you have a bunch of friends over), and nice for occasional surfing, but not really suited for coding or anything serious. You also have to remember that bulbs cost about $.20 to $.30 per hour, so why bother using it for something that may be done better with a smaller screen? That said, I will never go back to regular TV. It save significant space in my family room. It is HUGE. And compared to Plasma screens (which lose 50% of brightness over 10 years), it is a better deal (even with bulb costs).
This would be a GREAT law and I welcome it.
By the time this law is passed, I am pretty sure a virus programmed to download illegal copies of unreleased movies to unsuspecting dupes will be ready.
Just think about it; spread the virus to thousands and thousands of open computers then start downloading copies to their hard drive.
Then, just sit back as everybody and their grandma start getting taken away and put in shackles. Remember, you don't have to prove guilt! You only need evidence!
A couple of hundreds of those cases and I am pretty sure MPAA will be crying uncle. Only then will you see ANY REAL effort to craft a reasonable copyright laws.
I call BS. Tell me what state you are talking about and I am sure I can call your BS point by point. You go ahead and look at the average premium paid by the doctors over last 30 years. There is a STRONG correlation of premiums and the bond market. There is also a study comparing between states with malpractice limit and those without and there is no difference in premium rates charged. You can read an article about it here. http://consumeraffairs.com/news03/med_mal.html I rather be a lobbyst for slimy lawyers who represent those who go through medical hell than a corporate lackey who defend insurance companies who reap the benefits of up market than dump the risk to doctors on the down swing.
"My state, for instance, just passed malpractice caps on noneconomic damages... and even despite that, I'm in the process of losing my malpractice insurance"
That's because malpractice lawsuits have nothing to do with the recent increase in premiums!!!
The insurance companies lost a bundle in bonds and stocks and only way they can make it up is to raise the premiums. The campaign to minimize malpractice insurance was just a convenient ruse to defer their responsibility.
Most US citizens (and Republicans) bought it hook line and sinker.
Disagree. A great thing about Chinese characters is that it is unerringly accurate. There are no double meanings, every character expresses a unique thought (i.e. head may mean human appendage, or top of a beer - no such confusion with Chinese characters there is one for each). Only trouble with this system is that you have to learn 40,000 CHARACTERS to be able to communicate. Expressive and accurate, yes, but not very accessible. Great thing about Hangul is that it is VERY easy to learn and VERY accessible. The problem is, with any phonetic alphabet, you have identical words with different meanings. Well, Koreans get around that by using Chinese characters for those clarifications (sometimes). However, the use of that clarification get rarer everyday (not many Korean teens want to learn 10k to 20k Chinese characters anymore).
Well, both. When Hangul first came out, it has some characters that are no longer in use today.
Koreans only use Chinese characters sparingly today, mostly for clarification purposes (like when the words sound alike but have different meanings - Chinese characters come in handy since they have no duplicates). The use of Chinese characters are becoming less and less common everyday.
There are disputed evidence of printing blocks used in Korea earlier than the Chinese.
The water clock I am talking about is a mechanical clock powered by water, not just a dripping kind (which isn't really much different than the hour glass).
I would be happy to explain Hangul to any interested party. Hangul was developed by King Sejong in 1446. Until then Koreans had used Chinese characters for writing, but obviously using foreign characters was not the most efficient (or easy to learn). Kin Sejong set out the change all that (very fascinating character ? one of the most scientifically minded royal ever. Scientific achievements flourished under him). He tasked best scholars and scientists in the land to come up with a new Korean alphabet system. The system that came up with is a phonetic alphabet system consisting of twenty eight letters (17 consonants and 11 vowels). The symbols were mostly driven from the shape of the lips of tongue when they made a particular sound (i.e. ?g? sound in Korean alphabet looks like ?7? just like how the tongue looks like when it makes that sound). In addition, similar sounds have similar looking symbols ? logical and easy to learn. Unlike roman alphabets, where consonants and vowels are jumbled together to make a word (separated by spaces), Koreans recreate sounds by representing each syllables separately by combining a consonant, vowel, and an optional consonants for finishing the syllable. Then the syllables are grouped together to make a word (separated by spaces). The strength of Hangul is that it can represent almost any sound. And because it is so phonetic, it is very easy to learn (I taught my wife how to read Korean over two nights ? of course she had no idea what they meant, but she could read them). In fact, the rules are so clear and easy to identify that it is the language of choice for many computer scientists working on AI. Most modern linguists have hailed it as the most scientific writing system in the world. If you would like to learn more, I would recommend starting on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul). I guarantee you will find it fascinating.
As a Korean-American, I find your condenscending, ignorant view of Koreans to be offensive.
Koreans were the first to develop printing blocks, water clocks, submarines, etc. Not to mentions the most scientific and graceful written languauge in the world - Hangul.
Koreans are very proud of their scientific and artistic achievements. And you if actually spent ANY time learning about their 4000 years of culture and achievements, then you wouldn't be spewing your little ignorant diatribe.
Koreans are adopting to some (NOT ALL) western culture and methods because that makes them competitive in the modern economic world. And if you really want to nitpick, they are modeling themselves after Japan more than any other western country (yes, Japan modeled much from US, but I would argue they have improved much upon the original).
What a nimcompoop...
Read the reasoning for accepting this case more carefully. It is clear that the Supremes have no desire to decide whether or not "Under God" phrase should be included in the Pledge.
They took this case on an appeal based on whether or not the father had the legal standing to bring this case about (he is divorced and the wife has the custody - and she has no problem with the pledge).
In all likely case, the Supremes will throw this case out and rule that the father had no right to bring this case forward, and avoid whether or not "Under God" is valid.
Do you seriously think Scalia would recuse himself voluntarily if they were actually going to decide whether or not religious phrases should be included in a public display? NOT!!!