Obama came into his position while using a Blackberry to keep connected.
Really? The best you can come up with is "vote for Obama, he uses blackberry?" What if I like paying cash for my doctor (and I do -- it's cheaper than paying for insurance which pays for doctors visits) ? Obama decided that for my own good I HAVE TO buy insurance? As long as Obamacare remains law, he is unelectable. And if you don't believe me, I'll tell you a little anecdote. On the day it finally passed, I looked around myself in the subway (on my way to work). Every single person had face like their dog just died. This was in the presumably-liberal NYC. Obama can't win against his shoes if they decide to run against him. His support is going to be so abysmally small, it will set a record. Oh, and, just for the record, I voted for Gore in 2000. Obama, however, is done.
Most the debt comes from the Bush tax cuts and Bush pharma bill which has never been funded.
That is simply not true. The cost of program ended up being less than what was budgeted. And paying for pills created savings in the Medicare program in excess of the cost of the pills. Before this bill, a senior citizen who could not afford medication would wait for complications and have a (much more expensive) surgery. The pills were not covered by medicare while the surgery was. So medicare lay outs were greater before the bill.
Most of the debt accrued during Obama's term is attributed the unfunded liabilities introduced in Bush's terms.
Not only is this not true, but it is so untrue in its audacity that it must be a Big Lie. Most of the deficit (more than 50%) was a result of "stimulus" spending -- the same one which continues to sink the economy by propping up inefficient enterprises at the expense of the efficient ones. For example, we DIDN'T have to bail out GM. Toyotas are made in the US. And any job losses at GM would have been off set by the job gains at Toyota and Ford.
Actually, they don't "survive" on conflict. Both parties thrive on it. They are in the same business as carnival clowns. As long as they keep pissing people off, money will flow into the coffers of the opposing party. Which brings money into the political business (lawyers, consultants, television ad producers, etc.). It doesn't matter which party wins, as long as money keeps coming in, it creates money for everyone in that business. They aren't looking for a "kill" in an election. They look to push and pull around the middle... because as long as the opposition exists, the money keeps coming in.
The Republicans generally support the goals of big business, and have a top-down approach to wealth.
This must, no doubt, come from the solve-the-world-problems-through-taxes propaganda. One could just as easily argue that Democrats believe in the goals of intellectual property and union orthodoxy and its immediate effect on suppressing innovation. It's the Democrats who receive the largest donations from Hollywood. It is the Democrats who resist school reforms (even budget-neutral school reforms) even though our education system is slipping in its world standing. There is plenty of big-business (in entertainment, banking, and now union-owned car manufacturing) that only persists through the privileged place secured for them by the Democrats. This isn't done through tax policy. It's done through intellectual property extensions, legal code complicated enough to allow for arbitrary enforcement and, occasionally, through simply ignoring the law as if it did not exist by the Democratic law makers and now President.
Newt Gingrich, who has managed to be a serious contender for the Republican party's nominee for President despite having resigned from the House of Representative in disgrace
New Gingrich resigned for clearly personal reasons. He was going through a divorce and could not, in good faith, prosecute an impeachment trial against a President accused of lying to a grand jury during a sexual harassment trial. It is the conflation of the fact that Clinton lied with the fact that he lied about a sexual act which made it more difficult for a speaker who had an affair to stay on. The difference, of course, was that Newt broke no laws, while Clinton was guilty of perjury (as is evidenced by the fact that he was disbarred for it AND was ordered to pay plaintiff's legal fees because of his perjury).
They believe government has the ability to address such injustices and to help dampen inequality.
Given all the evidence to the contrary, "believing" that would require either an immense level of gullibility (not something likely to be found in any politician), an immense level of stupidity (not likely to be found in anyone who got far enough in politics to be in power), or just plain ability to sell a bold-faced lie.
Democrats generally like to build consensus before agreeing on a plan
Is that the same thing as collusion against the governed?
The mandatory response is, of course, ability to occasionally predict something is not an indication that the level of certainty of all stated conclusions is as great as claimed. Whether or not level of certainty has been overstated is not something that yields itself to peer review. Basically, peer review can only answer the question "is this definitely true or is there a flaw in the observations or conclusions." Whereas, level of certainty can only be estimated by answering the question "is this plausible." It's the difference between "accurate" and "plausible" that makes peer review adequate or inadequate method of fact finding.
Climatology is not at all like geology, by the way. Geology has reproducible data because it studies artifacts of events rather than events in progress.
Bloomberg terminals now operate over the internet if I'm not mistaken.
They can encapsulate their feed over the Internet, but that limits functionality and requires extra login steps. The standard setup is over their own network. It's has extra security (including protection against Van Eck phreaking of the terminal itself). What you get in the browser is a very, very, very limited subset of functionality of what the terminal itself provides. Although the terminal itself, as an interface, has all the usability level of a cash register.
That's not what happened. A much milder event happened. Investment banks were always involved in corporate finance. They were simply allowed to be involved in retail banking, too. This allowed them to have direct access to FED lending. But the amount of regulation which was added was much greater. If banking were truly deregulated, we wouldn't have just checking and savings account. Your local S&L would be indistinguishable from a stock broker, who would be indistinguishable from a commodity and FX broker. At the moment an interest one pays on buying a home is about 4-5%. Interest that one pays on buying stocks (even if they are just stocks in companies which own homes and collect rent on them so they carry the same risk as actually owning a home) is 10%+. Banking is, in fact, more regulated than medicine.
It wasn't allowed to happen. It was very actively opposed by the teachers. Teachers hate standardization of curriculum. But population is very mobile in the US. So schools end up being forced a minimal curriculum that can be taught to students who change schools every few years. Knowledge is not independent morsels which can be taught on their own. It's structured in a layered way. If you can't depend on an average student in you class having a certain background, you are forced to dumb down what you teach. If it were clear that everyone in the country who passed 5th grade (or any grade) was guaranteed to know certain mathematical methods, certain amount of biology, chemistry and physics, a certain amount of English grammar, literature, etc. Then a teacher in the subsequent grade in each school would be able to build on that. As it is right now, no such guarantee exists. So all curriculum is simplified. The reason I find it odd that it was a Republican who made the first attempt at standardizing curriculum is that this was an anti-Federalist position (Federalist position would allows states to define curriculum and would not allow Federal government to interfere). And Republicans are generally Federalist in their ideology.
The larger companies do not appear to invest in R&D because they do not do most of their R&D directly. Again, their investment in R&D happens through investment in R&D start ups (think medical research companies with market caps of 100M or less) and then buying them out when the smaller companies' products get regulatory approvals. This doesn't show up as R&D in the budgets of the S&P 500. It shows up as M&A. But it does amount to channeling money in the R&D direction. The direct R&D investment was higher before the 90s (when the tax rate was higher). I am not sure what's a "community" R&D project. Just keep in mind, that a large portion of the money that is received through the buy outs ends up sponsoring further start ups (so the R&D reinvestment cycle continues).
I meant "can't", of course. Digs at grammar, on a site which does not allow editing of comments, are not that clever. But this isn't exclusive to English. A person should be able to clearly develop a topic in writing in the language in which the team communicates. Most of effort in a development process is spent on communicating. If a person cannot do that effectively, it's obvious what will happen.
Actually, it might have something to do with the lack of NEED to use those loopholes. When the tax burden was higher, corporations had the choice of growing enterprise by investing in R&D or losing fraction of that money by paying taxes on it. This was a tax loop hole. Now that the tax burden is lower, they make more money by leveraging their lower borrowing cost to buy out smaller players. The theory is that the money which get spent on buying out smaller players gets reinvested in more new enterprises. So this makes the R&D cycle more agile (no connection to Agile(TM) intended).
What hyper-capitalism? Not a single administration in the past 20 years saw a reduction in regulation. That's a direct reduction in degree of control over business by business owners. Oddly enough, the only administration which tried to fix the education system was Republican and its efforts were met with largest resistance from the teachers. The world is exactly opposite of what you proclaim it to be.
I stand by the comment. It was accurate. I am sure you feign some shock at my "ignorance" (left-speak for disagreeing with the left) or "stupidity" (left-speak for "shut up in the name of free speech"). Why do you bother? If you really thought what you claim you think, you'd roll eyes and look away. But that's not it. Before putting a gun in the back of the head of Winston Smith (circa "1984"), you want to destroy him mentally. You want him admit that he was wrong. You want him to beg to be shot. Yawn.
Read it? I've watched. It's tripe. It's generally antisemitic. Particularly, anti-Israel. In fact, I have, for a while, watched Al Jazeera just to compare. And, while people say it as a joke, it's is in fact true: Al Jazeera's coverage of Israel is much more accurate than BBC's. If you think it's not left leaning, then you just don't realize how far left you've gone. I wouldn't compare any news to CNN though. CNN is not meant for adults. It's a toy-story version of news. It's clearly geared towards adolescents. The bias of BBC is absolutely absurd. I've never heard even MSNBC (notoriously leftist provocateur channel in the US) refer to "invisible hand" of the market as some anthropomorphic monster. Yet BBC used that metaphor as if it were a-matter-of-fact kind of thing. Hint: it was "invisible" because it was not an actual hand. Yet they tried to morph it into some mental monster for the audience to slay. Who but the most leftist propaganda would try something like that? There were other examples. I am sure once you adapt their mind set, what they do seems like nothing but poetic license. But the fact that you don't see it anymore does indicate that you have adapted that leftist stand already.
You can get medical advice from a doctor in a different part of the world. You just can't get a prescription. Technically speaking, a "script" that a doctor writes is a transfer of knowledge. It is a recommendation by a professional. Why is it that that professional has to be seen in person or has to be accredited? No one ever requires accreditation of programmers. But what's worse is the attitude that free software is better software. It's only the case because so many decent programmers are underpaid and can only make a living within a professional structure. If that mindset were gone and everyone wanted to be paid for writing code, free software would not be nearly as good. And programmers' salaries would go up.
Bar association is private. Its standards are not set by the states. Its standards are set by the members of the profession without state's oversight. They do make arbitrary rules. For example, in some states they could simply not admit you because you sued someone as a non-member twice before joining (you are too litigious). So it acts as a de facto guild.
You cannot be compelled to join SAG, but cannot do more than 2 SAG jobs without joining. You are just not legally allowed to be hired for that 3rd SAG job if you don't become a member.
It's not an exercise in writing efficient code. It's an exercise in managing attention span (which 7 variables do you need to track in your mind at any one time) and in communication. The first CAN be tested with the right puzzles. The key is RIGHT puzzles. The second would be best tested by having programmers write an essay. Anyone who can clearly explain a topic in English probably won't write readable code either. And since readability of the code is 70% of its value... well, you do the math.
BBC is hardly journalism. They have complete discretion over editorial decisions. So they can print any kind of socialist drivel they feel like. Real news sources actually have to contend with the fact that their viewers/readers/advertisers might not like such a one-sided viewpoint. BBC has tried to exist commercially in the US through many venues. They always fail. Audiences don't stay with them. They come off as an extreme version of FOX news if FOX news were left-leaning.
Reporters: pay a license to NewsRight or don't write silly programs to auto review our content.
Doctors: go through AMA accredited medical school and certification or forget about giving flu shots.
Lawyers go through private (!!!) Bar association with its arbitrary rules to get into the profession or forget about practicing law
Actors: no more than 2 SAG appearances without joining the SAG or you are in violation of the law.
Programmers: all software should be free. Everyone should give away the secret sauce which makes their software run or they are acting immorally. For some added injury, let's invite hundreds of thousands indentured workers on H1 visas, to compete with professional programmers on wages and work conditions. Let's not call them immigrants (with all the rights of green card holders). Let's make them depend on their employer for 5-10 years to get a green card.
Yes, there are top programmers who make what a doctor makes. But top doctors, lawyers and actors make 100 fold. I wonder why that is. I wonder what lawyers would cost if most lawyers thought that legal services were a right that must be given away as much as possible. You might think that I am trolling, but the pattern is unmistakable. Professions which do not give up control over results of their labor have higher wages.
Oil is a fungible commodity. Which particular buyer will be buying depends only on the cost of delivery. If Iran's oil is being sold to Europe, that just means that it's cheaper to deliver it to Europe than it is to deliver it to Asia. Delivering it to the buyers to whom it is more expensive to deliver will do nothing but increase the world-wide cost of oil by introducing a less-than-optimal delivery cost into the overall delivery mechanism.
I can't believe this is ranked insightful. Of course, the platform matters more than the language. The platform is what you spend most of your time working with. It will be your main skill specialization.
Slashdot Mirror
Obama came into his position while using a Blackberry to keep connected.
Really? The best you can come up with is "vote for Obama, he uses blackberry?" What if I like paying cash for my doctor (and I do -- it's cheaper than paying for insurance which pays for doctors visits) ? Obama decided that for my own good I HAVE TO buy insurance? As long as Obamacare remains law, he is unelectable. And if you don't believe me, I'll tell you a little anecdote. On the day it finally passed, I looked around myself in the subway (on my way to work). Every single person had face like their dog just died. This was in the presumably-liberal NYC. Obama can't win against his shoes if they decide to run against him. His support is going to be so abysmally small, it will set a record. Oh, and, just for the record, I voted for Gore in 2000. Obama, however, is done.
Most the debt comes from the Bush tax cuts and Bush pharma bill which has never been funded.
That is simply not true. The cost of program ended up being less than what was budgeted. And paying for pills created savings in the Medicare program in excess of the cost of the pills. Before this bill, a senior citizen who could not afford medication would wait for complications and have a (much more expensive) surgery. The pills were not covered by medicare while the surgery was. So medicare lay outs were greater before the bill.
Most of the debt accrued during Obama's term is attributed the unfunded liabilities introduced in Bush's terms.
Not only is this not true, but it is so untrue in its audacity that it must be a Big Lie. Most of the deficit (more than 50%) was a result of "stimulus" spending -- the same one which continues to sink the economy by propping up inefficient enterprises at the expense of the efficient ones. For example, we DIDN'T have to bail out GM. Toyotas are made in the US. And any job losses at GM would have been off set by the job gains at Toyota and Ford.
Actually, they don't "survive" on conflict. Both parties thrive on it. They are in the same business as carnival clowns. As long as they keep pissing people off, money will flow into the coffers of the opposing party. Which brings money into the political business (lawyers, consultants, television ad producers, etc.). It doesn't matter which party wins, as long as money keeps coming in, it creates money for everyone in that business. They aren't looking for a "kill" in an election. They look to push and pull around the middle... because as long as the opposition exists, the money keeps coming in.
The Republicans generally support the goals of big business, and have a top-down approach to wealth.
This must, no doubt, come from the solve-the-world-problems-through-taxes propaganda. One could just as easily argue that Democrats believe in the goals of intellectual property and union orthodoxy and its immediate effect on suppressing innovation. It's the Democrats who receive the largest donations from Hollywood. It is the Democrats who resist school reforms (even budget-neutral school reforms) even though our education system is slipping in its world standing. There is plenty of big-business (in entertainment, banking, and now union-owned car manufacturing) that only persists through the privileged place secured for them by the Democrats. This isn't done through tax policy. It's done through intellectual property extensions, legal code complicated enough to allow for arbitrary enforcement and, occasionally, through simply ignoring the law as if it did not exist by the Democratic law makers and now President.
Newt Gingrich, who has managed to be a serious contender for the Republican party's nominee for President despite having resigned from the House of Representative in disgrace
New Gingrich resigned for clearly personal reasons. He was going through a divorce and could not, in good faith, prosecute an impeachment trial against a President accused of lying to a grand jury during a sexual harassment trial. It is the conflation of the fact that Clinton lied with the fact that he lied about a sexual act which made it more difficult for a speaker who had an affair to stay on. The difference, of course, was that Newt broke no laws, while Clinton was guilty of perjury (as is evidenced by the fact that he was disbarred for it AND was ordered to pay plaintiff's legal fees because of his perjury).
They believe government has the ability to address such injustices and to help dampen inequality.
Given all the evidence to the contrary, "believing" that would require either an immense level of gullibility (not something likely to be found in any politician), an immense level of stupidity (not likely to be found in anyone who got far enough in politics to be in power), or just plain ability to sell a bold-faced lie.
Democrats generally like to build consensus before agreeing on a plan
Is that the same thing as collusion against the governed?
what is the difference between propaganda and marketing?
The mandatory response is, of course, ability to occasionally predict something is not an indication that the level of certainty of all stated conclusions is as great as claimed. Whether or not level of certainty has been overstated is not something that yields itself to peer review. Basically, peer review can only answer the question "is this definitely true or is there a flaw in the observations or conclusions." Whereas, level of certainty can only be estimated by answering the question "is this plausible." It's the difference between "accurate" and "plausible" that makes peer review adequate or inadequate method of fact finding.
Climatology is not at all like geology, by the way. Geology has reproducible data because it studies artifacts of events rather than events in progress.
Bloomberg terminals now operate over the internet if I'm not mistaken.
They can encapsulate their feed over the Internet, but that limits functionality and requires extra login steps. The standard setup is over their own network. It's has extra security (including protection against Van Eck phreaking of the terminal itself). What you get in the browser is a very, very, very limited subset of functionality of what the terminal itself provides. Although the terminal itself, as an interface, has all the usability level of a cash register.
That's not what happened. A much milder event happened. Investment banks were always involved in corporate finance. They were simply allowed to be involved in retail banking, too. This allowed them to have direct access to FED lending. But the amount of regulation which was added was much greater. If banking were truly deregulated, we wouldn't have just checking and savings account. Your local S&L would be indistinguishable from a stock broker, who would be indistinguishable from a commodity and FX broker. At the moment an interest one pays on buying a home is about 4-5%. Interest that one pays on buying stocks (even if they are just stocks in companies which own homes and collect rent on them so they carry the same risk as actually owning a home) is 10%+. Banking is, in fact, more regulated than medicine.
It wasn't allowed to happen. It was very actively opposed by the teachers. Teachers hate standardization of curriculum. But population is very mobile in the US. So schools end up being forced a minimal curriculum that can be taught to students who change schools every few years. Knowledge is not independent morsels which can be taught on their own. It's structured in a layered way. If you can't depend on an average student in you class having a certain background, you are forced to dumb down what you teach. If it were clear that everyone in the country who passed 5th grade (or any grade) was guaranteed to know certain mathematical methods, certain amount of biology, chemistry and physics, a certain amount of English grammar, literature, etc. Then a teacher in the subsequent grade in each school would be able to build on that. As it is right now, no such guarantee exists. So all curriculum is simplified. The reason I find it odd that it was a Republican who made the first attempt at standardizing curriculum is that this was an anti-Federalist position (Federalist position would allows states to define curriculum and would not allow Federal government to interfere). And Republicans are generally Federalist in their ideology.
The larger companies do not appear to invest in R&D because they do not do most of their R&D directly. Again, their investment in R&D happens through investment in R&D start ups (think medical research companies with market caps of 100M or less) and then buying them out when the smaller companies' products get regulatory approvals. This doesn't show up as R&D in the budgets of the S&P 500. It shows up as M&A. But it does amount to channeling money in the R&D direction. The direct R&D investment was higher before the 90s (when the tax rate was higher). I am not sure what's a "community" R&D project. Just keep in mind, that a large portion of the money that is received through the buy outs ends up sponsoring further start ups (so the R&D reinvestment cycle continues).
I meant "can't", of course. Digs at grammar, on a site which does not allow editing of comments, are not that clever. But this isn't exclusive to English. A person should be able to clearly develop a topic in writing in the language in which the team communicates. Most of effort in a development process is spent on communicating. If a person cannot do that effectively, it's obvious what will happen.
Actually, it might have something to do with the lack of NEED to use those loopholes. When the tax burden was higher, corporations had the choice of growing enterprise by investing in R&D or losing fraction of that money by paying taxes on it. This was a tax loop hole. Now that the tax burden is lower, they make more money by leveraging their lower borrowing cost to buy out smaller players. The theory is that the money which get spent on buying out smaller players gets reinvested in more new enterprises. So this makes the R&D cycle more agile (no connection to Agile(TM) intended).
What hyper-capitalism? Not a single administration in the past 20 years saw a reduction in regulation. That's a direct reduction in degree of control over business by business owners. Oddly enough, the only administration which tried to fix the education system was Republican and its efforts were met with largest resistance from the teachers. The world is exactly opposite of what you proclaim it to be.
It's not their problem anymore.
I stand by the comment. It was accurate. I am sure you feign some shock at my "ignorance" (left-speak for disagreeing with the left) or "stupidity" (left-speak for "shut up in the name of free speech"). Why do you bother? If you really thought what you claim you think, you'd roll eyes and look away. But that's not it. Before putting a gun in the back of the head of Winston Smith (circa "1984"), you want to destroy him mentally. You want him admit that he was wrong. You want him to beg to be shot. Yawn.
Blah, blah, blah. You are not even annoying. You are boring.
Read it? I've watched. It's tripe. It's generally antisemitic. Particularly, anti-Israel. In fact, I have, for a while, watched Al Jazeera just to compare. And, while people say it as a joke, it's is in fact true: Al Jazeera's coverage of Israel is much more accurate than BBC's. If you think it's not left leaning, then you just don't realize how far left you've gone. I wouldn't compare any news to CNN though. CNN is not meant for adults. It's a toy-story version of news. It's clearly geared towards adolescents. The bias of BBC is absolutely absurd. I've never heard even MSNBC (notoriously leftist provocateur channel in the US) refer to "invisible hand" of the market as some anthropomorphic monster. Yet BBC used that metaphor as if it were a-matter-of-fact kind of thing. Hint: it was "invisible" because it was not an actual hand. Yet they tried to morph it into some mental monster for the audience to slay. Who but the most leftist propaganda would try something like that? There were other examples. I am sure once you adapt their mind set, what they do seems like nothing but poetic license. But the fact that you don't see it anymore does indicate that you have adapted that leftist stand already.
You can get medical advice from a doctor in a different part of the world. You just can't get a prescription. Technically speaking, a "script" that a doctor writes is a transfer of knowledge. It is a recommendation by a professional. Why is it that that professional has to be seen in person or has to be accredited? No one ever requires accreditation of programmers. But what's worse is the attitude that free software is better software. It's only the case because so many decent programmers are underpaid and can only make a living within a professional structure. If that mindset were gone and everyone wanted to be paid for writing code, free software would not be nearly as good. And programmers' salaries would go up.
Bar association is private. Its standards are not set by the states. Its standards are set by the members of the profession without state's oversight. They do make arbitrary rules. For example, in some states they could simply not admit you because you sued someone as a non-member twice before joining (you are too litigious). So it acts as a de facto guild.
You cannot be compelled to join SAG, but cannot do more than 2 SAG jobs without joining. You are just not legally allowed to be hired for that 3rd SAG job if you don't become a member.
It's not an exercise in writing efficient code. It's an exercise in managing attention span (which 7 variables do you need to track in your mind at any one time) and in communication. The first CAN be tested with the right puzzles. The key is RIGHT puzzles. The second would be best tested by having programmers write an essay. Anyone who can clearly explain a topic in English probably won't write readable code either. And since readability of the code is 70% of its value... well, you do the math.
BBC is hardly journalism. They have complete discretion over editorial decisions. So they can print any kind of socialist drivel they feel like. Real news sources actually have to contend with the fact that their viewers/readers/advertisers might not like such a one-sided viewpoint. BBC has tried to exist commercially in the US through many venues. They always fail. Audiences don't stay with them. They come off as an extreme version of FOX news if FOX news were left-leaning.
Reporters: pay a license to NewsRight or don't write silly programs to auto review our content.
Doctors: go through AMA accredited medical school and certification or forget about giving flu shots.
Lawyers go through private (!!!) Bar association with its arbitrary rules to get into the profession or forget about practicing law
Actors: no more than 2 SAG appearances without joining the SAG or you are in violation of the law.
Programmers: all software should be free. Everyone should give away the secret sauce which makes their software run or they are acting immorally. For some added injury, let's invite hundreds of thousands indentured workers on H1 visas, to compete with professional programmers on wages and work conditions. Let's not call them immigrants (with all the rights of green card holders). Let's make them depend on their employer for 5-10 years to get a green card.
Yes, there are top programmers who make what a doctor makes. But top doctors, lawyers and actors make 100 fold. I wonder why that is. I wonder what lawyers would cost if most lawyers thought that legal services were a right that must be given away as much as possible. You might think that I am trolling, but the pattern is unmistakable. Professions which do not give up control over results of their labor have higher wages.
Oil is a fungible commodity. Which particular buyer will be buying depends only on the cost of delivery. If Iran's oil is being sold to Europe, that just means that it's cheaper to deliver it to Europe than it is to deliver it to Asia. Delivering it to the buyers to whom it is more expensive to deliver will do nothing but increase the world-wide cost of oil by introducing a less-than-optimal delivery cost into the overall delivery mechanism.
I can't believe this is ranked insightful. Of course, the platform matters more than the language. The platform is what you spend most of your time working with. It will be your main skill specialization.