Really, I wasn't aware that the government had recently banned private schools and home schooling.
They ban it by the virtue of the fact that they take away the resources that schools costs (in the form of taxes that are are handed over to public schools). If they government collected "food taxes" and then made a few generic forms of food available, would you still argue that those who have discretionary income after taxes and basic expenses can chose to pay higher prices for what they eat? Or would you admit that under such a hypothetical scenario (which I made for the purposes of an analogy rather than any claim of future plans) it would still be absurd to say that "public feeding" is essential for the well-being of society?
So 50+ million Americans can't afford basic health insurance, yet will have no problem spending thousands per year per kid for private schooling?
Wow! Now I know you are propagandizing. Not only are you repeating the same lie (private schooling is too expensive), but you are also trying to divert attention from the problem by introducing another unrelated problem.
Sounds like you need to pack up your stuff (don't forget your box of bootstraps!) and move out to the new Libertarian paradise.
Wow, again! You give an example of a country where the government fails at its primary mandate -- providing security. And you use that as a justification for giving government all types of other mandates? You do understand that the libertarians want government to be responsible for security, or is that something to sweep under the rug to make mocking them more convenient? Now, unlike libertarians, I actually do think that government must ensure education is available. But unlike the left, I don't think removing choices in education makes education better (no, the left doesn't say this outright, but their argument do boil down to it).
So on the question of private schools providing the same services for less money, I can take that as a "no".
Umm... No, they don't provide same services. They provide better services for less money. I also specifically addressed the question of how this would benefit challenged students -- by allowing making fiscally feasable schools that specialize in their needs. Somehow you ignored the fact that I addresed it and tried to whitewash it. Perhaps I should begin to suspect that you are biased rather than continue believing that you are trying to understand what is the best solution for the children or for the society.
But how do you define "best" anyway? No doubt you've had some classes where there's a D average
Quality of education is no longer determined by grades, true. But it's still true that parents are the people most invested
in childrens' best interests. There are exceptions, sure. But since we always have to choose the best solution among a number of available imperfect solutions, let's let the parents' choice of school deteremine what's best for the kids. I am not sure why you are still going with this, by the way. School choice is to the left what drug war is to the right. Something they know they are on the wrong side of but are not willing to give up because their ideology is too rooted in it. The longer this drags out the more people will get hurt.
If you mean making people who spent 4+ years getting a masters degree in education to battle it out for peanuts, good luck with that
The above paragraph probably explained that by competition I mean allowing for vouchers. Yes, I am aware of dangers of parochials schools. But again, I think we are choosing among imperfect solutions. And the danger of failing the best of students is worse than the danger of failing the most challenged of students or even the most challenged of social classes. If we fail to education the next generation of the brightest minds, it won't matter that we have provided a good enough educaton for everyone to be in the middle. We'll still lose the progress race.
I am also aware of the questionable constitutionality of it. But, to be honest, I fail to grasp how making Christmas a national holiday is any more constitutional than allowing people to chose religious education and paying for it. As long as the vouchers pay the same flat amount for each school (meaning they don't give better treatment to parochial schools) than this becomes a moot point.
Lastly, the only reason they do "battle it out over peanuts" is that they are isolated from competition. Look at what happens in sports. Why do coaches make more money than college professors? Because sports are competitive and the results of competitions are clearly identifiable. Whereas competition in academic subjects is laughed at. Why? Because everyone knows it's irrelevant. Imagine if parents all of a sudden had a choice. And started sending their children to schools that won academic competitions. I seriously doubt that at that point anyone would even know the football scores because they'd be too busy gossiping about the best ways to understand subtleties of academic subjects. This isn't a hypothetical, either. I've seen it happen. Of course, this would create bidding wars for good teachers among schools -- the same bidding wars that business engage in for good employees in other fields.
Honestly, this war is over. The only thing that's left to decide right now is whether we are going to keep the system that created the mess in charge or learn a lesson from the failure.
As long someone maintains a bias they can't be open-minded by definition. I think your problem is more with the phrasing of the original than the author himself. For as long as someone exhibits a bias they cannot be open-minded by definition. That doesn't mean that a person who sometimes exhibits a bias is never open-minded. But this is not the level of precision that is to be expected in a colloquial discussion.
Public schools may not be able to turn away the worst students. But they do turn away the best students on regular basis. Try getting an AP Physics class in a public school. And you'll very quickly see that its legal requirements to provide special treatment to students with disabilities make it fiscally impossible to provide best possible schooling for the best of the students. If students have true disabilities, then private schools can be formed to address those. There is absolutely no justification in thinking that isolating teachers from competition makes them better teachers.
Not sure how I am "wrong" or why you say "yes" while disagreeing with me. But ok. I'll assume that the condescending ad hominem that you vomited up there was an accident and actually keep reading. Lower spreads have nothing to do with this. They are only an indication of higher liquidity. So what? So they found more way to repackage these mortgages and turn them into tradable instruments. A 20% to 30% increase over 10 years is a huuuge jump. It's got nothing to do with deregulation of the 70s and 80s. The new ownership society was the policy put in place in the late 90s/early 21st century. They didn't "find" the new buyers. The S&L's were required to make loans to more risky buyers or face fines. The reason they came up with lower downpayment mortgages was to meet these requirements. This was policy. It was policy and policy alone that created this depression.
There was increase regulation despite the media reports. The regulation penalized them for not giving mortgages to those who ultimately proved to be unable to pay.
The fact that you've bought to the propaganda campaign doesn't mean that I am ignorant. The regulation increased during those 10 years. The size of the regulatory agencies grew by 70% during the Bush years with Republican Congress. Specifically, new regulation was introduced which penalized banks for not landing to enough low-income borrowers. This is what caused this. The banks had to lend to high-risk individuals or face penalties. This is policy. It's increased regulation. Now go back to watching the Daily Show. I'm sure Jon will make you feel good about not looking behind the curtain.
He was part of a team that wrote some trading application. Confession? Is this a joke? Blaming wall street for this meltdown is like blaming your electrician when the power company stop providing power. All they do is repackage stuff. All the repackaging in the world wouldn't raise home ownership from 20% to 30% in 10 years. This was through policy... Brought to you by your friendly government (which I must be a right-wing nut for questioning, right?). Reminds of a the Jackie Mason joke: "This is the richest company in the history of the world and every year we lose money. That's because your congressman gets paid whether we lose money or not. I say put em on commission..." Honestly though... It's the "ownership society" that created this crisis -- not the middleman they are trying to blame now.
Obama is a Right-Wing fascist only in North Korea. It is you who don't understand the meaning of the words you use.
Right-wing and fascist is a contradiction in terms. Fascism grew out of the socialist movement. Mussolini started out as a Socialist and he coined the word "fascism".
So now we're forced to invent a new word "Corporatism" to describe what the word fascism originally meant.
Corporatism and Fascism (in its original meaning) are not the same thing. They are similar in that they are half-way between free-market capitalism and Communist dictatorship (in which the government owns all means of production -- not all property -- personal private property was still allowed under Communist dictatorships). But the key difference is that under Fascism the government regulates and steers the direction of the industry. Under Corporatism the corporations steer the direction of the government. Churchill didn't just toy with the idea of Fascism. He implemented it without calling it by name. FDR tried to do it, too. But the Supreme Court stopped a number of his measures (national labor board being one of the more prominent ones).
Oddly enough, you are right up until the last paragraph. I am not sure why you want to equate corporatism and fascism. The former still makes us citizens while the latter would have made us subjects.
And lastly, don't put National Socialists and Fascists into the same bag. Nazis added their mix of racial superiority to fascism. They created the sentiment where they would make arguments of the type "we will turn the rest of the world into our slaves because...".
AC commented that Google should cease doing business in/with the UK, that seems like a suggestion that they should act offended to me.
Well, actually, you were replying to this:
Because it's not Google's job to prop up the BBC's revenues?
Which was a side track from AC's original direction of the argument. Oddly enough, the side track was more constructive than the original. But you have to admit that replying with
I'm suggesting that businesses generally treat taxes as a cost, not as something that is morally offensive, so why expect anything different here?
to
Because it's not Google's job to prop up the BBC's revenues?
puts you in a rather odd position. It makes it look like you are arguing (which I don't think you are in fact) that businesses shouldn't be bothered at all with whether they are taxed or not. Having said that, I think the AC's original post was indicative of the rage due to the fact that this form of taxation seems like a subsidy to Google's potential competitors. A number of businesses would, in fact, leave a market under such circumstances.
Aww, aren't you just a cute, short sighted elitist who can't see past his own nose. You can't have a sizable middle class WITHOUT public schools, because not everyone can pony up $10,000 a year to send their kids to private school.
Public schools almost universally spend more per child than private schools. The absolute amounts are different, but if you look at spending in the same geographic areas, then you'll see that public schools spend 10-20% more.
Slashdot is not libertarian. It's the technocracy party of America. We are pro-technological solutions to all problems. All other solutions get laughed out of the house here. ummm... cheese
No, "independant" is just a term we use for someone who has no idea what they believe. They either have mixed views, or they simply haven't been following the issues.
If only it was a royal "we". Unfortunately, you are not delusional in thinking that you have company. Fall in line or be branded and idiot is, in fact, the spirit of the day. Issues have levels of subtlety. To think that either of the two parties has the right set of stands on the issues is an almost religious view. For the rest of us, we have to balance pros and cons of one side vs pros and cons of the other. Those of us using our heads and evaluating the balances between the extremes that the two parties are now taking do "have an idea of what we believe". We are just not always sure which of the two evils we like less.
Politics in America have always been extremely moderate; although the current Republican platform is a bit extreme compared to conservative parties in other industrialized nations, it's still a far cry from actual fascism.
Fascism? Fascism is a political system implemented by Mussolini after he figured out that Communism was too extreme. Not to be confused with National Socialism (which was Fascism + ideas of racial superiority mixed in). The main difference between Fascism and free-market capitalism is that under Fascism the government heavily regulates and steers the direction of the industry. Under Communist system the government exercises absolute control over the industry. Just in case you feel like starting a "but there is not difference" type of argument (because I've done this before), let me say outright that it's about modality. It's a scale. Communism on one end, free-market capitalism on the other end, and Fascism somewhere in the middle. And I am not talking about fascism as it is branded on the Internet today. I am talking about "Fascism" as Mussolini (who coined the word) defined it. Yes, there is a quote about marriage of industry and government under Fascism. But the government is the dominant partner in that marriage.
As for the Republicans being far from Fascists, they are. They are controlled by theocratic interests more than anything. In case you are wondering (as a lot of people on the left are) where in the world people got the idea that Obama is a fascist, I'll repeat: Mussolini's main platform was strong government regulation and steering of the industry but private ownership. People confuse it with Hitler's baggage of contempt that he added to the equation to create his National Socialist Worker's Party of Germany.
I'm not suggesting that it is. I'm suggesting that businesses generally treat taxes as a cost, not as something that is morally offensive, so why expect anything different here?
I don't think it's been suggested that Google is offended. Incensed, maybe. But they are not saying if they are. I am pretty sure, however, that a number of people reading this post are offended. Before getting into any debate as to whether taxes are good or bad, just remember that for anyone concerned with ethics not being a victim of unethical behavior is not enough of a reason to look away. The previous sentence did not support or condemn taxes. It only tried to explain why anyone might care about someone else's taxes.
The last sentence in the article is the most useful: "A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: 'There are no plans to impose new taxes.'"
Well, that settles it then. Politicians and government officials never lie, do they?
No, no, you meant "politicians and government officials never plan". </sarcasm>
Not sure why you anthropomorphise an operating system. But removing this "decision" element out of the question, the point of the original post is that even the backwards gold exchange is using Linux now. The large exchanges are expected to use cutting-edge technologies -- they have the resources to hire any experts they need as long as technology is actually at the forefront. It's when even the small exchanges use it, that demonstrates that Linux has reached ubiquity -- small players can't afford to take as many technological risks so they adapt the more stable and widely-accepted solutions.
Again, just because a number is called "imaginary" doesn't mean it isn't real (in the physical sense).
The "imaginary" part of complex numbers generally refers to phase. When I say "physical", I mean the number that measures physical distance. Physical distances cannot be imaginary. When talking about "physical dimensions", we talk about dimensions in which distances can be measured. It's not enough for the number to "have meaning". In order to talk about physical dimensions (as opposed to the dimensions of data describing physically existing objects) the numbers in question have to be referring to distance measurements.
Training people in "virtual" labs is useless. Any wet lab experience that's meant to be a training for actual lab work must be hands-on. "Virtual" labs can only substitute the labs of today that are meant to create a minor exposure to lab-style work that students are supposed to keep in the back on their heads as a concept. And second, peer-reviewed material is crap. Yes, I said it. It's unreadable by anyone but the peers. And even the peers usually let go of a lot of imprecise statements. To allow this level of vaguer y into text books would make text books obsolete. It would only solidify the market for test-prep cliff's-and-schaum's-type materials as substitutes for assigned reading. Peer-review is a terrible model for increasing clarity. Just think about it: it asks experts to made the decision on whether a certain piece of expository writing does a good job of breaching the gap between those who are well-prepared and those who are in-the-know. By definition, it's a decision based on hypothetical. It's missing a test. Where asking students to first use text books before deciding on whether they are useful is that kind of a test.
But the assumption of predators roaming freely is tantamount to the assumption that predator behavior can be automated. That is the cost of someone becoming the next predator is incomparably small in relation to their reward. Under these circumstances, it's free lunch for predators. To assume that they won't take advantage of it is counter-intuitive.
What the uneducated conservative population is looking for are selected data points that proves what they want to believe.
From Wikipedia entry on "strawman":
Reasoning:
2.3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.
How bout not labeling anyone who believe that scientific evidence that goes against the dogma as "uneducated"? How about addressing the evidence instead of effects of hypothetical scenarios? Can we do that? Or must we reduce everything to the ad hominem level because some of the opposition does that? The joke that I made was precisely at the expense of the people like you -- people who panic whenever scientific orthodoxy is even remotely questioned because it might put in question the wisdom of their political commitments.
Slashdot Mirror
and no one to sue. and don't think the fact that you get it for free matters -- you can sue a soup kitchen if it gives you food poisoning.
Really, I wasn't aware that the government had recently banned private schools and home schooling.
They ban it by the virtue of the fact that they take away the resources that schools costs (in the form of taxes that are are handed over to public schools). If they government collected "food taxes" and then made a few generic forms of food available, would you still argue that those who have discretionary income after taxes and basic expenses can chose to pay higher prices for what they eat? Or would you admit that under such a hypothetical scenario (which I made for the purposes of an analogy rather than any claim of future plans) it would still be absurd to say that "public feeding" is essential for the well-being of society?
So 50+ million Americans can't afford basic health insurance, yet will have no problem spending thousands per year per kid for private schooling?
Wow! Now I know you are propagandizing. Not only are you repeating the same lie (private schooling is too expensive), but you are also trying to divert attention from the problem by introducing another unrelated problem.
Sounds like you need to pack up your stuff (don't forget your box of bootstraps!) and move out to the new Libertarian paradise.
Wow, again! You give an example of a country where the government fails at its primary mandate -- providing security. And you use that as a justification for giving government all types of other mandates? You do understand that the libertarians want government to be responsible for security, or is that something to sweep under the rug to make mocking them more convenient? Now, unlike libertarians, I actually do think that government must ensure education is available. But unlike the left, I don't think removing choices in education makes education better (no, the left doesn't say this outright, but their argument do boil down to it).
So on the question of private schools providing the same services for less money, I can take that as a "no".
Umm... No, they don't provide same services. They provide better services for less money. I also specifically addressed the question of how this would benefit challenged students -- by allowing making fiscally feasable schools that specialize in their needs. Somehow you ignored the fact that I addresed it and tried to whitewash it. Perhaps I should begin to suspect that you are biased rather than continue believing that you are trying to understand what is the best solution for the children or for the society.
But how do you define "best" anyway? No doubt you've had some classes where there's a D average
Quality of education is no longer determined by grades, true. But it's still true that parents are the people most invested in childrens' best interests. There are exceptions, sure. But since we always have to choose the best solution among a number of available imperfect solutions, let's let the parents' choice of school deteremine what's best for the kids. I am not sure why you are still going with this, by the way. School choice is to the left what drug war is to the right. Something they know they are on the wrong side of but are not willing to give up because their ideology is too rooted in it. The longer this drags out the more people will get hurt.
If you mean making people who spent 4+ years getting a masters degree in education to battle it out for peanuts, good luck with that
The above paragraph probably explained that by competition I mean allowing for vouchers. Yes, I am aware of dangers of parochials schools. But again, I think we are choosing among imperfect solutions. And the danger of failing the best of students is worse than the danger of failing the most challenged of students or even the most challenged of social classes. If we fail to education the next generation of the brightest minds, it won't matter that we have provided a good enough educaton for everyone to be in the middle. We'll still lose the progress race.
I am also aware of the questionable constitutionality of it. But, to be honest, I fail to grasp how making Christmas a national holiday is any more constitutional than allowing people to chose religious education and paying for it. As long as the vouchers pay the same flat amount for each school (meaning they don't give better treatment to parochial schools) than this becomes a moot point.
Lastly, the only reason they do "battle it out over peanuts" is that they are isolated from competition. Look at what happens in sports. Why do coaches make more money than college professors? Because sports are competitive and the results of competitions are clearly identifiable. Whereas competition in academic subjects is laughed at. Why? Because everyone knows it's irrelevant. Imagine if parents all of a sudden had a choice. And started sending their children to schools that won academic competitions. I seriously doubt that at that point anyone would even know the football scores because they'd be too busy gossiping about the best ways to understand subtleties of academic subjects. This isn't a hypothetical, either. I've seen it happen. Of course, this would create bidding wars for good teachers among schools -- the same bidding wars that business engage in for good employees in other fields.
Honestly, this war is over. The only thing that's left to decide right now is whether we are going to keep the system that created the mess in charge or learn a lesson from the failure.
As long someone maintains a bias they can't be open-minded by definition. I think your problem is more with the phrasing of the original than the author himself. For as long as someone exhibits a bias they cannot be open-minded by definition. That doesn't mean that a person who sometimes exhibits a bias is never open-minded. But this is not the level of precision that is to be expected in a colloquial discussion.
Public schools may not be able to turn away the worst students. But they do turn away the best students on regular basis. Try getting an AP Physics class in a public school. And you'll very quickly see that its legal requirements to provide special treatment to students with disabilities make it fiscally impossible to provide best possible schooling for the best of the students. If students have true disabilities, then private schools can be formed to address those. There is absolutely no justification in thinking that isolating teachers from competition makes them better teachers.
Not sure how I am "wrong" or why you say "yes" while disagreeing with me. But ok. I'll assume that the condescending ad hominem that you vomited up there was an accident and actually keep reading. Lower spreads have nothing to do with this. They are only an indication of higher liquidity. So what? So they found more way to repackage these mortgages and turn them into tradable instruments. A 20% to 30% increase over 10 years is a huuuge jump. It's got nothing to do with deregulation of the 70s and 80s. The new ownership society was the policy put in place in the late 90s/early 21st century. They didn't "find" the new buyers. The S&L's were required to make loans to more risky buyers or face fines. The reason they came up with lower downpayment mortgages was to meet these requirements. This was policy. It was policy and policy alone that created this depression.
There was increase regulation despite the media reports. The regulation penalized them for not giving mortgages to those who ultimately proved to be unable to pay.
The fact that you've bought to the propaganda campaign doesn't mean that I am ignorant. The regulation increased during those 10 years. The size of the regulatory agencies grew by 70% during the Bush years with Republican Congress. Specifically, new regulation was introduced which penalized banks for not landing to enough low-income borrowers. This is what caused this. The banks had to lend to high-risk individuals or face penalties. This is policy. It's increased regulation. Now go back to watching the Daily Show. I'm sure Jon will make you feel good about not looking behind the curtain.
He was part of a team that wrote some trading application. Confession? Is this a joke? Blaming wall street for this meltdown is like blaming your electrician when the power company stop providing power. All they do is repackage stuff. All the repackaging in the world wouldn't raise home ownership from 20% to 30% in 10 years. This was through policy... Brought to you by your friendly government (which I must be a right-wing nut for questioning, right?). Reminds of a the Jackie Mason joke: "This is the richest company in the history of the world and every year we lose money. That's because your congressman gets paid whether we lose money or not. I say put em on commission..." Honestly though... It's the "ownership society" that created this crisis -- not the middleman they are trying to blame now.
Obama is a Right-Wing fascist only in North Korea. It is you who don't understand the meaning of the words you use.
Right-wing and fascist is a contradiction in terms. Fascism grew out of the socialist movement. Mussolini started out as a Socialist and he coined the word "fascism".
So now we're forced to invent a new word "Corporatism" to describe what the word fascism originally meant.
Corporatism and Fascism (in its original meaning) are not the same thing. They are similar in that they are half-way between free-market capitalism and Communist dictatorship (in which the government owns all means of production -- not all property -- personal private property was still allowed under Communist dictatorships). But the key difference is that under Fascism the government regulates and steers the direction of the industry. Under Corporatism the corporations steer the direction of the government. Churchill didn't just toy with the idea of Fascism. He implemented it without calling it by name. FDR tried to do it, too. But the Supreme Court stopped a number of his measures (national labor board being one of the more prominent ones).
Oddly enough, you are right up until the last paragraph. I am not sure why you want to equate corporatism and fascism. The former still makes us citizens while the latter would have made us subjects.
And lastly, don't put National Socialists and Fascists into the same bag. Nazis added their mix of racial superiority to fascism. They created the sentiment where they would make arguments of the type "we will turn the rest of the world into our slaves because ...".
AC commented that Google should cease doing business in/with the UK, that seems like a suggestion that they should act offended to me.
Well, actually, you were replying to this:
Because it's not Google's job to prop up the BBC's revenues?
Which was a side track from AC's original direction of the argument. Oddly enough, the side track was more constructive than the original. But you have to admit that replying with
I'm suggesting that businesses generally treat taxes as a cost, not as something that is morally offensive, so why expect anything different here?
to
Because it's not Google's job to prop up the BBC's revenues?
puts you in a rather odd position. It makes it look like you are arguing (which I don't think you are in fact) that businesses shouldn't be bothered at all with whether they are taxed or not. Having said that, I think the AC's original post was indicative of the rage due to the fact that this form of taxation seems like a subsidy to Google's potential competitors. A number of businesses would, in fact, leave a market under such circumstances.
Aww, aren't you just a cute, short sighted elitist who can't see past his own nose. You can't have a sizable middle class WITHOUT public schools, because not everyone can pony up $10,000 a year to send their kids to private school.
Public schools almost universally spend more per child than private schools. The absolute amounts are different, but if you look at spending in the same geographic areas, then you'll see that public schools spend 10-20% more.
Slashdot is not libertarian. It's the technocracy party of America. We are pro-technological solutions to all problems. All other solutions get laughed out of the house here. ummm... cheese
I love the way you write off an entire group as never being open minded in a sentence about bias.
That's not what he did. He simply defined a word. Surely, you can admit that saying that "leftists have a left bias" is not a biased statement.
No, "independant" is just a term we use for someone who has no idea what they believe. They either have mixed views, or they simply haven't been following the issues.
If only it was a royal "we". Unfortunately, you are not delusional in thinking that you have company. Fall in line or be branded and idiot is, in fact, the spirit of the day. Issues have levels of subtlety. To think that either of the two parties has the right set of stands on the issues is an almost religious view. For the rest of us, we have to balance pros and cons of one side vs pros and cons of the other. Those of us using our heads and evaluating the balances between the extremes that the two parties are now taking do "have an idea of what we believe". We are just not always sure which of the two evils we like less.
Politics in America have always been extremely moderate; although the current Republican platform is a bit extreme compared to conservative parties in other industrialized nations, it's still a far cry from actual fascism.
Fascism? Fascism is a political system implemented by Mussolini after he figured out that Communism was too extreme. Not to be confused with National Socialism (which was Fascism + ideas of racial superiority mixed in). The main difference between Fascism and free-market capitalism is that under Fascism the government heavily regulates and steers the direction of the industry. Under Communist system the government exercises absolute control over the industry. Just in case you feel like starting a "but there is not difference" type of argument (because I've done this before), let me say outright that it's about modality. It's a scale. Communism on one end, free-market capitalism on the other end, and Fascism somewhere in the middle. And I am not talking about fascism as it is branded on the Internet today. I am talking about "Fascism" as Mussolini (who coined the word) defined it. Yes, there is a quote about marriage of industry and government under Fascism. But the government is the dominant partner in that marriage.
As for the Republicans being far from Fascists, they are. They are controlled by theocratic interests more than anything. In case you are wondering (as a lot of people on the left are) where in the world people got the idea that Obama is a fascist, I'll repeat: Mussolini's main platform was strong government regulation and steering of the industry but private ownership. People confuse it with Hitler's baggage of contempt that he added to the equation to create his National Socialist Worker's Party of Germany.
I'm not suggesting that it is. I'm suggesting that businesses generally treat taxes as a cost, not as something that is morally offensive, so why expect anything different here?
I don't think it's been suggested that Google is offended. Incensed, maybe. But they are not saying if they are. I am pretty sure, however, that a number of people reading this post are offended. Before getting into any debate as to whether taxes are good or bad, just remember that for anyone concerned with ethics not being a victim of unethical behavior is not enough of a reason to look away. The previous sentence did not support or condemn taxes. It only tried to explain why anyone might care about someone else's taxes.
The last sentence in the article is the most useful: "A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: 'There are no plans to impose new taxes.'"
Well, that settles it then. Politicians and government officials never lie, do they?
No, no, you meant "politicians and government officials never plan". </sarcasm>
Not sure why you anthropomorphise an operating system. But removing this "decision" element out of the question, the point of the original post is that even the backwards gold exchange is using Linux now. The large exchanges are expected to use cutting-edge technologies -- they have the resources to hire any experts they need as long as technology is actually at the forefront. It's when even the small exchanges use it, that demonstrates that Linux has reached ubiquity -- small players can't afford to take as many technological risks so they adapt the more stable and widely-accepted solutions.
But the whole point of the post was that Linux reached something so archaic -- not something at the forefront.
Again, just because a number is called "imaginary" doesn't mean it isn't real (in the physical sense).
The "imaginary" part of complex numbers generally refers to phase. When I say "physical", I mean the number that measures physical distance. Physical distances cannot be imaginary. When talking about "physical dimensions", we talk about dimensions in which distances can be measured. It's not enough for the number to "have meaning". In order to talk about physical dimensions (as opposed to the dimensions of data describing physically existing objects) the numbers in question have to be referring to distance measurements.
Training people in "virtual" labs is useless. Any wet lab experience that's meant to be a training for actual lab work must be hands-on. "Virtual" labs can only substitute the labs of today that are meant to create a minor exposure to lab-style work that students are supposed to keep in the back on their heads as a concept. And second, peer-reviewed material is crap. Yes, I said it. It's unreadable by anyone but the peers. And even the peers usually let go of a lot of imprecise statements. To allow this level of vaguer y into text books would make text books obsolete. It would only solidify the market for test-prep cliff's-and-schaum's-type materials as substitutes for assigned reading. Peer-review is a terrible model for increasing clarity. Just think about it: it asks experts to made the decision on whether a certain piece of expository writing does a good job of breaching the gap between those who are well-prepared and those who are in-the-know. By definition, it's a decision based on hypothetical. It's missing a test. Where asking students to first use text books before deciding on whether they are useful is that kind of a test.
But the assumption of predators roaming freely is tantamount to the assumption that predator behavior can be automated. That is the cost of someone becoming the next predator is incomparably small in relation to their reward. Under these circumstances, it's free lunch for predators. To assume that they won't take advantage of it is counter-intuitive.
What the uneducated conservative population is looking for are selected data points that proves what they want to believe.
From Wikipedia entry on "strawman":
Reasoning:
2.3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.
How bout not labeling anyone who believe that scientific evidence that goes against the dogma as "uneducated"? How about addressing the evidence instead of effects of hypothetical scenarios? Can we do that? Or must we reduce everything to the ad hominem level because some of the opposition does that? The joke that I made was precisely at the expense of the people like you -- people who panic whenever scientific orthodoxy is even remotely questioned because it might put in question the wisdom of their political commitments.