I see no moral equivalence, as Ward Churchill and that ilk do, between those slain on 9/11, and those who have been killed on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's an imperfect world. War is hell, but at least it's done by the rules.
Crashing airliners into buildings isn't "war," it's atrocity. Those who see no moral difference are beyond help, IMO.
Death kills everyone in the end. If you want to say that Ben & Jerry are involved in a conspiracy to kill as many Americans as you can--well, that's an interesting take.
Meanwhile, I know that the jihadists are bound-bent on murdering me and my family. They have convinced me quite strongly of that.
The attitude that we ought not defend ourselves because that makes us "not perfectly good" is amazing to behold.
I said nothing about "how bad" or "how good." I simply said all this "scary stuff" about what the government "might" do with this information is all conjecture.
Meanwhile, the enemy is killing people.
You want to make a moral equivalence, then that's your deal.
Okay, then I don't get your point. If the stocks are doing well, then that indicates that the folks hired to run the company are doing their jobs. If they're doing their jobs, then they're being paid the going rate accordingly, so it's a good deal.
This notion of some "absolute" standard of how much is "too much" to be paid for something is ludicrous and, dare I say it, childish.
Today, Mario Williams signed a contract to play football for the NFL Houston Texans. The contract is worth $54 million over six years, with about half of that "guaranteed" over the first three years.
To me, that's "too much" to pay someone to run around on a football field chasing a similarly highly-paid quarterback, attempting to knock him to the ground.
But who gives a ****? That's the way of the world; that's the free-enterprise system in all its glory and with all its warts. It would no more cross my mind to "demand" that "something be done" to make sure that CEOs and other corporate types be paid according to some arbitrary standard that I think is fair, than it would to protest Mario Williams' contract.
So I just don't get this argument at all. Who the **** cares?
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the U.S., "poor urban schools" aren't really very poor.
For example, the District of Columbia spends $12,801 per student, about 150% of the national average. You can bet the school administrators in D.C. would sneer at your offer to give them obsolete old computers.
There is a negative correlation regarding amount of spending on schools, urban or "rural," poor vs. middle class. This is the result of decades of throwing money at the problem at the behest of the REAL beneficiaries of school funding, the education bureaucrats.
In contrast, you have states like North Dakota, spending $7,727 per pupil, yet the rate of H.S. graduation and achievment test scores in North Dakota DWARFS that of D.C.
Private schools' average tuition is about $8,000 per pupil per year in urban areas, and their graduation success rates are far beyond those of the urban publc schools in the same areas.
You want to help "poor urban students"? Get behind efforts to strengthen marriage and family. You'll do a lot more good there than pitching recycled computers to them.
Oddly, they advertise just such a beast on the Voodoo website (ANTI-DISCLAIMER: Don't work for Voodoo, don't own any of their products and don't even have any experience with them whatsoever).
However, I didn't even know, until I saw it, that Voodoo made laptops.
Sorry, but this whole thing was put to rest months ago, when the FISA court panel ruled that there was no violation of any such kind. This is a persistent meme--but ONLY in the minds of the same "get Bush" crowd that really doesn't care what kind of weapon they pick up, as long as it's aimed at the current President.
They have NOTHING but "persistent memes" to keep them feeling snug at night.
Microsoft earns more than half its $40 billion or so of annual revenue--and the vast majority of its profits--on just two products: the Windows operating-system and Office...
And of the two, I'm guessing that Windows makes up the far greater share.
If MS lost significant "mind-share" to online apps to the detriment of Office, I have a feeling they'd still be in pretty good shape.
...If Company A started selling only expensive drives, their market would go niche...
I never thought of it that way before, but consider:
I can name a couple of PC brands like Alienware and Voodoo, but I can't really think of anyone who is "known" for making similarly high-end laptops.
I realize that's because most people need them for mundane, business-related tasks, but with so many (myself included) using laptops at work as desktop replacements, you'd think the specs would matter more.
Our company just rolled out "new" laptops for the staff: IBM/Lenovo T-41 ThinkPads, which were first introduced almost two years ago! That's "good enough" for a laptop around here, and I'm sure that's the consensus at the majority of offices.
In my opinion, this "zero-sum game" model of economics is fallacious. But it's the one that the nay-sayers have to keep going back to, to make us think we're all getting poorer.
Why do I care how many billions Gates has, as long as I'm free to pursue happiness in my way?
Slashdot Mirror
Purposefully, yes. We've killed some of our own people by accident.
Intent is important. To suggest otherwise is sophistry.
Killing "enemies." There's a big difference.
I see no moral equivalence, as Ward Churchill and that ilk do, between those slain on 9/11, and those who have been killed on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's an imperfect world. War is hell, but at least it's done by the rules.
Crashing airliners into buildings isn't "war," it's atrocity. Those who see no moral difference are beyond help, IMO.
Meanwhile, I know that the jihadists are bound-bent on murdering me and my family. They have convinced me quite strongly of that.
The attitude that we ought not defend ourselves because that makes us "not perfectly good" is amazing to behold.
Meanwhile, the enemy is killing people.
You want to make a moral equivalence, then that's your deal.
WTF does this have to do with "my rights online"?
Extremely. If you'd care to give us examples of this kind of thing, I'm sure we'd be pleased to hear it.
Meanwhile, folks continue to get their heads lopped off by Islamic jihadists. That's a matter of record.
Where's YOUR proof?
Or maybe he's been consuming quite a bit of krill?
The decentralization of media continues. I guess Kruschev was right (but he was about fifty years too early).
...thinks MY "wii" is just a marketing gimmick.
Slashdot has serious moderation quality issues.
And yes, I do Meta-Moderate, about three times a week.
This notion of some "absolute" standard of how much is "too much" to be paid for something is ludicrous and, dare I say it, childish.
Today, Mario Williams signed a contract to play football for the NFL Houston Texans. The contract is worth $54 million over six years, with about half of that "guaranteed" over the first three years.
To me, that's "too much" to pay someone to run around on a football field chasing a similarly highly-paid quarterback, attempting to knock him to the ground.
But who gives a ****? That's the way of the world; that's the free-enterprise system in all its glory and with all its warts. It would no more cross my mind to "demand" that "something be done" to make sure that CEOs and other corporate types be paid according to some arbitrary standard that I think is fair, than it would to protest Mario Williams' contract.
So I just don't get this argument at all. Who the **** cares?
For example, the District of Columbia spends $12,801 per student, about 150% of the national average. You can bet the school administrators in D.C. would sneer at your offer to give them obsolete old computers.
There is a negative correlation regarding amount of spending on schools, urban or "rural," poor vs. middle class. This is the result of decades of throwing money at the problem at the behest of the REAL beneficiaries of school funding, the education bureaucrats.
In contrast, you have states like North Dakota, spending $7,727 per pupil, yet the rate of H.S. graduation and achievment test scores in North Dakota DWARFS that of D.C.
Private schools' average tuition is about $8,000 per pupil per year in urban areas, and their graduation success rates are far beyond those of the urban publc schools in the same areas.
You want to help "poor urban students"? Get behind efforts to strengthen marriage and family. You'll do a lot more good there than pitching recycled computers to them.
This is a much more complex problem than it is usually portrayed to be.
Personally, I use Windows not because of Office, but because of OTHER, typically vertical, applications that are Windows-only.
E.g. Autocad.
But in this case, no.
However, I didn't even know, until I saw it, that Voodoo made laptops.
They have NOTHING but "persistent memes" to keep them feeling snug at night.
And of the two, I'm guessing that Windows makes up the far greater share.
If MS lost significant "mind-share" to online apps to the detriment of Office, I have a feeling they'd still be in pretty good shape.
2. A lawsuit brought by an agendized "watchdog" group with a VERY transparent, left-leaning agenda.
And we should care, why, exactly?
Yeah, 'cuz, you know, like, they work for Infoworld and PC Magazine and stuff an' they're all corporate shills an' stuff an'...
Well, it's up to Jobs to make sure of the former, but MS has already done what it can to accomplish that latter.
I never thought of it that way before, but consider:
I can name a couple of PC brands like Alienware and Voodoo, but I can't really think of anyone who is "known" for making similarly high-end laptops.
I realize that's because most people need them for mundane, business-related tasks, but with so many (myself included) using laptops at work as desktop replacements, you'd think the specs would matter more.
Our company just rolled out "new" laptops for the staff: IBM/Lenovo T-41 ThinkPads, which were first introduced almost two years ago! That's "good enough" for a laptop around here, and I'm sure that's the consensus at the majority of offices.
One thing's for sure. It ain't Lithium-Ion battery life.
You don't shoot all the cows in the field because some of them aren't producing milk.
In my opinion, this "zero-sum game" model of economics is fallacious. But it's the one that the nay-sayers have to keep going back to, to make us think we're all getting poorer.
Why do I care how many billions Gates has, as long as I'm free to pursue happiness in my way?
Whose business is that? The stockholders and their proxies, the directors. Who the h*ll cares? It's not my business, for example.
Paraphrasing Ben Stein again, the typical Hollywood "star" or NFL player makes more per day than the typical CEO.
What is the worth of an "entertainer," compared to someone responsible for the day-to-day running of a large business?
Who contributes more, do you think?