My company actually hired an employee specifically to handle procurement for one of our more needy government clients. We told them, "if this is how it's going to be, we are going to hire someone to do this and bill you for their time" and they were ok with it. Madness.
In the era of cloud computing, you should be able to do everything with a single data center. You would have three for redundancy and to distribute the load.
There's no sense wondering about how the money would have been spent, or hypothesizing it "wouldn't" have been spent better. That's all in the past, so you know it would have panned out exactly the way it did. Looking forward the question is what could have been done better. You ask that so you can make different, potentially better decisions for the future. Somewhere around 100 billion dollars was wasted because we were launching space shuttles for decades after we knew disposable rockets were much cheaper. That kind of waste is inexcusable.
I not going to argue with you about the benefits of the highway improvement project. That was included in my comment to help illuminate the magnitude of the folly associated with the space shuttle.
As far as your claim that private sector only spends money on yachts, that's obviously not true.
You have to look at the opportunity cost with things like this. All new research and development has unintended benefits. And NASA has been such a pork loaded boondoggle lately, it's hard to believe the money couldn't have been better spent. I realized today that the entire I405 improvement project cost as much as 1 space shuttle launch. And no new science comes out of launching the space shuttle, they've been doing that for 30 years. To put it bluntly, there's no way the cost of 115 space shuttle launches could have been worth benefits.
I don't think you need a study to allow you to "denounce the immorality of society". I'm pretty sure most people feel comfortable denouncing immorality whenever they see it.
That wasn't really what I meant. Hoverer, if things keep going as they are, there will come a point when SS checks will bounce (I'd assume they'd take some corrective action before that happens, like not issuing bad checks). Even a government check can bounce. I got one from the state of CA a couple years back that the banks refused to accept.
What is the point of having a debt limit if you just raise it every time you get up to it? And why do people like to talk about social security as though it is money spent. I hate to break it to you, but that check is going to bounce no matter what we do.
No, putting the rocket up is the hard stuff. All the engineering work is, for the most part, done. The last module they sent up was a fully working prototype. Now it's a matter of getting it certified with NASA for human space flight. They may request some modifications to improve safety, but most of the hard work is done.
The panel noted that the project was in good shape technically, but that NASA had not budgeted enough for the project initially. In other words, it would have cost less if they'd put more in up front and completed it on schedule. This is why you shouldn't let penny-pinchers be in charge of cost estimates (or anything, for that matter). If they weren't willing to commit sufficient funds to the project, they shouldn't have done it at all.
To protect the idea that individuals have freedoms, duh! People might get really upset if they knew there was nothing protecting them. It's for the greater good.
How is that a lie? In order to sell research, the results of the research must be, potentially, important. If you write a report, and it says "nothing much is happening, and there's no reason to change anything" how can you go on to say "this is important research and it needs more funding". That's not to say that reports never reach such conclusions, just that after they do, you don't see continued funding. It's not a comsparicy theory, or a lie, or a accusation, it's just how it works. That's why it's important for the energy companies to fund the research themselves, otherwise it won't realistically get funded.
Also, whining about the source of the funding is bullshit. If the results of the research is bogus, you should be able to point to that. All the money comes from somewhere, complaining that it came from oil companies does not, in itself, discredit the research. If you have research that is clearly fraudulent, and you see that it was funded by someone interested in the results, that should discredit the researcher. But you can't go backwards and say "the money came from oil companies, so that discredits the researcher, therefore his work is not credible" that is a garden variety ad-homonym attack.
Since the police can't be everywhere, all the time, they won't prevent you from being murdered. That's all I'm trying to say. What they do is try to catch the criminals afterward.
I don't recall being present at these negotiations. Yet somehow, I am not exempt from them. This passes for "civilized society" by today's standards, but I don't think it's all that great. And I don't think the police could stop someone from killing you any better than you can yourself. They provide "justice" afterward.
I know illegal immigrants, and I have read the statistics. I know what I'm talking about. This isn't a bleeding heart's perspective. It's a pragmatic, reasonable viewpoint to take. The anti-immigration stance is the one statistics and reality don't support, and that's the side you are on.
so issue more work visas.
I don't have that authority, or else, obviously, I would. Actually, I'd issue citizenship. No sense sending skilled workers back home.
80% of them do indeed, it's that 20% that will fuck you
This is a strange form of accounting you are employing. Say you are going to make an investment in seeds, and you know that 20% of the seeds won't grow when you plant them. So you say, "I don't care about the 80% that will grow, it's the 20% that won't that will fuck you". This is truly a silly thing. And it's not like a visa program will somehow sort the 20% from the 80%. There's no way to tell who's a worker and who's a freeloader. So pay the worker, fire the freeloader. If you have a problem with social programs, don't take it out on people who are just trying to scratch out a living for themselves. That is a separate issue.
Here's the problem. You're citing this anchor-baby thing as though it is a real thing, and all the studies I've seen say it's not, which matches my personal experience as well. It's hypothetical and it has no basis in reality.
The same goes for the assertion that illegals want to gain access to social services. They do not, they want jobs. I've never met an illegal immigrant who came here to get free services. These ideas you are spouting about the intentions of illegal immigrants are not based in reality.
It's true that when they come here they are poor, and so they live in slums. But that's not where they want to live, and that's not why they came here. They came here because they want to work to build better lives for themselves. And everyone stands to benefit from that kind of construction. They do not need to profit at your expense.
And if you'd sit down and think about it for one second, you'd realize that unmotivated people who benefit from social services do not have what it takes to move to another country. Think about it. They aren't motivated to work even by the need to eat. Moving to a different country is 100 times harder than working a job.
If you have a problem with social services, you need to work to stop the people who are actually promoting them. The whole illegal immigrant thing is just a distraction. And by making broad, unrealistic claims about the makeup of mexicans who wish to move the the US, you are essentially working to push those immigrants into the arms of people who advocate social services. Because you are wrong, you are a racist. It's not an unfair label to apply to someone who makes broad, unfounded, unrealistic, fear-based claims about another group of people. You need to get your head strait, and arm yourself with some real information, otherwise you are just going to be part of the problem.
And I don't need to tell you that the way things are headed, the US is in for a financial cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions. You need to stop being part of the status-quo if you intend to deflect it from that course. If you can't pull your head out of your ass and do that, the liberals have already won, and we've all lost.
Are you sure this metaphor is meant to be applied only to a particular church? It would be strange, don't you think, that such a letter would be written to all the churches if it were meant for only one of them? Also, it is addressed to "the angel of the church in Laodicea", so would you tell me that it's actually just for a particular angel to hear, and therefore not applicable to you?
And why are you so certain that it's about said Church "not providing any benefit or blessing to those around them."? I just reread that paragraph several times, and I was not able to glean anything of the sort from it. It doesn't mention those around you at all. In fact, it focuses exclusively on your state, and the suggested remedy involves buying things from God and talking to God. It literally says nothing about providing a benefit anyone else. It seems that if you find yourself to be lukewarm you are commanded here, in no uncertain terms, to purchase salvation from God and to seek his consul. Providing benefit to those around you is not even a part of the equation as far as this letter is concerned.
I don't think mexicans are any more prone to doing that than anybody else would be. And you saying that is the reason people are calling you racist. I don't know anyone who really wants to be on welfare. The people I know who advocate social services the most are all middle-class, voting out of a guilty conscience because the want to believe they can help people just by checking a box. I don't often hear poor people talk about voting for social services. Most of the homeless people I know actually hate the government and want nothing to do with it. All the illegal immigrants I know just wish they were legal so they'd have an easier time finding a job.
I suppose the way to look at it is this. Imagine the kind of person who wants to live on welfare. Are they the kind of person who would get off their ass to vote (the polls say that people on welfare basically don't vote)? Are they the kind of person who would move to another country? No, they lack the motivation to do any of that, that's why they are willing to settle for doing nothing all day long. All they probably want to do is get high and watch television. It's hardly something to be worried about (unless you are legitimately concerned for their welfare, of course).
If you are worried about social services bankrupting the country, it's the middle class voter who should be keeping you up at night. It's their retirement funds that the government just took on 2 trillion dollars of debt to sure up. It's their cushy union jobs the government saved by bailing out GM. They want a lot more than the poor do, and they have the motivation and desire to try and get it from Uncle Sam.
It's racist to assume that if mexicans we're allowed to freely live and work in the US, it would somehow ruin the country. You probably wouldn't say the same about Europeans, but even if you would, you'd be wrong. In the past, the US has let Europeans immigrate in precisely the manner you've described, it didn't ruin the country. It makes no sense to think a larger workforce would hinder our nations prosperity. That is counter intuitive, and it contradicts the historical record.
I'm not saying you should give everything to the poor, so I don't know why you branded me with that. But certainly you shouldn't cut them out of opportunities to find ways to provide for themselves, right? I don't think I'm off-base with that assertion.
It's hardly reasonable to expect people to respect laws that prevent them from earning a living. People will do what it takes to survive, and setting laws in opposition to that is setting yourself up for failure. The reality of illegal immigration is a testament to the truth of what I'm saying here. These laws are pointless and absurd in the face of reality.
Once agin, I don't care what the law says because it is unjust and lacks moral authority as a result. Laws are easy to change, turning upside-down the lives of millions of people to suite a law that is wrong is like turning a building upside down because the architect drafted it that way. If the paper is wrong, you should change that, not things that are real, and certainly not something as important as the lives of millions of people.
Slashdot Mirror
The most that was lent out at any particular time was $1 trillion. If it had been 16 all at once there probably would have been some inflation.
My company actually hired an employee specifically to handle procurement for one of our more needy government clients. We told them, "if this is how it's going to be, we are going to hire someone to do this and bill you for their time" and they were ok with it. Madness.
In the era of cloud computing, you should be able to do everything with a single data center. You would have three for redundancy and to distribute the load.
There's no sense wondering about how the money would have been spent, or hypothesizing it "wouldn't" have been spent better. That's all in the past, so you know it would have panned out exactly the way it did. Looking forward the question is what could have been done better. You ask that so you can make different, potentially better decisions for the future. Somewhere around 100 billion dollars was wasted because we were launching space shuttles for decades after we knew disposable rockets were much cheaper. That kind of waste is inexcusable.
I not going to argue with you about the benefits of the highway improvement project. That was included in my comment to help illuminate the magnitude of the folly associated with the space shuttle.
As far as your claim that private sector only spends money on yachts, that's obviously not true.
You have to look at the opportunity cost with things like this. All new research and development has unintended benefits. And NASA has been such a pork loaded boondoggle lately, it's hard to believe the money couldn't have been better spent. I realized today that the entire I405 improvement project cost as much as 1 space shuttle launch. And no new science comes out of launching the space shuttle, they've been doing that for 30 years. To put it bluntly, there's no way the cost of 115 space shuttle launches could have been worth benefits.
I don't think you need a study to allow you to "denounce the immorality of society". I'm pretty sure most people feel comfortable denouncing immorality whenever they see it.
And WIPP makes sense, as it is a geologically stable formation. Yucca Mountain, not so much.
That wasn't really what I meant. Hoverer, if things keep going as they are, there will come a point when SS checks will bounce (I'd assume they'd take some corrective action before that happens, like not issuing bad checks). Even a government check can bounce. I got one from the state of CA a couple years back that the banks refused to accept.
What is the point of having a debt limit if you just raise it every time you get up to it? And why do people like to talk about social security as though it is money spent. I hate to break it to you, but that check is going to bounce no matter what we do.
No, putting the rocket up is the hard stuff. All the engineering work is, for the most part, done. The last module they sent up was a fully working prototype. Now it's a matter of getting it certified with NASA for human space flight. They may request some modifications to improve safety, but most of the hard work is done.
The panel noted that the project was in good shape technically, but that NASA had not budgeted enough for the project initially. In other words, it would have cost less if they'd put more in up front and completed it on schedule. This is why you shouldn't let penny-pinchers be in charge of cost estimates (or anything, for that matter). If they weren't willing to commit sufficient funds to the project, they shouldn't have done it at all.
To protect the idea that individuals have freedoms, duh! People might get really upset if they knew there was nothing protecting them. It's for the greater good.
Sure, first we'll just repeal the first amendment. . .
How is that a lie? In order to sell research, the results of the research must be, potentially, important. If you write a report, and it says "nothing much is happening, and there's no reason to change anything" how can you go on to say "this is important research and it needs more funding". That's not to say that reports never reach such conclusions, just that after they do, you don't see continued funding. It's not a comsparicy theory, or a lie, or a accusation, it's just how it works. That's why it's important for the energy companies to fund the research themselves, otherwise it won't realistically get funded.
Also, whining about the source of the funding is bullshit. If the results of the research is bogus, you should be able to point to that. All the money comes from somewhere, complaining that it came from oil companies does not, in itself, discredit the research. If you have research that is clearly fraudulent, and you see that it was funded by someone interested in the results, that should discredit the researcher. But you can't go backwards and say "the money came from oil companies, so that discredits the researcher, therefore his work is not credible" that is a garden variety ad-homonym attack.
Since the police can't be everywhere, all the time, they won't prevent you from being murdered. That's all I'm trying to say. What they do is try to catch the criminals afterward.
Yes, throw me in jail for smoking pot. Very reasonable. Very civilized. I don't know what I was complaining about.
I don't recall being present at these negotiations. Yet somehow, I am not exempt from them. This passes for "civilized society" by today's standards, but I don't think it's all that great. And I don't think the police could stop someone from killing you any better than you can yourself. They provide "justice" afterward.
I know illegal immigrants, and I have read the statistics. I know what I'm talking about. This isn't a bleeding heart's perspective. It's a pragmatic, reasonable viewpoint to take. The anti-immigration stance is the one statistics and reality don't support, and that's the side you are on.
I don't have that authority, or else, obviously, I would. Actually, I'd issue citizenship. No sense sending skilled workers back home.
This is a strange form of accounting you are employing. Say you are going to make an investment in seeds, and you know that 20% of the seeds won't grow when you plant them. So you say, "I don't care about the 80% that will grow, it's the 20% that won't that will fuck you". This is truly a silly thing. And it's not like a visa program will somehow sort the 20% from the 80%. There's no way to tell who's a worker and who's a freeloader. So pay the worker, fire the freeloader. If you have a problem with social programs, don't take it out on people who are just trying to scratch out a living for themselves. That is a separate issue.
Here's the problem. You're citing this anchor-baby thing as though it is a real thing, and all the studies I've seen say it's not, which matches my personal experience as well. It's hypothetical and it has no basis in reality.
The same goes for the assertion that illegals want to gain access to social services. They do not, they want jobs. I've never met an illegal immigrant who came here to get free services. These ideas you are spouting about the intentions of illegal immigrants are not based in reality.
It's true that when they come here they are poor, and so they live in slums. But that's not where they want to live, and that's not why they came here. They came here because they want to work to build better lives for themselves. And everyone stands to benefit from that kind of construction. They do not need to profit at your expense.
And if you'd sit down and think about it for one second, you'd realize that unmotivated people who benefit from social services do not have what it takes to move to another country. Think about it. They aren't motivated to work even by the need to eat. Moving to a different country is 100 times harder than working a job.
If you have a problem with social services, you need to work to stop the people who are actually promoting them. The whole illegal immigrant thing is just a distraction. And by making broad, unrealistic claims about the makeup of mexicans who wish to move the the US, you are essentially working to push those immigrants into the arms of people who advocate social services. Because you are wrong, you are a racist. It's not an unfair label to apply to someone who makes broad, unfounded, unrealistic, fear-based claims about another group of people. You need to get your head strait, and arm yourself with some real information, otherwise you are just going to be part of the problem.
And I don't need to tell you that the way things are headed, the US is in for a financial cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions. You need to stop being part of the status-quo if you intend to deflect it from that course. If you can't pull your head out of your ass and do that, the liberals have already won, and we've all lost.
Are you sure this metaphor is meant to be applied only to a particular church? It would be strange, don't you think, that such a letter would be written to all the churches if it were meant for only one of them? Also, it is addressed to "the angel of the church in Laodicea", so would you tell me that it's actually just for a particular angel to hear, and therefore not applicable to you?
And why are you so certain that it's about said Church "not providing any benefit or blessing to those around them."? I just reread that paragraph several times, and I was not able to glean anything of the sort from it. It doesn't mention those around you at all. In fact, it focuses exclusively on your state, and the suggested remedy involves buying things from God and talking to God. It literally says nothing about providing a benefit anyone else. It seems that if you find yourself to be lukewarm you are commanded here, in no uncertain terms, to purchase salvation from God and to seek his consul. Providing benefit to those around you is not even a part of the equation as far as this letter is concerned.
I don't think mexicans are any more prone to doing that than anybody else would be. And you saying that is the reason people are calling you racist. I don't know anyone who really wants to be on welfare. The people I know who advocate social services the most are all middle-class, voting out of a guilty conscience because the want to believe they can help people just by checking a box. I don't often hear poor people talk about voting for social services. Most of the homeless people I know actually hate the government and want nothing to do with it. All the illegal immigrants I know just wish they were legal so they'd have an easier time finding a job.
I suppose the way to look at it is this. Imagine the kind of person who wants to live on welfare. Are they the kind of person who would get off their ass to vote (the polls say that people on welfare basically don't vote)? Are they the kind of person who would move to another country? No, they lack the motivation to do any of that, that's why they are willing to settle for doing nothing all day long. All they probably want to do is get high and watch television. It's hardly something to be worried about (unless you are legitimately concerned for their welfare, of course).
If you are worried about social services bankrupting the country, it's the middle class voter who should be keeping you up at night. It's their retirement funds that the government just took on 2 trillion dollars of debt to sure up. It's their cushy union jobs the government saved by bailing out GM. They want a lot more than the poor do, and they have the motivation and desire to try and get it from Uncle Sam.
It's racist to assume that if mexicans we're allowed to freely live and work in the US, it would somehow ruin the country. You probably wouldn't say the same about Europeans, but even if you would, you'd be wrong. In the past, the US has let Europeans immigrate in precisely the manner you've described, it didn't ruin the country. It makes no sense to think a larger workforce would hinder our nations prosperity. That is counter intuitive, and it contradicts the historical record.
I'm not saying you should give everything to the poor, so I don't know why you branded me with that. But certainly you shouldn't cut them out of opportunities to find ways to provide for themselves, right? I don't think I'm off-base with that assertion.
It's hardly reasonable to expect people to respect laws that prevent them from earning a living. People will do what it takes to survive, and setting laws in opposition to that is setting yourself up for failure. The reality of illegal immigration is a testament to the truth of what I'm saying here. These laws are pointless and absurd in the face of reality.
Once agin, I don't care what the law says because it is unjust and lacks moral authority as a result. Laws are easy to change, turning upside-down the lives of millions of people to suite a law that is wrong is like turning a building upside down because the architect drafted it that way. If the paper is wrong, you should change that, not things that are real, and certainly not something as important as the lives of millions of people.
I don't give a fuck what the law says on the matter, because it is unjust. I believe I was pretty clear about that.