Systems break down. Even injustice becomes popular at times, such as in the post-Civil War South in which officials were sometimes even active conspirators with or members of an increasingly violent Klan. More recently, there's been people overriding logic with their emotions wrt terrorism...
Revolution is a last resort. Nobody's advocating revolution now, but it wouldn't be that swift to lack the means if it ever becomes necessary.
I haven't looked at that book in a while, but if memory serves, it depends on the type of crime.
Violent crime was reduced, but crime involving merely property and where therefore there's a lower risk of intervention appeared to increase.
The numbers and analysis are useful to examine for those that want to verify that he wasn't blowing smoke, which for such a heated issue would be handy to know.
You'd have to do a broad study comparing either the same region over time as their gun laws change, or be VERY careful to match demographs between regions with different laws in order to reduce any outside effects.
John Lott tried, actually -- "More Guns, Less Crime" is the title of his book, which summarizes his conclusion. Whether or not his analysis is correct, well, I'm not a professional statistician.
* It's illegal for a US party or candidate to accept political contributions from overseas.
* Multiple parties don't matter much unless they're so fractured that it takes many to form a majority coalition.
* Parties and candidates NEED money because most voters don't go out of their way to educate themselves, hence the emphasis on TV and radio ads. Blame the voters for that one.
* The Green Parties remain fringe parties because most people don't agree with their agenda. Sorry, their brand of socialism just isn't very popular.
* The Reform Party disintegrated on its own accord, being split by wacko personalities such as the paranoid protectionist Perot and the tactless, part-time-Governor/part-time-XFL-announcer Ventura.
* The Socialist Party and Communist Party likewise don't get that many recruits outside of college campuses, and that's not because of money. They weren't very popular even when the Soviet government was funneling money to them and in return getting recruits for the KGB, either.
* The Libertarian party is on the fringe because most people don't like their agenda; most prefer/some/ social programs, parents go nuts if you threaten the Dept. of Education, and their candidates are often a bit on the strange side e.g. answering questions in a debate by tearing up a dollar bill rather than giving a rational explanation. It's not JUST about the money.
* The Constitution Party is similar, except that it's limited to New York, if memory serves.
See, we have many political parties... but the ones on the fringes are often there for a REASON -- their lack of appeal. Telling people that you're going to axe their favorite social programs or that they have no right to their property and instead confiscatory taxation is the Right Way to Go just doesn't fly here. If there were another party that were reasonable enough to actually represent a large number of people, they might have had a case to be in a debate... but Nader and his Greens clearly didn't.
The voters are free to punish those that they feel are corrupt, if they wish. They're even free to write in a name, or elect somebody who isn't major party -- e.g. Gov. Ventura was enither Dem. nor GOP when he got his seat.
However, they're more inclined to be lazy, supporting things like term limits because they don't bother voting their incumbents out (even when, apparently, they feel that a certain tenure is long enough. The irony that they're removing one of their own freedoms is, apparently, lost on many voters...).
And as for wealth... money doesn't breed by itself. Wealthy people who give large portions of their money will only stay wealthy if the masses keep giving them more money. If you don't like a company's politics, boycott them. Some groups have even tried to punish companies for merely ADVERTISING on shows that the groups ideologically oppose...
I, for instance, am philosophically quite a bit closer to Nozick than Rawls, Mill or Rand. I've seen die-hard Randians occasionally on/., and liberalist views similar to Rawls aren't uncommon. Mill-ish utilitarianism seems to be uncommon, but there still might be a few here... and not a few devotees of Marx. In other words, you sure as hell won't find a consensus here.
You're also forgetting economy of scale, which permits cheaper products, which in turn increases the buying power of the consumer.
Otherwise, subsistence farming in tiny plots would have been the most efficient method around... go look up medieval records to see how well they did.
Re:Interesting that it focusses so much on the Rep
on
Pay to Play the U.S. Way
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· Score: 2, Flamebait
And those 55% owners of United did a bang-up job the past several years, no? And, gosh, our educational employees are so talented that they're just DYING to let competence and merit matter in their profession, while trial lawyers are the paragons of ethical society and the Teamsters are known for their lack of corruption (and building their union hall with union labor, right? Again, nope...).
Barbra Streisand on firearms, Alex Baldwin on Canadian tourism, Richard Gere on Chinese politics and Rosie O'Donnell on the uselessness of math education for the modern grrl.
Even giving money to a political cause is recognized as speech by SCOTUS, in case you're not aware of that. Advocating a political position is about as clear-cut 1st Amendment as you can possibly get.
Hmmm. How's Schroeder doing with respect to unemployment these days?
As for Croatia... I won't be convinced that they've decided to turn over a new leaf until they actually bother to, say, turn over their "war hero" war criminals.
The continental Europeans can get nervous when they start acting like Saddam. Until then, they shouldn't worry too much, because the Islamists are unlikely to bother with them all that much until they first destroy the US and the UK, and Bush sure ain't pushing for regime change in, say, France.
NZ might want to take a cue from the US, then, and ban the practice of using "straw donors" which funnel money in order to protect the original givers' identities. You also aren't supposed to compel political speech from your subordinates...
We have PACs, but (a) PACs are limited in what they can give, and (b) donations to PACs are limited and also a matter of public record, if memory serves, so you can't hide behind a PAC.
And doing something like funneling money from overseas through Buddhist monks into a fundraiser is flat-out illegal, for what that's worth.
Ask an IP lawyer. As far as I know, that's still an open question. The publisher's line will be that all you bought is the physical media and a license, and that you shouldn't have done that if you don't agree to the terms...
Hm. My Amazon.com profile, for books at least, is pretty decent -- mostly translations of Russian literature; science fiction; other 'literary' stuff notably Kafka and Camus; military history; and suspense novels.
I've ordered, er, quite a few books from them over the past several years, however, so they've had some data.
The traditional answer would be "whatever the market can bear". If, for instance, somebody digs up sheet music for a hithertoo unknown symphony by Beethoven, and it's judged to be authentic, then it wouldn't be surprising if the first recordings commanded a markup.
Unfortunately,
(1) The RIAA isn't fully allowing a free market, because of price fixing, and
(2) Consumers may decide that the only price they can bear is "free" -- in other words, that they'll be happy downloading music so long as it's somebody else that already paid for it. If very few people are willing to pay, then the marketing machines can no longer survive. This might be good for artists that are already famous and don't need much publicity, but otherwise... *shrug*
Perhaps these "lot of people" should find themselves ANY evidence of a gene crossing plant species. After all, plants have been near other plants for, oh... thousands of years. If there were genes hopping around, sooner or later some agriculturalist should have noticed a difference. There's absolutely nothing about a modified gene that would make it more mobile.
If security doesn't improve in the transportation sector, there's no reason not to try that approach again. It's remarkably cheap, after all. One would have to be a bit more careful of the passengers, but I think that could be dealt with.
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He stole from the corrupt and depraved that's why -- nobility who took and kept by force, and gave practically nothing in exchange.
Systems break down. Even injustice becomes popular at times, such as in the post-Civil War South in which officials were sometimes even active conspirators with or members of an increasingly violent Klan. More recently, there's been people overriding logic with their emotions wrt terrorism...
Revolution is a last resort. Nobody's advocating revolution now, but it wouldn't be that swift to lack the means if it ever becomes necessary.
I haven't looked at that book in a while, but if memory serves, it depends on the type of crime.
Violent crime was reduced, but crime involving merely property and where therefore there's a lower risk of intervention appeared to increase.
The numbers and analysis are useful to examine for those that want to verify that he wasn't blowing smoke, which for such a heated issue would be handy to know.
You'd have to do a broad study comparing either the same region over time as their gun laws change, or be VERY careful to match demographs between regions with different laws in order to reduce any outside effects.
John Lott tried, actually -- "More Guns, Less Crime" is the title of his book, which summarizes his conclusion. Whether or not his analysis is correct, well, I'm not a professional statistician.
Um, no. Some assorted points:
/some/ social programs, parents go nuts if you threaten the Dept. of Education, and their candidates are often a bit on the strange side e.g. answering questions in a debate by tearing up a dollar bill rather than giving a rational explanation. It's not JUST about the money.
* It's illegal for a US party or candidate to accept political contributions from overseas.
* Multiple parties don't matter much unless they're so fractured that it takes many to form a majority coalition.
* Parties and candidates NEED money because most voters don't go out of their way to educate themselves, hence the emphasis on TV and radio ads. Blame the voters for that one.
* The Green Parties remain fringe parties because most people don't agree with their agenda. Sorry, their brand of socialism just isn't very popular.
* The Reform Party disintegrated on its own accord, being split by wacko personalities such as the paranoid protectionist Perot and the tactless, part-time-Governor/part-time-XFL-announcer Ventura.
* The Socialist Party and Communist Party likewise don't get that many recruits outside of college campuses, and that's not because of money. They weren't very popular even when the Soviet government was funneling money to them and in return getting recruits for the KGB, either.
* The Libertarian party is on the fringe because most people don't like their agenda; most prefer
* The Constitution Party is similar, except that it's limited to New York, if memory serves.
See, we have many political parties... but the ones on the fringes are often there for a REASON -- their lack of appeal. Telling people that you're going to axe their favorite social programs or that they have no right to their property and instead confiscatory taxation is the Right Way to Go just doesn't fly here. If there were another party that were reasonable enough to actually represent a large number of people, they might have had a case to be in a debate... but Nader and his Greens clearly didn't.
I think the main beneficiaries might be people who are on Saddam's "enemies list"...
The voters are free to punish those that they feel are corrupt, if they wish. They're even free to write in a name, or elect somebody who isn't major party -- e.g. Gov. Ventura was enither Dem. nor GOP when he got his seat.
However, they're more inclined to be lazy, supporting things like term limits because they don't bother voting their incumbents out (even when, apparently, they feel that a certain tenure is long enough. The irony that they're removing one of their own freedoms is, apparently, lost on many voters...).
And as for wealth... money doesn't breed by itself. Wealthy people who give large portions of their money will only stay wealthy if the masses keep giving them more money. If you don't like a company's politics, boycott them. Some groups have even tried to punish companies for merely ADVERTISING on shows that the groups ideologically oppose...
Opinions will still differ.
/., and liberalist views similar to Rawls aren't uncommon. Mill-ish utilitarianism seems to be uncommon, but there still might be a few here... and not a few devotees of Marx. In other words, you sure as hell won't find a consensus here.
I, for instance, am philosophically quite a bit closer to Nozick than Rawls, Mill or Rand. I've seen die-hard Randians occasionally on
You're also forgetting economy of scale, which permits cheaper products, which in turn increases the buying power of the consumer.
Otherwise, subsistence farming in tiny plots would have been the most efficient method around... go look up medieval records to see how well they did.
And those 55% owners of United did a bang-up job the past several years, no? And, gosh, our educational employees are so talented that they're just DYING to let competence and merit matter in their profession, while trial lawyers are the paragons of ethical society and the Teamsters are known for their lack of corruption (and building their union hall with union labor, right? Again, nope...).
Barbra Streisand on firearms, Alex Baldwin on Canadian tourism, Richard Gere on Chinese politics and Rosie O'Donnell on the uselessness of math education for the modern grrl.
Just kidding... I hope.
Open and shut.
Even giving money to a political cause is recognized as speech by SCOTUS, in case you're not aware of that. Advocating a political position is about as clear-cut 1st Amendment as you can possibly get.
Hmmm. How's Schroeder doing with respect to unemployment these days?
As for Croatia... I won't be convinced that they've decided to turn over a new leaf until they actually bother to, say, turn over their "war hero" war criminals.
*shrug*
The continental Europeans can get nervous when they start acting like Saddam. Until then, they shouldn't worry too much, because the Islamists are unlikely to bother with them all that much until they first destroy the US and the UK, and Bush sure ain't pushing for regime change in, say, France.
NZ might want to take a cue from the US, then, and ban the practice of using "straw donors" which funnel money in order to protect the original givers' identities. You also aren't supposed to compel political speech from your subordinates...
We have PACs, but (a) PACs are limited in what they can give, and (b) donations to PACs are limited and also a matter of public record, if memory serves, so you can't hide behind a PAC.
And doing something like funneling money from overseas through Buddhist monks into a fundraiser is flat-out illegal, for what that's worth.
Ask an IP lawyer. As far as I know, that's still an open question. The publisher's line will be that all you bought is the physical media and a license, and that you shouldn't have done that if you don't agree to the terms...
Hm. My Amazon.com profile, for books at least, is pretty decent -- mostly translations of Russian literature; science fiction; other 'literary' stuff notably Kafka and Camus; military history; and suspense novels.
I've ordered, er, quite a few books from them over the past several years, however, so they've had some data.
The traditional answer would be "whatever the market can bear". If, for instance, somebody digs up sheet music for a hithertoo unknown symphony by Beethoven, and it's judged to be authentic, then it wouldn't be surprising if the first recordings commanded a markup.
Unfortunately,
(1) The RIAA isn't fully allowing a free market, because of price fixing, and
(2) Consumers may decide that the only price they can bear is "free" -- in other words, that they'll be happy downloading music so long as it's somebody else that already paid for it. If very few people are willing to pay, then the marketing machines can no longer survive. This might be good for artists that are already famous and don't need much publicity, but otherwise... *shrug*
Hm, other than the first two (I haven't seen the second), aren't all those rather patriotism-heavy movies?
Perhaps "Enemy of the State", "Conspiracy Theory", and "Birth of a Nation" would be more (in)appropriate.
Brain the size of a planet, and they put it on menial duties...
Arrrrrrrrrgh, some of us wanted to forget ever watching "Johnny Mnemonic".
Perhaps these "lot of people" should find themselves ANY evidence of a gene crossing plant species. After all, plants have been near other plants for, oh... thousands of years. If there were genes hopping around, sooner or later some agriculturalist should have noticed a difference. There's absolutely nothing about a modified gene that would make it more mobile.
Perhaps the moderator was unaware that it wasn't George W. Bush that said that, but his father.
In any event, that's more of a blatant troll than interesting or insightful.
If security doesn't improve in the transportation sector, there's no reason not to try that approach again. It's remarkably cheap, after all. One would have to be a bit more careful of the passengers, but I think that could be dealt with.
They already had the access, ability and trust -- because until recently, they weren't being scrutinized at all.
Get this straight: you haven't become less safe recently. You were never safe; it just took a while until somebody bothered to exploit the gaps.