And just to be clear, the base line isn't the dirt path between the bases with the line painted on it forming the diamond shape. The base line in this rule is a line from the runners current position to the base when the defensive players are attempting to tag the runner out with the ball.
Woosh is right, the man could not be considered rich in isolation because the very definition of rich or wealthy is subjective to comparison in order to have meaning. And even then, you couldn't count his wealth in money as the money would be useless and valueless itself in isolation. If you can compare, he isn't in isolation. Which is why his saying he makes no money in calling him rich would make him not rich at the same time.
This is why some the rich or wealthy in some third world countries do not even have the resources or life style of the poor and/or middle class have in other countries.
So don't pretend there is some magical situation that only parses in the mind of the "willing to believe", that the real world is supposed to accept for a concept to be true. Those of us in reality need to stay within reality when dealing with politics or issues that impose burdens onto others. You can keep the fictional representations in the fictional books. Otherwise, it's no different then saying, if the cow jumped over the moon, you need to pay more taxes Mr. Diddle.
That's not a Teabagger Quote. It's the punchline of a joke created back in 1993 surrounding hillarycare which the founder of slate seems to take credit for.
Evidently, it was repeated in 2009 by some senile old man who probably didn't know the difference anyways or was a plant, who stood up at a republican town hall meeting in South Carolina and shouted something similar with expletive words involved. The republican Representative Robert Inglis attempted to explain that Medicare was already run by the government but the old guy would have nothing of it.
Why you think it was a Teabagger is beyond me unless your just repeating what others told you in which case the facepalm might be appropriate after all.
Read my lips was George Herbert Walker Bush. Clinton gave us a pretty steep tax increase in 1993 too.
But what made us balance the budget in the first place was a lot of parlor tricks that can't really be repeated. First, we had artificially cheap oil (equals cheap energy- equals cheap ability to grow-equals low unemployment-equals higher pay) because we were still off the world market until 98-99 or so and had contract negotiated with countries like Venezuela and mexico for cheap gas. The country always seems to do well when oil is cheap for us. Second, was some tax manipulations like the Roth IRA conversions which took taxes that would have been paid over time at a future date and lumped them into a 4-5 year period. Third is the Y2K scare which caused needless spending on tech sector and preparedness scenarios over fears of failures cascading to catastrophic failures when the date rolled from 99 to 00 on computer systems. Fourth which is similarly connected but separate is an increase in efficiency which allowed the government to save quite a bit of money due to advances in computing systems and automation coming from the tech boom. Finally (which I almost forgot), and this is probably the primary reason behind the dot com bubble, capitol gains taxes were dropped from being tied to income rates to a flat percentage which automatically increased the values of existing investments. This caused an increase in activity in trading investments which increased tax revenue and freed a bunch of money up to be invested in other places. It had the added benefit of stimulating the economy as investments didn't need to look nearly as attractive for profit as before which meant a lot of venture capitol made it's rounds.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the republicans didn't play a role in balancing the budget, I'm saying that revenue streams simply weren't sustainable for long term. Eventually growth would have overshadowed the effectiveness of the economic situation and tax changes, and it would have normalized to a point it offered less or no benefit. It seems that this was already on the way to happening with the dot com bust and when 9/11 happened.
I'm not really really in disagreement with you, I just think the entire "balanced the budget in the 1990's" is completely over inflated in both it's importance and effect.
I follow your argument along and think, that sound well and all, it's logical and sound, then I realize that it doesn't take into consideration that the 90% number is a work of fiction because the costs are exaggerated by services to the poor like welfare, social security, increased police presence in crime riddled neighborhoods which also tend to be poorer.
Also, should the person paying for 90% of the costs be entitled to more say then the people who only pay 10% of the costs? I'm not sure that sounds right either.
Our greatest period of growth was right after WWII when we had 90% tax brackets. Your facts are way off.
What in the hell are you talking about? Nothing I said was wrong.
And you might want to visit the period of growth you are talking about and realize the reasons for it. Here is a hint, it had nothing to do with taxes and more to do with what ended and the need to supply and fix a mostly devastated continent.
If a rich man is set on an island, he will make no money. His ability to make money without the use of force or fear of retaliation is entirely due to the society set up by the entire US populace and the government it elects. He has no claim to individual "success", regardless of whatever silliness you believe.
If a rich man is set on an island, he can still make money seeing how his money doesn't have to be on the island. Anyways, the point about his ability to make money is worthless in this conversation because I never said he shouldn't be taxed or pay a fair share. I specifically said that the "Teabaggers and GOP (which is what the op of the post I was replying to was speaking of) think a certain way which was different then what the op said.
And yes, he does have claim to any gains or success he makes through his own efforts. Neither the government or society picked the person and said, here, be rich, it was the ingenuity and efforts of the person who became rich. And yes, we are talking about income taxes so it's not inherited old family money so don't get it confused.
Also, don't let your liberal bent or whatever silliness you believe confuse anything I said to mean anything other then what was said.
I don't think that's the problem at all. It's more like we don't punish success because it leads to less people becoming successful. And it's not that they think the 250k and up crowd can't afford to pay the taxes, it's that they shouldn't be singled out to pay for the demands of less successful people.
250k is an arbitrary number anyways. It's not even in the original bush tax cuts. All it seems to be doing is creating conflicts that shouldn't exist. According to the WSJ, the top tax payers are paying more with the cuts then they did in 1990. The interesting part is that with the enactments of the bush tax cuts outside of the first years it was in place, growth in income tax revenue increased at a pace as good as or better then in Clinton's term until the start of the recession and more taxes were collected then the costs of the tax cuts.
You are a little confused. I can understand why too, with all the political bantering being tossed around and all over this subject. In fact, all of the supposed studies making the claim that the middle class pay the greatest percentage of their income to taxes confuse lifestyle choices and taxes based around use with income taxes which creates a picture telling a lie.
The rich still pay more, the differences is in the type of income and shifting income to total wealth. If you had 100 hares of some stock worth $1 (lets say IBM) as your sole source of income, and the shares of the stocks increased by 10 times their value at the beginning of the year but only paid $1 a piece in dividends, then you made $10 regular income, increased your wealth by a factor of ten, and if you sold share, now have a $10 capitol gain but your wealth is reduced to 9 times. The 80 some dollars in increased wealth doesn't count as income until you sell out or transfer the investments.
The rich have the benefit of their income primarily coming from the sale of investments which is locked in at a 15 or 17 percent taxable rate on the capitol gains with dividend interest going at normal income scale. This is done for good reason too. If you made 2 million a year, or 40k a year in this way, you would be paying the same percentage of tax on the capitol gains. However, when we count normal income from salaries and interest payments, you get screwed in that the progressive tax rates taxes more when you make more on the more money you make. Use taxes on the other hand, taxes like gasoline are not designed to be accounted for against income but with the use of something.
Lets take the gas tax for instance, it's purpose is to repair the roads and pay for transportation related items based on those that use it. Poor people tend to have second hand cars that get worse fuel economy, sometimes they have to drive further to gainful employment, they use the roads more and pay more. As a percentage of their income, it will cost more. But that's not a fair comparison because it's intent is to be paid by the people using it.
Now you can call separating that out as voodoo economics or trickle down economics, but in the end, it simply shows that you aren't aware of what is actually going on or that taxes designed to recover costs per use were never intended to be compared to income levels.
Wrong? You blatantly demonstrated your complete ignorance several times over. It's impossible to think you actually had any serious investigation into any of the stories in the bible even on a cursory level and still say the things you did. Well, that unless you are just a troll spouting lies to get a role out of someone. But even then, if you are attempting to hide your knowledge while presenting falsehoods, then you purposely making it appear that you have not looked into anything other then the name is not my wrong.
Well, as I said, Of course that came afterwords so I guess there may have been some influence. Some doesn't mean all so you don't need to rely on the Harlem Globetrotters to see the parallel.
Unless you were trying for humor and I missed it. In that case, I apologize.
I'm not sure his premise was "if civilization collapsed". It's more like a if they had the knowledge, could they have done it. In other words, it's a mental examination of what would have been necessary for advancements that didn't come until relatively late in Human History even though the possibilities/capabilities of them were there.
What this should make you think about is, what hurdles laid in the way that took so long for the concept of the telegraph to become established to a point it was actually invented. Sort of a why did it take so long when it could have been possible in stone age times. I posit that communications was the largest hurdle as most modern advances didn't come until stable communications and the recording and dissemination of learned information backed up by a significant validation process came along. In case that doesn't sound right, what I mean is actually collecting knowledge to a point that it can be verified and passed on to others in a somewhat structured way that built off of preexisting knowledge instead of repeating what was already known like what is possible the scientific method and schools, most likely public schools.
A cave man could have made a telegraph. He didn't because the knowledge wasn't there (probably the need was missing too).
Do you start every reply off with some sort of insult? Is that what you have to do in order to feel better about yourself? I'm seriously starting to get concerned about you, after all the other posts where you seem to strengthen your argument with what you think are insults. I don't want to end up reading that you are another bullied gay kid on the interweb who killed himself.
Anyways, how do you know he didn't do shit? I know I don't care for most unions because they are little more then bloated pieces of uselessness that do little other then drive the costs of products up and funnel campaign funding to certain parties. Hell, the Unions bankrupted GM and ended up take a reconciliation package that negated everything that was gained in their last 2 strike negotiated contract disputes after Obama shifted ownership to them to make up disputed retirement funding that went south with the stock market.
We still do have a strong manufacturing base in the US, we just don't make the cheap crap anymore because it costs too much in regulations, employee pay (unions), and other things.
I'm not even sure why you think congress cutting taxes means anything either. Are you one of those idiots who think corporations should be taxes so much that either they can't make a profit and go out of business, relocate to another country (like some already have), or end up charging so much more for their products that they become niche markets and everyone buys the cheap imports instead? There is actually no reason to tax corporations at all as most of their profits are taxed as income by the share holders.
BTW, where does the government have the right to interfere with the markets? Last time I heard, this was America where we have a constitution that tells the government what they can and can't do with whatever is left over being reserves for the states of the people. Now, I know there is an amendment process, and I know that they have flowed outside their constitutional trek on many occasions, I'm also willing to admit to being wrong, so show me where they have the authority to interfere? Is there some stealth amendment that I don't know about or something? Is it the interstate commerce clause where the government seems to want to whip into an get out of anything card whenever it wants to do something it isn't supposed to?
You know, I was just talking to someone about that the other day. I bet Bush could have gotten a lot more support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq if he just claimed that the interstate commerce clause allowed them instead of fighting all the naysayers that jumps up to criticize his reasoning.
Oh, and back to the parent post's point. Yes, we will make a nail gun because Makita, Kobalt, porter cable, and I believe a few Stanly-bostitch nail guns are made in the USA to comply with Made in USA provisioning laws for the various states and federal procurement.
It's not necessarily that he would keep it, it's that the data retention laws would require the ISPs to keep it and hand it over to the authorities upon a proper request. They then find it to be encrypted, go directly to you thinking it's something juicy that they can hang you with while getting their face on the evening news as some sort of hero, and poof, you can't supply the key so you must be an uber-terrorists and they get to mark the story up a notch ensuring more face time in the tabloids.
On the other hand, Perhaps I have a bunch of old files and just don't delete them- even when I can no longer access them. I do have a bunch of 1996 or so cad files and I have no working cad program nor am I aware of anything that could still read them. But alas, I still have them and attempt to figure out what they do from time to time when my memory slips.
Consent is over the whole of the population not the people within the situation. I'm sure the people going to the G20 summit to protest and cause problems did not consent to the cops breaking those plans up. Just as I'm sure that the bank robbers and drunk drivers do not consent to the cops having authority over them.
While your cops in the UK are generally unarmed, not all of them are and guns aren't far away for them. Mention anything about a weapon and you will find armed cops arriving really quick. Just check out all the pics Google can find of armed cops in England.
In that case, major fail. You've done nothing to lend credence to bible stories, other than point out that they were written before Harry Potter.
Stop having conversations with yourself and attributing part of it to me. I never attempted to provide proof or credence to the bible stories, I pointed out that the blind denial of them was just as ridiculous as the blind following of them.
The AC's point was that both the bible and HP are equally as credible.
And that point is not only incorrect, it suffers the same logical failures as blind faith in them being correct. What part of idiotic is so difficult to understand. I mean it's not like parts of the stories in the bible have been confirmed historically or anything, oh wait, they have.
You have no *proof* that there's no real Harry Potter, do you? So by your arguments he's as real as the vengeful god of the Old Testament for which we have exactly the same level of proof as we do for Harry Potter.
What are you Three years old? I mean you can't seriously tell the difference between something that was written and passed off as real or nonfiction and something that was written and passed off as fiction? Especially when places, events, and time lines have been verified to have existed from outside sources? Perhaps you should find out some crap about which you speak of. And no, that doesn't make any god true or false, it simply makes the claims completely different then any Harry Potter bullshit.
You really do have to start examining every claim made to you, else you'll be buying multiple Brooklyn Bridges, and miles and miles of seafront property in Nevada. Because there's no *proof* of something does not mean you have to believe it.
Your right, no proof of something does not mean you have to believe in it, however summarily dismissing it is just as stupid. The bible is not some fictional book created one day, it follows along with history quite nicely in most cases even though it embellishes some things with hard to believe information.
ome things are very, very, very likely and so we tend to rely on those without the proof. But god, the bible, miracles, talking snakes, floods and arks etc, are all in the same basket as pixies, fairies, unicorns, invisible teapots orbiting the earth, and the flying spaghetti monster.
And you are an idiot. A complete and useless idiot. Why, well it not because I'm going to claim the bible is true, it's because you have failed severely to do the most cursory investigations into it before forming your opinion. You are doing nothing more then the equivalent of saying electricity doesn't exist because you can't see it and failing to investigate any supposed measurements pointing to it at the same time.
Please, pop along to a lecture at any university sometime, and stand up and announce you believe in fairies, pixies and unicorns. I'll pay you a dollar for everyone who doesn't piss their pants laughing at you.
Why? I never said I believed in fairies, pixies and unicorns, that's only a construct you superimposed onto me when I pointed out the logical failings that was suffering from the problems it attempted to chastise in a post. You continues to argue that failure as if it was your own. Why don't you try that logic in front of your professor and see if he doesn't kick you out of class.
I'm not sure why everyone is focusing on the bubbles. Blowing the bubbles isn't exactly what made this potentially dangerous. It's the erosion of authority that the act causes that could cause the loss of control over the crowd.
Think of the bubbles as a tool just like a crowbar. It's really the same as the intent was to displace the police's authority emboldening the crowd's. In crowd control, often the only thing that stops illegal or damaging activity is the threat of consequences. With the police being on scene, the threat is there, but if the police allow people to walk all over them and degrade their authority, it presents the appearance of no consequences again. Arresting the girl or smarting back to her in an attempt to reinsert the authority and notion of consequences was proper in keeping control.
The act itself was pretty benign but the effects of the act aren't. This is how you instigate and elevate crowds to more serious actions- showing the crowd that the point of authority isn't authoritative which suggest the lack of consequences for actions. When that happens, all it takes is someone else to incite them and boom, you have almost a riot or a riot like situation which is basically what these people were allegedly going to- a mass protest that has a history of turning into a riot.
First of all, I love your handle. You're like a jar of peanut butter labeled "A Jar of Peanut Butter."
How original, I bet all the women melt in marvel over your whit. Did you think that up all by yourself or did you simply comb through the slew of internet postings where others resorted to something like that after realizing how wrong they were with the facts not supporting their favor. Tell me, is it true what they say about you? Is your IQ actually as big as your shoe size?
Second, you fail at understanding the first goal of geopolitics: maintain order.
I didn't fail at anything. I was never speaking of geopolitics in the first place, I was speaking to nukes, and why you were wrong about Afghanistan, North Korea and Pakistan. I like how you attempted to change the topic though, that's a classic way to win a debate. It's sort of like the Chewbacca defense.
No one is afraid of Pakistan or North Korea getting a nuke to the United States. That's as likely as you running across a clue and knowing what to do with it. What they are afraid of is destabilizing nations that have nuclear weapons.
Oh, what substance. Not only did you miss the entire point, you ignored the part about how invading another country inherently destabilizes it in the first place which makes nukes irrelevant outside their potential use. But hey, I like the way you attempted to work an insult in as the strength of your argument.
If you greenlighted India to run over Pakistan, what's the likelihood of a hardline Muslim in the Pakistani army getting a couple of nukes across the border? What are the chances that could make it's way to Chechnya
Do you mean what are difference between those chances now or after? I mean seriously, you started the argument about Pakistan by saying "Pakistan is home to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well," so how would it be much different if they were at war with India? Either they have access to it, or they don't. There would be nothing inherent in a war that would all the sudden give them access that they don't already have. The only difference might be finding all of them before the country was completely defeated. Chances are, they would be used before that as India and Pakistan have threatened to use nukes on each other in the past so access to any un-found nukes would probably be eliminated by the odds of survival. Either way, invasion may be the only options in these nations in order to secure the nukes from the hands of terrorists should they get them.
What's the likelihood that China would make a deal with OPEC to buy all of their oil, if OPEC decided to stop selling to any Western allied nation?
You mean like in the 1970's when Carter was president? We found ways around that in the past so I'm not sure why you even bring that up. BTW, China could purchase all of OPECs oil.
Would Russia side with China?
It's doubtful as China is the largest single border with Russia and there has been tensions in the past. Russia may in fact, use that as an excuse to invade China and rape it's resources.
Would China rush more troops to the border and accidentally provoke India into war? That's a dangerous game no one wants to play. Well, except for people like you; maybe Sarah Palin, or some other vapid soccer moms who dabble in politics.
Would they do that now? Nothing you have brought up exists in a vacuum with the predication of India being at war with Pakistan. It's not like it isn't possible right now. Why you think it does is somewhat disturbing.
You'll have to translate that into a coherent statement if you expect me to respond.
Wow, you mean your not as smart as a dumbass? The statement
You're not seriously suggesting that Harry Potter is a documentary based upon the reality series "The Bible"?
Actually, I was attempting to suggest how idiotic it was comparing the bible to harry potter as was done in the post I replied to attempted.
And we all know that if all you see are horses, no unicorns ever exist.
And your point is what? My point was that just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's a logical fallacy that is just as stupid as saying something didn't happen because you don't see it happening today. You don't know that no unicorns ever existed or do not exist today, you only know that no creditable evidence for their existence has been found or is known of today.
I'm beginning to think your the AC who posted the fallacy in the first place.
No proof to see here, move along.
Your right, there was no proof to support your assumptions. that was my point.
and a whole host (sorry) of other Harry-Potteresque nonsense
Yea, because Ahrry Potter was so well known that the writers of the bible, including the inventors of the stories all favored it in their depiction. Perhaps you have the cart before the horse in your mad dash to declare anything you don't know of as fiction.
you'll either know it is fiction or you'll have abandoned consensual reality altogether...
Most definitely, because we all know that if all you see is white sheep, no black sheep ever exist.
As far as "ancient" goes, the consensus is that the oldest copies of the fragments that make up the NT are from about 100-300 CE, about 1700-1900 years old. You may or may not think that's ancient, but that is, in fact, how old the writing is at a minimum. Since these are all known to be copies, it may in fact be a little older.
Well, considering that the new testament shouldn't be much older then 60-100 AD in the first place, that's not to bad. Well, that is if it was written by the participants like what is suggested. I actually thought there was at least 2 hundred years between the time it took and the oldest pieces of surviving scripture found on the new testament but I guess I was wrong. Anyways, the old testament is a little different as it was spoken well before the new testament came around.
If this training had been happening in Waziristan, would you still support going to war over failure of extradition?
Yea, and you seem to be missing the point of the war in the first place.
We destroyed Afghanistan to make us feel better about 9/11, plain and simple.
And here is the point you are missing. We invaded Afghanistan because we used capturing or killing Al Qeada to make us feel better about 9/11 and Afghanistan offered them safe haven and kept us away. You are right, we did want action to feel better over 9/11 but you are extremely misguided in what that action was. Simply paying attention to history could have told you more then you seem to care about so far.
That's why Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Pakistan is home to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well, but so far no American government has been dumb enough to consider invading a nuclear power that borders two other nuclear powers. North Korea's government is batshit insane but we don't invade because they have nukes, as well as their proximity to China. Pakistan's government is enormously corrupt and has close ties with terrorist organizations, but we don't invade because they have a nuke. Now, on two of Iran's borders, America has unilaterally invaded simply because we could without fear of repercussions. If you were an Iranian, what would you rather have? Nukes or a foreign army occupying your homeland?
You really should start getting your world history and knowledge about US policy from places other then comic books. The government of Pakistan is at least attempting to expel the terrorist in their midst as well as Al Qeada and Taliban factions as it present a direct threat to their power. They just have to do it in a way that doesn't erode their support with the public and end up strengthening those Terrorist factions in the process.
Now, the US wouldn't need to go to war with or invade Pakistan at all. It's not because we are scared that they have nukes either. All we would have to do is pad/support India which has been at the throat of Pakistan to do the job for us. In fact, the US was key to keeping them from war in the 90's over boarder disputes. The reason we don't invade Pakistan is because for the most part, they are not doing what Afghanistan was doing.
You seem to be completely ignorant of North Korea too. There are several things stopping us from running in and taking over. The primary thing you started to mention which is China who have kicked us out before. In fact, the reason why the war ended in a stand off in the 50's is specifically because of China kicking our asses out. Now, North Korea does not have any nuclear capabilities (theoretical or otherwise) that could hit US soil outside maybe Hawaii and last I checked, the testing of those systems failed before leaving their own airspace or entering another countries besides their protectors -china. But NK does have systems that are capable of hitting our allies which is the only reason nukes are a threat at all with NK. Leaders do not nuke their own people in an attempt to save them- even if they are crazy.
If American planners are dumb enough to pursue terrorist organizations into third world nations that barely have electricity or running water every time there's a successful terror attack, then the War of the Flea tactic will destroy our economy within two decades. We're already spending one trillion a year on warfare and weapons research. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two trillion dollars according to the CBO by 2014.
I'm not really sure what your point is other then you know little about how these things work. But just in case you are not grasping what you are trying to say, I will give you a bit of perspective. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two stimulous packages
Don't think "right now today", think five years from now. If you only think today, you'll always be in crisis management.
So we should start a corporate charity program right now today? Maybe I wasn't clear, the parent said it takes time to start a new mine, you said how about recycling, I spend a good bit of mental masturbation attempting to say it will take time too. I also said it doesn't exist today outside of China because it's too expensive when you have to pay workers a decent wage, worry about their health and the environment.
It's not happening now because it's too expensive. It won't become economically feasible until either costs of recycling goes down or costs go up. With China artificially manipulating their dollar, we will need to either rely on costs going down somehow, or wait until a shortage makes the prices jump due to demand.
The number of ipods 10 years ago? What does that matter? If you want to look at ipods, look at how many people have owned in the past 10 years. Most people are on their 3rd ipod at this point, with two previous ones in the trash. Think about the amount of electronics we've thrown away in the past 30 years.
It matters because demand increases. This also means that if there are 3 million of the supplies to make something something, and there is a need for 4 million of it, you will be short the supplies necessary to make 1 million of them. Recycling is like this in a closed system, you will only have enough to make a certain amount. If demand grows, your stuck.
By the way, what makes recycling successful is not that demand outweighs supply, it's that the cost to make new is more than the cost to recycle. Aluminum takes 20 times as much energy to extract new as it does to recycle.
First, that's only true for aluminum. But energy isn't the only cost factor. There is buy off (buying the crap from the consumer), there is collecting, housing, consolidation, transportation, and quite a few other concerns that can easily cause the costs to outweighs buying new. In fact, it wasn't until relatively recently that it was cost effective on the whole to recycle aluminum (30 or so years with a recent shift further. Second, the costs of recycling, and yes, energy costs are different in different forms too, has to remain lower then the costs of manufacturing new or else it's a losing venture. Period, end of discussion.
That's why recycling is driven. All that is really necessary is for the cost to recycle to be less than the sale cost.
And that is achieved through supply and demand. If supply is greater then demand, the sale costs drop. If supply is being created in China, and China manipulates it's dollar making it cheaper and costs drop, then other places where it's more expensive then the sale cost to recycle or even make will stop producing or operate at a loss. They can only operate at a loss for a certain amount of time before going out of business anyways.
Before last month, have you seen recycling of rare earth metals anywhere?
From what I have seen, it's been in China and India primarily where they burn the circuit boards and extract the metals by standing over a sheet of steel and moving a metal rod though the molten puddle while breathing the toxic fumes then discarding the rest. I have been looking for a page I saw this at but can't seem to find it anymore. Anyways, it seems they do that only to extract the copper and not the rare earth metals so I guess I haven't seen it before a month ago.
It's been economical to recover the gold in circuit boards for five years or more now. We already have places to drop off old computers in the US. To add rare earths to the mix is not a stretch.
Really? There are rare earth metals/materials recycling plants online right now today? Ones that don't exist only in china because of pollution controls and regulations make it generally otherwise unprofitable?
It's pretty much the same concept. If China embargoes the world for whatever reason, recycling isn't going to save us. Especially when exponential growth in demand means that we can't meet the needs of the new with the crap that is old and recycled. I mean seriously, how many people had an Ipod or the equivalent 10 years ago compared to today. How many people have a computer today compared to 10 years ago. Do you think that's going to reverse itself somehow?
What makes recycling glass and other metals successful today is that the demand severely outweighs the supply driving costs up and bringing new materials into the market at the same time means costs can be spread around as they are competitive with each other. I haven't seen anywhere where recycling rare earth metals have been done near as cheap as extracting new quantities unless it's in China or somewhere that pays what you make in an hour for a weeks wage and disregards environmental and occupational health concerns at the same time. If you know of something that makes me wrong, please inform me.
The reporter injected- that in standing for what was right, the judge came off as a raging liberal along with the wording of the story. The reporter lost most all objectivity and started assigning values based on his own political conceptions.
When liberals act like your definition of conservative, and conservatives match your definition of liberal, it sort of shows how confused people tend to be when it comes to defining their political interests.
Slashdot Mirror
And just to be clear, the base line isn't the dirt path between the bases with the line painted on it forming the diamond shape. The base line in this rule is a line from the runners current position to the base when the defensive players are attempting to tag the runner out with the ball.
Woosh is right, the man could not be considered rich in isolation because the very definition of rich or wealthy is subjective to comparison in order to have meaning. And even then, you couldn't count his wealth in money as the money would be useless and valueless itself in isolation. If you can compare, he isn't in isolation. Which is why his saying he makes no money in calling him rich would make him not rich at the same time.
This is why some the rich or wealthy in some third world countries do not even have the resources or life style of the poor and/or middle class have in other countries.
So don't pretend there is some magical situation that only parses in the mind of the "willing to believe", that the real world is supposed to accept for a concept to be true. Those of us in reality need to stay within reality when dealing with politics or issues that impose burdens onto others. You can keep the fictional representations in the fictional books. Otherwise, it's no different then saying, if the cow jumped over the moon, you need to pay more taxes Mr. Diddle.
That's not a Teabagger Quote. It's the punchline of a joke created back in 1993 surrounding hillarycare which the founder of slate seems to take credit for.
Evidently, it was repeated in 2009 by some senile old man who probably didn't know the difference anyways or was a plant, who stood up at a republican town hall meeting in South Carolina and shouted something similar with expletive words involved. The republican Representative Robert Inglis attempted to explain that Medicare was already run by the government but the old guy would have nothing of it.
Why you think it was a Teabagger is beyond me unless your just repeating what others told you in which case the facepalm might be appropriate after all.
Read my lips was George Herbert Walker Bush. Clinton gave us a pretty steep tax increase in 1993 too.
But what made us balance the budget in the first place was a lot of parlor tricks that can't really be repeated. First, we had artificially cheap oil (equals cheap energy- equals cheap ability to grow-equals low unemployment-equals higher pay) because we were still off the world market until 98-99 or so and had contract negotiated with countries like Venezuela and mexico for cheap gas. The country always seems to do well when oil is cheap for us. Second, was some tax manipulations like the Roth IRA conversions which took taxes that would have been paid over time at a future date and lumped them into a 4-5 year period. Third is the Y2K scare which caused needless spending on tech sector and preparedness scenarios over fears of failures cascading to catastrophic failures when the date rolled from 99 to 00 on computer systems. Fourth which is similarly connected but separate is an increase in efficiency which allowed the government to save quite a bit of money due to advances in computing systems and automation coming from the tech boom. Finally (which I almost forgot), and this is probably the primary reason behind the dot com bubble, capitol gains taxes were dropped from being tied to income rates to a flat percentage which automatically increased the values of existing investments. This caused an increase in activity in trading investments which increased tax revenue and freed a bunch of money up to be invested in other places. It had the added benefit of stimulating the economy as investments didn't need to look nearly as attractive for profit as before which meant a lot of venture capitol made it's rounds.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the republicans didn't play a role in balancing the budget, I'm saying that revenue streams simply weren't sustainable for long term. Eventually growth would have overshadowed the effectiveness of the economic situation and tax changes, and it would have normalized to a point it offered less or no benefit. It seems that this was already on the way to happening with the dot com bust and when 9/11 happened.
I'm not really really in disagreement with you, I just think the entire "balanced the budget in the 1990's" is completely over inflated in both it's importance and effect.
I follow your argument along and think, that sound well and all, it's logical and sound, then I realize that it doesn't take into consideration that the 90% number is a work of fiction because the costs are exaggerated by services to the poor like welfare, social security, increased police presence in crime riddled neighborhoods which also tend to be poorer.
Also, should the person paying for 90% of the costs be entitled to more say then the people who only pay 10% of the costs? I'm not sure that sounds right either.
So your right, how is that fair?
What in the hell are you talking about? Nothing I said was wrong.
And you might want to visit the period of growth you are talking about and realize the reasons for it. Here is a hint, it had nothing to do with taxes and more to do with what ended and the need to supply and fix a mostly devastated continent.
If a rich man is set on an island, he can still make money seeing how his money doesn't have to be on the island. Anyways, the point about his ability to make money is worthless in this conversation because I never said he shouldn't be taxed or pay a fair share. I specifically said that the "Teabaggers and GOP (which is what the op of the post I was replying to was speaking of) think a certain way which was different then what the op said.
And yes, he does have claim to any gains or success he makes through his own efforts. Neither the government or society picked the person and said, here, be rich, it was the ingenuity and efforts of the person who became rich. And yes, we are talking about income taxes so it's not inherited old family money so don't get it confused.
Also, don't let your liberal bent or whatever silliness you believe confuse anything I said to mean anything other then what was said.
Diminishing the reward for success isn't the same as punishing success.
If you are taking/diminishing because of the success, it's punishing success.
I don't think that's the problem at all. It's more like we don't punish success because it leads to less people becoming successful. And it's not that they think the 250k and up crowd can't afford to pay the taxes, it's that they shouldn't be singled out to pay for the demands of less successful people.
250k is an arbitrary number anyways. It's not even in the original bush tax cuts. All it seems to be doing is creating conflicts that shouldn't exist. According to the WSJ, the top tax payers are paying more with the cuts then they did in 1990. The interesting part is that with the enactments of the bush tax cuts outside of the first years it was in place, growth in income tax revenue increased at a pace as good as or better then in Clinton's term until the start of the recession and more taxes were collected then the costs of the tax cuts.
You are a little confused. I can understand why too, with all the political bantering being tossed around and all over this subject. In fact, all of the supposed studies making the claim that the middle class pay the greatest percentage of their income to taxes confuse lifestyle choices and taxes based around use with income taxes which creates a picture telling a lie.
The rich still pay more, the differences is in the type of income and shifting income to total wealth. If you had 100 hares of some stock worth $1 (lets say IBM) as your sole source of income, and the shares of the stocks increased by 10 times their value at the beginning of the year but only paid $1 a piece in dividends, then you made $10 regular income, increased your wealth by a factor of ten, and if you sold share, now have a $10 capitol gain but your wealth is reduced to 9 times. The 80 some dollars in increased wealth doesn't count as income until you sell out or transfer the investments.
The rich have the benefit of their income primarily coming from the sale of investments which is locked in at a 15 or 17 percent taxable rate on the capitol gains with dividend interest going at normal income scale. This is done for good reason too. If you made 2 million a year, or 40k a year in this way, you would be paying the same percentage of tax on the capitol gains. However, when we count normal income from salaries and interest payments, you get screwed in that the progressive tax rates taxes more when you make more on the more money you make. Use taxes on the other hand, taxes like gasoline are not designed to be accounted for against income but with the use of something.
Lets take the gas tax for instance, it's purpose is to repair the roads and pay for transportation related items based on those that use it. Poor people tend to have second hand cars that get worse fuel economy, sometimes they have to drive further to gainful employment, they use the roads more and pay more. As a percentage of their income, it will cost more. But that's not a fair comparison because it's intent is to be paid by the people using it.
Now you can call separating that out as voodoo economics or trickle down economics, but in the end, it simply shows that you aren't aware of what is actually going on or that taxes designed to recover costs per use were never intended to be compared to income levels.
Wrong? You blatantly demonstrated your complete ignorance several times over. It's impossible to think you actually had any serious investigation into any of the stories in the bible even on a cursory level and still say the things you did. Well, that unless you are just a troll spouting lies to get a role out of someone. But even then, if you are attempting to hide your knowledge while presenting falsehoods, then you purposely making it appear that you have not looked into anything other then the name is not my wrong.
Well, as I said, Of course that came afterwords so I guess there may have been some influence. Some doesn't mean all so you don't need to rely on the Harlem Globetrotters to see the parallel.
Unless you were trying for humor and I missed it. In that case, I apologize.
I'm not sure his premise was "if civilization collapsed". It's more like a if they had the knowledge, could they have done it. In other words, it's a mental examination of what would have been necessary for advancements that didn't come until relatively late in Human History even though the possibilities/capabilities of them were there.
What this should make you think about is, what hurdles laid in the way that took so long for the concept of the telegraph to become established to a point it was actually invented. Sort of a why did it take so long when it could have been possible in stone age times. I posit that communications was the largest hurdle as most modern advances didn't come until stable communications and the recording and dissemination of learned information backed up by a significant validation process came along. In case that doesn't sound right, what I mean is actually collecting knowledge to a point that it can be verified and passed on to others in a somewhat structured way that built off of preexisting knowledge instead of repeating what was already known like what is possible the scientific method and schools, most likely public schools.
A cave man could have made a telegraph. He didn't because the knowledge wasn't there (probably the need was missing too).
hmm.. sounds a lot like Gilligan's Island.
Of course that came afterwords so I guess there may have been some influence.
Do you start every reply off with some sort of insult? Is that what you have to do in order to feel better about yourself? I'm seriously starting to get concerned about you, after all the other posts where you seem to strengthen your argument with what you think are insults. I don't want to end up reading that you are another bullied gay kid on the interweb who killed himself.
Anyways, how do you know he didn't do shit? I know I don't care for most unions because they are little more then bloated pieces of uselessness that do little other then drive the costs of products up and funnel campaign funding to certain parties. Hell, the Unions bankrupted GM and ended up take a reconciliation package that negated everything that was gained in their last 2 strike negotiated contract disputes after Obama shifted ownership to them to make up disputed retirement funding that went south with the stock market.
We still do have a strong manufacturing base in the US, we just don't make the cheap crap anymore because it costs too much in regulations, employee pay (unions), and other things.
I'm not even sure why you think congress cutting taxes means anything either. Are you one of those idiots who think corporations should be taxes so much that either they can't make a profit and go out of business, relocate to another country (like some already have), or end up charging so much more for their products that they become niche markets and everyone buys the cheap imports instead? There is actually no reason to tax corporations at all as most of their profits are taxed as income by the share holders.
BTW, where does the government have the right to interfere with the markets? Last time I heard, this was America where we have a constitution that tells the government what they can and can't do with whatever is left over being reserves for the states of the people. Now, I know there is an amendment process, and I know that they have flowed outside their constitutional trek on many occasions, I'm also willing to admit to being wrong, so show me where they have the authority to interfere? Is there some stealth amendment that I don't know about or something? Is it the interstate commerce clause where the government seems to want to whip into an get out of anything card whenever it wants to do something it isn't supposed to?
You know, I was just talking to someone about that the other day. I bet Bush could have gotten a lot more support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq if he just claimed that the interstate commerce clause allowed them instead of fighting all the naysayers that jumps up to criticize his reasoning.
Oh, and back to the parent post's point. Yes, we will make a nail gun because Makita, Kobalt, porter cable, and I believe a few Stanly-bostitch nail guns are made in the USA to comply with Made in USA provisioning laws for the various states and federal procurement.
It's not necessarily that he would keep it, it's that the data retention laws would require the ISPs to keep it and hand it over to the authorities upon a proper request. They then find it to be encrypted, go directly to you thinking it's something juicy that they can hang you with while getting their face on the evening news as some sort of hero, and poof, you can't supply the key so you must be an uber-terrorists and they get to mark the story up a notch ensuring more face time in the tabloids.
On the other hand, Perhaps I have a bunch of old files and just don't delete them- even when I can no longer access them. I do have a bunch of 1996 or so cad files and I have no working cad program nor am I aware of anything that could still read them. But alas, I still have them and attempt to figure out what they do from time to time when my memory slips.
Consent is over the whole of the population not the people within the situation. I'm sure the people going to the G20 summit to protest and cause problems did not consent to the cops breaking those plans up. Just as I'm sure that the bank robbers and drunk drivers do not consent to the cops having authority over them.
While your cops in the UK are generally unarmed, not all of them are and guns aren't far away for them. Mention anything about a weapon and you will find armed cops arriving really quick. Just check out all the pics Google can find of armed cops in England.
Stop having conversations with yourself and attributing part of it to me. I never attempted to provide proof or credence to the bible stories, I pointed out that the blind denial of them was just as ridiculous as the blind following of them.
And that point is not only incorrect, it suffers the same logical failures as blind faith in them being correct. What part of idiotic is so difficult to understand. I mean it's not like parts of the stories in the bible have been confirmed historically or anything, oh wait, they have.
What are you Three years old? I mean you can't seriously tell the difference between something that was written and passed off as real or nonfiction and something that was written and passed off as fiction? Especially when places, events, and time lines have been verified to have existed from outside sources? Perhaps you should find out some crap about which you speak of. And no, that doesn't make any god true or false, it simply makes the claims completely different then any Harry Potter bullshit.
Your right, no proof of something does not mean you have to believe in it, however summarily dismissing it is just as stupid. The bible is not some fictional book created one day, it follows along with history quite nicely in most cases even though it embellishes some things with hard to believe information.
And you are an idiot. A complete and useless idiot. Why, well it not because I'm going to claim the bible is true, it's because you have failed severely to do the most cursory investigations into it before forming your opinion. You are doing nothing more then the equivalent of saying electricity doesn't exist because you can't see it and failing to investigate any supposed measurements pointing to it at the same time.
Why? I never said I believed in fairies, pixies and unicorns, that's only a construct you superimposed onto me when I pointed out the logical failings that was suffering from the problems it attempted to chastise in a post. You continues to argue that failure as if it was your own. Why don't you try that logic in front of your professor and see if he doesn't kick you out of class.
I'm not sure why everyone is focusing on the bubbles. Blowing the bubbles isn't exactly what made this potentially dangerous. It's the erosion of authority that the act causes that could cause the loss of control over the crowd.
Think of the bubbles as a tool just like a crowbar. It's really the same as the intent was to displace the police's authority emboldening the crowd's. In crowd control, often the only thing that stops illegal or damaging activity is the threat of consequences. With the police being on scene, the threat is there, but if the police allow people to walk all over them and degrade their authority, it presents the appearance of no consequences again. Arresting the girl or smarting back to her in an attempt to reinsert the authority and notion of consequences was proper in keeping control.
The act itself was pretty benign but the effects of the act aren't. This is how you instigate and elevate crowds to more serious actions- showing the crowd that the point of authority isn't authoritative which suggest the lack of consequences for actions. When that happens, all it takes is someone else to incite them and boom, you have almost a riot or a riot like situation which is basically what these people were allegedly going to- a mass protest that has a history of turning into a riot.
How original, I bet all the women melt in marvel over your whit. Did you think that up all by yourself or did you simply comb through the slew of internet postings where others resorted to something like that after realizing how wrong they were with the facts not supporting their favor. Tell me, is it true what they say about you? Is your IQ actually as big as your shoe size?
I didn't fail at anything. I was never speaking of geopolitics in the first place, I was speaking to nukes, and why you were wrong about Afghanistan, North Korea and Pakistan. I like how you attempted to change the topic though, that's a classic way to win a debate. It's sort of like the Chewbacca defense.
Oh, what substance. Not only did you miss the entire point, you ignored the part about how invading another country inherently destabilizes it in the first place which makes nukes irrelevant outside their potential use. But hey, I like the way you attempted to work an insult in as the strength of your argument.
Do you mean what are difference between those chances now or after? I mean seriously, you started the argument about Pakistan by saying "Pakistan is home to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well," so how would it be much different if they were at war with India? Either they have access to it, or they don't. There would be nothing inherent in a war that would all the sudden give them access that they don't already have. The only difference might be finding all of them before the country was completely defeated. Chances are, they would be used before that as India and Pakistan have threatened to use nukes on each other in the past so access to any un-found nukes would probably be eliminated by the odds of survival. Either way, invasion may be the only options in these nations in order to secure the nukes from the hands of terrorists should they get them.
You mean like in the 1970's when Carter was president? We found ways around that in the past so I'm not sure why you even bring that up. BTW, China could purchase all of OPECs oil.
It's doubtful as China is the largest single border with Russia and there has been tensions in the past. Russia may in fact, use that as an excuse to invade China and rape it's resources.
Would they do that now? Nothing you have brought up exists in a vacuum with the predication of India being at war with Pakistan. It's not like it isn't possible right now. Why you think it does is somewhat disturbing.
Wow, you mean your not as smart as a dumbass? The statement
Actually, I was attempting to suggest how idiotic it was comparing the bible to harry potter as was done in the post I replied to attempted.
And your point is what? My point was that just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's a logical fallacy that is just as stupid as saying something didn't happen because you don't see it happening today. You don't know that no unicorns ever existed or do not exist today, you only know that no creditable evidence for their existence has been found or is known of today.
I'm beginning to think your the AC who posted the fallacy in the first place.
Your right, there was no proof to support your assumptions. that was my point.
Yea, because Ahrry Potter was so well known that the writers of the bible, including the inventors of the stories all favored it in their depiction. Perhaps you have the cart before the horse in your mad dash to declare anything you don't know of as fiction.
Most definitely, because we all know that if all you see is white sheep, no black sheep ever exist.
Well, considering that the new testament shouldn't be much older then 60-100 AD in the first place, that's not to bad. Well, that is if it was written by the participants like what is suggested. I actually thought there was at least 2 hundred years between the time it took and the oldest pieces of surviving scripture found on the new testament but I guess I was wrong. Anyways, the old testament is a little different as it was spoken well before the new testament came around.
Yea, and you seem to be missing the point of the war in the first place.
And here is the point you are missing. We invaded Afghanistan because we used capturing or killing Al Qeada to make us feel better about 9/11 and Afghanistan offered them safe haven and kept us away. You are right, we did want action to feel better over 9/11 but you are extremely misguided in what that action was. Simply paying attention to history could have told you more then you seem to care about so far.
You really should start getting your world history and knowledge about US policy from places other then comic books. The government of Pakistan is at least attempting to expel the terrorist in their midst as well as Al Qeada and Taliban factions as it present a direct threat to their power. They just have to do it in a way that doesn't erode their support with the public and end up strengthening those Terrorist factions in the process.
Now, the US wouldn't need to go to war with or invade Pakistan at all. It's not because we are scared that they have nukes either. All we would have to do is pad/support India which has been at the throat of Pakistan to do the job for us. In fact, the US was key to keeping them from war in the 90's over boarder disputes. The reason we don't invade Pakistan is because for the most part, they are not doing what Afghanistan was doing.
You seem to be completely ignorant of North Korea too. There are several things stopping us from running in and taking over. The primary thing you started to mention which is China who have kicked us out before. In fact, the reason why the war ended in a stand off in the 50's is specifically because of China kicking our asses out. Now, North Korea does not have any nuclear capabilities (theoretical or otherwise) that could hit US soil outside maybe Hawaii and last I checked, the testing of those systems failed before leaving their own airspace or entering another countries besides their protectors -china. But NK does have systems that are capable of hitting our allies which is the only reason nukes are a threat at all with NK. Leaders do not nuke their own people in an attempt to save them- even if they are crazy.
I'm not really sure what your point is other then you know little about how these things work. But just in case you are not grasping what you are trying to say, I will give you a bit of perspective. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two stimulous packages
So we should start a corporate charity program right now today? Maybe I wasn't clear, the parent said it takes time to start a new mine, you said how about recycling, I spend a good bit of mental masturbation attempting to say it will take time too. I also said it doesn't exist today outside of China because it's too expensive when you have to pay workers a decent wage, worry about their health and the environment.
It's not happening now because it's too expensive. It won't become economically feasible until either costs of recycling goes down or costs go up. With China artificially manipulating their dollar, we will need to either rely on costs going down somehow, or wait until a shortage makes the prices jump due to demand.
It matters because demand increases. This also means that if there are 3 million of the supplies to make something something, and there is a need for 4 million of it, you will be short the supplies necessary to make 1 million of them. Recycling is like this in a closed system, you will only have enough to make a certain amount. If demand grows, your stuck.
First, that's only true for aluminum. But energy isn't the only cost factor. There is buy off (buying the crap from the consumer), there is collecting, housing, consolidation, transportation, and quite a few other concerns that can easily cause the costs to outweighs buying new. In fact, it wasn't until relatively recently that it was cost effective on the whole to recycle aluminum (30 or so years with a recent shift further. Second, the costs of recycling, and yes, energy costs are different in different forms too, has to remain lower then the costs of manufacturing new or else it's a losing venture. Period, end of discussion.
And that is achieved through supply and demand. If supply is greater then demand, the sale costs drop. If supply is being created in China, and China manipulates it's dollar making it cheaper and costs drop, then other places where it's more expensive then the sale cost to recycle or even make will stop producing or operate at a loss. They can only operate at a loss for a certain amount of time before going out of business anyways.
From what I have seen, it's been in China and India primarily where they burn the circuit boards and extract the metals by standing over a sheet of steel and moving a metal rod though the molten puddle while breathing the toxic fumes then discarding the rest. I have been looking for a page I saw this at but can't seem to find it anymore. Anyways, it seems they do that only to extract the copper and not the rare earth metals so I guess I haven't seen it before a month ago.
Really? There are rare earth metals/materials recycling plants online right now today? Ones that don't exist only in china because of pollution controls and regulations make it generally otherwise unprofitable?
It's pretty much the same concept. If China embargoes the world for whatever reason, recycling isn't going to save us. Especially when exponential growth in demand means that we can't meet the needs of the new with the crap that is old and recycled. I mean seriously, how many people had an Ipod or the equivalent 10 years ago compared to today. How many people have a computer today compared to 10 years ago. Do you think that's going to reverse itself somehow?
What makes recycling glass and other metals successful today is that the demand severely outweighs the supply driving costs up and bringing new materials into the market at the same time means costs can be spread around as they are competitive with each other. I haven't seen anywhere where recycling rare earth metals have been done near as cheap as extracting new quantities unless it's in China or somewhere that pays what you make in an hour for a weeks wage and disregards environmental and occupational health concerns at the same time. If you know of something that makes me wrong, please inform me.
He was talking about the reporter, not the judge.
The reporter injected- that in standing for what was right, the judge came off as a raging liberal along with the wording of the story. The reporter lost most all objectivity and started assigning values based on his own political conceptions.
When liberals act like your definition of conservative, and conservatives match your definition of liberal, it sort of shows how confused people tend to be when it comes to defining their political interests.