There wasn't really a "single side" - the U.S. supported all groups that were anti-Soviet, and those often didn't properly coordinate. But you should remember that people who would form Taliban were the part of Mujahideen movement, as well as guys like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [wikipedia.org], who, among other things, resorted to indiscriminate area shelling during the siege of Kabul (and you can argue of his earlier exploits, including those during the time when he was directly sponsored by CIA, in that Wikipedia article).
I don't necessarily disagree with this statement. My point is that it's illegitimate to claim that because of a future action, the US supported what those people became. We supported people rebelling against an unpopular and illegitimate government that was supported by a country acting contrary to our own interest who imposed what most of the citizens considered oppressive laws onto the populous. The fact that they were Muslim is ancillary to the situation as much as most of the US was christian or Atheist. Anything they did in the future like some of them forming Islamic fascist groups (taliban) or extremist Islamic fundamental terrorist groups (Al Qeada) or their future participating in those groups cannot be considered at a time they didn't display those faults in character. It's like blaming the University of Iowa because a chemistry major ended up joining one of those groups and used his education to aid in the death and destruction. If the University of Iowa knew it was educating someone who had that intent, then sure the blame is justified. If they didn't, then it's not. Just as it's not justified to claim the US or any other group supported Islamofacist radical bent on imposing Islamic fundamentalism on the world.
Frankly, given the nature of the society in the region, and the long-running feuds between various factions, it would be extremely surprising if an armed conflict with their participation wouldn't involve any deliberate attacks against civilians - it is, quite plainly, the way of life in those lands. They're happily massacring each other even now; it is strange to think that those very same people (and most of them are the same!) didn't do the same back in 1980s, when Soviets were involved.
I think your confusing tribal warfare with terrorism. There are some unique things about the area that resemble the American Indian in which they resided within the same territories but waged war among themselves when it suited them but united when it was convenient. Their inter-tribal wars can be summed up more like wars or civil wars when the influence of one tribe outweighed it's usefulness but the point there was still a war and not terrorism as we would consider it today. It's sort of like calling the war tactics in WW2 terrorist actions because of the lack of accuracy of bombs knowing that guided missiles availible today are mostly accurate. The context would just be wrong.
I agree that this wasn't done to "sway the government", however, because there simply weren't a government to be swayed there. It was done to sway the people themselves, rather, and also as acts of retribution. However, I don't think that this is sufficient to not classify deliberate targeting of civilians as a non-terrorist act.
I strongly think that it you remove your enlightenment of today's interpretation, you will find that at the time, the actions were not terrorist in nature. The problem is that what was normal and acceptable when viewed with the magnifying glasses of a different time, you are able to label actions in ways they were never taking at the time they happened. Take slavery for instance, do you really think the majority of people thought it was bad or that slaves were equal to regular people _at_the_time_ it was legal in the US and Europe? Then you can't say that they were doing something they knew was wrong nor can you label it in the same w
My biggest problem with this has nothing to do with where the money is spent. It's with the concept that violence is OK, as long as you're willing to pay extra for it. So next time I pick up a hooker, it'll be OK if I beat her on top of screwing her, as long as I give her an extra $40 or so? Or If I send an extra $40 to the government as a "sin tax"?
I think you have put way more thought into this then any politician has. I'm not saying your wrong in having the problem with the situation, I'm not saying it isn't a valid gripe. I actually agree with you.
However, I don't think any politician has thought it through enough to even remotely come to the same conclusion as you. It's more likely that they are looking for ways to just tax people without getting a revolt and being tossed from office on the next election. We have seen this with how the government goes to tax a specific act like vehicle registration and licensing. For the rich, it isn't enough to cause an outrage outrage, for the poor, many of them don't have cars, for the middle class that might be border line, they are told it "pays for the roads" when most local municipal incorporation place the highest levels of taxes on them and it seems like the roads are never taken care of. In my area, just by moving outside the city limits, the license plates/registration for my car dropped $20 and for the truck, it dropped $35. That was the amount of tax the city put on the registration in order to "pay for the roads". The city took in somewhere around 2.5 million more then surrounding cities for road use funds, most people think it's a state fee, but the city ended up spending 3 million less then collected for the roads in the maintenance and repair of them. Of course the excess wasn't given back, it was spend somewhere else.
Ok, Maybe I ranted a little into the abyss there. It's a sore spot for me. But back when the tobacco settlements was going on, I spoke with one of the state assemblymen for my area. He specifically told me that the states were pursuing it so hard because it would only tax a percentage of the people and it would look like it's a court imposed tax and not of their doing. At the time, it was claimed that only 25% of the population smoked and most of them didn't even vote. The assemblyman I was talking with claimed that the support for the smoking tax was so high that he couldn't stop it if he wanted to so he was going to attempt to make sure all the money collected went to stop smoking programs and specifically to covering uninsured medical costs. That failed and the state allotted about 20% of the funds to anti smoking or stop smoking campaigns with the governor attempting to take the entire amounts in recent times.
To make things worse, they imposed a new federal tax increase to pay for the stimulus and bail out packages. Most people reading this gripe will say that's what you get for smoking and then attempt to justify it by something they were told about health costs or whatever knowing it will never effect them while the entire time ignoring the fact that the money collected goes nowhere near health programs or costs. In fact, because it won't effect them, they feel relieved and end up supporting it when your same logic could be applied to the tobacco tax. Smoking which kills you is alright if they tax it but more importantly, they are taxing something that the state went through great pains to demonstrate that it was addictive so strongly that most people couldn't quit on their own if they had to.
It makes sense that Video games are next in the line. It will effect a small portion of the people which means less chance of backlash and being tossed out of office. Many people view video games as children' toys and won't care about the tax. A good majority of people that will be effected by it aren't even old enough to vote and most will be laughed at if they attempt to convince their parents, family members and others who do vote that it's bad and the people behind it nee
Sure there was a civil war going on but from my understanding, the rebels attacked the government and military, including the soviet military. I'm not aware of any indoctrinated or wide spread tactics used by the side the US supported that targeted civilians in efforts to sway the government.
Some civilians may have ended up as casualties in these fights and attacks but that makes their role collateral and not intended as terrorism would imply.
As for the torture killings of POWs, I would consider them exactly that- Torture killings. While just as heinous and reprehensible as terrorist attacks or even cold blooded murder or worse, I wouldn't give any more credit to them then what they were. And you already identified them as torture killings which I believe fits the bill.
Well, I'm sure it is how they make their millions. However, I don't think they are going to cry over who gives it to them. I also was under the impressions that paid results was also covered under serch engine optimizations. So yes, I think the UK government or about any government going at it right, would be more then capable in doing it.
They don't need to completely stop apposing views from surfacing, they just need them to be on page 15 or 20 of the search results with what they want in front. Most people stop searching after the first few pages of results (unless it's a image search for some porn).
I couldn't say for sure if they are still around or not. My understanding was that the group was outlawed back in 1975. A member of the Jamiat Islami (the political party when Afghanistan was pretending to be a democracy) formed the group mujahideen which broke off into several alliances. It was my understanding that the Jamiat Islami was gone at that time. The US mainly supported what became the northern alliance and I'm pretty sure that the Taliban got rid of them.
The interesting thing is that the Taliban came into power basically because they were better at fighting in the area then the rest of the forces. After Russia pulled out, the region was dominated mostly by war lords with the northern alliance being in control of most of the country. Anyways, trade between the cities and even going from borders to inland destinations was constantly under attack and all of the war lords were pretty much powerless to do anything about it. One day around 1993 or 1996, a group came around which started protecting the trade shipments with almost perfect success and this group took the name "taliban". The problem with the Taliban was that if you weren't religious enough, you weren't good enough. If anything happened with the Jamiat Islami, I would say they were absorbed into the taliban or killed off as infidels when the Taliban took power. The Taliban "took care" of the alliances factions and anyone who would pose a risk to them before imposing strict (re)forms of their versions of Sharia law and Islamic ways on the general public.
Something else that was/is interesting is that Iran, with their Islamic ties and all, had problems with the taliban and how it was operating to the point that they initially invaded with allied troops when the Afghanistan war started after 9/11. One of the reasons they are such a problem right now is because Iran wanted to conquer the territory and when the allied commanders figured that out, they made the Iranian soldiers more or less babysitters in the already cleared areas so they could exert any spoils of war claims. This was taken as an insult by Iranian leaders which is a big reason to why they singed out bush with insults in return. Now that Bush is out of office, Iran is contemplating joining our efforts in Afghanistan again.
I guess Iran hated Bush more then the taliban but the dislikes the taliban more then the US.
First of all, the uprising was over the Marxist party that took control *from* Daoud, not over Daoud himself.
That was what I was trying to represent about the so called democracy. Anyways, even if I didn't make it clear, the point is still the same. The country was politically unstable, passes a shit ton of laws that the populace didn't like, and once again, someone was trying to put in a new government. That's when the soviets kicked in.
Second, I don't know what you're trying to say here. The Soviets had good relationships with all of the Afghan leaders for like 50 years before that revolution, and not just the Marxist ones. The Soviets really didn't care, as long as whoever was in charge understood that the Soviets were the major power in the region. The reason the Soviets got involved in this uprising (and ignored previous uprisings) was that the mujahideen (the fighters actually engaged in the uprising) were heavily under the influence of Pakistan, and Pakistan was under the influence of the US.
The relations with Russia is sort of pointless at this point. Russia didn't go in attempting to take it over. The PDRA asked the soviet union for help in much the same ways south Vietnam asked the french then the Americans for help in staying in power. In fact, it was almost a reverse Vietnam where they wanted to stay communist despite the people rejecting their laws. The PDRA was fractured and I don't remember off the top of my head if they retained power until the Russians withdrew or not. They were gone when the Russians left though which is what created the warlord situation that allowed the Taliban to take over the country (from the northern aliance).
Anyways, Russia's involvement originally was still "in good relations". They were attemping to help the government in power keep that power as the people were rejecting the soviet style communist reforms. That is what got America interested in it.
And the Taliban, who eventually took control after the Soviets left, were created *entirely* in Pakistan. The stuff the Taliban did was definitely directed at ordinary civilians and not an invading army. If you talk to Afghans today, you'll find that they generally loathe Pakistan for its role in the war and for the creation of the Taliban. They would have been much, much happier if the Soviets had successfully intervened and the resistance had died down without support from foreign powers.
Well, I don't entirely disagree with that. Except that it should be noted that the taliban wasn't even heard of until it came around almost a decade after the Russians left (1993 or 1996).
The afghans may have been happier with soviet rule then with the Taliban but it was obvious from the resistance that they were happier with the old rules and self rule then the soviet communism. There are three segment groups we are dealing with here, A (their original customs and laws), B (the communist laws and soviet backing) and C (the end result of the Taliban rule). Just because B is larger then C doesn't mean either if greater then A. We got involved because Russia and the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan attempted to impose B over A to the objections of the citizens living in the region. To suggest that B is better because it was better then C ignores the entirety of A which doesn't truly represent the situation.
In other words, bad outcome B being better then bad outcome C doesn't mean a better outcome wasn't availible and being pursued.
In general, let's not forget the order of events here. First Pakistan and the US funded radical Islamic fighters to destabilize the Marxist government. Only after that did the Soviets intervene. And the key point here is that there's plenty of evidence that if there hadn't been this interference from foreign powers, the Soviets wouldn't have interfered either -- they supported plenty of Islamic r
The uprising was over the illegitimacy of Mohammed Daoud Khan who over took his cousin's reign of power in 1973 from a military coup. Mohammed Daoud Khan created Republic of Afghanistan and ran it supposedly democratically. In 1975 or so, the Jamiat Islami (a militant muslim group) attempted to take over the government but they were shot down quickly. After that, the communist group People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan ended up with power and started imposing a bunch of Soviet style reforms. This pissed the population off and they revolted again which is pretty much what got the Russians involved in 1979.
Anyways, while the groups may have shared the muslim religion, they didn't revolt because of it. They revolted because the so called democratic government was imposing it's will on the people against the consent of the people. Why they didn't consent is meaningless at this point, the fact that government change was rejected is the important point. And the stuff the government did would have a lot of people looking to replace it if it happened anywhere else. It's not just about islam, that was ancillary to it. That is what got the Soviets involves, and it's what got the US involved.
even scarier is we the West helped them so that they would take on the Soviets. What goes around comes around....
Not really. Islamic Terrorism has been around for quite a while and while we did help with the resistance against the Soviet Union, that help was directed to people acting towards an invading army not a civilian population.
Terrorism sort of requires an act of terror. While there probably isn't and hard set definition that spans the globe, a military member serving in a country they recently invaded would be expecting the acts and it probably wouldn't be considered acts of terror.
Now, I would admit that some fighting the good fight turned and became terrorist later in life, but considering our help at a different time the same as helping a terrorist is about as inane as claiming the University of Iowa trained and helped terrorist because some grad student learned enough about chemistry to construct a bomb and rocket fuel before going jihad in some terrorist group.
No matter how you look at it, it's the government promoting one religion over another and attempting to bury their speech to make it happen.
It seems that you agree with the end goal which I sort of do too. But what happens when this action is taken to squash all other religions or negative but rightly placed speech against the government or to create a state religion or lead the people to believe a certain thing in order to pass an otherwise unpopular law that the people wouldn't stand for? I mean could you imagine doing a search on the interweb for Iraq and finding only the "Saddam tried to get yellow cake" or "Iraq has WMDs that terrorists want or can get" sites and articles and being led to believe that Iraq posed a great enough threat to the world that an immediate war was required to limit the potential damage because the government decided to optimize the search engines to get a certain message across and hide others?
Why, if that happened, we might see a couple of otherwise well mannered countries start a war.
They aren't really targeting the mainstream Muslims. The intent of this is to sweep the radicals under the rug or put them in the back or the room so noone can look at them.
By flooding the search engines to bring up search results only pointing to the mainstream Muslim sites, they are attempting to stop little Johny from getting bored, finding an extremist site, becoming brainwashed, strapping a bomb to his balls in some ignorant belief of 72 virgins as a reward when he is too young to realize they will be permanent virgins so the effect would be more like living with 72 twelve year old sisters, and blowing himself and others up.
They are looking for the "out of site, out of mind" approach. If they can't find it, they won't become it. But hey, Ignoring the problem has worked so well for so long, what could go wrong? And this plan has the added benefit of the public missing out on what is happening and not demanding the government provide as much protection from the fundamentalist extremist bent on their destruction. This way the government won't have to spend so much Time, money and effort on defending the people and foiling the extremist plots before they can harm innocent civilians that the government is charged with the protection of. More cameras and license plate sensors can be installed to watch the public and track their movements and make sure they pay the taxes.
It doesn't matter what research I do. You made the statement and I ask what you have to back it up outside you saying so. If you have nothing then the answer isn't what you claim because you made the claim.
Anyways, what this means is that the possibility is still on the table. Despite you wanting to remove it. And it means that we aren't missing anything that you are privy to which caused you to make that statement.
As for me doing my own research, well, as you would know, research involves taking the claims other people make and evaluating them for legitimacy. Don't try to discredit my question because I asked you to back up your own shit. As far as you know, I am doing my own research and was inquiring into what you knew that everyone else seems to no know. You made a statement with no facts to back up, me calling you out on it only means I wanted to know what you know. And as of now, I do which is why your statement is bunk.
Perhaps they want a working solution to at least use the service to avoid the entire "it doesn't work on X so we made it work" as a defense/reason for other programs that defeat protections they thought was necessary.
IF I offer access on linux, then open source programs that defeat my copy protection or whatever pretty much can legally be viewed as just that in their intent. It gives them a legal foot to kick around should it be necessary in their minds.
I'm not sure anything has been provided so far to indicate that wouldn't be the issue other then someone doesn't want it to be. Is there something we are missing?
want to make clear that I don't think the President shouldn't just ignore any law he thinks is a bad idea. Only in exceptional circumstances should the President disregard the letter of the law. If the letter and consequences of the law were Congresses intent, the President must respect it. If Congress has realized the consequences of the law and had ample opportunity to change it, but hasn't, then the President should let it be.
Your on some shaky grounds here. The president should ignore any law when it is appropriate. The definition and extent of appropriate can be argued but certainly you wouldn't expect the president to follow a law that says he must sign everything congress gives him into law without ever vetoing it, would you? You wouldn't want him to follow a law that says only congress can negotiate treaties or command the military Or a law that says he needs to mobilize the justice department to kill the first born son of everyone in the land, would you? How about a law giving control of America back to England?
A law is not a sacred thing. It's just the intent expressed and backed by the power of the legislature and executive. When they don't have the power to create or enforce the law, the law is meaningless. When you have a power or authority that superceeds the law, it is again meaningless.
Nothing in this law that I know of would allow the president to ignore it or stop it's enforcement. I just wanted to make sure that you know there are appropriate times to ignore the law, even for the president.
If you have a two-party system, there will be some voters who love everything about party A, and votes for them, and voters who hate party B, and therefore will vote on party A, and voters who feel strongly about one issue that party A champions, and therefore votes on A. You get no differentiation, you get no voter influence of which issues are most important, which faction of the party should have the most power.
If you have several small parties, they tend to profile themselves, they usually agree with some other parties on general economic policy, but have some profile issues. Voters can then know that party A, B and C have the same economic policy and voting on any of them will give the same results in that area, but can then choose exactly which party to support based on their differences. It's a lot more nuanced than "anything but party D".
Well, to be fair, members of the parties don't always run on what the party claims so even in the two party system, you have the variances in individual members. However, I really fail to see the difference between a two party system and a 5 party system if 3 parties are going to band together as one and the other two as the other in opposition. It's the exact same thing with little to no benefit outside of what is already there.
Even in your explanation, it boils down to 2 parties biting their principles and following the another without getting what they wanted. That or they are in agreement and there is no difference from the start. And when Congress creates a bill for consideration as apposed to the administration, some industry insider crafting the legislation, or the senate and house leadership handing them one, you do end up with a sensible bill that compromises with same principles you noted in multi party system. So there is still no real difference.
What, no? Politics is all about compromise if you want to get something done. Legislation that everyone agrees on would be toothless or inane, because you couldn't get anything radical agreed on, but sometimes you have to push something through even though it's not well liked among your voters, and in that case, the party line is a nice scapegoat.
Well, not recently. And by recently, I mean the last several administrations. There have been too many laws handed to congress by the administration or one if it's subordinate offices (patriot act for one), or some industry insider, or even the congressional leadership (The original stimulus bill). The results are little to now amendments allowed, little to no comity work allowed, and party line votes. If we had a five party system, the results would be the same, little compromise and several parties banding together for the same party line votes.
Legislation that would be toothless or inane is probably legislation that didn't need legislating to begin with. Just because they are there doesn't mean they need to be passing things. We don't have a performance quota. If something is important enough to be legislated, then it will have enough teeth to merit it's worth. However, a law doesn't necessarily need to be ferocious or full of teeth to be effective. It does need to be complete and thorough though.
The sad truth is that it's much easier to spin something as bad than explain why it's good, so the more dependent you are on your voter's good will, the more vulnerable to bad spin you become.
I know what you mean here but the federal elected officials shouldn't be pandering for votes in the first place. That's a grave misconception people have about the federal government. They aren't supposed to be directly effecting the will of the people like some thing. That's what the state governments are for. The federal government is supposed to take care of our foreign relations, provide for the security of the states, and regulation between the states. Their duties are to their office which repres
Exactly, and in this case, they did just that : they pursued their own intrest the way the law forced them to, instead of the most profitable (and therefore, at least in this case, most environmentally friendly, way).
Well, actually, in this case, the most profitable way was with the law. I'm not sure you entirely grasp what has happened here. Maybe you have and I'm just reading you wrong.
The paper companies already produce about 70% of their energy by using byproducts in the process of making paper. Under the law, if they add just a few gallons of fuel to the process, claim the process requires Gasoline, Diesel fuel or Kerosene, they get 50 cents per gallon on the 70% of energy they already created with the black liquor or whatever it was called. If they used 100 units of energy divided up with 70 gallons of their byproduct and 30KW or whatever the equivalent is of coal powered electricity, then by removing one KW electricity and adding it to the byproduct, they now get 50 cents for those 70 gallons. So at least in this case, they are doing both- "the most profitable (and therefore, at least in this case, most environmentally friendly, way)" and the most profitable way the law made them.
From the portion(s) of the law that I can tell, they don't have to add much more then one gallon of diesel to every batch of byproduct to qualify for the alternative fuel credit. The key point is in calling the process something else that requires Gasoline, Diesel fuel or Kerosene to get the credit for what they were already doing.
Screaming infant. Especially if it's not a looped recording, but the real thing. Try sleeping through that.
I know people who can sleep though a screaming infants. I haven't but I'm not exposed to infants all the time. But we are talking about loud music- not primitive human alarm cries.
Yes, it's possible to ignore fairly monotonous noises, no one's denying that.
It's possible to ignore _all_ noises. I'm sure you have had to sit through elevator music or some crap that you didn't like while at the doctors office or a restaurant or somewhere. After a while, it's just tuned out. Playing it louder just means more time before you can tune it out and ignore it. It can only get so loud before it causes damage and unless it's some alarm or something designed to tweak the nerves, it can be easily ignored. And even then, it's not torture until it damages the body. You may not get a good nights rest, you may not be refreshed when you wake up, you may even have frightening dreams, but it is not torture.
It's way more likely that the decision to can the bar came from the attempt to get public bail out money to build a bridge connecting two campuses that has a highway dividing them.
MS is already being criticized for not needing the funding because they make more then enough to build it themselves, now think about the public backlash if Obama or whoever does reward MS and they announce the opening of their on campus bar. It would be like what we have already seen with businesses having meeting at high dollar vacation resorts or flying private jets to Washington to beg for money and so on.
In the state of Washington, you need permits and licenses to sell alcohol. If the mormons or any religious organization was apposed to the pub, we would have known when they objected to the purchasing of the permits and licenses. The GP is just expressing fear of religion or a disdain for a certain brand of religion. I noticed where he believes what someone else told him without questioning it so he may be the victim of someone else in that boat.
I don't think they are thinking of Mormons or religious tolerance or anything. Many Islamic employees are present too and many of them don't do the alcohol thing either because of religion.
But MS is attempting to get bail out money for a bridge connecting two campuses across a busy highway separating the them. I'm betting this pub looked too much like posh benefits like resort business meetings or GM jumping on private jets to go to Washington and ask for money and so on that MS decided to can the idea for fear of backlash if they got the bail out money.
I also think your fear of the "religious" might be a bit unhealthy. MS, or the pub owner would have had to of gotten a liquor permit to sell the beer/alcohol. If the religious underground was going to stop them, it would have been at that time, not in some covert operation 3 days before the opening that only you and your mental might could recognize and expose. Seriously, think about that. They are not out to get you. And if they were, you would know it long before you spent the time and resources necessary to open in 3 days. The story would have also been about some church forcing MS to drop the bar instead of about MS dropping it.
I think your on the spot but miss with the intent. It isn't ego but "slight of hand". Look here, while something else is happening over there.
The distraction has already got us people in charge of the US treasury and IRS who couldn't even properly file their own tax returns with the help of computer software (and yes, I'm giving him the benfit of doubt in that statement). It's got us a bail out bill that "doesn't have to be perfect" but allows for the bitching about bonuses paid with tarp money when the law specifically allowed it. Slight of hand has got us the backing of Bush's wiretapping policy that supporters say they still hate but Obama somehow does it more competently. Slight of hand got us a troop withdraw from Iraq that is little more then the SOFA agreement Bush set up and a change in the names of the troops. Instead of soldiers, they are peace keepers and trainers and advisers. But hey, He's getting the troops out isn't he?
I think most of what I can see on that site is little more then the have not(s) griping. That doesn't bother the people Goldmann Sachs will be/are doing business with. But, if you are looking there, what are you going to miss elsewhere. And I say this not as some super informed person, but as the mass population in general. We got a story about the wire tapping support here on slashdot, but where in the mass media? The troops, I happened to catch a John Stewart program a few weeks back, little in the mass media.
And I don't mean to pick on Obama. It's just that it's happening with him on watch and Goldmann Sachs may be the one wanting the distraction not the government. I just think that the end result is a needed distraction from something else. I think they are perfectly fine with people ignoring it all and claiming ego too.
So if I took out the domain Belmolis22.whatever and criticized your slashdot posts, I would be in a different market?
Well, lets put it another way. Lets say I created a magazing called "Goldmann Sachs blurbs" and ran stories about Goldmann Sachs' business, their actions, and how the government is favoring them. Would I be in the same market or not? Could you see where if I wrote false or misleading information in the Onion style of news would weaken their trademark just a little? I would hope so because that's essentially what this guy did. By the nature of what he is writing about- focusing on Goldmann Sachs- he has entered the market enough to make an impact on their name, journalism or not.
This is probably going to be one of those cases that goes to court and a judge will rule that the blogger isn't the press and people will take it out of context. About the only think that puts him that far would be the domain I would think though. If he didn't use the name in the domain- his case would be a lot more to his favor.
The fed actually holds a percentage of the money other banks own from deposits. Your local bank (or national/international conglomerate acting as a local bank) is required to keep so much of their deposits in reserve to account for normal withdraws and banking needs. The ratio usually is different for times deposits like a CD but for normal account deposits it's around 10% (last time I checked).
Now, here is where the fed comes in to play. The local banks don't really have the facilities or security to hold the entire amount of reserves. If a bank has 10 billion deposited (on paper), it needs to keep 1 billion in reserve. Most banks can don't have the capacity to keep more then a couple million on hand so the rest gets stored at the reserve. They transfer a portion of this (what they are capable of securing on site subtracted from the CRR applicable to the banks specifics) to one of the twelve district reserve banks. They do this for a small fee which is generally charged as the FDIC insurance. When the reserve lends money, they lend this money as their own and collect the interest on it.
They can do this essentially because 15 banks may have more then enough money deposited to cover the normal needs of all the banks in their district plus interbank lending. They aren't creating it our of thin air, they are using other people's money as their own for the purpose of stabilizing the monetary flow.
This can go awry and cause some disasters like when banks state trading loans and counting them as asset packages for the purpose of their reserve ratios (part of what got us into trouble recently). However, the system itself isn't inherently flawed or bad as you suggest. What this does is allow wealth and value to be created without the constant need to monitor the health of the economy. It doesn't really distort it as much as it keeps it stable. And best of all, it allows wealth to be created without causing inflation.
Now what I mean by wealth to be created without causing inflation is best explained in a short story/example. In a fixed system, there is a static amount of currency. When someone holds 90 percent of that currency, there is only 10 percent of it left for the community. The result is that people get paid less for their work and have to pay more for their goods and services they purchase. But with this reserve system and the ability to use other people's money, then you or I could do something of value and create wealth without lowing the amount of money in circulation or causing inflation. What happens is that if there was $100 in the entire country and $60 was in the hands or bank accounts of 2 of the 10 people living there, then when you convert your time and labor into value by going into the woods, cutting down a tree, cutting planks from that tree and manufacture rocking chairs or furniture or whatever, your not limited to selling them for the excess of the $5 the remaining 8 people control. Instead, they can temporarily use $2 each from the 2 with all the money and now you have your $5 plus $16 from the other 7 people with $5 and one of the 2 with $30 each. The effect is that the economy now has roughly $114-$116 and you purchase more stuff to better your life. This pays someone else more, allows them to do something to create wealth, purchase more, and the process repeats. At some point in time, they print more money to represent the actual value or wealth in the economy and you never knew it was short or in excess for that brief period of time.
This is a necessity with a fiat currency. It can be abused though. But that is actually rare. It is a little more complicated then I just attempted to explain but most people who attempt to understand it don't ever look at the good side of it and assume the bad because they can't see the benefits. I would say that this is because most people borrow to purchase things they can't afford that will eventually decrease in value (car, boats, big screen TVs, so on) instead of borrow to mak
They wouldn't be ignoring it if they made a statement about it at all. Calling it blatantly untrue would be that statement.
There is also terms like trademark in which you have to protect it else it becomes extremely difficult to protect in the future. They may not really have a choice in matters like that. We also got to see the website quite nicely after the disclaimers came up. I'm suspecting that this slashvertisment was designed to create the impression that the C&D letter was unfounded in the first place. I somehow doubt that was originally true. He even mentions in one entry where he has had experience with this before.
I'm not really going to bother with reading the entire site to see if there is anything worth of value on it. From what I can tell, it's a couple of biased and misinformed letters to congress critters and a few opinions that border libel. I would be asking why this even made the front page of slashdot until I remembered the been through this before skit. I'm willing to be the guy has a small cult following that promoted it to the top of the stack.
So in essence, the 7 parties group together and branch of into two parties for enough of the vote. I get it now... Well, no I don't. Tell me again what the big difference is?
Anyways, the problem isn't two parties. It's party lines. There should be nothing or very little that's a party stance or party line in government. Parties can group together but the legislation should already be a compromise between the senators and congressmen so that a majority will vote on something because of it's worth not because a political or party leader told them to. If that was to return, there would be no difference between the two party system and a 7 party system.
Yes, I do mean other then the hose beatings, water boarding, sexual degredation amd straight up torture. I in no way ever claimed torture wasn't going on. I said that things being counted as torture is not torture in any way and it serves nothing but to water down the outrage against real torture.
As for the Amerika thing, well, that the way assholes who want to claim America is teh evil seem to want to spell it. I lumped you in with them because of your insistence in claiming something that isn't torture was.
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I don't necessarily disagree with this statement. My point is that it's illegitimate to claim that because of a future action, the US supported what those people became. We supported people rebelling against an unpopular and illegitimate government that was supported by a country acting contrary to our own interest who imposed what most of the citizens considered oppressive laws onto the populous. The fact that they were Muslim is ancillary to the situation as much as most of the US was christian or Atheist. Anything they did in the future like some of them forming Islamic fascist groups (taliban) or extremist Islamic fundamental terrorist groups (Al Qeada) or their future participating in those groups cannot be considered at a time they didn't display those faults in character. It's like blaming the University of Iowa because a chemistry major ended up joining one of those groups and used his education to aid in the death and destruction. If the University of Iowa knew it was educating someone who had that intent, then sure the blame is justified. If they didn't, then it's not. Just as it's not justified to claim the US or any other group supported Islamofacist radical bent on imposing Islamic fundamentalism on the world.
I think your confusing tribal warfare with terrorism. There are some unique things about the area that resemble the American Indian in which they resided within the same territories but waged war among themselves when it suited them but united when it was convenient. Their inter-tribal wars can be summed up more like wars or civil wars when the influence of one tribe outweighed it's usefulness but the point there was still a war and not terrorism as we would consider it today. It's sort of like calling the war tactics in WW2 terrorist actions because of the lack of accuracy of bombs knowing that guided missiles availible today are mostly accurate. The context would just be wrong.
I strongly think that it you remove your enlightenment of today's interpretation, you will find that at the time, the actions were not terrorist in nature. The problem is that what was normal and acceptable when viewed with the magnifying glasses of a different time, you are able to label actions in ways they were never taking at the time they happened. Take slavery for instance, do you really think the majority of people thought it was bad or that slaves were equal to regular people _at_the_time_ it was legal in the US and Europe? Then you can't say that they were doing something they knew was wrong nor can you label it in the same w
I think you have put way more thought into this then any politician has. I'm not saying your wrong in having the problem with the situation, I'm not saying it isn't a valid gripe. I actually agree with you.
However, I don't think any politician has thought it through enough to even remotely come to the same conclusion as you. It's more likely that they are looking for ways to just tax people without getting a revolt and being tossed from office on the next election. We have seen this with how the government goes to tax a specific act like vehicle registration and licensing. For the rich, it isn't enough to cause an outrage outrage, for the poor, many of them don't have cars, for the middle class that might be border line, they are told it "pays for the roads" when most local municipal incorporation place the highest levels of taxes on them and it seems like the roads are never taken care of. In my area, just by moving outside the city limits, the license plates/registration for my car dropped $20 and for the truck, it dropped $35. That was the amount of tax the city put on the registration in order to "pay for the roads". The city took in somewhere around 2.5 million more then surrounding cities for road use funds, most people think it's a state fee, but the city ended up spending 3 million less then collected for the roads in the maintenance and repair of them. Of course the excess wasn't given back, it was spend somewhere else.
Ok, Maybe I ranted a little into the abyss there. It's a sore spot for me. But back when the tobacco settlements was going on, I spoke with one of the state assemblymen for my area. He specifically told me that the states were pursuing it so hard because it would only tax a percentage of the people and it would look like it's a court imposed tax and not of their doing. At the time, it was claimed that only 25% of the population smoked and most of them didn't even vote. The assemblyman I was talking with claimed that the support for the smoking tax was so high that he couldn't stop it if he wanted to so he was going to attempt to make sure all the money collected went to stop smoking programs and specifically to covering uninsured medical costs. That failed and the state allotted about 20% of the funds to anti smoking or stop smoking campaigns with the governor attempting to take the entire amounts in recent times.
To make things worse, they imposed a new federal tax increase to pay for the stimulus and bail out packages. Most people reading this gripe will say that's what you get for smoking and then attempt to justify it by something they were told about health costs or whatever knowing it will never effect them while the entire time ignoring the fact that the money collected goes nowhere near health programs or costs. In fact, because it won't effect them, they feel relieved and end up supporting it when your same logic could be applied to the tobacco tax. Smoking which kills you is alright if they tax it but more importantly, they are taxing something that the state went through great pains to demonstrate that it was addictive so strongly that most people couldn't quit on their own if they had to.
It makes sense that Video games are next in the line. It will effect a small portion of the people which means less chance of backlash and being tossed out of office. Many people view video games as children' toys and won't care about the tax. A good majority of people that will be effected by it aren't even old enough to vote and most will be laughed at if they attempt to convince their parents, family members and others who do vote that it's bad and the people behind it nee
Sure there was a civil war going on but from my understanding, the rebels attacked the government and military, including the soviet military. I'm not aware of any indoctrinated or wide spread tactics used by the side the US supported that targeted civilians in efforts to sway the government.
Some civilians may have ended up as casualties in these fights and attacks but that makes their role collateral and not intended as terrorism would imply.
As for the torture killings of POWs, I would consider them exactly that- Torture killings. While just as heinous and reprehensible as terrorist attacks or even cold blooded murder or worse, I wouldn't give any more credit to them then what they were. And you already identified them as torture killings which I believe fits the bill.
Well, I'm sure it is how they make their millions. However, I don't think they are going to cry over who gives it to them. I also was under the impressions that paid results was also covered under serch engine optimizations. So yes, I think the UK government or about any government going at it right, would be more then capable in doing it.
They don't need to completely stop apposing views from surfacing, they just need them to be on page 15 or 20 of the search results with what they want in front. Most people stop searching after the first few pages of results (unless it's a image search for some porn).
I couldn't say for sure if they are still around or not. My understanding was that the group was outlawed back in 1975. A member of the Jamiat Islami (the political party when Afghanistan was pretending to be a democracy) formed the group mujahideen which broke off into several alliances. It was my understanding that the Jamiat Islami was gone at that time. The US mainly supported what became the northern alliance and I'm pretty sure that the Taliban got rid of them.
The interesting thing is that the Taliban came into power basically because they were better at fighting in the area then the rest of the forces. After Russia pulled out, the region was dominated mostly by war lords with the northern alliance being in control of most of the country. Anyways, trade between the cities and even going from borders to inland destinations was constantly under attack and all of the war lords were pretty much powerless to do anything about it. One day around 1993 or 1996, a group came around which started protecting the trade shipments with almost perfect success and this group took the name "taliban". The problem with the Taliban was that if you weren't religious enough, you weren't good enough. If anything happened with the Jamiat Islami, I would say they were absorbed into the taliban or killed off as infidels when the Taliban took power. The Taliban "took care" of the alliances factions and anyone who would pose a risk to them before imposing strict (re)forms of their versions of Sharia law and Islamic ways on the general public.
Something else that was/is interesting is that Iran, with their Islamic ties and all, had problems with the taliban and how it was operating to the point that they initially invaded with allied troops when the Afghanistan war started after 9/11. One of the reasons they are such a problem right now is because Iran wanted to conquer the territory and when the allied commanders figured that out, they made the Iranian soldiers more or less babysitters in the already cleared areas so they could exert any spoils of war claims. This was taken as an insult by Iranian leaders which is a big reason to why they singed out bush with insults in return. Now that Bush is out of office, Iran is contemplating joining our efforts in Afghanistan again.
I guess Iran hated Bush more then the taliban but the dislikes the taliban more then the US.
That was what I was trying to represent about the so called democracy. Anyways, even if I didn't make it clear, the point is still the same. The country was politically unstable, passes a shit ton of laws that the populace didn't like, and once again, someone was trying to put in a new government. That's when the soviets kicked in.
The relations with Russia is sort of pointless at this point. Russia didn't go in attempting to take it over. The PDRA asked the soviet union for help in much the same ways south Vietnam asked the french then the Americans for help in staying in power. In fact, it was almost a reverse Vietnam where they wanted to stay communist despite the people rejecting their laws. The PDRA was fractured and I don't remember off the top of my head if they retained power until the Russians withdrew or not. They were gone when the Russians left though which is what created the warlord situation that allowed the Taliban to take over the country (from the northern aliance).
Anyways, Russia's involvement originally was still "in good relations". They were attemping to help the government in power keep that power as the people were rejecting the soviet style communist reforms. That is what got America interested in it.
Well, I don't entirely disagree with that. Except that it should be noted that the taliban wasn't even heard of until it came around almost a decade after the Russians left (1993 or 1996).
The afghans may have been happier with soviet rule then with the Taliban but it was obvious from the resistance that they were happier with the old rules and self rule then the soviet communism. There are three segment groups we are dealing with here, A (their original customs and laws), B (the communist laws and soviet backing) and C (the end result of the Taliban rule). Just because B is larger then C doesn't mean either if greater then A. We got involved because Russia and the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan attempted to impose B over A to the objections of the citizens living in the region. To suggest that B is better because it was better then C ignores the entirety of A which doesn't truly represent the situation.
In other words, bad outcome B being better then bad outcome C doesn't mean a better outcome wasn't availible and being pursued.
Again, not really.
The uprising was over the illegitimacy of Mohammed Daoud Khan who over took his cousin's reign of power in 1973 from a military coup. Mohammed Daoud Khan created Republic of Afghanistan and ran it supposedly democratically. In 1975 or so, the Jamiat Islami (a militant muslim group) attempted to take over the government but they were shot down quickly. After that, the communist group People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan ended up with power and started imposing a bunch of Soviet style reforms. This pissed the population off and they revolted again which is pretty much what got the Russians involved in 1979.
Anyways, while the groups may have shared the muslim religion, they didn't revolt because of it. They revolted because the so called democratic government was imposing it's will on the people against the consent of the people. Why they didn't consent is meaningless at this point, the fact that government change was rejected is the important point. And the stuff the government did would have a lot of people looking to replace it if it happened anywhere else. It's not just about islam, that was ancillary to it. That is what got the Soviets involves, and it's what got the US involved.
Not really. Islamic Terrorism has been around for quite a while and while we did help with the resistance against the Soviet Union, that help was directed to people acting towards an invading army not a civilian population.
Terrorism sort of requires an act of terror. While there probably isn't and hard set definition that spans the globe, a military member serving in a country they recently invaded would be expecting the acts and it probably wouldn't be considered acts of terror.
Now, I would admit that some fighting the good fight turned and became terrorist later in life, but considering our help at a different time the same as helping a terrorist is about as inane as claiming the University of Iowa trained and helped terrorist because some grad student learned enough about chemistry to construct a bomb and rocket fuel before going jihad in some terrorist group.
No matter how you look at it, it's the government promoting one religion over another and attempting to bury their speech to make it happen.
It seems that you agree with the end goal which I sort of do too. But what happens when this action is taken to squash all other religions or negative but rightly placed speech against the government or to create a state religion or lead the people to believe a certain thing in order to pass an otherwise unpopular law that the people wouldn't stand for? I mean could you imagine doing a search on the interweb for Iraq and finding only the "Saddam tried to get yellow cake" or "Iraq has WMDs that terrorists want or can get" sites and articles and being led to believe that Iraq posed a great enough threat to the world that an immediate war was required to limit the potential damage because the government decided to optimize the search engines to get a certain message across and hide others?
Why, if that happened, we might see a couple of otherwise well mannered countries start a war.
They aren't really targeting the mainstream Muslims. The intent of this is to sweep the radicals under the rug or put them in the back or the room so noone can look at them.
By flooding the search engines to bring up search results only pointing to the mainstream Muslim sites, they are attempting to stop little Johny from getting bored, finding an extremist site, becoming brainwashed, strapping a bomb to his balls in some ignorant belief of 72 virgins as a reward when he is too young to realize they will be permanent virgins so the effect would be more like living with 72 twelve year old sisters, and blowing himself and others up.
They are looking for the "out of site, out of mind" approach. If they can't find it, they won't become it. But hey, Ignoring the problem has worked so well for so long, what could go wrong? And this plan has the added benefit of the public missing out on what is happening and not demanding the government provide as much protection from the fundamentalist extremist bent on their destruction. This way the government won't have to spend so much Time, money and effort on defending the people and foiling the extremist plots before they can harm innocent civilians that the government is charged with the protection of. More cameras and license plate sensors can be installed to watch the public and track their movements and make sure they pay the taxes.
It doesn't matter what research I do. You made the statement and I ask what you have to back it up outside you saying so. If you have nothing then the answer isn't what you claim because you made the claim.
Anyways, what this means is that the possibility is still on the table. Despite you wanting to remove it. And it means that we aren't missing anything that you are privy to which caused you to make that statement.
As for me doing my own research, well, as you would know, research involves taking the claims other people make and evaluating them for legitimacy. Don't try to discredit my question because I asked you to back up your own shit. As far as you know, I am doing my own research and was inquiring into what you knew that everyone else seems to no know. You made a statement with no facts to back up, me calling you out on it only means I wanted to know what you know. And as of now, I do which is why your statement is bunk.
Perhaps they want a working solution to at least use the service to avoid the entire "it doesn't work on X so we made it work" as a defense/reason for other programs that defeat protections they thought was necessary.
IF I offer access on linux, then open source programs that defeat my copy protection or whatever pretty much can legally be viewed as just that in their intent. It gives them a legal foot to kick around should it be necessary in their minds.
Why isn't it the case here?
I'm not sure anything has been provided so far to indicate that wouldn't be the issue other then someone doesn't want it to be. Is there something we are missing?
Your on some shaky grounds here. The president should ignore any law when it is appropriate. The definition and extent of appropriate can be argued but certainly you wouldn't expect the president to follow a law that says he must sign everything congress gives him into law without ever vetoing it, would you? You wouldn't want him to follow a law that says only congress can negotiate treaties or command the military Or a law that says he needs to mobilize the justice department to kill the first born son of everyone in the land, would you? How about a law giving control of America back to England?
A law is not a sacred thing. It's just the intent expressed and backed by the power of the legislature and executive. When they don't have the power to create or enforce the law, the law is meaningless. When you have a power or authority that superceeds the law, it is again meaningless.
Nothing in this law that I know of would allow the president to ignore it or stop it's enforcement. I just wanted to make sure that you know there are appropriate times to ignore the law, even for the president.
Well, to be fair, members of the parties don't always run on what the party claims so even in the two party system, you have the variances in individual members. However, I really fail to see the difference between a two party system and a 5 party system if 3 parties are going to band together as one and the other two as the other in opposition. It's the exact same thing with little to no benefit outside of what is already there.
Even in your explanation, it boils down to 2 parties biting their principles and following the another without getting what they wanted. That or they are in agreement and there is no difference from the start. And when Congress creates a bill for consideration as apposed to the administration, some industry insider crafting the legislation, or the senate and house leadership handing them one, you do end up with a sensible bill that compromises with same principles you noted in multi party system. So there is still no real difference.
Well, not recently. And by recently, I mean the last several administrations. There have been too many laws handed to congress by the administration or one if it's subordinate offices (patriot act for one), or some industry insider, or even the congressional leadership (The original stimulus bill). The results are little to now amendments allowed, little to no comity work allowed, and party line votes. If we had a five party system, the results would be the same, little compromise and several parties banding together for the same party line votes.
Legislation that would be toothless or inane is probably legislation that didn't need legislating to begin with. Just because they are there doesn't mean they need to be passing things. We don't have a performance quota. If something is important enough to be legislated, then it will have enough teeth to merit it's worth. However, a law doesn't necessarily need to be ferocious or full of teeth to be effective. It does need to be complete and thorough though.
I know what you mean here but the federal elected officials shouldn't be pandering for votes in the first place. That's a grave misconception people have about the federal government. They aren't supposed to be directly effecting the will of the people like some thing. That's what the state governments are for. The federal government is supposed to take care of our foreign relations, provide for the security of the states, and regulation between the states. Their duties are to their office which repres
Well, actually, in this case, the most profitable way was with the law. I'm not sure you entirely grasp what has happened here. Maybe you have and I'm just reading you wrong.
The paper companies already produce about 70% of their energy by using byproducts in the process of making paper. Under the law, if they add just a few gallons of fuel to the process, claim the process requires Gasoline, Diesel fuel or Kerosene, they get 50 cents per gallon on the 70% of energy they already created with the black liquor or whatever it was called. If they used 100 units of energy divided up with 70 gallons of their byproduct and 30KW or whatever the equivalent is of coal powered electricity, then by removing one KW electricity and adding it to the byproduct, they now get 50 cents for those 70 gallons. So at least in this case, they are doing both- "the most profitable (and therefore, at least in this case, most environmentally friendly, way)" and the most profitable way the law made them.
From the portion(s) of the law that I can tell, they don't have to add much more then one gallon of diesel to every batch of byproduct to qualify for the alternative fuel credit. The key point is in calling the process something else that requires Gasoline, Diesel fuel or Kerosene to get the credit for what they were already doing.
I know people who can sleep though a screaming infants. I haven't but I'm not exposed to infants all the time. But we are talking about loud music- not primitive human alarm cries.
It's possible to ignore _all_ noises. I'm sure you have had to sit through elevator music or some crap that you didn't like while at the doctors office or a restaurant or somewhere. After a while, it's just tuned out. Playing it louder just means more time before you can tune it out and ignore it. It can only get so loud before it causes damage and unless it's some alarm or something designed to tweak the nerves, it can be easily ignored. And even then, it's not torture until it damages the body. You may not get a good nights rest, you may not be refreshed when you wake up, you may even have frightening dreams, but it is not torture.
It's way more likely that the decision to can the bar came from the attempt to get public bail out money to build a bridge connecting two campuses that has a highway dividing them.
MS is already being criticized for not needing the funding because they make more then enough to build it themselves, now think about the public backlash if Obama or whoever does reward MS and they announce the opening of their on campus bar. It would be like what we have already seen with businesses having meeting at high dollar vacation resorts or flying private jets to Washington to beg for money and so on.
In the state of Washington, you need permits and licenses to sell alcohol. If the mormons or any religious organization was apposed to the pub, we would have known when they objected to the purchasing of the permits and licenses. The GP is just expressing fear of religion or a disdain for a certain brand of religion. I noticed where he believes what someone else told him without questioning it so he may be the victim of someone else in that boat.
I don't think they are thinking of Mormons or religious tolerance or anything. Many Islamic employees are present too and many of them don't do the alcohol thing either because of religion.
But MS is attempting to get bail out money for a bridge connecting two campuses across a busy highway separating the them. I'm betting this pub looked too much like posh benefits like resort business meetings or GM jumping on private jets to go to Washington and ask for money and so on that MS decided to can the idea for fear of backlash if they got the bail out money.
I also think your fear of the "religious" might be a bit unhealthy. MS, or the pub owner would have had to of gotten a liquor permit to sell the beer/alcohol. If the religious underground was going to stop them, it would have been at that time, not in some covert operation 3 days before the opening that only you and your mental might could recognize and expose. Seriously, think about that. They are not out to get you. And if they were, you would know it long before you spent the time and resources necessary to open in 3 days. The story would have also been about some church forcing MS to drop the bar instead of about MS dropping it.
I think your on the spot but miss with the intent. It isn't ego but "slight of hand". Look here, while something else is happening over there.
The distraction has already got us people in charge of the US treasury and IRS who couldn't even properly file their own tax returns with the help of computer software (and yes, I'm giving him the benfit of doubt in that statement). It's got us a bail out bill that "doesn't have to be perfect" but allows for the bitching about bonuses paid with tarp money when the law specifically allowed it. Slight of hand has got us the backing of Bush's wiretapping policy that supporters say they still hate but Obama somehow does it more competently. Slight of hand got us a troop withdraw from Iraq that is little more then the SOFA agreement Bush set up and a change in the names of the troops. Instead of soldiers, they are peace keepers and trainers and advisers. But hey, He's getting the troops out isn't he?
I think most of what I can see on that site is little more then the have not(s) griping. That doesn't bother the people Goldmann Sachs will be/are doing business with. But, if you are looking there, what are you going to miss elsewhere. And I say this not as some super informed person, but as the mass population in general. We got a story about the wire tapping support here on slashdot, but where in the mass media? The troops, I happened to catch a John Stewart program a few weeks back, little in the mass media.
And I don't mean to pick on Obama. It's just that it's happening with him on watch and Goldmann Sachs may be the one wanting the distraction not the government. I just think that the end result is a needed distraction from something else. I think they are perfectly fine with people ignoring it all and claiming ego too.
So if I took out the domain Belmolis22.whatever and criticized your slashdot posts, I would be in a different market?
Well, lets put it another way. Lets say I created a magazing called "Goldmann Sachs blurbs" and ran stories about Goldmann Sachs' business, their actions, and how the government is favoring them. Would I be in the same market or not? Could you see where if I wrote false or misleading information in the Onion style of news would weaken their trademark just a little? I would hope so because that's essentially what this guy did. By the nature of what he is writing about- focusing on Goldmann Sachs- he has entered the market enough to make an impact on their name, journalism or not.
This is probably going to be one of those cases that goes to court and a judge will rule that the blogger isn't the press and people will take it out of context. About the only think that puts him that far would be the domain I would think though. If he didn't use the name in the domain- his case would be a lot more to his favor.
That's sort of true and not at the same time.
The fed actually holds a percentage of the money other banks own from deposits. Your local bank (or national/international conglomerate acting as a local bank) is required to keep so much of their deposits in reserve to account for normal withdraws and banking needs. The ratio usually is different for times deposits like a CD but for normal account deposits it's around 10% (last time I checked).
Now, here is where the fed comes in to play. The local banks don't really have the facilities or security to hold the entire amount of reserves. If a bank has 10 billion deposited (on paper), it needs to keep 1 billion in reserve. Most banks can don't have the capacity to keep more then a couple million on hand so the rest gets stored at the reserve. They transfer a portion of this (what they are capable of securing on site subtracted from the CRR applicable to the banks specifics) to one of the twelve district reserve banks. They do this for a small fee which is generally charged as the FDIC insurance. When the reserve lends money, they lend this money as their own and collect the interest on it.
They can do this essentially because 15 banks may have more then enough money deposited to cover the normal needs of all the banks in their district plus interbank lending. They aren't creating it our of thin air, they are using other people's money as their own for the purpose of stabilizing the monetary flow.
This can go awry and cause some disasters like when banks state trading loans and counting them as asset packages for the purpose of their reserve ratios (part of what got us into trouble recently). However, the system itself isn't inherently flawed or bad as you suggest. What this does is allow wealth and value to be created without the constant need to monitor the health of the economy. It doesn't really distort it as much as it keeps it stable. And best of all, it allows wealth to be created without causing inflation.
Now what I mean by wealth to be created without causing inflation is best explained in a short story/example. In a fixed system, there is a static amount of currency. When someone holds 90 percent of that currency, there is only 10 percent of it left for the community. The result is that people get paid less for their work and have to pay more for their goods and services they purchase. But with this reserve system and the ability to use other people's money, then you or I could do something of value and create wealth without lowing the amount of money in circulation or causing inflation. What happens is that if there was $100 in the entire country and $60 was in the hands or bank accounts of 2 of the 10 people living there, then when you convert your time and labor into value by going into the woods, cutting down a tree, cutting planks from that tree and manufacture rocking chairs or furniture or whatever, your not limited to selling them for the excess of the $5 the remaining 8 people control. Instead, they can temporarily use $2 each from the 2 with all the money and now you have your $5 plus $16 from the other 7 people with $5 and one of the 2 with $30 each. The effect is that the economy now has roughly $114-$116 and you purchase more stuff to better your life. This pays someone else more, allows them to do something to create wealth, purchase more, and the process repeats. At some point in time, they print more money to represent the actual value or wealth in the economy and you never knew it was short or in excess for that brief period of time.
This is a necessity with a fiat currency. It can be abused though. But that is actually rare. It is a little more complicated then I just attempted to explain but most people who attempt to understand it don't ever look at the good side of it and assume the bad because they can't see the benefits. I would say that this is because most people borrow to purchase things they can't afford that will eventually decrease in value (car, boats, big screen TVs, so on) instead of borrow to mak
They wouldn't be ignoring it if they made a statement about it at all. Calling it blatantly untrue would be that statement.
There is also terms like trademark in which you have to protect it else it becomes extremely difficult to protect in the future. They may not really have a choice in matters like that. We also got to see the website quite nicely after the disclaimers came up. I'm suspecting that this slashvertisment was designed to create the impression that the C&D letter was unfounded in the first place. I somehow doubt that was originally true. He even mentions in one entry where he has had experience with this before.
I'm not really going to bother with reading the entire site to see if there is anything worth of value on it. From what I can tell, it's a couple of biased and misinformed letters to congress critters and a few opinions that border libel. I would be asking why this even made the front page of slashdot until I remembered the been through this before skit. I'm willing to be the guy has a small cult following that promoted it to the top of the stack.
So in essence, the 7 parties group together and branch of into two parties for enough of the vote. I get it now... Well, no I don't. Tell me again what the big difference is?
Anyways, the problem isn't two parties. It's party lines. There should be nothing or very little that's a party stance or party line in government. Parties can group together but the legislation should already be a compromise between the senators and congressmen so that a majority will vote on something because of it's worth not because a political or party leader told them to. If that was to return, there would be no difference between the two party system and a 7 party system.
Yes, I do mean other then the hose beatings, water boarding, sexual degredation amd straight up torture. I in no way ever claimed torture wasn't going on. I said that things being counted as torture is not torture in any way and it serves nothing but to water down the outrage against real torture.
As for the Amerika thing, well, that the way assholes who want to claim America is teh evil seem to want to spell it. I lumped you in with them because of your insistence in claiming something that isn't torture was.