Bullshit. The leftist "big gov't is always right" crowd wants to nail him just as much. How dare he have the audacity to paint the result of the granting of unchecked Federal power in a negative light to the serfs?
This is NOT a left- or right-wing issue. Both parties gleefully hate your freedoms and civil liberties and take turns shitting on the Constitution while playing people against one another with wedge issues like abortion, gay rights, and illegal immigration. And people like you who put the blame on one side but not the other are part of the problem.
You are bound to the city by the choice you made (to become a father) and by your own morals, not by some law of the land. Legally, you can get up and leave right now . . . but of course, there are consequences. For childless folks (and even for some folks with kids), it can indeed be that easy to move, whenever and wherever you want . . . I've done it many times. I'm not judging -- just pointing out a huge distinction.
This means you can be absolutely ruthless with the price . . . you can get the same thing anywhere else. Do your homework online and find the price that people are actually paying, and call every dealer within 150 miles and ask for their best price. Start playing them against each other, and eventually, one will work with you -- typically towards the end of the quarter when they're all trying to make their number, or at the end of a model year when they have excess inventory. If you don't get exactly what you want from a certain dealer, tell them to pound sand and walk. They prey on most folks' discomfort with the negotiation process -- you need to turn the tables on them and be a little opportunistic, but you can save many thousands if you do so.
Traditional car dealerships are owned by wealthy, powerful folks who've managed to preserve their monopoly via lobbying their local and state legislatures to force the auto manufacturers to sell thru the dealer chain. This forced "3 tier" system (a lot like the others many states enforce on commodities which throw off a lot of tax revenue, like alcohol, where a chosen few are granted a limited number of licenses) does nothing to help the consumer -- instead, it limits choice and artificially drives up the price. There's no practical reason for these laws in 2013, yet we still have them. I'm hoping that companies like this one and Tesla manage to disrupt the obsolete, 20th Century business model, but I have my doubts.
...as all of the other security theater they spend billions / year on. Why stop with SPOT? How many terr'rists have been caught by body scanners versus good old metal detectors? How many terr'rists have been caught by Freedom Gropes? Oh, I get it, travelers don't actually see SPOT in action. Carry on.
If you think the NSA isn't building a massive database of what metadata belongs to what person, you're painfully naive. They've lied at every turn -- their leader even lied under oath to a Congressional panel. Why would you ever believe them when tell you they're *not* doing something?
Because we (used to) have a reasonable expectation that private conversations would remain private, and in the 21st Century, things like phone calls are needed to, well, live. There's no fucking reason the NSA needs metadata about my call to Grandma. It's private and I don't want them to have it. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. And decades of horrible precedent have distorted the meaning of "legal" so that the 4th Amendment is able to be ignored by anyone in gov't who wishes to do so. It's time to start over.
Do not discount the impact of the Internet on the declining use of traditional mail services, or the fact that almost half of what is delivered is junk mail, almost all of which just gets thrown away. You can't only blame privatization while completely ignoring the most significant advance in communications technology in human history. Let's face it -- traditional mail services just aren't important as they were before the Internet.
. . . when they sat in the bubble-wrapped chairs and the interviewer asked about the chairs' significance, I seriously assumed the archivist was gonna say one of them was the one that Ballmer threw whilst ranting about Google.
That's funny . . . while all of the 800K furloughed gov't workers were getting paid vacations because the idiots in Congress couldn't (and still can't) agree on anything, my (privately owned) small business hired two new folks and signed a multi-year lease to triple our square footage. We *worked* while they sat around and did squat. A huge chunk of our productivity is being siphoned off to pay for the decisions of these entitled, rich, elitist, sociopathic jerks -- not only the less innocuous ones like shutting down the gov't, but big ones like wars and domestic spying. So spare me with the "inept private business" bullshit -- we're not the ones that have had all consequences removed from our lives. If I don't work, I don't eat.
And you should be aware that blue states also gerrymander . . . Maryland is a perfect example, which has several of the most gerrymandered districts in the entire nation and gladly subverts its citizens' rights right to fair representation just as fast as Texas.
For 95% of what people take pictures of in the real world, yeah, a camera built into a smart phone is probably good enough. However, if you're shooting:
* Stuff that moves fast
* Stuff you want to print really, really big (over 4 feet across)
* Stuff that needs to be color-accurate
* Stuff where you want to control what part of the image is in focus
Then you need something like a DSLR with a real shutter & aperture and honkin' big sensor, and hopefully expensive lenses that can take advantage of all of the above. Spending $200 on a hands-on photography class will have much more impact for most people than spending the money on an expensive camera, and then hoping you getting better results when you push the button (which ain't happening).
Those of us who breed responsibly and only buy shit we can afford have very little sympathy for this point of view. And there's no reason to whore yourself out these days for evil in order to fill an empty resume -- this isn't post-Dot Com nuclear winter, not in the tech sector anyway. In summary, what you describe is the very reason our country is fucked up at this point. Folks who are willing to rationalize evil and immoral deeds for personal gain, at the expense of everyone else and our Constitutional rights, ABSOLUTELY are the problem.
That's how this tax was sold, and the justification used to pass it. Sounds like you're OK with the gov't lying to its citizens as long as it's a net-positive according to them, e.g., the NSA dragnet spying on US Citizens?
It makes sense if the revenue collected actually goes to fix the problem you describe. In Maryland's case, the State fought tooth and nail to make sure that it doesn't have to. There is no designated fund or trust for this massive amount of money being collected from MD taxpayers, which means that, as is evidenced by decades of historical precedent, only a tiny fraction of it (if any) will actually be used for what it's supposed to be used for. See also the blatant theft from the MD Transportation Fund by both parties for decades as further proof of what WILL happen to this new revenue. As a Marylander, I'll gladly pay to "Save the Bay!" if that's what they actually did with my money . . . but this is yet another scam in a long series of scams foisted on the MD taxpayers.
Ah, queue the apologists. California's not broke thanks to St. Jerry's "balanced budget" shenanigans, right? You think a 300K increase in a state of 37 million is a huge increase? And how many of those new 300K people are illegal aliens versus income tax-paying US citizens actually moving there to start a business? How many small business owners and those who were actually paying the highest income taxes and the highest gas taxes in the country (while being rewarded with with the fourth-highest unemployment rate), simply threw in the towel and left for TX, NV, and FL? How is that "growth" helping to pay the crippling $1 trillion in total gov't debt that the Bear Republic owes?
I have no problem with paying taxes to fund something -- but the gov't damn well better use the money it takes from me to do EXACTLY what it's supposed to. The problem arises when the politicians say they'll use the funds for X, but there's nothing in the new tax that actually REQUIRES them to spend the new revenue on X, so they piss it away on pet projects and favors owed to the special interests who got them elected, and come back the next year and say, "we're still broke, and still need to fix X." That's the same as theft in my book. Social Security would easily be self-funding if the goddamn politicians stopped stealing from it!
Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property
It's worse than that. As a Marylander (not for long because of this type of nonsense), I can also tell you that the rain tax, like most other taxes rammed through in the last five years or so, does NOT have to go towards saving the Chesapeake Bay (the justification used to pass it). The revenue goes into the state's general fund, where it is pissed away by the politicians to do things like give state loans to sports bars. This is a huge reason why states like CA, MD, and MA are destroying their tax bases as people and businesses flee by the millions to more tax-friendly states.
Once they can no longer innovate, as slaves to Wall Street they must they grow revenues and user bases through rent-seeking behavior. Microsoft: Windows and Office. Adobe: Creative Suite. Intuit: QuickBooks. Look at how they all add absolutely nothing in terms of new features while forcing their users to buy into a new SaaS "subscription" model so they can keep selling them the same thing forever.
Bull fucking shit. I own a technology company and I'd hire this guy in a second, and there are thousands of other business owners like me across the country who would do exactly the same. He's got more integrity and courage than just about anyone I've ever met.
Slashdot Mirror
"Students of the Code.org tutorials have written 507,152,775 lines of code.
So *that's* how they fixed the ACA website. ;-)
The real problem there is there are a few Congress people that are on the NSA's side
Not just a few . . . a bipartisan majority.
Bullshit. The leftist "big gov't is always right" crowd wants to nail him just as much. How dare he have the audacity to paint the result of the granting of unchecked Federal power in a negative light to the serfs?
This is NOT a left- or right-wing issue. Both parties gleefully hate your freedoms and civil liberties and take turns shitting on the Constitution while playing people against one another with wedge issues like abortion, gay rights, and illegal immigration. And people like you who put the blame on one side but not the other are part of the problem.
You are bound to the city by the choice you made (to become a father) and by your own morals, not by some law of the land. Legally, you can get up and leave right now . . . but of course, there are consequences. For childless folks (and even for some folks with kids), it can indeed be that easy to move, whenever and wherever you want . . . I've done it many times. I'm not judging -- just pointing out a huge distinction.
This means you can be absolutely ruthless with the price . . . you can get the same thing anywhere else. Do your homework online and find the price that people are actually paying, and call every dealer within 150 miles and ask for their best price. Start playing them against each other, and eventually, one will work with you -- typically towards the end of the quarter when they're all trying to make their number, or at the end of a model year when they have excess inventory. If you don't get exactly what you want from a certain dealer, tell them to pound sand and walk. They prey on most folks' discomfort with the negotiation process -- you need to turn the tables on them and be a little opportunistic, but you can save many thousands if you do so.
Traditional car dealerships are owned by wealthy, powerful folks who've managed to preserve their monopoly via lobbying their local and state legislatures to force the auto manufacturers to sell thru the dealer chain. This forced "3 tier" system (a lot like the others many states enforce on commodities which throw off a lot of tax revenue, like alcohol, where a chosen few are granted a limited number of licenses) does nothing to help the consumer -- instead, it limits choice and artificially drives up the price. There's no practical reason for these laws in 2013, yet we still have them. I'm hoping that companies like this one and Tesla manage to disrupt the obsolete, 20th Century business model, but I have my doubts.
...as all of the other security theater they spend billions / year on. Why stop with SPOT? How many terr'rists have been caught by body scanners versus good old metal detectors? How many terr'rists have been caught by Freedom Gropes? Oh, I get it, travelers don't actually see SPOT in action. Carry on.
If you think the NSA isn't building a massive database of what metadata belongs to what person, you're painfully naive. They've lied at every turn -- their leader even lied under oath to a Congressional panel. Why would you ever believe them when tell you they're *not* doing something?
Because we (used to) have a reasonable expectation that private conversations would remain private, and in the 21st Century, things like phone calls are needed to, well, live. There's no fucking reason the NSA needs metadata about my call to Grandma. It's private and I don't want them to have it. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. And decades of horrible precedent have distorted the meaning of "legal" so that the 4th Amendment is able to be ignored by anyone in gov't who wishes to do so. It's time to start over.
Do not discount the impact of the Internet on the declining use of traditional mail services, or the fact that almost half of what is delivered is junk mail, almost all of which just gets thrown away. You can't only blame privatization while completely ignoring the most significant advance in communications technology in human history. Let's face it -- traditional mail services just aren't important as they were before the Internet.
. . . when they sat in the bubble-wrapped chairs and the interviewer asked about the chairs' significance, I seriously assumed the archivist was gonna say one of them was the one that Ballmer threw whilst ranting about Google.
As a gov't employee, you have the most ironic Slashdot username ever. :-)
That's funny . . . while all of the 800K furloughed gov't workers were getting paid vacations because the idiots in Congress couldn't (and still can't) agree on anything, my (privately owned) small business hired two new folks and signed a multi-year lease to triple our square footage. We *worked* while they sat around and did squat. A huge chunk of our productivity is being siphoned off to pay for the decisions of these entitled, rich, elitist, sociopathic jerks -- not only the less innocuous ones like shutting down the gov't, but big ones like wars and domestic spying. So spare me with the "inept private business" bullshit -- we're not the ones that have had all consequences removed from our lives. If I don't work, I don't eat.
. . . last time one of my friends visited Tokyo, he spent two hours (jokingly) asking directions to the Godzilla Victims Memorial. ;-)
And you should be aware that blue states also gerrymander . . . Maryland is a perfect example, which has several of the most gerrymandered districts in the entire nation and gladly subverts its citizens' rights right to fair representation just as fast as Texas.
For 95% of what people take pictures of in the real world, yeah, a camera built into a smart phone is probably good enough. However, if you're shooting:
Then you need something like a DSLR with a real shutter & aperture and honkin' big sensor, and hopefully expensive lenses that can take advantage of all of the above. Spending $200 on a hands-on photography class will have much more impact for most people than spending the money on an expensive camera, and then hoping you getting better results when you push the button (which ain't happening).
Those of us who breed responsibly and only buy shit we can afford have very little sympathy for this point of view. And there's no reason to whore yourself out these days for evil in order to fill an empty resume -- this isn't post-Dot Com nuclear winter, not in the tech sector anyway. In summary, what you describe is the very reason our country is fucked up at this point. Folks who are willing to rationalize evil and immoral deeds for personal gain, at the expense of everyone else and our Constitutional rights, ABSOLUTELY are the problem.
That's how this tax was sold, and the justification used to pass it. Sounds like you're OK with the gov't lying to its citizens as long as it's a net-positive according to them, e.g., the NSA dragnet spying on US Citizens?
It makes sense if the revenue collected actually goes to fix the problem you describe. In Maryland's case, the State fought tooth and nail to make sure that it doesn't have to. There is no designated fund or trust for this massive amount of money being collected from MD taxpayers, which means that, as is evidenced by decades of historical precedent, only a tiny fraction of it (if any) will actually be used for what it's supposed to be used for. See also the blatant theft from the MD Transportation Fund by both parties for decades as further proof of what WILL happen to this new revenue. As a Marylander, I'll gladly pay to "Save the Bay!" if that's what they actually did with my money . . . but this is yet another scam in a long series of scams foisted on the MD taxpayers.
Ah, queue the apologists. California's not broke thanks to St. Jerry's "balanced budget" shenanigans, right? You think a 300K increase in a state of 37 million is a huge increase? And how many of those new 300K people are illegal aliens versus income tax-paying US citizens actually moving there to start a business? How many small business owners and those who were actually paying the highest income taxes and the highest gas taxes in the country (while being rewarded with with the fourth-highest unemployment rate), simply threw in the towel and left for TX, NV, and FL? How is that "growth" helping to pay the crippling $1 trillion in total gov't debt that the Bear Republic owes?
I have no problem with paying taxes to fund something -- but the gov't damn well better use the money it takes from me to do EXACTLY what it's supposed to. The problem arises when the politicians say they'll use the funds for X, but there's nothing in the new tax that actually REQUIRES them to spend the new revenue on X, so they piss it away on pet projects and favors owed to the special interests who got them elected, and come back the next year and say, "we're still broke, and still need to fix X." That's the same as theft in my book. Social Security would easily be self-funding if the goddamn politicians stopped stealing from it!
Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property
It's worse than that. As a Marylander (not for long because of this type of nonsense), I can also tell you that the rain tax, like most other taxes rammed through in the last five years or so, does NOT have to go towards saving the Chesapeake Bay (the justification used to pass it). The revenue goes into the state's general fund, where it is pissed away by the politicians to do things like give state loans to sports bars. This is a huge reason why states like CA, MD, and MA are destroying their tax bases as people and businesses flee by the millions to more tax-friendly states.
Once they can no longer innovate, as slaves to Wall Street they must they grow revenues and user bases through rent-seeking behavior. Microsoft: Windows and Office. Adobe: Creative Suite. Intuit: QuickBooks. Look at how they all add absolutely nothing in terms of new features while forcing their users to buy into a new SaaS "subscription" model so they can keep selling them the same thing forever.
Achieving this goal depends not just on secret courts and secret congressional hearings
What's the goal -- having a police state? There NO place for secret courts and secret Congressional hearings in a free society.
Bull fucking shit. I own a technology company and I'd hire this guy in a second, and there are thousands of other business owners like me across the country who would do exactly the same. He's got more integrity and courage than just about anyone I've ever met.