By the way, you know how the neoconservatives always claim that they never went to college because it's "just liberal brainwashing"? To me, that just screams "Sour grapes".
Do you mean neo-conservatives like Bill Kristol (Harvard), Alan Keyes (Harvard, University of Chicago), Leon Kass (University of Chicago) or Allan Bloom (University of Chicago)? If anything, neo-conservatives are hyper-educated.
Neo-conservatives may be reprehensible, but uneducated they aren't. Most of them were students or professors at some of the most prestigeous universities in America. You ought to read some history of Straussianism and the neo-conservative movement.
Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Yeah? Maybe you should ask Jesus how much those 2 mites actually bought.
2 cents still buys only 2 cents worth of goods, and a million $$ still buys a million $$ worth of goods, regardless of the relative wealth of the giver.
It will be interesting to see if the combination of Amiga, various Unix/Linux distro's and possibly a hacked OSX could actually bring down the cost of the motherboards into something accessible for more mainstream hobbyists / uses. The cost of such small runs is probably a big deal when it comes to What Is Holding Back Amiga Now.
Unfortunately they all run on what amounts to proprietary motherboards, so I don't think you're going to be seeing a benefit from an economy of scale any time soon. OS X won't run on an AmigaOne, AmigaDOS won't run on a Mac, and neither one will run on a Pegasos.
The only one of the motherboards based on an open standard is the Pegasos, but, unfortunately, the only OS's which run on it are the not quite ready for prime-time MorphOS, and PPC Linux. And if you're looking to run PPC Linux, a Mac is still the most cost-effective way to go.
It's a shame Hyperion won't release Amiga OS for an open platform, because that might help drive the market for commodity PPC boards, such as Pegasos, giving the desired economies of scale.
But they won't, and Apple sure won't, so for the foreseeable future the PPC platform is doomed to be a overly-expensive solution in search of a problem.
This is not Soviet Russia. People here have jobs, and we expect them to do them. When something is "the news" we do not expect propaganda, nor do we expect this 3rd-grade relativist "all news is propaganda" bullshit. We can perfectly well tell the difference between CBS and Fox News Network.
Considering it was CBS that was the one that just got busted for making erroneous claims about President Bush's military service record based on fraudulent documents, I'm inclined to agree.
You seem to be ignorant of the history of regulation in American media.
Google the Fairness Doctrine.
You don't seem so well informed yourself.
Google Col. Tom McCormick or William Randolph Hearst.
BTW, the Fairness Doctrine was repealed early in the Reagan Administration, which was a lot longer than 10 years ago. If you are asserting the quality of news coverage has deteriorated in the last 10 years, the Fairness Doctrine couldn't have had anything to do with it.
What's happening now on television and radio is quite new. Things were much better even 10 years ago. Basically, we had a successful conservative-sponsored scheme to eliminate the rules.
That's a load of crap. You still have the same media outlets expressing liberal views that you had 10 years ago, plus some that you didn't have then (i.e. Air America, CNN). Only now, you have additional media presenting the news from a differing perspective. Is allowing people to be exposed to other viewpoints a problem for you?
Private pensions charge many times what national insurance (as we call it here) costs, and a lot of people just can't afford it (it would cut my wages by 30% to have a private pension and I just about get away with paying the rent already).
That makes no sense. Government is already taking 12.5% of your paycheck for Socialist Security, and isn't even investing it for you at a decent rate of return, yet you claim it would cost you 30% of your paycheck to invest it in something which would give you a considerably higher rate of return, even a no-risk investment like certificates of deposit.
Why can't you take that 12.5% and invest yourself?
If you can't afford to save it yourself, how can you afford to have the government take it out and save it for you?
Those seniors have a reasonable expectation that the system they pay into is going to provide for them when they need it; they would not have contributed had it been suggested that they would be no benefits.
What you mean is, those seniors, in their youth, before I was born, voted for politicians to take my money to subsidize their retirement.
Well, excuse me, but I have a real problem with that. And now that I've been born, and I'm old to vote, I'm voting "Hell, no!".
Sorry, but I can't muster a whole lot of sympathy for a generation of opportunistic geezers who cynically voted themselves a cushy retirement out of the pockets of people who hadn't even been born yet. Let 'em starve on the streets, and serve as an example for all time of what happens to people who cynically attempt to use government as a means for living out of other people's pockets.
Private investment for retirement isn't a bad thing; people are free to do that if they choose. It also means risk however. Social Security reduces risk, but offers a lower rate of return. Think of it as an insurance policy.
Tell me about that the day a private insurance company forces me to buy insurance I don't want under threat of fines and imprisonment.
Yes, and the brain is merely an agregate of neurons.
Yep. And your point?
I was saying that if markets allowed us to take into account all of the factors, and not just the bottom-line dollars and cents, we would have much more sensible outcomes.
Kindly define "sensible outcome". As dollars and cents are merely storage media for value, spending them on a thing obviously indicates somebody places a value on that thing. Apparently you are chagrined because what most people find valuable isn't what you find valuable. I submit that is your problem, not "society's".
Markets don't take into account the full range of our preferences, but actually serve to constrain our preferences to the bottom line of dollars and cents economics.
Markets take into account the full range of our preferences that can be serviced by others profitably. That is, there is sufficient demand for that commodity that it's worth someone else's time and energy to satisfy that preference. If your preferences include smoking cigars made out of ragweed, it is unlikely there is sufficient demand that someone else will bother to manufacture them. But the fact that you have bizarre tastes in cigars does not constitute an obligation on anyone else's part to produce them. You are perfectly welcome to produce them yourself, of course.
That's "freedom".
Yes, it is. As I said before, there's no constraint on you attempting to accommodate your preferences by your own means. To expect others to accommodate your preferences to their own detriment isn't "freedom", it's demanding an entitlement. There's a distinction between "freedom" and "entitlement" that you're missing here.
The reason why it's important to have women as faculty (and other important positions in society) is because even though we might lose some productivity if she chooses to have kids, we gain quite a bit by having a society that is more egalitarian.
Exactly, what do "we" gain by having a more egalitarian society? And who's "we", Kimosabe? I don't remember granting anyone permission to speak on behalf of my interests.
I just love you for-the-good-of-society types who apparently define society as "everyone but you".
The problem is markets. Markets have two roles, buyer and seller. They force people to think only in terms of what they, as individuals, will gain, rather than the greater social effects of a decision. While Universities may not participate in markets directly, they are still impacted by market pressures, and as a result end up having to think about the bottom line, despite their institutional inclination to think about wider ramifications. This is a problem, because the bottom line for an individual is NOT the same as the bottom line for society.
You seem to be able to ignore the fact that your beloved "society" is merely an aggregate of individuals. So when a aggregate of individuals though mechanisms such as markets expresses their preferences, then "society" has made a made a value judgement concerning what it considers to be it's bottom line. What makes your judgement about what's "good for society" better than their's?
As far as I can see the FCC's push to penalize "indecency" on the airwaves has two motivations. It pleases right wing X-tians, who are too fucking stupid to change the channel on their TV or radio or turn the thing off, and it transfers money out of the pockets of broadcasters and into the coffers of the FCC.
You're missing something here. It's also encouraging the obsolescence of broadcast TV and radio, which the FCC regulates, in favor of cable/satellite TV and radio, which it doesn't.
What better, and more politically palatable, way to deregulate than to obsolete regulated industries?
This is just to impress the Luddite Moral Minority who think this something your can slap some red warning tape on and it'll go away.
ROFL!!!
Actually, it's probably to impress the tree-huggers and vegans - Blagojevich is only slightly to the Left of Stalin.
Maybe you should RTFA:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich is proposing to make it a misdemeanor for businesses to sell violent and sexually explicit video games to minors, a step that other states have tried with little success.
When allergy medication and breast cancer treatments are being sold for 1/3 the price here than in the states, and the drug companies are still making a profit(they wouldn't sell here otherwise), you're being ripped off in the worst way -- with a gun to your head.
Yes, they do make a profit in Canada. And they can afford to sell them cheaper in Canada because they make the bulk of their profits in the US.
If the US implements price controls, what do you think is going to happen to your drug prices? Do you think the drug companies are going to tolerate taking a loss? Don't kid yourself, they're going to make it up somewhere. Guess where.
And, I'll point out, ~50% of new drugs introduced annually are developed in the United States.
Why do you think those companies that develop those drugs are based in the US rather than Canada?
I'll give you a clue: for the same reason there are a hell of a lot more doctors emigrating to the United States from Canada than the other way around.
Actually, I wish they would introduce price controls in the US, so it would force countries like Canada to finally start paying their fair share of the development costs of these drugs.
Seriously!!! After getting shot in my 91 CRX by two thugs high on LCD, PCP, and drunk, I called the cops from a store as soon as I fled the scene. It took 30 minutes. 30 fucking minutes before I got a call back from a COP in the area through his CB radio (patched in through 911)!
Being old enough to remember a time before there was a 911, I'm inclined to agree. Response times tended to be quicker when you just called the police directly yourself, without having to fool around with 911.
I seem to recall Jesus talking a lot about helping the poor, loving one's neighbor, turning the other cheek, etc. That all still sounds pretty liberal to me...
Show me where Jesus said government should be doing those things.
I don't remember the part where he went to Rome to petition Ceaser to tax the rich for social programs.
Bottom line, if the kids don't care and the parents don't care, then no amount of funding is going to result in an educated student. Funding (at least to some extent) is a necessary but not sufficent condition for education. Eventually you reach a point where additional funding hits diminishing returns and eventually near zero returns on the dollar. Why not at least let the poor parents and kids who CARE about their education have a chance at a good school? Are you "leaving kids behind"? Sure, but almost all of them wouldn't have been educated under the current system either.
No, but we will be stuck with the bill to lock them up when the useless students become useless criminals. Education is way cheaper than incarceration.
Since we've already established that that's where the useless students are ending up anyway, what's the point of spending the additional funds pretending we're giving them an education?
for such a liberating site like slashdot, since it promotes awesome rebellious operating systems like linux and unix, how could you vote for someone like bush? i almost feel that someone who uses linux, and is passionate about it, as far as its origin, and current day-to-day use, is very contradictory to their political beliefs, and is therefore quite the tard..
Well, it's like this. I didn't vote for either Bush or Kerry, and truthfully, there aren't really any major differences between them.
That said, I kind of hope Bush wins because:
a.) He has a cooler proposal for the future of the space program, and
b.) There's nothing funnier than an angry liberal, and if Bush wins, there will be lots of angry liberals!
OK, do I deserve to have I (who have no kids) deserve to have my money taken from me and given to everyone who has kids, just so they can go to public schools, at all? No, but I give it freely because I believe that when everyone in our country is more educated, our economy does better, and everyone is better off.
This is such a screwball statement on so many levels, I hardly know where to start. But here goes:
a.) If you think you're "freely giving" your money, try not giving it, and find out how "free" you are.
b.) Nobody has a problem with your "freely giving" anything that legitimately belongs to you for any cause you feel is worthy of your support. I have a slightly bigger problem with your proposal to force others support what you consider to be "worthy causes". Who the fuck are you to be deciding what other people's priorities should be?
c.) Are you saying that if government didn't force us to pay for public education, most people wouldn't pay to have their children educated anyway? Does the government have to force people to feed and clothe their children, too?
I know that I am a good member of the community of Americans
Actually, you sound more like a self-righteous wiener.
I willingly support people who do not have the same advantages that I have now.
Well, bully for you! But, as I asked before, where the fuck do you get off deciding what other people's priorities should be?
I paid my own way through college (well, I'm still paying it off), and didn't use Federal grants,
Good for you! Now, why shouldn't everybody else that wants an education do the same?
but I certainly would have if I had been eligible.
Why do I have no problem believing that?
I, unlike some, didn't rely on my parents to do anything for me. I don't think it's their responsiblity to do jack squat for me.
If it isn't your parents responsibility to do jack squat for you, then why is it the taxpayers? After all, the taxpayers didn't tell your parents to have kids. They took that responsibility upon themselves on their own initiative.
BUT, if a student needs federal assistence to go to college, get a good, high-paying job, and start paying taxes, then he'll more than pay for his own college education in the long run.
I hate to break this to you, but simply providing education will not magically create jobs out of thin air. Those jobs will still exist, whether or not a specific individual is qualified to fill them. If candidate A isn't qualified to fill a certain position, candidate B will fill the position.
Education does exactly nothing to increase the number of jobs available. You may note, we have a problem with unemployment, not over-employment. Ergo, the number of candidates for jobs already exceeds the number jobs available.
You know, you probably benefit from your tax dollars more than you can ever imagine.
Like, for instance, the sugar subsidy, which keeps the price of sugar artificially high, costing consumers, according to the GAO, approximately 2 billion $$ a year?
You drive, I'll assume, so you probably use highways.
The fact that I drive doesn't necessarily mean I have to approve of how highways are funded. I'd be perfectly happy to fund highways through gas taxes, which would charge people who used the highways proportionate to their use of them.
I might also point out that by subsidizing the construction of the federal interstate system, the federal government went into competition with the private railroad companies, which now are forced to rely upon, you guessed it, government subsidies to stay in business.
If that education you paid for yourself had included a few classes in economics, you might understand these things.
We have dozens, if not hundreds, of products that are the result of the space program, government funded research, and military spendin
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By the way, you know how the neoconservatives always claim that they never went to college because it's "just liberal brainwashing"? To me, that just screams "Sour grapes".
Do you mean neo-conservatives like Bill Kristol (Harvard), Alan Keyes (Harvard, University of Chicago), Leon Kass (University of Chicago) or Allan Bloom (University of Chicago)? If anything, neo-conservatives are hyper-educated.
Neo-conservatives may be reprehensible, but uneducated they aren't. Most of them were students or professors at some of the most prestigeous universities in America. You ought to read some history of Straussianism and the neo-conservative movement.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Religious Right?
Don't trust scientists, but do trust the scientific process, because it doesn't trust anyone.
I think people got in a stir over this because it is not the first case of this administration pushing facts around, and pushing scientists around.
And that's any different from Bill Clinton and the WHO pushing around the "facts" on second-hand cigarette smoke in support of their agendas - how?
Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Yeah? Maybe you should ask Jesus how much those 2 mites actually bought.
2 cents still buys only 2 cents worth of goods, and a million $$ still buys a million $$ worth of goods, regardless of the relative wealth of the giver.
It will be interesting to see if the combination of Amiga, various Unix/Linux distro's and possibly a hacked OSX could actually bring down the cost of the motherboards into something accessible for more mainstream hobbyists / uses. The cost of such small runs is probably a big deal when it comes to What Is Holding Back Amiga Now.
Unfortunately they all run on what amounts to proprietary motherboards, so I don't think you're going to be seeing a benefit from an economy of scale any time soon. OS X won't run on an AmigaOne, AmigaDOS won't run on a Mac, and neither one will run on a Pegasos.
The only one of the motherboards based on an open standard is the Pegasos, but, unfortunately, the only OS's which run on it are the not quite ready for prime-time MorphOS, and PPC Linux. And if you're looking to run PPC Linux, a Mac is still the most cost-effective way to go.
It's a shame Hyperion won't release Amiga OS for an open platform, because that might help drive the market for commodity PPC boards, such as Pegasos, giving the desired economies of scale.
But they won't, and Apple sure won't, so for the foreseeable future the PPC platform is doomed to be a overly-expensive solution in search of a problem.
It just happens that the large large majority of this country thnks Social Security is a fantastic idea, and love to pay into it.
t y% 20November%206.htm
BULLSHIT!!!
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Social%20Securi
This is not Soviet Russia. People here have jobs, and we expect them to do them. When something is "the news" we do not expect propaganda, nor do we expect this 3rd-grade relativist "all news is propaganda" bullshit. We can perfectly well tell the difference between CBS and Fox News Network.
Considering it was CBS that was the one that just got busted for making erroneous claims about President Bush's military service record based on fraudulent documents, I'm inclined to agree.
You seem to be ignorant of the history of regulation in American media.
Google the Fairness Doctrine.
You don't seem so well informed yourself.
Google Col. Tom McCormick or William Randolph Hearst.
BTW, the Fairness Doctrine was repealed early in the Reagan Administration, which was a lot longer than 10 years ago. If you are asserting the quality of news coverage has deteriorated in the last 10 years, the Fairness Doctrine couldn't have had anything to do with it.
What's happening now on television and radio is quite new. Things were much better even 10 years ago. Basically, we had a successful conservative-sponsored scheme to eliminate the rules.
That's a load of crap. You still have the same media outlets expressing liberal views that you had 10 years ago, plus some that you didn't have then (i.e. Air America, CNN). Only now, you have additional media presenting the news from a differing perspective. Is allowing people to be exposed to other viewpoints a problem for you?
Private pensions charge many times what national insurance (as we call it here) costs, and a lot of people just can't afford it (it would cut my wages by 30% to have a private pension and I just about get away with paying the rent already).
That makes no sense. Government is already taking 12.5% of your paycheck for Socialist Security, and isn't even investing it for you at a decent rate of return, yet you claim it would cost you 30% of your paycheck to invest it in something which would give you a considerably higher rate of return, even a no-risk investment like certificates of deposit.
Why can't you take that 12.5% and invest yourself?
If you can't afford to save it yourself, how can you afford to have the government take it out and save it for you?
Those seniors have a reasonable expectation that the system they pay into is going to provide for them when they need it; they would not have contributed had it been suggested that they would be no benefits.
What you mean is, those seniors, in their youth, before I was born, voted for politicians to take my money to subsidize their retirement.
Well, excuse me, but I have a real problem with that. And now that I've been born, and I'm old to vote, I'm voting "Hell, no!".
Sorry, but I can't muster a whole lot of sympathy for a generation of opportunistic geezers who cynically voted themselves a cushy retirement out of the pockets of people who hadn't even been born yet. Let 'em starve on the streets, and serve as an example for all time of what happens to people who cynically attempt to use government as a means for living out of other people's pockets.
Private investment for retirement isn't a bad thing; people are free to do that if they choose. It also means risk however. Social Security reduces risk, but offers a lower rate of return. Think of it as an insurance policy.
Tell me about that the day a private insurance company forces me to buy insurance I don't want under threat of fines and imprisonment.
Yes, and the brain is merely an agregate of neurons.
Yep. And your point?
I was saying that if markets allowed us to take into account all of the factors, and not just the bottom-line dollars and cents, we would have much more sensible outcomes.
Kindly define "sensible outcome". As dollars and cents are merely storage media for value, spending them on a thing obviously indicates somebody places a value on that thing. Apparently you are chagrined because what most people find valuable isn't what you find valuable. I submit that is your problem, not "society's".
Markets don't take into account the full range of our preferences, but actually serve to constrain our preferences to the bottom line of dollars and cents economics.
Markets take into account the full range of our preferences that can be serviced by others profitably. That is, there is sufficient demand for that commodity that it's worth someone else's time and energy to satisfy that preference. If your preferences include smoking cigars made out of ragweed, it is unlikely there is sufficient demand that someone else will bother to manufacture them. But the fact that you have bizarre tastes in cigars does not constitute an obligation on anyone else's part to produce them. You are perfectly welcome to produce them yourself, of course.
That's "freedom".
Yes, it is. As I said before, there's no constraint on you attempting to accommodate your preferences by your own means. To expect others to accommodate your preferences to their own detriment isn't "freedom", it's demanding an entitlement. There's a distinction between "freedom" and "entitlement" that you're missing here.
The reason why it's important to have women as faculty (and other important positions in society) is because even though we might lose some productivity if she chooses to have kids, we gain quite a bit by having a society that is more egalitarian.
Exactly, what do "we" gain by having a more egalitarian society? And who's "we", Kimosabe? I don't remember granting anyone permission to speak on behalf of my interests.
I just love you for-the-good-of-society types who apparently define society as "everyone but you".
The problem is markets. Markets have two roles, buyer and seller. They force people to think only in terms of what they, as individuals, will gain, rather than the greater social effects of a decision. While Universities may not participate in markets directly, they are still impacted by market pressures, and as a result end up having to think about the bottom line, despite their institutional inclination to think about wider ramifications. This is a problem, because the bottom line for an individual is NOT the same as the bottom line for society.
You seem to be able to ignore the fact that your beloved "society" is merely an aggregate of individuals. So when a aggregate of individuals though mechanisms such as markets expresses their preferences, then "society" has made a made a value judgement concerning what it considers to be it's bottom line. What makes your judgement about what's "good for society" better than their's?
Shouldn't preventing pollution of the environment be quite important to missions to other planets?
By the time there are tourist trips to Mars, the place will be ruined...
I agree... let's immediately send all our environmentalists to Mars to take care of it! Let 'em do what they do best!
I thought GW was a Massachusetts boy who moved south? A Pseudo-Texan, if you will.
Actually, he's from New Haven, Connecticut.
Don't let the Texas drawl fool you, they don't come any more Yankee than the Bush family.
That's a Rockefeller Republican if ever I saw one.
As far as I can see the FCC's push to penalize "indecency" on the airwaves has two motivations. It pleases right wing X-tians, who are too fucking stupid to change the channel on their TV or radio or turn the thing off, and it transfers money out of the pockets of broadcasters and into the coffers of the FCC.
You're missing something here. It's also encouraging the obsolescence of broadcast TV and radio, which the FCC regulates, in favor of cable/satellite TV and radio, which it doesn't.
What better, and more politically palatable, way to deregulate than to obsolete regulated industries?
There's a method to the madness here.
This is just to impress the Luddite Moral Minority who think this something your can slap some red warning tape on and it'll go away.
ROFL!!!
Actually, it's probably to impress the tree-huggers and vegans - Blagojevich is only slightly to the Left of Stalin.
Maybe you should RTFA:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich is proposing to make it a misdemeanor for businesses to sell violent and sexually explicit video games to minors, a step that other states have tried with little success.
When allergy medication and breast cancer treatments are being sold for 1/3 the price here than in the states, and the drug companies are still making a profit(they wouldn't sell here otherwise), you're being ripped off in the worst way -- with a gun to your head.
Yes, they do make a profit in Canada. And they can afford to sell them cheaper in Canada because they make the bulk of their profits in the US.
If the US implements price controls, what do you think is going to happen to your drug prices? Do you think the drug companies are going to tolerate taking a loss? Don't kid yourself, they're going to make it up somewhere. Guess where.
And, I'll point out, ~50% of new drugs introduced annually are developed in the United States.
Why do you think those companies that develop those drugs are based in the US rather than Canada?
I'll give you a clue: for the same reason there are a hell of a lot more doctors emigrating to the United States from Canada than the other way around.
Actually, I wish they would introduce price controls in the US, so it would force countries like Canada to finally start paying their fair share of the development costs of these drugs.
You're right - this is a stupid discussion.
Don't we pay for these products and services? How exactly is making profit on sales "giving something back"?
Why do you you pay for them? Obviously, because you want those products and services more than you want your money.
See? You get something you want (goods and services), and they get something they want (money).
What makes you think you're entitled to anything else?
It's about time we stopped letting Corporations milk the country dry, and give something back from all they take.
Ummm, I think they do give something back for all they take. It's called "products and services".
Ever heard of 'em?
Seriously!!! After getting shot in my 91 CRX by two thugs high on LCD, PCP, and drunk, I called the cops from a store as soon as I fled the scene. It took 30 minutes. 30 fucking minutes before I got a call back from a COP in the area through his CB radio (patched in through 911)!
Being old enough to remember a time before there was a 911, I'm inclined to agree. Response times tended to be quicker when you just called the police directly yourself, without having to fool around with 911.
This could be a blessing in disguise.
I seem to recall Jesus talking a lot about helping the poor, loving one's neighbor, turning the other cheek, etc. That all still sounds pretty liberal to me...
Show me where Jesus said government should be doing those things.
I don't remember the part where he went to Rome to petition Ceaser to tax the rich for social programs.
Bottom line, if the kids don't care and the parents don't care, then no amount of funding is going to result in an educated student. Funding (at least to some extent) is a necessary but not sufficent condition for education. Eventually you reach a point where additional funding hits diminishing returns and eventually near zero returns on the dollar. Why not at least let the poor parents and kids who CARE about their education have a chance at a good school? Are you "leaving kids behind"? Sure, but almost all of them wouldn't have been educated under the current system either.
Finally, someone who gets it!
Thank you!
No, but we will be stuck with the bill to lock them up when the useless students become useless criminals. Education is way cheaper than incarceration.
Since we've already established that that's where the useless students are ending up anyway, what's the point of spending the additional funds pretending we're giving them an education?
Do you honestly think privitization will solve anything?
Do you think kids who don't do their homework in public school will do it in private school?
Do you think parents who don't go to public school PTA meetings, will go to private school ones?
Probably not, but at least the taxpayers won't be stuck with the bill for attempting to educate useless students.
for such a liberating site like slashdot, since it promotes awesome rebellious operating systems like linux and unix, how could you vote for someone like bush? i almost feel that someone who uses linux, and is passionate about it, as far as its origin, and current day-to-day use, is very contradictory to their political beliefs, and is therefore quite the tard..
Well, it's like this. I didn't vote for either Bush or Kerry, and truthfully, there aren't really any major differences between them.
That said, I kind of hope Bush wins because:
a.) He has a cooler proposal for the future of the space program, and
b.) There's nothing funnier than an angry liberal, and if Bush wins, there will be lots of angry liberals!
Hey, it ain't much, but it's something!
Darpanet, HEARD OF IT?
Funded by the government. Precursor of the internet.
Government handout.
And exactly how many people derived a benefit from it until it was opened up to commercial interests?
Very, very few.
OK, do I deserve to have I (who have no kids) deserve to have my money taken from me and given to everyone who has kids, just so they can go to public schools, at all? No, but I give it freely because I believe that when everyone in our country is more educated, our economy does better, and everyone is better off.
This is such a screwball statement on so many levels, I hardly know where to start. But here goes:
a.) If you think you're "freely giving" your money, try not giving it, and find out how "free" you are.
b.) Nobody has a problem with your "freely giving" anything that legitimately belongs to you for any cause you feel is worthy of your support. I have a slightly bigger problem with your proposal to force others support what you consider to be "worthy causes". Who the fuck are you to be deciding what other people's priorities should be?
c.) Are you saying that if government didn't force us to pay for public education, most people wouldn't pay to have their children educated anyway? Does the government have to force people to feed and clothe their children, too?
I know that I am a good member of the community of Americans
Actually, you sound more like a self-righteous wiener.
I willingly support people who do not have the same advantages that I have now.
Well, bully for you! But, as I asked before, where the fuck do you get off deciding what other people's priorities should be?
I paid my own way through college (well, I'm still paying it off), and didn't use Federal grants,
Good for you! Now, why shouldn't everybody else that wants an education do the same?
but I certainly would have if I had been eligible.
Why do I have no problem believing that?
I, unlike some, didn't rely on my parents to do anything for me. I don't think it's their responsiblity to do jack squat for me.
If it isn't your parents responsibility to do jack squat for you, then why is it the taxpayers? After all, the taxpayers didn't tell your parents to have kids. They took that responsibility upon themselves on their own initiative.
BUT, if a student needs federal assistence to go to college, get a good, high-paying job, and start paying taxes, then he'll more than pay for his own college education in the long run.
I hate to break this to you, but simply providing education will not magically create jobs out of thin air. Those jobs will still exist, whether or not a specific individual is qualified to fill them. If candidate A isn't qualified to fill a certain position, candidate B will fill the position.
Education does exactly nothing to increase the number of jobs available. You may note, we have a problem with unemployment, not over-employment. Ergo, the number of candidates for jobs already exceeds the number jobs available.
You know, you probably benefit from your tax dollars more than you can ever imagine.
Like, for instance, the sugar subsidy, which keeps the price of sugar artificially high, costing consumers, according to the GAO, approximately 2 billion $$ a year?
You drive, I'll assume, so you probably use highways.
The fact that I drive doesn't necessarily mean I have to approve of how highways are funded. I'd be perfectly happy to fund highways through gas taxes, which would charge people who used the highways proportionate to their use of them.
I might also point out that by subsidizing the construction of the federal interstate system, the federal government went into competition with the private railroad companies, which now are forced to rely upon, you guessed it, government subsidies to stay in business.
If that education you paid for yourself had included a few classes in economics, you might understand these things.
We have dozens, if not hundreds, of products that are the result of the space program, government funded research, and military spendin