Slashdot Mirror


User: Shakrai

Shakrai's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
12,853
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 12,853

  1. Re:externality on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    CO2 has nothing to do with polluted air and water. But keep buying the line that a byproduct of life is going to kill us all.

  2. Re:externality on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you lose your job at pollution inc because society has made it unprofitable to pollute the land, that is too fucking bad.

    That's funny, because leftists claim to be all about the working man. It's those evil big business Republicans that are keeping the man down. Our side would never do anything that might screw him over.

    You are a bunch of hypocrites, just so you know.

  3. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    It is evil. Just because it's not as bad as the USSR doesn't mean that it's not evil. Socialism implies the subordination of the individual to the state. The level of that subordination may vary across the different implementations of socialism but it's always there. I regard that as evil. You doubtless disagree. I doubt we'll see eye to eye on this.

    Regarding Sweden and Finland, both are generally considered to be "Social Democrat". Before you hold them up as something that the rest of us should aspire to, it's worth noting that the United States beats both of them for GDP per capita and has a lower suicide rate.....

  4. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    Of course you neglected to mention the fact that socialism invariably shrinks the overall size of the pie....

    "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." -Winston Churchill

  5. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    No it doesn't. The elites still have a larger slice of the pie than everybody else. They are just chosen differently than they would be under a capitalist system.

  6. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So what? The fact that someone makes a lot of money is not sufficient justification for the Government to take almost all of it.

    Aren't leftists big on the concept of equal protection? Explain to me how "progressive" tax structures are compatible with treating everybody equally under the law?

  7. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Make the top marginal rate 90%

    Few people outside of the far-left would regard it as far to take 90% of someone's earnings.

    There are also other creative solutions like making the board of directors of publicly traded companies elected by the workers.

    Yeah that's fair. Take the vote away from the people who put up the money to get the company off the ground. Has it occurred to you that might have unintended consequences, such as discouraging investment?

  8. Re:externality on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    The price goes up and consumption falls. Econ101.

    3. Jobs are lost. Econ101.

  9. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You are painting with an awfully large brush there. The word "bankers" includes everybody from the CEO of Citi to the branch manager of Small Town Bank, Inc. The second guy is not making millions of dollars.

    Besides, who appointed you the arbitrator of how much a profession is "worth"? And what would you do about it? Raise taxes? Cap salaries?

  10. Re:Its a good idea, but must replace Income Tax on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What? You're opposed to eliminating Income Tax?

    Of course they are. Cap and trade isn't about reducing carbon. There's a multitude of ways we could do that without imposing new taxes. Cap and trade is all about creating a new revenue source for Government. Apparently it's not enough that the Government consumes 1/4 of our economy.

  11. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Every resource is "rationed." It just so happens that in Capitalism those with power get more rations than others.

    Interestingly enough it's the same under socialism.......

  12. Re:Same thing on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive.

    That's a rather shortsighted view you have. Has it occurred to you that the banker and stock investor provide the capital needed by the engineer and scientist before they can produce items of value?

  13. Re:externality on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do you believe that you have an inherent right to not have to pay for damage that your actions cause?

    Why do you believe that you have an inherent right to make up a number to determine his "damages"?

  14. Re:How is the porn part relevant? on FTC Takes Out Porn- and Botnet-Spewing ISP · · Score: 1

    That's not allowed on U.S. broadcast television (although I wish it was)

    So what? I was referring to the overall content of our TV shows and commercials. There's definitely a sexual subtext to most mainstream productions these days. Besides, if you want your tits on TV just get HBO. I've seen more sex on The Wire and The Sopranos than I have in most pornos....

  15. Re:Today "malicious content" on FTC Takes Out Porn- and Botnet-Spewing ISP · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If CP was not so regulated and forbidden, there would be a lot less children harmed in the making of it.

    Huh? That argument flies with the War on Drugs because most drug addicts are consenting adults. How does it fly with something that requires sexual behavior on the part of those too young to consent to such activities?

  16. Re:How is the porn part relevant? on FTC Takes Out Porn- and Botnet-Spewing ISP · · Score: 2, Funny

    Because Americans are a bunch of sexually-repressed prudes in public

    Yeah, that's the impression I get from watching American mass media. We are all prudes....

  17. Re: M.A.D. All Over Again on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 1

    Do you think Hitler would have hesitated to launch a nuclear exchange in the last days of WWII

    He never used his chemical weapons. Not even against the untermensch on the Eastern Front, even though the USSR lacked a modern chemical arsenal and would not have been able to retaliate effectively.

  18. Re: all it has to do is damage a warhead on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 5, Informative

    and 1/3 were from a SCUD missile that landed on a barracks after being deflected from its target by a Patriot missile.

    Incorrect. The Dhahran barracks were not hit by a "deflected" missile. No intercept of that incoming Scud was ever attempted. There was a software bug in the Patriot Missile system that caused the system clock to drift. The longer the system was kept running without being restarted the worse the drift got. As a consequence of this the system never detected the incoming threat and no intercept was attempted.

  19. Re:What does PATRIOT stand for? on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 1

    An established nation uses biological warfare. In response the US sends the carriers, the marines, the tanks and kicks 7 kinds of living crap out of them. No nation on this planet can go up against the current US armed forces 1v1.

    I'm sure the tens of thousands of dead Americans will be overjoyed to know that we kicked their ass. The whole point of nuclear weapons is deterrence. The fact that we can kick their asses after the fact is of no comfort to the people who died in the initial attack.

  20. Re:What does PATRIOT stand for? on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nuclear weapons are unquestionably safer and more reliable than biological weapons. They are also an effective deterrent against biological attack, or rather they were until the moron at 1600 Penn Ave announced that we wouldn't use them in response to one.

  21. Re:What does PATRIOT stand for? on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because virii don't mutate between generations or anything. What could possibly go wrong.....

  22. Re:M.A.D. All Over Again on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 0

    Only if they believe we have the stones to retaliate. Our current President recently came out and said "It's ok if you gas us or hit us with biological weapons, we won't nuke you.", thus reversing 50 years of US policy. I'm honestly not sure that he would have the stones to nuke someone. And if I don't believe he would, then why should Beijing or Tehran?

  23. Re:The plight of power on Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous · · Score: 1

    Those who beat swords into plowshares will plow for those that don't.

  24. Re:Crazy talk! on US Supreme Court Upholds Indefinite Confinement · · Score: 1

    You need a hard limit on the age difference. In NYS it's four years. A twenty year old could have sex with a sixteen year old. The twenty-one year old can wait a year. It won't kill him/her.

  25. Re:Scope on US Supreme Court Upholds Indefinite Confinement · · Score: 1

    And?