If at any point in this process (say you stop it at 50%) the 'waste' is now weapons grade this will never be allowed in the US.
That's the dumbest fucking policy we've ever come up with and yet another reason that Jimmy Carter ranks up there with worst Presidents we've ever had. How does preventing our own country from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel do a damn thing to prevent nuclear proliferation? Other countries can (and indeed do) pursue reprocessing. We've handicapped ourselves for zero gain as far as I can see. Thanks a lot Mr. Carter.
<sarcasm>But at least we've stopped GE and Westinghouse from going rouge and building their own nuclear arsenals</sarcasm>
Sometime between next week and the end of your life.
Should I e-mail the bill for my financial consulting services to 'Satanicpuppy@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]' or do you have an alternate address you would like me to use?
Ah, I'd forgotten about that one. Yeah that was pretty cheesy. They did actually manage such a feat in Iceland once upon a time. Of course it took millions of gallons of water (far more then you'd get from fire trucks) and they didn't stop the lava flow -- all they did was divert it from a harbor that they were trying to save.
The Bush people just wanted to press a belief in the Unitary Executive and had a rubber stamp cowardly Congress to effect it.
I don't think the problem is a 'cowardly' Congress per say. That Congress (with much the same leadership and members) had no problem standing up to Clinton when he was POTUS. I think the problem with Congress is one of a problem with political parties -- the GOP Congress was all too happy to rubber stamp most of GWB's agenda. Think they would have rubber stamped the same policies if it was a Democrat President pushing for them?
So, the assertion is that Lincoln's a monster for suspending habeas in an area getting ready to rebel?
I don't think he's a "monster" per-say but it's rather hard to deny the fact that he effectively ended the sovereignty of the individual states and vastly expanded the power of the Federal Government. It's up to the reader to decide whether or not that's a good thing.
My grandpappy stayed on this mountain, and I'll be damned if I'm going to leave it! I'm staying righ#@$#@%$NO CARRIER
Ok, so we've got someone who is unwilling to evacuate. Check. Now all we need is a fairly attractive MILF who may sire the future leader of the human resistance^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wis the mayor of a small town. Oh and Pierce Brosnan too. Can't forget him. Add those two things in and I think we've got ourselves a movie;)
(Bonus points for adding in a family dog that will survive all manner of bad situations even as the humans around him are dropping like flies)
The Constitution doesn't explicitly say that the power to suspend habeas is given to the Legislature
I should think that's implied, given that the restriction on suspending it is located in Article I (The Legislative Branch), Section 9 (Limits on Congress)
I find your views both unpatriotic and regressive.
I won't argue with you either way on 'regressive' but I'd love to hear an explanation for why it's 'unpatriotic' to tell you that your opinion of our President is higher than warranted.
Don't you know how slow things move with the government?
Ding, ding, ding, mod parent up. Whether or love Obama or hate him expecting real change on a ship the size of the Federal Government in ten days is pretty unrealistic.
At the time AMPS was dropped, cell phones were pretty much toys for rich people.
-1, factually incorrect. AMPS wasn't dropped until February of 2008. I think most would agree that cell phones were a commodity item for at least a few years prior to that date.
Third, if someone can not afford these boxes it does not make them "too cheap"
The parent already said that he has $40,000 worth of automobiles. If you can afford $40,000 worth of automobiles you can afford a $60 converter box.
Second, you are not paying for this out of your tax dollars! The money is a distribution of the profits from the sale of the spectrum. If you think the money is better spent by being dumped into the general fund, that's certainly one option and one opinion. But that does not mean you're paying for these boses.
Yes it does. If the money went into the general fund the Government wouldn't have to borrow as much or collect as much in taxes (assuming no increase in spending, which never happens but that's another discussion)
Maybe you'll be poor someday and too cheap to upgrade equipment.
If your that poor how'd you afford the TV in the first place? And what makes you think these converter boxes would be so expensive if it wasn't for the coupon program? Has it occurred to you that free money tends to drive up the cost of products?
Of course you would prefer to hand-out no money, and instead waste it on Obama's inauguration party
The only thing the taxpayers ponied up for with the inauguration was security. The parties were all funded with private donations. If you bothered to actually research our system of government that you think owes you a converter box you might actually know these things.
The governemnt exists to SERVE us, not to DESTROY our homes or our equipement & make it worhtless junk\
Are you really getting so mad at me that you can't type out a sentence correctly?
Damn communist; you hate the people and wish to enslave them as puppets to the politicians,
Hahahahaha the guy who wants the Government to give him a hand-out is calling me a communist! That's really rich. Do you even know what communism is?
I will shoot you in the head before I will give up my freedom
Your "freedom" to do what? Not have to pay $60 for a converter box? Which part of the Bill of Rights is that in again? Which part of the Magna Carta and Common Law addressed DTV upgrade boxes and said the sovereign was responsible for providing them?
"From time to time the Tree of Lbierty must be watered with the blood of tyrants [like Shakrai]" - Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson would find your reliance on the Government pretty troubling.
I also like being able to watch the news & tornado warnings. I would be pissed if I was stuck with a blank TV, and a tornado came-along and killed me
Yeah, if only there was another way to get tornado warnings. TV is actually a bad way to get a tornado warning. What happens if one hits when you aren't watching TV? If you live in an area where tornadoes are likely then you should have an emergency weather radio. I suppose you think the government should buy you one of those too, right?
government decided to spend the money on some dumb statue or Bush/Obama inauguration party
Wow, your "knowledge" of our Government continues to amuse me. The inauguration parties were all funded with private donations, not tax dollars.
instead of helping me upgrade.
I'm still waiting to hear an explanation for how it is that you are able to afford $40,000 worth of motor vehicles but a $60 converter box is an undue hardship.
If you had your way, 60 million people would receive NO coupons and be without television
No, if I had my way 60 million people would have to pony up the money themselves instead of making me pay for it. Bit of a difference there.
Yoju are a dman cold-hearterd osn ogf a bvithc!~!! Like Saddam or Bin LAden
Yes, questioning the wisdom of handing out free coupons is exactly the same as murdering 3,000 people or gassing your own population. I hope you are joking because if you are serious then I think your meds need to be adjusted.
Nope. It's the Verizon, Google, and other companies that purchased channels 52 to 69 who are paying to upgrade TVs to receive DTV channels 2 to 51.
Ah, you just really don't understand a thing do you? Let me help you out:
The Government sells Verizon some spectrum for $100. That $100 goes into the general fund. Now the Government decides to give out coupons and spends $20 on them. Ergo, now the Government is $20 poorer and that $20 is going to come from somewhere.
I do have to say that I appreciate the irony of the fact that I'm paying for your converter boxes. Apparently you can spend $40,000+ on your motor vehicle(s) but not $60 on a converter box. Excuse me now, I'm gonna go write my Congressman a letter and see if I can get me some Government cash for my old AMPS cell phone. It really won't be costing them any money, I mean Verizon did pay for all those PCS licenses back in the day......
Technically it's the Verizon, Yahoo, and other companies who bought channels 52 to 69 who are paying to upgrade my set to get DTV channels 2 to 51. This has been stated several times in this thread.
No, technically the Government is using the money gained from the sale of spectrum licenses to pay for those coupons, money that could presumably be used for other things if we didn't feel the need to give so many hand-outs to people. Care to place a friendly wager on what will happen to the price of those converter boxes once the coupon program is put out to pasture? I'm willing to bet it goes down.
And whose fault is that? Government. Therefore they should fix my 3000 dollars worth of TVs, VCRs, DVRs so they stop receiving static & instead receive video again. (If they don't, I would make sure they don't get reelected in 2010.)
If you are so passionate about this issue you should have kept them from getting reelected before your elected representatives passed this policy.
Well they are MY airwaves. The air belongs to the People, collectively, and the owners certainly have a right to use their property.
Yes, and the people have (through their elected representatives) decided that it's good policy to transition those airwaves to a more efficient technology. What you seem to be forgetting is that there are 300,000,000 or so people in this country and only a small number of them are impacted by this change. Why should the majority of us have to open our pocketbooks to pay for something for the minority of you that rely on OTA broadcasts and are too cheap to pay for your own equipment?
If that meant I could no longer drive my $40,000 worth of cars on the highways
You have $40,000 worth of cars and you are whining about a $60 converter box?
As is their right according to the Declaration of Independence
Have you actually read the Declaration of Independence? You realize you are equating a $60 converter box to a distant Monarch that refused local representation and "plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people". I think you need to step away from the keyboard and gain a little perspective here.
Why don't people just cough up the $60 lousy dollars and realize it's not the job of the government to bail you out because technology has changed? I used to have a perfectly functional AMPS cell phone that is a paperweight now because the FCC allowed the carriers to discontinue the service. Where's my coupon for a new phone?
Slashdot Mirror
If at any point in this process (say you stop it at 50%) the 'waste' is now weapons grade this will never be allowed in the US.
That's the dumbest fucking policy we've ever come up with and yet another reason that Jimmy Carter ranks up there with worst Presidents we've ever had. How does preventing our own country from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel do a damn thing to prevent nuclear proliferation? Other countries can (and indeed do) pursue reprocessing. We've handicapped ourselves for zero gain as far as I can see. Thanks a lot Mr. Carter.
<sarcasm>But at least we've stopped GE and Westinghouse from going rouge and building their own nuclear arsenals</sarcasm>
can you tell me when my 401k is going to rebound?
Sometime between next week and the end of your life.
Should I e-mail the bill for my financial consulting services to 'Satanicpuppy@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]' or do you have an alternate address you would like me to use?
Ah, I'd forgotten about that one. Yeah that was pretty cheesy. They did actually manage such a feat in Iceland once upon a time. Of course it took millions of gallons of water (far more then you'd get from fire trucks) and they didn't stop the lava flow -- all they did was divert it from a harbor that they were trying to save.
The Bush people just wanted to press a belief in the Unitary Executive and had a rubber stamp cowardly Congress to effect it.
I don't think the problem is a 'cowardly' Congress per say. That Congress (with much the same leadership and members) had no problem standing up to Clinton when he was POTUS. I think the problem with Congress is one of a problem with political parties -- the GOP Congress was all too happy to rubber stamp most of GWB's agenda. Think they would have rubber stamped the same policies if it was a Democrat President pushing for them?
So, the assertion is that Lincoln's a monster for suspending habeas in an area getting ready to rebel?
I don't think he's a "monster" per-say but it's rather hard to deny the fact that he effectively ended the sovereignty of the individual states and vastly expanded the power of the Federal Government. It's up to the reader to decide whether or not that's a good thing.
It's more like the underground Molemen are pissed off
Crab people. Crab people. Taste like crab, talk like people. Crab people. Crab people.......
My grandpappy stayed on this mountain, and I'll be damned if I'm going to leave it! I'm staying righ#@$#@%$NO CARRIER
Ok, so we've got someone who is unwilling to evacuate. Check. Now all we need is a fairly attractive MILF who may sire the future leader of the human resistance^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wis the mayor of a small town. Oh and Pierce Brosnan too. Can't forget him. Add those two things in and I think we've got ourselves a movie ;)
(Bonus points for adding in a family dog that will survive all manner of bad situations even as the humans around him are dropping like flies)
So then I'm going to come back to my previous question: Where's my coupon for a replacement/converter box for my AMPS cell phone?
The Constitution doesn't explicitly say that the power to suspend habeas is given to the Legislature
I should think that's implied, given that the restriction on suspending it is located in Article I (The Legislative Branch), Section 9 (Limits on Congress)
I find your views both unpatriotic and regressive.
I won't argue with you either way on 'regressive' but I'd love to hear an explanation for why it's 'unpatriotic' to tell you that your opinion of our President is higher than warranted.
Second, does the friggin' Telecom Immunity Bill ring a bell?
Good thing Obama filibustered that thing like he promise.... oh, never mind.....
Don't you know how slow things move with the government?
Ding, ding, ding, mod parent up. Whether or love Obama or hate him expecting real change on a ship the size of the Federal Government in ten days is pretty unrealistic.
At the time AMPS was dropped, cell phones were pretty much toys for rich people.
-1, factually incorrect. AMPS wasn't dropped until February of 2008. I think most would agree that cell phones were a commodity item for at least a few years prior to that date.
Third, if someone can not afford these boxes it does not make them "too cheap"
The parent already said that he has $40,000 worth of automobiles. If you can afford $40,000 worth of automobiles you can afford a $60 converter box.
Second, you are not paying for this out of your tax dollars! The money is a distribution of the profits from the sale of the spectrum. If you think the money is better spent by being dumped into the general fund, that's certainly one option and one opinion. But that does not mean you're paying for these boses.
Yes it does. If the money went into the general fund the Government wouldn't have to borrow as much or collect as much in taxes (assuming no increase in spending, which never happens but that's another discussion)
Maybe you'll be poor someday and too cheap to upgrade equipment.
If your that poor how'd you afford the TV in the first place? And what makes you think these converter boxes would be so expensive if it wasn't for the coupon program? Has it occurred to you that free money tends to drive up the cost of products?
Of course you would prefer to hand-out no money, and instead waste it on Obama's inauguration party
The only thing the taxpayers ponied up for with the inauguration was security. The parties were all funded with private donations. If you bothered to actually research our system of government that you think owes you a converter box you might actually know these things.
The governemnt exists to SERVE us, not to DESTROY our homes or our equipement & make it worhtless junk\
Are you really getting so mad at me that you can't type out a sentence correctly?
Damn communist; you hate the people and wish to enslave them as puppets to the politicians,
Hahahahaha the guy who wants the Government to give him a hand-out is calling me a communist! That's really rich. Do you even know what communism is?
I will shoot you in the head before I will give up my freedom
Your "freedom" to do what? Not have to pay $60 for a converter box? Which part of the Bill of Rights is that in again? Which part of the Magna Carta and Common Law addressed DTV upgrade boxes and said the sovereign was responsible for providing them?
"From time to time the Tree of Lbierty must be watered with the blood of tyrants [like Shakrai]" - Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson would find your reliance on the Government pretty troubling.
I also like being able to watch the news & tornado warnings. I would be pissed if I was stuck with a blank TV, and a tornado came-along and killed me
Yeah, if only there was another way to get tornado warnings. TV is actually a bad way to get a tornado warning. What happens if one hits when you aren't watching TV? If you live in an area where tornadoes are likely then you should have an emergency weather radio. I suppose you think the government should buy you one of those too, right?
government decided to spend the money on some dumb statue or Bush/Obama inauguration party
Wow, your "knowledge" of our Government continues to amuse me. The inauguration parties were all funded with private donations, not tax dollars.
instead of helping me upgrade.
I'm still waiting to hear an explanation for how it is that you are able to afford $40,000 worth of motor vehicles but a $60 converter box is an undue hardship.
If you had your way, 60 million people would receive NO coupons and be without television
No, if I had my way 60 million people would have to pony up the money themselves instead of making me pay for it. Bit of a difference there.
Yoju are a dman cold-hearterd osn ogf a bvithc!~!! Like Saddam or Bin LAden
Yes, questioning the wisdom of handing out free coupons is exactly the same as murdering 3,000 people or gassing your own population. I hope you are joking because if you are serious then I think your meds need to be adjusted.
Nope. It's the Verizon, Google, and other companies that purchased channels 52 to 69 who are paying to upgrade TVs to receive DTV channels 2 to 51.
Ah, you just really don't understand a thing do you? Let me help you out:
The Government sells Verizon some spectrum for $100. That $100 goes into the general fund. Now the Government decides to give out coupons and spends $20 on them. Ergo, now the Government is $20 poorer and that $20 is going to come from somewhere.
I do have to say that I appreciate the irony of the fact that I'm paying for your converter boxes. Apparently you can spend $40,000+ on your motor vehicle(s) but not $60 on a converter box. Excuse me now, I'm gonna go write my Congressman a letter and see if I can get me some Government cash for my old AMPS cell phone. It really won't be costing them any money, I mean Verizon did pay for all those PCS licenses back in the day......
so stop bitching & saying that the coupons should not be handed out.
Haha, the one who is gonna start a revolution over the DTV upgrade is accusing me of bitching. That's pretty rich :)
Technically it's the Verizon, Yahoo, and other companies who bought channels 52 to 69 who are paying to upgrade my set to get DTV channels 2 to 51. This has been stated several times in this thread.
No, technically the Government is using the money gained from the sale of spectrum licenses to pay for those coupons, money that could presumably be used for other things if we didn't feel the need to give so many hand-outs to people. Care to place a friendly wager on what will happen to the price of those converter boxes once the coupon program is put out to pasture? I'm willing to bet it goes down.
They created the problem, so my neighbors can damn well pay for the solution!
Fixed that for you.
And whose fault is that? Government. Therefore they should fix my 3000 dollars worth of TVs, VCRs, DVRs so they stop receiving static & instead receive video again. (If they don't, I would make sure they don't get reelected in 2010.)
If you are so passionate about this issue you should have kept them from getting reelected before your elected representatives passed this policy.
Well they are MY airwaves. The air belongs to the People, collectively, and the owners certainly have a right to use their property.
Yes, and the people have (through their elected representatives) decided that it's good policy to transition those airwaves to a more efficient technology. What you seem to be forgetting is that there are 300,000,000 or so people in this country and only a small number of them are impacted by this change. Why should the majority of us have to open our pocketbooks to pay for something for the minority of you that rely on OTA broadcasts and are too cheap to pay for your own equipment?
If that meant I could no longer drive my $40,000 worth of cars on the highways
You have $40,000 worth of cars and you are whining about a $60 converter box?
As is their right according to the Declaration of Independence
Have you actually read the Declaration of Independence? You realize you are equating a $60 converter box to a distant Monarch that refused local representation and "plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people". I think you need to step away from the keyboard and gain a little perspective here.
So because your television maker doesn't have an upgrade program I should have to pay for your converter box?
The person at fault should be the one who pays, and the government is clearly at fault.
So where's my check for my AMPS cell phone then? How do I join this gravy train?
Unless they are trying to hear the latest news about the local winter storm...
Yeah, if only alternative methods exisited to provide that critical information.
Why didn't the Gov't just create a tax credit?
Why don't people just cough up the $60 lousy dollars and realize it's not the job of the government to bail you out because technology has changed? I used to have a perfectly functional AMPS cell phone that is a paperweight now because the FCC allowed the carriers to discontinue the service. Where's my coupon for a new phone?