How about we start with the fact that your senior MALE engineer doesn't disappear for several months (with pay) in the middle of a big crunch so he can be a daddy.
I'm sorry but I think you've mistaken the United States for a Nordic Social Democracy or something. If a new parent (male or female) receives several months off with pay that's a benefit willingly provided their employer so it stands to reason they're not going to bellyache about it. The only benefit employers are mandated to offer in the United States is provided for by the Family Medical Leave Act. Mom is entitled to no more than 12 weeks off work, without pay, and that's only if she works for a company with >=50 employees. Kudos to her employer if they offer more than that but they're not required to do so.
I could contrast this experience with the foreign country I'm most familiar with (Finland) but it doesn't look very good for the United States. Different culture and country of course, I doubt we could ever match what they offer, but we certainly could do a lot better than we're doing right now....
I think it's funny that people are surprised that burglaries are skyrocketing in Seattle (and to a lesser extent the rest of Washington). Legalized drugs and outlawed firearms has consistently lead to property crimes
Outlawed firearms? Washington has shall issue concealed carry and relatively liberal (by American standards) firearm laws. It's not exactly Utah but it ain't New York either....
I said logistical support; I didn't claim that we flew more sorties than they did. They needed access to American force multiplers, i.e., air-to-air refueling assets, communications assets, underway replenishment ships, and so on. That was originally to be the extent of our intervention but it expanded beyond that and I believe we did in fact fly more sorties than the British or French. It's hard to find definitive numbers on this since the mission was flown under NATO auspices and the sorties aren't broken out by member in any of the information I've been able to find, they're just listed as "NATO sorties."
Ultimately I don't really care who flew more sorties; I was just pointing out the fact that even the British and French lack the ability to wage an extended campaign beyond their shores without support from the United States. I could tweak British pride further by pointing out that the operation to recover the Falklands would have likewise failed without American logistical support and the British military of 1980 had a lot more capability than the British military of 2014. If that were to happen again today the UK would be royally screwed, they've let their capabilities atrophy that badly.
With few exceptions European countries just don't see the value of investing in defense. NATO members commit to spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense but only five out of twenty eight members (the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, France, Turkey, and Estonia) actually live up to this obligation. Most of the members of NATO can't even defend themselves, much less contribute to collective defense, and the situation is even worse if you look at the military capabilities of non-NATO EU members.
You don't even have to say "fuck the children." How about "fuck the athletics program?" I wonder what kind of connectivity that new AstroTurf field could have paid for? Or the new stadium that surrounds it, complete with lighting system that would have been the envy of a minor league sports team just a few years ago. I remember playing in the mud with spectators that had to sit on portable bleachers and games being called because we ran out of daylight.
In reality there's more important things than uber high speed broadband, like student to teacher ratio, but I think most would agree both are more important than a bloody football field that primarily benefits a small percentage of the student population. PE is important -- look at the American obesity rate -- but one can teach healthy exercise habits without needing an eight digit venue for the occasion.
ISIS is a graver threat to European countries who are content to keep their hands clean.
They're content to keep their hands clean? Europe has joined the air campaign against ISIS. They'll doubtless join the ground campaign that's coming sooner or later, regardless of what our President thinks.
America must not be in the business of policing the entire world.
We're not in the business of policing the entire world. For better or worse we are in the business of policing the Middle East. The reasons for this are too lengthy to describe in a/. post but if you have a plan to extricate us that doesn't leave our critical interests vulnerable (or those of our Allies) I'd love to hear it. So would the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; hell, if his hesitation is any indication he'd like to hear it more than I would. Smarter people than you and I have tried and failed to come up with better solutions than the status quo.
The whole world must be arrayed against them.
The powers that be are working on that but the pig-headed isolationism evidenced in many of the comments here (not yours) is the wrong way to go about doing it. The United States is the indispensable nation. We're the only country with the ability to project meaningful amounts of power beyond our borders; the UK and France couldn't even manage an extended bombing campaign against a third world country without logistical support from the United States. The United States can't solve this problem alone but neither can the world solve it without the United States.
To have a right to do something is not the same as being right in doing it. I hope you at least understand that much.
So now you're going to condemn the news media for having the audacity to report what's going on in Syria? This from the person who professes to care about civil liberties? This just gets richer and richer....
Unfortunately, there is no way to stop warmongering media pundits
You realize I linked to a Frontline PBS piece, right? I've heard a lot of criticism of PBS but warmongering is a new one.....
So show people some emotional imagery to manipulate them into supporting world police nonsense
You're really quite hilarious, do you know that? You ceaselessly whine about civil liberties, without actually understanding how they work in the United States and then you compound that by whining about the emotional imagery that has been shown to the American people by the free press. You do realize that ISIS filmed their executions of American citizens and released it to the world, right? It was picked up by every news agency in existence. What's your best suggestion for counteracting this horrible manipulation of our body politic?
despite the fact that you claimed to be anti-war
Please link to the comment where I claimed to be anti-war or admit that you're putting words in my mouth.
Idealistic answer: We shouldn't be fine with anyone doing it.
Cynical answer: African warlords haven't used the gruesome execution of American's (and American Allies) for propaganda purposes.
Ignore those who say they used to be our ally in Syria and we were sending them weapons and aid.
Who said that? One of the reasons we were reluctant to send aid to the so-called moderates was because we were afraid it would fall into the hands of groups like ISIS. In retrospect that was probably a mistake; of course one could go further back and say that it was a mistake to help destabilize Assad in the first place. Devil you know and all that. Did you happen to catch Assad's interview with Charlie Rose? He called this happening; he may be a scumbag but he knew his country better than we ever did. Realpolitik might have been the best play, though it's a bit late for that at this stage.
Incidentally, they're not just our enemy; they're enemies of all of civilization. You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing? Go watch this, assuming you have the stomach to get through it. They're barbarians and they need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
If you can't get behind the moral imperative to intervene, well, they've killed multiple American citizens and that's all the casus belli we need.
I hope you appreciate the irony of whining about the judicial system while simultaneously advocating in favor of summary executions without trial....:)
So your complaint is that the current guy hasn't catered to your pet issues? Welcome to the fucking club dude.
Don't vote for him or his party if that's how you feel. Just don't try and claim with a straight face that there's no difference between the two major parties. There are significant differences on issues large and small. If neither one of them caters to your pet issue(s) you're welcome to vote for someone who does.
He's still bombing other countries and wants to send some troupes in.
That might have something to do with the American citizens that keep getting their heads cut off. If you think there's any President that would behave any differently you're sadly mistaken. If anything I don't think he's going far enough with those sickos; go watch this, if you can stomach it. Watch how they shoot bound and helpless people as nonchalantly as you would step on a spider. That organization is as close to pure evil as I've seen in my lifetime and if our President had the balls to actually do what needs to be done I would be the first one lining up to go over there and help kill them.
Actually I don't really care for the guy; I'm just pointing out the very obvious differences between him and his predecessor (whom I didn't care much for either, FYI)
Yes, and that difference is who is getting paid. That is literally the only difference.
Have you read through your auto insurance policy? I don't know how Canada works but in the United States it almost certainly contains an exclusion for using your vehicle for hire. Which means if you get into an accident your paying passengers are completely screwed. Does Uber require their drivers to carry livery insurance? Do they verify this so I know you actually have it when you pull up to get me? Do they do background checks on their drivers or am I rolling the dice on climbing into the car with a violent sex offender?
I'm not a fan of regulatory capture (see my previous posts in this thread) but let us at least be balanced enough to acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns about Uber that need to be addressed by someone.
The current administration pushed for and got a massive change of 1/6 of the economy, pulled us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, has appointed dozens (hundreds?) of like minded Federal Judges that will be around for decades, and is pushing through environmental regulations that wouldn't have seen the light of day under the previous administration. But sure, other than those minor issues the policy hasn't changed one damned bit.
Really, really, really tired of hearing this claim. Love or hate our political system and the two dominant players it's laughable on the surface to claim that the policy doesn't change between the two. If you really believe that just stay home and take your ill informed opinion out of the electorate. No sense in making a well informed voter wait any long in line just so you can bellyache about there being no changes in policy.
It's called regulatory capture. Government initially regulated transportation for hire for legitimate safety reasons; over decades the regulatory agencies set up for this purpose were captured by the status quo. A balance ensued wherein the safety needs are mostly met and the established players don't have to worry about competition. Now there's a disruptive new player that doesn't want to play by the old rules; this annoys the established players along with the self-important bureaucrats that regulate them. Along the way we've lost sight of the legitimate concerns about safety. In the ideal world we would blow up the existing regulatory apparatus and replace it with a leaner version that would focus on the core mission of ensuring safety without interfering with the natural development of the market.
The same story plays out in a multitude of different markets. George Will writes about it and other examples of crony capitalism/regulatory capture quite frequently. One day a politician will emerge that can actually explain this concept to the masses; this will be a rude surprise for people on both sides of the political aisle who are invested in the status quo. Think of a modern day version of Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting.
Did you bother to read the comment I was replying to?
It talks about SOLAR.
I said that I support solar and find it a worthwhile solution for peak power production. Not so good for base load but TANSTAAFL.
If your only argument is that wind turbines should not be near residential areas, nobody is going to disagree much.
Actually my argument is that they shouldn't be anywhere. Clear cutting 9,000 acres of forest to produce 141 unreliable (vis-a-vis more conventional sources) megawatts of power is not a decent return on investment.
Why are you against market taking its own shape?
We don't have a free market for energy. Every energy source gets subsidies; they're added over time to suit the political winds of the day and rarely removed even when the party opposed to them comes to power. Wind is subsidized more than most. The wind farm I alluded to would not have been constructed without subsidies. Neither would my preferred solution (nuclear fission) for base load power. There are things we could do to improve the role of the free market in energy but at the end of the day it's always going to be subsidized and/or regulated; it's a critical part of the economy with implications for national defense.
It's not totally crap; reducing carbon emissions is a worthwhile goal. The problem is that most of the people who are invested in this issue are so close minded that they tune out reality in favor of whatever solution they've already decided is going to solve all of our problems. This applies to people on both the right and the left. I actually had an argument once upon a time with someone that genuinely believed we could find the political consensus to cover half of Arizona and New Mexico with solar panels. That's "all" we have to do to solve our energy problems. Gee, is that it?
I lived the ugly side of wind and may not be objective because of that, though I'm a few years removed from it and still remain unconvinced that wind is the way to go for anything but niche off-grid applications. The footprint is horrible in every respect, acreage, visually, ecologically. I don't mind looking at solar panels on my neighbor's roof, they're no more or less obnoxious than shingles. Covering every hill top in the Northeast with wind turbines? Thanks, but no thanks.
The current Mayor doesn't support it? You'd think he'd be in favor of anything that would get him home safely from a hard night of drinking and smoking crack cocaine....
There's Uber's motto: Hey, we've gotta be safer than driving under the influence.
Call me whatever you'd like, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
Things got so bad that they couldn't even convict the people that pulled guns on BP employees; they essentially got jury nullification because the DA couldn't find 12 people in the entire county that didn't know someone who had been trodden upon by BP or a subcontractor thereof. My actions paled in comparison to what some people did, and yes, they were passive aggressive. I won't apologize for them either. You live through it and see how long your patience lasts.
If it makes the green people here feel any better that same area is the middle of the Marcellus shale natural gas boom. The gasholes are every bit as obnoxious as the wind people. They do employ more locals than the wind farm, so they're somewhat better tolerated but at the end of the day they're every bit as disruptive to the local life and ecology.
Slashdot Mirror
How about we start with the fact that your senior MALE engineer doesn't disappear for several months (with pay) in the middle of a big crunch so he can be a daddy.
I'm sorry but I think you've mistaken the United States for a Nordic Social Democracy or something. If a new parent (male or female) receives several months off with pay that's a benefit willingly provided their employer so it stands to reason they're not going to bellyache about it. The only benefit employers are mandated to offer in the United States is provided for by the Family Medical Leave Act. Mom is entitled to no more than 12 weeks off work, without pay, and that's only if she works for a company with >=50 employees. Kudos to her employer if they offer more than that but they're not required to do so.
I could contrast this experience with the foreign country I'm most familiar with (Finland) but it doesn't look very good for the United States. Different culture and country of course, I doubt we could ever match what they offer, but we certainly could do a lot better than we're doing right now....
I think it's funny that people are surprised that burglaries are skyrocketing in Seattle (and to a lesser extent the rest of Washington). Legalized drugs and outlawed firearms has consistently lead to property crimes
Outlawed firearms? Washington has shall issue concealed carry and relatively liberal (by American standards) firearm laws. It's not exactly Utah but it ain't New York either....
That should have been six members. I guess I overlooked poor Estonia....
I said logistical support; I didn't claim that we flew more sorties than they did. They needed access to American force multiplers, i.e., air-to-air refueling assets, communications assets, underway replenishment ships, and so on. That was originally to be the extent of our intervention but it expanded beyond that and I believe we did in fact fly more sorties than the British or French. It's hard to find definitive numbers on this since the mission was flown under NATO auspices and the sorties aren't broken out by member in any of the information I've been able to find, they're just listed as "NATO sorties."
Ultimately I don't really care who flew more sorties; I was just pointing out the fact that even the British and French lack the ability to wage an extended campaign beyond their shores without support from the United States. I could tweak British pride further by pointing out that the operation to recover the Falklands would have likewise failed without American logistical support and the British military of 1980 had a lot more capability than the British military of 2014. If that were to happen again today the UK would be royally screwed, they've let their capabilities atrophy that badly.
With few exceptions European countries just don't see the value of investing in defense. NATO members commit to spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense but only five out of twenty eight members (the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, France, Turkey, and Estonia) actually live up to this obligation. Most of the members of NATO can't even defend themselves, much less contribute to collective defense, and the situation is even worse if you look at the military capabilities of non-NATO EU members.
I condemn them for supporting an authoritarian, warmongering agenda. If they merely stopped at reporting the facts, there would be little problem.
It's PBS dude. You're reaching even by your standards. I think we're done here. Have fun tilting at windmills.
You don't even have to say "fuck the children." How about "fuck the athletics program?" I wonder what kind of connectivity that new AstroTurf field could have paid for? Or the new stadium that surrounds it, complete with lighting system that would have been the envy of a minor league sports team just a few years ago. I remember playing in the mud with spectators that had to sit on portable bleachers and games being called because we ran out of daylight.
In reality there's more important things than uber high speed broadband, like student to teacher ratio, but I think most would agree both are more important than a bloody football field that primarily benefits a small percentage of the student population. PE is important -- look at the American obesity rate -- but one can teach healthy exercise habits without needing an eight digit venue for the occasion.
ISIS is a graver threat to European countries who are content to keep their hands clean.
They're content to keep their hands clean? Europe has joined the air campaign against ISIS. They'll doubtless join the ground campaign that's coming sooner or later, regardless of what our President thinks.
America must not be in the business of policing the entire world.
We're not in the business of policing the entire world. For better or worse we are in the business of policing the Middle East. The reasons for this are too lengthy to describe in a /. post but if you have a plan to extricate us that doesn't leave our critical interests vulnerable (or those of our Allies) I'd love to hear it. So would the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; hell, if his hesitation is any indication he'd like to hear it more than I would. Smarter people than you and I have tried and failed to come up with better solutions than the status quo.
The whole world must be arrayed against them.
The powers that be are working on that but the pig-headed isolationism evidenced in many of the comments here (not yours) is the wrong way to go about doing it. The United States is the indispensable nation. We're the only country with the ability to project meaningful amounts of power beyond our borders; the UK and France couldn't even manage an extended bombing campaign against a third world country without logistical support from the United States. The United States can't solve this problem alone but neither can the world solve it without the United States.
Excuse me, but where did I advocate for terminating all Sunnis? I advocating for terminating ISIS. There is a difference you know.
Obligatory Godwin time: Not all Germans were members of the SS.
To have a right to do something is not the same as being right in doing it. I hope you at least understand that much.
So now you're going to condemn the news media for having the audacity to report what's going on in Syria? This from the person who professes to care about civil liberties? This just gets richer and richer....
Unfortunately, there is no way to stop warmongering media pundits
You realize I linked to a Frontline PBS piece, right? I've heard a lot of criticism of PBS but warmongering is a new one.....
So show people some emotional imagery to manipulate them into supporting world police nonsense
You're really quite hilarious, do you know that? You ceaselessly whine about civil liberties, without actually understanding how they work in the United States and then you compound that by whining about the emotional imagery that has been shown to the American people by the free press. You do realize that ISIS filmed their executions of American citizens and released it to the world, right? It was picked up by every news agency in existence. What's your best suggestion for counteracting this horrible manipulation of our body politic?
despite the fact that you claimed to be anti-war
Please link to the comment where I claimed to be anti-war or admit that you're putting words in my mouth.
Idealistic answer: We shouldn't be fine with anyone doing it.
Cynical answer: African warlords haven't used the gruesome execution of American's (and American Allies) for propaganda purposes.
Not sure how the continued bulk collection is going to help anyone.
Traffic analysis.
Not saying I agree or disagree with the underlying policy; just saying that historically traffic analysis has proven to be fruitful.
Ignore those who say they used to be our ally in Syria and we were sending them weapons and aid.
Who said that? One of the reasons we were reluctant to send aid to the so-called moderates was because we were afraid it would fall into the hands of groups like ISIS. In retrospect that was probably a mistake; of course one could go further back and say that it was a mistake to help destabilize Assad in the first place. Devil you know and all that. Did you happen to catch Assad's interview with Charlie Rose? He called this happening; he may be a scumbag but he knew his country better than we ever did. Realpolitik might have been the best play, though it's a bit late for that at this stage.
Incidentally, they're not just our enemy; they're enemies of all of civilization. You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing? Go watch this, assuming you have the stomach to get through it. They're barbarians and they need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
If you can't get behind the moral imperative to intervene, well, they've killed multiple American citizens and that's all the casus belli we need.
I hope you appreciate the irony of whining about the judicial system while simultaneously advocating in favor of summary executions without trial.... :)
So your complaint is that the current guy hasn't catered to your pet issues? Welcome to the fucking club dude.
Don't vote for him or his party if that's how you feel. Just don't try and claim with a straight face that there's no difference between the two major parties. There are significant differences on issues large and small. If neither one of them caters to your pet issue(s) you're welcome to vote for someone who does.
He's still bombing other countries and wants to send some troupes in.
That might have something to do with the American citizens that keep getting their heads cut off. If you think there's any President that would behave any differently you're sadly mistaken. If anything I don't think he's going far enough with those sickos; go watch this, if you can stomach it. Watch how they shoot bound and helpless people as nonchalantly as you would step on a spider. That organization is as close to pure evil as I've seen in my lifetime and if our President had the balls to actually do what needs to be done I would be the first one lining up to go over there and help kill them.
You're just a delusion sack of Obama cum.
Actually I don't really care for the guy; I'm just pointing out the very obvious differences between him and his predecessor (whom I didn't care much for either, FYI)
And what do we do with nuclear waste?
Find the political will to approve Yucca for the amount that can't be reprocessed into usable fuel.
If a country of 5.5 million can figure it out surely the country that made nuclear fission practical can do so?
Yes, and that difference is who is getting paid. That is literally the only difference.
Have you read through your auto insurance policy? I don't know how Canada works but in the United States it almost certainly contains an exclusion for using your vehicle for hire. Which means if you get into an accident your paying passengers are completely screwed. Does Uber require their drivers to carry livery insurance? Do they verify this so I know you actually have it when you pull up to get me? Do they do background checks on their drivers or am I rolling the dice on climbing into the car with a violent sex offender?
I'm not a fan of regulatory capture (see my previous posts in this thread) but let us at least be balanced enough to acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns about Uber that need to be addressed by someone.
Faces change, policy doesn't.
The current administration pushed for and got a massive change of 1/6 of the economy, pulled us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, has appointed dozens (hundreds?) of like minded Federal Judges that will be around for decades, and is pushing through environmental regulations that wouldn't have seen the light of day under the previous administration. But sure, other than those minor issues the policy hasn't changed one damned bit.
Really, really, really tired of hearing this claim. Love or hate our political system and the two dominant players it's laughable on the surface to claim that the policy doesn't change between the two. If you really believe that just stay home and take your ill informed opinion out of the electorate. No sense in making a well informed voter wait any long in line just so you can bellyache about there being no changes in policy.
Touche. :)
It's called regulatory capture. Government initially regulated transportation for hire for legitimate safety reasons; over decades the regulatory agencies set up for this purpose were captured by the status quo. A balance ensued wherein the safety needs are mostly met and the established players don't have to worry about competition. Now there's a disruptive new player that doesn't want to play by the old rules; this annoys the established players along with the self-important bureaucrats that regulate them. Along the way we've lost sight of the legitimate concerns about safety. In the ideal world we would blow up the existing regulatory apparatus and replace it with a leaner version that would focus on the core mission of ensuring safety without interfering with the natural development of the market.
The same story plays out in a multitude of different markets. George Will writes about it and other examples of crony capitalism/regulatory capture quite frequently. One day a politician will emerge that can actually explain this concept to the masses; this will be a rude surprise for people on both sides of the political aisle who are invested in the status quo. Think of a modern day version of Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting.
Did you bother reading the article title however?
Did you bother to read the comment I was replying to?
It talks about SOLAR.
I said that I support solar and find it a worthwhile solution for peak power production. Not so good for base load but TANSTAAFL.
If your only argument is that wind turbines should not be near residential areas, nobody is going to disagree much.
Actually my argument is that they shouldn't be anywhere. Clear cutting 9,000 acres of forest to produce 141 unreliable (vis-a-vis more conventional sources) megawatts of power is not a decent return on investment.
Why are you against market taking its own shape?
We don't have a free market for energy. Every energy source gets subsidies; they're added over time to suit the political winds of the day and rarely removed even when the party opposed to them comes to power. Wind is subsidized more than most. The wind farm I alluded to would not have been constructed without subsidies. Neither would my preferred solution (nuclear fission) for base load power. There are things we could do to improve the role of the free market in energy but at the end of the day it's always going to be subsidized and/or regulated; it's a critical part of the economy with implications for national defense.
What are you, a f***ing COMMIE now????!!! :)
Nope, just a realist. :)
It's not totally crap; reducing carbon emissions is a worthwhile goal. The problem is that most of the people who are invested in this issue are so close minded that they tune out reality in favor of whatever solution they've already decided is going to solve all of our problems. This applies to people on both the right and the left. I actually had an argument once upon a time with someone that genuinely believed we could find the political consensus to cover half of Arizona and New Mexico with solar panels. That's "all" we have to do to solve our energy problems. Gee, is that it?
I lived the ugly side of wind and may not be objective because of that, though I'm a few years removed from it and still remain unconvinced that wind is the way to go for anything but niche off-grid applications. The footprint is horrible in every respect, acreage, visually, ecologically. I don't mind looking at solar panels on my neighbor's roof, they're no more or less obnoxious than shingles. Covering every hill top in the Northeast with wind turbines? Thanks, but no thanks.
The current Mayor doesn't support it? You'd think he'd be in favor of anything that would get him home safely from a hard night of drinking and smoking crack cocaine....
There's Uber's motto: Hey, we've gotta be safer than driving under the influence.
Call me whatever you'd like, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
Things got so bad that they couldn't even convict the people that pulled guns on BP employees; they essentially got jury nullification because the DA couldn't find 12 people in the entire county that didn't know someone who had been trodden upon by BP or a subcontractor thereof. My actions paled in comparison to what some people did, and yes, they were passive aggressive. I won't apologize for them either. You live through it and see how long your patience lasts.
If it makes the green people here feel any better that same area is the middle of the Marcellus shale natural gas boom. The gasholes are every bit as obnoxious as the wind people. They do employ more locals than the wind farm, so they're somewhat better tolerated but at the end of the day they're every bit as disruptive to the local life and ecology.