Insurance companies are almost exactly like bookies where you are essentially betting against yourself. They are particularly good bookies in that they very carefully build actuarial tables to help them with the odds.
While gambling in many states is not legal or not legal outside of an Indian reservation, or not legal outside of a particular city, Insurance companies seem to not be considered quite the same thing. They are regulated, with the government (appropriately) requiring that they be able to pay out in all but the most extreme situation (like nuclear war or natural catastrophe).
Part of the "gamble" here is that young people are generally healthy and older people tend to get sick more. Now there are older people who stay very healthy for a long time. My father is a great example, as he lived well into his seventies before he ever saw the inside of any hospital, save to visit someone. Then he had a heart attack that required a stent and is requiring that he take certain medications. His health has declined somewhat, but with proper exercise and as he continues to take prescribed medicine, he should see his 90s.
But this results in a problem. Persons over 65 are not wanted by health insurance companies because their actuarial tables tell them that my father is an exception. They would tend to refuse to cover him and anyone his age because they don't want to lose money.
Enter the government.
The United States decided to take this class of person off the hands of the health insurance companies. They did this for two reasons: Firstly, it is considered a right that you will be able to live your life with some semblance of dignity. In order to create that, the government, in the 1930s created an insurance system that would pay out to persons (then) over 65, a consistent income that would enable them to live with some degree of dignity until they passed away. This is called Social Security. Today, Republicans call it an "Entitlement," and they are trying to make that word into a "dirty word," like they did with "welfare," another insurance program created in the 1930s to give poor people some dignity.
Dignity seems to be a problem with the Republicans nowadays. they would rather make everyone in the Middle Class struggle harder. because when the Middle Class struggles, they occasionally look for someone to blame. And Republicans have learned that, since they only serve large corporations and very rich people, they have to create a pattern of blame so that they can divide the Middle Class. After all, the Middle Class does most of the work (for the large corporations that the Republicans serve) and pay most of the taxes (as a percentage of their income and as an aggregate total of the revenues received by the government). And if they can divide the Middle Class and get them to vote for Republicans, Republicans can serve this minority in the American population (the very wealthy).
So, along come the Democrats, who look at all of the other top economies of the world and they say, "Why don't we have a nationalized system of healthcare that offers Americans some dignity like the other top economies?" And the Republicans launch their "Smoke and Mirrors" campaign to confuse and divide the Middle Class. Because they don't like the Middle Class (or anyone else, save the rich) having any dignity. It goes against the grain. When you have dignity, you can think about how Republican policies will actually affect you. So they launch a campaign, calling this "class warfare," and "Socialism." The hysterics they put on are laughable -- by those with dignity who actually think.
Republicans call this "Big Government" while they want you to ignore the fact that a totally Republican Congress and the Bush Administration just presided over the largest expansion in the Federal Government since FDR with the creation of the "Department of Homeland Security" which is the only civilian federal government agency that is having trouble recruiting people
I would be surprised if the EFF is able to do any decent amount of discovery. The Bush Administration is famous for telling their people to use private e-mail instead of government e-mail. They're also famous for having erased loads of official government e-mail "by accident."
Else, they will say that they cannot release the information they have on the orders they gave to AT&T and other telephone companies because it violates national security.
OK, I read through most of these posts. And it's fairly clear that everyone is taking the Cable companies' views here, so I all ready know how the general community feels here. And you have a right to encourage your town to sue the Telcos to prevent the boxes. In fact, since it's a major election year, I'll bet your town fathers would get all excited if a bunch of you were excited about this.
I use AT&T for my iPhone and I pray every day that I don't have to call their support. They have earned a bad reputation, as have most of the Baby Bells. So I'll bet all of the objections are tied in to a routine knee-jerk hatred of the Bell Companies.
And, for "unsightly," just multiply the satellite antennas all over buildings everywhere. Sure, they're not the size of a refrigerator, but if you sprout multiples on buildings everywhere and especially in high-density areas, you can get all the way over to downright hideous. I would suggest that (in years past) many localities decided that C-Band and the larger K-Band backyard antennas were so unsightly that they passed laws against homeowners having them. I sometimes wonder if cable companies or their employees weren't involved in those town council votes.
So you say you like the Cable companies over the Telcos. Fine. Here's what you do:
Encourage the construction of the "unsightly" Telco boxes. Then, when your town or street is wired up and running, do what I did. Call up your "beloved" Cable company. And tell them line-item for line-item what the Telco's rates are. The Telcos will let you in on this information as soon as they roll out the service (you'll find their offers in the mail and probably on your door). Here's what you will notice: Telcos charge less for television and Internet services. They charge more for telephone services than the Cable companies do. And anyone, whether or not it's Satellite, Cable or Telco will give you an initial discount.
If the Cable Company (that you love so much) is thinking, they'll send you to their "Retention Department." It is after a short discussion with them that I got $20.00 knocked off my cable bill each month for a full year.
And if you never get to your Cable Company's "Retention Department," it's because they have all ready priced themselves below the Telco.
Remember, you need to compare Apples to Apples here. Both the Telcos and the Cable companies are ground-based and they can sell you telephone, television and fast internet, though the Telcos' internet is not usually as fast as the Cable company's.
In the end, it's possible for you and everyone to get a lower rate just because of the competition in the ground-based services. And it's also possible that the differing taxes and regulations will start evening out across the playing field.
Oh, and that "refrigerator?" Looks more beautiful every month I get a discount from my Cable company.
Frankly, I'd rather elect someone who openly admits to behavior that may be in violation of law than someone who obsessively hides from the reality of his or her past. Both Nixon and GW Bush come to mind here.
And I wonder about Senator McCain with respect to admissions. Of course he did admit to wrongdoing with respect to the Savings and Loan scandals as well as other issues of favoritism. I have met Senator McCain and think he's a good man. Haven't met Senator Obama but I have read the thoughts of his he put into his books. Seems like an upstanding American patriot who would strive to do the right thing for America.
But what I cannot believe is that Senator McCain, after all he went through, did not do drugs and did not drink to excess. I lived across the street from a Vietnam veteran who was not imprisoned by the NVA and there were not enough drugs and there was not enough alcohol in the world for him after what he experienced as a draftee. I lived up the street from another who came back a paraplegic, and he regularly drank to excess.
Fact is, what you put on the Internet about yourself is public. So if you don't want someone to take advantage of you or to disparage your character, don't post anything that might be taken wrong. This lawyer was doing what all lawyers do in a very creative (for lawyers) way: He was raising questions as to the man's character before a jury so that the jury would disregard any testimony from him or from anyone who said he had a good character.
Would I be correct in assuming that the total number wasn't strikingly higher?
The school quotes tuition as $3500. With all of the buy-outs, it's $4200 (this year). You have to volunteer for bingo. You have to sell bread, chocolates, raffle tickets, Pre-Christmas shopping tickets, candy and so on. Children are not permitted to work bingo because that's gambling and the State does not allow that so busy parents must carve out time. My issue is that it's "mandatory volunteerism."
My wife was constantly wanting to buy things for her students that we couldn't well afford - we had to frequently chat about which items were luxuries and which were really efficient, reusable tools. And sometimes we bought lumber instead of an expensive finished good and I was assigned to the table saw.
How are her writing skills? Has she and has the school considered writing for grant money from some of the retailers and corporations in your area? Where is the Principal and the Administration? Giving to local schools is seen as a way to expiate corporate sins in the eyes of the consumers who buy from them. I also realize that she is one teacher in a large school and something like this needs to be coordinated. I also realize she's working hard, probably on a Masters degree as well as the daily lesson plans and test grading. Also, I would suggest that she ask parents of children in her class to collect boxtops from the various tissue and cereal makers and send them in with her students. It really takes nothing to collect these things and throw them into an envelope for the school and they do result in some needed cash for the district, if not the school.
Mind you, I am not suggesting your local and state government abdicate its responsibility to our children.
I admit to being ignorant of the specifics of the regional legislative actions, but I do hold out hope for both the teachers and students.
Here is what they did in Delaware and Kansas: The Top-Down approach. The Kansas State School Board redefined "Science" and then bought millions of "science" books that included language that specifically was designed to cast doubt on evolution as a theory, essentially reducing it to the level of hypothesis. Then the Theory of "Intelligent" Design was offered with no aspersions to its validity and introduced as "new" and "perhaps superior." If you study theories on how the planets formed, the new ones tend to be considered the most correct and tend to be presented that way to students. This creates a bias.
[W]e covered spontaneous generation as a theory. We also covered Pasteur's refutation of it.
Thas is how science should work. Students should see widely-accepted theories that have been disproven and read the refutations. I also was informed on another theory of evolution called Lamarckian. We studied the issue of heuristics in hypothesis and how that can prove to be a trap. Sometimes these traps can serve as really advantageous accidents.
I have added you as a friend. I don't think I have any foes on Slashdot -- if there are, they are not of my choosing.
The private school my daughter goes to does not have unionized teachers, so unions are not an issue with the part time versus full time. They simply cannot hire anyone full time.
I agree about the maintenance budget issue. But if you look at town budgets, they frequently "rob Peter to pay Paul." The State I live in has not funded certain pension funds fully. Their plan, if their pension fund doesn't pay for pensions was to take it out of general funds. Yeah, sure. That'll work.
With respect to pensions, corporations tend to be the worst actors, taking themselves through bankruptcy court to renege on their promises to pay their employees. The big movement in business today is to end or reduce "employee welfare," which is the new dirty word.
But I digress...
My daughter's school is "doing the ask" for lots of things. They have mandated volunteerism. Bill, if I don't want to sell candy (something we don't eat) or raffle tickets, I don't want to be made to do that. I do not wish to be "fined" if I don't sell enough for the school. And I do not want my daughter's school training her how to be a salesperson, either. By the end of the year, you're exhausted from all the asking.
So I have asked out principal to allow me to buy out of everything. I told him, please send me a bill for the whole cost of my daughter's education and I shall pay it. we set a little money aside every month for her schooling and we can afford it.
He did so. Now, if the teachers need anything, I get it. Facial tissues? Sam's Club -- mass quantities. Pencils? No problem. Our teachers' salaries are not sufficient for parents to expect them to purchase school supplies on their own. And I know that in some districts, teachers are doing just that.
So we have an education system in one state where not only are the teachers -- on their meager salaries with or without a union -- are purchasing school supplies and also being told to ignore everything they learned about scientific rigor and scientific method and criticize peer-reviewed theory as "not as good as" or "equal to" some airy-fairy nonsense. Thank you, no. I won't pay to remedially-teach their graduates.
At the tail end of this interview, there is a remark here that fits precisely. In short, find out what the top 20 schools are doing right and pay people enough to want to emulate that.
I think you may be lying with statistics when you say that Washington, DC pays more money per pupil than private schools because a lot of what is being spent by that city is to literally rebuild the crumbling infrastructure and that has nothing to do with the education received by the students. Very little of that high cost is going to hire great teachers and very little is used to hire innovative administrators. But these statistics serve to convince many people that a system that has been neglected so long that the buildings are falling down is failing the children.
I send my daughter to a private school in a district with excellent public schools. And the cost is high (I suppose it's doubly high because I am paying taxes as well as the tuition). I am sending her there because it pleases her grandparents who live close and because that private school has to really work hard to attract students where the public schools are very good. But part of the cost of sending her to private school is the infrastructure. They don't pay their teachers as well as they should in my opinion. And they don't because they have infrastructure problems. They need a new roof, a new boiler, two servers for a LAN and other infrastructure needs that are not directly a part of my daughter's education.
Also, I note that the "enrichment courses" are all taught by part-time teachers. This includes art, language (Spanish only) gym, music and so on. In public schools, as long as NCLB is not swamping the curriculum, those courses are taught by full-time teachers.
My case is that science should be taught as science. And I think the Catholic Church knows it is easily to hold an institution up to ridicule for refusing to consider observable events, as their persecution of Copernicus and their inquisition of Galileo have suffered under the test of time.
My comment about the Pope was to counter a number of comments in the forum suggesting that the Catholic Church are in league with the Southern Baptist Convention with regard to science.
Oh, by the way. Today, 11 June, is the anniversary of Congress passing a bill to place the motto "In God We Trust" on our currency. This happened in 1955. But too often the Bible thumpers point to this as defining the United States as a "Christian" nation. The reason why Congress took this step was to oppose "godless Communism" -- not to, somehow, redefine how religion instructs our government. Of course, I would have opposed that then knowing how it would be misinterpreted and understanding that it was proposed by a bunch of fearmongering witless ninnies intent on promulgating a red scare.
If our legislatures want to do something for schools, they should fund them better.
Thanks for the history lesson. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson did not write the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. It is widely attributed to James Madison, who introduced it to Congress on June 8th, 1789.
Madison's proposed amendments to the new US Constitution were based on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, which were introduced into that State's constitution in 1776 and written with Madison's input.
There were twelve initial articles offered to the US Constitution, and ten were ratified right away, with the other two, one on Apportionment has never received the approval of enough states for it to become part of the Constitution and the other on Congressional Pay Raises was not ratified until 1992, when it became the 27th Amendment.
While Thomas Jefferson may have looked on and cheered their passage through Congress and their later ratification by the States, he was, at the time, serving as the first Secretary of State under President George Washington and not involved directly in the passage of bills.
Were I a college or university official selecting students from various national high schools, I would immediately exclude all graduates from the State of Louisiana starting three years hence. This would apply to all fields of study because science, along with reading, writing and mathematics, makes up a central core of educational training essential to High School graduation.
There is one simple reason: The students may not have been taught scientific rigor, that for a hypothesis to be proven it must be supported by observable, repeatable facts. And any science teacher who teaches that "science" permits a hypothesis or theory to be supported by wishing, conjecture, supposition, acts of unobservable forces and so on is not appropriately training students for any future in higher education. And I would have to say that it is not the job of my college or university to teach remedial science to students who ought to have been correctly taught the basics in high school.
I should mention that the Pope has stated that Darwin's theory of evolution [is] compatible with Christian faith. And anyone who has actually read Darwin's Origin Of Species By Natural Selection and The Descent Of Man will quickly come to the conclusion that Charles Darwin was a very religious man and couched his arguments in terms of his own beliefs, but never once deviating from scientific rigor in his statement of his hypothesis.
The Christian wing-nuts who would teach religion as if it were science have managed to confuse the English definition of the word "theory" with the scientific definition of that word. In English, the word allows for considerable uncertainty whereas, in science, a hypothesis becomes a theory only upon rigorous peer review and only when not disproved by physical evidence. During Darwin's lifetime, his book was always seen as a hypothesis and it graduated to the level of theory as actual evidence that supported his statements came rolling in.
There is genetic and physical evidence for Darwin's statements on natural selection. And we have evidence supporting evolution and none, whatsoever, for any other hypothesis for how plants, animals and humans appeared on the earth.
I would urge any college and university admissions offices to consider denying admission to any and all students who have not appropriately learned science, which means they have been taught to not follow the rules of scientific enquiry in schools in Kansas (in the past) and Louisiana (going forward).
Now I'm wanting to take your Physics class. I am a regular editor/contributor to a technical Wiki for a bit of software that does film/video compositing and editing and I find that I retain knowledge very well on the portions I have edited.
First Sale doctrine does not protect software, as Autodesk found out last May. So I would imagine eth 1's former professor is out there busily changing either software or book at the present time.
Some years ago, I had my right knee replaced. I'll have my left one replaced fairly soon as it's beginning to go. This runs in my family. My mother had both knees and both hips replaced and needed her shoulders replaced. The arthritis that causes all of this literally melts cartilage and other joint materials until you're bone-on-bone.
Prior to September 11, 2001, I never set off any Airport scanner. Now, after that date, I always do.
I believe that, according to the general laws of the nation, the English monarch holds the reins in England and rule by the House of Commons descended down the line of the monarchy needing to tax their subjects.
Your queen fled to England, ruling by decree and received no tax revenues and had very little (if any) power over her subjects during the Nazi occupation. She could deplore this, she could encourage that but she had no real power within her realm, save that of her government-in-exile.
But I'll bet her continuing to appoint governments in step with the "will of the people" is based on the requirement that the government of the Netherlands be able to tax its citizenry with their say-so. The only means by which a modern monarch could take over government is to entirely fund all government functions through the Royal treasury. And that gets old pretty quick.
The downfall of the regime ancien in France was brought on by the King's coffers being empty so that Louis XIV had no financial ability to continue to run things. He requested help from the Nobility, who also could not. His request to the Third Estate (the Commoners) is what caused government to change. I like to believe that when the commoners were given a vote, it was akin to suddenly releasing pressure on a boiler -- it blew. The end result was a very bloody revolution in France.
It is probable that Louis XIV waited too long to go to the people. It's also likely that he was also a victim of the times.
I'm pretty sure that all forms of government as practiced in republics all over the world are subject to corruption, subject to ineffeciencies and subject to errors.
The American system was a set of compromises, with a bicameral legislature that pits "the interests of the states" againsts "the interests of the people," with Senators holding office for six years and members of the House of Representatives holding office for two. I recall reading a quote from Benjamin Franklin, who did weigh in on the current US Constitution as it was being considered as having said, "Every day a government official holds office beyond one year is one day closer to tyranny."
The populous states wanted government elected by numbers of people, the less-populous wanted the federal system to represent the states. And, included in the original unamended Constitution was a method of counting slaves and indigenous persons (not allowed the vote) so that the states with large populations of those persons could be better represented in the US House of Representatives.
But getting back to the Patriot Act, the US Constitution allows each branch of our Congress to make its own rules. And the rule that created this act was the rule that allows editing (and wholesale substitution of language) of a bill prior to a final vote. This creates the opportunity for the kind of corrupt practice exemplified by the Patriot Act, as the act that was debated on the floor of the House and Senate was not the act that was actually passed. The entire language was changed, wholesale, overnight. And the people who changed the language were not Congressional committee members but people working for the President.
One could talk about the Dutch, the English, the Italian system and debate the strengths and weaknesses of each, but any system that allows another branch of government to rewrite laws in the middle of the night and to do a switchout like was done in October, 2001 is suspect.
I feel ashamed for the actions of my country. These are not actions that ought to be supported by any citizen of any country.
I suppose the European systems have their flaws. Some don't even have written constitutions (oh horrors!). But Americans do want leaders who appear strong and able. And I'd imagine Europeans do as well, as I cannot think of any leader in Europe who appears weak to me.
The issue with the US system of government is that our Executive is not directly elected by the people. And, I suppose, European Executive power, mostly being vested in Parliaments isn't either.
The various US States elect our President. And each state may choose how its electors shall vote, whether or not that vote shall be proportional to the popular vote within that state (which does not happen) or a "winner-take-all" system (which is what we have today). Our system tends to be described as "red state" versus "blue state." But that's really not all that clear, as most states have tended to be very evenly-split between the two dominant political parties.
European systems seem to be more friendly to multiple political parties and you have coalition governments more often. Perhaps that requires your legislatures and executives to be a bit more responsive and responsible.
I can report with some conviction that I believe our current President will be seen as having destroyed his party's hopes in this election. I do hope they remember this lesson.
OK, businesses, if you're taking in credit card income, you need to report it. The cash, if you don't report it, is harder for the government to trace. It's also harder for the IRS to prove a cash income.
Take the case of Al Capone, the famous gangster who ran Chicago. He was not convicted of racketeering, running prostitutes, murder, and a whole host of other crimes with which he is normally associated. Capone was convicted of tax evasion. But Capone could not ever have been convicted were it not for E.J. O'Hare, a bookkeeper who led the feds to the records kept on Capone's businesses.
In the case of credit card records, businesses simply cannot hide from the fact that external agencies keep records of one's credit card receipts and the bank account into which these receipts are deposited. If your business is not making money, you need to keep close records of your expenses. The IRS will go after any records it can get its hands on to prove income over expenditures. And they're especially interested in squeezing now due to the temptation all businesses have to underreport income during a recession.
Actually, it's supposed to work that way under the US Constitution.
The Legislative branch makes the law. Second, the Executive branch executes the law. Last, the Judicial branch interprets the law. Each branch has an effect on the other.
Legislative Branch
Checks on the Executive
Impeachment power (House)
Trial of impeachments (Senate)
Selection of the President (House) and Vice President (Senate) in the
case of no majority of electoral votes
May override Presidential vetoes
Senate approves departmental appointments
Senate approves treaties and ambassadors
Approval of replacement Vice President
Power to declare war
Power to enact taxes and allocate funds
President must, from time-to-time, deliver a State of the Union
address
Checks on the Judiciary
Senate approves federal judges
Impeachment power (House)
Trial of impeachments (Senate)
Power to initiate constitutional amendments
Power to set courts inferior to the Supreme Court
Power to set jurisdiction of courts
Power to alter the size of the Supreme Court
Checks on the Legislature - because it is bicameral, the Legislative branch
has a degree of self-checking.
Bills must be passed by both houses of Congress
House must originate revenue bills
Neither house may adjourn for more than three days without the consent
of the other house
All journals are to be published
Executive Branch
Checks on the Legislature
Veto power
Vice President is President of the Senate
Commander in chief of the military
Recess appointments
Emergency calling into session of one or both houses of Congress
May force adjournment when both houses cannot agree on adjournment
Compensation cannot be diminished
Checks on the Judiciary
Power to appoint judges
Pardon power
Checks on the Executive
Vice President and Cabinet can vote that the President is unable to
discharge his duties
Judicial Branch
Checks on the Legislature
Judicial review
Seats are held on good behavior
Compensation cannot be diminished
Checks on the Executive
Judicial review
Chief Justice sits as President of the Senate during presidential
impeachment
These checks are inefficient. And this inefficiency is borne out when one political party in the US system captures all three of the branches (as it has) and then, for the purpose of extending the power of that party, fails to exercise restraint and to provide a check on the other branches.
What I have noted is that the only branch that has actually decided to act in a manner consistent with Constitutional checks and balances is the Supreme Court. To the extent the Legislative Branch (or branches of the various States) have worked to mandate sentencing or require judges to act without their power to interpret, the Supreme Court has ruled these requirements as nothing more than guidelines. And this has gone on despite a rather radical shift in the Supreme Court to the political right. And I would agree with them, even though my own political direction differs strongly from many of their recent decisions and statements.
The Orwellian-named "USA Patriot Act" was a bill that was utterly altered -- in its entirety -- in the middle of the night by Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft within a committee that was also completely asleep at the switch. This is part of the rules of Congress, where a committee will take in a b
There are many documented accounts of the use of a Pringles can to construct a directional antenna. Rob Flickenger made one in 2001. Gregory Rehm did one in 2003 and was Slashdotted. G4 TV's Patrick Norton posted one in 2002 on The Screen Savers. Andrew S. Clapp has a lot of technical information on his website as well as several links to others. I wonder if he is, in any way, related to Eric Clapton.
The whole issue here has to do with perception. In other words, the voting public needs to feel that the count actually does represent the will of the voters that voted on that day. And the money that was spent in researching, developing, buying and using the new machines was spent due to a perception that, in the year 2000, the end result of the vote did not accurately portray the will of the voters that voted in the Presidential election.
Now, quite frankly, many of the issues were blown out of proportion with respect to reality. The Media (and I was present in the reportage) breathlessly told us that we had a "Constitutional Crisis" on our hands. A Constitutional Crisis is where there is no language in our Constitution to handle something. And there is plenty of language in the Constitution with respect to the selection of a President.
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress...
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.
What this means is that the States choose the President. So when the Supreme Court stepped into the fray, the Supreme Court was in immediate violation of the Constitution. I suppose that was a Constitutional Crisis.
Had the State of Florida failed to choose electors in a timely way, the US Congress could have ignored the Florida vote. Any partial vote could have been disqualified and if there was a tie in the electoral vote, the House of Representatives would have chosen the President.
Instead, we had butterfly ballots, punch cards and methods of tallying votes (by machine) that were antiquated. And the vote was so close in that election that the public perceived that there may have been vote-rigging through the use of machinery that was outdated and, perhaps, rigged.
Immediately, companies went out and offered to make machines that would allow for really quick tallying of votes and there is nothing as fast at tallying votes as an electronic system. But many of these systems did not offer any kind of an audit trail, which is something that is opposed by the current Republican Administration. They argued that any time you recount a machine-counted result, the result of the hand count is suspect as human emotions get involved in the count. Of course, there is no recount unless there are observers from all participating political parties present according to law.
Many localities have new systems. And still, the vote can be rigged, as it always has been able to be rigged in the past. But since the public is inclined to think that the vote can be easily rigged or is easily rigged, we'll continue to spend money trying to fix the problem in the interest of trying to satisfy the majority of voters who no longer trust the voting systems we have.
The problem is unions and government regulations. Try firing someone. You have a union to deal with.
Both unions and government regulations are an attempt at leveling the playing field between big business and the little guy working his or her heart out, obeying the rules and paying most of the taxes. When big corporations feel like they're paying too much in property taxes, they threaten a locality or state that they'll move and take their jobs with them. States and localities immediately pony up tax abatements. If you try this, your state congressman will tell you, "You're free to move wherever you wish."
In non-union shops, corporations must go through their own red tape to fire someone. Presently, that takes a number of weeks because corporations don't want to be sued. I suppose, were I to use your argument, corporations ought to be able to fire women who become pregnant while on the job (the sheer effrontery of them!) because the amount of time they'll be away having a child and initially bonding with their child will reduce corporate profits. Because that will affect the bottom line, corporations should be able to find that, since there is birth control and these foolish women have chosen -- of their own free will -- to harm the corporate interest by getting pregnant, they have cause to fire with impunity.
Unfortunately for these corporations, federal law seems to differ.
You're decrying unions for having made it nigh impossible to fire workers, including workers who may be discriminated against and saying the unions are to blame for this and all the while you are ignoring the fact that the corporations willingly (and with a battery of corporate attorneys present) signed these agreements with their eyes open and with full knowledge of what these contracts mean. Unions usually don't write these contracts. Corporations do. Unions negotiate with these corporations and try to derive solutions that work best for their membership. And it's a losing game, as you will note that -- over time -- the number of union-represented workers has steadily diminished in the US
Do you know that ERISA law is superseded by a collective bargaining agreement? In other words, federal law allows for these agreements to create "perma-temp" workers who have none of the job protections in typical union contracts. Unions have been coaxed by corporations into signing collective bargaining agreements that create a "second tier" to workers with fewer benefits and rights in the workplace? Did you know that the most recent UAW contract with the automotive manufacturers creates a "two tier" workplace with the new hires getting considerably fewer benefits for their union membership than people they're working alongside who were hired a number of months earlier?
China kills US manufacturing because it has less regulation than the US plants. Can you believe that a US plant has to not only pay property tax but a tool tax on the machines? Ol' Patrick Henry would roll over in his grave.
China has many of the same laws you decry on the books. China just chooses to not enforce their own laws where party officials are the owners of the businesses being regulated. This is very similar to the US EPA refusing to regulate greenhouse gases because cronies of the current administration own coal-fired power plants.
Patrick Henry's main issue in his "...give me liberty or give me death" speech was one of representation. He was speaking before the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (which was not then the capitol) in favor of raising a local militia to oppose the Royal Marine regiment under the orders of Lieutenant-Governor Dunmore in Williamsburg (the capitol). The Lieutenant-Governor was working to prevent the colonists from rising up in defense of their right of self-government.
The US Government has taken the Lenovo computers off their list of companies to purchase from once IBM sold their micro division to them. And lots of large corporations have followed suit. Obviously, what Lenovo is doing here is trying to increase their now-reduced market share by going with a re-branding of their consumer laptop.
I don't think they're going to succeed. They aren't being seen as a "First Tier" computer manufacturer any more and they're being compared to the likes of Acer.
I never had the opportunity to work directly with John as he worked the Dateline side and I was strictly on "news." I worked as an editor for NBC Nightly News and Today for over 8 years. You can see some of my work here. Like John, I was laid off in one of their "downsizing" operations.
John writes in his article about how there was a lot of interest in finding stories in the emotional heart of America and no interest in stretching the understanding of most Americans and that is true of Dateline as well as the News division. John was a very well-known journalist hired by Dateline to do serious stories. He is right to have felt frustrated. There is zero interest in informing Americans what is truly happening and the best example is the 2000 election.
NBC breathlessly announced that there was a "Constitutional Crisis" in the election and that unless this whole Florida recount was figured out it would turn into a real crisis. Then NBC sent cameras to get unique angles of election officials scrutinizing punch-card ballots and followed the court cases. Then, rather than inform America about what is written in the US Constitution, NBC and the other networks passively stood by while the US Supreme Court, in a completely extra-Constitutional step decided to hear the case of Bush v Gore and then decided to select who would be the next President of the United States.
Americans' lack of understanding about their own Constitution was recently exemplified to me by a recently-retired naval Commander who told me that she thought that this Electoral College thing for choosing the President should be changed and that we should get our Congress to change it. I told her that our Constitution did not provide for the popular election of a President and that the States were in charge of that. The States choose how electors shall be chosen and most have a "Winner Takes All" approach but some apportion some electors according to how the popular vote went. I suggested that she ask her Governor and her State representatives to change how they chose their electors.
NBC never reported that, when the US Supreme Court got involved, it was taking away the right of the State of Florida to apportion its electors. The top court that should have decided in this case was the Florida Supreme Court and, if they didn't decide the case or if a recount would have taken too long, the matter would have been thrown to the US Congress to decide whether or not to accept any electors from Florida, to accept the electors from all states save Florida or to decide the matter themselves.
There was no crisis and NBC reporting that there was is another example of a story being sensationalized for ratings, which seems to be more important than NBC actually informing the viewers of the facts and what is really going on.
Furthermore, none of the blogs I read, nor any of the radio or television stations I watched actually informed the public as to the facts of the Constitution. I did read one book well after Bush v Gore was settled stating that what the Supreme Court did was extralegal. I noted that the New York Times did have a story about how Florida's Supreme Court had final say and then they ignored this fact as soon as the case was heard by the Supreme Court of the US.
So I think it's safe to say that everyone got the real story wrong.
I'm really happy to see that John has gainful employment. I'm still looking for something full-time
I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.
The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.
Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.
For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.
Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.
I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.
Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.
I just moved from NY to Connecticut and I vote in all elections, no matter how small. I am familiar with what both NY and Connecticut have for voting.
Both are very good. The mechanical voting machines have been around since the 1960s and I'd imagine spare parts are becoming hard to find.
The essence of what makes a "fair" election is that the public feel that it is fair and that nobody can (for good or ill) control the process so much that one faction or another has a lock on the count. The excellent commentary provided by the poll worker in this thread details how the law is engaged in the attempt to make the public feel it is fair.
Connecticut has moved, statewide, to a scanning system that retains paper ballots. Your ballot is placed in an optical scanner, face down, face up or any way that it fits and it will be read. Furthermore, the ballot goes into a box within the scanner, which is locked. Like New York, there are two poll workers (at least), one from each party.
Connecticut is a smaller state than New York. It is relatively easy to replace voting systems in the smaller states as compared to the more populous. I think the federal demand is nothing more than an attempt by one side to obfuscate the real reasons why the systems were re-examined in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Insurance companies are almost exactly like bookies where you are essentially betting against yourself. They are particularly good bookies in that they very carefully build actuarial tables to help them with the odds.
While gambling in many states is not legal or not legal outside of an Indian reservation, or not legal outside of a particular city, Insurance companies seem to not be considered quite the same thing. They are regulated, with the government (appropriately) requiring that they be able to pay out in all but the most extreme situation (like nuclear war or natural catastrophe).
Part of the "gamble" here is that young people are generally healthy and older people tend to get sick more. Now there are older people who stay very healthy for a long time. My father is a great example, as he lived well into his seventies before he ever saw the inside of any hospital, save to visit someone. Then he had a heart attack that required a stent and is requiring that he take certain medications. His health has declined somewhat, but with proper exercise and as he continues to take prescribed medicine, he should see his 90s.
But this results in a problem. Persons over 65 are not wanted by health insurance companies because their actuarial tables tell them that my father is an exception. They would tend to refuse to cover him and anyone his age because they don't want to lose money.
Enter the government.
The United States decided to take this class of person off the hands of the health insurance companies. They did this for two reasons: Firstly, it is considered a right that you will be able to live your life with some semblance of dignity. In order to create that, the government, in the 1930s created an insurance system that would pay out to persons (then) over 65, a consistent income that would enable them to live with some degree of dignity until they passed away. This is called Social Security. Today, Republicans call it an "Entitlement," and they are trying to make that word into a "dirty word," like they did with "welfare," another insurance program created in the 1930s to give poor people some dignity.
Dignity seems to be a problem with the Republicans nowadays. they would rather make everyone in the Middle Class struggle harder. because when the Middle Class struggles, they occasionally look for someone to blame. And Republicans have learned that, since they only serve large corporations and very rich people, they have to create a pattern of blame so that they can divide the Middle Class. After all, the Middle Class does most of the work (for the large corporations that the Republicans serve) and pay most of the taxes (as a percentage of their income and as an aggregate total of the revenues received by the government). And if they can divide the Middle Class and get them to vote for Republicans, Republicans can serve this minority in the American population (the very wealthy).
So, along come the Democrats, who look at all of the other top economies of the world and they say, "Why don't we have a nationalized system of healthcare that offers Americans some dignity like the other top economies?" And the Republicans launch their "Smoke and Mirrors" campaign to confuse and divide the Middle Class. Because they don't like the Middle Class (or anyone else, save the rich) having any dignity. It goes against the grain. When you have dignity, you can think about how Republican policies will actually affect you. So they launch a campaign, calling this "class warfare," and "Socialism." The hysterics they put on are laughable -- by those with dignity who actually think.
Republicans call this "Big Government" while they want you to ignore the fact that a totally Republican Congress and the Bush Administration just presided over the largest expansion in the Federal Government since FDR with the creation of the "Department of Homeland Security" which is the only civilian federal government agency that is having trouble recruiting people
I would be surprised if the EFF is able to do any decent amount of discovery. The Bush Administration is famous for telling their people to use private e-mail instead of government e-mail. They're also famous for having erased loads of official government e-mail "by accident."
Else, they will say that they cannot release the information they have on the orders they gave to AT&T and other telephone companies because it violates national security.
OK, I read through most of these posts. And it's fairly clear that everyone is taking the Cable companies' views here, so I all ready know how the general community feels here. And you have a right to encourage your town to sue the Telcos to prevent the boxes. In fact, since it's a major election year, I'll bet your town fathers would get all excited if a bunch of you were excited about this.
I use AT&T for my iPhone and I pray every day that I don't have to call their support. They have earned a bad reputation, as have most of the Baby Bells. So I'll bet all of the objections are tied in to a routine knee-jerk hatred of the Bell Companies.
And, for "unsightly," just multiply the satellite antennas all over buildings everywhere. Sure, they're not the size of a refrigerator, but if you sprout multiples on buildings everywhere and especially in high-density areas, you can get all the way over to downright hideous. I would suggest that (in years past) many localities decided that C-Band and the larger K-Band backyard antennas were so unsightly that they passed laws against homeowners having them. I sometimes wonder if cable companies or their employees weren't involved in those town council votes.
So you say you like the Cable companies over the Telcos. Fine. Here's what you do:
Encourage the construction of the "unsightly" Telco boxes. Then, when your town or street is wired up and running, do what I did. Call up your "beloved" Cable company. And tell them line-item for line-item what the Telco's rates are. The Telcos will let you in on this information as soon as they roll out the service (you'll find their offers in the mail and probably on your door). Here's what you will notice: Telcos charge less for television and Internet services. They charge more for telephone services than the Cable companies do. And anyone, whether or not it's Satellite, Cable or Telco will give you an initial discount.
If the Cable Company (that you love so much) is thinking, they'll send you to their "Retention Department." It is after a short discussion with them that I got $20.00 knocked off my cable bill each month for a full year.
And if you never get to your Cable Company's "Retention Department," it's because they have all ready priced themselves below the Telco.
Remember, you need to compare Apples to Apples here. Both the Telcos and the Cable companies are ground-based and they can sell you telephone, television and fast internet, though the Telcos' internet is not usually as fast as the Cable company's.
In the end, it's possible for you and everyone to get a lower rate just because of the competition in the ground-based services. And it's also possible that the differing taxes and regulations will start evening out across the playing field.
Oh, and that "refrigerator?" Looks more beautiful every month I get a discount from my Cable company.
Frankly, I'd rather elect someone who openly admits to behavior that may be in violation of law than someone who obsessively hides from the reality of his or her past. Both Nixon and GW Bush come to mind here.
And I wonder about Senator McCain with respect to admissions. Of course he did admit to wrongdoing with respect to the Savings and Loan scandals as well as other issues of favoritism. I have met Senator McCain and think he's a good man. Haven't met Senator Obama but I have read the thoughts of his he put into his books. Seems like an upstanding American patriot who would strive to do the right thing for America.
But what I cannot believe is that Senator McCain, after all he went through, did not do drugs and did not drink to excess. I lived across the street from a Vietnam veteran who was not imprisoned by the NVA and there were not enough drugs and there was not enough alcohol in the world for him after what he experienced as a draftee. I lived up the street from another who came back a paraplegic, and he regularly drank to excess.
Fact is, what you put on the Internet about yourself is public. So if you don't want someone to take advantage of you or to disparage your character, don't post anything that might be taken wrong. This lawyer was doing what all lawyers do in a very creative (for lawyers) way: He was raising questions as to the man's character before a jury so that the jury would disregard any testimony from him or from anyone who said he had a good character.
Would I be correct in assuming that the total number wasn't strikingly higher?
The school quotes tuition as $3500. With all of the buy-outs, it's $4200 (this year). You have to volunteer for bingo. You have to sell bread, chocolates, raffle tickets, Pre-Christmas shopping tickets, candy and so on. Children are not permitted to work bingo because that's gambling and the State does not allow that so busy parents must carve out time. My issue is that it's "mandatory volunteerism."
My wife was constantly wanting to buy things for her students that we couldn't well afford - we had to frequently chat about which items were luxuries and which were really efficient, reusable tools. And sometimes we bought lumber instead of an expensive finished good and I was assigned to the table saw.
How are her writing skills? Has she and has the school considered writing for grant money from some of the retailers and corporations in your area? Where is the Principal and the Administration? Giving to local schools is seen as a way to expiate corporate sins in the eyes of the consumers who buy from them. I also realize that she is one teacher in a large school and something like this needs to be coordinated. I also realize she's working hard, probably on a Masters degree as well as the daily lesson plans and test grading. Also, I would suggest that she ask parents of children in her class to collect boxtops from the various tissue and cereal makers and send them in with her students. It really takes nothing to collect these things and throw them into an envelope for the school and they do result in some needed cash for the district, if not the school.
Mind you, I am not suggesting your local and state government abdicate its responsibility to our children.
I admit to being ignorant of the specifics of the regional legislative actions, but I do hold out hope for both the teachers and students.
Here is what they did in Delaware and Kansas: The Top-Down approach. The Kansas State School Board redefined "Science" and then bought millions of "science" books that included language that specifically was designed to cast doubt on evolution as a theory, essentially reducing it to the level of hypothesis. Then the Theory of "Intelligent" Design was offered with no aspersions to its validity and introduced as "new" and "perhaps superior." If you study theories on how the planets formed, the new ones tend to be considered the most correct and tend to be presented that way to students. This creates a bias.
[W]e covered spontaneous generation as a theory. We also covered Pasteur's refutation of it.
Thas is how science should work. Students should see widely-accepted theories that have been disproven and read the refutations. I also was informed on another theory of evolution called Lamarckian. We studied the issue of heuristics in hypothesis and how that can prove to be a trap. Sometimes these traps can serve as really advantageous accidents.
I have added you as a friend. I don't think I have any foes on Slashdot -- if there are, they are not of my choosing.
The private school my daughter goes to does not have unionized teachers, so unions are not an issue with the part time versus full time. They simply cannot hire anyone full time.
I agree about the maintenance budget issue. But if you look at town budgets, they frequently "rob Peter to pay Paul." The State I live in has not funded certain pension funds fully. Their plan, if their pension fund doesn't pay for pensions was to take it out of general funds. Yeah, sure. That'll work.
With respect to pensions, corporations tend to be the worst actors, taking themselves through bankruptcy court to renege on their promises to pay their employees. The big movement in business today is to end or reduce "employee welfare," which is the new dirty word.
But I digress...
My daughter's school is "doing the ask" for lots of things. They have mandated volunteerism. Bill, if I don't want to sell candy (something we don't eat) or raffle tickets, I don't want to be made to do that. I do not wish to be "fined" if I don't sell enough for the school. And I do not want my daughter's school training her how to be a salesperson, either. By the end of the year, you're exhausted from all the asking.
So I have asked out principal to allow me to buy out of everything. I told him, please send me a bill for the whole cost of my daughter's education and I shall pay it. we set a little money aside every month for her schooling and we can afford it.
He did so. Now, if the teachers need anything, I get it. Facial tissues? Sam's Club -- mass quantities. Pencils? No problem. Our teachers' salaries are not sufficient for parents to expect them to purchase school supplies on their own. And I know that in some districts, teachers are doing just that.
So we have an education system in one state where not only are the teachers -- on their meager salaries with or without a union -- are purchasing school supplies and also being told to ignore everything they learned about scientific rigor and scientific method and criticize peer-reviewed theory as "not as good as" or "equal to" some airy-fairy nonsense. Thank you, no. I won't pay to remedially-teach their graduates.
At the tail end of this interview, there is a remark here that fits precisely. In short, find out what the top 20 schools are doing right and pay people enough to want to emulate that.
I think you may be lying with statistics when you say that Washington, DC pays more money per pupil than private schools because a lot of what is being spent by that city is to literally rebuild the crumbling infrastructure and that has nothing to do with the education received by the students. Very little of that high cost is going to hire great teachers and very little is used to hire innovative administrators. But these statistics serve to convince many people that a system that has been neglected so long that the buildings are falling down is failing the children.
I send my daughter to a private school in a district with excellent public schools. And the cost is high (I suppose it's doubly high because I am paying taxes as well as the tuition). I am sending her there because it pleases her grandparents who live close and because that private school has to really work hard to attract students where the public schools are very good. But part of the cost of sending her to private school is the infrastructure. They don't pay their teachers as well as they should in my opinion. And they don't because they have infrastructure problems. They need a new roof, a new boiler, two servers for a LAN and other infrastructure needs that are not directly a part of my daughter's education.
Also, I note that the "enrichment courses" are all taught by part-time teachers. This includes art, language (Spanish only) gym, music and so on. In public schools, as long as NCLB is not swamping the curriculum, those courses are taught by full-time teachers.
My case is that science should be taught as science. And I think the Catholic Church knows it is easily to hold an institution up to ridicule for refusing to consider observable events, as their persecution of Copernicus and their inquisition of Galileo have suffered under the test of time.
My comment about the Pope was to counter a number of comments in the forum suggesting that the Catholic Church are in league with the Southern Baptist Convention with regard to science.
Oh, by the way. Today, 11 June, is the anniversary of Congress passing a bill to place the motto "In God We Trust" on our currency. This happened in 1955. But too often the Bible thumpers point to this as defining the United States as a "Christian" nation. The reason why Congress took this step was to oppose "godless Communism" -- not to, somehow, redefine how religion instructs our government. Of course, I would have opposed that then knowing how it would be misinterpreted and understanding that it was proposed by a bunch of fearmongering witless ninnies intent on promulgating a red scare.
If our legislatures want to do something for schools, they should fund them better.
Thanks for the history lesson. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson did not write the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. It is widely attributed to James Madison, who introduced it to Congress on June 8th, 1789.
Madison's proposed amendments to the new US Constitution were based on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, which were introduced into that State's constitution in 1776 and written with Madison's input.
There were twelve initial articles offered to the US Constitution, and ten were ratified right away, with the other two, one on Apportionment has never received the approval of enough states for it to become part of the Constitution and the other on Congressional Pay Raises was not ratified until 1992, when it became the 27th Amendment.
While Thomas Jefferson may have looked on and cheered their passage through Congress and their later ratification by the States, he was, at the time, serving as the first Secretary of State under President George Washington and not involved directly in the passage of bills.
Were I a college or university official selecting students from various national high schools, I would immediately exclude all graduates from the State of Louisiana starting three years hence. This would apply to all fields of study because science, along with reading, writing and mathematics, makes up a central core of educational training essential to High School graduation.
There is one simple reason: The students may not have been taught scientific rigor, that for a hypothesis to be proven it must be supported by observable, repeatable facts. And any science teacher who teaches that "science" permits a hypothesis or theory to be supported by wishing, conjecture, supposition, acts of unobservable forces and so on is not appropriately training students for any future in higher education. And I would have to say that it is not the job of my college or university to teach remedial science to students who ought to have been correctly taught the basics in high school.
I should mention that the Pope has stated that Darwin's theory of evolution [is] compatible with Christian faith. And anyone who has actually read Darwin's Origin Of Species By Natural Selection and The Descent Of Man will quickly come to the conclusion that Charles Darwin was a very religious man and couched his arguments in terms of his own beliefs, but never once deviating from scientific rigor in his statement of his hypothesis.
The Christian wing-nuts who would teach religion as if it were science have managed to confuse the English definition of the word "theory" with the scientific definition of that word. In English, the word allows for considerable uncertainty whereas, in science, a hypothesis becomes a theory only upon rigorous peer review and only when not disproved by physical evidence. During Darwin's lifetime, his book was always seen as a hypothesis and it graduated to the level of theory as actual evidence that supported his statements came rolling in.
There is genetic and physical evidence for Darwin's statements on natural selection. And we have evidence supporting evolution and none, whatsoever, for any other hypothesis for how plants, animals and humans appeared on the earth.
I would urge any college and university admissions offices to consider denying admission to any and all students who have not appropriately learned science, which means they have been taught to not follow the rules of scientific enquiry in schools in Kansas (in the past) and Louisiana (going forward).
Now I'm wanting to take your Physics class. I am a regular editor/contributor to a technical Wiki for a bit of software that does film/video compositing and editing and I find that I retain knowledge very well on the portions I have edited.
All ready finished my undergrad degree, though.
First Sale doctrine does not protect software, as Autodesk found out last May. So I would imagine eth 1's former professor is out there busily changing either software or book at the present time.
I feel your ... erm ... pain.
Some years ago, I had my right knee replaced. I'll have my left one replaced fairly soon as it's beginning to go. This runs in my family. My mother had both knees and both hips replaced and needed her shoulders replaced. The arthritis that causes all of this literally melts cartilage and other joint materials until you're bone-on-bone.
Prior to September 11, 2001, I never set off any Airport scanner. Now, after that date, I always do.
I believe that, according to the general laws of the nation, the English monarch holds the reins in England and rule by the House of Commons descended down the line of the monarchy needing to tax their subjects.
Your queen fled to England, ruling by decree and received no tax revenues and had very little (if any) power over her subjects during the Nazi occupation. She could deplore this, she could encourage that but she had no real power within her realm, save that of her government-in-exile.
But I'll bet her continuing to appoint governments in step with the "will of the people" is based on the requirement that the government of the Netherlands be able to tax its citizenry with their say-so. The only means by which a modern monarch could take over government is to entirely fund all government functions through the Royal treasury. And that gets old pretty quick.
The downfall of the regime ancien in France was brought on by the King's coffers being empty so that Louis XIV had no financial ability to continue to run things. He requested help from the Nobility, who also could not. His request to the Third Estate (the Commoners) is what caused government to change. I like to believe that when the commoners were given a vote, it was akin to suddenly releasing pressure on a boiler -- it blew. The end result was a very bloody revolution in France.
It is probable that Louis XIV waited too long to go to the people. It's also likely that he was also a victim of the times.
I'm pretty sure that all forms of government as practiced in republics all over the world are subject to corruption, subject to ineffeciencies and subject to errors.
The American system was a set of compromises, with a bicameral legislature that pits "the interests of the states" againsts "the interests of the people," with Senators holding office for six years and members of the House of Representatives holding office for two. I recall reading a quote from Benjamin Franklin, who did weigh in on the current US Constitution as it was being considered as having said, "Every day a government official holds office beyond one year is one day closer to tyranny."
The populous states wanted government elected by numbers of people, the less-populous wanted the federal system to represent the states. And, included in the original unamended Constitution was a method of counting slaves and indigenous persons (not allowed the vote) so that the states with large populations of those persons could be better represented in the US House of Representatives.
But getting back to the Patriot Act, the US Constitution allows each branch of our Congress to make its own rules. And the rule that created this act was the rule that allows editing (and wholesale substitution of language) of a bill prior to a final vote. This creates the opportunity for the kind of corrupt practice exemplified by the Patriot Act, as the act that was debated on the floor of the House and Senate was not the act that was actually passed. The entire language was changed, wholesale, overnight. And the people who changed the language were not Congressional committee members but people working for the President.
One could talk about the Dutch, the English, the Italian system and debate the strengths and weaknesses of each, but any system that allows another branch of government to rewrite laws in the middle of the night and to do a switchout like was done in October, 2001 is suspect.
I feel ashamed for the actions of my country. These are not actions that ought to be supported by any citizen of any country.
I suppose the European systems have their flaws. Some don't even have written constitutions (oh horrors!). But Americans do want leaders who appear strong and able. And I'd imagine Europeans do as well, as I cannot think of any leader in Europe who appears weak to me.
The issue with the US system of government is that our Executive is not directly elected by the people. And, I suppose, European Executive power, mostly being vested in Parliaments isn't either.
The various US States elect our President. And each state may choose how its electors shall vote, whether or not that vote shall be proportional to the popular vote within that state (which does not happen) or a "winner-take-all" system (which is what we have today). Our system tends to be described as "red state" versus "blue state." But that's really not all that clear, as most states have tended to be very evenly-split between the two dominant political parties.
European systems seem to be more friendly to multiple political parties and you have coalition governments more often. Perhaps that requires your legislatures and executives to be a bit more responsive and responsible.
I can report with some conviction that I believe our current President will be seen as having destroyed his party's hopes in this election. I do hope they remember this lesson.
OK, businesses, if you're taking in credit card income, you need to report it. The cash, if you don't report it, is harder for the government to trace. It's also harder for the IRS to prove a cash income.
Take the case of Al Capone, the famous gangster who ran Chicago. He was not convicted of racketeering, running prostitutes, murder, and a whole host of other crimes with which he is normally associated. Capone was convicted of tax evasion. But Capone could not ever have been convicted were it not for E.J. O'Hare, a bookkeeper who led the feds to the records kept on Capone's businesses.
In the case of credit card records, businesses simply cannot hide from the fact that external agencies keep records of one's credit card receipts and the bank account into which these receipts are deposited. If your business is not making money, you need to keep close records of your expenses. The IRS will go after any records it can get its hands on to prove income over expenditures. And they're especially interested in squeezing now due to the temptation all businesses have to underreport income during a recession.
Actually, it's supposed to work that way under the US Constitution.
The Legislative branch makes the law. Second, the Executive branch executes the law. Last, the Judicial branch interprets the law. Each branch has an effect on the other.
Legislative Branch
Executive Branch
Judicial Branch
These checks are inefficient. And this inefficiency is borne out when one political party in the US system captures all three of the branches (as it has) and then, for the purpose of extending the power of that party, fails to exercise restraint and to provide a check on the other branches.
What I have noted is that the only branch that has actually decided to act in a manner consistent with Constitutional checks and balances is the Supreme Court. To the extent the Legislative Branch (or branches of the various States) have worked to mandate sentencing or require judges to act without their power to interpret, the Supreme Court has ruled these requirements as nothing more than guidelines. And this has gone on despite a rather radical shift in the Supreme Court to the political right. And I would agree with them, even though my own political direction differs strongly from many of their recent decisions and statements.
The Orwellian-named "USA Patriot Act" was a bill that was utterly altered -- in its entirety -- in the middle of the night by Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft within a committee that was also completely asleep at the switch. This is part of the rules of Congress, where a committee will take in a b
There are many documented accounts of the use of a Pringles can to construct a directional antenna. Rob Flickenger made one in 2001. Gregory Rehm did one in 2003 and was Slashdotted. G4 TV's Patrick Norton posted one in 2002 on The Screen Savers. Andrew S. Clapp has a lot of technical information on his website as well as several links to others. I wonder if he is, in any way, related to Eric Clapton.
The whole issue here has to do with perception. In other words, the voting public needs to feel that the count actually does represent the will of the voters that voted on that day. And the money that was spent in researching, developing, buying and using the new machines was spent due to a perception that, in the year 2000, the end result of the vote did not accurately portray the will of the voters that voted in the Presidential election.
Now, quite frankly, many of the issues were blown out of proportion with respect to reality. The Media (and I was present in the reportage) breathlessly told us that we had a "Constitutional Crisis" on our hands. A Constitutional Crisis is where there is no language in our Constitution to handle something. And there is plenty of language in the Constitution with respect to the selection of a President.
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress...
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.
What this means is that the States choose the President. So when the Supreme Court stepped into the fray, the Supreme Court was in immediate violation of the Constitution. I suppose that was a Constitutional Crisis.
Had the State of Florida failed to choose electors in a timely way, the US Congress could have ignored the Florida vote. Any partial vote could have been disqualified and if there was a tie in the electoral vote, the House of Representatives would have chosen the President.
Instead, we had butterfly ballots, punch cards and methods of tallying votes (by machine) that were antiquated. And the vote was so close in that election that the public perceived that there may have been vote-rigging through the use of machinery that was outdated and, perhaps, rigged.
Immediately, companies went out and offered to make machines that would allow for really quick tallying of votes and there is nothing as fast at tallying votes as an electronic system. But many of these systems did not offer any kind of an audit trail, which is something that is opposed by the current Republican Administration. They argued that any time you recount a machine-counted result, the result of the hand count is suspect as human emotions get involved in the count. Of course, there is no recount unless there are observers from all participating political parties present according to law.
Many localities have new systems. And still, the vote can be rigged, as it always has been able to be rigged in the past. But since the public is inclined to think that the vote can be easily rigged or is easily rigged, we'll continue to spend money trying to fix the problem in the interest of trying to satisfy the majority of voters who no longer trust the voting systems we have.
The problem is unions and government regulations. Try firing someone. You have a union to deal with.
Both unions and government regulations are an attempt at leveling the playing field between big business and the little guy working his or her heart out, obeying the rules and paying most of the taxes. When big corporations feel like they're paying too much in property taxes, they threaten a locality or state that they'll move and take their jobs with them. States and localities immediately pony up tax abatements. If you try this, your state congressman will tell you, "You're free to move wherever you wish."
In non-union shops, corporations must go through their own red tape to fire someone. Presently, that takes a number of weeks because corporations don't want to be sued. I suppose, were I to use your argument, corporations ought to be able to fire women who become pregnant while on the job (the sheer effrontery of them!) because the amount of time they'll be away having a child and initially bonding with their child will reduce corporate profits. Because that will affect the bottom line, corporations should be able to find that, since there is birth control and these foolish women have chosen -- of their own free will -- to harm the corporate interest by getting pregnant, they have cause to fire with impunity.
Unfortunately for these corporations, federal law seems to differ.
You're decrying unions for having made it nigh impossible to fire workers, including workers who may be discriminated against and saying the unions are to blame for this and all the while you are ignoring the fact that the corporations willingly (and with a battery of corporate attorneys present) signed these agreements with their eyes open and with full knowledge of what these contracts mean. Unions usually don't write these contracts. Corporations do. Unions negotiate with these corporations and try to derive solutions that work best for their membership. And it's a losing game, as you will note that -- over time -- the number of union-represented workers has steadily diminished in the US
Do you know that ERISA law is superseded by a collective bargaining agreement? In other words, federal law allows for these agreements to create "perma-temp" workers who have none of the job protections in typical union contracts. Unions have been coaxed by corporations into signing collective bargaining agreements that create a "second tier" to workers with fewer benefits and rights in the workplace? Did you know that the most recent UAW contract with the automotive manufacturers creates a "two tier" workplace with the new hires getting considerably fewer benefits for their union membership than people they're working alongside who were hired a number of months earlier?
China kills US manufacturing because it has less regulation than the US plants. Can you believe that a US plant has to not only pay property tax but a tool tax on the machines? Ol' Patrick Henry would roll over in his grave.
China has many of the same laws you decry on the books. China just chooses to not enforce their own laws where party officials are the owners of the businesses being regulated. This is very similar to the US EPA refusing to regulate greenhouse gases because cronies of the current administration own coal-fired power plants.
Patrick Henry's main issue in his "...give me liberty or give me death" speech was one of representation. He was speaking before the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (which was not then the capitol) in favor of raising a local militia to oppose the Royal Marine regiment under the orders of Lieutenant-Governor Dunmore in Williamsburg (the capitol). The Lieutenant-Governor was working to prevent the colonists from rising up in defense of their right of self-government.
But I note you're a supporter of Ron Paul. I t
The US Government has taken the Lenovo computers off their list of companies to purchase from once IBM sold their micro division to them. And lots of large corporations have followed suit. Obviously, what Lenovo is doing here is trying to increase their now-reduced market share by going with a re-branding of their consumer laptop.
I don't think they're going to succeed. They aren't being seen as a "First Tier" computer manufacturer any more and they're being compared to the likes of Acer.
I never had the opportunity to work directly with John as he worked the Dateline side and I was strictly on "news." I worked as an editor for NBC Nightly News and Today for over 8 years. You can see some of my work here. Like John, I was laid off in one of their "downsizing" operations.
John writes in his article about how there was a lot of interest in finding stories in the emotional heart of America and no interest in stretching the understanding of most Americans and that is true of Dateline as well as the News division. John was a very well-known journalist hired by Dateline to do serious stories. He is right to have felt frustrated. There is zero interest in informing Americans what is truly happening and the best example is the 2000 election.
NBC breathlessly announced that there was a "Constitutional Crisis" in the election and that unless this whole Florida recount was figured out it would turn into a real crisis. Then NBC sent cameras to get unique angles of election officials scrutinizing punch-card ballots and followed the court cases. Then, rather than inform America about what is written in the US Constitution, NBC and the other networks passively stood by while the US Supreme Court, in a completely extra-Constitutional step decided to hear the case of Bush v Gore and then decided to select who would be the next President of the United States.
Americans' lack of understanding about their own Constitution was recently exemplified to me by a recently-retired naval Commander who told me that she thought that this Electoral College thing for choosing the President should be changed and that we should get our Congress to change it. I told her that our Constitution did not provide for the popular election of a President and that the States were in charge of that. The States choose how electors shall be chosen and most have a "Winner Takes All" approach but some apportion some electors according to how the popular vote went. I suggested that she ask her Governor and her State representatives to change how they chose their electors.
NBC never reported that, when the US Supreme Court got involved, it was taking away the right of the State of Florida to apportion its electors. The top court that should have decided in this case was the Florida Supreme Court and, if they didn't decide the case or if a recount would have taken too long, the matter would have been thrown to the US Congress to decide whether or not to accept any electors from Florida, to accept the electors from all states save Florida or to decide the matter themselves.
There was no crisis and NBC reporting that there was is another example of a story being sensationalized for ratings, which seems to be more important than NBC actually informing the viewers of the facts and what is really going on.
Furthermore, none of the blogs I read, nor any of the radio or television stations I watched actually informed the public as to the facts of the Constitution. I did read one book well after Bush v Gore was settled stating that what the Supreme Court did was extralegal. I noted that the New York Times did have a story about how Florida's Supreme Court had final say and then they ignored this fact as soon as the case was heard by the Supreme Court of the US.
So I think it's safe to say that everyone got the real story wrong.
I'm really happy to see that John has gainful employment. I'm still looking for something full-time
I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.
The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.
Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.
For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.
Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.
I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.
Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.
I just moved from NY to Connecticut and I vote in all elections, no matter how small. I am familiar with what both NY and Connecticut have for voting.
Both are very good. The mechanical voting machines have been around since the 1960s and I'd imagine spare parts are becoming hard to find.
The essence of what makes a "fair" election is that the public feel that it is fair and that nobody can (for good or ill) control the process so much that one faction or another has a lock on the count. The excellent commentary provided by the poll worker in this thread details how the law is engaged in the attempt to make the public feel it is fair.
Connecticut has moved, statewide, to a scanning system that retains paper ballots. Your ballot is placed in an optical scanner, face down, face up or any way that it fits and it will be read. Furthermore, the ballot goes into a box within the scanner, which is locked. Like New York, there are two poll workers (at least), one from each party.
Connecticut is a smaller state than New York. It is relatively easy to replace voting systems in the smaller states as compared to the more populous. I think the federal demand is nothing more than an attempt by one side to obfuscate the real reasons why the systems were re-examined in the first place.