The other major reason is to offset how cheap labor is throughout the world. In Mexico a farmer doesnt have to spend $4000/acre for his land, or pay his workers nearly what a US farmer makes for a living. The theory is that these subsidies are needed to help US farmers against this fact, to help combat the agricultural equivelent of "outsourcing" our farming jobs. That's the problem. Cheap farm labour shouldn't be 'offset' -- let comparative advantage do the work. I'm all for the outsourcing of farming jobs, because why should American farmers receive any kind of special privilege? It's not an unalienable entitlement to be able to farm for a living. And at any rate, farming in this country is mostly the purview of agribusinesses such as ADM and ConAgra. If people in this country want to farm, then they should offer produce (such as no-till or novel varieties of crop) that people are willing to pay a premium for. But stop bitching because Uncle Jim Bob in Iowa is being underpriced by some peasant in Bolivia -- the Bolivian has just as much right as Jim Bob to eke an existence from the soil.
I can recall before Time Warner came in and bought up the local cable companies -- basic cable cost about $25/mo for 60 channels. Now it's $55/mo for 68 channels. Yep, same here in Chesterfield County, VA. 15 years ago or so, we had Storer Cable. The customer service was superb, and we only paid $20/month for ~70 channels. Then within a year Comcast came in and bought Storer up, and our rates went up to $35/month overnight. They've been inching upward at multiples of the rate of inflation ever since. When I got FIOS hooked up, I gleefully called Comcrap up and told them to go fuck themselves up the arse with a rusty cattle-prod.
I fully support your right to go have fun driving your vehicle if that's what floats your boat. You don't, however, have a fundamental right to use something constructed by lots of my taxpayer dollars (the public road system) as your personal playground and put me in unnecessary risk while on it. In such a future, if you wanted to drive for fun, you could easily go drive somewhere that's for people who want to drive for fun; however, our tax dollars weren't collected to build you a racetrack. Hear, hear! To all those road-ragers and people who like to fuck with other drivers for sport, go do it offroad somewhere in a sanctioned location. But don't use my tax dollars and make my insurance premium go up just so you can indulge your wankery.
The article states that endpoints of transmission lines would have DC->AC conversion. What about skipping this step for data centres, where all equipment runs on DC anyway? I didn't see anything in the article mentioning this....
Anyone who believes the market solves everything care to explain why this happens in so many arenas?
Corporations exist for one reason: to make their shareholders money. Broadcasters are selling what people are buying. By and large, people are intellectually lazy -- they pull a nine-hour slog at their jobs and quite frankly don't want to do anything mentally demanding -- *nudge, nudge* reading, anyone?
Until you change what motivates the average person, you're not going to change what profit-seeking enterprises have on offer. It's a multifarious dilemma: our dismal educational system has produced generations of people who aren't very curious about the world they live in and would rather watch formulaic sitcoms, reality TeeVee, and sports than anything of real substance.
Yes, but they don't seem to care at all about the non union employees that are working at the same job site. Of course, my point of view may very well be skewed, but I've noticed a tendency for unions to spit on contracts which most other people would be grateful to have. My only personal experience with unions is when I was an extra on the set of Iron Jawed Angels back in '02. SAG members treated us non-SAGgers like shit, for example insisting that during meals we only get the leftovers. They would go through the buffet queues piling their plates with food and then ostentatiously tipping most of it into the wastebins. Please someone tell me most SAG members (and union members as a whole) aren't as boorish.
* Build an online database that enables citizens to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials. There's a pending bill -- co-sponsored by McCain and Obama -- called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S 2590) that does precisely this. An inferior companion bill (HR 5060) is in the House. Call your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor S 2590, and call your Representative and ask him/her to support legislation that mirrors the Senate version.
Are the parties flip-flopping again or are they finally coming into parity with the fact that they're just one big party with two masks so the people get a sense they they're getting a change every 4 or 8 years? Nothing new under the sun. If you dust off an old American History text, you see that it's been this way since the demise of the Federalist party in 1816 and the Era of Good Feelings from 1820-1825. I encourage all of you out there to read up on it -- fascinating stuff.
Mod parent way up!
Saying enforcing IP 'protects jobs' is no different than saying 'raising and enforcing taxes protects jobs'. Give someone the right to exact taxes from some part of the economy and there's no limit to how large expenses they can create and how many workers they can employ. That does not equal competetive and efficient free market economy. Precisely. Methinks more people should read Bastiat's parable of the broken window.
Shareholders are simply too stupid. The problem is that most 'shareholders' are institutional investors who care little about what companies do, but only how much money the companies make (and therefore how fat their commissions are). What we need in this country is more genuine shareholder activism.
the spirit of America ... is who won last night's ballgame or fucked so-and-so's girlfriend. More people voted for an American Idol finalist than voted in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, which is a travesty.
the economy is tanking big-time right now Buying things largely on credit....an era of amazing new devices and technologies...globalisation....hyperproduction/hypoconsumption...corporate profits not trickling down to Joe Average...am I describing the Here and Now? Nope, I'm describing the Roaring Twenties. Dubya and his lackeys won't admit it, but the Great Depression can happen again. It's amazing how uncannily similar Dubya is to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, who stuck their heads in the sand and thought the Good Times(tm) would last...
The extra waste in the landfill is not the corporation's problem. This is why cradle-to-cradle legislation is so important. Forcing manufacturers to incorporate the cost of this externality into their pricing will allow consumers to make more rational choices.
Thus, getting your face in the field earlier may be more useful than pursuing bigger degrees here. I completely agree. Back in '96, I had the option of finishing my CS degree or having a large bank buy out my contract and hire me on full-time. Guess which I chose? Yep -- I went back to school. And by the time I finished, the DotBomb was upon us. Had I kept working, I'd have four or so more years of experience under my belt, rather than a dime-a-dozen degree which I have yet to find applicable to any position I've held since graduation.
Robots in this regard would be glorified pocket pussies/dildoes/vibrators/Ben Wa balls, et cetera....in other words, no substitute for a real, live human.
Then there's the school of thought that feels education should be quite deliberately used for social control, that is, to keep the masses in line. This is the premise upon which John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education is based.
Slashdot Mirror
The article states that endpoints of transmission lines would have DC->AC conversion. What about skipping this step for data centres, where all equipment runs on DC anyway? I didn't see anything in the article mentioning this....
Corporations exist for one reason: to make their shareholders money. Broadcasters are selling what people are buying. By and large, people are intellectually lazy -- they pull a nine-hour slog at their jobs and quite frankly don't want to do anything mentally demanding -- *nudge, nudge* reading, anyone?
Until you change what motivates the average person, you're not going to change what profit-seeking enterprises have on offer. It's a multifarious dilemma: our dismal educational system has produced generations of people who aren't very curious about the world they live in and would rather watch formulaic sitcoms, reality TeeVee, and sports than anything of real substance.
'You're not buying me, you're only hiring me.'
Saying enforcing IP 'protects jobs' is no different than saying 'raising and enforcing taxes protects jobs'. Give someone the right to exact taxes from some part of the economy and there's no limit to how large expenses they can create and how many workers they can employ. That does not equal competetive and efficient free market economy. Precisely. Methinks more people should read Bastiat's parable of the broken window.
Oh and you might want to take Bush's cock out of your mouth. Damn...sand, semen...your orifices are plumb-full of foreign substances!
And you're a pussy for hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.
You might want to use some Murine to irrigate those old ear canals -- sand buildup can be a nasty thing.
Yeah this is my biggest beef. They don't even support Firefox on XP for crying out loud.
Robots in this regard would be glorified pocket pussies/dildoes/vibrators/Ben Wa balls, et cetera....in other words, no substitute for a real, live human.
...in the headline, I'd give an emphatic 'Yes!'