With current oil prices, people have an excuse to continue wasting. The same for corporations. I can see investigation for more efficient energy sources being put aside because oil price is low.
Ultimately, governments will scrap the oil-independence plans they had made during the oil-shock and get back to sit on their lazy asses. When eventually oil ends, we'll be unprepared, of course. That's why I think the currently lower oil prices are not a good thing, but a disgrace.
Let's face it, Joe Sixpack, Joe the CEO and Joe the Politician couldn't care less for global warming and the end of oil reserves. If it's cheap now, why take precautions? Why bother with what will happen 5 years from now?
It's like when email appeared and everybody was forwarding stupid jokes and chain letters all the time. The basic instinct of people is to like flashing screens all around, but eventually people will find them annoying, i hope.
What annoys me more in public places are TVs and tobacco. That's why I don't get out much, I'm fed up going to bars where music is too loud to talk, people are staring at multiple TV sets spread around the place showing junk-TV shows and I get home with my clothes stinking like smoke so bad that I feel like puking.
Nothing against football games. It's fun to get together with friends and watch the game at the local café. But having multiple TVs on all the time is annoying. And they're everywhere.
I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves. No big government messing in your business, no taxes, guns for everyone. If you are smart enough, strong enough, hard working you can have everything.
Examples of heaven on Earth: Congo Democratic Republic, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Kosovo.
You will live happy as can be, at least until the next warlord/druglord murders you to get your place.
You dismiss the creationist threat as unimportant. Practical life skills are the things people should learn. You are failing to acknowledge the power of education in the formation of conscience at individual and society level.
Knowledge is a building. Rationality is the biggest stone in the foundation of modern human knowledge. Creationism is irrational thinking. Ignoring such a threat is extremely dangerous. This is an evil that should be taken very seriously before it's too late.
The rich guy is a great guy who had bad luck and deserves a new liver right away.
This is the kind of flawed, partial analogies the Conservatives use all the time to put down socialised health care, socialised education, etc. It works!
There is a music channel for Latin countries called Sol MÃsica. Years ago, when the Lenny Kravitz song "Fly away" was a hit, the clip showed all the time on TV. There was a girl in the clip showing her boobs. In Sol MÃsica we could see the boobies, but on MTV they were blurred.
What's the problem with boobies? Here in Europe, it's not such a big deal. We have statues of naked men and women in every square. You can see full frontal nudes in most European films. It's just naked people. Not that big of a problem. And I like boobies;-)
In Portuguese, my native language, "senso comum"/"common sense" means something that is widely accepted but not accurate, like a superstition.
On the other way "bom senso"/"good sense" means the right conclusion that you should come to if you use your intelligence.
Why you use "common sense" to mean the same as our "good sense" escapes me. Maybe it has to do with the democratic/parliamentary tradition in England, where it is assumed that something was good if the majority approves it.
What you describe is social-democracy. It marked the most prosperous period of all times in the West, between WW2 and the "conservative revolution" of the 80s.
It was marked by a constant struggle between labor and capital. Eventually, the capital won.
Your vision of Europe is highly prejudicial and inaccurate. It's a conservative technique to tell the middle classes they shouldn't be supporting the "lazy bums" (unemployed, sick people, immigrants, etc.). They do that to divert the attention from the huge transfer of income from the middle classes to the wealthier layer (maybe the real lazy bums, IMHO).
Yes, it's right the market should correct itself, it's full of fictitious capital up to its hair.
It's just a matter of thinking if you want to suffer the consequences of that "correction". It may stop the whole world's economy on its tracks and send billions of people to unemployment and starvation, resulting in worldwide barbarism and war.
The fanatic religion of free-market is similar to saying "Don't use medicine, the best people will survive the illness and Humanity will be stronger". It's true, but do you want to risk your own life or your children's in that competition? Is that the way you want to live?
The free-market (called "neoliberal" here where I live) has been publicized for decades as heaven on earth. It only brought greater inequality, environmental mayhem and deeper and deeper cyclic crisis. The current one is probably the worse ever and its consequences are unpredictable. And still, there are religious fanatics saying "The problem is that we haven't deregulated enough"!?!? Wake up!
That would be OK, until you were leading a protest because of the bad garbage collection on your neighborhood and then, "mysteriously" footage of you smoking weed or kissing a guy would come up on Youtube, putting you out of the game immediately, for completely unrelated reasons.
They don't want to catch criminals. They want to know all the dirty little secrets everyone has.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad it was UN and not the USA. Now we have a chance that the problem will go away and not be multiplied by 100.
Or maybe Bush will want to fight the Somalian pirates and declare war on Kenya. It's not like he hasn't done stupid things like that before.
I don't see him standing a chance in the speaking circuit, so he' better stick to the corporate board thing.
No, prision if full of other kinds of criminals. White-collar criminals are in government and corporation boards.
Let the pissing contest begin...
Yeah, those evil fascists killed thousands of innocent civilians. To show how much superior we are, let's do exactly the same.
This whole Ms Office versus OO cock-fighting is so stupid.
I use Linux at home, I couldn't use MS Office even if I wanted. And if I used Windows, I couldn't afford MS Office, so what's the big deal?
If you don't like OO, get some money, buy MS Office and be happy.
With current oil prices, people have an excuse to continue wasting. The same for corporations. I can see investigation for more efficient energy sources being put aside because oil price is low.
Ultimately, governments will scrap the oil-independence plans they had made during the oil-shock and get back to sit on their lazy asses. When eventually oil ends, we'll be unprepared, of course. That's why I think the currently lower oil prices are not a good thing, but a disgrace.
Let's face it, Joe Sixpack, Joe the CEO and Joe the Politician couldn't care less for global warming and the end of oil reserves. If it's cheap now, why take precautions? Why bother with what will happen 5 years from now?
Why innovate? I say, ban the notebooks. Progress? Let's stop progress, who told you progress could stand in the way of profit?
Invest it in innovative companies? You mean, like in subprime funds? Great.
If you don't spend some money helping the poor, you will have to spend in guards, fences and alarms.
If you don't spend it in guards, fences and alarms, the poor will eventually mug you and steal it.
So, pay your taxes and make sure they'll be spent doing the right thing.
It's like when email appeared and everybody was forwarding stupid jokes and chain letters all the time. The basic instinct of people is to like flashing screens all around, but eventually people will find them annoying, i hope.
What annoys me more in public places are TVs and tobacco. That's why I don't get out much, I'm fed up going to bars where music is too loud to talk, people are staring at multiple TV sets spread around the place showing junk-TV shows and I get home with my clothes stinking like smoke so bad that I feel like puking.
Nothing against football games. It's fun to get together with friends and watch the game at the local café. But having multiple TVs on all the time is annoying. And they're everywhere.
I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves. No big government messing in your business, no taxes, guns for everyone. If you are smart enough, strong enough, hard working you can have everything.
Examples of heaven on Earth: Congo Democratic Republic, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Kosovo.
You will live happy as can be, at least until the next warlord/druglord murders you to get your place.
You dismiss the creationist threat as unimportant. Practical life skills are the things people should learn. You are failing to acknowledge the power of education in the formation of conscience at individual and society level.
Knowledge is a building. Rationality is the biggest stone in the foundation of modern human knowledge. Creationism is irrational thinking. Ignoring such a threat is extremely dangerous. This is an evil that should be taken very seriously before it's too late.
Don't you have a health insurance?
Man, you're ALREADY paying for the big fat asses. Where do you think the insurance companies get their profits? From them? No, from you!
I like the way you put the problem:
The poor guy is a lazy, drunken bum.
The rich guy is a great guy who had bad luck and deserves a new liver right away.
This is the kind of flawed, partial analogies the Conservatives use all the time to put down socialised health care, socialised education, etc. It works!
politicians => ~honest
|Politicians|Honest|Result|
| f | f | t |
| f | t | t |
| t | f | t |
| t | t | f |
Honest politicians is a logical incoherence.
There is a music channel for Latin countries called Sol MÃsica. Years ago, when the Lenny Kravitz song "Fly away" was a hit, the clip showed all the time on TV. There was a girl in the clip showing her boobs. In Sol MÃsica we could see the boobies, but on MTV they were blurred.
What's the problem with boobies? Here in Europe, it's not such a big deal. We have statues of naked men and women in every square. You can see full frontal nudes in most European films. It's just naked people. Not that big of a problem. And I like boobies ;-)
In Portuguese, my native language, "senso comum"/"common sense" means something that is widely accepted but not accurate, like a superstition.
On the other way "bom senso"/"good sense" means the right conclusion that you should come to if you use your intelligence.
Why you use "common sense" to mean the same as our "good sense" escapes me. Maybe it has to do with the democratic/parliamentary tradition in England, where it is assumed that something was good if the majority approves it.
I'm not sure what "good sense" in English means.
What you describe is social-democracy. It marked the most prosperous period of all times in the West, between WW2 and the "conservative revolution" of the 80s.
It was marked by a constant struggle between labor and capital. Eventually, the capital won.
Your vision of Europe is highly prejudicial and inaccurate. It's a conservative technique to tell the middle classes they shouldn't be supporting the "lazy bums" (unemployed, sick people, immigrants, etc.). They do that to divert the attention from the huge transfer of income from the middle classes to the wealthier layer (maybe the real lazy bums, IMHO).
Yes, it's right the market should correct itself, it's full of fictitious capital up to its hair.
It's just a matter of thinking if you want to suffer the consequences of that "correction". It may stop the whole world's economy on its tracks and send billions of people to unemployment and starvation, resulting in worldwide barbarism and war.
The fanatic religion of free-market is similar to saying "Don't use medicine, the best people will survive the illness and Humanity will be stronger". It's true, but do you want to risk your own life or your children's in that competition? Is that the way you want to live?
The free-market (called "neoliberal" here where I live) has been publicized for decades as heaven on earth. It only brought greater inequality, environmental mayhem and deeper and deeper cyclic crisis. The current one is probably the worse ever and its consequences are unpredictable. And still, there are religious fanatics saying "The problem is that we haven't deregulated enough"!?!? Wake up!
That's why you need a public and free health care system, and bloodsucking insurance companies should go down the drain.
Why would people in those countries be different from the rest of the world? I wonder if they are born with the "evil gene" or something like that.
You sound like a religious fundamentalist in denial.
That would be OK, until you were leading a protest because of the bad garbage collection on your neighborhood and then, "mysteriously" footage of you smoking weed or kissing a guy would come up on Youtube, putting you out of the game immediately, for completely unrelated reasons.
They don't want to catch criminals. They want to know all the dirty little secrets everyone has.
I guess these events happen in the million year range, so they may have had enough time to evolve and escape.