...That's like throwing away speech because it could be used to tell you about how I'm taking a dump.
I believe that's known as Too Much Information.
Besides, that would never be a tweet. First of all, you know how to spell. Second, you have some basic understanding of grammar. And third, you didn't add something like "I hope it looks like Miley Cyrus!".
Better yet, equip all these yahoos with some basic monitoring equipment to record information for you. It wouldn't be the first time scientists have used a network of enthusiastic amateurs for a legitimate scientific endeavor.
And then, of course, there is a possibility that they are aware of us and:
1) Don't care 2) Are morally repulsed at how easily we seem to engage in mass atrocities against our own species 3) Want to keep it a surprise when they show up to wipe us out to plunder our natural resources 4) etc.
We have a tendency to assume that if there is other intelligent life out there that it would WANT to make itself known to us. That's very egotistical. Given our colorful history, I'm not sure I would want to meet us either.
disasters? Do you mean the kind of disaster that brought up the standard of living for everybody across the board?
For who? For us? Or for the people who suffered from things like the Union Carbide disaster in India? Or the pollution fueled economy of China where we get all the cheap crap we want? I suppose wearing filtration masks are a big step up.
Or how about a few depressions, which always hit the middle and lower classes harder than those on top of the pile. For example, the late 1800's saw quite a lovely depression. No Fed necessary.
The only reason the standard of living has increased for everyone overall is because government stepped in and said you can't treat your workers like shit. Period.
The kind of disaster that lead to the greatest progress in the history of the human kind?
I welcome those kinds of 'disasters'.
I guess that all depends on which side of the fence you sit on I suppose. For example, there 6-7 billion people on this planet, and most of them do not really get to see or feel this progress. However, we do appreciate the cheap labor to fuel our progress.
Then there is the poisoning of the planet, consumption of non-renewable resources at an alarming rate, weapons that can kill millions, etc. . The progress of humankind has come at a tremendous cost. But our free ride won't last forever.
You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before the industrial revolution and the creation of capitalism that lead to the same levels of increase in overall standard of living, in everybody's ability to get access to the best that the people could ever provide.
Most major civilizations had a golden age where, more or less, everyone had a better standard of living compared to others of their time. Capitalism has been around for quite some time.
As far as access to the best provided services, we don't have that. If you have the money you do. If you don't, you become a debt slave, or simply suffer and/or die. Free markets don't provide services to the poor masses, the government does.
You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before that lead to the kinds of innovations, discoveries and inventions that became possible due to concentration of capital through savings and investment into businesses.
Uh...no. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, etc. all made plenty of innovations discoveries. Later on, during the age of enlightenment, more innovations and discoveries were made.
I HOPE people are assholes, that's the only way that we get progress, because assholes want to have it all and to live better and they work on it pushing the progress forward.
Progress at all costs? The ends justify the means? You sound a lot like a "visionary" dictator, which has rarely turned out for the best.
people don't play fair, I hope they don't otherwise we'll have the 'fair hell' on this planet.
Ah I get it. So it's okay, in your view, to destroy other people in the name of your own progress. Got it.
The one single problem is that the political system needs to be controlled to make sure nobody can take over it with simply money, that is a problem and we are STILL Learning how to do this right.
And free markets would do this precisely how? Without regulations on what a company can or cannot do with it's money, how precisely would you ensure that companies/owners weren't doing inappropriate things with their funds? Without regulation, how would one check the books to ensure a company was behaving itself?
you are wrong. Free Market is the ONLY single tool that allows progress and simultaneously brings down the prices through competition.
Oh competition. Right...right. Forgot about the competition. But exactly where does the competition come from?
Anecdotes are nice, but they are far from conclusive proof. My group has experienced significant issues with Macs. That's not to say that all Macs suck, but statements like "Macs have fewer problems than other machines" need to be backed up with something other than anecdotes.
The "free market" existed before the Fed, and yet you seem to gloss over the financial disasters during that time. The free market existed in England, and there were a number of economic travesties there too.
Economic anarchy is not the answer. PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES. In economic anarchy, the assholes will rule because they don't give a shit about anyone else. They care about money, and go to any lengths possible to get it.
Free Marketers/Economic Anarchists seem to operate in this idealized world where people will play fair. PEOPLE DON'T PLAY FAIR. They will collude. They will conspire. They will sabotage. They will be underhanded, sneaky, back stabbing bastards. Businesses DO NOT operate under the premise of what is best for society. They operate under what's best for profit. If that means dumping a metric assload of mercury into the water table is more profitable than cleaning it up, then they will do it. If that means assassinating a business rival who refuses to bend to your will, then that option is on the table.
The free market operates in the best interest of those who have the money and power. The free market does not care about society, other than to ensure a constant supply of cheap, stupid, laborers and consumers. The free market does not care about sweatshops, slavery, child labor, or unsafe working conditions. The free market does not care about safety regulations or the environment. The free market is profit at all costs. The free market is finding loopholes and stretching legalities to their utmost. The free market is profit regardless of the effects on the rest of society.
History is replete with examples of what a "free market" is capable of, and none of them are pretty. Free markets eventually devolve into economic tyranny. Without a strong government to enforce some level of decency, a free market becomes the epitome of human ugliness. Eventually, that gets corrected as well (see the French Revolution).
Pure free marketers are just as stupid and naive as pure Marxists. They both make grave assumptions about human nature which are patently absurd and have no scientific merit. All people are capable of becoming atrocious sociopaths. Several psychological experiments (along with history itself) demonstrates this clearly. As long as that remains part of human nature, pure free markets and pure communist systems will never work without terrible consequences.
There are a lot of people who believe that had we let the fools fail, other companies would have taken up the slack
The problem wasn't the companies themselves, it was the banks. Or rather, the huge investment banks that made a lot of really stupid decisions and unfortunately form the backbone of the American economy.
Hardly any major company runs it's day to day operations without short-term loans. We came very close to having companies not be able to get those loans. Bills wouldn't be paid, payrolls wouldn't be made, etc. . It would have been incredibly ugly if the government allowed that to happen.
I didn't like the idea of bailing out the car industry and others, but for the banks there didn't appear to be much choice.
Instead we've propped up the failing system. We're rewarding companies for making shady deals and bad decisions. Yeah, that's definitely going to promote a healthy economy.
I think a lot of people were expecting that after the egregious abuses that there would have been swift actions taken to reinstate acts like Glass-Steigall or something similar. Yet here we are a couple years later and still nothing definitive has been put in place. Hardly any action has been taken. Despite the royal screwing taken by the American people it seems like the deep pockets have been doing all the talking in DC.
Macs hardly need any administration at all - some quick setup for printers, and some basic filesharing rules, and you are good to go.
Hardly. My group is strictly Mac, and I can tell you that there are problems that regularly crop up, from crashes to all out hardware failure.
You do not need to worry about self-propagating viruses.
Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that.
You don't need to worry AS MUCH about the kids installing strange and harmful software off the internet.
That's only because it is not available. Apple's market share has been too low in the past to make it worthwhile.
You don't generally need to worry too much about the kids running games when they are meant to be doing work on the things.
Virtualbox can fix that pretty damn quick. Or bootcamp. Or parallels. Kids will find a way.
I imagine that for most of the tasks they are going to have the kids doing with their Macbooks, there will be zero software to purchase.
That's good, because they're getting raped by the cost of the platform. Besides, you don't need to buy any software for windows or linux either. Open office is freely available and the number of open source/free tools for either platform is staggering.
From an educational standpoint, Macs have a full BASH terminal, and comes with a full software development package, so there's teaching all that nifty UNIX stuff that is actually useful in the "real world."
So does linux, BSD, and even windows through MinGW, Cygwin, or a linux based virtual machine. In fact, using virtual machines is more relevant as more and more systems utilize multiple operating systems to accomplish what they need to.
More importantly than all that, Macs need very little on-going maintenance.
The IT department where I work has a different perspective.
There's very little that a combo of Onyx (free), and Disc Warrior (not free, but not expensive) cannot cure on a Mac.
The only difference between this and other OS's is that other OS's have free tools to do this.
If you set the kids up with non-administrative user-accounts, they cannot destroy the application software or the operating system.
Again, I don't see how this is any different than something like a linux distro. Besides, it's not true. All it takes is one exploit to compromise a system, and saying Apple has no exploits is false.
No need to ghost the OS and apps, and re-image the computers at the end of every day like I know a lot of school computer labs do with Windows machines.
You only need to do this if you have don't have account restrictions and/or you want to make sure the machines are pristine (no user installed software remains on the system). You have to do this with any operating system depending on how clean you want things to be or what level of privileges you have.
I imagine that a school will only need 1 "computer guy" around, and he will not be busy full-time. Macs are a breeze to maintain.I think the last Mac virus I had to deal with was back in the OS 8 days.
And you imagine incorrectly. IT support is never simple for any large group of users. There is no idiot proof OS, and planning an IT strategy on such a ludicrous set of assumptions will end in failure. There is no perfect operating system, and none of your arguments really win out when compared to Linux or even Windows 7. If anything, Linux is probably best given the insane amount of applications and customizations that are available, it's free, and can run on cheap hardware which reduces the burden.
The better way, of course, is to not mandate computers of any type.
Compared to my home Windows 7 machines, the Macs I use at work are crashtastic. At least once a week I receive the gray screen of death. And then there is the hardware. Out of 30 Macs in my group we've had 11 of them die within 3 years (3 of them within days of each other). And I do mean die, as in the machines don't even turn on. This is apparently the result of the wonderful hardware they choose to use.
It's better to avoid both commercial entities (Apple and MS). Notebooks or netbooks with linux and open office would be enough for almost all school work, and it is a lot cheaper. Better yet, there are even themes that can be installed to give the OS the look and feel of whatever you're used to.
Make Americans feel better? No, that isn't reason.
Companies like BP apparently need to learn a serious lesson. You don't just cut of the hand that commits the crime. Unless these companies see that crap like BP pulled results in serious repercussions, there will continue to be incidents like this. Worse, their shareholders will still not pay attention as long as they make money. Perhaps those investors and pension managers should pay more attention to how the companies they OWN are behaving? Nah, that's just crazy talk.
And who says shareholders would not get compensated if such an action were to take place?
Point being punitive damages do not work unless it forces the company into bankruptcy. Exxon demonstrated quite effectively that as long as you tie something up long enough in legal proceedings you can whittle away those huge damages down to a pittance.
You'd prefer them to be bankrupt and pick up the costs in your tax bill?
Who said anything about us footing the bill? BP has more than enough assets to sell off to other "more responsible" companies. Or better yet, keep BP running as a government controlled company until everything has been taken care of, and then sell it off to "more responsible" companies.
The original poster contended that BP has been punished enough. They haven't. They killed 11 people and made an ecological disaster in the process. The cost of cleanup, even if they foot the entire thing, will barely make any impact. Shareholders might get a couple cents less in their dividend payments. The people in charge (and the company itself) need to be held accountable.
BP's gross operating profit is $47.4 billion according to their earnings statement released at the beginning of the year. $1.25 billion so far or $100 billion over the course of the next 10 or more years is hardly a painful penalty.
Eleven people died because of their negligence. There's a chain of people there that still need to feel some handcuffs and a little prison love.
No they have not been punished. The company remains practically unscathed. The notional stock value has not impacted their profits. They're still raking in money hand over fist. At their profit margins the cost of this spill won't make any serious dent. And even if it did, they'll pull an Exxon-Valdez and tie up any judgment in court for so long that they pay a fraction of what they should.
Anyone who had critical oversight or decision making power over what was going on should be brought up on criminal charges. The excuse of "I was just following orders" has no legal standing. People KNEW there were problems (almost a year in advance), and did nothing about it. At best, that's criminal negligence.
You are seriously deluding yourself if you think BP has been punished. Those responsible have not been punished. BP has so far suffered no lasting harm (perhaps a name change in a few years to sweep all this under the rug). It wouldn't be the first time.
As for the amount of oil that remains in the gulf itself, it seems to me there's not a whole lot we can do about that at this point. So while there's certainly value in understanding the nature and scope of the problem, in purely practical terms I don't really see how it matters.
One gulf hurricane in the area will demonstrate pretty effectively why it matters. A hurricane is capable of churning up deep water which means not only would an area need to worry about the oil at the surface but also any of those deeper oil plumes below the surface as well. There's a difference between weathering a hurricane and needing to evacuate due to toxic contamination.
Given that it is expected that this year will be a hyper-active hurricane season it is very important to know the extent of the spill so hurricane prone areas are prepared deal with not only the normal hurricane threats but also the new HAZMAT threat posed by a category WD-40 hurricane.
If hard core christian states in the south want to abolish abortion, have a 0 tolerance drug policy, etc. Let them.
States with bad policies and laws become social and/or economic liabilities to the rest of us, as well as to the people living there. That helps no one.
Hell Colorado, Cali, and numerous other states are on the verge of all out legalizing marijuana, but it's the feds that are stepping in saying "Nope. Because we say so".
No. They're saying no because past and present elected representatives passed prohibition laws which makes it illegal. I don't have problem with legalization, nor do I have an issue with it becoming a state issue. However, making the Fed out to be this big bad monster coming down with a clawhammer is disingenuous. If the majority of people where you live think drugs should be illegal then having the states make the decision isn't going to help you. If you want the laws to change then actively participate in getting them changed. But make no mistake, the government only says it's illegal because the people's representatives wanted it to be illegal (along with some lobbyists of course).
Every state has the right to set their own drinking age, but the feds are blackmailing them into making it 21.
It's not blackmailing. It's bribing. But why choose just that one? There are plenty of other areas where this is the case. It's simple. If you want federal funds then you have to play by federal rules. This isn't any different for receiving state funds, grants, or incentives. If you want the money, you have to play by the rules regardless of whether your going after state or federal funds. Those rules are put in place by your elected representatives (or by people appointed by those representatives). You don't like it? Work to change it.
Uh, no. Unacceptably to you. Please stay out of other's ppl's way of life. What makes you think you know best for the rest of the US, and by extension, the world?
The poster was referring to the possibility that without a strong central government that there would be states who would happily trample on people's rights (or at least, non-white rights) among other things. You seem to be making an assumption that all states/communities agree that all humans deserve equal treatment, which I would argue is not the case.
That's an interesting opinion. Too bad it doesn't work without complete totalitarianism, even on a small scale.
That's something I'd expect Glen Beck to say. Our government has been working this way for a while without a totalitarian state.
The poster was making the point that if more balanced laws are not handed down by the larger majority then communities that, for example, have a majority of KKK members could institute some rather draconian laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Quit working? I'm surprised that didn't turn your perl script into pong.
Watching an individual tweeting is like watching a neuron firing; it doesn't appear to be doing anything useful.
Yup, that about sums it up. Twitter: Proof that people have a neuron that fires.
...That's like throwing away speech because it could be used to tell you about how I'm taking a dump.
I believe that's known as Too Much Information.
Besides, that would never be a tweet. First of all, you know how to spell. Second, you have some basic understanding of grammar. And third, you didn't add something like "I hope it looks like Miley Cyrus!".
Better yet, equip all these yahoos with some basic monitoring equipment to record information for you. It wouldn't be the first time scientists have used a network of enthusiastic amateurs for a legitimate scientific endeavor.
If you can't beat them, turn them into your army.
Good thing don't have oil there or we might have to invade them.
And then, of course, there is a possibility that they are aware of us and:
1) Don't care
2) Are morally repulsed at how easily we seem to engage in mass atrocities against our own species
3) Want to keep it a surprise when they show up to wipe us out to plunder our natural resources
4) etc.
We have a tendency to assume that if there is other intelligent life out there that it would WANT to make itself known to us. That's very egotistical. Given our colorful history, I'm not sure I would want to meet us either.
That's it? Really?
Awesome! That would lead to an hilarious wave of penises wearing Groucho glasses.
Those are a big hit at the Japanese Penis Festival.
Yes, it actually exists.
Sharks with lasers attached to their forehead. The future is NOW!
disasters? Do you mean the kind of disaster that brought up the standard of living for everybody across the board?
For who? For us? Or for the people who suffered from things like the Union Carbide disaster in India? Or the pollution fueled economy of China where we get all the cheap crap we want? I suppose wearing filtration masks are a big step up.
Or how about a few depressions, which always hit the middle and lower classes harder than those on top of the pile. For example, the late 1800's saw quite a lovely depression. No Fed necessary.
The only reason the standard of living has increased for everyone overall is because government stepped in and said you can't treat your workers like shit. Period.
The kind of disaster that lead to the greatest progress in the history of the human kind?
I welcome those kinds of 'disasters'.
I guess that all depends on which side of the fence you sit on I suppose. For example, there 6-7 billion people on this planet, and most of them do not really get to see or feel this progress. However, we do appreciate the cheap labor to fuel our progress.
Then there is the poisoning of the planet, consumption of non-renewable resources at an alarming rate, weapons that can kill millions, etc. . The progress of humankind has come at a tremendous cost. But our free ride won't last forever.
You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before the industrial revolution and the creation of capitalism that lead to the same levels of increase in overall standard of living, in everybody's ability to get access to the best that the people could ever provide.
Most major civilizations had a golden age where, more or less, everyone had a better standard of living compared to others of their time. Capitalism has been around for quite some time.
As far as access to the best provided services, we don't have that. If you have the money you do. If you don't, you become a debt slave, or simply suffer and/or die. Free markets don't provide services to the poor masses, the government does.
You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before that lead to the kinds of innovations, discoveries and inventions that became possible due to concentration of capital through savings and investment into businesses.
Uh...no. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, etc. all made plenty of innovations discoveries. Later on, during the age of enlightenment, more innovations and discoveries were made.
I HOPE people are assholes, that's the only way that we get progress, because assholes want to have it all and to live better and they work on it pushing the progress forward.
Progress at all costs? The ends justify the means? You sound a lot like a "visionary" dictator, which has rarely turned out for the best.
people don't play fair, I hope they don't otherwise we'll have the 'fair hell' on this planet.
Ah I get it. So it's okay, in your view, to destroy other people in the name of your own progress. Got it.
The one single problem is that the political system needs to be controlled to make sure nobody can take over it with simply money, that is a problem and we are STILL Learning how to do this right.
And free markets would do this precisely how? Without regulations on what a company can or cannot do with it's money, how precisely would you ensure that companies/owners weren't doing inappropriate things with their funds? Without regulation, how would one check the books to ensure a company was behaving itself?
you are wrong. Free Market is the ONLY single tool that allows progress and simultaneously brings down the prices through competition.
Oh competition. Right...right. Forgot about the competition. But exactly where does the competition come from?
In a free market, wha
1) This is about a public high school.
2) YMMV.
Anecdotes are nice, but they are far from conclusive proof. My group has experienced significant issues with Macs. That's not to say that all Macs suck, but statements like "Macs have fewer problems than other machines" need to be backed up with something other than anecdotes.
and this development helps humanity, how?
This is the US Free Market. We don't do that sort of thing.
The "free market" existed before the Fed, and yet you seem to gloss over the financial disasters during that time. The free market existed in England, and there were a number of economic travesties there too.
Economic anarchy is not the answer. PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES. In economic anarchy, the assholes will rule because they don't give a shit about anyone else. They care about money, and go to any lengths possible to get it.
Free Marketers/Economic Anarchists seem to operate in this idealized world where people will play fair. PEOPLE DON'T PLAY FAIR. They will collude. They will conspire. They will sabotage. They will be underhanded, sneaky, back stabbing bastards. Businesses DO NOT operate under the premise of what is best for society. They operate under what's best for profit. If that means dumping a metric assload of mercury into the water table is more profitable than cleaning it up, then they will do it. If that means assassinating a business rival who refuses to bend to your will, then that option is on the table.
The free market operates in the best interest of those who have the money and power. The free market does not care about society, other than to ensure a constant supply of cheap, stupid, laborers and consumers. The free market does not care about sweatshops, slavery, child labor, or unsafe working conditions. The free market does not care about safety regulations or the environment. The free market is profit at all costs. The free market is finding loopholes and stretching legalities to their utmost. The free market is profit regardless of the effects on the rest of society.
History is replete with examples of what a "free market" is capable of, and none of them are pretty. Free markets eventually devolve into economic tyranny. Without a strong government to enforce some level of decency, a free market becomes the epitome of human ugliness. Eventually, that gets corrected as well (see the French Revolution).
Pure free marketers are just as stupid and naive as pure Marxists. They both make grave assumptions about human nature which are patently absurd and have no scientific merit. All people are capable of becoming atrocious sociopaths. Several psychological experiments (along with history itself) demonstrates this clearly. As long as that remains part of human nature, pure free markets and pure communist systems will never work without terrible consequences.
There are a lot of people who believe that had we let the fools fail, other companies would have taken up the slack
The problem wasn't the companies themselves, it was the banks. Or rather, the huge investment banks that made a lot of really stupid decisions and unfortunately form the backbone of the American economy.
Hardly any major company runs it's day to day operations without short-term loans. We came very close to having companies not be able to get those loans. Bills wouldn't be paid, payrolls wouldn't be made, etc. . It would have been incredibly ugly if the government allowed that to happen.
I didn't like the idea of bailing out the car industry and others, but for the banks there didn't appear to be much choice.
Instead we've propped up the failing system. We're rewarding companies for making shady deals and bad decisions. Yeah, that's definitely going to promote a healthy economy.
I think a lot of people were expecting that after the egregious abuses that there would have been swift actions taken to reinstate acts like Glass-Steigall or something similar. Yet here we are a couple years later and still nothing definitive has been put in place. Hardly any action has been taken. Despite the royal screwing taken by the American people it seems like the deep pockets have been doing all the talking in DC.
All hail the aristocracy.
...but the main key to windows security is to not expect it...
The main key for ANY security is not to expect it.
I work with Macs every day as well.
Macs hardly need any administration at all - some quick setup for printers, and some basic filesharing rules, and you are good to go.
Hardly. My group is strictly Mac, and I can tell you that there are problems that regularly crop up, from crashes to all out hardware failure.
You do not need to worry about self-propagating viruses.
Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that.
You don't need to worry AS MUCH about the kids installing strange and harmful software off the internet.
That's only because it is not available. Apple's market share has been too low in the past to make it worthwhile.
You don't generally need to worry too much about the kids running games when they are meant to be doing work on the things.
Virtualbox can fix that pretty damn quick. Or bootcamp. Or parallels. Kids will find a way.
I imagine that for most of the tasks they are going to have the kids doing with their Macbooks, there will be zero software to purchase.
That's good, because they're getting raped by the cost of the platform. Besides, you don't need to buy any software for windows or linux either. Open office is freely available and the number of open source/free tools for either platform is staggering.
From an educational standpoint, Macs have a full BASH terminal, and comes with a full software development package, so there's teaching all that nifty UNIX stuff that is actually useful in the "real world."
So does linux, BSD, and even windows through MinGW, Cygwin, or a linux based virtual machine. In fact, using virtual machines is more relevant as more and more systems utilize multiple operating systems to accomplish what they need to.
More importantly than all that, Macs need very little on-going maintenance.
The IT department where I work has a different perspective.
There's very little that a combo of Onyx (free), and Disc Warrior (not free, but not expensive) cannot cure on a Mac.
The only difference between this and other OS's is that other OS's have free tools to do this.
If you set the kids up with non-administrative user-accounts, they cannot destroy the application software or the operating system.
Again, I don't see how this is any different than something like a linux distro. Besides, it's not true. All it takes is one exploit to compromise a system, and saying Apple has no exploits is false.
No need to ghost the OS and apps, and re-image the computers at the end of every day like I know a lot of school computer labs do with Windows machines.
You only need to do this if you have don't have account restrictions and/or you want to make sure the machines are pristine (no user installed software remains on the system). You have to do this with any operating system depending on how clean you want things to be or what level of privileges you have.
I imagine that a school will only need 1 "computer guy" around, and he will not be busy full-time. Macs are a breeze to maintain.I think the last Mac virus I had to deal with was back in the OS 8 days.
And you imagine incorrectly. IT support is never simple for any large group of users. There is no idiot proof OS, and planning an IT strategy on such a ludicrous set of assumptions will end in failure. There is no perfect operating system, and none of your arguments really win out when compared to Linux or even Windows 7. If anything, Linux is probably best given the insane amount of applications and customizations that are available, it's free, and can run on cheap hardware which reduces the burden.
The better way, of course, is to not mandate computers of any type.
Except Macs have just as many problems.
Compared to my home Windows 7 machines, the Macs I use at work are crashtastic. At least once a week I receive the gray screen of death. And then there is the hardware. Out of 30 Macs in my group we've had 11 of them die within 3 years (3 of them within days of each other). And I do mean die, as in the machines don't even turn on. This is apparently the result of the wonderful hardware they choose to use.
It's better to avoid both commercial entities (Apple and MS). Notebooks or netbooks with linux and open office would be enough for almost all school work, and it is a lot cheaper. Better yet, there are even themes that can be installed to give the OS the look and feel of whatever you're used to.
Make Americans feel better? No, that isn't reason.
Companies like BP apparently need to learn a serious lesson. You don't just cut of the hand that commits the crime. Unless these companies see that crap like BP pulled results in serious repercussions, there will continue to be incidents like this. Worse, their shareholders will still not pay attention as long as they make money. Perhaps those investors and pension managers should pay more attention to how the companies they OWN are behaving? Nah, that's just crazy talk.
And who says shareholders would not get compensated if such an action were to take place?
Point being punitive damages do not work unless it forces the company into bankruptcy. Exxon demonstrated quite effectively that as long as you tie something up long enough in legal proceedings you can whittle away those huge damages down to a pittance.
You'd prefer them to be bankrupt and pick up the costs in your tax bill?
Who said anything about us footing the bill? BP has more than enough assets to sell off to other "more responsible" companies. Or better yet, keep BP running as a government controlled company until everything has been taken care of, and then sell it off to "more responsible" companies.
The original poster contended that BP has been punished enough. They haven't. They killed 11 people and made an ecological disaster in the process. The cost of cleanup, even if they foot the entire thing, will barely make any impact. Shareholders might get a couple cents less in their dividend payments. The people in charge (and the company itself) need to be held accountable.
Average American: I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am!
****Rumbles away in their Hummer H3 after firmly wedging your smart4two between it's tire treads****
BP's gross operating profit is $47.4 billion according to their earnings statement released at the beginning of the year. $1.25 billion so far or $100 billion over the course of the next 10 or more years is hardly a painful penalty.
Eleven people died because of their negligence. There's a chain of people there that still need to feel some handcuffs and a little prison love.
No they have not been punished. The company remains practically unscathed. The notional stock value has not impacted their profits. They're still raking in money hand over fist. At their profit margins the cost of this spill won't make any serious dent. And even if it did, they'll pull an Exxon-Valdez and tie up any judgment in court for so long that they pay a fraction of what they should.
Anyone who had critical oversight or decision making power over what was going on should be brought up on criminal charges. The excuse of "I was just following orders" has no legal standing. People KNEW there were problems (almost a year in advance), and did nothing about it. At best, that's criminal negligence.
You are seriously deluding yourself if you think BP has been punished. Those responsible have not been punished. BP has so far suffered no lasting harm (perhaps a name change in a few years to sweep all this under the rug). It wouldn't be the first time.
As for the amount of oil that remains in the gulf itself, it seems to me there's not a whole lot we can do about that at this point. So while there's certainly value in understanding the nature and scope of the problem, in purely practical terms I don't really see how it matters.
One gulf hurricane in the area will demonstrate pretty effectively why it matters. A hurricane is capable of churning up deep water which means not only would an area need to worry about the oil at the surface but also any of those deeper oil plumes below the surface as well. There's a difference between weathering a hurricane and needing to evacuate due to toxic contamination.
Given that it is expected that this year will be a hyper-active hurricane season it is very important to know the extent of the spill so hurricane prone areas are prepared deal with not only the normal hurricane threats but also the new HAZMAT threat posed by a category WD-40 hurricane.
If hard core christian states in the south want to abolish abortion, have a 0 tolerance drug policy, etc. Let them.
States with bad policies and laws become social and/or economic liabilities to the rest of us, as well as to the people living there. That helps no one.
Hell Colorado, Cali, and numerous other states are on the verge of all out legalizing marijuana, but it's the feds that are stepping in saying "Nope. Because we say so".
No. They're saying no because past and present elected representatives passed prohibition laws which makes it illegal. I don't have problem with legalization, nor do I have an issue with it becoming a state issue. However, making the Fed out to be this big bad monster coming down with a clawhammer is disingenuous. If the majority of people where you live think drugs should be illegal then having the states make the decision isn't going to help you. If you want the laws to change then actively participate in getting them changed. But make no mistake, the government only says it's illegal because the people's representatives wanted it to be illegal (along with some lobbyists of course).
Every state has the right to set their own drinking age, but the feds are blackmailing them into making it 21.
It's not blackmailing. It's bribing. But why choose just that one? There are plenty of other areas where this is the case. It's simple. If you want federal funds then you have to play by federal rules. This isn't any different for receiving state funds, grants, or incentives. If you want the money, you have to play by the rules regardless of whether your going after state or federal funds. Those rules are put in place by your elected representatives (or by people appointed by those representatives). You don't like it? Work to change it.
Uh, no. Unacceptably to you. Please stay out of other's ppl's way of life. What makes you think you know best for the rest of the US, and by extension, the world?
The poster was referring to the possibility that without a strong central government that there would be states who would happily trample on people's rights (or at least, non-white rights) among other things. You seem to be making an assumption that all states/communities agree that all humans deserve equal treatment, which I would argue is not the case.
That's an interesting opinion. Too bad it doesn't work without complete totalitarianism, even on a small scale.
That's something I'd expect Glen Beck to say. Our government has been working this way for a while without a totalitarian state.
The poster was making the point that if more balanced laws are not handed down by the larger majority then communities that, for example, have a majority of KKK members could institute some rather draconian laws.