What about if "Dad" takes care of food, lodging, education and health care, that's it.
I completely agree. Unfortunatly, its easier said than done with the gov't. Have you ever been around any state or local agency at the end of a fiscal year? They spend like crazy. Why? Because there's the mentality that a) "its our money (since it had been allocated to us) and b) if we don't spend it we'll lose it next year. Almost all gov't funds are calculated year from year not by what's *needed*, but by how much was allocated the year before. Thus, spend all your given this year (and find any reason to justify it) and you'll get at least the same, if not more, next year. So, you may only spend half your allotment on your "mission", but you'll spend all of your cash, even if it means the whole office gets new furniture, computers, etc.
Now, a lot of large companies are no different: bureaucracy is bureaucracy, *except* in companies, from time to time (especially when profits start lagging) you will do things like close unprofitable divisions, consolidate, etc. This *Never* (let me repeat *NEVER*) happens in gov't. Where's the accountability? Its not like you're selling a product or a service needed to backroll operations. Gov't gets money from taxes. What's easier to do, raise taxes or actually fire gov't workers (even ones with cause: i.e. theft, cronic absenteeism, inability to do job) and eliminate gov't programs?
Read some GAO reports on gov't waste some time.. it'll piss you off.
So, basically what do you do? Every single agency is going to report each fiscal year that they have to have, at bare minimum, the exact same amount of money as last year, if not more. No agency is going to actually say "hey, you gave us too much loot last year, only give us 80% the amount this year." So, if you want to keep gov't expenditures under control your only option is to cut the money supply. You tell agencies "guess what, you're getting 90% of what you got last year... make it work." Cutting money supply = cutting tax revenue (since the gov't does a lousy job at not spending surpluses) = tax cut.
Yes, this leads to everyone and their brother screaming "you're cutting our funds, we won't be able to do our jobs" but the fact of the matter is there is no other way of trying to keep gov't spending in check.
It wasn't a response to either Bush nor Dean's policies, simply to the "tax the rich and help the poor.. that'll help" mentality of the post.
And I don't know what point you were trying to make, nor your political leanings, but wouldn't you charecterize Bush as doing exactly what you decry?
Somewhat... he's coming off as a big gov't Republican, which isn't good (IMO).
He's spent our hard earned tax dollars to give a tax cut to his cronies,
Disingenuous. Actually, not disingenuous, but flat out wrong. He didn't spend *your* or *my* hard earned tax dollars. A tax cut is just that a cut in taxes Unless your tax rate went up the amount of extra money spent on your behalf was exactly squat. Your argument is the equivalent of jumping up and down in a grocery line claiming the right over the money the guy in front of you saved from his coupons.
and then turned around and started an expensive war that we'll all be bankrolling for years to come.
Well, wars aren't cheap, and orthogonal to this conversation anyway. What was the point of brining it up?
So he'll probably raise taxes on the wealthier to help the poor, undoing the tax cut that Bush passed that gave massive tax breaks to the very wealthy.
I.e. take the easy way out. Ignore all of the waste and graft of the taxpayer money by the federal gov't and simply grab more money to fill the leaky fiscal bucket. Oh how easy it is to spend other people's money:
"Hey Dad, you know that monthly $1000 check you send for tuition, room and board? Well, you're going to have to raise it, because its only the 15th and I'm out of cash..... No, my rent hasn't gone up.... no, neither has tuition.... where did it all go then? NEVER YOU MIND MISTER. Just know that if you don't pony up more cash I'll go cry and sulk about how you're too stingy to pay for my education!"
Actually, I think in some cases it can. Although the screen isn't a CTR the gfx chip is still designed as if its running one. Sniff the chip emissions and you're in business.
Of course, I could be off my rocker about this one.
Sorry about that.. meant Word 6 on the Mac. That was a total abortion of a word processor. If I remember correctly they tried using the same codebase for both the Windows and Mac version (or as much as they could) and it just stunk on high.
How long until Microsoft is allowed to sue OpenOffice.org because the "functional structure" of OpenOffice Writer infringes upon the proir art of Microsoft Word?
I think they'd be more worried about being sued by WordPerfect (Corel) and whoever owns the rights to Harvard Graphics and VisiCalc.
in fact, if the cost of it was higher in the US, we might see more sensible cars rolling of the productionlines, and less of the gas-guzzling SUVs.
And the cost of anything shipped via truck would go up too (food, clothing, computer equipment... hell, everything) since the cost of transportations would also rise.
So, the question is do you want to pay more for damn near everything you buy -- which, for all intents and purposes is like giving yourself a pay cut -- just to get some SUV's off the road?
I beilive the $521 Mil is the court ruling (i.e. damage and punitave costs). They would still have to licence the patent for any ongoing use above and beyond the $521. Assuming they lose all their appeals they're going to be paying that regardless of what they end up doing with IE.
I also meant to say I think MJ/Sony only own the Beatles' earlier songs. I believe the later ones are owned by Paul and Yoko (but I could be wrong about this).
Not true. He went 50/50 with Sony music in purchasing them. He has since used his share as collateral with some loans he has taken out from Sony. Sony are licking their chops because there's no way MJ is going to pay off what he owes. Eventually (whenever they decide to call in the loan) Sony will own 'em all. But, as of right now MJ still has a 50% stake in them.
* Where did all the UN Food for Oil money disppear to? Food for oil, I don't see much money in that deal. No money can't disappear.
Well, you don't walk into a grocery store with 10 gallons of unleaded and trade it for food. Oil gets sold, money buys food, food goes to Iraq... or at least that's what was supposed to happen. The UN got a nice "administation" cut off the top, but no one seems to know exactly where those billions went. And as much as people like to point the finger at Haliburton and claim they're a bunch of war profiteers its interesting how no one brings up the TotalFinaElf scandals and their involvement in some very, very shading dealings in Iraq.
* How much business did France and Germany do with Iraq in violation of UN resolutions? None that I know of. Of course I have seen a lot of this crap on public forums or frog-bashing sites. But no report of those on any remotely reliable source, not even on Fox News (only exception is an op'ed column by William Safire in the NYT, which allegations have been denied by the US administration itself). Given the unusually aggressive stance the Bush administration has taken against those countries, I guess that any credible lead on that subject would have been leaked to the press in no time.
See the TotalElfFina articles above. Plus, the Germans and the French were trading *a lot* with the Iraqi gov't in the late 90s. It would be interesting to see just how "liberal" their interpretations of the sanctions exactly were. I think its been underreported.
* How the "sactions are killing millions of Iraqi babies" stories were bogus. Economic sanctions are a useful tool to destabilize a regime or prevent it from endangering its neighbours but you have to admit that the population ends up paying the highest price to them. It might eventually be worth the price (South African Apartheid regime) or not (Cuba comes to mind). In the case of Irak, I guess that the food for oil program somehow prevented the most severe famines but I don't know of hard facts. Do you have them?
This assumes that if there was no oil for food program there would have been "severe famines" which also seems to be a pretty unsubstaciated claim. What looks like what happened was Saddam hyped up and played the "starving" baby angle for all it was worth. The "food" he got for his oil didn't make it to the Iraqi people. If you average $5billion a year in aid and spend $13million on healthcare, that's a lot of money unaccounted for.
* How much of the Arab and some European press were getting paid by Saddam Come on! You're not saying that any media that voiced opinions differing from the official White House point of view were sold to Saddam, are you?
Not at all. What I am saying is that there were reporters/editors in the Arab press who were getting money (commissions, bribes, call it what you want) from the Iraqi gov't to file reports that were sympathetic to Saddam. There was speculation that some European editor/reporters were pocketing cash. That, as far as I know, hasn't been proven, but the point of this entire/. article is about stuff that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. There's been no followup as far as I know.
And which countries do you target in "some European press". Given your post's general tone, I guess you include France and Germany. But what about Spain, England or Poland. Even thou
First off, when does "under reporting" = censorship?
Secondly, interesting the political bent of all of these stories. What about
* Where did all the UN Food for Oil money disppear to?
* How much business did France and Germany do with Iraq in violation of UN resolutions?
* How the "sactions are killing millions of Iraqi babies" stories were bogus.
* How much of the Arab and some European press were getting paid by Saddam.... and so on. All legitimate stories that have also been underreported, yet I don't see that site screaming censorship.
I wouldn't short right now, simply because there's no reason to. The stock value is not where it is due to fundamentals, but due to "what could be..." i.e. the IBM lawsuit. Follow SCOX for a week and you'll see that it is a low volume, highly volatile stock that goes up an down seemingly at random.
If I was going to short it would be around their quarterly results (assuming I thought they would post disappointing results) or around the time of a lawsuit (whichever one gets to court first). That is when the price would tank. Right now, though, SCOX is only good for option holders and savvy day traders.
If they do there actually may be some prior art. I actually remember back in the 80s the guys at ICD (of SpartaDOS fame) were planning on implementing a DB engine into SpartDOS X. It never made it in, but I know they did some work on the implementation.
Speaking of which, is there anyone who has a copy of SpartDOS X that they'd like to unload? I'm trying to rebuild my 8bit Atari set up and its the last bit that I need (just picked up the MIO).
I actually agree with you with respect to felons. I feel if you've done your time then you should not only regain your freedom but your voting rights as well. As someone else pointed out there are some things that are pretty minor that are felonies, which would cause someone the right to vote. The only reason I included it was because that's the standard now.
Freedom includes the freedom to be ignorant. Face facts, Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is ignorant, and I don't mean that in a negative way. Its just that all people tend to be very knowledgeable about the things that matter to them, and pretty ignorant about things that don't. The/. crowd is no different. All those tests do is disqualify individuals who don't have the same knowledge that you arbitrarily set to be the standard.
If you're a citizen, old enough and not a felon you should be able to vote.
Day traders (they love volitility) mostly. Note there's not a lot of volume with these price swings. For the last few weeks the price has been creeping up on small trades, going down on larger trades.
Slashdot Mirror
Er.. that is correct. DOH!
Have now said that "there are currently no plans to sue SGI".
I suspect they'll "terminate" SCO's SysV license with as much success as they had with IBM. I.e. their stock price will bump up and that's about it.
What about if "Dad" takes care of food, lodging, education and health care, that's it.
I completely agree. Unfortunatly, its easier said than done with the gov't. Have you ever been around any state or local agency at the end of a fiscal year? They spend like crazy. Why? Because there's the mentality that a) "its our money (since it had been allocated to us) and b) if we don't spend it we'll lose it next year. Almost all gov't funds are calculated year from year not by what's *needed*, but by how much was allocated the year before. Thus, spend all your given this year (and find any reason to justify it) and you'll get at least the same, if not more, next year. So, you may only spend half your allotment on your "mission", but you'll spend all of your cash, even if it means the whole office gets new furniture, computers, etc.
Now, a lot of large companies are no different: bureaucracy is bureaucracy, *except* in companies, from time to time (especially when profits start lagging) you will do things like close unprofitable divisions, consolidate, etc. This *Never* (let me repeat *NEVER*) happens in gov't. Where's the accountability? Its not like you're selling a product or a service needed to backroll operations. Gov't gets money from taxes. What's easier to do, raise taxes or actually fire gov't workers (even ones with cause: i.e. theft, cronic absenteeism, inability to do job) and eliminate gov't programs?
Read some GAO reports on gov't waste some time.. it'll piss you off.
So, basically what do you do? Every single agency is going to report each fiscal year that they have to have, at bare minimum, the exact same amount of money as last year, if not more. No agency is going to actually say "hey, you gave us too much loot last year, only give us 80% the amount this year." So, if you want to keep gov't expenditures under control your only option is to cut the money supply. You tell agencies "guess what, you're getting 90% of what you got last year... make it work." Cutting money supply = cutting tax revenue (since the gov't does a lousy job at not spending surpluses) = tax cut.
Yes, this leads to everyone and their brother screaming "you're cutting our funds, we won't be able to do our jobs" but the fact of the matter is there is no other way of trying to keep gov't spending in check.
It wasn't a response to either Bush nor Dean's policies, simply to the "tax the rich and help the poor.. that'll help" mentality of the post.
And I don't know what point you were trying to make, nor your political leanings, but wouldn't you charecterize Bush as doing exactly what you decry?
Somewhat... he's coming off as a big gov't Republican, which isn't good (IMO).
He's spent our hard earned tax dollars to give a tax cut to his cronies,
Disingenuous. Actually, not disingenuous, but flat out wrong. He didn't spend *your* or *my* hard earned tax dollars. A tax cut is just that a cut in taxes Unless your tax rate went up the amount of extra money spent on your behalf was exactly squat. Your argument is the equivalent of jumping up and down in a grocery line claiming the right over the money the guy in front of you saved from his coupons.
and then turned around and started an expensive war that we'll all be bankrolling for years to come.
Well, wars aren't cheap, and orthogonal to this conversation anyway. What was the point of brining it up?
So he'll probably raise taxes on the wealthier to help the poor, undoing the tax cut that Bush passed that gave massive tax breaks to the very wealthy.
I.e. take the easy way out. Ignore all of the waste and graft of the taxpayer money by the federal gov't and simply grab more money to fill the leaky fiscal bucket. Oh how easy it is to spend other people's money:
"Hey Dad, you know that monthly $1000 check you send for tuition, room and board? Well, you're going to have to raise it, because its only the 15th and I'm out of cash..... No, my rent hasn't gone up.... no, neither has tuition.... where did it all go then? NEVER YOU MIND MISTER. Just know that if you don't pony up more cash I'll go cry and sulk about how you're too stingy to pay for my education!"
Do I hear a pico vs. nano war a'brewing?
Actually, I think in some cases it can. Although the screen isn't a CTR the gfx chip is still designed as if its running one. Sniff the chip emissions and you're in business.
Of course, I could be off my rocker about this one.
vi has too many features. Go with ed.
Sorry about that.. meant Word 6 on the Mac. That was a total abortion of a word processor. If I remember correctly they tried using the same codebase for both the Windows and Mac version (or as much as they could) and it just stunk on high.
Word X gives MS Word 5.1a on the Mac a run for its money. Nice bit of work it is.
Having said that I still use AppleWorks on my iBook, since I don't need all the bells and whistles of Office.
Word 6... anyone remember that POS? YIKES!
Wow, Harvard Graphics still exists. Who would have thunk it.
How long until Microsoft is allowed to sue OpenOffice.org because the "functional structure" of OpenOffice Writer infringes upon the proir art of Microsoft Word?
I think they'd be more worried about being sued by WordPerfect (Corel) and whoever owns the rights to Harvard Graphics and VisiCalc.
in fact, if the cost of it was higher in the US, we might see more sensible cars rolling of the productionlines, and less of the gas-guzzling SUVs.
And the cost of anything shipped via truck would go up too (food, clothing, computer equipment... hell, everything) since the cost of transportations would also rise.
So, the question is do you want to pay more for damn near everything you buy -- which, for all intents and purposes is like giving yourself a pay cut -- just to get some SUV's off the road?
Nose, meet knife. We're going to spite face.
I beilive the $521 Mil is the court ruling (i.e. damage and punitave costs). They would still have to licence the patent for any ongoing use above and beyond the $521. Assuming they lose all their appeals they're going to be paying that regardless of what they end up doing with IE.
I also meant to say I think MJ/Sony only own the Beatles' earlier songs. I believe the later ones are owned by Paul and Yoko (but I could be wrong about this).
Not true. He went 50/50 with Sony music in purchasing them. He has since used his share as collateral with some loans he has taken out from Sony. Sony are licking their chops because there's no way MJ is going to pay off what he owes. Eventually (whenever they decide to call in the loan) Sony will own 'em all. But, as of right now MJ still has a 50% stake in them.
* Where did all the UN Food for Oil money disppear to?
/. article is about stuff that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. There's been no followup as far as I know.
Food for oil, I don't see much money in that deal. No money can't disappear.
Well, you don't walk into a grocery store with 10 gallons of unleaded and trade it for food. Oil gets sold, money buys food, food goes to Iraq... or at least that's what was supposed to happen. The UN got a nice "administation" cut off the top, but no one seems to know exactly where those billions went. And as much as people like to point the finger at Haliburton and claim they're a bunch of war profiteers its interesting how no one brings up the TotalFinaElf scandals and their involvement in some very, very shading dealings in Iraq.
* How much business did France and Germany do with Iraq in violation of UN resolutions?
None that I know of. Of course I have seen a lot of this crap on public forums or frog-bashing sites. But no report of those on any remotely reliable source, not even on Fox News (only exception is an op'ed column by William Safire in the NYT, which allegations have been denied by the US administration itself). Given the unusually aggressive stance the Bush administration has taken against those countries, I guess that any credible lead on that subject would have been leaked to the press in no time.
See the TotalElfFina articles above. Plus, the Germans and the French were trading *a lot* with the Iraqi gov't in the late 90s. It would be interesting to see just how "liberal" their interpretations of the sanctions exactly were. I think its been underreported.
* How the "sactions are killing millions of Iraqi babies" stories were bogus.
Economic sanctions are a useful tool to destabilize a regime or prevent it from endangering its neighbours but you have to admit that the population ends up paying the highest price to them. It might eventually be worth the price (South African Apartheid regime) or not (Cuba comes to mind). In the case of Irak, I guess that the food for oil program somehow prevented the most severe famines but I don't know of hard facts. Do you have them?
This assumes that if there was no oil for food program there would have been "severe famines" which also seems to be a pretty unsubstaciated claim. What looks like what happened was Saddam hyped up and played the "starving" baby angle for all it was worth. The "food" he got for his oil didn't make it to the Iraqi people. If you average $5billion a year in aid and spend $13million on healthcare, that's a lot of money unaccounted for.
* How much of the Arab and some European press were getting paid by Saddam
Come on! You're not saying that any media that voiced opinions differing from the official White House point of view were sold to Saddam, are you?
Not at all. What I am saying is that there were reporters/editors in the Arab press who were getting money (commissions, bribes, call it what you want) from the Iraqi gov't to file reports that were sympathetic to Saddam. There was speculation that some European editor/reporters were pocketing cash. That, as far as I know, hasn't been proven, but the point of this entire
And which countries do you target in "some European press". Given your post's general tone, I guess you include France and Germany. But what about Spain, England or Poland. Even thou
First off, when does "under reporting" = censorship?
... and so on. All legitimate stories that have also been underreported, yet I don't see that site screaming censorship.
Secondly, interesting the political bent of all of these stories. What about
* Where did all the UN Food for Oil money disppear to?
* How much business did France and Germany do with Iraq in violation of UN resolutions?
* How the "sactions are killing millions of Iraqi babies" stories were bogus.
* How much of the Arab and some European press were getting paid by Saddam.
I wouldn't short right now, simply because there's no reason to. The stock value is not where it is due to fundamentals, but due to "what could be..." i.e. the IBM lawsuit. Follow SCOX for a week and you'll see that it is a low volume, highly volatile stock that goes up an down seemingly at random.
If I was going to short it would be around their quarterly results (assuming I thought they would post disappointing results) or around the time of a lawsuit (whichever one gets to court first). That is when the price would tank. Right now, though, SCOX is only good for option holders and savvy day traders.
If they do there actually may be some prior art. I actually remember back in the 80s the guys at ICD (of SpartaDOS fame) were planning on implementing a DB engine into SpartDOS X. It never made it in, but I know they did some work on the implementation.
Speaking of which, is there anyone who has a copy of SpartDOS X that they'd like to unload? I'm trying to rebuild my 8bit Atari set up and its the last bit that I need (just picked up the MIO).
I actually agree with you with respect to felons. I feel if you've done your time then you should not only regain your freedom but your voting rights as well. As someone else pointed out there are some things that are pretty minor that are felonies, which would cause someone the right to vote. The only reason I included it was because that's the standard now.
Freedom includes the freedom to be ignorant. Face facts, Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is ignorant, and I don't mean that in a negative way. Its just that all people tend to be very knowledgeable about the things that matter to them, and pretty ignorant about things that don't. The /. crowd is no different. All those tests do is disqualify individuals who don't have the same knowledge that you arbitrarily set to be the standard.
If you're a citizen, old enough and not a felon you should be able to vote.
Day traders (they love volitility) mostly. Note there's not a lot of volume with these price swings. For the last few weeks the price has been creeping up on small trades, going down on larger trades.
And a modem wasn't a modem unless it had the big, rubber acustic coupler rings on it (where you attached an old style handset).
THAT's a modem!
I'm a Yorkshire (tea) man myself. I have my mum send a care package once a quarter with Yorkshire tea, Burbon Creams and McVitties Digestives.
Heaven!