I can't help but cry bullshit to all of this WikiLeaks mess. I have difficulty believing the US government is unable to bring WikiLeaks down, either notoriously or covertly. I believe it was an early Wired article that discuss how Assange has been living for a year or so now having to look over his shoulder. If the US really wants him gone; he's gone. It's as simple as that. The world might decry his assassination, but who cares? There's a benefit to being a superpower, you don't have to care what other foreign private citizens think, and as for the American reaction; Americans have the attention spans of gerbils. Assange will be forgotten long in time for the newest scandal. I agree with you that, should Assange be killed, more will be leaked. I believe that is his ace in the deck. The US government surely knows how absolutely inconsequential the bulk of the leaks thus far have been. What the US fears are the big leaks, things Assange and others may (or may not) be sitting on. So far, the only "government" people I've seen commenting on WikiLeaks have been blowhards who are stroking the cameras. I believe that's telling. After all, you can always find a politician willing to wax macho in order to insert himself into the topic.
I agree, but I also think Palin was tacked on to sweeten the deal when there was worry about Clinton being the candidate or being chosen as running mate. McCain's main problem was his age and health -- especially his health. At one point, the press was talking quite a bit about McCain's health issues. At the same time, he is an establishment Republican. The Party needed a fresh face so that the campaign would seem fresh. He needed to be paired up with someone who was young, lively, healthy, and relatively unknown; a sort of Obama of their own. The establishment Republican base would have been fine with a black candidate like Gen Colin Powell. But sadly, much of the Republican voting block outside the establishment doesn't want an ethnic minority in the White House. Race *was* an issue. So no Bobby Jindal. Palin was a perfect choice. She was lively. She was an up and coming executive office Republican who was positively viewed among governors.
I think Tina Fey's impersonation of Palin really hurt her chances, as did Palin herself. The problem was that Tina Fey simply repeated verbatim the things Palin actually said. Plus Palin's attempts to steal the show and make it a Palin-McCain ticket didn't help either. But then Obama's own charisma can't be forgotten. He gave a brilliantly inspiration speech. He looked presidential in a way that McCain did not. It was Kennedy vs Nixon all over again.
Trickle-down economics. I make more money than you. I know this for certain, see. When I get more of my money back, I will be more empowered to invest in my business. I will expand: buying more materials, buying more services, building more operations across the country, and creating more products for people to buy. This requires hiring more people. You get more of your money, you'll only blow it on an Xbox Live subscription and a trip down to your local electronics store. Sure, you'll buy food. Your kind of people usually do. Always with the frozen pizzas and the fizzy lifting drinks. But whores will have their trinkets won't they?
Being cheeky of course, but there's a logic to it. The assumption of course is that I will actually reinvest that money into the system rather than sit on it and count my ducats, which in a shrinking economy, I am likelier to do. Another assumption is that if I do reinvest, I am reinvesting into our economy directly and not investing in cheap labor or cheap parts in other foreign economies. The flip-side is that if you have more of your money, you can buy more products and consume more services, which ultimately give me profits I can use to reinvest or sit on. However, in a shrinking economy, you're likelier to sit on your money and save because of your fear of uncertainty. This is why government investment into the economy through big projects is seen as a good thing by some. When the national government decides to build a big project, both the rich and the middle class benefit. But many people misunderstand what a government project is. They envision government employees building something big and growing the government in the process. In reality, most government projects are the government being a customer of a custom-spec product developed and built by one or more private businesses who hire private citizens to complete the work; e.g., The AH-64 Apache Helicopter (Boeing-MD Helicopter).
Ron Paul wants drugs on the streets Ron Paul wants no minimum standard for education in this country and is against public education Ron Paul wants no licensing for medical practices, legal practices, or any other profession Ron Paul thinks 18th century barter systems from a brand new backwoods nations can work in a 21st century superpower Ron Paul thinks the government has no business building roads or bridges. Ron Paul thinks there should not be a central currency or Federal Reserve.
Yes, he's worthless. His opinions on how to run a nation are as mindful as those of a middle school student. He is a victim of the irrationalities of his own belief system in much the same way that marxists are. Let him run for governor of Texas. Let Texas mint its own currency and declare its own wars. Let the free market and the empowered consumer decide whether or not his surgeon is indeed a board-licensed physician and not just a guy who dared to dream of one day being a doc.
We can expect her idiotic statements to be fixed in post through the help of professional image consultants, the kind of people who made Yeltsin seem warm and fatherly and the kind of people who make Putin into a strapping young czar who is perhaps the only man in the world who can take on the "most interesting man in the world" from the American "Dos Equis" beer commercials. Right now, Palin is using the same "most interesting man in the world" image strategy as Putin is. If successful, she will epitomize this retro-feminism that's in fashion right now and still be appealing to really conservative, if not traditionally chauvinist, men. I am reminded of Clinton's campaign in 2008 where she got desperate and talked about how she, a girl, was getting beaten up on by the boys, and then broke into tears in that cafe as she talked about how important this fight is for America. Clinton's problem is, she's disingenuous. Even those who supported her (I did initially) know that Clinton isn't the type who has a good cry. Palin is somehow able to play up her femininity while not looking weak or disingenuous for it. She more easily looks presidential than Clinton did. And that's the key: looking presidential.
Obama still hasn't overcome racism. I don't think he ever will. I feel like there is this little nagging need to not be the black president who ruins it for all future black presidents by breaking too radically from center. And as you pointed, there is the fact that those who attack him ultimately focus on just two things: race and name. What was it that that Rep Steve King (R-IA) just said in Congress about the Pigford II and Cobell settlements? That they are Obama's black reparations for slavery? How fucking blatant is that?
Ordinarily, I would agree, and it wasn't gentlemanly of me. In retrospect, I should have omitted that, and I apologize to the original AC.
However, when the point is reached in a debate where the stalemate between two sides becomes based on something other than legitimate ideological differences, for example private agendas and irrational fear and hatred, you have to call it for what it is. Some statements are just idiotic, and they cannot be tolerated, but tolerance of stupid things results in a stupid populace. We would not tolerate assertions that the earth is flat and is orbited by the sun and other planets.
Similarly, we ought not tolerate assertions that the Tea Party acts with the same spirit or even the same moral manifest destiny of the original American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. This is an idiotic statement, proven incorrect with just the most casual comparison of the movement to the words and actions of the Founding Fathers.
You would probably prefer an approach that's less like taking a hand to the back of the head, but I don't. The media hasn't done a good job at calling out this movement of stupid pseudo-anarchists for what they are, and Americans aren't doing a good job at questioning the legitimacy of the Tea Partier's outlandish claims. We're starting to tivo our political beliefs now, adopting beliefs and "facts" from the fringe just because they have been welcomed by mainstream politicos we trust.
You're an idiot, even as far as anonymous cowards go. This country owes its existence to learned men with great foresight coming together after the Revolution to form a republic with a spirit of compromise and optimism. The way you casually describe it, this republic could be the natural result of any armed uprising anywhere. America doesn't owe its existence to people not getting their way any more than it owes its existence to a king not granted his subjects their way. Revolutions do not create countries. That's simplistic, poetic fantasy. Revolutions are destructive, and they lay waste to everything they touch. It's what may fortunately come afterwards that creates countries. These "second amendment remedies" idiots are far from being learned, optimistic individuals with great foresight. They can't get beyond ten word bumper sticker statements of values. They couldn't build a country if they had a box of LEGO bricks and a nicely drawn sheet of instructions.
I live by a simple rule. If you met your significant other online using a bulletin that you either dialed or telneted into, you are definitely a Gen Xer. If you met them on a web forum, you might be a Gen Yer. If you met them on a mobile phone or game console based social net, you are definitely a Gen Zer, and legally I'm not allowed to touch you.
Does this rule work in every case? No. I never said it was a good rule.
I like texting. I never thought I would, but I like the instant connection to my girlfriend that I have when we can't always speak on the phone. I just wish text messaging gave me as many characters as Citadel did in an Xpress message.
In retrospect though, how many brilliant lyricists have existed in rock music? Elvis's music was ripe with horrible lyrics. I still think The Beatles' talent lay mostly in their music and not in their lyrics. Just to make a disclaimer, here are some musicians I feel are/were brilliant lyricists and songwriters: Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), Steve Harris (Iron Maiden), Stan Ridgway (Wall of Voodoo), Andy Prieboy (Wall of Voodoo), Ronnie James Dio (Dio, Black Sabbath, Elf, Rainbow), Russ Ballard (Argent), Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Neil Peart (Rush), Bernie Taupin (Elton John), John Cougar Mellancamp, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Sting (The Police), Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Tom Waits, etc.
Steve Perry's lyrics weren't really that bad. No more offensive than those of Survivor (still a guilty pleasure of mine). And all the guys I named could really come up with some cliched lyrics too.:D It's all in good fun though!
I've got a similar setup: a stack of JVC HR-S9600Us and another couple of Panies. I've got a Panasonic DVR that can records to DVD-RAM and hard drive, but it's not the quality of my VCR's recordings. If you really want control over quality, invest in a computer and some TV cards. It is a hassle as you say though. The DVR is a hassle too. With the VCR, I just hit record. This Pany doesn't make it as simple as that.
Ssssh, don't give away the farm. Let everyone else think that CDs actually do sound better than vinyl, or better yet, 128 kbps MP3. That way I can buy my records for pennies on the dollar.
Even a entry level system like a Pro-Ject Debut III belt driven stock with a simple Bellari tube amp will blow away the stuff they sell at Best Buy. It's still an expensive capital investment though, isn't it? I see a lot of people buying into glorified computer speaker setups that connect directly to their iPods, and they're happy with that because their ears are trained on those mids. I haven't had a lot of luck convincing friends to hit eBay for vintage hi-fi equipment.
Yes, but if you remember, Sony interfered with the uses of Betamax whereas JVC didn't care who used VHS. In the beginning, there was porn. Forget about legitimate Hollywood. They wanted no part of home video. Sony didn't want Betamax associated with adult films, and so prevented distributors from using Betamax. No such problems with VHS. VHS decks flew off the shelves mostly because of the adult video market as it was perceived as a safer and more discreet alternative to adult theaters.
In any case, a lot of people fail to realize that Betamax is alive and well and is being used still professionally.
True, but both cassette and VHS will continue to live on. There's a lot of recordings out there that never crossed over to digital and has never been available legally on DVD. Blu-Ray will only further push those recordings into obscurity. VHS will probably never enjoy the respectability that vinyl does today as an audiophile's format, but I'm not ready to toss out the massive VHS collection I have. Once HDMI and HD are forced on us and our only option is temporary recording (Tivo) and internet streaming rentals, I think it'll be the guys like me with a surplus of analogue hardware who will prosper.
I know this is Slashdot, but come on, you should have made the logical conclusion that I recognize the positive effect regulation has had on alcohol use in public spaces. I'm obviously for regulation of marijuana use, as I clearly said. I'm against unregulated use. That its use is currently widespread means nothing to me. There must be laws to limit what people can do while using marijuana just as there must be laws for alcohol consumption.
I'm fully aware of what marijuana does. I did the research, and I know people who require medical marijuana. I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I know enough about an issue through common sense and divine intervention that I can shape policy. If I did, I'd join the Tea Party, wouldn't I?
Netherlands does not give us a 1:1 model for how American society will look. American culture is very different. My concern isn't violent marijuana crimes. Generally speaking, are there any? I can't imagine any dealer being willing to kill or die over a joint -- yet another point in favor of legalization, actually. My only concern is general legality. I'd like something tempered and regulated. And frankly, that's how it will have to go, because you're not going to get an overnight switch to spliff dispensers in bars.
Kinda. Let me explain my belief on this. I'm no libertarian. I believe strongly in the social contract between citizen and government. The Republic cannot survive without a functional society, and a functional society is nothing without laws which necessarily require individuals to give up some personal liberties.
For example, you give up the right to drive drunk at 100 mph through a residential neighborhood near a school. Another example, you give up the right to deny your child an education of some sort, whether public or private because society does not need the burden of dealing with your uneducated kid when he grows older. You also give up the right to say that blacks, jews, and gays cannot shop in your stores. It used to be that I thought these were libertarian values, but the Libertarian Party has explicitly told me they are not. Go figure.
In some instances, it's okay to say we know what's good for you, or more likely: "I don't care what you want; your wants endanger the rest of us."
So in re marijuana, my concern is having streets full of doped up individuals. It'll look like China during the Opium Wars. I at least want marijuana use regulated the way liquor consumption is because I don't want doped up idiots operating vehicles and endangering people. You're right, the war on drugs has been a failure. Christ, most of the commercials on TV are for drugs now anyway, so we look more like we're dug protectionists. We just want a war on foreign made drugs because we want our citizens addicted to domestically made designer drugs. It's very comical, but no-holds barred legalization of marijuana is a bad thing.
Actually, I meant "smarter" as in keener and craftier, not as more intelligent. Sorry about that; dialectal differences and all. I do feel bad because I'm not a conservative, I'm a moderate. I'm "conservative" on specific issues and "liberal" on specific others. Don't feel bad about it though about assuming all Republicans are conservatives, it's a something a lot of liberals do.;-)
No worries about violating Godwin's Law, Murdoch is a right bastard. No, he's probably not a Nazi. He personally has no problem with gays, and he's ranted about the Jews less than Rick Sanchez after a long weekend of hit-and-run drunk driving.
Murdoch is a shrewd mogul, and yes, like Hitler, he's good at playing on the emotions of the right wingers. Look at what he's doing in England regarding the BBC. He can't compete on quality, so he tries to make libertarian arguments that it's wrong for the BBC to provide free news, and even illegal, according to some of his rants. He'll work any angle to be number one. That's not conservative or liberal or anything political, it's just opportunistic.
I won't speak for him, but I consider myself a Reagan Republican in that I share many of the values of the former President Ronald Reagan. I am against general legalization of marijuana though I concede it's benefits to some. I am strongly supportive of same sex marriage and women's reproductive rights. However, I am against nanny state laws - something Dems tend to support. However, I'm nowhere near at the extreme where I want to do away with FDA and EPA. And I support public schools. Basically, I am at total odds with the current public face of the Republican Party, but honestly much of that is out of the contrarian trash TV nature that politics has taken now. Pressures from the right-wing Tea Party only compound the strain on the party. Plus, the Christian conservatives are just pissed at the Republican Party because they felt used. I don't know why the gays don't feel equally used by the Dems.
The Republican Party has traditionally branded itself as a "big tent" party, the notion being that there is room for many ideas. It was not a conservative party. It was actually a progressive party. In the 1970s, there were troubles within the party which lead to an influx of social conservatives, many of whom fled the Democratic party (traditionally a Southern party with socially conservative ideas: pro-segregation being one). The Democratic Party become more liberal. It was like a magnet switching polarity in once sense.
Today's Republican Party is very socially conservative, at least it appears so outwardly, just as the Democratic Party appears liberal outwardly. In truth, there's a lot of crossover. No one who knows anything about American politics could ever call Senator Joe Lieberman a liberal, and by today's definition, Ronald Reagan is no conservative. As commodore64_love has indicated, there's a problem with how we use "conservative" and "liberal". When I think "Democrat" I think about the pro-censorship activities of the Dems regarding rock music, video games, and film. That's not exactly liberal. Typically people think of the Republicans as anti-homosexual. Many are, and many are not, including the governor of California and myself. The Democratic Party overwhelmingly supported attempts to prevent same sex marriage during the '90s. Again, not very liberal. The Republican Party was active in civil rights back when "Dixiecrats" were trying to maintain segregationist policies. That's not very conservative.
It's hard to even classify either party as being more big-business than another, since both parties are in the pockets of various big industries and coalition groups. So really, it's about perception: party-in-power = stay the course + change is bad vs party-out-of-power = change is good + we're going in the wrong direction.
The Patriot Act was bipartisan, and it should not be evaluated in terms of conservative vs liberal. It was purely psychological, and thus a reaction to jarring events. Punch a pacifist hard enough, and he will react. Here, we reacted wrongly. So why maintain the Patriot Act? Because we are a free enterprise country and entrepreneurs discovered there is a lot of money to be made on the fear of terrorism. A whole new industry sprang up in just a couple of years after the Patriot Act, and it won't go away because it has its own lobby.
Personally, I have a strong distrust of Libertarians (as in the Party). The fact is, if you're an American and you even remotely believe in American free enterprise and freedom, then you are a libertarian. But I find that the official Libertarian Party platform to be too anarchic for me, too selfish, too "Every man for himself unless its my house that's burning down, in which case, send the taxed paid fire fighters and police". I've watched Ron Paul's rant since the '80s when he could only get face time on the Morton Downy Jr show late at night. From what he's shown me, the Libertarian's goal is like the Communist's goal, workable on the smallest of scales where all the factors of production come from the same area and a pure fantasy at a large scale such as in a major industrialized nation with a global economy.
So you believe that a highly distributed mechanical construct populated by millions of self-serving and somewhat self-centered individuals chasing their own goals has an institutional political bias? You surely can't be speaking about the machinery itself, so you must be speaking of the people. And thus, you *must* be saying that people collectively are liberal.
I have an alternative theory, the Internet has no tendency, political or otherwise, other than to persistently make information available to the widest audience despite attempts by people to stop it. Any political bias you may observe is merely the result of you choosing to observe that phenomena. It's as if the internet is everything at once: liberal, conservative, capitalist, communist, theocratic, hateful, friendly, loud, silly, serious, etc., and it comes crashing down into an observable singularity only when you look directly at it, but you can only observe a tiny sliver of it because it's too quantum a phenomenon to observe for very long.
The thing about Murdoch is, he's smarter than you. He's smarter that the lot of us. He's no more conservative than I am. I'm a political conservative-social moderate Republican who hates hippies and libertarian tea baggers pretty equally. Murdoch saw a "liberal" bias in news reporting. Actually, what he saw was an opportunity to be an alternative to the mainstream and he went for it. He was the college alternative rock to glam arena rock and heavy metal. He saw an opportunity to cash in on a demographic that was under-represented, that is, people who want to see salacious tabloid news stories followed by half-naked young people on TV making out (Temptation Island, A Current Affair, Hardline, Melrose Place, etc). As the '80s and '90s passed, and the right-wingers grew more malcontent, he pulled Fox News to the right in order to capture them. It's about monetizing anger and good old Christian guilt in order to solidify viewership.
It's not all doom and gloom.... except for the video recording market. We're fucked there. It's the early 80s again and the industry is trying to take away our VCRs. No blu-ray video recording for us, do-not-copy flags on HD broadcasts, meh. You know what? If you want to still watch new TV, invest in analogue gear, learn to accept your losses in the digital revolution, and prosper. If you can convert it to analogue, it's yours for keeps.
Internet television shows and TV-to-Internet shopping conduits are certainly the future, but I have difficulty believing that even the great Sith Lord himself, Murdoch can succeed in locking down the Internet, much less the Web. First of all, there are many barriers that prevent me from getting my own programming on television. On the Internet, the only barrier is bandwidth and space, which means, the only barrier is a relatively paltry operating cost. Murdoch hasn't the power to lock down advertisers. One may argue that I can't advertise my Internet TV show because Murdoch will have control over the print and the television media, but that's irrelevant. The most popular websites today are big despite lack of advertising in traditional media forms. In fact, Murdoch's foray in MySpace has sorta evidenced the opposite. Basically, no matter how much Murdoch only wants me to watch News Corp owned Internet TV or shop via News Corp owned shopping conduits, an alternative is always easily created.
Sure, Lonelygirl14 the Fox Internet TV series will be a big commercial hit, but it won't cause lesser known web shoes like The Guild to go away, and it won't prevent me from shopping at Amazon instead of whatever e-tailer News Corp is allied with. And information, as we've seen in Iraq, China, North Korea, and Persia; is impossible to control online. The Web can't become the new TV, though I can see Facebook or MySpace becoming the new Internet TV network; and that's a different story altogether. And seriously, I read Gawker on occasion along with Gawker affiliated news sites, but so what? Gawker can't stop me from getting my news elsewhere.
Living in a desert state now as I do, you did more to explain the difference between regular "table" honey and this new "desert" stuff I'm seeing. I've been hesitant to try it. I'm not allergic to regular clover honey, but I didn't know enough to chance it on the desert honey, and the grocers don't seem to know the differences. I've also seen raw honey. Are there risks to eating desert honey or raw honey when you're only used to processed clover honey as I am?
I haven't turned on my PS3 since the firmware upgrade which killed PSN access and prevented me from playing Heavy Rain offline. I *think* the update that removes Other OS came after that one. So, what do you do then with a PS3 that hasn't been updated to play the newest games? Are you that heavily invested in using the Other OS feature? I never got around to really using PS3 as a Linux based media center like I had intended to, and it does irk me that Sony has tossed out this feature. I have a first run PS3. With the new Xbox coming, I'm also wondering about whether to get a second new generation PS3. This way, I am free to tinker with the original PS3 while preserving game playing ability.
You're not understanding me. I'm not saying that I think software patents are good. I'm responding to your comment that you have seen little evidence that patents do any good, by saying that patents aren't meant to do any good. They are meant purely to benefit an innovator (presumptively) by giving them a chance to maximize returns early on for their innovation before competitors can copy the innovation and offer it cheaper. It's decidedly anti-consumer. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything except that patents do not address a public good. Sure, someone might say patents inspire people to be innovative since it gives them an economic incentive, but we all know that's not true.
Again, having a temporary monopoly is not supposed to be in your interest, it's supposed to me in MY interest if I'm a patent holder.
Okay, I can accept that. So, out of curiosity, is AMD doing this? Has AMD done this anytime in the past? Do you think AMD will benefit from this move? I know some people on other forums have said their next CPU will be AMD. But I figure, if you're shopping for an Intel chip, it's not like you have the option to use an AMD anyway right? I don't know that AMDs can be dropped into MBs that call for Intel chips.
I didn't pay for Apple's MPEG2 decoder. But I can understand that the MPEG people want their cut for licensing out their technology, and by understand, I am saying, I concede that the issue has been argued to death and the result is people are expected to pay for that MPEG authorized decoder.
Of course Apple can fuck around with its customers. Microsoft can too, and if Red Hat could, it would find a way too.
Can't Windows play DVDs now too? Can Windows play MPEG2 straight out of Media Player without downloading anything? Even the less "evil" computer companies out there like Amiga and Atari have wronged me from time to time. I rely on open source software for my MPEG2 playback, and I tell other Mac users to do the same. But I'm smart enough to know my alternatives. I drive a Lexus. Lexus expects me to keep paying to update that damn nav computer, otherwise it's useless. I'm using my Android instead. There are ways around this stuff. Consumers aren't prisoner to things like licenses as they were before, but if you still want that official MPEG2 encoder/decoder software, you're going to pay for it.
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I can't help but cry bullshit to all of this WikiLeaks mess. I have difficulty believing the US government is unable to bring WikiLeaks down, either notoriously or covertly. I believe it was an early Wired article that discuss how Assange has been living for a year or so now having to look over his shoulder. If the US really wants him gone; he's gone. It's as simple as that. The world might decry his assassination, but who cares? There's a benefit to being a superpower, you don't have to care what other foreign private citizens think, and as for the American reaction; Americans have the attention spans of gerbils. Assange will be forgotten long in time for the newest scandal. I agree with you that, should Assange be killed, more will be leaked. I believe that is his ace in the deck. The US government surely knows how absolutely inconsequential the bulk of the leaks thus far have been. What the US fears are the big leaks, things Assange and others may (or may not) be sitting on. So far, the only "government" people I've seen commenting on WikiLeaks have been blowhards who are stroking the cameras. I believe that's telling. After all, you can always find a politician willing to wax macho in order to insert himself into the topic.
I agree, but I also think Palin was tacked on to sweeten the deal when there was worry about Clinton being the candidate or being chosen as running mate. McCain's main problem was his age and health -- especially his health. At one point, the press was talking quite a bit about McCain's health issues. At the same time, he is an establishment Republican. The Party needed a fresh face so that the campaign would seem fresh. He needed to be paired up with someone who was young, lively, healthy, and relatively unknown; a sort of Obama of their own. The establishment Republican base would have been fine with a black candidate like Gen Colin Powell. But sadly, much of the Republican voting block outside the establishment doesn't want an ethnic minority in the White House. Race *was* an issue. So no Bobby Jindal. Palin was a perfect choice. She was lively. She was an up and coming executive office Republican who was positively viewed among governors.
I think Tina Fey's impersonation of Palin really hurt her chances, as did Palin herself. The problem was that Tina Fey simply repeated verbatim the things Palin actually said. Plus Palin's attempts to steal the show and make it a Palin-McCain ticket didn't help either. But then Obama's own charisma can't be forgotten. He gave a brilliantly inspiration speech. He looked presidential in a way that McCain did not. It was Kennedy vs Nixon all over again.
Trickle-down economics. I make more money than you. I know this for certain, see. When I get more of my money back, I will be more empowered to invest in my business. I will expand: buying more materials, buying more services, building more operations across the country, and creating more products for people to buy. This requires hiring more people. You get more of your money, you'll only blow it on an Xbox Live subscription and a trip down to your local electronics store. Sure, you'll buy food. Your kind of people usually do. Always with the frozen pizzas and the fizzy lifting drinks. But whores will have their trinkets won't they?
Being cheeky of course, but there's a logic to it. The assumption of course is that I will actually reinvest that money into the system rather than sit on it and count my ducats, which in a shrinking economy, I am likelier to do. Another assumption is that if I do reinvest, I am reinvesting into our economy directly and not investing in cheap labor or cheap parts in other foreign economies. The flip-side is that if you have more of your money, you can buy more products and consume more services, which ultimately give me profits I can use to reinvest or sit on. However, in a shrinking economy, you're likelier to sit on your money and save because of your fear of uncertainty. This is why government investment into the economy through big projects is seen as a good thing by some. When the national government decides to build a big project, both the rich and the middle class benefit. But many people misunderstand what a government project is. They envision government employees building something big and growing the government in the process. In reality, most government projects are the government being a customer of a custom-spec product developed and built by one or more private businesses who hire private citizens to complete the work; e.g., The AH-64 Apache Helicopter (Boeing-MD Helicopter).
Ron Paul wants drugs on the streets
Ron Paul wants no minimum standard for education in this country and is against public education
Ron Paul wants no licensing for medical practices, legal practices, or any other profession
Ron Paul thinks 18th century barter systems from a brand new backwoods nations can work in a 21st century superpower
Ron Paul thinks the government has no business building roads or bridges.
Ron Paul thinks there should not be a central currency or Federal Reserve.
Yes, he's worthless. His opinions on how to run a nation are as mindful as those of a middle school student. He is a victim of the irrationalities of his own belief system in much the same way that marxists are. Let him run for governor of Texas. Let Texas mint its own currency and declare its own wars. Let the free market and the empowered consumer decide whether or not his surgeon is indeed a board-licensed physician and not just a guy who dared to dream of one day being a doc.
We can expect her idiotic statements to be fixed in post through the help of professional image consultants, the kind of people who made Yeltsin seem warm and fatherly and the kind of people who make Putin into a strapping young czar who is perhaps the only man in the world who can take on the "most interesting man in the world" from the American "Dos Equis" beer commercials. Right now, Palin is using the same "most interesting man in the world" image strategy as Putin is. If successful, she will epitomize this retro-feminism that's in fashion right now and still be appealing to really conservative, if not traditionally chauvinist, men. I am reminded of Clinton's campaign in 2008 where she got desperate and talked about how she, a girl, was getting beaten up on by the boys, and then broke into tears in that cafe as she talked about how important this fight is for America. Clinton's problem is, she's disingenuous. Even those who supported her (I did initially) know that Clinton isn't the type who has a good cry. Palin is somehow able to play up her femininity while not looking weak or disingenuous for it. She more easily looks presidential than Clinton did. And that's the key: looking presidential.
Obama still hasn't overcome racism. I don't think he ever will. I feel like there is this little nagging need to not be the black president who ruins it for all future black presidents by breaking too radically from center. And as you pointed, there is the fact that those who attack him ultimately focus on just two things: race and name. What was it that that Rep Steve King (R-IA) just said in Congress about the Pigford II and Cobell settlements? That they are Obama's black reparations for slavery? How fucking blatant is that?
Ordinarily, I would agree, and it wasn't gentlemanly of me. In retrospect, I should have omitted that, and I apologize to the original AC.
However, when the point is reached in a debate where the stalemate between two sides becomes based on something other than legitimate ideological differences, for example private agendas and irrational fear and hatred, you have to call it for what it is. Some statements are just idiotic, and they cannot be tolerated, but tolerance of stupid things results in a stupid populace. We would not tolerate assertions that the earth is flat and is orbited by the sun and other planets.
Similarly, we ought not tolerate assertions that the Tea Party acts with the same spirit or even the same moral manifest destiny of the original American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. This is an idiotic statement, proven incorrect with just the most casual comparison of the movement to the words and actions of the Founding Fathers.
You would probably prefer an approach that's less like taking a hand to the back of the head, but I don't. The media hasn't done a good job at calling out this movement of stupid pseudo-anarchists for what they are, and Americans aren't doing a good job at questioning the legitimacy of the Tea Partier's outlandish claims. We're starting to tivo our political beliefs now, adopting beliefs and "facts" from the fringe just because they have been welcomed by mainstream politicos we trust.
You're an idiot, even as far as anonymous cowards go. This country owes its existence to learned men with great foresight coming together after the Revolution to form a republic with a spirit of compromise and optimism. The way you casually describe it, this republic could be the natural result of any armed uprising anywhere. America doesn't owe its existence to people not getting their way any more than it owes its existence to a king not granted his subjects their way. Revolutions do not create countries. That's simplistic, poetic fantasy. Revolutions are destructive, and they lay waste to everything they touch. It's what may fortunately come afterwards that creates countries. These "second amendment remedies" idiots are far from being learned, optimistic individuals with great foresight. They can't get beyond ten word bumper sticker statements of values. They couldn't build a country if they had a box of LEGO bricks and a nicely drawn sheet of instructions.
Only left him out cause the list was running long, but yeah, good call.
I live by a simple rule. If you met your significant other online using a bulletin that you either dialed or telneted into, you are definitely a Gen Xer. If you met them on a web forum, you might be a Gen Yer. If you met them on a mobile phone or game console based social net, you are definitely a Gen Zer, and legally I'm not allowed to touch you.
Does this rule work in every case? No. I never said it was a good rule.
I like texting. I never thought I would, but I like the instant connection to my girlfriend that I have when we can't always speak on the phone. I just wish text messaging gave me as many characters as Citadel did in an Xpress message.
In retrospect though, how many brilliant lyricists have existed in rock music? Elvis's music was ripe with horrible lyrics. I still think The Beatles' talent lay mostly in their music and not in their lyrics. Just to make a disclaimer, here are some musicians I feel are/were brilliant lyricists and songwriters: Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), Steve Harris (Iron Maiden), Stan Ridgway (Wall of Voodoo), Andy Prieboy (Wall of Voodoo), Ronnie James Dio (Dio, Black Sabbath, Elf, Rainbow), Russ Ballard (Argent), Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Neil Peart (Rush), Bernie Taupin (Elton John), John Cougar Mellancamp, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Sting (The Police), Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Tom Waits, etc.
:D It's all in good fun though!
Steve Perry's lyrics weren't really that bad. No more offensive than those of Survivor (still a guilty pleasure of mine). And all the guys I named could really come up with some cliched lyrics too.
I've got a similar setup: a stack of JVC HR-S9600Us and another couple of Panies. I've got a Panasonic DVR that can records to DVD-RAM and hard drive, but it's not the quality of my VCR's recordings. If you really want control over quality, invest in a computer and some TV cards. It is a hassle as you say though. The DVR is a hassle too. With the VCR, I just hit record. This Pany doesn't make it as simple as that.
Ssssh, don't give away the farm. Let everyone else think that CDs actually do sound better than vinyl, or better yet, 128 kbps MP3. That way I can buy my records for pennies on the dollar.
Even a entry level system like a Pro-Ject Debut III belt driven stock with a simple Bellari tube amp will blow away the stuff they sell at Best Buy. It's still an expensive capital investment though, isn't it? I see a lot of people buying into glorified computer speaker setups that connect directly to their iPods, and they're happy with that because their ears are trained on those mids. I haven't had a lot of luck convincing friends to hit eBay for vintage hi-fi equipment.
Yes, but if you remember, Sony interfered with the uses of Betamax whereas JVC didn't care who used VHS. In the beginning, there was porn. Forget about legitimate Hollywood. They wanted no part of home video. Sony didn't want Betamax associated with adult films, and so prevented distributors from using Betamax. No such problems with VHS. VHS decks flew off the shelves mostly because of the adult video market as it was perceived as a safer and more discreet alternative to adult theaters.
In any case, a lot of people fail to realize that Betamax is alive and well and is being used still professionally.
True, but both cassette and VHS will continue to live on. There's a lot of recordings out there that never crossed over to digital and has never been available legally on DVD. Blu-Ray will only further push those recordings into obscurity. VHS will probably never enjoy the respectability that vinyl does today as an audiophile's format, but I'm not ready to toss out the massive VHS collection I have. Once HDMI and HD are forced on us and our only option is temporary recording (Tivo) and internet streaming rentals, I think it'll be the guys like me with a surplus of analogue hardware who will prosper.
I know this is Slashdot, but come on, you should have made the logical conclusion that I recognize the positive effect regulation has had on alcohol use in public spaces. I'm obviously for regulation of marijuana use, as I clearly said. I'm against unregulated use. That its use is currently widespread means nothing to me. There must be laws to limit what people can do while using marijuana just as there must be laws for alcohol consumption.
I'm fully aware of what marijuana does. I did the research, and I know people who require medical marijuana. I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I know enough about an issue through common sense and divine intervention that I can shape policy. If I did, I'd join the Tea Party, wouldn't I?
Netherlands does not give us a 1:1 model for how American society will look. American culture is very different. My concern isn't violent marijuana crimes. Generally speaking, are there any? I can't imagine any dealer being willing to kill or die over a joint -- yet another point in favor of legalization, actually. My only concern is general legality. I'd like something tempered and regulated. And frankly, that's how it will have to go, because you're not going to get an overnight switch to spliff dispensers in bars.
Kinda. Let me explain my belief on this. I'm no libertarian. I believe strongly in the social contract between citizen and government. The Republic cannot survive without a functional society, and a functional society is nothing without laws which necessarily require individuals to give up some personal liberties.
For example, you give up the right to drive drunk at 100 mph through a residential neighborhood near a school. Another example, you give up the right to deny your child an education of some sort, whether public or private because society does not need the burden of dealing with your uneducated kid when he grows older. You also give up the right to say that blacks, jews, and gays cannot shop in your stores. It used to be that I thought these were libertarian values, but the Libertarian Party has explicitly told me they are not. Go figure.
In some instances, it's okay to say we know what's good for you, or more likely: "I don't care what you want; your wants endanger the rest of us."
So in re marijuana, my concern is having streets full of doped up individuals. It'll look like China during the Opium Wars. I at least want marijuana use regulated the way liquor consumption is because I don't want doped up idiots operating vehicles and endangering people. You're right, the war on drugs has been a failure. Christ, most of the commercials on TV are for drugs now anyway, so we look more like we're dug protectionists. We just want a war on foreign made drugs because we want our citizens addicted to domestically made designer drugs. It's very comical, but no-holds barred legalization of marijuana is a bad thing.
Actually, I meant "smarter" as in keener and craftier, not as more intelligent. Sorry about that; dialectal differences and all. I do feel bad because I'm not a conservative, I'm a moderate. I'm "conservative" on specific issues and "liberal" on specific others. Don't feel bad about it though about assuming all Republicans are conservatives, it's a something a lot of liberals do. ;-)
No worries about violating Godwin's Law, Murdoch is a right bastard. No, he's probably not a Nazi. He personally has no problem with gays, and he's ranted about the Jews less than Rick Sanchez after a long weekend of hit-and-run drunk driving.
Murdoch is a shrewd mogul, and yes, like Hitler, he's good at playing on the emotions of the right wingers. Look at what he's doing in England regarding the BBC. He can't compete on quality, so he tries to make libertarian arguments that it's wrong for the BBC to provide free news, and even illegal, according to some of his rants. He'll work any angle to be number one. That's not conservative or liberal or anything political, it's just opportunistic.
I won't speak for him, but I consider myself a Reagan Republican in that I share many of the values of the former President Ronald Reagan. I am against general legalization of marijuana though I concede it's benefits to some. I am strongly supportive of same sex marriage and women's reproductive rights. However, I am against nanny state laws - something Dems tend to support. However, I'm nowhere near at the extreme where I want to do away with FDA and EPA. And I support public schools. Basically, I am at total odds with the current public face of the Republican Party, but honestly much of that is out of the contrarian trash TV nature that politics has taken now. Pressures from the right-wing Tea Party only compound the strain on the party. Plus, the Christian conservatives are just pissed at the Republican Party because they felt used. I don't know why the gays don't feel equally used by the Dems.
The Republican Party has traditionally branded itself as a "big tent" party, the notion being that there is room for many ideas. It was not a conservative party. It was actually a progressive party. In the 1970s, there were troubles within the party which lead to an influx of social conservatives, many of whom fled the Democratic party (traditionally a Southern party with socially conservative ideas: pro-segregation being one). The Democratic Party become more liberal. It was like a magnet switching polarity in once sense.
Today's Republican Party is very socially conservative, at least it appears so outwardly, just as the Democratic Party appears liberal outwardly. In truth, there's a lot of crossover. No one who knows anything about American politics could ever call Senator Joe Lieberman a liberal, and by today's definition, Ronald Reagan is no conservative. As commodore64_love has indicated, there's a problem with how we use "conservative" and "liberal". When I think "Democrat" I think about the pro-censorship activities of the Dems regarding rock music, video games, and film. That's not exactly liberal. Typically people think of the Republicans as anti-homosexual. Many are, and many are not, including the governor of California and myself. The Democratic Party overwhelmingly supported attempts to prevent same sex marriage during the '90s. Again, not very liberal. The Republican Party was active in civil rights back when "Dixiecrats" were trying to maintain segregationist policies. That's not very conservative.
It's hard to even classify either party as being more big-business than another, since both parties are in the pockets of various big industries and coalition groups. So really, it's about perception: party-in-power = stay the course + change is bad vs party-out-of-power = change is good + we're going in the wrong direction.
The Patriot Act was bipartisan, and it should not be evaluated in terms of conservative vs liberal. It was purely psychological, and thus a reaction to jarring events. Punch a pacifist hard enough, and he will react. Here, we reacted wrongly. So why maintain the Patriot Act? Because we are a free enterprise country and entrepreneurs discovered there is a lot of money to be made on the fear of terrorism. A whole new industry sprang up in just a couple of years after the Patriot Act, and it won't go away because it has its own lobby.
Personally, I have a strong distrust of Libertarians (as in the Party). The fact is, if you're an American and you even remotely believe in American free enterprise and freedom, then you are a libertarian. But I find that the official Libertarian Party platform to be too anarchic for me, too selfish, too "Every man for himself unless its my house that's burning down, in which case, send the taxed paid fire fighters and police". I've watched Ron Paul's rant since the '80s when he could only get face time on the Morton Downy Jr show late at night. From what he's shown me, the Libertarian's goal is like the Communist's goal, workable on the smallest of scales where all the factors of production come from the same area and a pure fantasy at a large scale such as in a major industrialized nation with a global economy.
So you believe that a highly distributed mechanical construct populated by millions of self-serving and somewhat self-centered individuals chasing their own goals has an institutional political bias? You surely can't be speaking about the machinery itself, so you must be speaking of the people. And thus, you *must* be saying that people collectively are liberal.
I have an alternative theory, the Internet has no tendency, political or otherwise, other than to persistently make information available to the widest audience despite attempts by people to stop it. Any political bias you may observe is merely the result of you choosing to observe that phenomena. It's as if the internet is everything at once: liberal, conservative, capitalist, communist, theocratic, hateful, friendly, loud, silly, serious, etc., and it comes crashing down into an observable singularity only when you look directly at it, but you can only observe a tiny sliver of it because it's too quantum a phenomenon to observe for very long.
The thing about Murdoch is, he's smarter than you. He's smarter that the lot of us. He's no more conservative than I am. I'm a political conservative-social moderate Republican who hates hippies and libertarian tea baggers pretty equally. Murdoch saw a "liberal" bias in news reporting. Actually, what he saw was an opportunity to be an alternative to the mainstream and he went for it. He was the college alternative rock to glam arena rock and heavy metal. He saw an opportunity to cash in on a demographic that was under-represented, that is, people who want to see salacious tabloid news stories followed by half-naked young people on TV making out (Temptation Island, A Current Affair, Hardline, Melrose Place, etc). As the '80s and '90s passed, and the right-wingers grew more malcontent, he pulled Fox News to the right in order to capture them. It's about monetizing anger and good old Christian guilt in order to solidify viewership.
It's not all doom and gloom.... except for the video recording market. We're fucked there. It's the early 80s again and the industry is trying to take away our VCRs. No blu-ray video recording for us, do-not-copy flags on HD broadcasts, meh. You know what? If you want to still watch new TV, invest in analogue gear, learn to accept your losses in the digital revolution, and prosper. If you can convert it to analogue, it's yours for keeps.
Internet television shows and TV-to-Internet shopping conduits are certainly the future, but I have difficulty believing that even the great Sith Lord himself, Murdoch can succeed in locking down the Internet, much less the Web. First of all, there are many barriers that prevent me from getting my own programming on television. On the Internet, the only barrier is bandwidth and space, which means, the only barrier is a relatively paltry operating cost. Murdoch hasn't the power to lock down advertisers. One may argue that I can't advertise my Internet TV show because Murdoch will have control over the print and the television media, but that's irrelevant. The most popular websites today are big despite lack of advertising in traditional media forms. In fact, Murdoch's foray in MySpace has sorta evidenced the opposite. Basically, no matter how much Murdoch only wants me to watch News Corp owned Internet TV or shop via News Corp owned shopping conduits, an alternative is always easily created.
Sure, Lonelygirl14 the Fox Internet TV series will be a big commercial hit, but it won't cause lesser known web shoes like The Guild to go away, and it won't prevent me from shopping at Amazon instead of whatever e-tailer News Corp is allied with. And information, as we've seen in Iraq, China, North Korea, and Persia; is impossible to control online. The Web can't become the new TV, though I can see Facebook or MySpace becoming the new Internet TV network; and that's a different story altogether. And seriously, I read Gawker on occasion along with Gawker affiliated news sites, but so what? Gawker can't stop me from getting my news elsewhere.
Living in a desert state now as I do, you did more to explain the difference between regular "table" honey and this new "desert" stuff I'm seeing. I've been hesitant to try it. I'm not allergic to regular clover honey, but I didn't know enough to chance it on the desert honey, and the grocers don't seem to know the differences. I've also seen raw honey. Are there risks to eating desert honey or raw honey when you're only used to processed clover honey as I am?
I haven't turned on my PS3 since the firmware upgrade which killed PSN access and prevented me from playing Heavy Rain offline. I *think* the update that removes Other OS came after that one. So, what do you do then with a PS3 that hasn't been updated to play the newest games? Are you that heavily invested in using the Other OS feature? I never got around to really using PS3 as a Linux based media center like I had intended to, and it does irk me that Sony has tossed out this feature. I have a first run PS3. With the new Xbox coming, I'm also wondering about whether to get a second new generation PS3. This way, I am free to tinker with the original PS3 while preserving game playing ability.
You're not understanding me. I'm not saying that I think software patents are good. I'm responding to your comment that you have seen little evidence that patents do any good, by saying that patents aren't meant to do any good. They are meant purely to benefit an innovator (presumptively) by giving them a chance to maximize returns early on for their innovation before competitors can copy the innovation and offer it cheaper. It's decidedly anti-consumer. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything except that patents do not address a public good. Sure, someone might say patents inspire people to be innovative since it gives them an economic incentive, but we all know that's not true.
Again, having a temporary monopoly is not supposed to be in your interest, it's supposed to me in MY interest if I'm a patent holder.
Okay, I can accept that. So, out of curiosity, is AMD doing this? Has AMD done this anytime in the past? Do you think AMD will benefit from this move? I know some people on other forums have said their next CPU will be AMD. But I figure, if you're shopping for an Intel chip, it's not like you have the option to use an AMD anyway right? I don't know that AMDs can be dropped into MBs that call for Intel chips.
You calling me a fanboy? Of what exactly???
I didn't pay for Apple's MPEG2 decoder. But I can understand that the MPEG people want their cut for licensing out their technology, and by understand, I am saying, I concede that the issue has been argued to death and the result is people are expected to pay for that MPEG authorized decoder.
Of course Apple can fuck around with its customers. Microsoft can too, and if Red Hat could, it would find a way too.
Can't Windows play DVDs now too? Can Windows play MPEG2 straight out of Media Player without downloading anything? Even the less "evil" computer companies out there like Amiga and Atari have wronged me from time to time. I rely on open source software for my MPEG2 playback, and I tell other Mac users to do the same. But I'm smart enough to know my alternatives. I drive a Lexus. Lexus expects me to keep paying to update that damn nav computer, otherwise it's useless. I'm using my Android instead. There are ways around this stuff. Consumers aren't prisoner to things like licenses as they were before, but if you still want that official MPEG2 encoder/decoder software, you're going to pay for it.