Ha ha ha... Good Joke. Finding oil here solves the problem of one group of companies: Oil Barons. What about the weapons complex? What about turbine makers, etc? Who's going to buy their products if countries are not "liberated" at a regular rate. And if the weapons companies don't earn profits, the US economy is doomed and we all will lose our jobs... Plus we are doing a good thing, 'liberating' countries from their pesky 'dictators' and 'illegally elected' prime ministers and presidents.
health care, education and even food are not important enough ...are not important enough for Republicans. There corrected you. You should go buy food from Stop & Shop groceries, pay for higher education and get a medical insurance payable all in one year. You would be surprised if you do not go bankrupt.
Of course you are free to put your money in 401K. This is what Enron employees too did. Alternately you can force congress to pass a law (which Bush will sign) that forces Social Security to invest 100% of its money in Wall Street banks. That way you will be motivated enough to earn enough money for your children when you wake up one morning to see the news of wall street downturn by 14,0000 points and social security filing for bankruptcy.
Oh, so you want to continue to pay 35% income tax on your salary, but allow oil companies to earn tax free profits to the tune of $123 billion a year? You are quite welcome to continue doing it. That is what you are doing now, and that is what you will do. You know what, you would also end up paying a surcharge to "ehlp" the "poor" Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs when their predatory lending goes bust. Of course as good citizens, we are liable to pay income tax to support the corporates whose loss of profit would make us lose our jobs AND our benefits. BTW, why don't you recommend Social Security invest 100% of its money in JP Morgan or in Wall Street? That would help corporates from going under and hence would "help" you keep your job. Who cares if a million retirees suddenly find themselves on street because Social Security can't pay their pension because of "market downturns"?
Oil? Who talked about oil? Those bastards deserve to be taxed at 75% rate. About your concern about layoffs, how come Exxon did not layoff its CEO or reduced its salary of board, etc., in 1990s when it was laying off workers? Lets face facts here: Any company survives solely to earn money for its shareholders. Period. Whichever way they can use, they WILL use it. Much like a bull boy in school who beats up others to get their lunch since it is cheaper and easier to snatch it from others than make your own. Corporates are no different. So, the only way to prevent their destructive streak and to support the citizens they employ is by taxing the hell out of them.
True. But so has US. US has violated its own laws and treaties to protect its farming, corn, banana, and steel industry even though WTO ruled against it many times. I mean, US has always stated to other countries that they MUST follow WTO rulings and has used thugs to impose the same (eg Panama). But somehow it fails to practice the preaching. Isn't that odd? Take for instance Antigua, a small country which poses no threat to US. WTO ruled in its favor against US and ordered US to pay restitution. What did US do? Showed the middle finger to WTO and told Antigua to invade US and pick up the money from its cold dead hands. Obviously Antigua does not have that kinda power (Let's see US telling the same to Putin's Russia), so WTO gave it blanket permission to pirate holloywood movies.
Yup. EU has a duty to protect its industries much like US does. And EU has a big club to defend itself too. (Plus if US leans on it too much, EU can always switch allegiance to Russian bear).
US has met its match and i forsee a cold war between US and EU in a decade's time.
Let me follow the typical republican strategy of attacking anybody who clashes with their power-to-corporate strategy: 1. I want netizens to dig out juicy personal details about this senator and publish it online in every place: Digg, reddit, etc. 2. Form a focus group which buys ad time much like Swift Boat and puts out ads linking this senator with moneybags. 3. Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall street. 4. Find out risque details about the senator's personal family like daughter or wife and publish or "anonymously". 5. Start impeachment or explusion proceedings even if they have no chance of success. 6. Link increase in terrorism with this senator's proposal arguing that such a tax would deprive the state of its income thus preventing it from allocating enough to fight terrorism. Come on the "America Today" slot at 7 Am and argue with the presenter with colorful graphics and a deep low- cut blouse with looks of Jessica Alba (The presenter has to be a woman).
All in all, make life hell for this guy.
Am sure putting out all fires would make him forget such a tax.
And libel/privacy laws don't seem such a good idea Yeah, true. Especially when you are pronounced as a "Person of Interest" by Ashcroft (even though no such term legally exists), hounded by press, exposed as a CIA agent, etc., and then the press holding up relaxed libel law to get away with character and personality assasination. Take Fox news for instance: Delibrately calling Obama as osama, The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth incident... and these are just samples where i wish the ruthlessly effective libel law of EU applied in US. Imagine the SBVT campaigners for bush being arrested, handcuffed and convicted to 3 months in prison. Or Fox news CEO being convicted of Libel and forced to resign and pay huge compensations. Or the bald idiot who exposed the CIA agent being forced to serve 18 yrs in prison....
Then i suggest you visit the nearest Google office, pay the fee and get the info you want and see if the law actually works. Am sure google would demur and state the info is being "held" in US servers and hence they are not answerable to you. Secondly i guess you would be laughed out of the office and asked to sue.
We too have draconian punishment with about 10% of total US population in jail now. But somehow our laws seem to punish the individual crimes, rather than the larger crimes by corporates or the government itself. Why have we not had a CEO being jailed or hanged on behalf of a corporation which was criminally convicted of manslaughter like Exxon or the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India? Take for instance the zealousness of German judges in convicting Volkswagen execs: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0325/p12s01-woeu.html/
In US case, the government supports corporates explicitly and wishes courts release them from any liability for defective medicine even if it kills.
I have been noticing one thing over many years now: EU seems to protect its citizens and consumers from the rapacious hungry corporates more than US, as beacon of freedom, does. Whether it is kicking Microsoft's ass all the way back to US, or Forcing Apple to unblock its iTunes service in France, or Cheaper medicine and medicare that keeps the private insurers at bay, or Privacy laws and zealous courts (in germany) that force the government to disband its secret spyware projects, or Libel laws that force newspapers to pay huge penalties to citizens for reckless lie mongering about their private lives, or Airplane laws that force airlines to pay financial compensation to passengers for ditching them, or Laws that jail CEOs and even the board for criminal conviction of corporations,...
While US zealously preserves corporate rights and treats them above human beings, allowing and authorizing torture, etc.
How come the so-called stiff-lip society values human freedoms so much, when the so-called Beacon of Democracy incarcerates its own citizens without trial.
And that too many EU nations don't even have constitutions that embody something like our First Amendment, etc.
You may never have seen. I did: in New Britain. At a Pub (very old pub with its history rooted in 1779). One fool pulled a gun on his pal, forgetting that just 5 feet away a bunch of off-duty cops were having a birthday party for one of their colleagues. Within 2 mins (1 min and 33 secs to be exact according to my friend's watch), this fool had eight guns and one laser targeted on him. No shooting. The cops politely asked him to drop it and continue enjoying his beer. Which the fool did: wisely. It would have wasted the old antique wood anyway if he had to waste their 20 something bullets shot in close quarters. The evening ended well, and no charges were laid. The fool's gun was taken away and he was asked to reclaim it next day from the station when sober.
Let's get the facts straight. Its NOT law if an association makes it. Its law Only and Only if the parliment makes it, and the Queen approves the same after the Lords approves it. BBA can call it whatever they want, but it will never stick in a court of law. How come the user is held responsible for a lousy OS? The banker is a trustee of my money. I have "loaned" it money that i may demand anytime. And as a creditor i can demand the bank provide me details of my money in a way i deem fit. If the bank cannot provide me access to my details, then i assume the bank cannot repay my debt and i can request the courts to wind it up quickly.
Yeah. And Mosque??? of all places? Aren't these the same guys who blow up Telecom towers in Afghanistan as symbols of western decadence. I bet the broadband line will live for 500 milliseconds before it is burnt down along with its equipment.
Yup. The college should sue the professor for using its resources to conduct his business, and get back the money it paid him as salary. After all when the professor accepted employment at the college, he agreed to seel his services exclusively to the college during the time periods he was at the job in college. The college has first and sole rights of sale. And this professor fellow has sold those rights to college. Doctrine of First Sale dictates the seller cannot resell the same property as it would be double-selling and hence cheating the buyer. I say the college sue this guy first, get back the money it paid him as salary, and then dismiss for violating his contract. I would pay my college lawyers to do this.
No no. You are comparing apples and gold oranges. Halliburton is on "our" side: The good side. It is fighting terror and assisting our troops valiants by providing them with MRE, hot showers, massages, etc., to help us defeat terrorists. It is in fact unfairly targetted by the communist-lefty press for war-profiteering.
IBM, on the other hand tried to lobby, without campaign money, for a new contract. That IS a crime! How dare IBM lobby our esteemed congressmen and waste their precious time without reimbursing them in any way?
WoW! That is a lot of accurate information. And presented in a simple "beat-over-head" fashion. I must study my wife more closely. Nowadays all get are crossed signals and we both are annoyed... Probably your clues should cue me in. Thanks man.
Have you investigated the possibility that some ICANN execs may "suddenly" be "recruited" by Verisign at$1.2 million a year? ICANN should be investigates by the FBI for those reasons. Secondly ICANN should be forced to sign agreements with its execs that they will NOT ever join any company owned even partially by verisign or its current execs for next 12 years.
The last damned thing I want to see on the phone network is an iPhone worm getting it's hooks into the core of every iPhone in the default settings Look, am sick of hearing this. AT&T has been around a long longer than Apple and possibly outlives you. They have been through the worst decades of phone spamming, bot dialing, switch resets, network takedowns due to faulty software, etc., Heck, their manuals for a single router chip are 893 pages long (not including index and glossary).
AT&T or any other cell network is NOT stupid.
Your puny iPhone app can do harm to the phone probably, but would be detected and burnt down long before it tries to harm the network. The amount of robustness that goes into a telephone network and switching comes with 100 years of telephony and telegraphs.
You are a new kid who thinks OS X is the greatest OS and can take down the entire defense network as depicted in War games... Sheesh...
On Windows 3.1 we used to run Netware, Oracle and a host of other apps. 64 MB was what was used in 1993. And it had 20 MB free.
128MB ought to be enough for two apps and the OS. And anyway OS X in Touch is a stripped down version. Not the whole hog. (I bet the whole hog would not slow down too much, since OS X is adaptable) And if you can't make a OS X app run within 8 MB initially, then you should surrender your geek license. Come on is it that hard?
No. Not that issue. Apple seriously needs to start thinking like Microsoft did in 1990s. If it wants iPhone to be the next Windows for Mobile, it has to let go of its secrecy and holier-than-thou attitude and open up iPhone SDK and iPhone apps itself. The market for Windows apps was grown by Microsoft this way. MSDN, Technet, Visual Basic (yeah, yeah, i understand that's not cool, but many have cut their first teeth on it), etc., not to mention the clear documenting of Windows API (am talking the MAPI era, Win 3.1 and Win 95 APIs).
Let the market worry about deciding which is better and which does not crash the OS.
Yes, initially, AT&T will crib and complain. Yes, some apps can take down the phone. But can it take down an entire east coast network?? Highly unlikely. AT&T may be huge, but its not stupid. They have 50 years of managing telephone networks, not to mention overcoming the stupid telephone switch reset problem in 1980s which took down the entire network due to new switches.
AT&T is more robust than apple thinks.
Let your favorite child growup Apple. Let it go. Yes, its painful to watch your favorite offspring leave home. Unless you want it to die, let it go.
But support it. Support it like hell. Telephone, MSDN, Technet, not to mention free iPhones to even the lowliest editor. Make it popular by flooding the market with it. You can't control everything. Let go and watch it flower and make loads of money for you.
because OS X has a reputation for being virus and malware free Ahh... a slight correction: Till now no known malware exists for OS X because none was developed. After all why spend so much money to develop walware or virus for a system that is being used by one half of the 5% of population who happen to surf to a website. Costs include Apple Developer's Program, buying a Mac to develop and Test (and everyone knows its not as easy as Visual C++), and assorted tools. Too much effort for a reasonable payoff. And secondly Mac users tend to be richer, well-studied and well-off, so the chances of them getting angry and respond with a lawsuit is more.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha ha ha...
Good Joke.
Finding oil here solves the problem of one group of companies: Oil Barons.
What about the weapons complex? What about turbine makers, etc?
Who's going to buy their products if countries are not "liberated" at a regular rate.
And if the weapons companies don't earn profits, the US economy is doomed and we all will lose our jobs...
Plus we are doing a good thing, 'liberating' countries from their pesky 'dictators' and 'illegally elected' prime ministers and presidents.
You should go buy food from Stop & Shop groceries, pay for higher education and get a medical insurance payable all in one year.
You would be surprised if you do not go bankrupt.
Of course you are free to put your money in 401K. This is what Enron employees too did.
Alternately you can force congress to pass a law (which Bush will sign) that forces Social Security to invest 100% of its money in Wall Street banks.
That way you will be motivated enough to earn enough money for your children when you wake up one morning to see the news of wall street downturn by 14,0000 points and social security filing for bankruptcy.
Oh, so you want to continue to pay 35% income tax on your salary, but allow oil companies to earn tax free profits to the tune of $123 billion a year?
You are quite welcome to continue doing it. That is what you are doing now, and that is what you will do.
You know what, you would also end up paying a surcharge to "ehlp" the "poor" Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs when their predatory lending goes bust.
Of course as good citizens, we are liable to pay income tax to support the corporates whose loss of profit would make us lose our jobs AND our benefits.
BTW, why don't you recommend Social Security invest 100% of its money in JP Morgan or in Wall Street? That would help corporates from going under and hence would "help" you keep your job. Who cares if a million retirees suddenly find themselves on street because Social Security can't pay their pension because of "market downturns"?
Oil? Who talked about oil?
Those bastards deserve to be taxed at 75% rate.
About your concern about layoffs, how come Exxon did not layoff its CEO or reduced its salary of board, etc., in 1990s when it was laying off workers?
Lets face facts here: Any company survives solely to earn money for its shareholders. Period. Whichever way they can use, they WILL use it. Much like a bull boy in school who beats up others to get their lunch since it is cheaper and easier to snatch it from others than make your own.
Corporates are no different.
So, the only way to prevent their destructive streak and to support the citizens they employ is by taxing the hell out of them.
True. But so has US. US has violated its own laws and treaties to protect its farming, corn, banana, and steel industry even though WTO ruled against it many times.
I mean, US has always stated to other countries that they MUST follow WTO rulings and has used thugs to impose the same (eg Panama).
But somehow it fails to practice the preaching.
Isn't that odd?
Take for instance Antigua, a small country which poses no threat to US. WTO ruled in its favor against US and ordered US to pay restitution. What did US do? Showed the middle finger to WTO and told Antigua to invade US and pick up the money from its cold dead hands.
Obviously Antigua does not have that kinda power (Let's see US telling the same to Putin's Russia), so WTO gave it blanket permission to pirate holloywood movies.
Yup.
EU has a duty to protect its industries much like US does.
And EU has a big club to defend itself too. (Plus if US leans on it too much, EU can always switch allegiance to Russian bear).
US has met its match and i forsee a cold war between US and EU in a decade's time.
Let me follow the typical republican strategy of attacking anybody who clashes with their power-to-corporate strategy:
1. I want netizens to dig out juicy personal details about this senator and publish it online in every place: Digg, reddit, etc.
2. Form a focus group which buys ad time much like Swift Boat and puts out ads linking this senator with moneybags.
3. Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall street.
4. Find out risque details about the senator's personal family like daughter or wife and publish or "anonymously".
5. Start impeachment or explusion proceedings even if they have no chance of success.
6. Link increase in terrorism with this senator's proposal arguing that such a tax would deprive the state of its income thus preventing it from allocating enough to fight terrorism. Come on the "America Today" slot at 7 Am and argue with the presenter with colorful graphics and a deep low- cut blouse with looks of Jessica Alba (The presenter has to be a woman).
All in all, make life hell for this guy.
Am sure putting out all fires would make him forget such a tax.
I chose the name purely to mislead NSA.
-:)
Take Fox news for instance: Delibrately calling Obama as osama, The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth incident...
and these are just samples where i wish the ruthlessly effective libel law of EU applied in US.
Imagine the SBVT campaigners for bush being arrested, handcuffed and convicted to 3 months in prison.
Or Fox news CEO being convicted of Libel and forced to resign and pay huge compensations.
Or the bald idiot who exposed the CIA agent being forced to serve 18 yrs in prison....
Then i suggest you visit the nearest Google office, pay the fee and get the info you want and see if the law actually works.
Am sure google would demur and state the info is being "held" in US servers and hence they are not answerable to you.
Secondly i guess you would be laughed out of the office and asked to sue.
We too have draconian punishment with about 10% of total US population in jail now.
But somehow our laws seem to punish the individual crimes, rather than the larger crimes by corporates or the government itself.
Why have we not had a CEO being jailed or hanged on behalf of a corporation which was criminally convicted of manslaughter like Exxon or the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India?
Take for instance the zealousness of German judges in convicting Volkswagen execs: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0325/p12s01-woeu.html/
In US case, the government supports corporates explicitly and wishes courts release them from any liability for defective medicine even if it kills.
I have been noticing one thing over many years now:
EU seems to protect its citizens and consumers from the rapacious hungry corporates more than US, as beacon of freedom, does.
Whether it is kicking Microsoft's ass all the way back to US, or
Forcing Apple to unblock its iTunes service in France, or
Cheaper medicine and medicare that keeps the private insurers at bay, or
Privacy laws and zealous courts (in germany) that force the government to disband its secret spyware projects, or
Libel laws that force newspapers to pay huge penalties to citizens for reckless lie mongering about their private lives, or
Airplane laws that force airlines to pay financial compensation to passengers for ditching them, or
Laws that jail CEOs and even the board for criminal conviction of corporations,...
While US zealously preserves corporate rights and treats them above human beings, allowing and authorizing torture, etc.
How come the so-called stiff-lip society values human freedoms so much, when the so-called Beacon of Democracy incarcerates its own citizens without trial.
And that too many EU nations don't even have constitutions that embody something like our First Amendment, etc.
You may never have seen.
I did: in New Britain. At a Pub (very old pub with its history rooted in 1779). One fool pulled a gun on his pal, forgetting that just 5 feet away a bunch of off-duty cops were having a birthday party for one of their colleagues.
Within 2 mins (1 min and 33 secs to be exact according to my friend's watch), this fool had eight guns and one laser targeted on him.
No shooting.
The cops politely asked him to drop it and continue enjoying his beer.
Which the fool did: wisely.
It would have wasted the old antique wood anyway if he had to waste their 20 something bullets shot in close quarters.
The evening ended well, and no charges were laid. The fool's gun was taken away and he was asked to reclaim it next day from the station when sober.
I miss that pub.
Let's get the facts straight.
Its NOT law if an association makes it.
Its law Only and Only if the parliment makes it, and the Queen approves the same after the Lords approves it.
BBA can call it whatever they want, but it will never stick in a court of law.
How come the user is held responsible for a lousy OS?
The banker is a trustee of my money. I have "loaned" it money that i may demand anytime.
And as a creditor i can demand the bank provide me details of my money in a way i deem fit.
If the bank cannot provide me access to my details, then i assume the bank cannot repay my debt and i can request the courts to wind it up quickly.
Yeah. And Mosque??? of all places?
Aren't these the same guys who blow up Telecom towers in Afghanistan as symbols of western decadence.
I bet the broadband line will live for 500 milliseconds before it is burnt down along with its equipment.
Yup.
The college should sue the professor for using its resources to conduct his business, and get back the money it paid him as salary.
After all when the professor accepted employment at the college, he agreed to seel his services exclusively to the college during the time periods he was at the job in college.
The college has first and sole rights of sale.
And this professor fellow has sold those rights to college.
Doctrine of First Sale dictates the seller cannot resell the same property as it would be double-selling and hence cheating the buyer.
I say the college sue this guy first, get back the money it paid him as salary, and then dismiss for violating his contract.
I would pay my college lawyers to do this.
...i say "Bring 'em on"
-:)
No no. You are comparing apples and gold oranges.
Halliburton is on "our" side: The good side. It is fighting terror and assisting our troops valiants by providing them with MRE, hot showers, massages, etc., to help us defeat terrorists. It is in fact unfairly targetted by the communist-lefty press for war-profiteering.
IBM, on the other hand tried to lobby, without campaign money, for a new contract.
That IS a crime! How dare IBM lobby our esteemed congressmen and waste their precious time without reimbursing them in any way?
WoW!
That is a lot of accurate information.
And presented in a simple "beat-over-head" fashion.
I must study my wife more closely.
Nowadays all get are crossed signals and we both are annoyed...
Probably your clues should cue me in.
Thanks man.
Have you investigated the possibility that some ICANN execs may "suddenly" be "recruited" by Verisign at$1.2 million a year?
ICANN should be investigates by the FBI for those reasons.
Secondly ICANN should be forced to sign agreements with its execs that they will NOT ever join any company owned even partially by verisign or its current execs for next 12 years.
AT&T has been around a long longer than Apple and possibly outlives you.
They have been through the worst decades of phone spamming, bot dialing, switch resets, network takedowns due to faulty software, etc.,
Heck, their manuals for a single router chip are 893 pages long (not including index and glossary).
AT&T or any other cell network is NOT stupid.
Your puny iPhone app can do harm to the phone probably, but would be detected and burnt down long before it tries to harm the network.
The amount of robustness that goes into a telephone network and switching comes with 100 years of telephony and telegraphs.
You are a new kid who thinks OS X is the greatest OS and can take down the entire defense network as depicted in War games...
Sheesh...
On Windows 3.1 we used to run Netware, Oracle and a host of other apps.
64 MB was what was used in 1993.
And it had 20 MB free.
128MB ought to be enough for two apps and the OS.
And anyway OS X in Touch is a stripped down version. Not the whole hog. (I bet the whole hog would not slow down too much, since OS X is adaptable)
And if you can't make a OS X app run within 8 MB initially, then you should surrender your geek license. Come on is it that hard?
No. Not that issue.
Apple seriously needs to start thinking like Microsoft did in 1990s.
If it wants iPhone to be the next Windows for Mobile, it has to let go of its secrecy and holier-than-thou attitude and open up iPhone SDK and iPhone apps itself.
The market for Windows apps was grown by Microsoft this way.
MSDN, Technet, Visual Basic (yeah, yeah, i understand that's not cool, but many have cut their first teeth on it), etc., not to mention the clear documenting of Windows API (am talking the MAPI era, Win 3.1 and Win 95 APIs).
Let the market worry about deciding which is better and which does not crash the OS.
Yes, initially, AT&T will crib and complain. Yes, some apps can take down the phone. But can it take down an entire east coast network??
Highly unlikely. AT&T may be huge, but its not stupid.
They have 50 years of managing telephone networks, not to mention overcoming the stupid telephone switch reset problem in 1980s which took down the entire network due to new switches.
AT&T is more robust than apple thinks.
Let your favorite child growup Apple. Let it go. Yes, its painful to watch your favorite offspring leave home.
Unless you want it to die, let it go.
But support it. Support it like hell. Telephone, MSDN, Technet, not to mention free iPhones to even the lowliest editor.
Make it popular by flooding the market with it.
You can't control everything.
Let go and watch it flower and make loads of money for you.
Or shield it and watch it die like Newton.
In real-world terms: The spacecraft smelt a small fart. Followed the fart and tasted the shit poo accompanying it and Lo! here we have news.
After all why spend so much money to develop walware or virus for a system that is being used by one half of the 5% of population who happen to surf to a website.
Costs include Apple Developer's Program, buying a Mac to develop and Test (and everyone knows its not as easy as Visual C++), and assorted tools.
Too much effort for a reasonable payoff.
And secondly Mac users tend to be richer, well-studied and well-off, so the chances of them getting angry and respond with a lawsuit is more.