I never heard of someone getting their phone service cut because they were doing something illegal with it.
Which means you haven't ever paid attention to what happens when you commit wire fraud or any number of other things that directly violate the contract you entered into when getting that phone line.
WTF is an ISP doing trying to play law enforcer?
Who says they're playing law enforcer? They invested in, built, and run a network that they allow their customers to use according to a two-way contract that both parties sign. They don't have unlimited bandwidth or other resources, so when some jerk is ripping off TBs of movies, the company providing network services to a whole bunch of customers has a vested interest in keeping the pirates from burning up a disproportionate chunk of their resources. The ISP is simply tending to their own network and the way people are using it, and anyone who's getting their services agreed to a relationship that allows that company to look after its own needs as it provides those services. Stop pretending you don't understand the difference between that and law enforcement.
it sounds like this particular ISP doesn't so much "shut off" as deliver less than the customer originally paid for
No, it sounds like the ISP is delivering exactly what they said they would when both parties agreed to a contract that - among other things - says you can't use their systems and properties and related services to rip off intellectual property. It's not exactly mysterious.
OK, net neutrality. When you're using a company's services to rip off other people's intellectual property, you get perfectly neutral turn of events that impacts ALL of your internet-connected services in an identical way: service is turned off. Is that neutral enough for you?
Sure, if you're a moral relativist who pretends that words have no meaning.
This means that it is hard to get agreement amongst reasonable people as to what is "fake news".
No, it's not hard at all. When, say, ABC news runs a stock-market-damaging fake story about Trump/Russia collusion that is exactly counter to the actual facts, that's fake news. It's not at all hard to agree on that, unless you're so dedicated to Trump bashing that you're willing to pretend you're too dumb to actually understand what written dates look like. Reasonable people have no trouble at all figuring out that two different dates are... two different dates.
No, the difference is that the socialists in Vietnam are doing what socialists always do: using government power to silence other people. In this case, military power. That's completely different than someone in the US pointing out that a newspaper or cable outlet has just published a fabricated story, or completely misrepresented reality. Pointing that out isn't the same as using the military so silence you. If you really can't tell the difference, please don't do anything dangerous to other people, like voting.
now that he won he won't investigate any of the voting issues.
Other than the commission he immediately formed to do just that, which immediately started gathering data for that purpose. Of course liberal governors of several blue states promptly declined to supply the requested data, for purely partisan reasons. Because they didn't WANT anyone to look into the irregularities in their states that went solidly for Clinton.
No, it's only a tax increase if, when the expiration date approaches, the Democrats will go out of their way to block renewal. Which you know, but are pretending you don't. Why? The "social security trust" has exactly ZERO to do with this.
No, the ACA ("Obamacare"). The only reason the law wasn't struck down in court was because it was confirmed to be tax law. So those huge new costs foisted upon people, the requirement that they pay for gigantic premiums and enormous deductibles - those were only possible because those new requirements are framed as a tax. Blatantly unconstitutional, otherwise. Our family's premiums have now quintupled because of the ACA, and the deductibles have quadrupled. THAT tax increase.
Seems plausible. An empathetic business owner experiencing a slowdown might be less willing to lay off employees, for example. That alone would serve as a filter, making less empathetic people more likely to be financially successful.
And that's the filter that helps to select which businesses actually stay in business, keeping people employed - even if not all of them, in a down-turn - rather than everyone losing their jobs and the company going under. Ask the majority of people still working at National Geographic if they'd rather have the paycheck they're currently getting from Evil Awful Murdoch who bailed them out and kept the company alive, or have watched NatGeo go completely down in flames and be gone for good along with ALL of the jobs it supported.
You're right! Returning the situation to the way it was two years ago is a total disaster! I wonder, were you this upset when Obama dragged his feet for years before pushing a rule through? Were you furious about how "fucked" you were while he went years and years with the situation exactly as it now is? No? Gotcha.
Please name one elected official that "paid for" their action or inaction on any of the following issues...
Implementation of Obamacare
Well, the Democrats implemented that huge new tax increase and entitlement program along strictly partisan lines, while lying non-stop about how it would work. They promptly lost control of the legislature. Nancy Pelosi was relegated to standing in the wings talking about how the other party is actively trying to commit genocide and how their legislation is the apocalypse.
Attempted repeal of Obamacare
The attempt lost narrowly, and considerable political capital was burned in the process. Lots of other agenda items got back burnered because of the wrangling over that. Many Republicans lost the support of their own constituents over the failure to deal with that problem. The attempt was divisive and has lasting consequences.
Failure to implement meaningful immigration reform
Many Republicans will, if they don't actually do something about it over the next year, definitely feel the abrupt loss of voter support in the mid-terms and beyond. That is one of the front-and-center issues that drove the last election. That said, there has been notable progress in dealing with criminal illegal aliens, and those trying to enforce our porous southern border are getting support they haven't had for years. Though we really should be focused on entitlement reform, I suspect that congress will be looking at immigration, first.
Supporting or not supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Hillary Clinton's laughable flip-flopping on that topic is one of the things that helped to illustrate her disingenuous, untrustworthy nature during the election. To the extent that it was yet another brush stroke in that picture of her, it was meaningful. Trump's promise to not support it was likewise something that helped to clarify what separated the two candidates on matters of foreign trade.
Support or opposition for Trump appointees etc.
You need to be more specific, here. What consequences were you expecting, for which appointee? Certainly the howls of phony liberal outrage at the nomination of a solid, rational person - who embraces the separation of powers and the constitution's checks and balances - to the Supreme Court did help to illustrate why elections matter so much. Hillary promised to appoint people "without a lengthy judicial background" who "knew what people are going through" blah blah blah because she saw the SCOTUS as a place to operate, politically, in opposition to what she knew would be a disobedient congress not inclined to do what she said in furtherance of her social agenda. For people who have a long enough perspective to understand the consequences, observing the behavior of those who supported or didn't support Trump's nominee IS very illuminating, and has consequences.
There's nothing user-unfriendly about taking the very basic, and very common steps I mentioned, in the sense that it prevents the VERY user-unfriendly experience of having one's account hacked. Users seem to actually appreciate that once they understand the risks of leaving it all wide open as a public credential-testing API.
I deal with many systems that use admin-approved accounts only, following an application processing cycle. The application process deliberately does NOT inform the applicant that they're attempting to create a duplicate account. On purpose. For exactly this reason. And when someone tries to log in, we provide the "user name and password combination not valid" response. Because we don't want to provide a test platform for someone trying to deduce legit user names. Likewise with the password reset features. While it offers to communicate (using two factors) a tokenized reset link to the user, it does NOT say that the presentation of a non-existent email address means a matching account couldn't be found. Because that's just another test platform we don't feel like offering to bad guys. End users may want it to be easier, but adequate communication/explanation of why it is the way it is generally satisfies all but the worst of the PHBs.
And that's such an atrocious mis-use of the word "right" as to make the ability to discuss government regulations and entitlements nearly impossible in any sort of intellectually coherent way.
In fact as a cheap bastard I only just recently upgraded from a 10 Mbps to a 30 Mbps connection myself.
And if you lived in the UK, you wouldn't have to do anything anymore because you have the RIGHT to get someone else to buy you internet service. The entire framing of this topic is absurd. "Good for them" might be, say, making it clear that if you pay for 10Mbps, you actually GET that, or the vendor that promised that has to make it right or give you your money back. That's not the same as having a "right" to something. That word has no businesses being used in this context.
How can we be talking about government-mandated "legal" things and the conversation can't even approach getting right the distinction between rights, entitlements, regulations, and the like?
But all of the hipsters keep telling me we're in a "sharing economy," now. How can it be a transportation company if they're just facilitating people sharing with each other.
Also, let me share some vomit at the absurd mis-use of that word.
Except there is no evidence that ACA/Obamacare actually raised insurance prices
Except for the millions of people who've seen their rates go up several hundred percent and, worse, had their deductibles quadruple or more. Now they are required to buy a plan that doesn't get them ANY sort or routine health care, and they're out hundreds at least every month in the sort of cash flow they might have used to visit a doctor periodically, and their deductible is so high that even something like a broken bone would be ruinous. You're saying the ACA got rid of high prices. But it caused our household's rates to go through the roof, lost us our doctor and the use of our good local hospital, and put our deductible at an insanely high number (over $13k). So we're out far more cash every year, get no health care for it at all, and have to pay more on top of that if we actually ever do see a doctor. And the only reason the entire law wasn't found unconstitutional was because it was ruled a tax.
And here are all sorts of Democrats - who were 100% party-line-in-favor of inflicting that gigantic new tax on us - complaining because they don't like the new tax bill, and are breathlessly calling it "the end of the world" and other rational things. Your defense of Obamacare would be hilarious if it wasn't so destructive.
Because only people who rent realize that landlords send out brownshirts to beat people who oppose them politically and then kill millions and try to take over Europe?
Soon you can buy another property in the next crash and rent the old one to some other "good family" for income. BECOME that n*zi landlord.
I love it when liberals who use the word Nazi show so plainly just how incoherent their thought process is. And what terrible students of history they actually are. It explains a lot.
Slashdot Mirror
I never heard of someone getting their phone service cut because they were doing something illegal with it.
Which means you haven't ever paid attention to what happens when you commit wire fraud or any number of other things that directly violate the contract you entered into when getting that phone line.
WTF is an ISP doing trying to play law enforcer?
Who says they're playing law enforcer? They invested in, built, and run a network that they allow their customers to use according to a two-way contract that both parties sign. They don't have unlimited bandwidth or other resources, so when some jerk is ripping off TBs of movies, the company providing network services to a whole bunch of customers has a vested interest in keeping the pirates from burning up a disproportionate chunk of their resources. The ISP is simply tending to their own network and the way people are using it, and anyone who's getting their services agreed to a relationship that allows that company to look after its own needs as it provides those services. Stop pretending you don't understand the difference between that and law enforcement.
it sounds like this particular ISP doesn't so much "shut off" as deliver less than the customer originally paid for
No, it sounds like the ISP is delivering exactly what they said they would when both parties agreed to a contract that - among other things - says you can't use their systems and properties and related services to rip off intellectual property. It's not exactly mysterious.
OK, net neutrality. When you're using a company's services to rip off other people's intellectual property, you get perfectly neutral turn of events that impacts ALL of your internet-connected services in an identical way: service is turned off. Is that neutral enough for you?
...is another man's "terrorist"
Sure, if you're a moral relativist who pretends that words have no meaning.
This means that it is hard to get agreement amongst reasonable people as to what is "fake news".
No, it's not hard at all. When, say, ABC news runs a stock-market-damaging fake story about Trump/Russia collusion that is exactly counter to the actual facts, that's fake news. It's not at all hard to agree on that, unless you're so dedicated to Trump bashing that you're willing to pretend you're too dumb to actually understand what written dates look like. Reasonable people have no trouble at all figuring out that two different dates are ... two different dates.
Really? So eastern troll mills have mobilized the US military to silence people whose opinions they don't like? Please, do fill us in on the details.
No, the difference is that the socialists in Vietnam are doing what socialists always do: using government power to silence other people. In this case, military power. That's completely different than someone in the US pointing out that a newspaper or cable outlet has just published a fabricated story, or completely misrepresented reality. Pointing that out isn't the same as using the military so silence you. If you really can't tell the difference, please don't do anything dangerous to other people, like voting.
now that he won he won't investigate any of the voting issues.
Other than the commission he immediately formed to do just that, which immediately started gathering data for that purpose. Of course liberal governors of several blue states promptly declined to supply the requested data, for purely partisan reasons. Because they didn't WANT anyone to look into the irregularities in their states that went solidly for Clinton.
It is stupid to put forward an argument that you don't even believe yourself.
And yet Hillary Clinton still won the popular vote.
Is that the same as an apostrophe defect?
No, it's only a tax increase if, when the expiration date approaches, the Democrats will go out of their way to block renewal. Which you know, but are pretending you don't. Why? The "social security trust" has exactly ZERO to do with this.
In 1986, right?
No, the ACA ("Obamacare"). The only reason the law wasn't struck down in court was because it was confirmed to be tax law. So those huge new costs foisted upon people, the requirement that they pay for gigantic premiums and enormous deductibles - those were only possible because those new requirements are framed as a tax. Blatantly unconstitutional, otherwise. Our family's premiums have now quintupled because of the ACA, and the deductibles have quadrupled. THAT tax increase.
Seems plausible. An empathetic business owner experiencing a slowdown might be less willing to lay off employees, for example. That alone would serve as a filter, making less empathetic people more likely to be financially successful.
And that's the filter that helps to select which businesses actually stay in business, keeping people employed - even if not all of them, in a down-turn - rather than everyone losing their jobs and the company going under. Ask the majority of people still working at National Geographic if they'd rather have the paycheck they're currently getting from Evil Awful Murdoch who bailed them out and kept the company alive, or have watched NatGeo go completely down in flames and be gone for good along with ALL of the jobs it supported.
You're right! Returning the situation to the way it was two years ago is a total disaster! I wonder, were you this upset when Obama dragged his feet for years before pushing a rule through? Were you furious about how "fucked" you were while he went years and years with the situation exactly as it now is? No? Gotcha.
Please name one elected official that "paid for" their action or inaction on any of the following issues...
Implementation of Obamacare
Well, the Democrats implemented that huge new tax increase and entitlement program along strictly partisan lines, while lying non-stop about how it would work. They promptly lost control of the legislature. Nancy Pelosi was relegated to standing in the wings talking about how the other party is actively trying to commit genocide and how their legislation is the apocalypse.
Attempted repeal of Obamacare
The attempt lost narrowly, and considerable political capital was burned in the process. Lots of other agenda items got back burnered because of the wrangling over that. Many Republicans lost the support of their own constituents over the failure to deal with that problem. The attempt was divisive and has lasting consequences.
Failure to implement meaningful immigration reform
Many Republicans will, if they don't actually do something about it over the next year, definitely feel the abrupt loss of voter support in the mid-terms and beyond. That is one of the front-and-center issues that drove the last election. That said, there has been notable progress in dealing with criminal illegal aliens, and those trying to enforce our porous southern border are getting support they haven't had for years. Though we really should be focused on entitlement reform, I suspect that congress will be looking at immigration, first.
Supporting or not supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Hillary Clinton's laughable flip-flopping on that topic is one of the things that helped to illustrate her disingenuous, untrustworthy nature during the election. To the extent that it was yet another brush stroke in that picture of her, it was meaningful. Trump's promise to not support it was likewise something that helped to clarify what separated the two candidates on matters of foreign trade.
Support or opposition for Trump appointees etc.
You need to be more specific, here. What consequences were you expecting, for which appointee? Certainly the howls of phony liberal outrage at the nomination of a solid, rational person - who embraces the separation of powers and the constitution's checks and balances - to the Supreme Court did help to illustrate why elections matter so much. Hillary promised to appoint people "without a lengthy judicial background" who "knew what people are going through" blah blah blah because she saw the SCOTUS as a place to operate, politically, in opposition to what she knew would be a disobedient congress not inclined to do what she said in furtherance of her social agenda. For people who have a long enough perspective to understand the consequences, observing the behavior of those who supported or didn't support Trump's nominee IS very illuminating, and has consequences.
There's nothing user-unfriendly about taking the very basic, and very common steps I mentioned, in the sense that it prevents the VERY user-unfriendly experience of having one's account hacked. Users seem to actually appreciate that once they understand the risks of leaving it all wide open as a public credential-testing API.
I deal with many systems that use admin-approved accounts only, following an application processing cycle. The application process deliberately does NOT inform the applicant that they're attempting to create a duplicate account. On purpose. For exactly this reason. And when someone tries to log in, we provide the "user name and password combination not valid" response. Because we don't want to provide a test platform for someone trying to deduce legit user names. Likewise with the password reset features. While it offers to communicate (using two factors) a tokenized reset link to the user, it does NOT say that the presentation of a non-existent email address means a matching account couldn't be found. Because that's just another test platform we don't feel like offering to bad guys. End users may want it to be easier, but adequate communication/explanation of why it is the way it is generally satisfies all but the worst of the PHBs.
And that's such an atrocious mis-use of the word "right" as to make the ability to discuss government regulations and entitlements nearly impossible in any sort of intellectually coherent way.
Right, so an even stronger case for why describing this as a "right" is absurd.
In fact as a cheap bastard I only just recently upgraded from a 10 Mbps to a 30 Mbps connection myself.
And if you lived in the UK, you wouldn't have to do anything anymore because you have the RIGHT to get someone else to buy you internet service. The entire framing of this topic is absurd. "Good for them" might be, say, making it clear that if you pay for 10Mbps, you actually GET that, or the vendor that promised that has to make it right or give you your money back. That's not the same as having a "right" to something. That word has no businesses being used in this context.
How can we be talking about government-mandated "legal" things and the conversation can't even approach getting right the distinction between rights, entitlements, regulations, and the like?
Well, someone must provide you with freedom of speech for it to be a right.
This, as they say, is so wrong it's not even wrong.
But all of the hipsters keep telling me we're in a "sharing economy," now. How can it be a transportation company if they're just facilitating people sharing with each other.
Also, let me share some vomit at the absurd mis-use of that word.
Except there is no evidence that ACA/Obamacare actually raised insurance prices
Except for the millions of people who've seen their rates go up several hundred percent and, worse, had their deductibles quadruple or more. Now they are required to buy a plan that doesn't get them ANY sort or routine health care, and they're out hundreds at least every month in the sort of cash flow they might have used to visit a doctor periodically, and their deductible is so high that even something like a broken bone would be ruinous. You're saying the ACA got rid of high prices. But it caused our household's rates to go through the roof, lost us our doctor and the use of our good local hospital, and put our deductible at an insanely high number (over $13k). So we're out far more cash every year, get no health care for it at all, and have to pay more on top of that if we actually ever do see a doctor. And the only reason the entire law wasn't found unconstitutional was because it was ruled a tax.
And here are all sorts of Democrats - who were 100% party-line-in-favor of inflicting that gigantic new tax on us - complaining because they don't like the new tax bill, and are breathlessly calling it "the end of the world" and other rational things. Your defense of Obamacare would be hilarious if it wasn't so destructive.
Apparently you never rented.
Because only people who rent realize that landlords send out brownshirts to beat people who oppose them politically and then kill millions and try to take over Europe?
Soon you can buy another property in the next crash and rent the old one to some other "good family" for income. BECOME that n*zi landlord.
I love it when liberals who use the word Nazi show so plainly just how incoherent their thought process is. And what terrible students of history they actually are. It explains a lot.