I think the difference is that if you drink or do drugs in your living room, you are only increasing the risk for yourself. If you drink or do drugs while driving, then you are increasing the risk for yourself and others who do not wish to share your risk.
Doctors don't need to know every drug everywhere. There is this thing called google where you can type in your symptoms and find out what drugs might be helpful. There are also reference books that a doctor could use to look up what are the appropriate medications for various problems. Or the primary care doctor could consult with a specialist if they are unsure about appropriate medications for a certain condition. I would much prefer my doctor determine the correct medication via a book or Internet search vs. a commercial.
Thanks for articulating that very well. It actually takes some effort to analyze the facts and try to make a well reasoned argument. I guess that's why so many people take the easy way out to show themselves they are right, and just say something like "X is a crackpot, therefore don't listen to X".
[Lybian war] in a month, for under a billion dollars
Sounds like you are quoting the figures that were given before the war and didn't bother to check if that's how things actually played out. The war in Lybia lasted from March 31 to October 31, so it was more like 7 months. And wikipedia says 1.3 Billion spent just by the US. And now that Gaddafi is dead, everything is great there right? Not quite. There is still plenty of murder, torture, rape, etc. going on, probably worse that what was occurring under Gaddafi.
As far at the Republican criticisms being inconsistent, I won't argue with you there, but Obama has been at least as inconsistent as them on this issue given that during his candidacy he specifically said the president does not have the power to do what he did in Libya.
failing to take advantage of the brief period of Democratic control of Congress by getting his health care plan passed
It's not his fault; he's naive and inexperienced, and never should have been put up as a nominee
I have a somewhat different view of this. It seems that Obama actually got the health care that he wanted. Sure he paid lip-service to a public option for political reasons, but maybe you don't remember or didn't know that he negotiated away the public option in private meetings with the insurance companies early on [1][2]. There's also the fact that Obama decided to personally scold Kucinich for trying to stick up for the public option. So I don't really buy the argument that Obama has good intentions but is just too powerless, inexperienced, good-natured, etc. to stand up to the Republicans.
If what you say were true, the average deficit under Bush, with the Republican controlled Congress he had for the first six years of his term, would have been more than $250 billion. Instead, it was around $250 billion.
Are you saying that the extra military spending and Bush tax cuts somehow kept the deficit lower than it would have been otherwise? I find this hard to believe. What are your sources/reasoning for this?
Obama's average deficit is around $1250 billion. So it's not the wars. It's not the tax cuts. You are full of shit.
To be sure Obama (and Congress during his term) has been very fiscally irresponsible. He extended the tax cuts (after promising to veto them), and has continued the high military spending. I believe most of the increase in deficit under Obama was caused by the bailout/stimulus.
Occam's Razor suggests that there is a powerful, sinister organization which is ruthlessly stamping out any leaders who even start to surface
I think it's more like a pattern of corporate owned media and politics, than any single sinister organization. Any leader to tries to spread ideas outside the accepted dogma is quickly attacked and/or ignored by the existing powers. The media had an extremely strong negative reaction to Wikileaks when it started gaining popularity because it went outside the normal power structures. The mainstream media also had a pretty negative initial reaction to the Occupy movement. They also had/have a significant bias against Ron Paul. Whether you agree with RP or not, I think it's difficult to deny that the media did a lot to marginalize him.
Bush went to war against Iraq, Obama got us out. Can you see the wee-bit of difference there? I can and I'm voting for Obama.
There are just three little problems with that argument: 1. The timeline for withdrawal was negotiated under Bush. 2. Obama tried to keep us in Iraq beyond the timeline, but was blocked by the Iraqi government. 3. We are still keeping a significant militarized state department security force in Iraq indefinitely.
But it's not an open market in this case, it's a monopoly where the vendors (various security contracting organizations) and the customers (elected officials) are basically a single group using the public's money. The objective of this group is to get as much money as they can while still giving a reasonable appearance of providing a service to the public. This particular employee tried to interfere with this relationship.
Romney 2012 is strongly opposed to Barack Obama's health care bill, which is basically exactly what Romney pushed through in Massachusetts as governor.
I agree in general that Romney will take (or not take) whatever position he feels will give him the most political advantage at the moment. However, the health care example might not be a good example of this because there are legitimate reasons to think that a given policy could be good at the state level, but not good at the national level.
{quote}I've never heard him say anything against doing this. On the other hand I've never heard him saying anything for it either. Romney's stance on things is often an enigma (like Obama 2008).{quote} I thought Obama make his positions quite clear during his 2008 campaign. The problem was that he reversed these clear positions soon after becoming president. Closing Guantanamo being one of the most well known examples.
I guess all his tweets had to be removed from the Internet because they were so horrible that just reading them would make you want to go outside and start killing people.
From a European point of view, I can see the right, but the left? What you have is far right and moderate right politics to choose from.
I think a more accurate description of American politics is two corporate parties with minor differences on social issues. Neither party does a very good job of representing the interests of the general public. Trying to place the two parties along a single left/right axis is just a game played by the media to give the public the illusion that they have a choice, and that one of those choices matches their interests.
The United States has deployed a naval force of 11 ships, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce, the guided-missile destroyers USS Barry and USS Stout, the nuclear attack submarines USS Providence and USS Scranton, the cruise missile submarine USS Florida and the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney. Additionally, A-10 ground-attack aircraft, B-2 stealth bombers, AV-8B Harrier II jump-jets, EA-18 electronic warfare aircraft, and both F-15 and F-16 fighters have been involved in action over Libya. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft are stationed on Cyprus. On 18 March, two AC-130Us arrived at RAF Mildenhall as well as additional tanker aircraft. On 24 March 2 E-8Cs operated from Naval Station Rota Spain, which indicates an increase of ground attacks. An undisclosed number of CIA operatives are said to be in Libya to gather intelligence for airstrikes and make contacts with rebels. The US also began using MQ-1 Predator UAVs to strike targets in Libya on 23 April.
A bit more than just logistics.
The last president did invade a country with no reason (Iraq) but he was promptly removed from office
You do remember that we invaded Iraq before Bush's second term right?
So, when Anonymous hacked Vatican's site, they were against religion, but now they say they are not?
Who are "they"? How do you know it's the same person/people? Do you know some of the members of anonymous personally? If so, please contact the FBI immediately for processing.
So you would rather have no job than take a pay cut? I agree that $20 per hour is not great, but why not take the lower paying job until you can find something better?
There is a larger debate that should be had about how much of that information really should be secret, and if so from who, and then for how long.
I think this question is already answered that most, if not all, of the information leaked by Manning should not have been secret. From what I've seen the information falls into basically two categories, either it's innocuous, or it reveals immoral and often criminal behaviour. Neither of these should have been kept secret.
Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
Calling him a vigilante is quite a stretch since he didn't really punish anyone other than exposing what they were doing.
If he did what he did and blindly uploaded to wikileaks... well then that's the end of it. He's a naive fool who thought his cause of the week was worth the risk. Maybe he still feels that way?
I would hope that preventing war crimes and exposing government wrongdoing is more than just his "cause of the week". Maybe you believe the things he exposed were just not that serious? In my opinion killing civilians should be taken very seriously, and it should be punished appropriately instead of covered up.
And then businesses will be carefully pricing every item in order to fuck you out of as much of that $0.10 as they possibly can. All those factions of $0.10 will quickly add up to be multiple $ when purchases involving multiple items are made.
I don't really buy this argument. Yes, many businesses will round up the prices, so you might be paying up to 9 cents more than before for certain items. A few businesses might actually round down to compete, since the different between $1 at one store and $.9 dollars at another store is noticeable to the average customer. Obviously this will not have significant effect on big ticket items, a $500 TV is still $500 with or without the pennies. The place it could have more effect is on small items, for the average consumer, the best example is probably groceries. So let's say you buy 50 grocery items per week, and the price increased an average of 5 cents per item, that's $2.50 extra in your grocery bill. I would argue that's not that significant for most people. Taken over 1 year you pay about $130 than the previous year on groceries. The bottom line is that stores that try to jack up the price because of a change like this would likely be noticed by the customers. If you are suddenly paying 10-20% more for common items, you start to notice, and you might shop elsewhere.
The other side you have to look at are the advanatges. So one less digit means less change you have to carry in your pocket, less change in the cash register, less cost for the government to make the pennies and nickels, etc. So, IMO, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Redesigning the penny and nickel to be cheaper to product seems like a complicated solution to a simple problem. Just eliminate both pennies and nickels and drop the last digit of prices.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the difference is that if you drink or do drugs in your living room, you are only increasing the risk for yourself. If you drink or do drugs while driving, then you are increasing the risk for yourself and others who do not wish to share your risk.
Doctors don't need to know every drug everywhere. There is this thing called google where you can type in your symptoms and find out what drugs might be helpful. There are also reference books that a doctor could use to look up what are the appropriate medications for various problems. Or the primary care doctor could consult with a specialist if they are unsure about appropriate medications for a certain condition. I would much prefer my doctor determine the correct medication via a book or Internet search vs. a commercial.
The Bank of America data (along with some other interesting stuff) was deleted by Daniel Domscheit-Berg.
Thanks for articulating that very well. It actually takes some effort to analyze the facts and try to make a well reasoned argument. I guess that's why so many people take the easy way out to show themselves they are right, and just say something like "X is a crackpot, therefore don't listen to X".
[Lybian war] in a month, for under a billion dollars
Sounds like you are quoting the figures that were given before the war and didn't bother to check if that's how things actually played out. The war in Lybia lasted from March 31 to October 31, so it was more like 7 months. And wikipedia says 1.3 Billion spent just by the US. And now that Gaddafi is dead, everything is great there right? Not quite. There is still plenty of murder, torture, rape, etc. going on, probably worse that what was occurring under Gaddafi.
As far at the Republican criticisms being inconsistent, I won't argue with you there, but Obama has been at least as inconsistent as them on this issue given that during his candidacy he specifically said the president does not have the power to do what he did in Libya.
failing to take advantage of the brief period of Democratic control of Congress by getting his health care plan passed
It's not his fault; he's naive and inexperienced, and never should have been put up as a nominee
I have a somewhat different view of this. It seems that Obama actually got the health care that he wanted. Sure he paid lip-service to a public option for political reasons, but maybe you don't remember or didn't know that he negotiated away the public option in private meetings with the insurance companies early on [1] [2]. There's also the fact that Obama decided to personally scold Kucinich for trying to stick up for the public option. So I don't really buy the argument that Obama has good intentions but is just too powerless, inexperienced, good-natured, etc. to stand up to the Republicans.
If what you say were true, the average deficit under Bush, with the Republican controlled Congress he had for the first six years of his term, would have been more than $250 billion. Instead, it was around $250 billion.
Are you saying that the extra military spending and Bush tax cuts somehow kept the deficit lower than it would have been otherwise? I find this hard to believe. What are your sources/reasoning for this?
Obama's average deficit is around $1250 billion. So it's not the wars. It's not the tax cuts. You are full of shit.
To be sure Obama (and Congress during his term) has been very fiscally irresponsible. He extended the tax cuts (after promising to veto them), and has continued the high military spending. I believe most of the increase in deficit under Obama was caused by the bailout/stimulus.
As a developer, I'd prefer 1080x1920 myself.
Just turn your laptop on it's side.
Occam's Razor suggests that there is a powerful, sinister organization which is ruthlessly stamping out any leaders who even start to surface
I think it's more like a pattern of corporate owned media and politics, than any single sinister organization. Any leader to tries to spread ideas outside the accepted dogma is quickly attacked and/or ignored by the existing powers. The media had an extremely strong negative reaction to Wikileaks when it started gaining popularity because it went outside the normal power structures. The mainstream media also had a pretty negative initial reaction to the Occupy movement. They also had/have a significant bias against Ron Paul. Whether you agree with RP or not, I think it's difficult to deny that the media did a lot to marginalize him.
Bush went to war against Iraq, Obama got us out. Can you see the wee-bit of difference there? I can and I'm voting for Obama.
There are just three little problems with that argument:
1. The timeline for withdrawal was negotiated under Bush.
2. Obama tried to keep us in Iraq beyond the timeline, but was blocked by the Iraqi government.
3. We are still keeping a significant militarized state department security force in Iraq indefinitely.
Why are we in America so terrified of the human body?
One word: Christian Right
How about these two words: prison industry. The private prison industry has a strong interest in making every law as strict and harsh as possible.
But it's not an open market in this case, it's a monopoly where the vendors (various security contracting organizations) and the customers (elected officials) are basically a single group using the public's money. The objective of this group is to get as much money as they can while still giving a reasonable appearance of providing a service to the public. This particular employee tried to interfere with this relationship.
Romney 2012 is strongly opposed to Barack Obama's health care bill, which is basically exactly what Romney pushed through in Massachusetts as governor.
I agree in general that Romney will take (or not take) whatever position he feels will give him the most political advantage at the moment. However, the health care example might not be a good example of this because there are legitimate reasons to think that a given policy could be good at the state level, but not good at the national level.
{quote}I've never heard him say anything against doing this. On the other hand I've never heard him saying anything for it either. Romney's stance on things is often an enigma (like Obama 2008).{quote}
I thought Obama make his positions quite clear during his 2008 campaign. The problem was that he reversed these clear positions soon after becoming president. Closing Guantanamo being one of the most well known examples.
I guess all his tweets had to be removed from the Internet because they were so horrible that just reading them would make you want to go outside and start killing people.
From a European point of view, I can see the right, but the left? What you have is far right and moderate right politics to choose from.
I think a more accurate description of American politics is two corporate parties with minor differences on social issues. Neither party does a very good job of representing the interests of the general public. Trying to place the two parties along a single left/right axis is just a game played by the media to give the public the illusion that they have a choice, and that one of those choices matches their interests.
Our current president hasn't invaded anyone that I know of.
Maybe you didn't hear of Yemen? He also stepped up military operations in Pakistan, and increased CIA involvement in Somalia
Libya we did help but it was more with logistics.
From wikipedia
The United States has deployed a naval force of 11 ships, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce, the guided-missile destroyers USS Barry and USS Stout, the nuclear attack submarines USS Providence and USS Scranton, the cruise missile submarine USS Florida and the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney. Additionally, A-10 ground-attack aircraft, B-2 stealth bombers, AV-8B Harrier II jump-jets, EA-18 electronic warfare aircraft, and both F-15 and F-16 fighters have been involved in action over Libya. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft are stationed on Cyprus. On 18 March, two AC-130Us arrived at RAF Mildenhall as well as additional tanker aircraft. On 24 March 2 E-8Cs operated from Naval Station Rota Spain, which indicates an increase of ground attacks. An undisclosed number of CIA operatives are said to be in Libya to gather intelligence for airstrikes and make contacts with rebels. The US also began using MQ-1 Predator UAVs to strike targets in Libya on 23 April.
A bit more than just logistics.
The last president did invade a country with no reason (Iraq) but he was promptly removed from office
You do remember that we invaded Iraq before Bush's second term right?
It's not a case of being right or wrong, it a case of being flat out lied to by people who want to go to war.
Which people would that be; Clinton or Bush?
Both of them, of course.
So, when Anonymous hacked Vatican's site, they were against religion, but now they say they are not?
Who are "they"? How do you know it's the same person/people? Do you know some of the members of anonymous personally? If so, please contact the FBI immediately for processing.
Check out the girl on the main page... Sign me up!
And compare her with the unshaved, tattooed man. I guess they're trying to promote the (educated) bad boy gets the girl stereotype.
So you would rather have no job than take a pay cut? I agree that $20 per hour is not great, but why not take the lower paying job until you can find something better?
LulzSec is to Anon as Westboro' Baptist is to Christianity; Similar ideas, taken too far.
LulzSec is to Anon as Westboro' Baptist is to Christianity; A bunch of trolls that don't believe their own message.
I thought the message of LulzSec was "We're in it for the Lulz". I don't see any reason to doubt that they believe their own message.
He abused his position, broke his oath
There is also a case that could be made that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law (to which the US is subject), to expose the crimes he saw.
There is a larger debate that should be had about how much of that information really should be secret, and if so from who, and then for how long.
I think this question is already answered that most, if not all, of the information leaked by Manning should not have been secret. From what I've seen the information falls into basically two categories, either it's innocuous, or it reveals immoral and often criminal behaviour. Neither of these should have been kept secret.
Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
Calling him a vigilante is quite a stretch since he didn't really punish anyone other than exposing what they were doing.
If he did what he did and blindly uploaded to wikileaks... well then that's the end of it. He's a naive fool who thought his cause of the week was worth the risk. Maybe he still feels that way?
I would hope that preventing war crimes and exposing government wrongdoing is more than just his "cause of the week". Maybe you believe the things he exposed were just not that serious? In my opinion killing civilians should be taken very seriously, and it should be punished appropriately instead of covered up.
And then businesses will be carefully pricing every item in order to fuck you out of as much of that $0.10 as they possibly can. All those factions of $0.10 will quickly add up to be multiple $ when purchases involving multiple items are made.
I don't really buy this argument. Yes, many businesses will round up the prices, so you might be paying up to 9 cents more than before for certain items. A few businesses might actually round down to compete, since the different between $1 at one store and $.9 dollars at another store is noticeable to the average customer. Obviously this will not have significant effect on big ticket items, a $500 TV is still $500 with or without the pennies. The place it could have more effect is on small items, for the average consumer, the best example is probably groceries. So let's say you buy 50 grocery items per week, and the price increased an average of 5 cents per item, that's $2.50 extra in your grocery bill. I would argue that's not that significant for most people. Taken over 1 year you pay about $130 than the previous year on groceries. The bottom line is that stores that try to jack up the price because of a change like this would likely be noticed by the customers. If you are suddenly paying 10-20% more for common items, you start to notice, and you might shop elsewhere.
The other side you have to look at are the advanatges. So one less digit means less change you have to carry in your pocket, less change in the cash register, less cost for the government to make the pennies and nickels, etc. So, IMO, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Redesigning the penny and nickel to be cheaper to product seems like a complicated solution to a simple problem. Just eliminate both pennies and nickels and drop the last digit of prices.