for my own part I think that it might help reduce crime by increasing the probability of getting caught and thus changing the pay-off matrix for the criminals
Of coarse, it's your country, and it's none of my business that you let your government monitor you. Just don't let them fool you into thinking it's useful for deterring crime. Violent crime in particular is often not a rational act; most criminals are not putting the risk and reward through an algorithm to determine whether or not they should commit the crime.
I'm beginning to think the only way to win an election these days is to sit in a bunker the entire time, occasionally coming out to say "terror" over and over again into a microphone.
So let me get this straight, you're predicting a Cheney landslide in '08?;)
Actually, Ernie Ball is primarily a guitar string manufacturer. They do sell the Musicman line of guitars, but their main business is strings. As someone who uses their products, I'm glad to hear they're using Free Software.
If you ask most of the dissenters in the military, they'll tell you that they would fight in Afghanistan which they believe is a just war over 9/11 but most consider Iraq an unjust war of aggression that isn't fighting for the benefit of America
Dead on. A friend of mine signed up for the Army right after 9/11. He was willing to sacrifice everything to fight those who attacked his country, but he was instead forced to fight Bush's war of choice in Iraq. He's now active with Iraq Veterans Against the War.
They have cut spending on entitlement programs and public services, while at the same time increasing spending in other areas, giving us a net increase.
Some of the borrowing is offset by the fact that the people come to the restaurant more often because of the good deal they're getting, but not all of it.
This just another reason Bush's tax cuts don't make sense; we're at the mercy of China and Saudi Arabia.
The analogy about how people are paying for the services, though, is absolutely fine
Sure, no one's disputing that.
as is the reaction of the people paying the least.
No, it's not. When exactly do the poor gang up on the rich and beat them up? Maybe that's how they do it in Soviet Russia, but here in America the rich are doing just fine.
The tax cuts were "cross the board" tax cuts, it wasn't tax cuts for the richest one percent - they just happen to be the ones paying the most.
I understand that. What I'm saying is that when taxes are cut, the rich stand to gain the most, and the poor stand to lose the most (in the form of lost services).
Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying taxes either. If Bush were to propose spending cuts in areas that did not reduce services for those in need, while at the same time cutting taxes, I would support it. Unfortunatly, that hasn't happened, and I'm not willing to screw the poor and put the next generation in debt just so those of us who need less can get a few extra bucks.
The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement -- until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language, a tax cut).
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I am going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the 10 will cost $80
Government expenses do not magically decrease by 20%. That money is diverted from health care, education, and other programs that benefit the poor. Going along with your analogy, it would be more like the tenth guy telling the waiter not bring the men who weren't paying any food, and pocketing the bulk of the savings.
Are you suggesting that lawyers are selfless, decent human beings that care about more than just money?
Of coarse not:-) I'm just saying that I don't see why it's acceptable for a jury to determine someone's fate in a criminal trial, but not for them to decide if two bills are related. Honestly though, I'm not terribly attached to the jury idea, I'm just throwing it out there. My real point is that we need an independent third party to make the judgement; congress shouldn't be trusted to regulate itself.
Wouldn't it be easier and make more sense to VOTE FOR REPRESENTATIVES DEDICATED TO ACTING WITH SOME COMMON SENSE?
We can't just trust our leaders to behave ethically; we need to put a framework in place that doesn't allow them to abuse their power. Even if we do elect representatives who act in a just and reasonable manner, their successors could easily be just as corrupt as what we have now. Democracy isn't perfect, sometimes bad people are elected.
many of the problems have been born [...]from the way we continue to vote like idiots, for the same two parties, over and over again, hoping next time it's going to get better.
Agreed. Which is why something like I'm proposing would never pass; the two parties have a vested interest in the status quo.
So in other words you want to put all the power in the hands of lawyers to misguide the average joe Americans on the jury?
So would you dispute the value of trial by jury as well, or do you think this specific scenario is particularly vulnerable to devious lawyers in a way that a criminal trial is not?
How on earth is it legit to tack a completely unrelated bill to another and pass them both under the same vote? Am I the only one who sees how unbelievably insane that is?
I've been thinking about this. Maybe we could pass some sort of "common sense" law, which would allow any one congressman to challenge a bill. Some third party, perhaps the judicial branch (or maybe even a jury), would make the judgement as to whether or not the bills are reasonably related.
Frankly I don't see how the so-called "progressive" system has any basis in fairness.
Those with more money can afford to give up a higher percentage of their income in taxes. It would be unfair to charge a flat percentage, because then in order to maintain the current level of taxation of the rich, we'd have to starve the poor.
Does it involve booty dancing videos or angsty emo kids screaming?
Hmm, I'm trying hard to come up with some counterexamples, but I think you may be on to something.
most major stars aren't even really musicians in their own right, but rather manufactured acts.
Definitly, and I think that is largely a symptom of the first problem. As long as the majors have a stranglehold on the airwaves, they'll keep pushing bad music, and that's all most people will be familiar with. There are plenty of real musicians out there whose music would be heard if DJs still played music they were passionate about, instead of having playlists handed to them by headquarters.
This is mainly due to the high level of suckage by today's "musicians". Has anyone done a study that includes that correlation
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Seriously, what you say is not true. What sucks is the music that's played on the radio, not modern music. This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio that occurred in the 90s, paving the way for a few giants to own just about everything. The effects were somewhat delayed by the "grunge" boom; every major label was so desperate to find "the next Nirvana" that they took chances with all sorts of interesting bands that wouldn't have otherwise gotten major label deals. They have since realized that they'll make more money sticking to the formula, so they push nothing but garbage on the radio and MTV nowadays.
Neither Linux, nor any of the BSDs, would provide any technological advantage. At best, they'd be a step sideways.
I'm not trying to start that arguement; what I'm really saying is that they will never use Linux because of the GPL. The BSD license is much more friendly towards entities like Microsoft. I do agree with you that this scenario is probably not going happen. I'm just saying that if it did, they wouldn't use Linux.
...why not just move straight to Linux and save the complete redesign and recoding? Oh, that's right, because Windows is THE standard in software.
Why couldn't they just write some kind of compatibility layer for legacy apps? I'd think they would have a lot more success than the Wine project, seeing as they wouldn't have to reverse engineer anything. I also think it's worth mentioning that they would never do this with Linux; if they did (and I'm not saying they will) they would use one of the BSDs.
...only a fraction of the Linux downloads that are happening end up being actual installs.
Intersting point, however, I think that only applies to people looking for a desktop OS at home. For example, take a look at the list of educational institutions that use Debian. Read the reports; some people are installing Debian on a lot of machines, and you can bet that they aren't downloading an installer image for each computer.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.borat.tv/video/borat_on_politics.mov
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2192911.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire
Of coarse, it's your country, and it's none of my business that you let your government monitor you. Just don't let them fool you into thinking it's useful for deterring crime. Violent crime in particular is often not a rational act; most criminals are not putting the risk and reward through an algorithm to determine whether or not they should commit the crime.
$ grep -r Red\ Hat
Red Hat has been very good to the Linux kernel.
As someone who uses their products, I'm glad to hear they're using Free Software.
Yeah, there is slapt-get, which is a third-party addon. Slackware itself only comes with pkgtool, which doesn't manage dependencies for you.
This just another reason Bush's tax cuts don't make sense; we're at the mercy of China and Saudi Arabia.
Sure, no one's disputing that.
No, it's not. When exactly do the poor gang up on the rich and beat them up? Maybe that's how they do it in Soviet Russia, but here in America the rich are doing just fine.
I understand that. What I'm saying is that when taxes are cut, the rich stand to gain the most, and the poor stand to lose the most (in the form of lost services).
Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying taxes either. If Bush were to propose spending cuts in areas that did not reduce services for those in need, while at the same time cutting taxes, I would support it. Unfortunatly, that hasn't happened, and I'm not willing to screw the poor and put the next generation in debt just so those of us who need less can get a few extra bucks.
Government expenses do not magically decrease by 20%. That money is diverted from health care, education, and other programs that benefit the poor.
Going along with your analogy, it would be more like the tenth guy telling the waiter not bring the men who weren't paying any food, and pocketing the bulk of the savings.
I'm just saying that I don't see why it's acceptable for a jury to determine someone's fate in a criminal trial, but not for them to decide if two bills are related.
Honestly though, I'm not terribly attached to the jury idea, I'm just throwing it out there. My real point is that we need an independent third party to make the judgement; congress shouldn't be trusted to regulate itself.
Agreed. Which is why something like I'm proposing would never pass; the two parties have a vested interest in the status quo.
Definitly, and I think that is largely a symptom of the first problem. As long as the majors have a stranglehold on the airwaves, they'll keep pushing bad music, and that's all most people will be familiar with. There are plenty of real musicians out there whose music would be heard if DJs still played music they were passionate about, instead of having playlists handed to them by headquarters.
That doesn't count, he's lip synching ;-)
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Seriously, what you say is not true. What sucks is the music that's played on the radio, not modern music. This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio that occurred in the 90s, paving the way for a few giants to own just about everything.
The effects were somewhat delayed by the "grunge" boom; every major label was so desperate to find "the next Nirvana" that they took chances with all sorts of interesting bands that wouldn't have otherwise gotten major label deals. They have since realized that they'll make more money sticking to the formula, so they push nothing but garbage on the radio and MTV nowadays.
I'm not trying to start that arguement; what I'm really saying is that they will never use Linux because of the GPL. The BSD license is much more friendly towards entities like Microsoft.
I do agree with you that this scenario is probably not going happen. I'm just saying that if it did, they wouldn't use Linux.
Why couldn't they just write some kind of compatibility layer for legacy apps? I'd think they would have a lot more success than the Wine project, seeing as they wouldn't have to reverse engineer anything.
I also think it's worth mentioning that they would never do this with Linux; if they did (and I'm not saying they will) they would use one of the BSDs.
Actually, there is already a FreeBSD port in the works.
...only a fraction of the Linux downloads that are happening end up being actual installs.
Intersting point, however, I think that only applies to people looking for a desktop OS at home. For example, take a look at the list of educational institutions that use Debian. Read the reports; some people are installing Debian on a lot of machines, and you can bet that they aren't downloading an installer image for each computer.
Ubuntu is a company also, is it not, didn't M Shuttleworth make his money from selling books about open source
Actually, Shuttleworth got rich selling his former company (Thawte Consulting) to VeriSign.
I foresee a massive discount for a certain Indian state by a certain U.S. company...
If they're doing this after a visit from RMS, I doubt that cost is the only consideration in their decision.