Seems to me that a replacable battery would have ruined the whole "silver and white bullet" aesthetic apple built with the ipod. there would need to be a catch somewhere on the case to let it unclip, and at least another mm or two of thickness to account for the fact that the battery location would need to be seperated from the rest of the innards with another layer of plastic casing to protect the hardware when battery is off.
you also have to factor in how many people would be fucking their ipods up the moment they opened them. how many people would find some way to break the battery connection points, or something of that type, messing up what would otherwise be rather difficultly accessible hardware. As it stands, its pretty hard for users to do any damage to the ipod except through dropping it and scratching the screen.
Tho I personally would love a switch the size of the hold switch that allows the back panel to pop off and replace the battery. maybe have a couple extra batteries, might even make it all the way through a roadtrip without having to scavange an outlet at a diner while having lunch.
"You claim that you don't want public funds to support ideologies with which someone might disagree, but the very nature of public education does exactly that!
Rather, you seem to object more to letting people spend their money how they please. Is your real goal to get your hands on as much of other people's money as you can, and to hell with their objections over how it's spent?"
no. In fact, my whole point is that we should be exceedingly sensitive to everybody's views about HOW it should be spent. What I'm not that concerned about is people saying it SHOULDNT be spent. people who bitch about "my" tax money being spent on this stupid program, but dont REALLY care about the program, they just dont want ot pay taxes. I dont really want "my" tax money to pay for halliburton rebuilding pipelines in Iraq. I'd much rather it go to a more... equitable company. But what REALLY bothers me about it, is that OUR money is going to halliburton, and my feeling that the process through which WE decided to grant Halliburtun the contract was flawed with cronyism and blatantly dishonest lowball esitmates of the costs of rebuilding the pipelines. It chafes me a little that I am, in roundabout fashion, funding Halliburton, but what really pisses me off is how WE are getting fleeced.
This is a distinction which those with whom I was debating seemed to miss, as have you. I'm not concerned that public funds go to support idealogies with which some might disagree, I'm concerned that public funds being used to support schools that will punish children for not sharing a religious belief, or will not admit them if they are not of a certain ethnic group.
you misunderstand what I have said when you say that I object more to letting people spend their money how they please. I object to the selfish way in which many people approach the question of what should govt do with tax monies. People seem hell bent on considering it "my" money instead of "our" money. People will insist on it being spent in such a way that "I" like instead of a way "we" like. It is also different from bringing one's own desires to the discussion of what should be done with "our" money. It is asserting from the get-go that it is "my" money, and that the only opinion that matters is "mine." It is necessarily selfish and divisive. Deciding how to allocate tax funds is a fundamental discussion of the res publica. It literally concerns us all. Naturally, the objections of all, particularly those with strong objections, matter when deciding to spend monies a certain way. I merely object to the idea that the individual has a right to decide how "his" money is spent that precludes the public process.
I hope that answers your questions. if not, keep em coming.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
true, this does not include the phrase "seperation of church and state." It is, however interpreted by the supreme court as barring the government from involving itself in the workings of religious institutions. The Plain Words Doctrine is, to say the least, out of vogue. unless, of course, you think that there's also no right to privacy as the words "right to privacy" do not appear anywhere in the constitution or amendments.
My problem with funding a religios-based organization, when it comes to schools, is the idea of federal funding going to a school where someone might be punished for questioning the existence of god, for failing to wear a yarmulke, or the like. Just in the same way that in a public school, no child may be punished for stating a belief in god, or wearing a yarmulke, or a girl's headscarf. The recent charter-school proposals in my town included several, both religious and secular, that were explicitly discriminatory, admitting only certain ethnicities or religious faiths. When a catholic college gets federally funded tuition, it must prove that it is pursuing education in a nondiscriminatory, if catholic, way.
Well, actually its not really your money anymore. Its ours, and I get a say in how it gets spent too. Thats what happens when people come together to pursue higher goals. the individual becomes a little blurred. but go ahead, there's nothing less selfish than ensuring that whats yours is yours
well, yes, of course, we should definitely further stigmatize underprivileged children by making their entire education only possible because of charity. Nothing like making some 6-year old even more head-fucked for life than letting know that he's just that much more different than all the other little kiddies.
You clearly understand neither how the food-stamp program works, nor what kosher means. Not only is it not a workable analogy to compare choosing the type of food you by with govt assistance, you just suggested that the production of kosher foods financially supports an organized religion. Funding a catholic private school would be a violation of the seperation of church and state, and therefore a violtiona of the constitution. buying with federal funds, meats from animals slaughtered in such a way as to avoid contact between flesh and entrails, and thus be kosher, somehow just seems to fall short of the various tests employed in constitutional analysis. Could you be a little more ignorant?
Parental political indoctrination is a pretty big obstacle in a child's path to intellectual growth. It doesnt matter which "side" of "the battle" they're on, it keeps kids from forming their opinions based on their own ideas and way of understanding the world. While I certainly dont agree with teachers using their positions of authority to preach, that is an abuse of power, what you might see as "essentially... various brainwashing techniques they could use to get the kids away from their parents beliefs," could just as easily lead the children to come to share similar beliefs as their parents, but arrive at them through their own means and as better people for it. is that necessarily what would happen? no. Does that make it ok for teachers to abuse their authority? no. but you might want to consider what you yourself brought to that experience, and what lenses you were watching it unfold through.
Total ban on tax money? hypocritical? I'm sorry, you seem to have somehow left out the meat of the argument that would support such a statement. perhaps you would be kind enough to fill me in, cause there seems to have been an omission.
the problem with parents making a decision about what kind of school is right for their child and then taking their charter-school credit to that school is that they are using public funds. Apart from the very obvious problem this invites regarding church and state, you run into the problem I mentioned, which I notice you have not addressed in the least, of how to justify using public funds in non-transparent, non-publicly accountable institutions. Its patently untennable.
You seem to be under this delusion that parents would somehow be "purchasing" education for their children with only the portion of tax revenues which they were responsible for. Unfortunately, education funding does not work this way. Everybody pays for education our childern, even those of us without children. now I realize that this is a rather obvious and elementary concept, but you seemed to have missed it. It is not an individual pair of parents funds with which to choose an educational institution as they see fit. They are OUR funds, and the per-child cost of an education is significantly more than any one tax-payer contributes. To suggest that any one person somehow has the right to remove those funds from the system to seek alternative forms of education rather than working with the system to ensure that their views are taken into consideration is arrogant, selfish nonsense. It displays a fundamental ignorance about civic life, and a warped sense of "fairness" that merely serves to mask a basic self-centeredness
well, I'm not going to construct your argument for you. you can refer me to these empirical studies you seem to think exist, or you can not.
as to the "school choice initiatives, each side of that debate seems to think that the numbers support their case. For myself, I'm merely uncomfortable allowing public funds to go to schools that discriminate on the basis of ethincity and religious belief (non vindictively, for "special interest" schools, but discriminate nonetheless).
it is a fantastic organizing principle, but only as far as it goes.
I flatly disagree that a corporation has an fundamental interest in satisfying its customers. Its chief good is providing profit to its shareholders, and if it must do that in some way other than satisfying its customers, then that is what it will do. In other words, satisfying the customers is a means not an end.
I would also argue that there is a fundamental flaw in the way in which corporations are managed. This was shown in the WorldCom, Enron, and Tyco debacles. Managers are dependent on positive feedback to maintain their positions of power, and will often attempt to fake it in the short run as a boost to bigger and better things in the long run. This is not dissimmilar to the actions of many politicians. The difference, however, is that the rules binding politicians and governing the method and prodedure of public review and accountability is founded in the law, and happens necessarily in the public view. Within the corporate world, the rules binding CEO's and other managers are founded in civil contract, and are "legal" systems only in an of themselves. They are not transparent, and even if they were, they give no recourse to those who might be affected by a corporations actions but are not shareholders.
Some government regulation is necessary, I hope you would agree. Without it, we'd still be eating thumbs in our canned meats, and at the mercy of the whims of modern-day robber-barons.
As fantastic an organizing system as it is, there is no escaping the fundamental dissonance between the shareholder group, and the circle of affected populace for the actions of any given corporation. There will always be, in a capitalist society, those who cannot afford to own stock in one company, let alone every company that affects their lives. Only the government can guarantee, or at least pledge to try, to protect the interests of all members of society, because everybody is a shareholder, and every shareholder only gets one equal vote.
I think my basic point is that when you receive something from a govt funded program at no further charge, it is free, at that moment, and only in a certain way.
I agree with you that it does not fit into the beer-speech dualism, but I'm not sure that it is tantamount to being lied to.
where? how is this service being provided for free? as long as we're being sticklers about what is free, I dont really consider free wifi for customers at coffee shops and the like free. you're paying for coffee, and some small percentage of all the costs of running the shop, one of which is the wifi. I'm not trying to be a did, actually, I just dont know what you are referring to.
well, denied right to vote in florida, of course...
I'd say that internet access, not necessarily "free" wifi, but some form of internet access does qualify, or will at some point in the future.
I think that what counts as promoting the general welfare needs to evolve with technology, and our country is falling behind in access to information technology. one possible way to remedy this is govt-sponsored internet access. I'm not really attached to it one way or the other. I'm just not sure that a gov. isp could be much worse than comcast, isall
no, when I say in the parlance of our times, I do not mean when we are being lied to. kindly do not put words in my mouth.
I think there is a fundamental difference between somthing that comes to us as a result of our well spent tax dollars and something we are charged for at time of use.
we appear to disagree on this point.
you appear to disagree with a major linguistic convention of our society, fine, I can respect that. I dont think youre a terrorist if you're not with the president.
My main thought is that paying for public works such as roads education, etc is different from buying a cheesburger. both may be money well spent, but public works are in the public sphere and for the public good, and to consider those expenditures in the same terms as buying a cheesburger is, to my mind, inappropriate.
you've misunderstood the point I was making.
You are setting up an example where because one particular area of public life shouldnt be government organized, (and i agree with your example, btw, gov run groceries would be horrid) no areas of public life should be government organized.
This is a fallacious argument.
Scared of the power-hungry politicians wanting to be in control? How about the greedy and corrupt corporate CEO's? dont think thats a fair characterization? then why dont we dispense with the bullshit labling.
Public organization is, in certain instances, such as education, defense, and the development of infrastructure, because it is held responsible by all, while a corporation is responsible only to its shareholders. And if Enron, WoldCom, and Tyco are any indicators, even this responsibility cannot be counted on.
If you'd like to cite a bit of that empirical evidence by the way, please dont let me stop you. I'm on tenderfoots.
Well, if slavery to you is being coerced into taking responsability for ensuring the common good, then surely the right to vote is tantamount to some form of rape?
though I suppose in a way we are indeed slaves to our own laws...
And the point i was making is that there are any number of goods and services provided by the government that are, in the parlance of our times, referred to as "free."
It is by no means a lie to cal municipal wi-fi free, it is simply a usage of the word that, pervasive tho it is, does not fit into the beer-speech paradigm.
We fund projects, through taxes, that were they to be paid for solely by the specific users would be prohibitively expensive. I refer you again to public education, libraries, roads, and scientific research. Once they are funded, they are open to all, free of charge at at time of use.
We always pay for everything, even free beer, though it may not be with legal tender.
well, lets try this: right-wing nutjob = someone who gives knee-jerk reaction against the mere mention of spending tax-dollars on something for the common good.
We could, I'm sure, get some pretty good examples out of the standard right-wing namecalling playbook, but instead, I think a good quote from our esteemed vice-president. go fuck yourself
*sigh* [sarcasm] I know exactly what you mean. I hate all that mandatory, pre-billed bullshit the government forces me to buy. Roads, schools, scientific exploration, law and order... I wish we could just get a menu and order only the things that we personally are going to use... [/sarcasm]
seriously though, if you've ever attended a public school, used a public library, driven on a public road, or used the fruits of Government Scientific research (velcro, the internet... etc), you might just want to reconsider your previous knee-jerk belly-aching about public funds being used to supply a public good. If the nature of what the government provided for the public good never adopted new technologies, we'd still be waiting on the pony express to deliver our mail. And yes, you have to pay for government, or go to jail. its called citizenship.
"We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we dont want to pay our taxes, Why... We're free to spend a weekend with the pain monster!"
you dont think that CD prices are absurdly high? You think that music prices are actually governed by the evaluation of the ideal elasticity of demand, with the RIAA companies setting their prices in line with the Quantity Demanded? BULLSHIT. you know why? demand is slipping, and prices stay the same, or increase. If you're going to brush away reasonable complaints about the price of a good with econ 100 jargon, you might as well remember what all econ 100 teachers should tell you, that nice little ideal graph about supply and demand, and the law of demand and all that good stuff goes out the window when dealing with a monopoly. The RIAA companies are the only suppliers of the music they produce, and it is delusional to think of them as anything but a monopoly on the distribution of other people's art.
The record companies only net 20%? I'm fucking heartbroken. you do realize that included in those expenses taken out of the net profit calculation is payments to the artists who make the music in the first place, to the production studios and teams who make the top-selling artists not sound like crap, and all the salaries of all other employees involved, from the receptionists to the CEO's? A 20% annual return on an investment is pretty fucking slick.
A previous poster had it right. The RIAA's actions are nothing more than the heavy-handed politics of a conglomerate trying to preserve its comfortable business model through legislating its interests. Nothing new as far as the corporate world goes, but lets at least tell it how it is.
uh... the ipod can, in fact, rewind/fast forward within a track. you hold down the forward/back buttons instead of just tapping them... thought you might like to know...
totally, all that waste and inefficiency of the govt space program would be totally eliminated when Richard Branson can sell space-tickets to the millionaires for 50k a pop so they can say they rubbed one out in zero-g
the government is there to make sure that worthwhile, not immediately profitable ventures are not fucked up. leave space exploration to private enterprise and things will get fucked up, because people in search of profit cut corners.
besides, who isnt "allowing" private space exploration. Until it ceases to be prohibitively expensive, it will remain rightfully the purview of government, and creepy billionaires with too many teeth.
Fucking A. People love to go all gaga over "Hydrogen Power" as if its going to save us from the end of fossil fuel reserves. Somehow they fail to realize that hygrogen power is just like a battery. you still need to split the water.
but of course, reality will continue to crush people's dreams as long as they continue to pay attention
its kindof funny, how the wiki article you reference with your curt imperative actually proves you wrong.
tho now that you mention it... something here is painfully slow.....
while I agree with you... since when did "of" and "from" mean the same thing? I'm not convinced that your right to choose no religion is the same thing as a right to be exlcuded from other people exercising their right to freedom of speech. you can always just not listen to them, afterall
but, dude, come one. everybody knows that the market hates it when the government can do something effeciently and for free. and when you do too many things that the market doesnt like, the terrorists come in and impregnate you daughter. I know. I saw a special about it on Fox.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me that a replacable battery would have ruined the whole "silver and white bullet" aesthetic apple built with the ipod. there would need to be a catch somewhere on the case to let it unclip, and at least another mm or two of thickness to account for the fact that the battery location would need to be seperated from the rest of the innards with another layer of plastic casing to protect the hardware when battery is off. you also have to factor in how many people would be fucking their ipods up the moment they opened them. how many people would find some way to break the battery connection points, or something of that type, messing up what would otherwise be rather difficultly accessible hardware. As it stands, its pretty hard for users to do any damage to the ipod except through dropping it and scratching the screen. Tho I personally would love a switch the size of the hold switch that allows the back panel to pop off and replace the battery. maybe have a couple extra batteries, might even make it all the way through a roadtrip without having to scavange an outlet at a diner while having lunch.
"You claim that you don't want public funds to support ideologies with which someone might disagree, but the very nature of public education does exactly that!
Rather, you seem to object more to letting people spend their money how they please. Is your real goal to get your hands on as much of other people's money as you can, and to hell with their objections over how it's spent?"
no.
In fact, my whole point is that we should be exceedingly sensitive to everybody's views about HOW it should be spent. What I'm not that concerned about is people saying it SHOULDNT be spent. people who bitch about "my" tax money being spent on this stupid program, but dont REALLY care about the program, they just dont want ot pay taxes.
I dont really want "my" tax money to pay for halliburton rebuilding pipelines in Iraq. I'd much rather it go to a more... equitable company. But what REALLY bothers me about it, is that OUR money is going to halliburton, and my feeling that the process through which WE decided to grant Halliburtun the contract was flawed with cronyism and blatantly dishonest lowball esitmates of the costs of rebuilding the pipelines. It chafes me a little that I am, in roundabout fashion, funding Halliburton, but what really pisses me off is how WE are getting fleeced.
This is a distinction which those with whom I was debating seemed to miss, as have you. I'm not concerned that public funds go to support idealogies with which some might disagree, I'm concerned that public funds being used to support schools that will punish children for not sharing a religious belief, or will not admit them if they are not of a certain ethnic group.
you misunderstand what I have said when you say that I object more to letting people spend their money how they please. I object to the selfish way in which many people approach the question of what should govt do with tax monies. People seem hell bent on considering it "my" money instead of "our" money. People will insist on it being spent in such a way that "I" like instead of a way "we" like.
It is also different from bringing one's own desires to the discussion of what should be done with "our" money. It is asserting from the get-go that it is "my" money, and that the only opinion that matters is "mine." It is necessarily selfish and divisive. Deciding how to allocate tax funds is a fundamental discussion of the res publica. It literally concerns us all. Naturally, the objections of all, particularly those with strong objections, matter when deciding to spend monies a certain way. I merely object to the idea that the individual has a right to decide how "his" money is spent that precludes the public process.
I hope that answers your questions. if not, keep em coming.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
true, this does not include the phrase "seperation of church and state." It is, however interpreted by the supreme court as barring the government from involving itself in the workings of religious institutions. The Plain Words Doctrine is, to say the least, out of vogue. unless, of course, you think that there's also no right to privacy as the words "right to privacy" do not appear anywhere in the constitution or amendments.
My problem with funding a religios-based organization, when it comes to schools, is the idea of federal funding going to a school where someone might be punished for questioning the existence of god, for failing to wear a yarmulke, or the like. Just in the same way that in a public school, no child may be punished for stating a belief in god, or wearing a yarmulke, or a girl's headscarf.
The recent charter-school proposals in my town included several, both religious and secular, that were explicitly discriminatory, admitting only certain ethnicities or religious faiths. When a catholic college gets federally funded tuition, it must prove that it is pursuing education in a nondiscriminatory, if catholic, way.
Well, actually its not really your money anymore. Its ours, and I get a say in how it gets spent too. Thats what happens when people come together to pursue higher goals. the individual becomes a little blurred. but go ahead, there's nothing less selfish than ensuring that whats yours is yours
well, yes, of course, we should definitely further stigmatize underprivileged children by making their entire education only possible because of charity. Nothing like making some 6-year old even more head-fucked for life than letting know that he's just that much more different than all the other little kiddies.
You clearly understand neither how the food-stamp program works, nor what kosher means. Not only is it not a workable analogy to compare choosing the type of food you by with govt assistance, you just suggested that the production of kosher foods financially supports an organized religion. Funding a catholic private school would be a violation of the seperation of church and state, and therefore a violtiona of the constitution. buying with federal funds, meats from animals slaughtered in such a way as to avoid contact between flesh and entrails, and thus be kosher, somehow just seems to fall short of the various tests employed in constitutional analysis. Could you be a little more ignorant?
Parental political indoctrination is a pretty big obstacle in a child's path to intellectual growth. It doesnt matter which "side" of "the battle" they're on, it keeps kids from forming their opinions based on their own ideas and way of understanding the world. While I certainly dont agree with teachers using their positions of authority to preach, that is an abuse of power, what you might see as "essentially... various brainwashing techniques they could use to get the kids away from their parents beliefs," could just as easily lead the children to come to share similar beliefs as their parents, but arrive at them through their own means and as better people for it. is that necessarily what would happen? no. Does that make it ok for teachers to abuse their authority? no. but you might want to consider what you yourself brought to that experience, and what lenses you were watching it unfold through.
Total ban on tax money? hypocritical? I'm sorry, you seem to have somehow left out the meat of the argument that would support such a statement. perhaps you would be kind enough to fill me in, cause there seems to have been an omission.
the problem with parents making a decision about what kind of school is right for their child and then taking their charter-school credit to that school is that they are using public funds. Apart from the very obvious problem this invites regarding church and state, you run into the problem I mentioned, which I notice you have not addressed in the least, of how to justify using public funds in non-transparent, non-publicly accountable institutions. Its patently untennable.
You seem to be under this delusion that parents would somehow be "purchasing" education for their children with only the portion of tax revenues which they were responsible for. Unfortunately, education funding does not work this way. Everybody pays for education our childern, even those of us without children. now I realize that this is a rather obvious and elementary concept, but you seemed to have missed it. It is not an individual pair of parents funds with which to choose an educational institution as they see fit. They are OUR funds, and the per-child cost of an education is significantly more than any one tax-payer contributes. To suggest that any one person somehow has the right to remove those funds from the system to seek alternative forms of education rather than working with the system to ensure that their views are taken into consideration is arrogant, selfish nonsense. It displays a fundamental ignorance about civic life, and a warped sense of "fairness" that merely serves to mask a basic self-centeredness
well, I'm not going to construct your argument for you. you can refer me to these empirical studies you seem to think exist, or you can not. as to the "school choice initiatives, each side of that debate seems to think that the numbers support their case. For myself, I'm merely uncomfortable allowing public funds to go to schools that discriminate on the basis of ethincity and religious belief (non vindictively, for "special interest" schools, but discriminate nonetheless).
it is a fantastic organizing principle, but only as far as it goes.
I flatly disagree that a corporation has an fundamental interest in satisfying its customers. Its chief good is providing profit to its shareholders, and if it must do that in some way other than satisfying its customers, then that is what it will do. In other words, satisfying the customers is a means not an end.
I would also argue that there is a fundamental flaw in the way in which corporations are managed. This was shown in the WorldCom, Enron, and Tyco debacles. Managers are dependent on positive feedback to maintain their positions of power, and will often attempt to fake it in the short run as a boost to bigger and better things in the long run. This is not dissimmilar to the actions of many politicians. The difference, however, is that the rules binding politicians and governing the method and prodedure of public review and accountability is founded in the law, and happens necessarily in the public view. Within the corporate world, the rules binding CEO's and other managers are founded in civil contract, and are "legal" systems only in an of themselves. They are not transparent, and even if they were, they give no recourse to those who might be affected by a corporations actions but are not shareholders.
Some government regulation is necessary, I hope you would agree. Without it, we'd still be eating thumbs in our canned meats, and at the mercy of the whims of modern-day robber-barons.
As fantastic an organizing system as it is, there is no escaping the fundamental dissonance between the shareholder group, and the circle of affected populace for the actions of any given corporation. There will always be, in a capitalist society, those who cannot afford to own stock in one company, let alone every company that affects their lives. Only the government can guarantee, or at least pledge to try, to protect the interests of all members of society, because everybody is a shareholder, and every shareholder only gets one equal vote.
what things ARE really free?
I think my basic point is that when you receive something from a govt funded program at no further charge, it is free, at that moment, and only in a certain way.
I agree with you that it does not fit into the beer-speech dualism, but I'm not sure that it is tantamount to being lied to.
not sure where that leaves the argument, but...
"Except that free (beer) access does exist"
where? how is this service being provided for free?
as long as we're being sticklers about what is free, I dont really consider free wifi for customers at coffee shops and the like free. you're paying for coffee, and some small percentage of all the costs of running the shop, one of which is the wifi.
I'm not trying to be a did, actually, I just dont know what you are referring to.
well, denied right to vote in florida, of course...
I'd say that internet access, not necessarily "free" wifi, but some form of internet access does qualify, or will at some point in the future.
I think that what counts as promoting the general welfare needs to evolve with technology, and our country is falling behind in access to information technology. one possible way to remedy this is govt-sponsored internet access. I'm not really attached to it one way or the other. I'm just not sure that a gov. isp could be much worse than comcast, isall
no, you merely missed my point.
it isnt not free just because we contributed the taxes that paid for the government giving it away.
I simply disagree with the conservative zinger "well its not free becaue you have to pay taxes, HA"
obviously, if its a government program, its funded wiht tax revenues. Only a retard would assume that TFA was referring to free (beer) wifi access.
no, when I say in the parlance of our times, I do not mean when we are being lied to.
kindly do not put words in my mouth.
I think there is a fundamental difference between somthing that comes to us as a result of our well spent tax dollars and something we are charged for at time of use.
we appear to disagree on this point.
you appear to disagree with a major linguistic convention of our society, fine, I can respect that. I dont think youre a terrorist if you're not with the president.
My main thought is that paying for public works such as roads education, etc is different from buying a cheesburger. both may be money well spent, but public works are in the public sphere and for the public good, and to consider those expenditures in the same terms as buying a cheesburger is, to my mind, inappropriate.
fact checking is for chumps. ... well, my bad. guess the whole velcro comes from the space race thing is just urban legend.
you've misunderstood the point I was making. You are setting up an example where because one particular area of public life shouldnt be government organized, (and i agree with your example, btw, gov run groceries would be horrid) no areas of public life should be government organized. This is a fallacious argument. Scared of the power-hungry politicians wanting to be in control? How about the greedy and corrupt corporate CEO's? dont think thats a fair characterization? then why dont we dispense with the bullshit labling. Public organization is, in certain instances, such as education, defense, and the development of infrastructure, because it is held responsible by all, while a corporation is responsible only to its shareholders. And if Enron, WoldCom, and Tyco are any indicators, even this responsibility cannot be counted on. If you'd like to cite a bit of that empirical evidence by the way, please dont let me stop you. I'm on tenderfoots.
Oh, i see. slavery, yes, quite. excellent quip.
Well, if slavery to you is being coerced into taking responsability for ensuring the common good, then surely the right to vote is tantamount to some form of rape?
though I suppose in a way we are indeed slaves to our own laws...
And the point i was making is that there are any number of goods and services provided by the government that are, in the parlance of our times, referred to as "free."
It is by no means a lie to cal municipal wi-fi free, it is simply a usage of the word that, pervasive tho it is, does not fit into the beer-speech paradigm.
We fund projects, through taxes, that were they to be paid for solely by the specific users would be prohibitively expensive. I refer you again to public education, libraries, roads, and scientific research. Once they are funded, they are open to all, free of charge at at time of use.
We always pay for everything, even free beer, though it may not be with legal tender.
well, lets try this: right-wing nutjob = someone who gives knee-jerk reaction against the mere mention of spending tax-dollars on something for the common good.
We could, I'm sure, get some pretty good examples out of the standard right-wing namecalling playbook, but instead, I think a good quote from our esteemed vice-president. go fuck yourself
*sigh*
[sarcasm]
I know exactly what you mean. I hate all that mandatory, pre-billed bullshit the government forces me to buy. Roads, schools, scientific exploration, law and order... I wish we could just get a menu and order only the things that we personally are going to use...
[/sarcasm]
seriously though, if you've ever attended a public school, used a public library, driven on a public road, or used the fruits of Government Scientific research (velcro, the internet... etc), you might just want to reconsider your previous knee-jerk belly-aching about public funds being used to supply a public good. If the nature of what the government provided for the public good never adopted new technologies, we'd still be waiting on the pony express to deliver our mail.
And yes, you have to pay for government, or go to jail. its called citizenship.
"We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we dont want to pay our taxes, Why... We're free to spend a weekend with the pain monster!"
you dont think that CD prices are absurdly high? You think that music prices are actually governed by the evaluation of the ideal elasticity of demand, with the RIAA companies setting their prices in line with the Quantity Demanded? BULLSHIT. you know why? demand is slipping, and prices stay the same, or increase. If you're going to brush away reasonable complaints about the price of a good with econ 100 jargon, you might as well remember what all econ 100 teachers should tell you, that nice little ideal graph about supply and demand, and the law of demand and all that good stuff goes out the window when dealing with a monopoly. The RIAA companies are the only suppliers of the music they produce, and it is delusional to think of them as anything but a monopoly on the distribution of other people's art.
The record companies only net 20%? I'm fucking heartbroken. you do realize that included in those expenses taken out of the net profit calculation is payments to the artists who make the music in the first place, to the production studios and teams who make the top-selling artists not sound like crap, and all the salaries of all other employees involved, from the receptionists to the CEO's? A 20% annual return on an investment is pretty fucking slick.
A previous poster had it right. The RIAA's actions are nothing more than the heavy-handed politics of a conglomerate trying to preserve its comfortable business model through legislating its interests.
Nothing new as far as the corporate world goes, but lets at least tell it how it is.
uh... the ipod can, in fact, rewind/fast forward within a track. you hold down the forward/back buttons instead of just tapping them...
thought you might like to know...
totally, all that waste and inefficiency of the govt space program would be totally eliminated when Richard Branson can sell space-tickets to the millionaires for 50k a pop so they can say they rubbed one out in zero-g the government is there to make sure that worthwhile, not immediately profitable ventures are not fucked up. leave space exploration to private enterprise and things will get fucked up, because people in search of profit cut corners. besides, who isnt "allowing" private space exploration. Until it ceases to be prohibitively expensive, it will remain rightfully the purview of government, and creepy billionaires with too many teeth.
Fucking A.
People love to go all gaga over "Hydrogen Power" as if its going to save us from the end of fossil fuel reserves. Somehow they fail to realize that hygrogen power is just like a battery. you still need to split the water.
but of course, reality will continue to crush people's dreams as long as they continue to pay attention
its kindof funny, how the wiki article you reference with your curt imperative actually proves you wrong. tho now that you mention it... something here is painfully slow.....
while I agree with you...
since when did "of" and "from" mean the same thing?
I'm not convinced that your right to choose no religion is the same thing as a right to be exlcuded from other people exercising their right to freedom of speech.
you can always just not listen to them, afterall
but, dude, come one. everybody knows that the market hates it when the government can do something effeciently and for free. and when you do too many things that the market doesnt like, the terrorists come in and impregnate you daughter.
I know. I saw a special about it on Fox.