I'm not a British citizen, nor American, thank you, although I probably know much more about your Isles' history than most. In fact, though you are obviously knowledgeable, I would warn you against sloppy phrasing like "the Government that had to vote it in". The Commons voted it in, and the two are not the same.
In fact, I had considered the objection you raised, but decided to give the example anyway, for several reasons. First, there are often votes of conscience on significant issues, and there can even be rebellions among MPs. So this step definitely made the Government weaker; there are no two ways about it. Even though the Government holds a majority in the Commons, the Government is not the Commons, and for all that they have become more similar, in an insidious presidential way under Blair, it is always nice to see the two entities becoming more separated again. Though I don't like all his policies, I do think that Brown has more of a sense of history in his left elbow than Blair ever had.
The other reason, of course, is that the example was directly relevant and recent. But I see plenty of other people have posted better examples in reply to the OP, so there is at least no shortage of evidence for my basic point.
Never, ever in history. Except perhaps just recently in the very country we are discussing, when Gordon Brown came to power. In his first act as prime minister, he transferred several significant powers to the Commons.
Why don't you, especially as an American, stop the right-wing scaremongering over the politics of a country which you have no more intimate an understanding of than your daily newspaper? Instead you could work on grass-roots campaigns, perhaps get involved in politics, or a number of other constructive things you could do if you stopped assuming that all government is bad and unfixable.
It's good that you feel the need to discuss this graph. It sucks that you didn't bother to read two English sentences that go along with them.
The Areas of the blue, red, & black wedges are each measured from the centre as the common vertex.
The blue wedges measured from the centre of the circle represent area for area the deaths from Preventable or Mitigable Zymotic diseases, the red wedges measured from the centre the deaths from wounds, & the black wedges measured from the centre the deaths from all other causes.
I think it would insult your intelligence (although not your attention span) if I were to comment further on these perfectly lucid sentences.
You mean taxation is moral only to the extent that "I want it to". I'm sorry but you live in a democracy; you must respect the legal decision of the majority. Under America's system of government, from the Constitution to the legal cases explaining it to the day-to-day working of Congress, taxation is quite legal and how the money is spent equally so.
To clarify just a bit: I'd be fine in a society where taxes were voluntary. Paying tax would give you a a taxpayer certificate. You could only use public roads or walk on public lands if you had the certificate, only get power from the public grid, or use the hospital emergency services, or be rescued by coast guard, or be eligible for firemen to put out fires on your property, or policemen to arrest criminals who attack you, or for the military to defend you in case of invasion, if you had the certificate. You could still use the courts, and you would still have responsibility toward your neighbours, as well as having to comply with environmental laws, because you are after all living in a community, even if only as a sort of enclave. But if you didn't have the certificate, public transportation and schools and libraries, of course, would be right out. You'd have to get your own water and dispose of your own sewage, as they too use public infrastructure. I'm afraid that also means no high-speed internet, as it was built with public money. You could vote except for the small detail you that any sort of office you could vote on is authorised to deal, indirectly or directly, with public money, so in the end you couldn't vote at all.
If you believe in state taxation but not federal taxation, you're just contradicting your principles on different scales. After all, why believe in theft if it's practised in smaller groups?
Did you say you don't have a taxpayer certificate but want to pick and choose how tax money is spent? I'm afraid that's not on the table. And you can't vote to change the system, as you know. You are of course free to complain loudly to anyone who will care to listen, but you're already doing that, right?
Why don't you come quite clean and say you think taxation is immoral? At least that's an old line we all recognise and we've all long ago made up our minds on whether it's total bollocks or with merit.
I was referring to the upfront cost of the phone. It was $600 originally, still is about that or more around the world where sold unlocked (a legal requirement in most places), and about $300 upfront in the US. Carriers often take part of this price off, though I don't know the details, if you buy into a long contract, typically 2 years. I did not buy my $15 phone from any carrier, and I am free to use it with any carrier without needing a contract.
It's not really anonymous, is it? It would be trivial to figure out my identity from my posts. I like to participate in the Slashdot discussion system, with relish, so I apologise if my style of posting doesn't suit you. I mentioned the girlfriend because the OP was talking about sex.
I realise my post may come across as superior. Naturally I have many weaknesses, vanities and other character faults. It's just the particular vice of owning status symbols is not one of them. Perhaps it would be if I were rich, though I doubt it.
The iPhone is a status symbol. Everyone knows this -- the people who buy it and those who don't. Have you ever wondered why people have Jags when they're unreliable? (I mean these days, not in their heyday.) They're pretty and they send the message "I have a lot of money" loud and clear.
No, I don't have one. I have a $15 (USD) Motorola that is faster at making telephone calls (that's what I use my phone for) than the iPhone. If I wanted a smartphone I'd get a functional, cheap, not-very-pretty Nokia. Then again I"m poor, I have a steady girlfriend, and I don't need to pretend I'm wealthy.
On a smaller level, societies where people own guns are usually more peaceful ones. Why? Because people can see them. Just the threat of being shot is enough to deter people from starting shit.
You must be joking or deliberately spreading lies. Have you ever been, say, to the United States and Western Europe? America is far more violent, Western Europe far more peaceful. Guess which one is the gun society.
Stop with the FUD if you could. Private cameras are not government cameras. Or isn't your every single move watched when you enter a store? I guess you could preserve your noble privacy by not shopping, only buying things online -- hang on, no, you're tracked there as well, by the web store and your bank. Hey, what about your right to privacy in the Constitution? Oh hang on, haven't got that either...
Don't divert the topic, especially if you haven't got a leg to stand on.
Re:But does it run on .... shit that does not work
on
Fedora 10 Released
·
· Score: 1
I admin an FC8 cluster and run Debian at home. I still hate yum. When the owner of the cluster decides to upgrade to F10, I will try yum again and see if I like it, i.e. if it has finally sped up a bit. I have tried it on every FC version between 2 and 8 now and hated it on all of them (yes, even with -C). But I'm sure they'll get it right someday.:)
Fair's fair, I noticed that the search heuristics improved around FC4 or FC5. I used to hate those as well, now they're fine.
Re:But does it run on .... shit that does not work
on
Fedora 10 Released
·
· Score: 1
next time I decide to upgrade my OS.
Alternatively, if you use an OS which guarantees clean upgrades, such as Debian, one of the BSDs, or IIRC Gentoo, then "upgrade" is simply a shell command you issue.
It's always bugged me that they've been heralding MapReduce, something any functional programmer has known for the past 50 years, as something revolutionary and new. The worst of it is how all the self-styled geeks, who by rights ought to be familiar with the concept, have been lapping it all up.
Gentoo was never the big thing. For geeks perhaps. In the enterprise, it has always been Red Hat or SUSE, and that certainly hasn't changed, and is unlikely to change quickly. What you read on Slashdot, or the stats you see on Distrowatch, are not a good measure of relative use of distros.
Zero copyright protection for foreign works? You mean in the USA it would have been public domain the instant it was released? Glad that law was changed.
I admit I don't understand the full situation. But it seems to me that if Microsoft had to make a contradictory choice between two partners, then they must have at one point knowingly lied to one (or both) of the partners about what they could deliver in the future.
I nearly bough a Saturn until my mechanic told me it's a plastic bucket of -- well, you get the idea. He expressed "reliability concerns", to paraphrase.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a British citizen, nor American, thank you, although I probably know much more about your Isles' history than most. In fact, though you are obviously knowledgeable, I would warn you against sloppy phrasing like "the Government that had to vote it in". The Commons voted it in, and the two are not the same.
In fact, I had considered the objection you raised, but decided to give the example anyway, for several reasons. First, there are often votes of conscience on significant issues, and there can even be rebellions among MPs. So this step definitely made the Government weaker; there are no two ways about it. Even though the Government holds a majority in the Commons, the Government is not the Commons, and for all that they have become more similar, in an insidious presidential way under Blair, it is always nice to see the two entities becoming more separated again. Though I don't like all his policies, I do think that Brown has more of a sense of history in his left elbow than Blair ever had.
The other reason, of course, is that the example was directly relevant and recent. But I see plenty of other people have posted better examples in reply to the OP, so there is at least no shortage of evidence for my basic point.
Never, ever in history. Except perhaps just recently in the very country we are discussing, when Gordon Brown came to power. In his first act as prime minister, he transferred several significant powers to the Commons.
Why don't you, especially as an American, stop the right-wing scaremongering over the politics of a country which you have no more intimate an understanding of than your daily newspaper? Instead you could work on grass-roots campaigns, perhaps get involved in politics, or a number of other constructive things you could do if you stopped assuming that all government is bad and unfixable.
The Areas of the blue, red, & black wedges are each measured from the centre as the common vertex.
The blue wedges measured from the centre of the circle represent area for area the deaths from Preventable or Mitigable Zymotic diseases, the red wedges measured from the centre the deaths from wounds, & the black wedges measured from the centre the deaths from all other causes.
I think it would insult your intelligence (although not your attention span) if I were to comment further on these perfectly lucid sentences.
You mean taxation is moral only to the extent that "I want it to". I'm sorry but you live in a democracy; you must respect the legal decision of the majority. Under America's system of government, from the Constitution to the legal cases explaining it to the day-to-day working of Congress, taxation is quite legal and how the money is spent equally so.
It's not a serious proposal. It's a reduction to absurdity -- a response to the GP who claimed that taxation was taking immoral.
To clarify just a bit: I'd be fine in a society where taxes were voluntary. Paying tax would give you a a taxpayer certificate. You could only use public roads or walk on public lands if you had the certificate, only get power from the public grid, or use the hospital emergency services, or be rescued by coast guard, or be eligible for firemen to put out fires on your property, or policemen to arrest criminals who attack you, or for the military to defend you in case of invasion, if you had the certificate. You could still use the courts, and you would still have responsibility toward your neighbours, as well as having to comply with environmental laws, because you are after all living in a community, even if only as a sort of enclave. But if you didn't have the certificate, public transportation and schools and libraries, of course, would be right out. You'd have to get your own water and dispose of your own sewage, as they too use public infrastructure. I'm afraid that also means no high-speed internet, as it was built with public money. You could vote except for the small detail you that any sort of office you could vote on is authorised to deal, indirectly or directly, with public money, so in the end you couldn't vote at all.
If you believe in state taxation but not federal taxation, you're just contradicting your principles on different scales. After all, why believe in theft if it's practised in smaller groups?
Did you say you don't have a taxpayer certificate but want to pick and choose how tax money is spent? I'm afraid that's not on the table. And you can't vote to change the system, as you know. You are of course free to complain loudly to anyone who will care to listen, but you're already doing that, right?
Why don't you come quite clean and say you think taxation is immoral? At least that's an old line we all recognise and we've all long ago made up our minds on whether it's total bollocks or with merit.
I never knew that "dual-core computer" was a sexual fantasy before it was a geek term...
(Well, I did know, but that'd spoil the joke... All right, here's another one: why the teacher fantasists? Well, half secretary, half nurse...)
I was referring to the upfront cost of the phone. It was $600 originally, still is about that or more around the world where sold unlocked (a legal requirement in most places), and about $300 upfront in the US. Carriers often take part of this price off, though I don't know the details, if you buy into a long contract, typically 2 years. I did not buy my $15 phone from any carrier, and I am free to use it with any carrier without needing a contract.
It's not really anonymous, is it? It would be trivial to figure out my identity from my posts. I like to participate in the Slashdot discussion system, with relish, so I apologise if my style of posting doesn't suit you. I mentioned the girlfriend because the OP was talking about sex.
I realise my post may come across as superior. Naturally I have many weaknesses, vanities and other character faults. It's just the particular vice of owning status symbols is not one of them. Perhaps it would be if I were rich, though I doubt it.
The iPhone is a status symbol. Everyone knows this -- the people who buy it and those who don't. Have you ever wondered why people have Jags when they're unreliable? (I mean these days, not in their heyday.) They're pretty and they send the message "I have a lot of money" loud and clear.
No, I don't have one. I have a $15 (USD) Motorola that is faster at making telephone calls (that's what I use my phone for) than the iPhone. If I wanted a smartphone I'd get a functional, cheap, not-very-pretty Nokia. Then again I"m poor, I have a steady girlfriend, and I don't need to pretend I'm wealthy.
Nobody remember Roger Moore?
On a smaller level, societies where people own guns are usually more peaceful ones. Why? Because people can see them. Just the threat of being shot is enough to deter people from starting shit.
You must be joking or deliberately spreading lies. Have you ever been, say, to the United States and Western Europe? America is far more violent, Western Europe far more peaceful. Guess which one is the gun society.
Stop with the FUD if you could. Private cameras are not government cameras. Or isn't your every single move watched when you enter a store? I guess you could preserve your noble privacy by not shopping, only buying things online -- hang on, no, you're tracked there as well, by the web store and your bank. Hey, what about your right to privacy in the Constitution? Oh hang on, haven't got that either...
Don't divert the topic, especially if you haven't got a leg to stand on.
I admin an FC8 cluster and run Debian at home. I still hate yum. When the owner of the cluster decides to upgrade to F10, I will try yum again and see if I like it, i.e. if it has finally sped up a bit. I have tried it on every FC version between 2 and 8 now and hated it on all of them (yes, even with -C). But I'm sure they'll get it right someday. :)
Fair's fair, I noticed that the search heuristics improved around FC4 or FC5. I used to hate those as well, now they're fine.
next time I decide to upgrade my OS.
Alternatively, if you use an OS which guarantees clean upgrades, such as Debian, one of the BSDs, or IIRC Gentoo, then "upgrade" is simply a shell command you issue.
Lots of small business owners drive a Miata. Doesn't mean it's ever going to be the company car.
It's always bugged me that they've been heralding MapReduce, something any functional programmer has known for the past 50 years, as something revolutionary and new. The worst of it is how all the self-styled geeks, who by rights ought to be familiar with the concept, have been lapping it all up.
Gentoo was never the big thing. For geeks perhaps. In the enterprise, it has always been Red Hat or SUSE, and that certainly hasn't changed, and is unlikely to change quickly. What you read on Slashdot, or the stats you see on Distrowatch, are not a good measure of relative use of distros.
No... just no.
Personally, I'm much more likely to type "stewardesses" into a search engine when I need to use only one hand... for whatever reason.
Zero copyright protection for foreign works? You mean in the USA it would have been public domain the instant it was released? Glad that law was changed.
Ah, so spam actually comes from eggs! I see where I was confused now. How stupid of me.
I admit I don't understand the full situation. But it seems to me that if Microsoft had to make a contradictory choice between two partners, then they must have at one point knowingly lied to one (or both) of the partners about what they could deliver in the future.
I nearly bough a Saturn until my mechanic told me it's a plastic bucket of -- well, you get the idea. He expressed "reliability concerns", to paraphrase.