The ratings agencies set the standard that establishes what it will cost us to finance our debt, and since we have ticked up $14.3T already it is kind of important.
That the ratings agencies didn't find solace in our plan to increase our debt to $16.8T between now and the end of 2012 is hardly suprising - our plan to meet our current obligations is to decide to borrow more in the future...yeah, that sounds like a responsible, well-thought out plan to handle our debt...
According to this news story, Windows Vista has 10x the desktop users that Linux does, yet I don't hear anyone talking about "the Year of the Vista Desktop."
Windows XP, that 10 year-old behemoth has nearly 1/2 of all user desktops around the world, Windows 7 on about 1/4th of all desktops and Windows Vista on about 1/10th - Linux is struggling to make one out of every 100 desktops world-wide.
If MA runs their lottery like most other states, they essentially make their money off the ticket sales, claiming about 50% of the price of each lottery ticket, with the remaining 50% being split between the retailer that sold the ticket (5% of ticket face value?) and the prize pool (45% of ticket face value?). WHo wins the prize, how often they win the prize is only a problem for the state if those results wind up driving away future buyers.
The rolldown weeks keep the prize pot manageable, and it increases the payout to all winners, not just the mega-players. The appeal of the rolldown weeks is not that you are more likely to win, it is that when you do win, you win a bigger prize. The odds don't change, only the payout does.
Wow - did you even read the heading on the story? "Computer marries couple" - no one married a computer, and if you read the article (it wasn't much longer than your comment) you would have learned that the groom actually performed the service, the computer simply read the vows - they still need a justice of the peace to sign the paperwork.
They used a computer because they couldn't convince a friend to 'officiate' over the ceremony... I wonder who they got to witness the 'blessed' non-event?
This brings up a good question: why not automate this type of work away and cut some spending this way? Start small, with computer program marrying and signing licenses for couples, then move on to the traffic violations and petty infractions, landlord/tenant disputes, small debts and other small claims, then misdemeanors and restraining orders, etc.
What do you imagine happens when you mail in your check/admit guilt to a traffic violation?
A civil marriage takes about 5 minutes, what would you gain from automation?
As for the small claims cases, I'm not sure I want to trust some Eliza-derivative to decide who was wrong in a tenant/landlord dispute, for example. Restraining orders are not trivial - they impose limits on the freedoms of a third-party typically not involved in the case, having a probability engine decide the authenticity/meaning of the supplied evidence is not something many Americans would embrace.
I think you have a jaded view of the justice system - the cases you suggest are the very ones judges have the most leeway with, as most serious crimes are already subject to sentencing guidelines that limit a judge's ability to do more than ensure the process is followed and if convicted, look up the proscribed penalty.
We have what I would call "algorithmic" judgements already - "three strikes and you're out" and Meghan's Law (which requires sex offenders to register for life) - both have serious flaws (3 strikes makes the third felony conviction a life sentence, no exception and the Sex Offender laws punish teens that are caught having sex or middle school kids who 'sext' porn pics to a lifetime stigma).
Any savings in judicial salaries you'll save would be consumed by programmers tweaking the boundary cases...
The cost of an employee is not 1/4th the cost of a contractor - comparing paycheck to paycheck is misleading.
A government employee has salary cost (the number on the pay check) as well as employer side taxes & fees, healthcare benefits, and retirement benefits (pension), all of which are owed & paid, but are not reflected on a paycheck. Contractors have all those expenses included in the number on their hourly rate.
And don't forget, it is infinitely easier to fire contractor as needs/workloads change, it's not so easy to fire a unionized federal worker.
Finally, some contractors are likely industry experts hired briefly for short projects as needed.
MS Sky Drive is free for the first 25 Gigs, IIRC - Dropbox is free for the first 2 Gigs. Neither is free beyond those limits, so the comparison/solution is valid.
The issue in the 2000 election was the fluid, ever-changing, inconsistent standards being used to count votes in Florida.
In a per curiam decision, the Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature.
A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.
Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff -- filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties -- Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.
But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ''count all the votes.'' [emphasis added]
"The report claimed that an old 36-inch CRT TV generated about the same amount of electronics waste as 5,080 cell phones. However, today's 70-inch flat-screen TV generate the equivalent of just 953 cell phones."
A 36 inch CRT? I think a 24 inch CRT would be a more reasonable size set for comparison...
A 70 inch flat-screen? Most people lose the ability to relate to a set over 40-42 inches.....
No, your "right" in this amendment is to "a speedy and public trial" - the rest of the amendment (as presented here by you) defines the manner and operation of the "speedy and public" trial. To protect the rights of the accused, the state offers free legal counsel in certain cases (based on severity of the case and the ability of the accused to pay for their own defense), but the state does this to protect the rights of the individual who could be denied other rights simply because they couldn't afford legal counsel.
You have the right to bear arms, the civil rights, why can't you have "the right to broadband access" too?
That makes no sense - if, as you seem to assert, people have "the right to broadband (Internet) access" and that means the government needs to invest billions in making it available to those who wouldn't otherwise have it, then it follows that the government should also be investing billions in assuring every American has equal access to firearms, going so far as to possibly subsidizing gun shops and helping lower income citizens afford firearms.
Shouldn't the government be fighting "gun deserts" as fiercely as it is attacking the contrived "food desert" issue? What about all those poor manhattanites who find themselves without easy access to a local gun shop, unlike their fellow Americans in Arizona? Shouldn't the government be making sure all Americans "have access to the same tools"?
In a modern capitalist world, the role of the state is making sure that minorities (not in the racial sense, but in the economical sense) have access to the same tools and benefits the "majority" has.
Are you sure that is the role of the state in a "capitalist world"?
I can't find a definition of capitalism that is based on the idea of making everything equally available to everybody.
I suspect you are trying to draw a parallel between broadband Internet access (a regulated offering by private companies) and education, am I close? The real difference is that many (if not all) state constitutions specifically list education of all children equally at no expense to the parents as a responsibility of the state, while I am not aware of any state constitution that assigns to the state the obligation to make sure all residents have equal access to wired broadband Internet service.
And a 95% uptime is a seven day (25%) refund, you have to go under 95% uptime to get the 50% refund, the biggest refund Google offers... Even if you have a 0.1% uptime!
Google Apps SLA is almost EXACTLY the same - 50% credit (15 days) for 95% uptime in a month - guess how long an outage you can have with 95% uptime? Just about a day and a half...
Slashdot Mirror
The ratings agencies set the standard that establishes what it will cost us to finance our debt, and since we have ticked up $14.3T already it is kind of important.
That the ratings agencies didn't find solace in our plan to increase our debt to $16.8T between now and the end of 2012 is hardly suprising - our plan to meet our current obligations is to decide to borrow more in the future...yeah, that sounds like a responsible, well-thought out plan to handle our debt...
According to this news story, Windows Vista has 10x the desktop users that Linux does, yet I don't hear anyone talking about "the Year of the Vista Desktop."
Windows XP, that 10 year-old behemoth has nearly 1/2 of all user desktops around the world, Windows 7 on about 1/4th of all desktops and Windows Vista on about 1/10th - Linux is struggling to make one out of every 100 desktops world-wide.
If MA runs their lottery like most other states, they essentially make their money off the ticket sales, claiming about 50% of the price of each lottery ticket, with the remaining 50% being split between the retailer that sold the ticket (5% of ticket face value?) and the prize pool (45% of ticket face value?). WHo wins the prize, how often they win the prize is only a problem for the state if those results wind up driving away future buyers.
The rolldown weeks keep the prize pot manageable, and it increases the payout to all winners, not just the mega-players. The appeal of the rolldown weeks is not that you are more likely to win, it is that when you do win, you win a bigger prize. The odds don't change, only the payout does.
Wow - did you even read the heading on the story? "Computer marries couple" - no one married a computer, and if you read the article (it wasn't much longer than your comment) you would have learned that the groom actually performed the service, the computer simply read the vows - they still need a justice of the peace to sign the paperwork.
They used a computer because they couldn't convince a friend to 'officiate' over the ceremony... I wonder who they got to witness the 'blessed' non-event?
What do you imagine happens when you mail in your check/admit guilt to a traffic violation?
A civil marriage takes about 5 minutes, what would you gain from automation?
As for the small claims cases, I'm not sure I want to trust some Eliza-derivative to decide who was wrong in a tenant/landlord dispute, for example. Restraining orders are not trivial - they impose limits on the freedoms of a third-party typically not involved in the case, having a probability engine decide the authenticity/meaning of the supplied evidence is not something many Americans would embrace.
I think you have a jaded view of the justice system - the cases you suggest are the very ones judges have the most leeway with, as most serious crimes are already subject to sentencing guidelines that limit a judge's ability to do more than ensure the process is followed and if convicted, look up the proscribed penalty.
We have what I would call "algorithmic" judgements already - "three strikes and you're out" and Meghan's Law (which requires sex offenders to register for life) - both have serious flaws (3 strikes makes the third felony conviction a life sentence, no exception and the Sex Offender laws punish teens that are caught having sex or middle school kids who 'sext' porn pics to a lifetime stigma).
Any savings in judicial salaries you'll save would be consumed by programmers tweaking the boundary cases...
The cost of an employee is not 1/4th the cost of a contractor - comparing paycheck to paycheck is misleading.
A government employee has salary cost (the number on the pay check) as well as employer side taxes & fees, healthcare benefits, and retirement benefits (pension), all of which are owed & paid, but are not reflected on a paycheck. Contractors have all those expenses included in the number on their hourly rate.
And don't forget, it is infinitely easier to fire contractor as needs/workloads change, it's not so easy to fire a unionized federal worker.
Finally, some contractors are likely industry experts hired briefly for short projects as needed.
Neil Caffery, the White Collar crimes consultant that works with the FBI?
Free Market?
More expensive cars may mean greater per unit profits, but it also likely means fewer units sold.
And their hydrogen-fueled cars...
"Massive subsidies and massive excise taxes"? Seriously?! Who do you think is in charge in Washington?
But a supermarket selling hard drives?
Chevy Volts will GM have to sell per Suburban to remain within the new CAFE standard?
Maybe now the FOSS zealots will believe the argument 'it could happen to anyone'...
MS Sky Drive is free for the first 25 Gigs, IIRC - Dropbox is free for the first 2 Gigs. Neither is free beyond those limits, so the comparison/solution is valid.
The issue in the 2000 election was the fluid, ever-changing, inconsistent standards being used to count votes in Florida.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: NYTimes.com
I thought you were going to tell me about a new Starbucks for the Decepticons...
A 36 inch CRT? I think a 24 inch CRT would be a more reasonable size set for comparison...
A 70 inch flat-screen? Most people lose the ability to relate to a set over 40-42 inches.....
Who's throwing out a 70 inch flat screen TV?
Toshiba makes a 14", 1366x768 resolution, under 3 pound, under $200 USB Second Monitordisplay you can add to any laptop.
Seems more useful than adding 3 pounds to a laptop, more convienient too...
What to do about it? Sign up more people for private health insurance!
No, your "right" in this amendment is to "a speedy and public trial" - the rest of the amendment (as presented here by you) defines the manner and operation of the "speedy and public" trial. To protect the rights of the accused, the state offers free legal counsel in certain cases (based on severity of the case and the ability of the accused to pay for their own defense), but the state does this to protect the rights of the individual who could be denied other rights simply because they couldn't afford legal counsel.
That makes no sense - if, as you seem to assert, people have "the right to broadband (Internet) access" and that means the government needs to invest billions in making it available to those who wouldn't otherwise have it, then it follows that the government should also be investing billions in assuring every American has equal access to firearms, going so far as to possibly subsidizing gun shops and helping lower income citizens afford firearms.
Shouldn't the government be fighting "gun deserts" as fiercely as it is attacking the contrived "food desert" issue? What about all those poor manhattanites who find themselves without easy access to a local gun shop, unlike their fellow Americans in Arizona? Shouldn't the government be making sure all Americans "have access to the same tools"?
Are you sure that is the role of the state in a "capitalist world"?
I can't find a definition of capitalism that is based on the idea of making everything equally available to everybody.
I suspect you are trying to draw a parallel between broadband Internet access (a regulated offering by private companies) and education, am I close? The real difference is that many (if not all) state constitutions specifically list education of all children equally at no expense to the parents as a responsibility of the state, while I am not aware of any state constitution that assigns to the state the obligation to make sure all residents have equal access to wired broadband Internet service.
I guess they figured they could replicate the 'Big Profits'of WikiLeaks by adopting their business model:
1) have people donate both content and operating funds
2) keep operating expenses below donated funds
3) big profits!
Sorry, forgot to add the link: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html
And a 95% uptime is a seven day (25%) refund, you have to go under 95% uptime to get the 50% refund, the biggest refund Google offers... Even if you have a 0.1% uptime!
Google Apps SLA is almost EXACTLY the same - 50% credit (15 days) for 95% uptime in a month - guess how long an outage you can have with 95% uptime? Just about a day and a half...