Leaving film and going to TV makes me think Lucas doesn't know his own strengths. He definitely has a gift for grand scale epic imagery, but his interpersonal, small close scene kind of stuff sucks. Or to put it another way: his battle scenes are great, the emotional progress of Anakin into Vadar was crap.
Now if we have secure, trustworthy voting (electronic or not) and Maryland's governor gets his way, people might actually feel like their vote means something again.
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed off on legislation [SB 634 materials] Tuesday that will award Maryland's ten votes in the US Electoral College [NARA materials] to the national popular vote winner in presidential elections, instead of the recipient of the most votes in Maryland. The legislation will only take effect, however, if a majority of the states representing the total 538 electoral votes adopt similar laws. The bill's sponsor, state Senator Jamie Raskin, told AP that the move to a popular vote system "will reawaken politics in every part of the country," even Maryland, a state presidential candidates usually sidestep because of the belief that it will always vote for the Democratic candidate.http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/20 07/04/maryland-governor-signs-law-changing.php
it's a different culture with different values, and America failed this war because they just didn't understand it.
I agree. The cultural differences are what make this war unwinnable for the US. I was trying to say that inorder to win we needed to change their culture.
People aren't that stupid that they'll just buy into whatever propaganda you feed them
They do buy into propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Where exactly do you think suicide bombers come from? The propaganda of "all the injustices of you life are the fault of the evil USA, give your life to destroy them and you will be greatly rewarded to the afterlife." Individuals might be intelligent and shrewd, but people are stupid.
I seriously doubt that story goes beyond urban legend.
Unfortunately that is just one of many, documented court cases. Real, hard, Fact. My intention was to show the limitations of the idea of multiculturalism. If you hold the idea of "respecting someone's culture" as higly or higher than your countries native core values, then very important things (like women's rights) get compromised.
Yes with our superiour weapons and traing we could accomplish Geneocide with far less effort than we have spent in the "War on Terror" thus far, but again that is a line we as Americans are not willing to cross, where as I doubt such a line of morality exists within the terrorist's culture.
It is in fact more unprofessional to just quietly take as you leave, while the boss may know that they are a jerk, they rarely see the consiquenses of thier actions. Losing a good employee and knowing directly that it is because of their immature abusive attitude is the only way to ever improve working conditions. You're advice is on par with turn of the century factory workers getting injured working unsafe machinery and staying quite about it because they are good company men. Why are you so afraid of being honest with an abusive boss?
Actually, the conditions aren't so skewed in the terrorist's favor, we are just fighting the wrong war. We can't handily win a war of bullets and lives against them, because they are willing to lose far more than we are. The war we should be fighting is in changing the values and culture of Iraq and Afganistan. Feed them the line about "the pen is mightier than the sword" and hope they buy it. I'll take angry letters and protest signs over bombings and kidnappings any day. They won't blow up LA if they are too busy watching American Idol. This is where I find myself agreeing with Sarkozy and his call for immigrants to "learn the French language and Values". This war is a war of cultures, it's not about countries and borders, it's about which set of values will endure. And multiculturalism doesn't work, unless you want to surrender all other values to it. Take Germanys conflict with multiculturalism vs. Women's Rights.
"The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats.
So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of women would find it very easy to make a judgement: you're free from this man, case dismissed.
But Judge Christa Datz-Winter followed the logic of multiculturalism instead. She said she would not grant an early divorce because - despite the police documentation of extreme violence and continued threats - there was no "unreasonable hardship" here.
Why? Because the woman, as a Muslim, should have "expected" it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the "right to use corporal punishment". Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you. That's your culture. Goodbye, and enjoy your beatings.
This is not a freakish exception. Germany's only state-level Minister for Integration, Armin Laschet, says this is only "the last link, for the time being, in a chain of horrific rulings handed down by the German courts".
Trying to preserve the French culture isn't necessarily xenophobic. A significant part of what makes a country a good or bad place to live is it's culture.(yes, language is part of a culture) For example both Saudi Arabia and the USA are wealthy countries, but ask your wife or girlfriend which one she would rather live in. There is a difference between
"Economic efficiency" isn't the highest good in the world. And they're not "just" making the economy less efficient, they're potentially giving people access to lifesaving treatment that they might otherwise not be able to afford.
"and no matter what they make into law, it will never apply to people in other countries."
Do you mean that people inside Utah can recieve spam that originated from outside Utah, perhaps outside the USA??? This internet is a confusing and dangerous thing....
"Parents need to protect their own children, and admittedly, they could use some sound solid advice. Why don't government groups spend time with that problem?"
And just who, in our wonderfully technology savvy government, would you have giving this sound solid advice? The politicians obvious haven't clue #1 about the tubes, as illustrated by my first quote from your post.
I've never understood why people don't just leave in workplaces like that. It' s not like you have some good reason for company loyalty if the management is indeed a bunch of irrational fucktards. Don't just quietly leave, explain clearly why you are leaving. You like the job and the pay is fine, but there is too much internal bullshit to make the job worthwhile. When Billg says "That's the dumbest idea I've heard..." respond by saying "You are wrong, it is an excellent idea. Your criticism is niether constructive, nor professional. I will be taking my ideas elsewhere." Then immediately leave the room, perhaps the building. So before you present your idea to Billg you should look for a new job. Hopefully you won't need the new job if Billg actually does see the value of you idea, but much more importantly he will also have to acknowledge the value of you. Sure, he still might want you to prove your idea to him, but Bill Gates is smart enough to be able to come up with insightful questions without being rude. I can only imagine this technique is an artifact of Bill Gates being, on some level, scared shitless of the size and responsiblity that MS has become. It's a "trick" that might work with some reliablity, but it's something he should have outgrown long ago. Management can only treat employees like shit when we let them, they need us at least as much as we need them. Following these princples I've doubled my income (and respect from managment)in the last three years. No, not all of this happen with one employer. I did have to walk away from one stable, but poor quality of life, job.
ignoring fixed costs, completely, like you do in your idiotic proclamation of a 255% return
R&D is not a manufacturing cost, it is a one time investment. Yes, at first the markup from the manufacturing cost goes into paying back the investment in R&D, but once that is paid off it is no longer continuing factor in the cost of making each pill. Instead of being able to pay that expense off at $0.20 per pill, Merck was greedy and wanted $1.20 payoff per pill. Either way they were still going to make money towards paying off the R&D investment. Now they get nothing. It's not like they had cured AIDS and they were going to only sell one pill per person, they would still be making that $0.20 per pill everyday for year and the inital investment in developement would be paid off. In case you example of Merck's marketing spending didn't clue you in, the drug companies have a profit margin that would be absurd in almost any other industry. I have no problem with this when it comes to luxury drugs like Viagra or some baldness cure, but it's extortion when someone's life hangs in the balance and you still want to wring 'em for every penny. Not maximizing profits and losing money are not the same thing, Greed is the difference.
I'm not a big fan of potheads myself, but why would you pass a law against a flavor, if not to criminalize an idea? My point is that these type of laws are moving from the abhorrent (pedophilia) to the simply dumb (pot). It's a progression in a distrubing direction. It's parallel to extending the extra legal protection from assault police officers get into: it is illegal to publicly criticize law enforcement agents.
Like many other crimes these days, it is the implication that you might do the crime that is becoming illegal, or in this case punishable. Like the virtual rape in second life http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/04/15 25222. Or things like prosecuting someone who thinks they are flirting with a minor. Sure things like murder, pedophilia and terroism aren't going to have any vocal champions, but it grows into things like outlawing marijuana flavored candy.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119442.html "Several jurisdictions, including Chicago, already have banned cannabis-flavored candy; Georgia is on the verge of prohibiting sales to minors; and legislators in other states have proposed their own restrictions or bans. Before the whole country is overwhelmed by the urge to prohibit anything that tastes like pot, let's pause to consider the aim of such legislation. Ban proponents do not claim the candy itself is dangerous. Rather, they object to the ideas it represents."
Let's face it, ideas and presumed intentions are becoming criminal. George Orwell called it.
I wonder if this will be able to traslate into companies that "trick" people into buying ringtones and other crap for their phones, by charging them through their phone bills. If you give you credit card info to Sprint you don't expect to paying out to BlingFone inc.
actually charging my credit card (provided to ANOTHER COMPANY) is inexcusable.
How does that actually work as far as your credit card contract, I wonder? if I am the only one authorized to make a purchase with my card, how can BestBuy make a purchase for me?
Do you know why you never see a "Walk to Stop Acid Reflux" or a "Save the Erections Concert", because there aren't charites raising millions a year for research for those things. There are many charities dedicated to fundraising for AIDS research, and there have been for over a decade. And charity funded research isn't all secrective and proprietary with their work, so much of what Merck is profiting off of here is publicly funded research. And on top of this Merck was price gouging:"The Brazilian government is asking Merck to sell efavirenz at US$0.65 a day, compared to a price of around $1.60 at present - a price reduction of almost 60%. Efavirenz is currently used by 75,000 patients in Brazil, and costs the Brazilian government $43.8 million a year."http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/EED3BCE4-3992 -4842-8F37-9CAD750EE94E.asp razil is now buying a generic from India for $0.45. Let's say that $0.45 is the base cost, at Brazil's asked for price it would have been a 44% over base cost return, but nooooo, Merck wanted a 255% return. Who the fuck else operates on the assumtion of a 200%+ profit margin?
yeah, cause none of that R&D money was raised by charities, or given over in the form of government grants or anything that might actually require holding the public good over giant profits. When big pharma doesn't get any tax breaks or grants or other public support, then and only then can they whine about "but.. but.. that was MY r&d." No you greedy fucks, all those charity dollars into AIDS research makes it public goods fromt he outset, especially when you price gouge a developing country.
This just highlights in a new way, how far wrong we have gone with our patient system. Imagine if Salk had demanded a premium for his polio vaccine, the US government would have taken it under the same premises. The same if the patient holder for Biothrax had withheld rights from the US government for the anthrax vaccine in 2002. But wait those are brown people, foreigners dying from a disease with a social stigma, so let's call them thieves.
"When schools turn to removing achievment rewards for fear of offending those who don't achieve to removing grades for the same reason we teach kids the wrong lesson."
To quote "The Simpsons":
Lisa: But my parents are counting on seeing me dance! And I've worked ever so hard.
Vicki: I'm sorry, Lisa, but giving everyone an equal part when they're clearly not equal is called what, again, class?
Class: Communism!
Vicki: That's right. And I didn't tap all those Morse-code messages to the Allies till my shoes filled with blood to just roll out the welcome mat for the Reds.
That would imply that the people there at the Transportation Security Administration had some sort of clue about how to make things secure... when they were easily transported...
There was a time when Usury was considered a sin, and yet somehow while most other secular things considered sinful are also illegal (murder, theft, adultry, perjury) usury was renamed. Charging interest, making money simply by controlling large amounts of money, will always lead to an overpowered elite of the Usurers.
At least in your example there is an effort made by the accused to physically, in real life, do what would be a criminal act. How does this translate into "virtual" worlds that aren't computer generated, like "the world of the play" created by actors in a stage drama? I have worked on played wherein one character was criminally abused by another, eight performances a week. Was there a crime committed? What about a movie that deals with child abuse? A "virtual" child, was "virtually" abused. Where are the cops arresting the writers of the Lifetime Network?
Slashdot Mirror
Leaving film and going to TV makes me think Lucas doesn't know his own strengths. He definitely has a gift for grand scale epic imagery, but his interpersonal, small close scene kind of stuff sucks. Or to put it another way: his battle scenes are great, the emotional progress of Anakin into Vadar was crap.
it's a different culture with different values, and America failed this war because they just didn't understand it.
I agree. The cultural differences are what make this war unwinnable for the US. I was trying to say that inorder to win we needed to change their culture.
People aren't that stupid that they'll just buy into whatever propaganda you feed them
They do buy into propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Where exactly do you think suicide bombers come from? The propaganda of "all the injustices of you life are the fault of the evil USA, give your life to destroy them and you will be greatly rewarded to the afterlife."
Individuals might be intelligent and shrewd, but people are stupid.
The best place to learn French, is in bed.
I seriously doubt that story goes beyond urban legend.
Unfortunately that is just one of many, documented court cases. Real, hard, Fact. My intention was to show the limitations of the idea of multiculturalism. If you hold the idea of "respecting someone's culture" as higly or higher than your countries native core values, then very important things (like women's rights) get compromised.
Yes with our superiour weapons and traing we could accomplish Geneocide with far less effort than we have spent in the "War on Terror" thus far, but again that is a line we as Americans are not willing to cross, where as I doubt such a line of morality exists within the terrorist's culture.
It is in fact more unprofessional to just quietly take as you leave, while the boss may know that they are a jerk, they rarely see the consiquenses of thier actions. Losing a good employee and knowing directly that it is because of their immature abusive attitude is the only way to ever improve working conditions. You're advice is on par with turn of the century factory workers getting injured working unsafe machinery and staying quite about it because they are good company men. Why are you so afraid of being honest with an abusive boss?
Trying to preserve the French culture isn't necessarily xenophobic. A significant part of what makes a country a good or bad place to live is it's culture.(yes, language is part of a culture) For example both Saudi Arabia and the USA are wealthy countries, but ask your wife or girlfriend which one she would rather live in. There is a difference between
Yes, I've heard that many Europeans don't consider the US to have an opposition party, just two of the basically same party.
"Economic efficiency" isn't the highest good in the world. And they're not "just" making the economy less efficient, they're potentially giving people access to lifesaving treatment that they might otherwise not be able to afford.
5 /05/1633207
Keep in mind that this is the same government who just put Brazil on a "watchlist for piracy" for taking that same stand.http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/0
"and no matter what they make into law, it will never apply to people in other countries."
Do you mean that people inside Utah can recieve spam that originated from outside Utah, perhaps outside the USA??? This internet is a confusing and dangerous thing....
"Parents need to protect their own children, and admittedly, they could use some sound solid advice. Why don't government groups spend time with that problem?"
And just who, in our wonderfully technology savvy government, would you have giving this sound solid advice? The politicians obvious haven't clue #1 about the tubes, as illustrated by my first quote from your post.
So they passed a law requiring mass email-senders to pay for a service from a specific private corporation? Pork Barrel.
Fixed that for you.
I've never understood why people don't just leave in workplaces like that. It' s not like you have some good reason for company loyalty if the management is indeed a bunch of irrational fucktards. Don't just quietly leave, explain clearly why you are leaving. You like the job and the pay is fine, but there is too much internal bullshit to make the job worthwhile. When Billg says "That's the dumbest idea I've heard ..." respond by saying "You are wrong, it is an excellent idea. Your criticism is niether constructive, nor professional. I will be taking my ideas elsewhere." Then immediately leave the room, perhaps the building. So before you present your idea to Billg you should look for a new job. Hopefully you won't need the new job if Billg actually does see the value of you idea, but much more importantly he will also have to acknowledge the value of you. Sure, he still might want you to prove your idea to him, but Bill Gates is smart enough to be able to come up with insightful questions without being rude. I can only imagine this technique is an artifact of Bill Gates being, on some level, scared shitless of the size and responsiblity that MS has become. It's a "trick" that might work with some reliablity, but it's something he should have outgrown long ago. Management can only treat employees like shit when we let them, they need us at least as much as we need them. Following these princples I've doubled my income (and respect from managment)in the last three years. No, not all of this happen with one employer. I did have to walk away from one stable, but poor quality of life, job.
ignoring fixed costs, completely, like you do in your idiotic proclamation of a 255% return
R&D is not a manufacturing cost, it is a one time investment. Yes, at first the markup from the manufacturing cost goes into paying back the investment in R&D, but once that is paid off it is no longer continuing factor in the cost of making each pill. Instead of being able to pay that expense off at $0.20 per pill, Merck was greedy and wanted $1.20 payoff per pill. Either way they were still going to make money towards paying off the R&D investment. Now they get nothing. It's not like they had cured AIDS and they were going to only sell one pill per person, they would still be making that $0.20 per pill everyday for year and the inital investment in developement would be paid off. In case you example of Merck's marketing spending didn't clue you in, the drug companies have a profit margin that would be absurd in almost any other industry. I have no problem with this when it comes to luxury drugs like Viagra or some baldness cure, but it's extortion when someone's life hangs in the balance and you still want to wring 'em for every penny. Not maximizing profits and losing money are not the same thing, Greed is the difference.
I'm not a big fan of potheads myself, but why would you pass a law against a flavor, if not to criminalize an idea? My point is that these type of laws are moving from the abhorrent (pedophilia) to the simply dumb (pot). It's a progression in a distrubing direction. It's parallel to extending the extra legal protection from assault police officers get into: it is illegal to publicly criticize law enforcement agents.
Let's face it, ideas and presumed intentions are becoming criminal. George Orwell called it.
I wonder if this will be able to traslate into companies that "trick" people into buying ringtones and other crap for their phones, by charging them through their phone bills. If you give you credit card info to Sprint you don't expect to paying out to BlingFone inc.
actually charging my credit card (provided to ANOTHER COMPANY) is inexcusable.
How does that actually work as far as your credit card contract, I wonder? if I am the only one authorized to make a purchase with my card, how can BestBuy make a purchase for me?
Do you know why you never see a "Walk to Stop Acid Reflux" or a "Save the Erections Concert", because there aren't charites raising millions a year for research for those things. There are many charities dedicated to fundraising for AIDS research, and there have been for over a decade. And charity funded research isn't all secrective and proprietary with their work, so much of what Merck is profiting off of here is publicly funded research. And on top of this Merck was price gouging:"The Brazilian government is asking Merck to sell efavirenz at US$0.65 a day, compared to a price of around $1.60 at present - a price reduction of almost 60%. Efavirenz is currently used by 75,000 patients in Brazil, and costs the Brazilian government $43 .8 million a year."http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/EED3BCE4-3992 -4842-8F37-9CAD750EE94E.asp razil is now buying a generic from India for $0.45. Let's say that $0.45 is the base cost, at Brazil's asked for price it would have been a 44% over base cost return, but nooooo, Merck wanted a 255% return. Who the fuck else operates on the assumtion of a 200%+ profit margin?
yeah, cause none of that R&D money was raised by charities, or given over in the form of government grants or anything that might actually require holding the public good over giant profits. When big pharma doesn't get any tax breaks or grants or other public support, then and only then can they whine about "but.. but.. that was MY r&d." No you greedy fucks, all those charity dollars into AIDS research makes it public goods fromt he outset, especially when you price gouge a developing country.
This just highlights in a new way, how far wrong we have gone with our patient system. Imagine if Salk had demanded a premium for his polio vaccine, the US government would have taken it under the same premises. The same if the patient holder for Biothrax had withheld rights from the US government for the anthrax vaccine in 2002. But wait those are brown people, foreigners dying from a disease with a social stigma, so let's call them thieves.
To quote "The Simpsons":
That would imply that the people there at the Transportation Security Administration had some sort of clue about how to make things secure... when they were easily transported ...
There was a time when Usury was considered a sin, and yet somehow while most other secular things considered sinful are also illegal (murder, theft, adultry, perjury) usury was renamed. Charging interest, making money simply by controlling large amounts of money, will always lead to an overpowered elite of the Usurers.
At least in your example there is an effort made by the accused to physically, in real life, do what would be a criminal act. How does this translate into "virtual" worlds that aren't computer generated, like "the world of the play" created by actors in a stage drama? I have worked on played wherein one character was criminally abused by another, eight performances a week. Was there a crime committed? What about a movie that deals with child abuse? A "virtual" child, was "virtually" abused. Where are the cops arresting the writers of the Lifetime Network?