I see what you're saying. I was a bit confused when you said these were "not GPL" cases, as they certainly are. I agree that if there is no GPL on the source, then re-distributing it without permission is a software piracy case. However, there is one major difference between open source and closed source copyrighted software sold for commercial advantage: economic damage. The artistic license was tied up for years in court around this issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer
If you actually "read my link" you would have seen a short list of many technologies the US has been supplied by Israel. Cooperating with Iran is just one example of the potential benefits for which America maintains a strong relationship with Israel.
I saw the technology list, and this is not a "big interest" that justifies the billions of dollars spent and interventionist foreign policy of standing up a new country in a hostile region.
Note my use of the word "just". I didn't say there is no basis in truth used for these examples of anti-zionist propaganda, just that none of them have anywhere near the importance ascribed to them.
If they are not important, then why are they mentioned in the link you sent? You called them "non-sense" from "idiots".
Of course one needs to be a strategic thinker to understand these things, and you've demonstrated a weakness in that area.
You have yet to demonstrate what the clear strategy is.
Most every country was confident that he didn't have them and saw through what the US was doing
That's a lot of bullshit. Saddam had kicked the inspectors out years ago. It took the threat of impending war to get him to start cooperating fully. The question wasn't if he had bio or nuclear programs in place, but at what progress, and did it justify a war. Most countries were saying they wanted inspections to continue, not that they believed Saddam was innocent.
there was a unprecedented open ovation in the security council to the French rebuttal to Colin Powell's "evidence"
You mean the one where the French minister says "We are pursuing together the objective of effectively disarming Iraq."? He was arguing to allow inspections to continue, and to use war as a last resort. The real skepticism involved Powell's tying Iraq to al-Qaeda. And what you can an "ovation", I would call a mild amount of applause at the end of his speech. I just watched the video.
Go ahead, try and find some evidence from before the war where people unequivocally stated that they believed Saddam didn't have any WMD. Some might have questioned the lack of evidence, many were against the war, many were for continued inspections, but that's not the same thing as thinking that Saddam was clean.
I read your link. What are these "big interests"? It starts out by saying we need Israel's help to stop Iran from getting nukes. Oh, is that why we've been supporting them all these decades?
it's not just the nonsense you hear about from idiots on the Internet (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast, zionists ruling "amerika", etc.)
Actually it does mention the democracy angle. It also says how America traditionally has believed in a homeland for Jews, going back to John Adams. The Jewish lobby is also strong in America. Is America "run by Jews". No, but they have a significant sway.
Yeah, I was going to say, there's always been non-lethal force. Before there were tazers, there were batons and beefy cops wrestling you to the ground.
Microsoft used to be in the same position. Bill Gates wanted patents for defensive purposes. For a long time they didn't sue anybody over them. That changed.
A few multiplayer games have had something of a "cooties" mode, where you either A) avoid getting killed by the cooties monster, B) become the cooties monster and have to kill someone else.
We called this game "tag" when I was a kid. "cootie monster", really?
You haven't explained how an unestablished, no-name company can get work "based on the strength of our presentation and our past work and that was all". There is NO past work to rely on. To call somebody "unprofessional" because they don't have the stature to act like an established company is ridiculous and self-serving.
But that's what I mean about professionalism. If you're a professional, you respect the profession. You compete; you don't go cutting your competitors' throats, because even though you might be the last one standing, your throat gets cut in the end.
You're saying this as an established company. And just how did the company get established without showing anybody anything up front? "You hired us based on the strength of our presentation and our past work and that was all."
Everybody has to get their foot in the door. People just forget what it was like when they started out, and then once they make it big resent the "non-professionals" who are willing to do more to get the job.
I'm not sure if you're young or trying to revise history, but Quayle fumbled and came across as a newcomer to politics... But he at least knew the basics..
You've got to be kidding me. The running joke was about people praying that nothing happened to the President. Nobody thought Quayle was qualified to step into the President position should something happen.
I mean, that's awkward, but you at least understand what he was trying to say.
I read it multiple times, and I still don't know what he was trying to say, unless it was "the Holocaust was bad". Well thanks, I really needed the confirmation.
Quayle at least knew about American foreign policies.
It's sad that you just can't open your eyes and see just how badly these scientists were behaving in plain sight, and even worse, how the scientific community, instead of condemning bad science, actually defend it. You can't just fudge the data when it doesn't show what you want, and then present this in a graph as evidence that temperatures are rising, and say "See, we have two sources of data in agreement! Oh, read the fine print for technical details."
There's NO excuse for fudging the data. It's just confirmation bias and political advocacy. Even the latest whitewash report that exonerated the scientists did mildly rebuke them for the graph.
By the way, that Feynman clip on YouTube that somebody else pointed you to is priceless. It's unfortunate that we don't have a modern day Feynman that the public would trust to cut through the climate bullshit. It's sad to see people defending this bullshit.
Re:No successful terrorist attacks since 9/11?
on
Top Secret America
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· Score: 1
The word "terrorism" is so over-applied as to be completely indistinguishable from any act of war. Why is it that a Muslim who attacks soldiers is called a terrorist, and when the United States attacks militants, it's just war? If the United States infiltrates the Taliban, which leads to a drone attack, is this terrorism too?
The anthrax attacks, definitely terrorism. The 9/11 attacks, yes terrorism. Shooting soldiers, now why is this terrorism? The guy was just a traitor, and should be executed for Treason.
The technology is already there. In fact, they DoE did an excellent study in 2006:
And that study you quote says the number one non-technical barrier to solar power is the high cost, especially the initial cost. The hidden costs to the environment, energy independence, etc, even if you include wars and terrorism, will have to be huge to make up for the multipliers involved, and is not so easy to account for. So it's a very hard sell to switch over while oil is still so much cheaper. I just don't see the political will of the people. They won't pay for it, and government subsidies do not account for why oil is so much cheaper.
And how did America become so dependent on cars? Because cars are less efficient than mass transit and therefore more profitable.
Consumers like cars. Mass transit, even at it's best, doesn't replace the value of a car. I think you're very biased to discount the consumer-driven demand.
No, I didn't Google for the most profitable. I picked the company explicitly mentioned in the summary, who also happen to be the most vociferous about defending their rights to these fees. When you actually want to provide some evidence like I did, instead of just defending the random rantings of shallow Slashdotters with absolutely zero evidence, let me know.
Please be more specific, as you are claiming some fault in my statement, but not even quoting a statement where I asserted anything specific.
The first poster said: "Those 'fees' are not taxed, hence uncle sam is missing out on billions in tax revenue.."
The second poster said "Not taxed?? It's taxed twice, once as corporate profits, and then again on distributions / capital gains."
You said: "Or are you just an anti-corporate tax nutter that chimes in even when your comments are factually incorrect (as in this case, they are essentially untaxed)?"
I asked: "why you think these fees are untaxed, besides from the unsourced statement from a random Slashdotter."
"Spirit earned a record $83 million profit in 2009 alone. Spirit's ranking as the most profitable airline by pre-tax margin in the United States in 2009 is based on the Department of Transportation's Form 41 data. Pre-tax margin, which is the profit made by a company calculated as a percentage of sales before taxes, is an important measure of the profitability of a company."http://avstop.com/news_june_2010/spirit_airlines_misrepresent_contract_proposal.htm
So I ask again, where are your "facts" that say these fees aren't part of their taxed income? I don't know if they have capital gains or dividends, but the original poster was clearly the nutter here, and you ended up supporting his unsourced claims without any sources of your own.
Which in my eyes is fraud, and should result in expelling everyone involved from the country until the end of his life, making it punishable by death to ever enter the country or try to directly or indirectly start or take over a business in the country.
Why do so many people never get, that you can just go "MY COUNTRY, MY RULES!".
Because people like you are petty tyrants, and most don't want to live under your rules. Maybe you should move to some authoritarian country where you'd be much happier.
It is entirely discriminatory. People with disabilities cost airlines a lot more per person than tall people, but charging extra for them is rightly illegal.
This is just the entitlement mentality run amok, where everybody is "equal", no matter what it costs everybody else to subsidize that "equality".
I find it interesting that you ignore web browsing and third party apps
I agree. Having one big screen was the main innovation of the iPhone, which is great for web browsing and apps, and goes way beyond "ooh, shiny". BlackBerry phones, with the dedicated keyboard, are definitely better for email.
Do you remember the coming-out interview she had with Charlie Gibson? He clearly had it in for her with his paternalistic tone and silly gotcha about the "Bush Doctrine". That got the ball rolling and the media picked up on it from there. This article sums it up nicely.
She self-destructed by whiffing on the softball questions tossed to by Katie Couric
On that I agree, not being able to answer the question of what newspapers she read was cringe-worthy. She really should have just been honest, and stated what was obvious: She was focused on local politics, not national, and that she was going to have to ramp up in a hurry. The media would have pounced on that too, but at least it would have been refreshingly candid, and as a vice president candidate something I suspect many voters could have forgiven her for if they agreed with her politics and job as governor of Alaska.
McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.
I disagree. She certainly wasn't any worse a choice than Quayle, and the first Bush got elected with him. The independent voters had already broken for Obama by the time McCain picked her. McCain wasn't going to win with a traditional VP pick. I think it was a smart choice, and for awhile it worked. The funny thing is Palin is still relevant in politics. This has worked out pretty well for her.
Bush of course just wanted to "Get Saddam" and couldn't stand waiting for diplomacy and inspections.
Bush also had another valid point. How long could he be expected to keep an army poised for invasion at Iraq's border? Because that's what it took to finally get cooperation from Saddam. I agree with your point about Saddam, he made a career out of being a strongman. It was the dangerous game he played, and eventually he lost.
why does Monsanto fight so hard and spend so much money and lobby so much to prevent non-GMO food producers from labeling their products as such?
Do they? I do know that there have been people lobbying to have GMO foods to be labelled as such, and this is what pops up first when I do a web search. Can you provide a citation that shows labelling food as non-GMO is against the law, or where Monsanto has lobbied to make it so?
Except for the testimony of the UN weapons inspectors
You should try reading the report right before the invasion. There wasn't a smoking gun, and the inspectors wanted more time, but they also noted that Saddam had to be dragged kicking and screaming the whole way to let the inspectors do their work. Saddam didn't do himself any favors by acting like he had something to hide.
Slashdot Mirror
I see what you're saying. I was a bit confused when you said these were "not GPL" cases, as they certainly are. I agree that if there is no GPL on the source, then re-distributing it without permission is a software piracy case. However, there is one major difference between open source and closed source copyrighted software sold for commercial advantage: economic damage. The artistic license was tied up for years in court around this issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer
If you actually "read my link" you would have seen a short list of many technologies the US has been supplied by Israel. Cooperating with Iran is just one example of the potential benefits for which America maintains a strong relationship with Israel.
I saw the technology list, and this is not a "big interest" that justifies the billions of dollars spent and interventionist foreign policy of standing up a new country in a hostile region.
Note my use of the word "just". I didn't say there is no basis in truth used for these examples of anti-zionist propaganda, just that none of them have anywhere near the importance ascribed to them.
If they are not important, then why are they mentioned in the link you sent? You called them "non-sense" from "idiots".
Of course one needs to be a strategic thinker to understand these things, and you've demonstrated a weakness in that area.
You have yet to demonstrate what the clear strategy is.
Most every country was confident that he didn't have them and saw through what the US was doing
That's a lot of bullshit. Saddam had kicked the inspectors out years ago. It took the threat of impending war to get him to start cooperating fully. The question wasn't if he had bio or nuclear programs in place, but at what progress, and did it justify a war. Most countries were saying they wanted inspections to continue, not that they believed Saddam was innocent.
there was a unprecedented open ovation in the security council to the French rebuttal to Colin Powell's "evidence"
You mean the one where the French minister says "We are pursuing together the objective of effectively disarming Iraq."? He was arguing to allow inspections to continue, and to use war as a last resort. The real skepticism involved Powell's tying Iraq to al-Qaeda. And what you can an "ovation", I would call a mild amount of applause at the end of his speech. I just watched the video.
Go ahead, try and find some evidence from before the war where people unequivocally stated that they believed Saddam didn't have any WMD. Some might have questioned the lack of evidence, many were against the war, many were for continued inspections, but that's not the same thing as thinking that Saddam was clean.
America has big interests in Israel
I read your link. What are these "big interests"? It starts out by saying we need Israel's help to stop Iran from getting nukes. Oh, is that why we've been supporting them all these decades?
it's not just the nonsense you hear about from idiots on the Internet (AIPAC money, needing a democracy in the mideast, zionists ruling "amerika", etc.)
Actually it does mention the democracy angle. It also says how America traditionally has believed in a homeland for Jews, going back to John Adams. The Jewish lobby is also strong in America. Is America "run by Jews". No, but they have a significant sway.
Yeah, I was going to say, there's always been non-lethal force. Before there were tazers, there were batons and beefy cops wrestling you to the ground.
Microsoft used to be in the same position. Bill Gates wanted patents for defensive purposes. For a long time they didn't sue anybody over them. That changed.
Busybox cases are not GPL cases, they are straightforward software piracy cases
What are you talking about? BusyBox developers sued to enforce the GPL (release of source code).
A few multiplayer games have had something of a "cooties" mode, where you either A) avoid getting killed by the cooties monster, B) become the cooties monster and have to kill someone else.
We called this game "tag" when I was a kid. "cootie monster", really?
You haven't explained how an unestablished, no-name company can get work "based on the strength of our presentation and our past work and that was all". There is NO past work to rely on. To call somebody "unprofessional" because they don't have the stature to act like an established company is ridiculous and self-serving.
But that's what I mean about professionalism. If you're a professional, you respect the profession. You compete; you don't go cutting your competitors' throats, because even though you might be the last one standing, your throat gets cut in the end.
You're saying this as an established company. And just how did the company get established without showing anybody anything up front? "You hired us based on the strength of our presentation and our past work and that was all."
Everybody has to get their foot in the door. People just forget what it was like when they started out, and then once they make it big resent the "non-professionals" who are willing to do more to get the job.
I'm not sure if you're young or trying to revise history, but Quayle fumbled and came across as a newcomer to politics... But he at least knew the basics..
You've got to be kidding me. The running joke was about people praying that nothing happened to the President. Nobody thought Quayle was qualified to step into the President position should something happen.
I mean, that's awkward, but you at least understand what he was trying to say.
I read it multiple times, and I still don't know what he was trying to say, unless it was "the Holocaust was bad". Well thanks, I really needed the confirmation.
Quayle at least knew about American foreign policies.
And you say this based on what evidence?
It's sad that you just can't open your eyes and see just how badly these scientists were behaving in plain sight, and even worse, how the scientific community, instead of condemning bad science, actually defend it. You can't just fudge the data when it doesn't show what you want, and then present this in a graph as evidence that temperatures are rising, and say "See, we have two sources of data in agreement! Oh, read the fine print for technical details."
There's NO excuse for fudging the data. It's just confirmation bias and political advocacy. Even the latest whitewash report that exonerated the scientists did mildly rebuke them for the graph.
By the way, that Feynman clip on YouTube that somebody else pointed you to is priceless. It's unfortunate that we don't have a modern day Feynman that the public would trust to cut through the climate bullshit. It's sad to see people defending this bullshit.
The word "terrorism" is so over-applied as to be completely indistinguishable from any act of war. Why is it that a Muslim who attacks soldiers is called a terrorist, and when the United States attacks militants, it's just war? If the United States infiltrates the Taliban, which leads to a drone attack, is this terrorism too?
The anthrax attacks, definitely terrorism. The 9/11 attacks, yes terrorism. Shooting soldiers, now why is this terrorism? The guy was just a traitor, and should be executed for Treason.
The technology is already there. In fact, they DoE did an excellent study in 2006:
And that study you quote says the number one non-technical barrier to solar power is the high cost, especially the initial cost. The hidden costs to the environment, energy independence, etc, even if you include wars and terrorism, will have to be huge to make up for the multipliers involved, and is not so easy to account for. So it's a very hard sell to switch over while oil is still so much cheaper. I just don't see the political will of the people. They won't pay for it, and government subsidies do not account for why oil is so much cheaper.
And how did America become so dependent on cars? Because cars are less efficient than mass transit and therefore more profitable.
Consumers like cars. Mass transit, even at it's best, doesn't replace the value of a car. I think you're very biased to discount the consumer-driven demand.
No, I didn't Google for the most profitable. I picked the company explicitly mentioned in the summary, who also happen to be the most vociferous about defending their rights to these fees. When you actually want to provide some evidence like I did, instead of just defending the random rantings of shallow Slashdotters with absolutely zero evidence, let me know.
Please be more specific, as you are claiming some fault in my statement, but not even quoting a statement where I asserted anything specific.
The first poster said: "Those 'fees' are not taxed, hence uncle sam is missing out on billions in tax revenue.."
The second poster said "Not taxed?? It's taxed twice, once as corporate profits, and then again on distributions / capital gains."
You said: "Or are you just an anti-corporate tax nutter that chimes in even when your comments are factually incorrect (as in this case, they are essentially untaxed)?"
I asked: "why you think these fees are untaxed, besides from the unsourced statement from a random Slashdotter."
A simple Google search turns up:
"Spirit earned a record $83 million profit in 2009 alone. Spirit's ranking as the most profitable airline by pre-tax margin in the United States in 2009 is based on the Department of Transportation's Form 41 data. Pre-tax margin, which is the profit made by a company calculated as a percentage of sales before taxes, is an important measure of the profitability of a company." http://avstop.com/news_june_2010/spirit_airlines_misrepresent_contract_proposal.htm
So I ask again, where are your "facts" that say these fees aren't part of their taxed income? I don't know if they have capital gains or dividends, but the original poster was clearly the nutter here, and you ended up supporting his unsourced claims without any sources of your own.
Which in my eyes is fraud, and should result in expelling everyone involved from the country until the end of his life, making it punishable by death to ever enter the country or try to directly or indirectly start or take over a business in the country.
Why do so many people never get, that you can just go "MY COUNTRY, MY RULES!".
Because people like you are petty tyrants, and most don't want to live under your rules. Maybe you should move to some authoritarian country where you'd be much happier.
It is entirely discriminatory. People with disabilities cost airlines a lot more per person than tall people, but charging extra for them is rightly illegal.
This is just the entitlement mentality run amok, where everybody is "equal", no matter what it costs everybody else to subsidize that "equality".
So I'd be interested in your valuation of the amount of taxes paid on these fees.
I'd be interested in why you think these fees are untaxed, besides from the unsourced statement from a random Slashdotter.
I find it interesting that you ignore web browsing and third party apps
I agree. Having one big screen was the main innovation of the iPhone, which is great for web browsing and apps, and goes way beyond "ooh, shiny". BlackBerry phones, with the dedicated keyboard, are definitely better for email.
Hint: Original story, by Bloomberg.
Uh, the media did not tear her apart.
Do you remember the coming-out interview she had with Charlie Gibson? He clearly had it in for her with his paternalistic tone and silly gotcha about the "Bush Doctrine". That got the ball rolling and the media picked up on it from there. This article sums it up nicely.
She self-destructed by whiffing on the softball questions tossed to by Katie Couric
On that I agree, not being able to answer the question of what newspapers she read was cringe-worthy. She really should have just been honest, and stated what was obvious: She was focused on local politics, not national, and that she was going to have to ramp up in a hurry. The media would have pounced on that too, but at least it would have been refreshingly candid, and as a vice president candidate something I suspect many voters could have forgiven her for if they agreed with her politics and job as governor of Alaska.
McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.
I disagree. She certainly wasn't any worse a choice than Quayle, and the first Bush got elected with him. The independent voters had already broken for Obama by the time McCain picked her. McCain wasn't going to win with a traditional VP pick. I think it was a smart choice, and for awhile it worked. The funny thing is Palin is still relevant in politics. This has worked out pretty well for her.
Bush of course just wanted to "Get Saddam" and couldn't stand waiting for diplomacy and inspections.
Bush also had another valid point. How long could he be expected to keep an army poised for invasion at Iraq's border? Because that's what it took to finally get cooperation from Saddam. I agree with your point about Saddam, he made a career out of being a strongman. It was the dangerous game he played, and eventually he lost.
why does Monsanto fight so hard and spend so much money and lobby so much to prevent non-GMO food producers from labeling their products as such?
Do they? I do know that there have been people lobbying to have GMO foods to be labelled as such, and this is what pops up first when I do a web search. Can you provide a citation that shows labelling food as non-GMO is against the law, or where Monsanto has lobbied to make it so?
Except for the testimony of the UN weapons inspectors
You should try reading the report right before the invasion. There wasn't a smoking gun, and the inspectors wanted more time, but they also noted that Saddam had to be dragged kicking and screaming the whole way to let the inspectors do their work. Saddam didn't do himself any favors by acting like he had something to hide.