The general tone here is something like: "high-frequency trading destroys small business and jobs, it games the system, it was a cause of the collapse; ergo, this tax will both raise revenue and help solve the HFT problem (volatility, etc...)".
First off: beware a tax that is so oversold. A tiny transaction tax is going to either do nothing or slow the flow of capital. It comes with a compliance cost for everyone (plus a large cost of auditing). It makes capital more expensive and decreases investment (we'd prefer the opposite).
Secondly, a little more humility is in order. It is trite to assume that all traders are gaming the system. Sure, they work in tiny spreads, but by in large, trading facilitates capital flow *to the companies/governments/etc* that can use it effectively.
See Kenneth Rogoff's response to the Tobin Tax here and then hit me with a riposte: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/should-we-tax-financial-transactions/246188/#
How do you cut down the automobile deaths beyond what's being done? Why must one unrelated threat obviate another? Do we avoid trying to cure all other diseases other than heart disease because it kills the most people? Specious logic abounds here.
Let's say that at least tens of thousands (likely hundreds of thousands) have died in worldwide terrorist attacks in the last 5 years. That's likely much, much less than all the other accidental deaths that have occurred but it is still significant and there is no good reason to ignore its impact. It's not acceptable to kill innocent people, and to make large masses live in fear. It's not a "sham" nor is it "irrational" to demand that groups whose very charters demand or allow the killing of innocents cease existing. How offputting of you to suggest anything else. This is not a debate on Iraq or of habeas corpus to G'tmo suspects (of which there is much texture)...you're saying that terrorism is an irrational fear and shouldn't be fought. I thank my atheistic deity that you are not running things.
The question of money, effort, suspect's rights, preemptive war, etc are all up for debate as I pointed out but let's at least accept the core idea of fighting terrorism is a righteous one. Sheesh.
His chess skills are not that strong at all, here is his USCF entry:
12910568 (OR) 2009-05-31 930 895 YUAN, WILLIAM
930 is not very strong at all. Some skills beyond basic piece movement but that's it. Exceptional twelve year-olds can be in master classes (2200+), like Ray Robson.
Anyhow, I hope he focuses on alternative energy rather than Caissa.
As an aside, it's also funny how one goal here in Adam's list is to "increase tax on rich people". Why so punitive? Shouldn't this at least be euphemistically spun as to "narrow the growing gap between rich and poor"? Or to "increase revenue primarily through tax increases on the wealthy"?
At least make it look like taxing the rich is not an end goal in itself...sheesh.
Don't worry, people will mod you up here. We love sanctimony from foreigners if it endorses a member of the left.
The fact that both McCain and Obama are actually good men with decent records is lost in all these posts and now we're told that the world needs Obama and that McCain is an evil old guy...oh and an "oil-crazed, stuff-the-rest-of-the-world-we're-alright-Jack sort".
*Sigh*. The above gets a '5' and an "Insightful". Triteness wins the day once more. What happened to/. ? Why is partisanship winning over substance?
Who's modding this guy's posts up? It's just trite partisan blather. Modders here used to be great at ferreting out valuable posts so I could read them and only them. Now I must parse dozens upon dozens of "Republicans==evil" posts. Let's demand a bit more of ourselves.
What is the point of this post anyhow sir? I admit that you have captured some irony but are you honestly so shallow as to post it? Do you really believe it? If so, you are doing your intelligence a disservice.
We cannot let a man who has been so cozy with the corporate lobbyists become president again. We cannot let someone who says that he can't use a computer because of alleged physical handicaps become President (maybe he never heard of Stephen Hawking). We cannot let a man who has sold his soul to religious fanatics become President (he once said these same fanatics were "agents of intolerance", but I guess that's changed).
I agree that Obama was too cozy with Fannie and Freddy lobbyists if that's what you're getting at. It is too simplistic to blame deregulation on the mess we're in -- the government underwriting of Fannie and Freddy has exacerbated the problem (left us picking up a big bill and their executives win even when they should have lost). The computer comment is absurd (as is most of your post). Another "agent of intolerance" in the same McCain soundbite was Mr. Sharpton yet he is hardly anathema to the Democrats -- it's a political move by McCain to mend these fences to be sure but it's hard to call it more than a detente.
Privatization is good for some things, but not all things. Use your noodle here. And no, private contractors are protecting other private contractors, not generals. It makes sense to avoid turning the military into security guards. It is also patently obvious that the Republican Party does not want to privatize "every function of government". It seems odd to be a slave to bureaucracy. I recommend you go to the DMV for a partial absolution.
Can a modded up diatribe at least contain some half-truths? Is that too much to ask?
Funny how "evil" is applied to mean "the side I don't like", no?
Unfortunately relativism gets in the way of this triteness else we could simply publish an "Evil Index" and vote for the candidate with the lowest number on it.
I don't see the big guffaw over this bill other than the immunity for telecoms (but it does seem odd that a telecom could work in good faith with the government and then be saddled with lawsuits -- why must everyone be armed with a phalanx of lawyers here?). As a precious few posters mentioned, it limits and refines the FISA bill for the most part.
Back to the parent though. Aside from the easily debunked "100 years in Iraq" (it's not what he meant, as he clarified immediately afterward) and "pardoning the Bush administration" (for what?), I'm not sure what your real beef with McCain is.
More to the point though, you say:
Getting offended by things like this are also why the democrats always fail. Politicians can not be idealists. Write an angry letter, but get over it.
Yes we can cry and grouse, but the one thing we should not so easily yield is our vote. If our vote is never in play because we hate the other side then we are but shills. We can't allow our ideology to overlook everything (particularly corruption in my opinion). The ultimate accountability check and balance is in our vote and it should be more fluid -- we'd have a better, more responsive Republic for it.
Perhaps this segues into a multi-party system. I'll let someone else do that.
Of course the "conservative" political label does and should not mean "opposing all change". This is a trite summary. It is true that both "conservative" and "liberal" mean something different than they used to and that their connotations in the US differ greatly than in Britain. It's true also that they have been polymorphed but that doesn't mean that they now should be reduced to their dictionary meanings. They're is more depth and history there that you're missing.
I do agree with the poster that we need some way to overhaul the political language. The Left is embracing the term "progressive" once more and maybe that will avoid the "classical-liberal" vis-a-vis "neo-liberal" confusion. "Neo-con" seems a fashionable way to label someone a crazy interventionist hawk (I disagree with that outlook mind you).
Can we refrain from hyperbole like "carpet bombing" and "killing and torturing them"? Let's get a little perspective here before you accuse someone else of a straw-man.
Everyone accepts that there is collateral damage to military intervention (IMHO this is too often undervalued in the overall cost-benefit analysis) but your casuistry is too strong to warrant a '5'. Also, you are justifying the removal of Saddam by indicating your abhorrence to his installment. So, what is it? Can we only do nothing? Can we intervene in the case of "sick-fscks"? Is all intervention "torture" and "carpet bombing"?
It seems you've set up a paradox: damned if we do, damned if we don't.
There's an error in the executive summary. Of course computers had beaten plenty of GMs in matches prior to this defeat. Kasparov was the top GM (and continued to be until his retirement in '05) and that was the notable part of the defeat -- the fact that he was the top human player not that he was just a GM (of which there are hundreds, maybe thousands, in the world).
Why was the SETI@Home project "infamous"? What did it do that was evil or malicious?
These isn't even a malapropism because you didn't use it to mean "not famous" as most do. Why don't people proofread a single paragraph that goes to millions? (I'll never no...oops, I mean "know")
It would appear that you suffer from the same malady discussed in the article.
If you believe that removing vague, "equal time" legislation and allowing the market to deliver what the marketplace wants is destroying the debate in society, then you are deluded. Note that the website you reference is not balanced and neither is much of the web. Zealots can and will get their sustenance somewhere. Debate is still hearty today, even on the rightward realm of talk-radio.
I would argue that the problem is that we love to debate the intractable questions (abortion, war, coke v pepsi) rather than the nuanced ones that are a better use of our gray matter and have a hope of yielding "common ground".
It is a valid point. 31% of the output and 25% of the greenhouse gas. It seems that the US has a decent ratio of procuction to emissions. I agree with the original poster that citing the 25% doesn't tell the whole story.
- too much leeway in defining curricula - too difficult to fire useless teachers - too difficult to censure/expel misfit kids - too much "money = results" mentality - not enough standardized testing - too much pandering to the LCD (the troglodytes) - too much of the pervasive culture of ignorance that the US peddles in. Kids don't get education from the media any longer. - disengaged parents - subcultures: Black and Chicano subcultures in the US just don't emphasize the importance of school as much as others (Asian/Euro-Americana cultures for instance). It's time that ghetto culture is not sexed up and sold to us on CDs because it doesn't deserve any clout.
All three major network anchors (Brokaw, Jennings and Rather) show strong liberal bias. Rather is the most transparent. Last night he winced often and came up with several longshot ways for Kerry to "still win" even though the numbers ought to have dissuaded him. Later, CBS had a professor named Richard Reeves who claimed on national television that the Bush Republicans push forward an agenda only for white, evangelical males.
An excerpt of a NY Times article (by Nicholas Kryztof) this morning:
One of the Republican Party's major successes over the last few decades has been to persuade many of the working poor to vote for tax breaks for billionaires.
If that quote isn't glib and inaccurate (and Left), then I don't know what is.
I don't wish to cite too many examples, but your argument about a Right Wing cabal controlling
American media falls flat. Most journalists tend to be left of center and if you read a cross section of print media and listen to the talking heads on TV (not just Fox News), you would find that the US does have a good balance -- it just doesn't have a lot of good journalism period.
Most of your points about the benefits of unionism and nationalized health-care should be tempered with their drawbacks (we have to wait almost a year for an MRI in Canada -- most go to the US. Germany's stubborn unions are putting its economy at a standstill (the Economist has several articles ont this)). Anyhow, I don't think that we need more left-wing propaganda (been on a university campus lately?), I think we need a more balanced, skeptical media.
This style of debate is tiresome. You list off a number of political hot potatoes that are likely higher priority concerns than the issue at hand. Then you pretend like your potatoes are tantamount to the only social issues that matter.
If I were to bring up tort reform, a pro-lifer could yell at me "Stop Abortion first!" -- what in the hell does that prove? The government has a lot of people doing a lot of things in a lot of directions at one time. We don't serialize reform. Because it doesn't make your laundry list of issues doesn't much matter.
As an aside, modern day America is not the most self-righteous, most federally pervasive and invasive political embodiment in recorded history. It might be the most capitalistic (likely not either), but the other claims fall flat with even a perfunctory perusing of history texts. Sheesh, even modern China can lay claim to most of these if you prefer to stay in the current day.
Some of their behaviour is indefensible, but certainly their desire to distribute IP without fear of theft/illegal redistribution is a righteous one. Don't throw the seminal argument away just because you take issue with their tactics.
The fellow that wrote this lead-in story, nagora, has a glib attitude toward copyrights and so do several others that post here.
The fact is that there is a large industry whose primary income stream is being threatened by widespread copyright infringement. Would nagora write in the same manner if hundreds of thousands of people were stealing cars but the automobile industry was still doing record numbers (in a particular month no less! Great data point!)
To anyone out here: breaking copyright is wrong. It is certainly less damaging than theft of money or physical property but (if done en masse) it could mean the undoing of an information economy. It is against the law. There is no rationalization (I have heard them all) for doing so. You don't reward a movie by paying for it. You don't punish a movie by swiping it. You simply buy or rent movies you are interested in.
Let's get over our unfounded hatred of the RIAA and MPAA. Surely you would be protecting your business model too if it were in jeopardy. Also, let's remember that June was a good month for movies, so it's hardly a useful post in the first place. As Robert McNamara said in a good movie that I recently paid for: "Get the data!".
If you are such a nihilist as to demonize these folks then offer an alternative to the movie industry. Also, if your scruples are so loose as to agree with this poster, then ask yourself, "what if everyone did it?" before you choose your own path.
I think he would be allowed to be "postjudiced" rather than prejudiced.
Let's get this straight, MS has overstepped the bounds of fair business practice time and time again. I won't bother to bring up examples -- there's one for every day of the week on Slashdot.
Government interference in a laissez faire economy is needed to break monopolistic behaviour.
Slashdot Mirror
The general tone here is something like: "high-frequency trading destroys small business and jobs, it games the system, it was a cause of the collapse; ergo, this tax will both raise revenue and help solve the HFT problem (volatility, etc...)".
First off: beware a tax that is so oversold. A tiny transaction tax is going to either do nothing or slow the flow of capital. It comes with a compliance cost for everyone (plus a large cost of auditing). It makes capital more expensive and decreases investment (we'd prefer the opposite).
Secondly, a little more humility is in order. It is trite to assume that all traders are gaming the system. Sure, they work in tiny spreads, but by in large, trading facilitates capital flow *to the companies/governments/etc* that can use it effectively.
See Kenneth Rogoff's response to the Tobin Tax here and then hit me with a riposte:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/should-we-tax-financial-transactions/246188/#
-Andrew
How do you cut down the automobile deaths beyond what's being done? Why must one unrelated threat obviate another? Do we avoid trying to cure all other diseases other than heart disease because it kills the most people? Specious logic abounds here.
Let's say that at least tens of thousands (likely hundreds of thousands) have died in worldwide terrorist attacks in the last 5 years. That's likely much, much less than all the other accidental deaths that have occurred but it is still significant and there is no good reason to ignore its impact. It's not acceptable to kill innocent people, and to make large masses live in fear. It's not a "sham" nor is it "irrational" to demand that groups whose very charters demand or allow the killing of innocents cease existing. How offputting of you to suggest anything else. This is not a debate on Iraq or of habeas corpus to G'tmo suspects (of which there is much texture)...you're saying that terrorism is an irrational fear and shouldn't be fought. I thank my atheistic deity that you are not running things.
The question of money, effort, suspect's rights, preemptive war, etc are all up for debate as I pointed out but let's at least accept the core idea of fighting terrorism is a righteous one. Sheesh.
His chess skills are not that strong at all, here is his USCF entry:
930 is not very strong at all. Some skills beyond basic piece movement but that's it. Exceptional twelve year-olds can be in master classes (2200+), like Ray Robson.
Anyhow, I hope he focuses on alternative energy rather than Caissa.
-Andrew
No, it's the former.
As an aside, it's also funny how one goal here in Adam's list is to "increase tax on rich people". Why so punitive? Shouldn't this at least be euphemistically spun as to "narrow the growing gap between rich and poor"? Or to "increase revenue primarily through tax increases on the wealthy"?
At least make it look like taxing the rich is not an end goal in itself...sheesh.
-Andrew
Don't worry, people will mod you up here. We love sanctimony from foreigners if it endorses a member of the left.
The fact that both McCain and Obama are actually good men with decent records is lost in all these posts and now we're told that the world needs Obama and that McCain is an evil old guy...oh and an "oil-crazed, stuff-the-rest-of-the-world-we're-alright-Jack sort".
*Sigh*. The above gets a '5' and an "Insightful". Triteness wins the day once more. What happened to /. ? Why is partisanship winning over substance?
Who's modding this guy's posts up? It's just trite partisan blather. Modders here used to be great at ferreting out valuable posts so I could read them and only them. Now I must parse dozens upon dozens of "Republicans==evil" posts. Let's demand a bit more of ourselves.
What is the point of this post anyhow sir? I admit that you have captured some irony but are you honestly so shallow as to post it? Do you really believe it? If so, you are doing your intelligence a disservice.
I agree that Obama was too cozy with Fannie and Freddy lobbyists if that's what you're getting at. It is too simplistic to blame deregulation on the mess we're in -- the government underwriting of Fannie and Freddy has exacerbated the problem (left us picking up a big bill and their executives win even when they should have lost). The computer comment is absurd (as is most of your post). Another "agent of intolerance" in the same McCain soundbite was Mr. Sharpton yet he is hardly anathema to the Democrats -- it's a political move by McCain to mend these fences to be sure but it's hard to call it more than a detente.
Privatization is good for some things, but not all things. Use your noodle here. And no, private contractors are protecting other private contractors, not generals. It makes sense to avoid turning the military into security guards. It is also patently obvious that the Republican Party does not want to privatize "every function of government". It seems odd to be a slave to bureaucracy. I recommend you go to the DMV for a partial absolution.
Can a modded up diatribe at least contain some half-truths? Is that too much to ask?
-Andrew
Funny how "evil" is applied to mean "the side I don't like", no?
Unfortunately relativism gets in the way of this triteness else we could simply publish an "Evil Index" and vote for the candidate with the lowest number on it.
I don't see the big guffaw over this bill other than the immunity for telecoms (but it does seem odd that a telecom could work in good faith with the government and then be saddled with lawsuits -- why must everyone be armed with a phalanx of lawyers here?). As a precious few posters mentioned, it limits and refines the FISA bill for the most part.
Back to the parent though. Aside from the easily debunked "100 years in Iraq" (it's not what he meant, as he clarified immediately afterward) and "pardoning the Bush administration" (for what?), I'm not sure what your real beef with McCain is.
More to the point though, you say:
Yes we can cry and grouse, but the one thing we should not so easily yield is our vote. If our vote is never in play because we hate the other side then we are but shills. We can't allow our ideology to overlook everything (particularly corruption in my opinion). The ultimate accountability check and balance is in our vote and it should be more fluid -- we'd have a better, more responsive Republic for it.
Perhaps this segues into a multi-party system. I'll let someone else do that.
Of course the "conservative" political label does and should not mean "opposing all change". This is a trite summary. It is true that both "conservative" and "liberal" mean something different than they used to and that their connotations in the US differ greatly than in Britain. It's true also that they have been polymorphed but that doesn't mean that they now should be reduced to their dictionary meanings. They're is more depth and history there that you're missing.
I do agree with the poster that we need some way to overhaul the political language. The Left is embracing the term "progressive" once more and maybe that will avoid the "classical-liberal" vis-a-vis "neo-liberal" confusion. "Neo-con" seems a fashionable way to label someone a crazy interventionist hawk (I disagree with that outlook mind you).
Can we refrain from hyperbole like "carpet bombing" and "killing and torturing them"? Let's get a little perspective here before you accuse someone else of a straw-man.
Everyone accepts that there is collateral damage to military intervention (IMHO this is too often undervalued in the overall cost-benefit analysis) but your casuistry is too strong to warrant a '5'. Also, you are justifying the removal of Saddam by indicating your abhorrence to his installment. So, what is it? Can we only do nothing? Can we intervene in the case of "sick-fscks"? Is all intervention "torture" and "carpet bombing"?
It seems you've set up a paradox: damned if we do, damned if we don't.
despicable that this is marked at a '5'.
You're right revscat, it's a tautology in fact.
Or, less cynically, if you wanted to get begin surveillance immediately.
There's an error in the executive summary. Of course computers had beaten plenty of GMs in matches prior to this defeat. Kasparov was the top GM (and continued to be until his retirement in '05) and that was the notable part of the defeat -- the fact that he was the top human player not that he was just a GM (of which there are hundreds, maybe thousands, in the world).
Why was the SETI@Home project "infamous"? What did it do that was evil or malicious?
These isn't even a malapropism because you didn't use it to mean "not famous" as most do. Why don't people proofread a single paragraph that goes to millions? (I'll never no...oops, I mean "know")
It would appear that you suffer from the same malady discussed in the article.
If you believe that removing vague, "equal time" legislation and allowing the market to deliver what the marketplace wants is destroying the debate in society, then you are deluded. Note that the website you reference is not balanced and neither is much of the web. Zealots can and will get their sustenance somewhere. Debate is still hearty today, even on the rightward realm of talk-radio.
I would argue that the problem is that we love to debate the intractable questions (abortion, war, coke v pepsi) rather than the nuanced ones that are a better use of our gray matter and have a hope of yielding "common ground".
-Andrew
It is a valid point. 31% of the output and 25% of the greenhouse gas. It seems that the US has a decent ratio of procuction to emissions. I agree with the original poster that citing the 25% doesn't tell the whole story.
The Economist has a good article on how the legal system is running the schools amok: "Who needs a bad teacher when you can get a worse judge?"
I see the problems being the following:
All three major network anchors (Brokaw, Jennings and Rather) show strong liberal bias. Rather is the most transparent. Last night he winced often and came up with several longshot ways for Kerry to "still win" even though the numbers ought to have dissuaded him. Later, CBS had a professor named Richard Reeves who claimed on national television that the Bush Republicans push forward an agenda only for white, evangelical males.
An excerpt of a NY Times article (by Nicholas Kryztof) this morning:
If that quote isn't glib and inaccurate (and Left), then I don't know what is.
I don't wish to cite too many examples, but your argument about a Right Wing cabal controlling American media falls flat. Most journalists tend to be left of center and if you read a cross section of print media and listen to the talking heads on TV (not just Fox News), you would find that the US does have a good balance -- it just doesn't have a lot of good journalism period.
Most of your points about the benefits of unionism and nationalized health-care should be tempered with their drawbacks (we have to wait almost a year for an MRI in Canada -- most go to the US. Germany's stubborn unions are putting its economy at a standstill (the Economist has several articles ont this)). Anyhow, I don't think that we need more left-wing propaganda (been on a university campus lately?), I think we need a more balanced, skeptical media.
Is this an "age-old" problem? It seems to me that it is a recent phenomenon.
Anyhow, remember to think globally and act globally too.
This style of debate is tiresome. You list off a number of political hot potatoes that are likely higher priority concerns than the issue at hand. Then you pretend like your potatoes are tantamount to the only social issues that matter.
If I were to bring up tort reform, a pro-lifer could yell at me "Stop Abortion first!" -- what in the hell does that prove? The government has a lot of people doing a lot of things in a lot of directions at one time. We don't serialize reform. Because it doesn't make your laundry list of issues doesn't much matter.
As an aside, modern day America is not the most self-righteous, most federally pervasive and invasive political embodiment in recorded history. It might be the most capitalistic (likely not either), but the other claims fall flat with even a perfunctory perusing of history texts. Sheesh, even modern China can lay claim to most of these if you prefer to stay in the current day.
Some of their behaviour is indefensible, but certainly their desire to distribute IP without fear of theft/illegal redistribution is a righteous one. Don't throw the seminal argument away just because you take issue with their tactics.
The fellow that wrote this lead-in story, nagora, has a glib attitude toward copyrights and so do several others that post here.
The fact is that there is a large industry whose primary income stream is being threatened by widespread copyright infringement. Would nagora write in the same manner if hundreds of thousands of people were stealing cars but the automobile industry was still doing record numbers (in a particular month no less! Great data point!)
To anyone out here: breaking copyright is wrong. It is certainly less damaging than theft of money or physical property but (if done en masse) it could mean the undoing of an information economy. It is against the law. There is no rationalization (I have heard them all) for doing so. You don't reward a movie by paying for it. You don't punish a movie by swiping it. You simply buy or rent movies you are interested in.
Let's get over our unfounded hatred of the RIAA and MPAA. Surely you would be protecting your business model too if it were in jeopardy. Also, let's remember that June was a good month for movies, so it's hardly a useful post in the first place. As Robert McNamara said in a good movie that I recently paid for: "Get the data!".
If you are such a nihilist as to demonize these folks then offer an alternative to the movie industry. Also, if your scruples are so loose as to agree with this poster, then ask yourself, "what if everyone did it?" before you choose your own path.
Tell you what: in order to put this thing to bed, I'll drive down West Hastings on my way home and see if there are lights on.
After establishing whether they still have power, I'll then look for a "For Lease" sign around the windows and doorway.
Following that, I'll check the dumpster in the back for anything that reeks of Debian.
After I've collected my fodder, I'll report it to Slashdot and we'll start another thread on this dead issue.
I think he would be allowed to be "postjudiced" rather than prejudiced.
Let's get this straight, MS has overstepped the bounds of fair business practice time and time again. I won't bother to bring up examples -- there's one for every day of the week on Slashdot.
Government interference in a laissez faire economy is needed to break monopolistic behaviour.