I wonder if the DHS consciously constructs slippery slopes and has timelines drawn up for when to feed what to the American people, or if they're just really good at accidentally destroying our God-given RIGHTS...
Would someone please point to the section of the US Constitution that gives the government the power to tell me what I can put in my body? And don't give me that "interstate commerce" bunk.
I voted for Ron Paul yesterday. I smoke pot, you would have to be a damned fool would vote for someone who would condone laws that would put you in prison for something you enjoy. When this country was founded, a man had the right to screw his life up any way he pleased. No more.
Sadly, I won't be able to vote for him in the general election. If the Libertarians aren't on the ballot I'm not sure who I'll vote for, but it won't be a Republicrat*.
-mcgrew
*A "Republicrat" is the US' single political party. It has two wings, the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicrat Party wants the things I love outlawed. I'd like to see neckties outlawed, or mandated that anyone who wears one hangs himself with it.!
Justin Wilson, "The Cajun Cook", told this story on his cooking show. A Cajun fellow who'd never been past 5th grade was proud as could be to send his son to college. When he came home on break, the dad asked him "So, wha's ya larn, boy?"
The son thinks for a minute and says "PI r square!"
The dad says "WHAT! What kind o' tomfoolery is they teachin' you? Pie are round, cornbread are square!
No, it's just that the Korean animators aren't very good at mixing paint. And actually there are more than Groening cartoons here:
I decided to walk down to Duff's Pub and get one of their $3.00 pitchers of beer. Yeah, the place you saw in The Simpsons, this is Springfield. The real "one". Groening got a lot of stuff wrong- like, Duffy is fat, not skinny. And there is no "Capital City"- Springfield is the capital city. And only a few of the denizens are bugeyed. And a lot of other, non-Groening cartoon characters live here, too. Olive Oyle, for example, only the real Olive is flatter chested than Popeye's Olive. Popeye lives here too, but afik Olive isn't with Popeye, Bluto, OR Brutus (all of whom also live here). Betty Boop lives here, too, only the real Betty's head is bigger.
Now you all think I'm full of shit. But I'm not. No shit, this is a weird place full of weird people.
If you don't believe me, have a look at this link!
Should we start having more coverage of the communist party's presidential nominee? If I get my name on the ballot can we have a debate about the Jedi party?
If they're on the ballot in enough states to win the election, then why not?
People cast a vote *for* a candidate, not *against* them
I've been voting since Nixon, and only once did I ever vote FOR a candidate for President. I voted against McGovern, I voted against Ford, I voted against Carter (never thought I'd see a worse President, but Bush proved me wrong), I voted against Cartsr's vice president (stupid Democrats), I voted against Clinton, and then I actually voted FOR Clinton, as it looked to me like he had been the best President I'd seen in my lifetime.
From people I talk to, nobody's too happy with any of the politicians. Of course, I don't know very many rich people.
I don't think a woman or black man can't win, just that particular woman and that particular black man.
I have an 86 year old friend who, like me, gets in financial trouble because of whores. Actually he's worse. When he went to decalare bankrupcy, his lawyer flat out told him he would lose his house, the house he lived in that had been paid for.
I was obviously mistaken about Obama's vote on that bill, I guess that's what I get for believing what the local paper says. Obama's no longer on my "snowball in hell" list. His stock just went up with me quite a bit.
I also just now updated my journal in response to your comment, and I thank you for it.
None of them are serious about immigration. They could stop th eillegal alien problem with a single bill: make sneaking into the country a felony with a minimum five year prison sentence for the first offense, minimum fifteen years for the second offense, and thirty years for the third offense, and deport them without chance of legal entry ever again after their sentence is served
hint: maybe he operates in a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate
Or lower electric rates, which would affect his prices a lot more than taxes. Or water, or any of the other overhead a business owner has to pay.
Or maybe he's in China where he can use prisoners as labor for free.
Or maybe he's in Mexico where he has no costs associated with keeping the environment from becoming poisonous.
You math isn't faulty, your reasoning is. If your tax rates drop by a dollar per unit, you're not going to pay your workers a dollar per unit more, you're either going to lower the price of your product to sell more of it, or if you're operating at 100% of capacity you'll take a higher profit.
If IBM's taxes go down it doesn't help me at all, unless I'm buying their product. If their taxes go up it doesn't hurt me at all, unless I'm buying their product.
Who should pay to make sure IBM isn't killing their employees (OSHA)? Who should pay to be sure IBM isn't poisoning MY environment? Not me; I say IBM should pay.
And taxes are taxes; it doesn't matter whether it's income tax or vat tax or sales tax on your supplies or gasoline tax for your fleet. Speaking oif which, health insurance for your employees is part of your overhead (as it's really part of their salaries) and in most nations, the "insurance company" is actually the government, which is why gasoline is so expensive in Europe.
He doesn't stand the slightest chance of making it to the election. Anyone supporting his is totally wasting their effort and cash
I'm not giving any candidate cash. However, I do give them a vote. A vote for a candidate who wants to put me in jail for smoking pot or soliciting prostitutes (you guys are nerds, you should understand the hooker thing) is worse than a wasted vote, it is a completely insane vote.
If you vote for a candidate who wants to outlaw something you enjoy, you are incredibly stupid. Would you vote for a candidate that wanted to outlaw your favorite food? Ron Paul is the only candidate that doesn't want me in jail. He gets my vote!
I'm pretty disappointed in his answer to this, as he's supposed to be the candidate who cares about the Constitution. If the Supreme Court says an apple is really an orange, that's not going to get me to start calling apples "oranges".
IP is not property. I hold hundreds of copyrights, two of them registered with the US Copyright office (Library of Congress) with ISBNs. But I do not own the works I hold copyright to; nobody owns them. Constitutionally, I hold a limited time monopoly on the reproduction of those works. Not the works themselves. The copyright is supposed to get me to make more works, which will pass into the public domain.
It can be argued that my copyrights are my property, but it cannot be argued that I own the works themselves.
I would rather the candidates be asked how long a copyright should remain in effect. Personally I think it should be 20 years. I also think the law that makes singers' and musicians' recordings "works for hire" should be repealed, and I'd like to know what the candidates' views on this are.
-mcgrew Today's journal is, oddly, on-topic. You may find it offensive.
If marijuana and prostitution are opposed by the majority of the populace, then politicians voting against it is called "democracy".
You make some good points. I never could understand why marijuana continues to be illegal, except for the fact that the corporations own the mainstream media. But in the 1970s, pot was going to be legalized "any day now". Nobody I talked to, in any age group, opposed legalization.
But somehow Reagan had his "war on drugs" that targeted ONLY marijuana and most of us stopped smoking it.
This reminds me of the extra-dimentional aliens in Isaac Asimov's novel The Gods Themselves:
The second part takes place in the parallel universe. This part is remarkable because Asimov rarely describes aliens, preferring tales of humans and robots, but this time he goes into considerable detail.
His aliens have three "semi-mature" sexes (known, for their presumably amorphous form, as soft ones) with fixed roles for each sex, and one "mature" form, (known as hard ones).
Rationals - Called "lefts", rationals are the logical and scientific sex. Rationals are identified with masculine pronouns and produce a form of sperm. Emotionals - Called "mids", emotionals are the intuitive sex. Emotionals are identified with the feminine pronouns and provide the energy needed for reproduction. Parentals - Called "rights", parentals bear and raise the offspring. Parentals are identified with masculine pronouns. All three 'genders' are embedded in social norms of expected and acceptable behavior.
In most cases I'd agree, but in this case the subject is the same as comment. It is self-redundant. However, I would have modded it "overrated". Either way, it serves to lower the AC's karma (he's logged in or he wouldn't have gotten the "Anonymous Modifier" and to make the comment less visible.
This comment is offtopic. As is yours. But as I have no need to be a karma whore (Karma-excellent) it doesn't matter. In fact I'm modding myself down by checking the "no karma bonus" box.
Of course, even though it is offtopic a mod may still mark it as interesting, informative, or insightful. I personally wish mods would stick to what fits best.
I think you were going for "funny" but in case you weren't, the first column is base 10, the second base 4, the third base 2 (binary): 10 04 02 --------- 00 00 000 01 01 001 02 02 010 03 03 011 04 10 100 05 11 101 06 12 110 07 13 111
You're telling me that genetics matters more than culture when differentiating semi-coherent social groups?
No. I'm saying that "black" defines genetics, not whether or not your great grandpa was a slave or not. I can't tell the great-great-grandchild of a slave from the great-great-grandchild of a free black person, can you? And besides, there are sixteen of them, if half were slave and half were free (and might not even be of African anscestry) is that person black or not?
The only culture that matters is the culture one lives in now, not their anscestor's culture.
A Libertarian President with a Republicrat Congress/Senate would not be able to talk Congress into writing any laws, and he would veto about everything they passed.
IMO we have too many laws already. I want a President who will VETO VETO VETO.
Note the quotes around "truly shocking idea". Those were someone else's words, not mine. personally, I'd like to see a black man as President, but not Obama. I'd like to see a woman President too, but not Clinton.
It's not that I "saw black people" in Obama's office, it's that there was NOTHING BUT black people there, and it wasn't once but every time I went past. If I saw that behavior from a white candidate, especially a Republican, I'd be just as much against him as well.
'If "business as usual" means trying to foist a rushed, technically inferior and product-specific piece of work like DOS on the IT industry, we're proud to stand with the tens of countries and thousands of individuals who are willing to fight against such bad behavior.'"
"Oh wait, maybe we're not. Not yet. Give us a couple of decades or so..."
IBM has gotten its act together, or at least its rhetoric. When will Microsoft join the rest of us in the 21st century and stop foisting rushed, technically inferior and product-specific work? What will it take, Microsoft's version of the Microchannel?
Hogwash. The corporations aren't paying any more in salaries than they have to. It's their customers who pay their taxes, not their employees. Did you get a raise the last time your employer got a tax cut?
And they're going to charge their customers as much as they possibly can as well.
We do NOT have the highest taxes. Have you seen what they're paying for gasoline in Europe? That's mostly tax.
As to "paying more than 100%, well gee, I thouhgt I was bad at math! A 100% tax rate would mean that all gross reciepts would go to the tax man.
In the primary elections, I usually find the candidate that has a chance of winning the general election that is the most distasteful to me, and registering with his party to vote against him.
First off, I'm a libertarian but not a Libertarian. I don't belong to any political party. By "libertarian" I mean personal liberty; the Libertarians are a bunch of anti-tax pro-corporate nuts who happen to believe the same way I do about some stuff but completely the opposide about other stuff.
I'm 55 years old, turn 56 in April. I served in the USAF from 1971 to 1975, attended SIUE from 1976 through 1979. My little sister's two oldest kids are over 30.
No, other people besides me making money is not a bad thing. Other people abusing people is. That guy flipping burgers at McDonald's creates wealth. His corporate overlords control and aggregeat that wealth. The wealth needs to be controlled, but the corporations are doing an incredibly bad job of controlling it, which shouldn't suprise anyone since their sole purpose is to aggregate it.
The corporates should be governed, not govern.
And If I lack eloquence then why were the Paxil Diaries so popular, and why are the new mcgrew slashdot journals becoming so popular?
And what are you so afraid of that you must remain anonymous?
Slashdot Mirror
Just about everyone in the US has at least two government issued IDs: A driver's license (state issued) and a social security card (federally issued).
My Social Security card says, in bold capital letters just under the signature, "for social security and tax purposes - not for identification".
But it was issued in 1968 when I was 16, back when the only thing you needed an ID for was driving a car and buying liquor.
I've watched my freedom disappear little by little all my life. Compared to my youth, I now live in a police state.
-mcgrew
(oblig "child's garden of grass (album)":)
"Your paperss pleasse!"
"Uh, I only have a pipe, man."
"Zen you vill haff to come vith me!"
I wonder if the DHS consciously constructs slippery slopes and has timelines drawn up for when to feed what to the American people, or if they're just really good at accidentally destroying our God-given RIGHTS...
There, fixed that for ya.
Won't someone please think of the meth addicts?
Apparently they are. And just as apparently, the US government considers drug use to be terrorism. It's the war on [next thing to extend the grasp of government power and take away your consitituional rights].
Would someone please point to the section of the US Constitution that gives the government the power to tell me what I can put in my body? And don't give me that "interstate commerce" bunk.
I voted for Ron Paul yesterday. I smoke pot, you would have to be a damned fool would vote for someone who would condone laws that would put you in prison for something you enjoy. When this country was founded, a man had the right to screw his life up any way he pleased. No more.
Sadly, I won't be able to vote for him in the general election. If the Libertarians aren't on the ballot I'm not sure who I'll vote for, but it won't be a Republicrat*.
-mcgrew
*A "Republicrat" is the US' single political party. It has two wings, the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicrat Party wants the things I love outlawed. I'd like to see neckties outlawed, or mandated that anyone who wears one hangs himself with it.!
Justin Wilson, "The Cajun Cook", told this story on his cooking show. A Cajun fellow who'd never been past 5th grade was proud as could be to send his son to college. When he came home on break, the dad asked him "So, wha's ya larn, boy?"
The son thinks for a minute and says "PI r square!"
The dad says "WHAT! What kind o' tomfoolery is they teachin' you? Pie are round, cornbread are square!
Should we start having more coverage of the communist party's presidential nominee? If I get my name on the ballot can we have a debate about the Jedi party?
If they're on the ballot in enough states to win the election, then why not?
People cast a vote *for* a candidate, not *against* them
I've been voting since Nixon, and only once did I ever vote FOR a candidate for President. I voted against McGovern, I voted against Ford, I voted against Carter (never thought I'd see a worse President, but Bush proved me wrong), I voted against Cartsr's vice president (stupid Democrats), I voted against Clinton, and then I actually voted FOR Clinton, as it looked to me like he had been the best President I'd seen in my lifetime.
From people I talk to, nobody's too happy with any of the politicians. Of course, I don't know very many rich people.
I don't think a woman or black man can't win, just that particular woman and that particular black man.
I have an 86 year old friend who, like me, gets in financial trouble because of whores. Actually he's worse. When he went to decalare bankrupcy, his lawyer flat out told him he would lose his house, the house he lived in that had been paid for.
I was obviously mistaken about Obama's vote on that bill, I guess that's what I get for believing what the local paper says. Obama's no longer on my "snowball in hell" list. His stock just went up with me quite a bit.
I also just now updated my journal in response to your comment, and I thank you for it.
None of them are serious about immigration. They could stop th eillegal alien problem with a single bill: make sneaking into the country a felony with a minimum five year prison sentence for the first offense, minimum fifteen years for the second offense, and thirty years for the third offense, and deport them without chance of legal entry ever again after their sentence is served
hint: maybe he operates in a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate
Or lower electric rates, which would affect his prices a lot more than taxes. Or water, or any of the other overhead a business owner has to pay.
Or maybe he's in China where he can use prisoners as labor for free.
Or maybe he's in Mexico where he has no costs associated with keeping the environment from becoming poisonous.
You math isn't faulty, your reasoning is. If your tax rates drop by a dollar per unit, you're not going to pay your workers a dollar per unit more, you're either going to lower the price of your product to sell more of it, or if you're operating at 100% of capacity you'll take a higher profit.
If IBM's taxes go down it doesn't help me at all, unless I'm buying their product. If their taxes go up it doesn't hurt me at all, unless I'm buying their product.
Who should pay to make sure IBM isn't killing their employees (OSHA)? Who should pay to be sure IBM isn't poisoning MY environment? Not me; I say IBM should pay.
And taxes are taxes; it doesn't matter whether it's income tax or vat tax or sales tax on your supplies or gasoline tax for your fleet. Speaking oif which, health insurance for your employees is part of your overhead (as it's really part of their salaries) and in most nations, the "insurance company" is actually the government, which is why gasoline is so expensive in Europe.
He doesn't stand the slightest chance of making it to the election. Anyone supporting his is totally wasting their effort and cash
I'm not giving any candidate cash. However, I do give them a vote. A vote for a candidate who wants to put me in jail for smoking pot or soliciting prostitutes (you guys are nerds, you should understand the hooker thing) is worse than a wasted vote, it is a completely insane vote.
If you vote for a candidate who wants to outlaw something you enjoy, you are incredibly stupid. Would you vote for a candidate that wanted to outlaw your favorite food? Ron Paul is the only candidate that doesn't want me in jail. He gets my vote!
-mcgrew
I'm pretty disappointed in his answer to this, as he's supposed to be the candidate who cares about the Constitution. If the Supreme Court says an apple is really an orange, that's not going to get me to start calling apples "oranges".
IP is not property. I hold hundreds of copyrights, two of them registered with the US Copyright office (Library of Congress) with ISBNs. But I do not own the works I hold copyright to; nobody owns them. Constitutionally, I hold a limited time monopoly on the reproduction of those works. Not the works themselves. The copyright is supposed to get me to make more works, which will pass into the public domain.
It can be argued that my copyrights are my property, but it cannot be argued that I own the works themselves.
I would rather the candidates be asked how long a copyright should remain in effect. Personally I think it should be 20 years. I also think the law that makes singers' and musicians' recordings "works for hire" should be repealed, and I'd like to know what the candidates' views on this are.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is, oddly, on-topic. You may find it offensive.
If marijuana and prostitution are opposed by the majority of the populace, then politicians voting against it is called "democracy".
You make some good points. I never could understand why marijuana continues to be illegal, except for the fact that the corporations own the mainstream media. But in the 1970s, pot was going to be legalized "any day now". Nobody I talked to, in any age group, opposed legalization.
But somehow Reagan had his "war on drugs" that targeted ONLY marijuana and most of us stopped smoking it.
Perhaps some day...
In most cases I'd agree, but in this case the subject is the same as comment. It is self-redundant. However, I would have modded it "overrated". Either way, it serves to lower the AC's karma (he's logged in or he wouldn't have gotten the "Anonymous Modifier" and to make the comment less visible.
This comment is offtopic. As is yours. But as I have no need to be a karma whore (Karma-excellent) it doesn't matter. In fact I'm modding myself down by checking the "no karma bonus" box.
Of course, even though it is offtopic a mod may still mark it as interesting, informative, or insightful. I personally wish mods would stick to what fits best.
I think you were going for "funny" but in case you weren't, the first column is base 10, the second base 4, the third base 2 (binary):
10 04 02
---------
00 00 000
01 01 001
02 02 010
03 03 011
04 10 100
05 11 101
06 12 110
07 13 111
You're telling me that genetics matters more than culture when differentiating semi-coherent social groups?
No. I'm saying that "black" defines genetics, not whether or not your great grandpa was a slave or not. I can't tell the great-great-grandchild of a slave from the great-great-grandchild of a free black person, can you? And besides, there are sixteen of them, if half were slave and half were free (and might not even be of African anscestry) is that person black or not?
The only culture that matters is the culture one lives in now, not their anscestor's culture.
A Libertarian President with a Republicrat Congress/Senate would not be able to talk Congress into writing any laws, and he would veto about everything they passed.
IMO we have too many laws already. I want a President who will VETO VETO VETO.
Why should they be ashamed to have such a desire?
Note the quotes around "truly shocking idea". Those were someone else's words, not mine. personally, I'd like to see a black man as President, but not Obama. I'd like to see a woman President too, but not Clinton.
It's not that I "saw black people" in Obama's office, it's that there was NOTHING BUT black people there, and it wasn't once but every time I went past. If I saw that behavior from a white candidate, especially a Republican, I'd be just as much against him as well.
The Libertarians were on the ballot in 49 states last Presidential election. IIRC there were 4 Presidential candidates in Illinois.
If you are a war veteran, your fingerprints are in the FBI database already. They have more law abiding citizens already than they do criminals.
"There was a murder? Better check thos Army killers!"
All they have left is ten thoudand bucks? Dammit Jim, I'm a nerd, not a banker!
'If "business as usual" means trying to foist a rushed, technically inferior and product-specific piece of work like DOS on the IT industry, we're proud to stand with the tens of countries and thousands of individuals who are willing to fight against such bad behavior.'"
"Oh wait, maybe we're not. Not yet. Give us a couple of decades or so..."
IBM has gotten its act together, or at least its rhetoric. When will Microsoft join the rest of us in the 21st century and stop foisting rushed, technically inferior and product-specific work? What will it take, Microsoft's version of the Microchannel?
-mcgrew
Hogwash. The corporations aren't paying any more in salaries than they have to. It's their customers who pay their taxes, not their employees. Did you get a raise the last time your employer got a tax cut?
And they're going to charge their customers as much as they possibly can as well.
We do NOT have the highest taxes. Have you seen what they're paying for gasoline in Europe? That's mostly tax.
As to "paying more than 100%, well gee, I thouhgt I was bad at math! A 100% tax rate would mean that all gross reciepts would go to the tax man.
I know, it's Monday. Me too.
In the primary elections, I usually find the candidate that has a chance of winning the general election that is the most distasteful to me, and registering with his party to vote against him.
I vote for the person, not the party.
First off, I'm a libertarian but not a Libertarian. I don't belong to any political party. By "libertarian" I mean personal liberty; the Libertarians are a bunch of anti-tax pro-corporate nuts who happen to believe the same way I do about some stuff but completely the opposide about other stuff.
I'm 55 years old, turn 56 in April. I served in the USAF from 1971 to 1975, attended SIUE from 1976 through 1979. My little sister's two oldest kids are over 30.
No, other people besides me making money is not a bad thing. Other people abusing people is. That guy flipping burgers at McDonald's creates wealth. His corporate overlords control and aggregeat that wealth. The wealth needs to be controlled, but the corporations are doing an incredibly bad job of controlling it, which shouldn't suprise anyone since their sole purpose is to aggregate it.
The corporates should be governed, not govern.
And If I lack eloquence then why were the Paxil Diaries so popular, and why are the new mcgrew slashdot journals becoming so popular?
And what are you so afraid of that you must remain anonymous?