You do know that fox was sued, and the courts ruled that they are not obliged to tell the truth in their "news", right?
Actually the case your thinking of decided whether or not the term "Fair and Balanced" was subject to trademark by Newscorp. (Fox's parent corporation). Among the court's rulings were that perceptions of bias don't have any impact on whether or not the phrase is subject to trademark.
Or it is possible that you are simply refering to some threat of a suit over slander. Most news agencies are subject to these occasionally. Courts will generally just point out that slander cannot be used to usurp the first amendment. Fox has as much a right to present right wing views as CNN and NBC have to present left wing views.
Editors, and more importantly their owners (http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html) prefer light, cheap puff pieces that don't disturb the citizenry or alert them to little things like the fact that the treasuries of the world are being looted by the worlds wealthy and that oil depletion issues are going to start rocking our world in an unpleasant way in the next decade or two.
Broadcast media is a bit different though. In the UK and Ireland people expect a certain amount of objectivity in the broadcast media. In the UK political parties cannot buy advertising time on TV, instead they each get the same amount of time allocated for "party political broadcasts" that are usually about ten minutes long before the main nightly news, and that's about it. The power of television is such that in the UK they prefer to make sure it's not open to political influence, which is why British people are a bit shocked when they turn on Fox News or MSNBC and see the blatant editorialising on the air.
In Britain you have the BBC. There are other news networks, but the BBC is government funded through licensing (yes, apparently you need a license to have a TV in Britain) and is generally the most popular. As best I can tell the BBC is so politically correct they don't dare run anything that could offend anyone.
Rather than just not being controversial, I would rather just have choices. In America, if I don't like a reporter I change the channel. If I like Fox, I watch Fox, if I like CNN I watch CNN. Bias is only a problem if opposing views are not available. In America we have Fox (right wing), CNN (left wing), and NBC (very left wing). We have national news broadcast , local news subsidiaries, papers, talk radio, and now blogs. If I don't like what someone says on a station, I don't watch them. If I want a different point of view, I watch something biased from the other side. The issue of bias is something that goes way back. America's founders even worried about biased information in papers. They decided it impossible to eliminate all bias when discussing something controversial, so they decided it was best to do the opposite and allow for newspapers to say whatever they want creating so many viewpoints. This was the idea behind the first amendment, allow for a wide variety of opinions.
If you don't like something or don't agree with something, don't watch. I think most people understand that the media is biased.
FDI Foreign Direct Investment flowing into Taiwan, Korea, China, Phillipines, Singapore etc amounted to trillions of dollars.
Indeed, the reason for this is ever-increasingly easy to invest there. More investment there does not equal less here. It is also common for Chinese companies to invest here. This just means we have to ensure it is profitable to invest in the USA.
Further there is no down side to moving HQ offshore, to avoid taxes. Becoming a Panama flag flying ship or any such thing. When Somali pirates pirate ships, it is the US Navy that does the rescue even if the ship is registered in Panama. When there is no down side all the corporations will just go where the taxes are low.
Corporations will do whatever is most profitable. This is an unchangeable reality and rather than whining about it we need to ensure we are the most competitive location. We have an educated population with high worker productivity and a well developed infrastructure. There is nothing magical about China nor is there any maximum market size, we can compete in a global market, and we really don't have any choice.
And we wonder why there are 40 million Americans without healthcare, why our infrastructure is crumbling and why there is no real wage growth in USA.
First of there is a large difference between being without health insurance and being without health care. If you have a heart attack and cannot pay hospitals are legally required to treat you (of course this is partially why healthcare is so expensive, hospitals must raise rates on everyone else to cover this expense). You might not be able to get non-emergency treatment but you will be treated in an emergency (often hospitals can't or won't turn down people in non-emergency situations, but they will be stuck spending hours in the ER if they are not urgent). About half of the uninsured tend to be young (particularly young males) who tend to prefer spending their money elsewhere (or tend to prefer higher paying jobs to ones with good health benefits). This is just their choosing to run that risk and the young tend to be less likely to get sick, but it is a frequent cause of bankruptcy. Insurance is just a risk pool. You will pay more on average with it than without it, but you are paying for the security of reduced risk. The insurance company knows that it is going to make money on average but that some customers will result in a loss. They obviously will charge a higher rate for someone at higher risk, be it a health insurance company charging more for pre-existing conditions or a car insurance company charging more for a driver with a DUI conviction. If someone would rather use their money for something other than purchasing a reduction in risk, say attending college, I don't know that having the government micromanage their finances is better than letting them manage their own finances.
As for infrastructure, that varies wildly based on state. In Colorado we have snow to deal with and our roads are in mediocre shape, in Texas roads are cheap and generally well maintained. I still have no trouble getting where I need to go.
As for wages, we are in a recession. Wages are not growing in most countries. Indeed, the US took a much lighter hit than most of the EU and is in far better shape than most 3rd world countries.
The tax system should be pretty simple. Whenever you earn money you pay a percentage to the government.
We do that, but with about 80,000 pages of tax code devoted to putting you into different brackets, deductions/loopholes, type of income, schedules, etc. Additionally the IRS has its own rules and so do each of the states, counties, and municipalities. Yeah, the cost of figuring out taxes when time and money spent doing so can be nearly as excessive as the taxes themselves.
The easiest solution is probably to just forgo taxing income and simply tax sales. FairTax seems pretty simple, being like 130 pages (most of it is repealing the other tax laws). A rebate to offset taxes to poverty level like FairTax does also seems like a good idea so the system is progressive. All goods and services would be taxed once and only once at the point of final (retail) sale at a rate of 23 cents per dollar. A few things might have an occasional excise (such as gas having an additional tax to build roads, or a tobbacco tax used to pay for lung cancer cost to medicade, makes sense), and investing wouldn't be taxed (as the goal would be to encourage growth of wealth and attract foreign investment. There's little overhead, a good deal of transparency, and your private financial matters wouldn't be subject to a metaphorical anal probe by the IRS.
Ideally the Constitution could be amended, as while FairTax is completely constitutional right now, it would be a good idea to repeal Amendment 16 (which allows for Congress to tax income), and mandate that any exemptions or excises require some sort of supermajority requirement with exices being required to be used to fund specific items.
I admit I am not familiar with GEnie, but AOL being resurrected counts directly as recreating the internet. What is AOL if not a service which allows, for example, someone in CA to access (via a local phone number) services that someone in MD can also access via a local number to them, also allowing them to access each other?
Computers connecting to each other is not automatically creating the internet. No TCP/IP, no standard routing protocols. It would be like a giant ad-hoc network. Quite different.
Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would not exist because the internet is turned off and so there is no way to access it. By returning to a dial-up access model, you recreate the internet.
By your logic fax machines are automatically on the Internet because they have modems. That said, Usenet would experience a very brief revival, but then people would just revert back to their Usenet instincts of hating all new members. Far from revival, it would only serve to put us further from October 1st 1993.
FYI, the internet consists of more than just/., facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc.
First off, most leaders of the left wing imagine a future where scarcity is the norm, largely because they see the consumption of natural resources by the West as unethical in a larger world view. In their eyes, Americans already have "too much" and therefor should have to make due with less. This faux-conservatism, coupled with the right wing's stupid devotion to "free trade", is the underlying cause of this current economic crisis.
America's economy isn't screwed up due to "free trade" nor due to leftarded concerns over consumption. It is a recession. If you haven't noticed in the history of our country we have been in and out of dozens of these. The economy goes up sometimes and down others, it always has, it always will. Yes, manufacturing will die off more and more. This isn't a problem, we are just becoming more and more of a service based economy.
Globalization doesn't mean that one nation will win and the other will lose, assuming that it does means you are making the same economic mistake that people have made since the days of Adam Smith, namely believing trade to be a zero sum game. If I buy a $30 table from China, it doesn't mean the Chinese economy gains $30 while the US economy loses $30, it means I gain a table I value more than my $30 dollars while the Chinese table maker gains $30 which they value more than their table. Both of us have gained something more valuable to us. The $30 wasn't lost value. Money is just a token of value, it isn't the inherent source of it. Money is just an easy way to exchange value for goods and services. It also isn't like the Chinese table maker will eat the $30, they will likely use it to buy stuff (labor, supplies, investments, etc.) and at some point there will be something the US makes that will be exchanged, and even if there isn't something every country is best at, comparative advantage will eventually work it's way in over time.
My first reaction to seeing this article was how long it will take for Fox News and friends to declare open source software as socialist and how comrade Obama has taken jobs away from hard working capitalist programmers. It's really not a stretch given their track record.
foxnews.com's server runs on Linux according to Netcraft.
Terrorizing bankers? That's likely to win them a medal from everyone else...
Yes, I would sure love the person who stole my 401K.
publishing false news stories ranks somewhere between scary and terroristic
Gasp your right. In that case all bloggers should be shot. Markos Moulitsas should be shot twice, or at the very least made into even more of a laughing stock then he already is. All readers of blogs are guilty of aiding the enemy and should be punished by being forced to move out of their parent's basement.
actually STEALING Department of Defense secrets is REALLY scary
That's more cyber-spying than cyber-terror. That being said the NSA and CIA spend millions here.
What I am talking about is called spam, and with the government of the largest spamming country being a bit more pro-active, it would decrease significantly. But the government does nothing, spending money on bullshit, instead of focusing on real problems.
Dude, we are in the middle of 2 wars, facing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, in a deep recession, facing constant terrorist threats, and facing the eventual collapse of Social Security and Medicare threatening everyone's retirement future. I suspect this is a much bigger problem then messages in your inbox saying "EnL@Rge y0r P3n1$".
Sure, I agree that we might not see cyberterror attacks for years yet. Does that mean we should turn a blind eye to our infrastructure and ignore the issue of proper security?
No but societies have scarce resources with alternative uses and realizing how big a risk this presents versus how big a risk other potential problems present helps us assign priorities. If you are worried about someone breaking in to your house, priority number one should be to get in the habit of locking your doors when not using them. Looking at things like motion lights are good, but locking doors is the best problem to solve first. It is all about relative risk.
If New York lost power for more than a week (especially in the middle of winter or summer), there would be real terror. By day four, you'll have fucking retarded amounts of looting. Plus all the deaths from exposure. Maybe the thought of it won't induce terror in us now. But if it did happen, the very idea of shit like that happening in your city would very much induce a terror response. Seriously.
Loss of power does not in any way mean law enforcement would simply abandon the city. I suspect more property damage would occur in a sports riot than in an overloaded power grid. It would be a problem, but police would still be there, and they have probably trained for such scenarios.
I wonder how much power an Xbox (original) running Linux consumes? They are low end by today's standards, and if you want a big enough HDD to store things on it is a bit of a pain, but they are inexpensive and can be set up to run headless. True most of the distros are fairly old.
A softmod isn't that hard to do (assuming you can find the right copy of Mech Assault, Splinter Cell, or 007: Agent Under Fire).
If he's going to use a linux distro, he can use vbetool to turn off the monitor, or apple laptops will let you turn off the screen completely. Then use ssh, vnc, or ard to control the computer remotely.
Heck, a good number of distros don't sleep on lid close by default and just let the screen shut off (though it is getting to be less and less of a pain to get them to when you want them to, most still default to just locking). A netbook (with a USB CD drive when needed) might suit your needs if you set it to just shut the screen off on lid close. Going further a SSD wouldn't be much for storage, but those seem to take essentially no power.
The owners look out for the company and the unions look out for the workers.
Deep down, Union bosses are looking out for themselves, and since they are unlikely to be removed. Voting in union elections is effective, but much less so than customers voting with their feet (which the owner worries about). An incumbent union boss needs to do something wrong for the union to vote him out, a business owner must go further than not being wrong, they much be the most competitive option all of the time or they will be outdone by competition. Voting in union elections work, but it is much slower and incremental compared to a market that changes daily.
Labor unions are about the only thing keeping the middle class alive (albeit on life support) here in the US.
Which is why union membership has plunged and continues to fall? The only real area where unions are growing are public sector jobs. In the private sector employees either vote against them or unionized businesses can't compete (General Motors, Crystler, & Ford). It also cannot do squat for the skilled jobs. Unions had a purpose at one time, but our laws have largely been structured during an early 20th century era of company towns and we haven't really seen any effort made in modernizing unions since the Taft-Harley Act was passed when congress overrode Truman's veto. A national right to work law and a law declaring unions to be for-profit enterprises (which would pay the corporate income tax) that are essentially employee owned businesses designed to negotiate work contracts rather than some government sheltered entity would seriously help competativeness.
As for your poll, I can find plenty that say the exact opposite of what you claim on healthcare. It is just a matter of where you look and the way the poll is worded. The GOP has long trailed the Democrats in total registered voters, but has normally also exceeded the Democratic Party in per capita turnout. This makes perfect sense since people tend to get more conservative as they age thus the young tend to be Democrats and the old tend to be Republicans and for all the fuss about the coveted "youth vote" it should be noted the youth don't generally vote while seniors turn out in droves. This also doesn't mean that once today's seniors die the Republican Party will die. Today's young liberal activist will eventually grow up, get jobs, start families, and start voting Republican. Politics ebbs and flows. Keep in mind, the Democrats may have won stronger majorities in both houses and the presidency in 2008, but 4 years earlier in 2004 the GOP was in a similar (albeit not quit as dramatic) position. The GOP will come back at some point, then the Dems will come back, and so on and so forth. If socialized medicine is implemented now, it can be repealed later, or neutered through reform, and then brought back, and then killed again. Somehow I suspect "GOP is dying" is similar to "BSD is Dying" in that there is far more rhetoric than reality.
More important than any of this is for all the talking points you put forward about this vast right-wing conspiracy of big evil companies, none of it matters. Your welcome to keep demonizing Republicans. Go on, keep whimpering, but the fact is, not a single Republican vote is needed in either house to pass this bill. The Dems have a very strong majority in the House and a 3/5 majority in the Senate. They don't need bi-partisanship, and they know it. Their only problem now is that what the party leadership wants is so extreme they have to get a few members of their own party to support it. Both parties know this and this is why there have been no compromises or efforts at bi-partisanship. Both parties also know there is a time limit, as the GOP almost certainly will gain seats in 2010 (since most of what remains are "safe seats" and not really competitive and Obama will never likely see the majorities he has now again even if he is re-elected in 2012). Barring another 1994, the GOP will likely not gain a majority in either house, but will likely have enough to at least force a compromise in the Senate or introduce moderate amendments in either house. But go ahead, keep kicking that dead horse.
This is, just as the top poster says, anti-vaccine hysteria from people who think their gut beats experts, research, fact. We're the only developed country that has this problem...the rest of the world, hell, even the Catholic church has accepted Evolution, yet nutjobs came out of the woodwork and demanded it's false and constantly challenge its teaching. Then we had the anti-global-warming nutjobs. Now it's anti-vaccine nutjobs.
What's next? Square Earth? We're the pivoting point of the universe? Why is it that it feels like only America has all the idiots who deny the obvious, proven, fact?
Clearly you have never read about issues in other countries. There are skeptics of global warming worldwide, there are critics of the teaching of evolution worldwide (or other widely accepted facts). There are plenty of anti-vaccine groups worldwide.
Additionally there are an ample supply of elitist snobs like you whom feel anyone who disagrees with them must simply be an "idiot" who "denies obvious, proven fact" and attempts to establish this point with strawman arguments.
When you start telling people that they must put something foreign into their bodies at what point exactly does it stop?
When does it stop? Outside of jobs where it isn't required. Most hospitals have their employees sign contracts saying they will remain up to date on immunizations, annual physicals, TB test, and other exams. Seeing as how hospital staff are frequently exposed to a large number of infectious diseases and could easily spread them from person to person this makes sense. Beyond that, the only other people I know of that could be required to receive a vaccine are school students and staff (claiming religious objections or receiving schooling outside of a public school is still possible) and members of the US Military.
Going into crazy paranoia zone here now, but how long until RFID chips (which have already been linked to cancer) will be mandatory for government employees for "security reasons?"
Beyond employees of the CIA, NSA, the US Military, Military Contractors, or other high clearance positions, i find it highly doubtful that widescale RFID implantation will ever be commonplace, and SCOTUS would likely end up killing it (if cracking a fetus's skull is covered under an unwritten concept of "privacy" I doubt mandatory implantation of ID chips wouldn't be).
It will probably open an opportunity for them to end of life XP, which they desperately want to do,
Microsoft created a policy years ago on when they end of life an OS, at least if it will be used in the business world. If a product will end up in the hands of enterprises they promise a few years of "mainstream" support for at least a few years after they have stopped selling the OS. During this phase they will create new features, bugfixes, updates, etc. and generally most new versions of other MS software will be supported. After this, major products such as Windows and Office will be moved to "long-term support". They stop adding service packs, no longer ensure compatibility with new stuff, stop selling new copies (generally), etc. but fixes for serious bugs and security issues are still issued and limited tech support is still provided. Windows XP has already entered this phase. Microsoft will continue to patch it until the middle of the year 2014. Heck, Microsoft is still patching 2000 (though it ends in 2010). XP was released in 2001, so it will have had 13 years of support and was essentially their flagship product for 6 years. At some point Microsoft needs to move on. I can't find support for most 13 year old copies of Red Hat.
Slashdot Mirror
You do know that fox was sued, and the courts ruled that they are not obliged to tell the truth in their "news", right?
Actually the case your thinking of decided whether or not the term "Fair and Balanced" was subject to trademark by Newscorp. (Fox's parent corporation). Among the court's rulings were that perceptions of bias don't have any impact on whether or not the phrase is subject to trademark.
Or it is possible that you are simply refering to some threat of a suit over slander. Most news agencies are subject to these occasionally. Courts will generally just point out that slander cannot be used to usurp the first amendment. Fox has as much a right to present right wing views as CNN and NBC have to present left wing views.
Editors, and more importantly their owners (http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html) prefer light, cheap puff pieces that don't disturb the citizenry or alert them to little things like the fact that the treasuries of the world are being looted by the worlds wealthy and that oil depletion issues are going to start rocking our world in an unpleasant way in the next decade or two.
Your saying the media isn't panicking enough?
Broadcast media is a bit different though. In the UK and Ireland people expect a certain amount of objectivity in the broadcast media. In the UK political parties cannot buy advertising time on TV, instead they each get the same amount of time allocated for "party political broadcasts" that are usually about ten minutes long before the main nightly news, and that's about it. The power of television is such that in the UK they prefer to make sure it's not open to political influence, which is why British people are a bit shocked when they turn on Fox News or MSNBC and see the blatant editorialising on the air.
In Britain you have the BBC. There are other news networks, but the BBC is government funded through licensing (yes, apparently you need a license to have a TV in Britain) and is generally the most popular. As best I can tell the BBC is so politically correct they don't dare run anything that could offend anyone.
Rather than just not being controversial, I would rather just have choices. In America, if I don't like a reporter I change the channel. If I like Fox, I watch Fox, if I like CNN I watch CNN. Bias is only a problem if opposing views are not available. In America we have Fox (right wing), CNN (left wing), and NBC (very left wing). We have national news broadcast , local news subsidiaries, papers, talk radio, and now blogs. If I don't like what someone says on a station, I don't watch them. If I want a different point of view, I watch something biased from the other side. The issue of bias is something that goes way back. America's founders even worried about biased information in papers. They decided it impossible to eliminate all bias when discussing something controversial, so they decided it was best to do the opposite and allow for newspapers to say whatever they want creating so many viewpoints. This was the idea behind the first amendment, allow for a wide variety of opinions.
If you don't like something or don't agree with something, don't watch. I think most people understand that the media is biased.
FDI Foreign Direct Investment flowing into Taiwan, Korea, China, Phillipines, Singapore etc amounted to trillions of dollars.
Indeed, the reason for this is ever-increasingly easy to invest there. More investment there does not equal less here. It is also common for Chinese companies to invest here. This just means we have to ensure it is profitable to invest in the USA.
Further there is no down side to moving HQ offshore, to avoid taxes. Becoming a Panama flag flying ship or any such thing. When Somali pirates pirate ships, it is the US Navy that does the rescue even if the ship is registered in Panama. When there is no down side all the corporations will just go where the taxes are low.
Corporations will do whatever is most profitable. This is an unchangeable reality and rather than whining about it we need to ensure we are the most competitive location. We have an educated population with high worker productivity and a well developed infrastructure. There is nothing magical about China nor is there any maximum market size, we can compete in a global market, and we really don't have any choice.
And we wonder why there are 40 million Americans without healthcare, why our infrastructure is crumbling and why there is no real wage growth in USA.
First of there is a large difference between being without health insurance and being without health care. If you have a heart attack and cannot pay hospitals are legally required to treat you (of course this is partially why healthcare is so expensive, hospitals must raise rates on everyone else to cover this expense). You might not be able to get non-emergency treatment but you will be treated in an emergency (often hospitals can't or won't turn down people in non-emergency situations, but they will be stuck spending hours in the ER if they are not urgent). About half of the uninsured tend to be young (particularly young males) who tend to prefer spending their money elsewhere (or tend to prefer higher paying jobs to ones with good health benefits). This is just their choosing to run that risk and the young tend to be less likely to get sick, but it is a frequent cause of bankruptcy. Insurance is just a risk pool. You will pay more on average with it than without it, but you are paying for the security of reduced risk. The insurance company knows that it is going to make money on average but that some customers will result in a loss. They obviously will charge a higher rate for someone at higher risk, be it a health insurance company charging more for pre-existing conditions or a car insurance company charging more for a driver with a DUI conviction. If someone would rather use their money for something other than purchasing a reduction in risk, say attending college, I don't know that having the government micromanage their finances is better than letting them manage their own finances.
As for infrastructure, that varies wildly based on state. In Colorado we have snow to deal with and our roads are in mediocre shape, in Texas roads are cheap and generally well maintained. I still have no trouble getting where I need to go.
As for wages, we are in a recession. Wages are not growing in most countries. Indeed, the US took a much lighter hit than most of the EU and is in far better shape than most 3rd world countries.
The tax system should be pretty simple. Whenever you earn money you pay a percentage to the government.
We do that, but with about 80,000 pages of tax code devoted to putting you into different brackets, deductions/loopholes, type of income, schedules, etc. Additionally the IRS has its own rules and so do each of the states, counties, and municipalities. Yeah, the cost of figuring out taxes when time and money spent doing so can be nearly as excessive as the taxes themselves.
The easiest solution is probably to just forgo taxing income and simply tax sales. FairTax seems pretty simple, being like 130 pages (most of it is repealing the other tax laws). A rebate to offset taxes to poverty level like FairTax does also seems like a good idea so the system is progressive. All goods and services would be taxed once and only once at the point of final (retail) sale at a rate of 23 cents per dollar. A few things might have an occasional excise (such as gas having an additional tax to build roads, or a tobbacco tax used to pay for lung cancer cost to medicade, makes sense), and investing wouldn't be taxed (as the goal would be to encourage growth of wealth and attract foreign investment. There's little overhead, a good deal of transparency, and your private financial matters wouldn't be subject to a metaphorical anal probe by the IRS.
Ideally the Constitution could be amended, as while FairTax is completely constitutional right now, it would be a good idea to repeal Amendment 16 (which allows for Congress to tax income), and mandate that any exemptions or excises require some sort of supermajority requirement with exices being required to be used to fund specific items.
4chan's mass is enough for a full supernova, it won't stay little and white, it will kill everything arround it, everything.
It generally does this already. Most 4Chan users die after about a month or so of massive brain trauma.
I admit I am not familiar with GEnie, but AOL being resurrected counts directly as recreating the internet. What is AOL if not a service which allows, for example, someone in CA to access (via a local phone number) services that someone in MD can also access via a local number to them, also allowing them to access each other?
Computers connecting to each other is not automatically creating the internet. No TCP/IP, no standard routing protocols. It would be like a giant ad-hoc network. Quite different.
Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would not exist because the internet is turned off and so there is no way to access it. By returning to a dial-up access model, you recreate the internet.
By your logic fax machines are automatically on the Internet because they have modems. That said, Usenet would experience a very brief revival, but then people would just revert back to their Usenet instincts of hating all new members. Far from revival, it would only serve to put us further from October 1st 1993. FYI, the internet consists of more than just /., facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc.
Will the White House hold a press conference if Obama switches to Firefox from IE?
Wait, is that the "change we can believe in"?
First off, most leaders of the left wing imagine a future where scarcity is the norm, largely because they see the consumption of natural resources by the West as unethical in a larger world view. In their eyes, Americans already have "too much" and therefor should have to make due with less. This faux-conservatism, coupled with the right wing's stupid devotion to "free trade", is the underlying cause of this current economic crisis.
America's economy isn't screwed up due to "free trade" nor due to leftarded concerns over consumption. It is a recession. If you haven't noticed in the history of our country we have been in and out of dozens of these. The economy goes up sometimes and down others, it always has, it always will. Yes, manufacturing will die off more and more. This isn't a problem, we are just becoming more and more of a service based economy.
Globalization doesn't mean that one nation will win and the other will lose, assuming that it does means you are making the same economic mistake that people have made since the days of Adam Smith, namely believing trade to be a zero sum game. If I buy a $30 table from China, it doesn't mean the Chinese economy gains $30 while the US economy loses $30, it means I gain a table I value more than my $30 dollars while the Chinese table maker gains $30 which they value more than their table. Both of us have gained something more valuable to us. The $30 wasn't lost value. Money is just a token of value, it isn't the inherent source of it. Money is just an easy way to exchange value for goods and services. It also isn't like the Chinese table maker will eat the $30, they will likely use it to buy stuff (labor, supplies, investments, etc.) and at some point there will be something the US makes that will be exchanged, and even if there isn't something every country is best at, comparative advantage will eventually work it's way in over time.
My first reaction to seeing this article was how long it will take for Fox News and friends to declare open source software as socialist and how comrade Obama has taken jobs away from hard working capitalist programmers. It's really not a stretch given their track record.
foxnews.com's server runs on Linux according to Netcraft.
Terrorizing bankers? That's likely to win them a medal from everyone else...
Yes, I would sure love the person who stole my 401K.
publishing false news stories ranks somewhere between scary and terroristic
Gasp your right. In that case all bloggers should be shot. Markos Moulitsas should be shot twice, or at the very least made into even more of a laughing stock then he already is. All readers of blogs are guilty of aiding the enemy and should be punished by being forced to move out of their parent's basement.
actually STEALING Department of Defense secrets is REALLY scary
That's more cyber-spying than cyber-terror. That being said the NSA and CIA spend millions here.
What I am talking about is called spam, and with the government of the largest spamming country being a bit more pro-active, it would decrease significantly. But the government does nothing, spending money on bullshit, instead of focusing on real problems.
Dude, we are in the middle of 2 wars, facing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, in a deep recession, facing constant terrorist threats, and facing the eventual collapse of Social Security and Medicare threatening everyone's retirement future. I suspect this is a much bigger problem then messages in your inbox saying "EnL@Rge y0r P3n1$".
Sure, I agree that we might not see cyberterror attacks for years yet. Does that mean we should turn a blind eye to our infrastructure and ignore the issue of proper security?
No but societies have scarce resources with alternative uses and realizing how big a risk this presents versus how big a risk other potential problems present helps us assign priorities. If you are worried about someone breaking in to your house, priority number one should be to get in the habit of locking your doors when not using them. Looking at things like motion lights are good, but locking doors is the best problem to solve first. It is all about relative risk.
If New York lost power for more than a week (especially in the middle of winter or summer), there would be real terror. By day four, you'll have fucking retarded amounts of looting. Plus all the deaths from exposure. Maybe the thought of it won't induce terror in us now. But if it did happen, the very idea of shit like that happening in your city would very much induce a terror response. Seriously.
Loss of power does not in any way mean law enforcement would simply abandon the city. I suspect more property damage would occur in a sports riot than in an overloaded power grid. It would be a problem, but police would still be there, and they have probably trained for such scenarios.
Also isn't terror's one meaning to cause, well, terror? What are you going to on the internet, put a scary picture on google.com
You have gravely underestimated the power of goatse.
A softmod isn't that hard to do (assuming you can find the right copy of Mech Assault, Splinter Cell, or 007: Agent Under Fire).
If he's going to use a linux distro, he can use vbetool to turn off the monitor, or apple laptops will let you turn off the screen completely. Then use ssh, vnc, or ard to control the computer remotely.
Heck, a good number of distros don't sleep on lid close by default and just let the screen shut off (though it is getting to be less and less of a pain to get them to when you want them to, most still default to just locking). A netbook (with a USB CD drive when needed) might suit your needs if you set it to just shut the screen off on lid close. Going further a SSD wouldn't be much for storage, but those seem to take essentially no power.
The owners look out for the company and the unions look out for the workers.
Deep down, Union bosses are looking out for themselves, and since they are unlikely to be removed. Voting in union elections is effective, but much less so than customers voting with their feet (which the owner worries about). An incumbent union boss needs to do something wrong for the union to vote him out, a business owner must go further than not being wrong, they much be the most competitive option all of the time or they will be outdone by competition. Voting in union elections work, but it is much slower and incremental compared to a market that changes daily.
Labor unions are about the only thing keeping the middle class alive (albeit on life support) here in the US.
Which is why union membership has plunged and continues to fall? The only real area where unions are growing are public sector jobs. In the private sector employees either vote against them or unionized businesses can't compete (General Motors, Crystler, & Ford). It also cannot do squat for the skilled jobs. Unions had a purpose at one time, but our laws have largely been structured during an early 20th century era of company towns and we haven't really seen any effort made in modernizing unions since the Taft-Harley Act was passed when congress overrode Truman's veto. A national right to work law and a law declaring unions to be for-profit enterprises (which would pay the corporate income tax) that are essentially employee owned businesses designed to negotiate work contracts rather than some government sheltered entity would seriously help competativeness.
As for your poll, I can find plenty that say the exact opposite of what you claim on healthcare. It is just a matter of where you look and the way the poll is worded. The GOP has long trailed the Democrats in total registered voters, but has normally also exceeded the Democratic Party in per capita turnout. This makes perfect sense since people tend to get more conservative as they age thus the young tend to be Democrats and the old tend to be Republicans and for all the fuss about the coveted "youth vote" it should be noted the youth don't generally vote while seniors turn out in droves. This also doesn't mean that once today's seniors die the Republican Party will die. Today's young liberal activist will eventually grow up, get jobs, start families, and start voting Republican. Politics ebbs and flows. Keep in mind, the Democrats may have won stronger majorities in both houses and the presidency in 2008, but 4 years earlier in 2004 the GOP was in a similar (albeit not quit as dramatic) position. The GOP will come back at some point, then the Dems will come back, and so on and so forth. If socialized medicine is implemented now, it can be repealed later, or neutered through reform, and then brought back, and then killed again. Somehow I suspect "GOP is dying" is similar to "BSD is Dying" in that there is far more rhetoric than reality.
More important than any of this is for all the talking points you put forward about this vast right-wing conspiracy of big evil companies, none of it matters. Your welcome to keep demonizing Republicans. Go on, keep whimpering, but the fact is, not a single Republican vote is needed in either house to pass this bill. The Dems have a very strong majority in the House and a 3/5 majority in the Senate. They don't need bi-partisanship, and they know it. Their only problem now is that what the party leadership wants is so extreme they have to get a few members of their own party to support it. Both parties know this and this is why there have been no compromises or efforts at bi-partisanship. Both parties also know there is a time limit, as the GOP almost certainly will gain seats in 2010 (since most of what remains are "safe seats" and not really competitive and Obama will never likely see the majorities he has now again even if he is re-elected in 2012). Barring another 1994, the GOP will likely not gain a majority in either house, but will likely have enough to at least force a compromise in the Senate or introduce moderate amendments in either house. But go ahead, keep kicking that dead horse.
When have unions ever worked against the interests of their members?
When there is money involved for union leaders.
This is, just as the top poster says, anti-vaccine hysteria from people who think their gut beats experts, research, fact. We're the only developed country that has this problem...the rest of the world, hell, even the Catholic church has accepted Evolution, yet nutjobs came out of the woodwork and demanded it's false and constantly challenge its teaching. Then we had the anti-global-warming nutjobs. Now it's anti-vaccine nutjobs.
What's next? Square Earth? We're the pivoting point of the universe? Why is it that it feels like only America has all the idiots who deny the obvious, proven, fact?
Clearly you have never read about issues in other countries. There are skeptics of global warming worldwide, there are critics of the teaching of evolution worldwide (or other widely accepted facts). There are plenty of anti-vaccine groups worldwide.
Additionally there are an ample supply of elitist snobs like you whom feel anyone who disagrees with them must simply be an "idiot" who "denies obvious, proven fact" and attempts to establish this point with strawman arguments.
You send thugs with baseball bats to break up union meetings?
Damn...
Wait is sending thugs with baseball bats an anti-union or pro-union act?
When you start telling people that they must put something foreign into their bodies at what point exactly does it stop?
When does it stop? Outside of jobs where it isn't required. Most hospitals have their employees sign contracts saying they will remain up to date on immunizations, annual physicals, TB test, and other exams. Seeing as how hospital staff are frequently exposed to a large number of infectious diseases and could easily spread them from person to person this makes sense. Beyond that, the only other people I know of that could be required to receive a vaccine are school students and staff (claiming religious objections or receiving schooling outside of a public school is still possible) and members of the US Military.
Going into crazy paranoia zone here now, but how long until RFID chips (which have already been linked to cancer) will be mandatory for government employees for "security reasons?"
Beyond employees of the CIA, NSA, the US Military, Military Contractors, or other high clearance positions, i find it highly doubtful that widescale RFID implantation will ever be commonplace, and SCOTUS would likely end up killing it (if cracking a fetus's skull is covered under an unwritten concept of "privacy" I doubt mandatory implantation of ID chips wouldn't be).
Seriously -- does anybody still listen to Dvorak's douche-baggery these days?
Does anyone else find it amusing you said that during a large discussion about what Dvorak said.
It will probably open an opportunity for them to end of life XP, which they desperately want to do,
Microsoft created a policy years ago on when they end of life an OS, at least if it will be used in the business world. If a product will end up in the hands of enterprises they promise a few years of "mainstream" support for at least a few years after they have stopped selling the OS. During this phase they will create new features, bugfixes, updates, etc. and generally most new versions of other MS software will be supported. After this, major products such as Windows and Office will be moved to "long-term support". They stop adding service packs, no longer ensure compatibility with new stuff, stop selling new copies (generally), etc. but fixes for serious bugs and security issues are still issued and limited tech support is still provided. Windows XP has already entered this phase. Microsoft will continue to patch it until the middle of the year 2014. Heck, Microsoft is still patching 2000 (though it ends in 2010). XP was released in 2001, so it will have had 13 years of support and was essentially their flagship product for 6 years. At some point Microsoft needs to move on. I can't find support for most 13 year old copies of Red Hat.