Posts by Armando 123 1116 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2011
No, libertarians are freedom obsessed zanies -- people like Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Madison, Mason, Herbert Spencer, and H.K. Mencken provide good examples of libertarianism before it was called that.
The basic idea is that some government is necessary but government's tendency to grow for its own benefit at the expense of others means that government needs to be kept in check.
Take a good hard look at government anywhere and sensible people some something in it.
Not only that, but if someone notices that people can access documents they shouldn't, they are required to notify the appropriate people, per a pre-defined protocol, as soon as possible.
I've done work on military projects, other government contracts, HIPAA data, worked at a place which the FTC had required to be split into two companies for anti-trust reasons, and worked with firms pursuing lawsuits. While I don't know the specifics of the rules in this case, I do know enough to know that Samsung is in deep trouble. Judges and other legal authorities do not take kindly to protocol issues when they are unintentional. They tend to view you on how you react to such things. In Samsung's case, it looks like it was with full knowledge and that they are being uncooperative. They could be in for a long, expensive court battle.
I've seen a lot of hand-wringing over who will report wrongdoings and be a watchdog when newspapers go away. However, in my fair city, the radio and tv stations have been doing a much better job of this in the nearly twenty years since the newspaper was sold to a national conglomerate.
All we get nowadays are articles sucking up to rich people, shouting about the governor trying to be fiscally responsible in an economic downturn, and demanding higher taxes on working people to pay for bigger government. Given the somewhat conservative/libertarian leanings the city has, they aren't exactly targeting the largest market.
Newspapers had their day, as did buggy manufacturers and hula hoops. They are being killed by craigslist, the web (particularly Google and other news conglomerators), and so on. Hell, they never even adjusted to CNN delivering national and international news, let alone the internet. Better to let them die than to keep the pain going with life support.
"neither are fast hatchbacks"
Sorry, no. My wife just got a new car so I just started driving my old VW Golf after years in an SUV. A ten year old Golf is still a damn good car and fun to drive compared to a land barge, and now that we live in a city with traffic circles and roundabouts everywhere I am tempted to dirt-track it when dropping off the boys at school.
As an old f@rt, I hope I never get over a good, sporty hatchback. I can still haul the kids and dogs but still have fun when the mood hits. (And the diesel engine is still getting 44MPG aftter ten years.)
" Harvard Campaign, a fundraising drive designed to raise $6.5bn for the Ivy League university"
Harvard is the best funded academic institution in the world, sitting on hundreds of billions, enough cash to fund a third world nation for decades or to buy a US Senator for two weeks. The last thing this world needs is more money to go to the one institution who sends people to Wall Street, the US government, and Hollywood.
California has one of the highest tax rates on businesses in the US. The "too much democracy" argument is one that I often here from friends in California who work in the public schools, etc, ie in the government system.
If anything, that has exposed the problem in California. The government sector has grown quicker than the private sector, by a large margin. (Recently I saw a report on this for various US states, I think at The Cato Institute site, and it was pretty interesting.) Some of the citiies in California have already had to be bailed out, and the state isn't going to be that far behind.
"If there's one thing the average bank worker does, it's work far, far harder than workers from most industries."
I wouldn't say it's harder per se -- I used to work on farms and as a lumberjack, so I am aware of what hard work is -- but the jobs in banking do require a lot of work, brain power, knowledge, and integrity. Finding that combination isn't simple and there is a demand in many industries for it, so it's not surprising that people in banking make good money.
"The. Greeks are still complaining, even after their debts have been paid off by someone else?"
Well of course they are. Until they have to pay for it THEMSELVES, they won't understand what the real issue is.
I see the same thing in the US with California (which is approaching Greece's state thanks to similar governmental policies) and places like Detroit (ditto).
They'll expect all us (relatively) fiscally responsible places to bail them out, and I don't see why. You made your choices, live with them. Or is asking these cretins to behave like adults too much to ask?
"Of course, the proper fix would be to adjust the rotation of the Earth to stay in sync with the atomic clocks!"
Mmmmyessssss .... Going to be a bit difficult getting the moon to agree to that, isn't it? That sort of energy would require burning everything from fossil fuels to orphans.
If you can advertise without mentioning the competition by name, all the better. You'll notice that the ads for Chrome, iPhone, and many cars do not mention the competition. Apple did with their "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads because MS had over 90% of the personal computer market, and it was a market which had flattened; the only way to grow was to pull in frustrated MS users.
MS seems to keep sniping at Apple, which shows 1) they aren't dominant, 2) they aren't confident, 3) they don't get it, or 4) some combination thereof.
Allow people who pursue nuisance lawsuits to be countersued. In the US, you can sue without fear of reprisal, providing you don't falsify evidence, lie under oath, etc (ie, make the legal system seem like the ass it is). So one can sue the phone company just to piss off the phone company and get them bad press, then just withdraw the suit and go away, or settle out of court because it will be cheaper for them. Now, if the sue-er and the sue-er's lawyer have to face risk if the court deems the case ridiculous, you'd cut down on a lot of this. Likewise, if a group of non-lawyers were able to remove lawyers from practicing (the ABA is a joke), that would cut it down even further.
As someone with a useless liberal arts degree from a pompous college, I am naturally a complete wanker with a sad life who has nothing better to do than to poke my nose into other people's business and be offended for no good reason. Therefore, i will proceed to scream my offense at Google promoting obesity and I'm going to sue and the louder I scream, the more likely I am to get a show on ESPN.
Insincerely,
Myron Pantywayste
... getting rid of Ballmer and replacing him with someone more competent would be worth a billion dollars to the shareholders. I've been saying this for a decade, about the time Longhorn slouched into XP. MS' competitors might be having an "oh crap" reaction to this.
He always struck me as a phone company bellhead or a Xerox tonerhead. He couldn't think outside the box, partly because he wasn't really aware of the box in the first place.
Possibly, but there are differences in marekts, economies, and "culture" (not the right word, maybe "weltanschauung" is better). China was technologically WAY ahead of the west a thousand years ago. But it was more sparks of light in the dark rather than a building of light, so that by 1500, European cannon could threaten the Chinese coast.
Innovation is important, but it's not everything you need for advancement.
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