Wasn't Hitler from there?
Yes. He was born in the province of Upper Austria.
And didn't they allow Nazi Germany to just annex them with zero resistance? Maybe they should look at regulating their humans first?
Only after the brownshirts or their Austrian equivalents installed people in the government. The majority of the populace was actually not enthralled by him.
In this case of social media the debate is around the fact that while you have the ability to speak freely the medium you put that speech onto can restrict it, that is their freedom of speech to control their content.
Yes, the social media companies can curtail things... the problem with this is that they want to censor things AND claim the protections of being a "platform" instead of a "publisher." Once you start removing legitimate arguments of a position in order to suppress real concerns or even just personal opinions, you are now acting as a "publisher." As long as any discussions remain civil, you should be able to continue it, regardless of position espoused. Censor the use of certain words... sure. Outside of any kind of academic discussion on the origin and use of certain words or the presence of them in some well known literary works, there is no reason to be using those epithets. I once received a FB warning because I used the old military joke reply with a friend regarding the disclosure of classified information... the one that starts with, "If I told you, I'd have to...." I even
Every workplace misery you ever thought was stereotyped hyperbole right out of a Dilbert strip? In defense contracting it's a reality. Clueless PHBs? Lazy and unmotivated cow-orkers just taking up space until their pension vests? Officious semi-peers and dotted-line managers who will make you go on a quest through the Black Gates into Mordor for them before coughing up the resources or information you need to do your job? 20-year obsolete maybe-supported hardware and software that is not only not fun to work on, but does nothing to further your career? Writing a page (or more) of documentation for every single line of code? Writing user-facing documentation down to the 8th-grade reading level? Multiple days of the week that are 100% booked, and sometimes double-booked with meetings? Getting lost in a maze of cubicles stretching as far as the eye can see? It. Is. All. 100% True.
How much of that of sitting around and twiddling your thumbs is because someone at government agency A and someone at government agency B, both of whom have a significant amount of policy and direction control, decide that they need to pee in their respective corners to mark the territory and then decide who has control over what part of it? How much of it comes from the people assigned to the contract looking at the project, coming up with a list of requirements/needs, turning it over, and then the government agency sitting on it for six months or more saying that they don't have the funding to do it? Or maybe they had someone start the project, make a hash of it, and then need more people to actually do the correct work while cleaning up the mess made by the first group? Never mind the "penny wise but pound foolish" accounting practices used by the government overall (try billing 5 minutes to the wrong charge code and see what happens). I was there too many years ago... and remember the annual refresher regarding billing codes, keeping your current WAM posted at your desk, etc. Most of the problems I saw were because of the people on the government side who had some power and/or influence and tried to exert said power/influence to the detriment of whatever project it was.
Horse trading is part of politics. If you outright ban it then effectively much like any other product the problem will be worked around either in the open or more likely just done in secret, a black market for legislations as it were.
If you really want to move closer to the goal you prescribe then you have to attack the root cause, not the symptom and the cause is gridlock. Nobody wants to pass 10 smaller bills because that'll just never get anywhere so one giant bill it is. If you want people to vote 10 times instead of one we need people in Congress who actually believe in the process and legislation.
Right now when half the legislators have it as their goal to not legislate and specifically talk about gumming up the systems, well, you get gridlock, giant riders and massive omnibus style bills.
I'm not saying that it isn't part of politics... what I am saying is that we keep hearing these bold statements about "needing transparency," yet riders or earmarks are clearly attempts to add opacity when someone tries to say, "That party is against X," because someone voted a certain way because of the riders (or earmarks). My issue is more the reason for why no riders... that being that if it is so important that it must be added as a rider to something, then it is important enough to have a standalone vote, and if you are unable to muster enough interest in a standalone vote then maybe that is something that should be relegated to the states, counties, or municipalities. The giant massive omnibust bills are a byproduct of brinksmanship. One side is attempting to get the other to fund one or more things blindly without going through the proper budgetary process and therefore withholding votes and waiting until the 11th hour with threats of government shutdowns because we all know how one party and its publicity wing will spin it, even when it is their own fault.
Here's an idea: prohibit the practice of bundling separate issues into a single vote. Why is it important to allow Mnuchin and related cronies to purchase TikTok before we vote to provide aid to Ukraine? Why are we linking Ukraine's fight for independence from tyranny to support for apartheid Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestine? Goddamn ridiculous. The United States is no beacon on a hill - it is a morally repugnant cesspool of incompetence and grift.
Amend the Constitution with a single statement: Every law or resolution having the force of law shall relate to but one subject, and it shall be expressed in the title. In short, no riders.
Just remember that this is a double-edged sword, because it will affect legislation you like as well as legislation you despise. Me? I'm willing to let it work that way, because then we'll know just where these politicians actually stand on an issue. Many riders are added to bills specifically to get the minority party to vote a certain way to give them campaign issues... "Oh look! That guy opposes X!" Yet if you dig deeper, the reason that congresscritter voted against the bill was because of a rider, not because of the main subject.
The rules were complex as possible before software existed. *yawn*
Put the events in order:
Now what happens if you simplify the tax rules (take away the first item)? No more need for Block, a subset of Intuit, etc. The house of cards falls. This is why they will lobby Congress to keep things that way because complex tax rules are the foundation of their existence. Get it? Got it? Good.
It is like the SEC has never heard of "burner phones".
Not quite true. Recently after contacting my financial planner on his personal cell phone he answered back from a new number, and explained to me that he was now required that any mobile phone communications related to business must originate from that phone, even if I send a message or attempt to contact him via his personal cell phone because all SMS messages are now logged. Using a burner phone for business would violate whatever regulations were put in place and could get your stock broker license or other financial planner certifications revoked.
To force this on Congresscritters and other government folks would require We the People to dictate to them via an amendment to the Constitution that forces a couple of options on them... must put all securities in a blind trust over which they cannot exercise any control beyond asking the trust manager to deposit or withdraw money, but cannot specify what securities to buy or sell... OR... "Congress shall make no law that affects the people that does not affect themselves equally or more strictly, nor shall they exempt themselves from any law enacted for the people"... or something like that.
And when I first saw SEC, I wondered why the South Eastern Conference was banning phones.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who does this.
That said, nothing makes up for horrible commutes.
This right here. There are some commutes that you cannot pay me enough to tolerate... because while I consider the elevated salary the money necessary to cover the time wasted while commuting, the employer will look at it as a need to treat you like you're the inventor of sliced bread and expect a higher level of performance/results.
But outside those about 2 hours a week, please let me do some meaningful work. Don't waste my time in pointless meetings where all I can do is to undress the intern while the narcissist drones on about how awesome he is.
Don't you just love those meetings that could have been resolved by email?
I still remember at a small company our COO told us that if you are asked to come to a meeting and within the first 10 minutes, if you do not have an agenda or you realize the meeting does not concern you, you were free to get up and leave with no consequences.
Many people with security clearances at national laboratories that work on highly classified projects work from home for 2-3 days per week.
That works fine if your project assignment has some amount of work that can be done at an unclassified level. If you are fortunate enough to work on a project like that, you can do hybrid.
Aside from all of the browser extensions, or using a mobile browser like Brave, the biggest problem is that these ads are intrusive and put in at random times rather than being inserted at the typical "commercial break" spot. Hulu used to allow you to watch a video without interruption if you watched some extended unblockable ads up front, and quite frequently I would do just that when I had a Hulu account. It was convenient and let me watch my video uninterrupted. If YouTube would implement something like this, I would actually be OK with it when watching stuff at home.
Then there's the fact that unless I am on wifi, I get to pay for the privilege of watching an intrusive unskippable ad AND have my video disrupted while using any mobile client or non-blocking browser. I won't use the YouTube app because they don't let you block the QUIC protocol on your phone. If you could block QUIC, a lot of the YouTube ads would be more easily blocked.
Not really seeing the problem with the software companies since the complex IRS rules predate them.
So you are saying you do not understand that the software companies and the tax preparation companies will be lobbying Congress to keep the tax rules as complex as possible so they can keep their fiefdom of tax preparation and deciphering all of these complex laws and regulations.
For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.
