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Comment Re:It is time to get up one way or the other (Score 2) 1089

In the U.S., you have plenty to choose from in the first round. However, most Americans who do vote don't bother to vote until the final round. At which point everyone knows that one of two people is going to win (although there are often many more on the ballot). They than complain about the fact that they only have two choices.
Of course, if they would bother to vote in the primaries, they would have more choices. In addition, because so few people actually vote in the primaries, they could easily tip the vote at that stage to someone different.

Comment Re:We'll know if its a good bill.. (Score 1) 347

I am saying that if the Senate can remove the entire contents of a bill (including the title) and replace them with completely different contents, on a completely different subject, and it still meets the "originated in the House" provision of the Constitution, the Constitution no longer means anything at all. Of course, considering many other things that have happened since 2012, I don't think the U.S. Constitution actually matters as far as what the U.S. government does any longer.

Comment Re:$100 million (Score 3) 95

Since when have government run schools been "free market". In a free market, those who benefit from the purchase choose what to purchase and how much of their money to spend on it.
You can argue that those who are choosing to spend this money are the ones benefiting from it, but if you make that argument do not try to argue that the purpose is education.
The theory behind public education is that everyone benefits from a well educated population, therefore everyone should pay. The problem with that theory is that we then turn around and say that we should let experts decide how to spend the money. The "experts" can gain a lot more value for themselves from that money by allocating it in ways which do not improve educational results. So they do so.

Comment Re:HOWTO (Score 1) 1081

Those of us who oppose the death penalty see no reason to "fix" the system, and instead prefer to keep it as dysfunctional as possible until there is enough popular will to abolish it.

Revealing a typical left wing tactic. When popular opinion opposes what you want, rather than argue the case and convince people to do things the way you would prefer introduce "improvements" to the current system which actually make it worse, then use the results of these "improvements" to argue that the system is hopelessly flawed and must be replaced.

Comment Re:Big businesses (Score 1) 239

are also big enough to go through the processes to properly train their people to ensure they're not causing disasters.

Well, I will point out that, in a different area of government regulation, ALL of the cases of food poisoning from USDA regulated companies have come from large companies, none of them from the small companies.

The reason for this is simple. In big companies the guy who makes the rules about how to comply with the regulations does not actually see the workers doing the work day in and day out. As a result, he is unaware when what they are doing does not meet standards for the procedure. Those who do see what the workers are doing have other priorities. As a result of these priorities, they either let the workers get away with not quite following the procedures because it would interfere with productivity, or they miss that the workers are not following the procedure because they are not watching for that.

Comment Re:We'll know if its a good bill.. (Score 1) 347

And where does that profit come from? Whether they roll the amount of the universal service charge into the rest of what they charge you, or split it out as a separate line item on the bill does not change the fact that YOU are paying it. They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers. The amount of their profit is a completely separate calculation which is determined by how much more than their costs they can charge their customers. When costs go up for an individual company, that company is likely to need to reduce its profit margin. However, when costs go up for an entire industry, the cost to the consumer goes up.

Comment Re:We'll know if its a good bill.. (Score 1) 347

The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business. They have to get the money to pay it from somewhere. That somewhere is their customers. Yes, they could roll the universal service charge into the other charges rather than break it out as a separate item, but you would be paying it nonetheless.

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