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Comment Re:Will be watching from Connecticut (Score 2) 36

If you're looking south/southwest, it should be no problem. I'll be at Eagle Rock Reservation in NJ, which faces New York City, but I can face south enough to catch a bit of it. The problem is I get out of work at 6:15pm, and can't get to any good vantage spots other than Eagle Rock by 6:45. Hoping for the best....

Comment Good thing this didn't happen in USA (Score 2) 529

A gunman in a government building? In the USA there's be 100,000 cops, the national guard, a dozen tanks, 50 helicopters, CNN and Fox News screaming into the camera "OHMYGOD OHMYGOWD!!!!" and the area would be in lockdown for 72 hours at least and a hazmat crew sent in afterwards ---- all for one shooter with a .22 rifle.

Comment So, middle class screwed again. (Score 1) 839

This puts the highest burden on the middle class yet again. Everywhere from $30k to $150k, those people are paying the highest proportion of taxes.

Let me give you an example:
The lower middle class guy can only afford the $1 shoes. They are cheap enough, but only last one year and then need to be replaced.

The rich guy can afford the $10 shoes. Yes, they cost 10 times more than the cheap ones, but they have been made to last 20 years. Over time, you see, the rich guy will ultimately pay less for the better quality items, and as such, pay less in consumption taxes as well while the poor shmuck who can only afford the $1 shoes actually pays more for the product and more in taxes over time.

And not every rich person is Imedla Marcos.

Comment Because they cannot contribute to the economy (Score 4, Insightful) 839

OK, here's your answer, as simplified as I can make it based on your premise:

Because the guy with the net worth of $100 is unable to contribute to the economy. He is too poor to pay taxes, he's too poor to buy food for his family and therefore has to rely on government help to feed his children.

Meanwhile, the rich guy with the net worth of $5000 has used his immense wealth to manipulate politics and has a sneaky accountant, so he also pays practically no taxes, compared to the middle class.

So it's up to you and me, the guys with a net worth of let's say $250, to help out the poor guy with the net worth of $100. But that $5000 guy is cutting our jobs and shipping them to india, so we have an ever shrinking population of $250 net worth people, and a growing segment of $100 net worth people, since the only jobs available are minimum wage.

Following me so far? With less and less people buying socks and shoes and food, and paying taxes, the economy shrinks. Meanwhile the very rich do not go to walmart and buy 10,000 pairs of jeans, so their contributions to the overall economy are minor compared to their immense wealth.

Please see the documentary "Inequality for all", you can find it on netflix streaming, and it will describe it a way that everyone can understand, even Fox News watchers.

Comment O'Brien's fascination with 2600 (Score 2) 193

He has claimed that his misused image recognition software caused 2600 casualties in the Iraq war, and also later claims that Scorpion has 2600 employees across the globe...

What's his fascination with this number? I think Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corely), publisher of 2600 Magazine, has grounds to sue. And so does Captain Crunch (John Draper).

I'm willing to bet this guy couldn't program his way out a paper bag, and I've known and befriended hackers who were many times smarter than this fraud.

Comment Re:All well and good (Score 4, Insightful) 61

You must be new here.

Company officials *never* will see the inside of a cell. They won't even be charged. Instead, they will get a nice fat bonus, and the company will pay for that by charging higher rates and cutting 5000 workers who were never responsible, and making sub-standard wages.

Some more palms will get greased in government, and things will continue Business As Usual. And we the public get the shaft.

Comment And if Mitt Or Rick were president... (Score -1, Troll) 487

They would have eliminated the CDC entirely since the CDC was not a defense contractor making guns, planes or battleships. They are like the EPA or the FDA, useless.

So, next time a disease comes to the USA, it *will* create a pandemic because budget cuts will have gotten rid of anything deemed "big government" because big gov't == BAD.

On the bright side however, those rich people will be so rich from having their taxes eliminated entirely that the Koch Brothers will be able to fly off somewhere where the disease can't reach them.

Comment Because Ads, by their nature can't be personalized (Score 1) 249

Ads, by their very nature cannot be personalized. Unless they are being generated on the fly by some very clever AI, all you're getting is an ad that targets you as part of a group. And you can be lumped into that group pretty much willy-nilly, because of ONE data-point.

For example. I am on Facebook. My status is SINGLE. Yet, I have made very clear on my posts, and me NOT liking "match.com" and other dating sites ads, that dating sites are all scams. I've tried at least 75% of them and they all suck. In fact, they pretty much did the opposite, they convinced me it wasn't worth my time to even try anymore. And I've made that CLEAR via many Facebook posts.

However, Facebook doesn't read my posts; all they need is to see that my status is SINGLE, and I'm inundated with dating site ads. Because of that ONE data-point, I'm lumped into a group that gets served that ad for that product.

Nothing about it is "personalized" and I doubt it will ever be because no "product" exists for single guys who believe that dating sites are a scam and a waste of time. And therefore, I am served the ad that comes in as the closest match given Facebook's limited set of advertisers.

Other things facebook should know about me but doesn't, is my interest in vintage volkswagens. But no such advertisers exist for facebook, so it ignores this data-point entirely.

The point is that people are too diverse to ever have truly targeted advertising.

Comment Re:Bob's smokin' crack (Score 1) 267

Citation??

I see an article that claims GM has sold only 58000 Volts over three years, and I know that Tesla has sold more than that in the same amount of time.

Anecdotal: I see way more Teslas on the road than Volts, and I live in NJ. Admittedly, I'm near the NYC area where the wealthy love to show off fancy cars, but still, way more Teslas, by far, and I'm a fairly good car spotter while driving to work.

Comment 100 years from now... (Score 1) 478

And if ISIS is successful, in 100 years they will get to rewrite the history books to show that they were the good guys and all atrocities committed in their name was for the greater good.

Although you can gloss over paying Native Americans for the Black Hills, you cannot wipe the stain of bloodshed from that period. Say what you like about ISIS, but go back to any period in our history, and the USA was no better. We condoned slavery, murder and rape to get what we wanted, and we patted ourselves on the back for it.

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