Comment Re:Saudi Arabia, etc. (Score 1) 653
And JFK would be a moderate Republican based on his stance of lowering taxes and a strong national defense.
And JFK would be a moderate Republican based on his stance of lowering taxes and a strong national defense.
"You've got to decide, when you do this work, whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country,"
Translation: "You've got to decide, when you do this work, whether the check is big enough to cover the costs of getting you elected and thus warranting a political policy kickback later on down the road."
So, after years of providing overpriced, shitty service, Google steps up and puts the fear of God into Comcast. Comcast responds by announcing higher speeds, lower prices, and (hopefully) improved customer service. All without a single government mandate or regulation. Somebody remind me again why capitalism never works?
Alderaan? You mean that accident with fracking? Totally nothing to do with the Empire! We warned them if they kept on doing what they were doing they'd end up like the Klingons and their moon Praxis, but did they listen? Nope! "Pure fiction!" they said!
I just picked up one of these and I must say I've been incredibly happy with it. The construction is top notch (Germans know a thing or two about how to build stuff), the key action is amazing, and it looks incredible. Pricey? Yes. But so is a finely-crafted automobile. Both will probably outlast you.
The headline is pretty misleading, and the illogical nature of it is revealed in the opening sentences of the "article." How in the world can you say solar "beats coal and wind" when it is responsible for roughly 1% of overall generation? Sure, it *added* more capacity by percentage this year than other power generation types, but so what? If I generated zero watts last year via hamster wheel generation and added one watt this year, my percentage increase is...well...infinity! Haha! I beat everything on the planet! But my actual generation is laughable.
I'm not trying to talk down solar, or wind, or anything. I'm just sick of the sensational headlines full of hyperbole picking relatively useless metrics to claim something like this is really amazing when, in fact, it's quite pedestrian.
Now there's more games than gamers!
Seriously, yes, I know -- or at least suspect -- there are more than a thousand Linux gamers on Steam out there, but really...when you've got barely 1% of the gaming market, it's a little silly to say 2015 could be the "Year of Linux Gaming." At some point you have to disconnect yourself from wishful thinking and hyperbole and just say "yeah, it's getting better, but it still has a very long way to go."
I can't imagine the State Department not adhering to the same standard of security when doing the people's business.
You can't? Try instead to imagine what would happen to a Clinton staffer who told her she can't do something, especially when Hillary has very concrete and politically-motivated reasons for violating policy (i.e. hiding potential corruption, illegal dealings, etc. from FOIA requests and Congressional inquiry). Hillary doesn't exactly have a reputation for dealing kindly with people like that, you know.
I did check the law. There's nothing preventing her from using a private email or private server...so long as everything is recorded, archived, and available for government inspection if needed. The problem here is there is no way to guarantee this. Clinton can say she's turned over everything "relevant" to government business, but she can't prove she didn't withhold unflattering or potentially illegal emails. Further, the government cannot prove what is or isn't relevant because it hasn't had control of the server/email since inception. This kind of stuff is precisely why the law was amended (admittedly after Clinton's tenure as SecState) to prevent Federal employees from using personal stuff for official business.
But to say she didn't break the law is being disingenuous. If she's unable or unwilling to turn over everything, she's not complying with the law.
She doesn't regret using personal email. She regrets getting CAUGHT using personal email.
One is taken to wondering how power prices can drop 40% when there are tons of new infrastructure being bought and labor being paid to install it. Wind power isn't *THAT* much cheaper to run. I have a funny feeling there are significant tax breaks being given to the companies installing the stuff and tax increases being levied on citizens to make this 40% drop happen...which, if true, means it's not really 40% cheaper, it's just those savings are being offset by higher costs elsewhere.
People used to say the same thing about the "luminiferous aether," you know.
Personally, I think "dark matter" and "dark energy" don't really exist. Instead, I think there's something wrong with our understanding of the fundamental forces of the universe. Perhaps gravity doesn't behave with the inverse-square law across vast distances like we think. Perhaps there's a subtle force out there we've yet to discover that only acts over extreme distances. After all, quantum mechanics is only observable at extremely small scales, and a century ago nobody even suspected it existed. What's to say there's not something else that acts in an observable fashion only at galactic scales?
The original story goes that Buzz Aldrin was supposed to be the first one to walk on the moon, but during the trip, an order from mission control came in that said that Neil Armstrong was supposed to be the first.
This is pure drivel and has been debunked on numerous occasions. Armstrong was the first out because there was not enough room in the LM cabin for Aldrin to get out first when both were wearing suits. Further, the mission was practiced for months on Earth and every action was scripted and planned down to the minute. To suggest that Mission Control would alter this plan while the astronauts were on the way to the moon -- thus invalidating months of training and safety protocols -- is ludicrous. Armstrong got out first because he had to, and everybody -- including Aldrin -- knew this before they were even strapped into the CM.
As a non-American I am surprised as you Americans allow criminals freely sell products that are clearly scams like this.
As an American, I can say I'm glad the government *doesn't* stop this kind of activity. A functioning society requires its citizens to be at least marginally responsible for their own conduct. If they're stupid enough to be taken in by this crap, they deserve what they get. We neither need nor want a "nanny state" looking over our shoulder all the time, telling us what we can and cannot buy.
So long as it's run by a single clone and his AI robot assistant, I got no problem with this.
(and if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.)
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol