I think you are quite off here, my friend. Your collective freak-out suggests total ignorance that this is standard operating procedure. So while you're spending time judging me for being aloof and resigned, I am trying to point out that my aloofness or resignation is pretty irrelevant if all you clowns don't even know this is happening all the time. Even in this thread I have people telling me this isn't happening all the time. How am I supposed to be anything but aloof and resigned? Your ignorance makes it a waste of time to be anything else.

The author of laws has exactly zero relationship to democracy or anti-democracy or whatever. If you want to be OMG OUTRAGED about something, how about being outraged that your elected representatives don't read the laws that they vote on? I don't care if Satan writes a law; democracy starts when the law is considered.

By the way, are you also OMG OUTRAGED that most of our laws are not even considered by Congress? Authority has been delegated to executive agencies and are handled through regulations "passed" by people you have never heard of and never elected. Who do you think writes those regulations?

But if I had to make a bet one way or the other, I would bet that you are on the side of the political spectrum that supported this delegation, ignoring the warnings and protestations of "my" side of the spectrum. So...

Bud, I don't know what to tell you. You are making my point. You are flat out wrong. Think tanks, lobbyists, and associations write laws. Period. Congressional staffers do little more than piece things together and strike sections out based on macro-level political negotiations.

Unless you are an hourly employee, you are not being paid for 40 hours. Common thinking, but wishful thinking.

Funny that you would post this on an article about bubbles. Real estate is like free money!!! Not realizing how highly you are levering yourself to expose yourself to a single asset class is a recipe for disaster.

Not to mention that most landlords lose money.

This is how most bills are written. That is not a cynical but rather purely factual statement. The shock and surprise on TPP just makes you look ignorant.

"personal" and "responsibility"

I'm not new here, as I'm sure you know. You said that for effect and to be true in spirit, not because you believed it literally to be true in every respect.

Follow me so far?

Great, now apply the same understanding to my original post. Slashdot leans heavily in support of subsidized technology spending, green or otherwise, and now there are a bunch of clowns complaining about the subsidies being used.

When the left talks about austerity, they are referring to increasing deficit spending a little more slowly than originally planned. YoY govt spending growth of +3% when the plan was 3.3% is austerity in their warped minds.

Dude, come on. Note how you had to say "spend money on productive economic projects". Of course it would be beneficial to spend money on things that are productive. That is circular logic. The problem is that government has an extremely poor track record of doing this, because it requires central planning.

Your attempts at convincing yourself you're highly intelligent are incredibly boring and I have lost interest.

Good lord. Nobody gives a f about one terrorist. The target was the command and control center. Collateral damage? I get so tired of this kind of BS comment that comes from zero details in the story and is also incredibly unlikely given its a command and control center (unless they are intentionally using human shields or trying to look like a civilian building). No, it didn't come from any facts in the story. It came purely from your unrealistic personal worldview.

Would read again!!! You totally destroyed all those nonexistent people arguing that technology will take bad education and make it good education.

Most people in EdTech are major supporters of reform and are hoping their technology helps enable that reform. Nobody is thinking their technology fixed education absent reform.

Great service. I would tip Showtime but as it turns out I only have $100 bills. I'll get you next time.

You all supported creating these idiotic subsidy programs to encourage businesses to do certain behaviors. Then you act shocked that certain businesses do certain behaviors in order to take advantage of the subsidies? And have some underlying tone implying there is something nefarious about this? #REF!