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Comment Re:But , but (Score 1) 473

"They don't need it"

Unless you are the richest person in the world, there will always be someone with more than you, that you can state that about, to try to justify taking it from them.

True enough - but there should be a reasonable bright line where you are making, say, 100 times more than the average wage for a worker in %COUNTRY_YOU_LIVE_IN% where we can argue that paying a lower percentage in taxes than said workers is not contributing back enough.

I bring in approximately 5% of what Romney makes, yet I pay slightly more than double the percentage in taxes. That's because his horse and car elevators etc. are business expenses, while my car and clothing purchases are not (also that nifty rule about money you earn is taxed at 35% while money your money earns is only 15%).

And tax rebates are a misnomer - some companies actually receive "rebates," larger than their total tax payments. I will continue to call those subsidies, since they in no way earned that money.

Comment Re:Pretty Cheap compared to the War on Terror (Score 1) 473

Are you seriously claiming that the wars in Iraq and Iran have decreased the number of terrorists & terrorist attacks in the world?
Now, I'll admit that killing Osama bin Ladin probably had a positive effect on making people think twice about joining Al Qaeda, but since that was a separate event in Pakistan, I'm gonna venture a guess that the money spent in Iraq & Afganistan was a complete and total waste.

Terrorism is a fairytale used to scare children, and it looks like it's working.

Comment Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score 1) 473

that's not necessarily the logical way to do it.

I'm fairly sure that by calling a method "logical" the OP did not preclude the possibility that other methods are logical.
If you can present a case for a specific alternate model that is currently in use being logical, that would be meaningful. Meantime, since the USA has completely incoherent and inconsistent attitudes and methods for dealing with renewable energy, the fact that Germany uses any type of logic in their methods is welcome news.

Comment Re:Waste of time and money (Score 1) 155

Going to the moon again will cost billions. Running a few isotopic scans on rocks, involves a grant of several thousand dollars.
Do you grasp the difference between a thousand dollars and a billion dollars?

Now, the war in Iraq probably cost more than ten trips to the moon, and was a far less productive use of our resources - but that's a very different argument.

Comment Deceptive premise (Score 1) 1160

Muslim countries, political groups and terrorist organizations have killed thousands of westerners in the last couple decades.
In the same time period, the US government has killed millions of Muslims.
But yes, all the problems in the middle east are caused by some video that requires high-speed internet to watch.

Comment Re:Warranty? (Score 3, Interesting) 529

You don't have to put the dimmers back in - you just can't build a new house without them. It was a decent idea when incandescent bulbs were all you could buy since it prevented the power-on spike that kills those. Now it's a law that should go away, but it's maybe $100 expense on a house costing $200,000+, so no-one cares.

Comment Re:Can I propose another branch too? (Score 1) 341

You could read all federal legislation in your spare time? You are one fucktastically fast reader!

Absolutely! I can read a page of reasonable text in about a minute, and my spare time consists of 120 minutes per week. everything over that limit gets a "no." Why is congress trying to pass 6000 pages a week when no-one there has read more than 10?

Comment Re:Apples and Oranges (Score 1) 272

Your first paragraph and your third paragraphs are completely contradictory. Is the problem that teachers unions protect bad teachers, or is the problem that teachers are so underpaid that if your fire a bad teacher, there will be literally no-one to take their place? Hint: you got it right the second time. I quit teaching because the pay, hours & facilities in IT are so much better. In IT.

Comment How to hire effective teachers: pay them. (Score 1) 272

I taught for 3 years. Unfortunately the low pay and long hours and lack of facilities sucked, so I left. I find IT is much better by all relevant metrics.

School districts in California are so broke they are literally moving the kids into the least badly neglected buildings and letting the other half rot to the ground, while paying the teachers less than before to try to reach 40 students in one room all day.

You spend less on schools now than in the last half a century: less per child per year than you would sending them to 2 months of university classes.

You get what you pay for.

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