Welcome to American Hustle.. Like most sore winners we strut and take too much for granted - particularly our own citizens. Too bad we lost sight of our core values in the process of our financial dominance and success. American values flourish on a level playing field, in an inclusive meritocracy, but now we're back to royal assholes playing king of the hill. Perhaps dominance is more Sisyphus' crushing refrain. Human nature rears its ugly head in any golden age. Lets start with the obvious : Let's stop tolerating unfair, greedy, scum-baggy, slimy business behavior like its an acceptable cost of playing free market capitalism. Its bullshit, we don't tolerate it from people, why do we let big business off the hook? Corporations don't compete, they dominate and destroy innovation, once they reap its rewards. Screw 'em. Just because your pension can't keep up with inflation, that's no excuse to rationalize accepting their dividends. The Golden Rule is more important than the Gold when you have no prospects for success in a neo-facsist cluster fuck of failure and denial. A free market offers options, choices, and healthy competition. . .

More like we try to buy results but can't get any... like the 100 Million that Zuckerberg burned trying to improve urban education in New Jersey. The sad fact is that the billions earned by the 1% won't be any more effective than the trillions the fed prints on behalf of the 100%; in other words money is having an unpredictable, diminishing effect on improving the shortcomings of human politics, society, and institutions .

No matter how much we want money to be the silver bullet for all of our ills, you just can't buy solutions off the shelf.

I think we've already established that moving money in greater and greater heaps is not really changing the reality. We have gradually dug ourselves into the current reality, a bunch of green paper can't really be expected to be the only requirement for swift and enduring solutions to our consequent failures of coexistence.

We can fix sociological problems with a focus on people and our behavior, The Golden Rule may actually carry a great deal more weight than the Gold. What a wonderful exercise in irony for the wealthiest philanthropists in the "richest" nation. Perhaps we'll be richer if we place more value on human beings that don't have a lot of cash, but have a lot of value to offer society.

....but the money can't hurt....even if it won't help it sure seems like it should. We're addicted to the fantasy that it buys everything.

Google will be quite happy to give it a try . Google is here to sell anyone as much influence as they are willing to pay for... All of those anonymous special interest campaign dollars are burning a hole in souls for sale to the highest bidder. Lobbyists might as well be optimized by those who "don't be evil"... but will be profitable and peddle some product .... and we are that product they are selling. Google is the people's pimp.

I agree, the song remains the same. Its not random. Its just very, very uncertain. Same as it ever was....

Conspicuous legal procedures and political gymnastics are part of the Corporate/Government - Lobby/Courts Eco-system. SpaceX must exercise their ability to influence courts' legal authority to be immediately responsive to their trade concerns. My point is that the injunction or its dissolution is not important, but the speed in which they accessed court authority is meaningful.

When SpaceX lawyers make a legal assertion the US Court System prioritizes their concerns and responds immediately. Meanwhile, all other stuff on the court dockets languish in obscurity and red tape. If SpaceX has the legal/political clout to effect immediate response from the courts, then that is what I find most noteworthy. Whether or not their injunction is upheld is less important than their ability to get the government's (and our) undivided attention on the issue of their concerns. Its nice to have corporate clout, since corporations are now people. DemocracyX at work.

Does that make your advocates "Pedantophiles?

Like an aristocracy. Only, harder to decapitate and eat.

Welcome to Capitalism in America: Parker Bros. Monopoly was a prophetic game. Market making has little to do with supply and demand in the traditional sense. Now its an artificial bundle of services rammed down your throat at inflated prices. Shit you don't want with money you don't have...nor the time to find viable alternatives to your needs, in the current "free" market of consumer choices.... Whatever happened to Freedom of Choice?

MSN Rated Backgammon doesn't even charge extra for cheats. Anyone who can figure out the bugs in their poorly written and administered code can employ the well know "Stalled Time Out Exploit". In this case, a "staller" who refuses to complete their turn can make the game "time out" on their legitimate opponent. This awards them the rating points and takes them away from the victim. I have been documenting and reporting every instance of this cheat every time it occurs to me for two years. But its been happening since 2003. At this point, I have a folder full of screen captures and one hundred unanswered letters to the "Zone Master" and it is all I'll show for this effort. I feel like I'm in jail with Tim Robbins in 'Shawshank Redemption' writing to the department of corrections for a library fund.... Its always AMAZING to me when an institution remains totally, willfully IGNORANT of a widespread problem. What is even MORE egregious is MSN's complete DENIAL that the problem even exists - so that when you pursue answers to why you keep experiencing this, there is NO MENTION in any of there FAQ or help forums. At one point I was so pissed off I took the issue up in a Microsoft Dev Forum (which pissed them off) and finally an admin admitted to be that Microsoft had in all likelihood purchased the application from a third party vendor and that they did not have the ability to repair the code. These bugs were not a problem at first, until they were discovered and exploited, and as Microsoft has proven to the world, a defect exists only after it does damage to the customer, and only then if it becomes widely recognized. Screw you MSN. I gonna play opera in the jail yard and expose the warden as a crook. Now if I could just get a pile of cash burieded by an oak tree...

Its difficult to survive on resources in a time zone after you expire. But I guess its fun to look anyway..

I dunno..... It's probably good policy to sell most babies anonymously....

E-stoners.

Standing
I can see that but what's it doing there?
How should I know I'm not Doctor Bloody Bronowski
"The penguin on your television set will blow up in 5 seconds"
***kaaboom***
Well....how about that!


My hovercraft is full of eels.....

Yes. Literally.

...that's where I'm convinced.