Re: Problem with T-bird (was Re: Mail Issues (pt 2 ))
Ron Johnson wrote: After reading how much you like T-bird, I installed it and tried it. However, it does not let me use sendmail as the outgoing email method. That's... unbelievable. Sure it can, it just uses the SMTP method of access. Want to know what is unbelievable? mutt not being able to use anything but the command line method. How 80s is that? You'd think the past 20+ years didn't exist. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Problem with T-bird (was Re: Mail Issues (pt 2 ))
Ron Johnson wrote: After reading how much you like T-bird, I installed it and tried it. However, it does not let me use sendmail as the outgoing email method. That's... unbelievable. Sure it can, it just uses the SMTP method of access. Want to know what is unbelievable? mutt not being able to use anything but the command line method. How 80s is that? You'd think the past 20+ years didn't exist. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Mail Issues (pt 2 )
Ron Johnson wrote: Evolution, T-bird, Mutt, Sylpheed Outlook, Web Mail are all IMAP- capable MUAs. I've read, though, that T-bird doesn't have good IMAP capabilities, though. Thunderbird has one of the best IMAP implementations around. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Mail Issues (pt 2 )
Ron Johnson wrote: Even sub-folders? Not sure, never had a server that did subfolders so never really cared. OTOH I did care that I tried prior to Thunderbird seemed capable of storing sent mail on the server. Seemed dumb to me to force local folders for sent mail, drafts and other such storage when one might just want to have access to them from more than one client. So far in my recent tests (I'm a glutton for punishment) only Evolution and Thunderbird seem capable of using IMAP in that fashion and Evolution fails since it doesn't seem to talk IMAPS. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Mail Issues (pt 2 )
Richard wrote: Thought I would re-explain myself I'm not sure why, people address both of your concerns adequately with several solutions all of which work just fine. Instead of reexplaining yourself take a moment to actually examine the solutions people have offered to see if they fit your needs. Aagain, we lost a very large .mbox file with over 255,000 emails. we don't want any kind of (db) box format, just plain text. (sql) would be okay. Furthermore I think that you're not sure what you want. Look at what you asked for here. You don't want a database solution but you then say a database, SQL, would be ok. So do you want a database or not? Besides, strictly speaking, even a slew of individual files inside a file system fails to meet your needs as a file system is just a very primitive database. It contains and index (directory entries) to records (files). I think the core problem here is that you're not quite sure what you want and are hoping for a silver bullet solution from the list. I don't think that, given your requirements and contradictory position, that any such answer will appear to your satisfaction. Furthermore you need to look beyond particular formats of mail and examine what the true problem was. It isn't that an mbox file got corrupt. Any file can get corrupt. The problem is that you didn't have a backup of the file (or files, or SQL database, or any other solution proposed here) to fall back on. Data integrity is more than just choosing a file format which might be more (or less) resistant to corruption. It is having a plan in place prior to such corruption on how to recover from it. Because no matter what, it will happen eventually. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: LVM2 snapshot question
Jiann-Ming Su wrote: I have no experience with the LVM snapshots. I've been using rsync snapshots as described at http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/. Or one could skip doing all of that manually and just do it with dirvish. Description: Filesystem based backup system using rsync A utility to maintain multiple backups on online storage, each backup is available as a sort of snapshot directory, where common files are shared between the different backup generations. It uses rsync to do the actual copying. . Backups can be made locally or over the network (using ssh). -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: To cite the U.S. Constitution (from http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html): , | Section 8 - Powers of Congress | | The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, | Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common | Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, | Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; ` Thanks for that cite, goes to show another area the Feds are messing up. Uniform taxation... yeah, and what's this with the progressive tax scale? Not very uniform to me. I would put education into that category. It is a necessity for prosperity. To summarize: The congress has the power to collect taxes for education. IMHO Operative word, opinion. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Paul E Condon wrote: And, you get to *choose* something else for your own children, if you can pay for it. But you are not paying twice. You are paying once, your share for everybody, and once for your own. Uh, sorry, BZZZT, no. If I am paying for everyone else's why aren't they paying for mine? That's twice. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: sa-exim with per-user config
First off, sa-exim is not depreciated. The last update was in January. Secondly, sa-exim can do things exiscan can't. Two different ways of approaching the problem. Martin A. Brooks wrote: I'd be pretty surprised if per-user settings weren't possible. I've never tried to do this myself, bit I do, for example, pull per-domain configuration data from postgres. Per-user can't be that much more tricky. Finally per-user is simply not possible. What happens you get a positive on the first user and a negative on the second user? At SMTP time you can only accept or reject the message for all recipients. Per domain is possible because the message is delivered once per domain. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: sa-exim with per-user config
Paul Johnson wrote: Accept it, only deliver to the negative user would be the sane way of handling it. Either that, or 550 it and say Delivered to ..., not delivered to ... You're not understanding the problem. Think of it at the SMTP level, we're filtering there, right? Ok. rcpt to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] rcpt to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] data blah blah blah . FILTERING HERE. Who's settings do you use? Even worse, which Bayesian database do you use? You can use only one or the other. Once you filter that's it. So if foo rejects, you reject for all. If foo accepts, you accept for all. There's simply no two ways about it; that's how Exim's internals works. It has been discussed at length, to death in fact, on Exim's list. If you're so inclined a check of the archives there will give you more detail than you ever want to know. Regardless, SMTP time checks are system wide, not user specific. If users want their own filters it will have to be after your system has accepted the message. At that point it is no longer SMTP time checking and outside the scope of both sa-exim and exiscan. At that point you're onto the MDA which is either Exim's own internal routines controlled by a specially formatted .forward file, procmail or what have you. Personally my own spam prevention techniques filter things 3 times. Two are SMTP time checks (clamav via exiscan, spamassassin via sa-exim) and Thunderbird's Bayesian scanning. Obviously TBird's is well after smtp time. :) -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: sa-exim with per-user config
Paul Johnson wrote: Who's settings do you use? Both. Even worse, which Bayesian database do you use? Both. How? Has nothing been done to fix this? Again, how? You're not grasping that it is not possible with how mail works. And that's not even getting into how unix works. Like I said, you cannot accept/reject independently so it isn't even tried. Another question, exactly how are you going to read these databases? Remember, Exim and thus sa-exim/exiscan are running as Debian-Exim. If you really think this is broken, be my guest and fix it. But do as I suggested previously and read the Exim-users archives as to why it works as it does and why it ain't broken. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Curt Howland wrote: As much as I hate to nit-pick, because it's obvious your heart is in the right place, Mr. Johnson, there is a very serious disconnect between the term privatization (or deregulation) and the reality of continued government intervention. In the interest of helping this discussion close down allow me to answer for Paul Johnson to any and all future messages from now until the end of time. Oregon is awesome. We're perfect. Any problems that arise in how we do things is the the fault of a: Californians. b: Republicans. c: Republican Californians. d: All of the above. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And if the neighbourhood thief is breaking into your home, he is more likely to be armed with a gun if he thinks you probably are. No, chances are if the neighborhood thief is already breaking the law by trespassing with the intent to break the law by stealing they're going to break the law prohibiting the possession of a gun. Furthermore if the thief knows the neighborhood is a gun free zone he's more likely to break into homes in that neighborhood. Whereas if he knows that the homes are regularly armed there is a lesser chance of breakins. Why? Thieves are looking for the easy target. Oddly enough time and time again studies show this correlation to exist. Every time a state passes will-issue and other laws to strengthen the homeowners right to defend themselves and their property crime decreases. And here's the part that you'll love. The fact that your neighbor owns a gun protects you because if you're in a will-issue state the mere possibility of you being armed is a deterrent. So rest assured, you can be safer without the nasty business of actually taking responsibility for your own safety. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
John - wrote: Despite the political prejudices of a great many participants, Debian may be the world's best instance of socialism in practice. If socialists were smart, they'd learn something from this. Ditto capitalists. Double ditto libertarian hardliners. And just what have you learned from Debian and it's socialism? Here's what I learned. Socialism works when there is no real value to the items being exchanged. Because we can duplicate the code/programs at an insanely low price (it isn't free, electricity and net bandwidth/blank CDs cost) we can hand it out to any and all takers with no perceptable loss to us. However, in the real world where if I hand you my shirt I have none on my back socialism has yet to succeed. It's called 0-sum. However in a capitalist world where barter and trade reign each trade is, by definition, not 0-sum. The only time 0-sum works is when what you're trading is equal to or exceedingly darn close to 0. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Rich Johnson wrote: Do any schools have _separate_ History and Geography classes? In my day, yes. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't recall ever having seen inefficiency as a defining property of government. Do you recall efficiency as a defining property? -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Paul Johnson wrote: [1] For 100 years ago. It's too bad we haven't bothered to keep up with the world on this, Americans now get fewer days off, work more hours and at lower pay than most of the western world. And amazingly enough we have lower unemployment and are still the driving engine of the western economy. But hey, we could have a stagnate economy and rampaging unemployment like in France! Riots are, you know, so cool! -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Rich Johnson wrote: Oh, so the objection is to _dissident_ poltical teaching. Heaven forbid that high school students should be challenged to think and decide for themselves. Uh, no, try again. The problem in this case there was political speech at all during a GEOGRAPHY lesson. FWIW, this particular teacher was disciplined, or punished if you prefer. I find it hard to believe that such stuff is a _prevalent_ problem in US high schools--even though it does make for good incendiary copy. Slap on the wrist, he's still teaching. And it is prevalent. It was oing on when I was in high school 10 years ago. Difference here was that a student had the cajones to record him and expose him. What're the original sources for these stories? Too old for me to find easily. Web stories I read in daily perusal 6 months+ ago. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Cybe R. Wizard wrote: US $9,900,000,000 (billion) profits /by one oil company/ in one quarter when retail prices were skyrocketing. Does that seem like the oil cartel has the American interests at heart? Didn't I address just this in a message 2 days ago? I make a widget for $1, sell it for $1.10, make $.10 and everything's ok. I make 2 trillion widgets for $1, sell them for $1.10, make 20 billion and there's a congressional hearing into the matter even though the price per widget, my profit margin, never changed. The media never reports profit margins. Never reports volumes sold. Never reports anything other than profits as if, somehow, you're supposed to /make less/ when you *sell more*! Furthermore didn't I also point out that it is kind if blind to, weeks ago, complain about America's foreign dependence on oil and then this week ignore how that foreign oil might just be affecting prices? Didn't I point out that 2-3 years ago OPEC member states, completely in the open, announced they were going to fix the price of a barrel of oil high? Yes I did and yes I did. So exactly what kind of doublethink does it take to not follow that chain. Hmmm, gas prices are high, oil companies have to buy most of their oil from foreign sources, the largest of those sources announced years ago they were going to set the prices extremely high... the oil companies are the problem!!! *sigh* -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Paul Johnson wrote: I suppose that's true if you're willing to say that the vast majority of US airports don't exist. Many television stations, hospitals, police departments, etc. have airports that aren't government owned. So do many ranchers and aviation clubs. Well, how many of those have aircraft flying out of them that have the capacity to do damage to a building on the scale of 9/11. 0. Want to know what we should be worried about? The unregulated and lax security around rental trucks. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Steve Lamb wrote: Rich Johnson wrote: on when I was in high school 10 years ago. Difference here was that a student had the cajones to record him and expose him. Man, wish it were 10 years ago. More like 16. *gasp* -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: So there are people without children who pay for public education. This means the average parent who has kids in a public school is paying less than what he would have to if he had to pay it all by himself. Yes, because the childless person just doesn't need that money at all. Nope. They exist solely to subsidize the lifestyle choices of those with children. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: Why is that so? Just because it is a public school? Why is a public school by definition so different from a private school? Is there no way of making a public school more (cost-)efficient? Yes. We're discussing it right now. :P Seriously though which is the general rule; a cost-efficient government program or a cost-inefficient government program? Generally it's the latter by a wide margin. I boils down to incentives. In a business there is a drive to be cost-efficient because there is competition. If they do the job better and cheaper they get more business you lose out. In government there is a drive to be cost-inefficient. The more you overrun your budget the greater a chance the budget is increased to cover much needed expenses. The government, in turn, doesn't demand cost-efficiency because it doesn't have to sell itself to anyone based on that criteria. It sells itself on how much it does for the voter, cost be damned. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: The same is true for drugs and other controlled substances. Would you vote making them freely available? I would, and have. Or rather, at the very least, decriminalized the ones that are criminalized now. Because drugs encompasses more than just the illegal ones I presume you're referring to. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: How do you recognize well-intentioned and law-abiding citizens? What makes this difficult is that people change. They buy a gun as a well-intentioned and law-abiding citizen in case they need to defend themselfes. Then a while later when they are upset or drunk they find they have a gun handy and do harm somebody else. Presumably if the somebody else hadn't been disarmed in the futile effort to prevent the possibly distressed person from doing something rash they wouldn't have been harmed? It's the one law that lawmakers never seem to get a hold of, the law of unintended consequences. Yeah, it's easier for someone to do harm but it is far easer for someone (many someone) else to defend themselves. See, that's the problem with the anti-gun lobby. They love to cite cases where guns cause harm. Do they ever, once, even attempt to cite cases where a gun was useful? Nope. Also there is a logical disconnect here. Take Columbine, the most horrific school shooting in America's history. Arguably one of the strongest cases for the anti-gun lobby to glom onto. We need laws to prevent this sort of thing! Uh... we did and do. The two boys obtained their firearms illegally. Laws didn't stop it. In fact, if someone is intent on doing harm to others do you honest think they're going to say Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a sec, we can't buy a gun! Maybe if noone had a gun to threaten you with you wouldn't need one to defend yourself? So then what about carving knives, chainsaws, baseball bats, automobiles... Again, if someone is intent on doing you harm, which is against the law, another law which tells them they can't use a particular method to do you harm is going to deter them? Finally, it there is a moral double standard here. I am unwilling to take responsibility to protect myself... I pay that person over there to risk his life to defend mine! Furthermore I do not feel you, a complete stranger, have the right to defend yourself as you might hurt me. But that aformention perfect stranger is a-ok! -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Paul Johnson wrote: You directly benefit (even without kids) by being surrounded by (relatively) educated people. Just like freeways: While bicycles may be allowed on most of them, odds are bicyclists are paying for miles of urban freeway that is closed to bicycles. Is it fair that people who get around by bicycle on roads that, in many states they have a constitutional right to ride on, have to pay for freeways that you have to earn the priveledge of a driver's license to use? Yes, because odds are they indirectly benefit by the freeway being there by the availability of goods that would otherwise be stuck at the rail depot, seaport, or entirely different city without urban freeways. No, they're not the same, Paul. First off I can see and point out potholes in the roads and get them fixed. I do not consider what the public schools in this nation as educating. While I may benefit from an educated public I do not see such an educated public. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Rich Johnson wrote: Er...they also VOTE! I, for one, definitely prefer an educated electorate to an ignorant one. It's kinda' important, even though all indications are that emotional arguments usually win. Even worse, most people couldn't name their congresscritter or representatives and certainly couldn't muddle through the Bill of Rights (forget about the other amendments) or, most importantly of all, accurately describe what this nation is. I'm all for an educated electorate. That ain't what we got. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Rich Johnson wrote: I didn't write that. Yes, my apologies for the seemingly misattribution. I should have removed Rich's attribution line. However since they were both on the same quote level I hope people would catch that his attribution line would match a 2nd level of quotation which was not present. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Matthias Julius wrote: The situation is a little be different here. They're not suddenly selling 2 trillion widgets instead of one. They are selling each one of them for $1.50 instead of $1.10. And why do they need special tax breaks when they seem to do well? Nope, the situation is no different. First off demand is traditionally higher during this time of year. Secondly their profit margins, if they move, moved at most a fraction of a cent per gallon. As for a special tax breaks you do understand that they are taxed more heavily than pretty much every other industry? http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-williams29apr29,0,4713201.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions The nation's energy companies are already providing a windfall of taxes. According to Department of Energy data, from 1977 to 2004, federal and state governments extracted $397 billion by taxing the profits of the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion --- enough to buy a Toyota Prius for every household in the nation. In fact, oil companies have paid in taxes more than three times what they earned in profits during those 28 years. As the oil industry brings in record profits, it also pays record taxes that average 39% worldwide, even after accounting for special deductions and credits. That compares with a 33% average tax rate for other industries. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: - A bureaucracy so big and unweidly it makes it close to impossible for educators to actually educate Or worse, ordered not to educate (*cough*Kansas*cough*) - People sending their kids there is a tacit acceptance of the state indoctrinating their children And people requiring such indoctrination (*cough*Kansas*cough*) instead of an actual education. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: I'm not sure if that's true. Is it society's job? If so, does government enact the will of society? No. That's where a whole mess comes into play. At least in my opinion Government's role is to get out of the way of society. It is to set a minimum.. BARE minimum standard of how to treat one another and from there on, get the hell out of dodge. It is because of two basic ideas. 1: Only government has the coercive power of law and the military. 2: Government is made up of people. Do you want other people to coerce you and use the military into what they feel is a proper society? I certainly don't. I'm sure that many people here would be opposed to what I consider a proper society and would not want me to have the power of coercion and the military to back up my views. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: This is a point where I think we can agree to disagree. I think it could. And I'm not at all sure it's not the province of government. But that's the one solid point we can prove; at least at the federal level. All powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution it rightfully, by that founding document of this nation, should not have. Education is not one of those powers. Strictly speaking, by the supreme document that forms this nations foundation, that is not the role of government. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: Sure, poor areas have McDonald's, WalMart, and Dollar Tree. Not so many organic food markets and Gucci stores, I think. I guess I could be wrong; I haven't extensively toured poor neighborhoods to check. True, true. But since in a privatized setting the concept of districts doesn't apply the other half of the above would work as well. Sure, there aren't many organic food markets in poor areas. But what's preventing them from going to an organic market further away? Nothing. They may feel it is too expensive, granted. But that isn't preventing them in the same sense that districts prevent children from being placed in a school further away. So if they don't like the schools here they can take their business to the schools there. Here is another concept: you value you what you have to pay for. I know that I am more appreciative of the things which I have had to earn through hard work than of those which were freebies. There's certainly a point to this. My high school martial arts instructor was adamant that he didn't give financial need based discounts, because his experience was that people didn't value the experience as much if they felt it was discounted. There's also an economic concept based around this. I forget the exact name but it is something like the rule of commons or something similar. It basically states that when people are given property for free they have no incentive to maintain that property since they also lose nothing if it isn't maintained. It's an explination on why low-income/free housing is almost always run down while property that was bought at full market value tends to be better maintained. But as you've pointed out (or was it someone else? Too many people ... ), people *do* pay for education. Or do you think the kids should pay for it themselves? Hrm, interesting thought ... Actually this is another problem. People often see public education as free. They don't associate the cost with the taxes they (may be) paying. This goes even further. Withholdings are another disconnect. People often say Oh, we should do this with little to no concept of cost. Many people speak only in terms of what they take home and what they got back. They have no clue how much is withheld every week and how much they paid in at the end of the year. How can one really have a connection of cost, a sense of ownership, when one never sees the cost and thinks they're getting money instead of losing it? :( -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: The purpose of the public programs is to ensure that *something* is there for the middle class and poor. It doesn't have to be gold-plated. IMHO it isn't that they outperform. It is that they are outright harmful on matter how they perform. The purpose of public education is to prevent the formation of a sharp, two-class system, where an elite class understands how the society is run, and everyone else knows so little that they have to accept the decisions of the elite. ... And this doesn't describe what's going on right now? I mean honestly, ask high school grads what rights were granted by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution grants and I'd bet cold hard cash on every answer that they would get it wrong[1]. At the end of the day, no matter how many get it right I'll know I'd have made tons of money. Right now we have an elite class that knows how government is supposed to work and everyone else that knows so little they accept anything that they're told. When this happens, it is absolutely guaranteed that the elite will structure society so that they will forever be the elite, and no one else will ever be given the opportunity to understand how the society is run or why it's run the way it is. Which, to me, describes exactly what we have now. The purpose of public education was to ensure that this could never happen again. A purpose for which it is failing. The purpose of public education is not to compete directly against private education. It is to teach the masses how to see it when their rulers are about to give them the big shaft. It worked. In 2004, at least 55 million Americans saw the big shaft coming and tried to stop it. Really? I see it completely differently. I see it as maybe a million saw it coming and voted outside the monoparty system we have now. [1] To explain for any non-Americans, it's a trick question. The Declaration of Independence states that rights are inalienable and self-evident. The Bill of Rights, part of the Constitution, enumerate these rights. It lists them. It does not grant them. This is an important distinction in granted versus enumerated. In the absence of the Bill of Rights, if they were granted said rights would not continue to exist. Since it only lists them the implication is if the Bill of Rights disappeared tomorrow, never to exist, we would still have every right listed within it. That is a subtle but powerful difference to understand. Most people don't. Thus the division of the elites and proles. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: Abolish public education, and the private schools might just start treating parents and students like crap. And those schools would lose their students as their parents moved them to more responsive schools. Non-issue. Certainly, if a single company came to dominate education the way Microsoft dominates software, parents and students *would* be treated like crap. Yes, this is accurate. And, oh mah gawd! You just described what's happening now. Except substitute single company with government. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: Steve Lamb wrote: Christopher Nelson wrote: [...] Sure you can. Nothing's forcing you to have your kids in public schools. And shopping around for a good public school district is part of being a responsible parent if you can't afford/don't like private school. A good public school district. Which implies one can purchase a home in a good district. Or do you believe only the wealthy can obtain a decent education for their children? [...] Need I point out the hypocrisy of someone who wants to abolish public education asking if only the wealthy deserve a decent education? It's called irony, Mumia. Christopher put forth that if there were no public education that we (the private schoolers) were implying that only the rich or wealthy could afford to have an education. He then went on to point out that a parent could choose what public school their child went to by moving into that schools district. My response was using his own words against him because some of the best public schools are in districts that only the wealthy can afford a home! IE, if he considers that a choice then he's no better than what he was damning us for. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: The Right Wing *is* class and race warface. That's what drives them, and that's what gives them political success. Uh, no. Try again. Some of the worst offenders when it comes to class and race warfare are staunchly leftist. The biggest wealth redistribution in planetary history is occurring right now as the ultra-wealthy squeeze the middle-class into oblivion by outsourcing their jobs to China and India while abolishing usury laws so as to subject Americans to lifelong debt slavery. Uh-wha-huh? Wealth redistribution means taking from one person and giving it to another through the coercive power of the state. Outsourcing just means our system is so whacked it makes good sense to send the jobs elsewhere. Reagonomics: http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001746.shtml Bwahahaha... oh man, that's what you've got? That's it? Uh oh, here's this huge deficit! Again you're leaving out half the equation! Sowell addresses this nicely. Say you have a yearly income of $20,000 and a debt load of $2,000, you have a debt of 10% your yearly income. Now, you take out a loan for $2,000 but in doing so are able to increase your yearly income by $40,000. Your debt has increased, yes. But as a percentage of your income it is now 6.7% instead of 10%. Your debt ratio went down and you're also in a position easier pay off that debt. Deficit = national debt. Gross National Product (GDP) = the nation's yearly income. So tell me, have you honestly looked at the GDP for the same time frame? In fact have you looked at the deficit to GDP ratio under Bush II? I doubt it. In both cases the ratio shrank. That means we were better off because our overall productivity increased immensely and we're better able to handle the debt load. Racism: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrybar/41431871 White people find; black people loot. Racism: New Orleans will be a Chocolate City again. Whoops, sorry, you were saying? And you say it isn't a Ponzi. Wasn't one of the points of a Ponzi scan was that they got people to reinvest into the scam. No, one of the points of a Ponzi scheme is that people are *tricked* into giving money into it. *sigh* You really are that dense, aren't you? From the very page you said I didn't read in the What is not a Ponzi Scheme (and vice versa) section: A pyramid scheme is bound to collapse a lot faster, simply because of the demand for exponential increases in participants to sustain it (Ponzi schemes can survive simply by getting most participants to reinvest their money, with a relatively small number of new participants). As for the trick we've covered that. The trick is that people like you believe it's a valid system! The trick is that you defend it even as experts completely agree it will FAIL inside approximately 20 years! Most young people believe they're better off putting their money into Social Security than into a savings account or a mutual fund when the exact opposite is true and has been proven to be true by the returns of each over the past several decades! That's tricked! The tax increases helped the government pay its bills without dipping into the bond market, and that helped keep interest rates down. Increasing taxes *does* help the economy when you use the taxes to balance the budget. No, taxes but the breaks on the economy because it removes that revenue from being reinvested into the economy. He also got to come off the economic policies set in motion by Reagan/Bush I. Clinton's economic legacy is evident in the downturn that started prior That's the dot-com bust--not Clinton's fault. Uh, if we're going to give credit for the upswings we'll blame him for the same. The dot.com's busted on Clinton's watch, late 99, early 2k. Bush II took office 2001. So blaming Bush for something that was happening before he took office is disingenuous at best yet most people blame him for it time and time again. Nearly every one of the perpetrators of terrorists acts against America were pursued, caught, tried and punished during the Clinton administration. What Clinton didn't to was to go to war with entire countries just because of a few nuts. Yeeeahhh, that's why he refused when Bin Laden was pretty much handed up on a silver platter, did absolutely nothing in retaliation for the USS Cole, bombed the wrong target because he was schtooping an intern. Clinton didn't have to do anything about Social Security. Our nation was set to grow itself out of the problem. Some portion of that $5 trillion surplus would've helped. *sigh* No, it wasn't. Go read the sites I cited. It looks like I have the facts on my side. Yeah, sure you do. Keep convincing yourself of that. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+-
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Rich Johnson wrote: ROFLMAO! You're calling for the elimination of History, Citizenship, Government, and even the ''Pledge of Allegiance''. No, there's a difference between teaching those subjects and going off on a political tirade during a Geography lesson: http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004689.htm There's also examples of teachers failing to teach that Bush II is the 43rd (or 42nd, depending on how you count Cleveland) president. IIRC there was also a principle who came down hard on teachers who put Bush's picture up on the wall as the 43rd President and called it political even though, in spite of their personal beliefs, it is factual. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mumia W wrote: Social Security is a government program. There's nothing wrong about using taxes to support a government program. There is when the program is highly suspect. Like the Alaskan bridge to nowhere. It's part of the upkeep of the society. Don't buy that one, either. Quite frankly it looks like part of the destruction of society. The fundamental nature of social security was never illegal or unethical. In your opinion. Other people's opinions differ. Especially those who see it as a state run, vote buying ponzi scam. It's not Social Security that's failing. It's your Republican President and Congress that have failed. The entire problem with Social Security's funding is that the President cut taxes five times. *laugh* First off, he's not my President nor my Congress. I voted for candidates other than those in office. Second, this problem is part and parcel of the program. It was set up on a flawed concept. Third, these problems were well known in the Clinton days. I believe they were hinted at in the Bush I days. So this problem is not new and not just Bush II's tax cuts. Fourth, in case you missed it the economy is booming. In fact it is at a point which, by almost any measure you pick, is better than when Clinton made his bid for reelection on the strength of the economy. So, what does this mean? Do some simple math for me. What's 2% of 100? What's 1% of 200? Yeah, there is a point. If taxes are cut from 2% to 1% people always scream, oh mah gawd, we're going to lose 50% of our tax revenue! That is because they think, wrongly, that the economics upon which the taxes are levied are static. They see 1/2 the tax rate they think 1/2 the taxes. But if taxes are cut in half and the base economics double then what happens? Taxes remain the same. So now if taxes are cut by, say, about 1% and the base economics grows by, say, 6%, what happens? Oh, uh, tax revenue is increased? So screaming about tax cuts in the absence of all other factors is either ignorance or pandering to ignorance. And why did I pick those numbers? Because Bush's tax cuts amount to less than 1% of the total taxes taken in. A lot of chest beating for so little amount. Meanwhile the economy has grown by 3-4% per year for at least the past year or two. Of course my numbers are almost certainly off as I don't have the exact figures committed to memory and you could use the practice of looking up these statistics before you spout of something ignorant (or pandering to ignorance) instead of having them pointed out to you after. Makes your arguments stronger that way. Oh, right, the collapse of the Social Security system in the mid 2020s. Sorry, already saw the man behind the curtain, Mumia. Might I suggest before you take anything on Wikipedia as gospel you do a minute amount of critical thinking. Flaws like the above aren't hard to spot. There is no flaw in the logic of a government program being supported by taxes. Which isn't what I said. What I said was that the flaw was that because the government could impose taxes to fund the scam it would not fail. The fact is that it is projected to fail anyway, in spite of the state's power to tax. Two different things. You're right Steve. The flaw isn't hard to spot. It's the Republican Party that is the flaw. It's now the current policy of the Republican party to Starve the Beast, that is, to wreck the country's finances so thoroughly that Social Security and a host of other government programs have to be scrapped or privatized. Uh, no. Might I suggest you do a Google on Thomas Sowell and read his columns going back a few years. He explains these concepts in clear, concise english and points out many of the fallacies people operate under. Besides, given the choice, I'd far rather my money going where I want. Social Security is the worst performing program out there. I could do better putting a pick of long-term stocks on a piece of paper, tacking it to a dart board and buying in whatever my darts hit. There is no problem with Social Security that cannot be easily fixed with a change of administration and Congressional leadership. The Democrats have no vested interest in destroying the New Deal. They don't? Then tell me exactly what Clinton did to fix Social Security when he was in office? Remember, this problem existed prior to Bush II. It was a debating point for Bush II/Gore! http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa100600e.htm Clinton's supposed privatization option... in 1998: http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050129-095130-1559r.htm -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Paul Johnson wrote: Nice attitude. Vast portions of Oregon and parts of rural Washington led the continent in unemployment for the first half of this decade. I'm sure you would have rather let one in five people in the pacific northwest die of starvation instead. Of course not. But there is a large difference between factors which are largely out of your control (collapse of the local economy because of factors outside the region) and factors largely in your control (put a $^%#$ condom on!). Or are you saying that Oreganians are manifestly incapable of operating a condom? -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: But that happens all the time. People who don't drive still pay taxes for roads. And they also never take public transportation on those roads, pay for transportation across those roads, never have emergency medical services travel to them and transport them to the hospital on those roads, never buy any product which was transported across those roads... ok, that one's a setup since every product in a store was delivered by a truck unless the store is in some remote location only accessible by mule train. Driving on roads is not the only benefit those roads offer. People who don't have children pay taxes for schools. And public schools are doing such a fine job of educating, too! You are aware that there are people who believe public schooling was, and is, a bad idea and this would be best removed? People who have no interest in nature pay taxes to preserve national parks. Same here. I agree that social security is all sorts of screwed up, but not because it involves collecting money and spending it in ways that might not directly benefit the person paying. It is a large part of it because it's pretty much a fact that the people would have been better off with the money to invest and save on their own. Yes, people can come up with specific cases of individuals who represent the exception. But we're talking the by-and-large masses here, not the a friend of a friend's aunt's grandma... Not unless you're against taxes of all forms, which is possibly an entirely different argument. Income taxes, hell yes. Consumption taxes levied equally upon all? No. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I recall correctly when I looked at the Baen site last year, they usually release on book in a series online. Those that read the first book and like it will have to buy the rest of the series. Has this changed? This is up to the author. They can put the first book up. They can put several books up. Some authors put up only the first, others have put up complete series. AFAIK Baen, as a policy, doesn't care either way since in the end either produce more sales because, in general, people prefer to read books as books. I know that while I enjoy reading books on my Axim given the option I'd rather buy a book to read, borrow a book to read and finally download a book to my Axim to read. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Andrew Sackville-West wrote: Nice way to avoid the point. Nope, didn't avoid a thing. As you admit your case was constructed. Furthermore it did not address what I said. You said, and I quote: The short, short form is that EICs are issued for people being irresponsible (like, having kids while well below the poverty level), Your constructed example was that someone who had kids *then* lost their job. My case is the more common no job or single, low wage job, have a kid because the nanny state will take care of it or they can't figure out how the darn things are made. That's two completely different cases. My point was that lots of people end up qualifying for EIC's due to a variety of factors outside their control. Uh, no, a lot of people qualify for factors entirely in their control; having a child is a choice not a biological inevitability. Most people don't have a kid then fall on hard times. Most people have a kid and do well or have a kid to hell with their situation at the time. Furthermore my example was to show when a person gets money sent to them for not paying anything into the system. You are aware that EICs are not just for the poor and there are cases where households with an income far in excess of the poverty level get EICs as well. The reason I specified what I did was because at least those households, in theory, are contributing something into the system in the first place. Granted they often get it all, and more, back but for a time the money was contributed. That is not being irresponsible. That is being unlucky. So? There are ways to mitigate bad luck like planning for hard times. Savings, sadly, is a dying breed in this nation of instant gratification credit lines and a tax system which discourages actual savings. I am only pointing out how you have classified an entire group of people in one sweeping generalization that has little or no bearing in reality. No, you set up a strawman to knock down. I never said someone who already has a child and loses a job. I said someone who is below that line and decides to have a child. One is after the fact, the other is not. But for you to characterise all those people as irresponsible is disingenuous and wrong. If I was the hypothetical person in my example I'd be down-right offended at your statement. Sorry, but you'd be hard pressed to find an exception I'd agree with that wasn't constructed as yours was. If you were the hypothetical person in your example you'd be under scrutiny on what you could and could not do as well. Hard times is not an I give up button. Hard times is when you look seriously at what's going on and do what needs to be done. EIC's are issued for people who fall below a certain income level and meet other criteria. How they got in that situation is completely outside the question and has no bearing on whether they are responsible people or not. You're not well versed in what EICs are issued for. So lets try an experiment. Lets. Lets give you a good job with decent income, benefits etc. Lets assume you have 2.5 dependents. Choice #1. This is not a biological inenviability. Lets assume you live in a reasonably priced house and are reasonably responsible with you money. YOu don't spend more than you make (except the occaisional vacation :). You save a decent amount of your paycheck. YOu've built up a nice little nest egg. Things are good. Ok, so far. Now outsource your job. Outsource your industry. YOu've got no income. so you start looking for work and you start living off your savings. With ya so far. That's what its there for. Now, tinme passes, you can't get a job in your field, your whole field is basically gone, at least in your region. So move. more time passes... you've worked your ass off looking for a job, our wife has taken part-time work to help with the bleeding, you end up taking a low wage job just to help contorl the bleeding, but your bleeding. Question, why wasn't she working before? That's choice number 2. This isn't the 1950's and thanks in part to the very tax system which funds EICs most families these days are dual-income. The days of stay-at-home moms are well and truly dead. You WILL lose your house, Sell it and move to where the market is better. you HAVE lost your savings, No. You have spent your savings on what savings are meant to be used on. Unforseen changes in your personal situation. you WILL have to draw out your retirement funds and pay the penalty to keep from losing your house for a while. But, luckily, you now qualify for EIC's and get a little money back on your taxes. Big Brother to the rescue!!! Don't want the little woman to work, don't want to make the hard choices of moving or selling the house? Never fear, Big Brother is here! Where in this scenario are you being irresponsible? You did everything right up
Re: Social Contract
Paul Johnson wrote: No, the locals are more than capable of doing that. However, we aren't able to defend ourselves against large swarms of Californians overrunning us. Ahhh yes, the tired ol' Blame the Californians game. Tsk. See, down here in Vegas we got that problem licked. Every weekend the wind kicks up. Know why? Because of the Californians stampeding over the border to pay our state income taxes, pay us for room and board while they do it and in the end, thank us for the opportunity. Maybe you Oregonians should take that as a pointer? :P -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: Great. You understand that roads are a social benefit. Not having the elderly rotting on the streets is also a social benefit. Yes, having them rot in homes is so much better because they weren't able to invest their own money in something to yield a higher return so they could live much more comfortably. Yup. And public schools are doing such a fine job of educating, too! Yes, they are. I was educated in a public school. It shows. And there are people who believe that America's laws should be interpreted from the point of view of the Christian Bible--Pat Robertson is one of them. Just because a few loons believe something doesn't mean I have to buy it. Yes, so anyone who doesn't conform to your world view is a loon. No they are not. A few, knowledgeable individuals *might* be better off, or they might screw up and choose the wrong investments and lose most of it. No, not might. Most people. Some might choose bad investments. But by and large it is extremely difficult to do worse than Social Security. I think it's so bad that putting the money in a simple 3% interest savings account offered by any bank yields more in the end. The idea behind the Social Security system is that you shouldn't have to know anything about stocks, bond or any other securities to have your retirement protected. The idea of Social Security is to make people dependant on government and to buy votes. And your retirement money shouldn't be entirely dependent upon the twists and turns of the business cycle. Yet over the course of any long term investment it performs better in the end than Social Security. It is only when people use fear mongering tactics like What if they dumped right in the middle of *insert downturn here*... Unless they started 1-2 years before chances are they'd be far better off. Consumption taxes are a regressive (targeting the poor) idea that the Right Wing has touted for years. No, they're not. In fact some forms help the poor. But since they're not vote-buying wealth distribution schemes most politicians don't go for it. Far better to buy 70% of the votes by taxing only 30% of the population and calling it fair and progressive. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Christopher Nelson wrote: That's your right, but unless you can *gaurantee* that I can, for no cost, send my children to a 100% secular school with decent teaching, there is no way I can support abolishing public schools. And if you can gaurantee that, where does the line between public and private come? Uh, why such a high bar? It's like you're getting public schooling for free. They cost in taxes. You, supposedly, pay taxes. Some of the worst public schools are also some of the most highly funded public schools. IE, the most costly. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Paul Johnson wrote: Because society benefits from an educated public. If you want to do away with public education, look to Mexico first: Public education only covers through grade six there. Yes, it does. Which, of course, has nothing to do with the public education system here. If it did then the politicians couldn't get away with half the posturing they do when it comes to the latest fad crisis. Gas prices, anyone? For every school you don't build, you have to build two jails later on. Which would you rather do? Spend 12 years spending a kid through school on your tax dollars or 20+ years for housing thousands more violent criminals? Cite? I mean I could always point to how wonderfully some public schools do at turning out career criminals. Sure you can. You can put your kids through private school anyway. And pay double. See the problem here? -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mumia W wrote: Social Security is not highly suspect. It's not even suspect. It's simply the most popular social program in U.S. history. Just because it is popular doesn't mean people don't find it suspect. How does protecting the poor and elderly destroy society? Vote pandering, class and race warfare, wealth redistribution and other such activities when engaged by the government and religious groups upon the population at large destroy society. The entire problem with Social Security funding is Bush II's. Your opinion that Social Security should not exist is an opinion that you have a right to, but the fact that Bush is depriving the government of income is a fact. No, it's not. As I pointed out Social Security's problems were being debated IN 1998 BY BILL CLINTON! At the time Bush II was still Governor of TEXAS! TWO YEARS prior to being elected and you're blaming him for all it's woes? The fact that it's very structure is known to FAIL has no bearing or relevance? Please don't bore me with another lesson in Reagan's failed voodoo economics. Reagan indebted this nation more than any president before him. To keep things from truly getting out of hand, he raised taxes (renamed as revenue increases). Pst, the bankrupting was Carter's fault. Reagan reigned in Carter's explosive inflation. I'm curious how, exactly, taxing helps the economy. That's the true voodoo economics. The state's power to tax is legitimate. The state's power to tax to help the poor is legitimate. The state's power to tax to keep its agencies afloat is legitimate. *sigh* Are you even trying to understand? Social Security was never a scam because no one was tricked into it. Just because you don't like something does not make it a scam. Did I exactly have a choice in the matter? No. Does the fact that you like it make it less of a scam? Nope. I bought one of his books back when I was smaller-brained and right-wing. His is the typical Right-Wing mantra, Reaganomics, Laffer curve, racism is an illusion, all very boring now and all proven 100% false. Oddly enough, they haven't. If so, please cite sources. So far, time and again, they've been proven right. The purpose of Social Security is *not* high-income. It serves as a safety-net for the lower middle-class and working poor. Never said it was. The point, however, is that the people from which social security is forcably removed WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF IF IT HADN'T. That includes the lower middle class and working poor! The Social Security Administration invests in the U.S. government, and yeah, I think that's going to pay off :-) And you say it isn't a Ponzi. Wasn't one of the points of a Ponzi scan was that they got people to reinvest into the scam. So the government taxes people for this scam and reinvests it in the government *laugh* He raised taxes and gave us the longest period of economic growth in American history. Heck, he could've grown us out of the Social Security problem. Too bad we couldn't give him a third term. Pst, reality check. Clinton's economic boom was because he cut taxes and deregulated the telecommunications industry. He also got to come off the economic policies set in motion by Reagan/Bush I. Clinton's economic legacy is evident in the downturn that started prior to Bush II taking office (which he is often mistakenly credited for) that was further harshened by 9/11's chilling effects on business and pleasure travel. 9/11, of course, was a plan that was dreamed up and set in motion during the years of Clinton's lax stance on terrorism. Let's not forget that the intelligence wall between the FBI and CIA which supposedly prevented vital intelligence which could have prevented 9/11 was a CLINTON policy. As much as I dislike Bush II at least I have the honesty to understand that the first year or two of his presidency will be heavily influenced by the polices and procedures set in place by the prior administration's term in office. As much as people would like to blame him entirely for the economic downturn and 9/11 those were things that took years to come to fruition. That means the last 9 months that Bush was in office is really the smallest portion of what people need to look at. Of course everyone is so focused on Bush they don't even try to look at Clinton's culpability in any of this. Which is exactly why you think that Bush is the sole reason why Social Security is in shambled and ignore the fact that Clinton before him faced the exact same issues and did nothing. Facts are inconvenient to your world view. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Christopher Nelson wrote: The same reason you should pay taxes for roads you don't drive on--because at all stages of life having an educated workforce benifits you, just as it benifits you for people (eg utility companies) to drive on roads you particularly don't use. Or would you rather not pay your doctor to pass high school anatomy and biology? That's all well and good except for one problem. I can tell when the roads aren't working. My suspension goes to hell. I can convince other people of the same by pointing to my crappy suspension. I also can tell when the public school system isn't working. But help me if I try to convince others of that! The key word here is an educated public is a benefit. I do not believe that is what public schooling is offering in the least. As one poster said they believed they are educated in spite of the public school system. I believe the same thing. As to the free--I don't plan on having children before I can afford them, but that doesn't help the middle class who can't afford most private schools (the ones I've seen advertised aren't cheap), but can otherwise afford to raise children in a decent environment. Do you purport that you must be wealthy to raise children, or just well enough off? You're also pricing against a limited market. If the market were more open then prices would fall as more would enter the market. On the flip side if the parents aren't paying for public schooling via taxes one would presume the money they save there could be applied to private schooling? BTW, just curious, have you compared private schooling to public schooling when it comes to cost per pupil? The last time I checked (Sacramento, late 90s) private schooling was cheaper per pupil. Sure you can. Nothing's forcing you to have your kids in public schools. And shopping around for a good public school district is part of being a responsible parent if you can't afford/don't like private school. A good public school district. Which implies one can purchase a home in a good district. Or do you believe only the wealthy can obtain a decent education for their children? Plus, she was blatantly violating the schools policy (based on the secretary of the Department of Education) that you cannot teach religious tenets as matters of fact in the public school system. Now if we could only get political beliefs out of the school system and get back to basics. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Kent West wrote: Sure, you'll have to pay in at the end of the year, but you're paying in less than you were paying, because now you're getting the interest. Ah, but here's the rub. That interest is considered income and he has to pay taxes on it. Gotta love where one of the problems facing individuals today in their finances is they don't save enough. So the government decides to tax 'em for doing the smart thing, saving. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Kent West wrote: Sure, you'll have to pay in at the end of the year, but you're paying in less than you were paying, because now you're getting the interest. Ah, but here's the rub. That interest is considered income and he has to pay taxes on it. Gotta love where one of the problems facing individuals today in their finances is they don't save enough. So the government decides to tax 'em for doing the smart thing, saving. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: If you think education is bad now, federalizing it would likely square or cube the problem. Don't believe me? Just look at the decline in the quality of education in this country since the formation of the Dept of Education. Not to mention that phrase just made every strict constitutionalist either cringe or roll over in their grave. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Mumia W wrote: Not everyone has the choice that you have. For *most* people, it's either a free education, or no education. That's why public schools are needed. And why would it be no education if they were no longer required to pay for the total lack of education from the public sector right now? A person doesn't have to be stupid to not want to have to learn about that stuff. And yes, even the stupid *deserve* retirement security. They deserve exactly what they are interested in getting. The experts at the Social Security Administration *are* doing it, and they're doing an incredibly efficient job at it too. Social Security has less than 1% administrative overhead. No private retirement options come even close. Know what, I'd rather they had 5% administrative overhead if their returns weren't so dismal. Touting their administrative overhead without looking at other parts of the equation is ignorance at it's best. Tell you what, if you think administrative overhead is all that matters how about you give me all the money you're planning on using for retirement and I'll stuff it in my mattress. When you need it, I'll hand it back. I'll do it for free so my administrative overhead is 0%! What a steal! Those people you'd hire screw up all the time, and they screw their customers half the time. Social Security doesn't have that problem. Uh, yes, it does. First off you're talking to people who believe Social Security is screwing them and others over RIGHT NOW by it's very existence. The fact that Social Security is due to run out a full 20 years before my retirement proves that I'm most certainly screwed in this transaction. Social Security doesn't have fund managers that run off with all the money. Yes, they do. They're called Senators, Congressmen and Presidents. Social Security doesn't have brokers that churn and burn your retirement nest egg. Social Security doesn't make risky investments just to make a quick buck, and when their values collapse, they write you a letter saying, We invested in those ultra-high-yielding junk bonds because we wanted you to get a lot of money, but now the bonds are worthless, and we lost all your money. But it's not really our fault because you were stupid enough to trust us. Instead they don't invest at all and will be writing me a letter saying, Sorry, but we ran out of funds 20 years ago because our Ponzi scheme collapsed. Social Security is not driven by a high profit motive; it's purpose is to provide stable retirement income to people, and it does a fantastic job of that. Bull. My parents aren't counting on Social Security for their retirement. I'm not counting on it for mine. In fact we're both hampered by it. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Christopher Nelson wrote: I feel like I'm missing the point, but in case it's teaching political tenets as fact: on that I think we squarely agree. I've not heard people complaining about it, but it would be equally as reprehensible as religion As in cases where teachers are using their classroom to pontificate about their political views instead of teaching the subject at hand. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Larry Garfield wrote: Except that it's not a 1:1 tradeoff. The tuition cost for a good private school is more than what an individual family would get back in their taxes by eliminating public schools. Substantially more. How do you know? Right now the cost per pupil for public schooling is higher than private. That implies that they'd get back more. Secondly if there is more competition prices would be lower. You're comparing a semi-open market to an unknown quantity. What you're forgetting is that the cost of public education is spread out over the entire community, rather than placed just at the feet of those with kids in the system at the moment. With kids, full stop. Never had 'em, never will. That reduces the amount a given family needs to pay, and spreads it over a longer period of time. It also masks the costs. They pay the same if they have 0 or 20 children. That's an undue burden on other people. My neighbor growing up never had kids, but her property taxes helped send me to a good public school so that I had a decent education and am now contributing to the economy that is paying for her nursing home, and my social security income tax payments allows her to afford to eat. Now, prove that she is better off having done that instead of having that money to do as she pleases. That's the problem. You (and others) are stating benefits where there may be none. It does all come around in the end. A rising tide lifts all ships. Selfish greed just leaves most people destitute. Yes, and exactly how many closed economies have lifted all ships? You're right, though, it is selfish greed that leaves most people destitute. The way I look at it the entire Social Security, public schooling scam is the most selfish of all. I don't want to have to plan for my future. I want *YOU* to take care of it. I don't want to pay for my children. I want *YOU* to pay for them. I think it is actually rather selfless to say No thanks, I'll take care of it. But guess what, we don't have that choice because of the selfish decisions of others. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: It's a sad reality that not all adults are responsible. Yes, it is. Problem is is it really the government's role, especially at the federal level, to deal with that problem? Or is it more appropriate for local institutions and local governments where people have more say in how those problems are handled? So it's a reality that there will be kids whose parents can't afford to pay for education. Now, here in the US, those kids will eventually be able to vote. I do feel that I benefit from a voting public that has at least a high school education. I wish I could feel the same. However the foolishness that the general population lets their politicians get away with does not instill me with confidence that they were educated at all. Take a look at the the two top political issues out currently. Immigration reform and gasoline prices. I feel that if the public at large had a high school education they should be able to see through the sham that both of these issues are. First off it isn't immigration reform. I know several immigrants (one from France, one from India) and the current debate has little to no impact on them. Why? Because they did just what we label them implies. They immigrated here... legally. They didn't illegally cross the border. They didn't engage in class and race warfare in an attempt to legalize what they did after the fact. In fact both of them, shockingly enough, learned English before coming here and aren't still speaking their native tongue after several years of being here! Imagine that! So to me the fact that most people seem manifestly incapable of distinguishing illegal aliens and legal immigrants implies they really weren't educated to a high school level on what constitutes, legal and illegal and the consequences of illegality. As for gas prices the same applies. I am able to produce a widget for $1. I sell it for $1.10. I make $1.10 in revenue and $.10 in profit or a 10% profit margin. All is well. I make the same widget for $1 but I'm able to make two billion of them. I sell all two billion of them at $1.10. I make $2,200,000,000.00 in revenues, a profit of $200,000,00.00, a 10% profit margin and now there's congressional hearings into my windfall profits. Seems foolish, that's exactly what's happening. Look at the news coverage carefully and the words they're using. They talk about gross revenues and profits. Obviously if companies sell more their revenues are going to go up and their profits will go up. But that doesn't mean their profit MARGIN has changed one iota. So I fail to see how having high sales is something to warrant a government probe! I fail to understand how supposedly high school educated individuals (heck, college graduates for that matter) can't grasp such a simple concept. Sell more, make more. Sell less, make less. Selling tons more doesn't mean something is amiss. In many cases that's doing something right! But that issue gets better. What kind of double-think does it take to complain a few weeks ago about America's dependence on foreign oil only to turn around this week to investigate companies here who are reliant on foreign oil for their stocks! Might there just be a connection there and if there's any price fixing it might be *gasp* at the source of the oil? In fact how many people here remember a few years back the big news was that OPEC member nations got together to do something? Anyone remember what that was? Beuller? Beuller? Yes, it was to fix the price of oil that they sell on the market! They didn't hide it! They flat out told the world they were going to fix the price of oil and not break ranks. Nevermind that one nation (Iran, was it?) did break ranks for a time and sell oil for lower than the price they set. Now, either the public high schools aren't doing their job because this same pattern develops time and again and large swaths of the public don't seem to be able to grasp the concept. Either that or my expectations of what defines an educated individual high schools should be producing is far too high. As for me, I attended public schools throughout my education. They did d*mn well by me. I'll grant that I went to a high school that routinely ranks in the top of schools nationwide, and furthermore that I was lucky in that I was in the accelerated track, which tends to draw highly motivated teachers, but in any case, I don't feel I missed out by getting a public school education. I do wish everyone had access to the kinds of teachers I had in high school. I truly feel your experience is the exception. I know that of the 5 high schools in the city I grew up 4 of them were a complete waste and I attended the worst. The best advice I ever got was from my 10th grade English teacher. She pulled me aside one day and ask What are you still doing here? Tell your parents about this program and get out. The program? The
Re: OT: Politics [Was:Social Contract]
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: There are people who believe that amending the Constitution to prevent gay marriage is somehow a worthwhile cause. People believe all sorts of crazy stuff. Exactly. And the crazy stuff here is that public education is somehow up to snuff and worth continuing. Not sure what you're agreeing with. I support national parks, and I vote to spend money on local parks. And I'm not sure wtf anyone is doing in the Front Range of Colorado if they don't like nature, but hey, I'm sure they exist, and maybe it bugs them that the rest of us keep voting to protect our land. Same here as in I said that public schooling was a bad idea and that I felt the same here. I honestly don't believe this. It might be different if good financial practices were required in the high school curriculum, but they're not. (That's an idea I've read about in a couple of financial books now, and it makes a lot of sense.) Very few people are all that good at investing. Particularly, because there's a lack of understanding of the market, people panic when they lose money, pull their money out, and then never get the benefit of the upswing. But that's just it, they don't have to because Social Security is that bad. It's not like they have to make out like a railroad bandit to beat Social Security. All they have to do is the most basic savings to beat it. Seriously! Everything I've read suggests that financial experts, people who have a financial education and study the market as their job, are lucky to pick a winning stock 50% of the time. What makes you think that someone with a full time job, child rearing responsibilities, etc is going to even do that well? (And yes, you can invest in funds instead, but that still requires a fair amount of attention to earn enough interest to stay ahead of inflation.) Who said stocks? I said invest as they saw fit. And you're right, it takes a fair amount of attention to earn enough interest to stay ahead of inflation. Now, for the $20,000 that you and others never ask. Is Social Security staying ahead of inflation? -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Paul Johnson wrote: You know nothing of my party or it's politics. Socialists are progressive, not conservative. Socialists are thieves who pass off their practice under a veneer of intellectual doublespeak. No, Republicans are not the least bit socialist. They're anti-public healthcare, anti-public education, and think laissez-faire economics benefits everyone instead of just the richest 3% that control 80% of the country's wealth. Republicans are pretty much the Socialist antithesis in the US. Yes, and that's why the largest government programs in history have been enacted by a Republican controlled Congress with a sitting Republican President. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Gene Heskett wrote: Well, he could, because its worse than that, 1% of the people here control 90% of the wealth according to some figures I heard on C-SPAN tonight in congressional testimony. Thats not right, and its sure not a democracy. Of course it's not a democracy. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't have the sense to listen to the clap-trap every school child in public education is forced to recite daily. I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the *REPUBLIC* for which it stands... Have you heard the other side of those figures? How about 50% of the people don't pay taxes. In fact a large portion get free money. Explain exactly how that part is democratic and you'll win a prize. No, I'm not joking, it is exactly that behavior which is why we're supposed to live in a republic and not a democracy. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Christopher Nelson wrote: Okay. The DFSG are more supportive of developer's rights. Again, not true. How exactly is a developer who releases under a non-DSFG license somehow lower on the totem pole of rights? Both protect the developer's rights. Both describe exactly what is and is not allowed. The only difference is what they restrict. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Christopher Nelson wrote: With Free software, you have the right to modify, pass along code, fork, distribute, and feed upstream. The only restriction on those rights is that with GPL and similiar you grant them to others. And there's the rub, innit. The only restriction means that you must follow a certain set of rules and not deviate. Doesn't that sound exactly like a closed license. You must follow the rules they set out and not deviate. Besides, free software isn't the GPL. GPL is but one license and the most restrictive. If people are looking for truly free software and a license to go with it I encourage them (Hi Mike!) to look at the BSD license. Here's the short form. You use it, cite my copyright and name in your documentation. Y'know, that doesn't seem so bad compared to do what you want provided you do exactly as I did. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Christopher Nelson wrote: My biggest problem with BSD-style licenses is that someone can take your work, use it, and then restrict other's access to their improvements. So the GPL restricts their freedom to do just that. That has been my main point from the onset. It is not free. It is just different. I work for a company as a programmer, I'll have to live with it or choose another field, but when I'll write something for the community I want it and it's descendants to stay Free. I agree. That is why the rare pieces of software I write and have released have been GPLed. But I'm not about to say I did it because I believe in freedom. I did it because I liked the restrictions on freedom the GPL provided. I did it because I felt it an appropriate and acceptable way to pay for the efforts of others who have done similar with their work. I am using the fruits of their labor, I'm allowing them to use the fruits of mine... On my terms. And those terms ain't free. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Gene Heskett wrote: Are you saying that the social security I get every month is somehow free? To you? Sure is. Social Security is the only legal ponzi scam allowed in the US. Your Social Security payments are paid by present day workers. Your withholdings were spent as you earned them. The idea was that since the population was expanding we could take from the current generation and give to the previous out to infinity. However, the population growth has tapered off, longevity through medical advances kicked in and now instead of dozens of people per recipient we're not closing in on a 1:1 ratio. Thats not exactly how I see it. That money was withheld from my wages, largely against my better judgement, over a period exceeding 50 years by the time I quit showing up everyday for work in favor of a weekly visit to the transmitter and basicly an on-call basis since mid 2002. Had I been able to invest that money in a simple compounding interest savings account, it would be worth much for than a million dollars by now, and I could live quite nicely on the interest alone. How you see it is the typical way and is factually inaccurate. No amount of how you see its are going to replace the money you contributed which has already been spent. So the fact of the matter is, yes, you're getting something for free. But shockingly enough I wasn't even talking about social security. I was talking about Earned Income Credits (EIC). The short, short form is that EICs are issued for people being irresponsible (like, having kids while well below the poverty level), who pay no taxes (see the point about poverty level) and will get money back from the federal government because of EIC. They paid nothing in, they get money out. They got money... for free. That is but one example. Now, what was it you were saying? Something completely different? But hey, you want to go on your selfish trip be my guest. Question is come time who are you gonna hunt? Because I don't like that ponzi scheme any more than you do and it is *my* income *you* are garnishing. So let's see if your aim is true. You going after the politicians or the people like me who have a right to defend their property just as much as you do? -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Andy Streich wrote: Just the other day I was watching a Senate hearing where a songwriter was saying she could not make a living without the copyright and IPR laws. And I've wondered a long time about how the economy might have to change if there were no IPR. The idea has appeal in so many ways, then you run smack into the wall of monetary incentives. They'd live the same way they do now. Remember, IPLs are why the record companies make money. They songs are owned by the record companies, not the artists. Artists, big and small, make their money through live performances which copyright IPL or the lack thereof does not alter as the audience is going to watch the people perform their songs. Well, of course there's cover bands and lounge acts. But by and large... ;) No, I'm afraid IPL is pretty dumb to me. I'm having a hard time grasping why one of the activities in these lists are illegal and the rest are not. Borrowing a book from a library. Having a friend lend you a book they like. Having a friend tell you the plot of a book they like. Downloading a copy of the book. Borrowing a CD from a library. Having a friend lend you a CD they like. Having a friend sing a song from a CD they like. Downloading a copy of the CD. Borrowing a video from a library. Having a friend lend you a video they like. Having a friend tell you the plot of a video they like. Downloading a copy of the video. In each case the content producer gets paid once (Library, friend, etc) and the intellectual property, the content, is distributed. Yet three of the four cases it is legal and has been encouraged for decades while the fourth, the exact same activity, is illegal. The really sad thing? Most authors would kill to have their books lent out a few times from libraries/friends to build up a following and yet don't want their books downloaded for fear of some kind of intellectual theft. *boggle* IPL and copyright in today's world have very little to do with protecting individual's interests. It is often used to strip individuals of their rights (ala musical artists). -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Erik Persson wrote: As stated earlier, the BSD-licence requires, among other things, that: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. But it does not require the code which uses it to be licensed under the same scheme and released under the same. If it were we'd not have the arguments over bugs in Windows code as we'd be able to read it. Remember, Windows TCPIP stack uses BSD licensed code and they were nailed for not producing the notice. But it is still an open license in a closed product. The requirement of giving credit is more about codifying good manners. IE, if you write a report and quote another source in your report you cite the source. Same thing here, just gussied up in new lingo since lawyers and judges can't seem to apply law against similar concepts if the technology is different without the new lingo. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Wulfy wrote: Erm. What does ponzi mean? I can't find it in any of my dictionaries, so I assume it's American Slang... Divided by a common language... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: GNOME V. KDE (was Re: New user need some help
John Stumbles wrote: Since my first experience with GNOME was of the apps bundled with it that rather put me off. Now that I know what I want to use (e.g. k3b) I could probably get along with GNOME if I had to. However since I'm now reasonably familar with KDE it'd be a learning curve to get into GNOME so there'd have to be some positive incentive to do so. I don't think there is. I was never keen on Gnome and every time I use Gnome I just get frustrated at how backwards and dumb everything is. About the only thing I think they might have done right is spatial which it seems everyone who loves Gnome otherwise thinks is wrong. If I *had* to choose between the two I'd choose KDE every time, hands down. However my choice because of RAM requirements is XFCE. The more I use it the less I want to use KDE as it does all I want from a DE/WM in a lighter footprint. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Gene Heskett wrote: The pols of course. They are the ones who set this ponzi scheme, one that would jail you or I for an extended period if we were caught doing it. Then your aim is off. They are supposed to answer to the population so your beef is with me. But thats not my problem as I see it, its theirs (the pols) to figure out how to fund the monthly auto deposit I now get in my dotage. You might think I'm a freeloader, and you have a 1st amendment right to that opinion. Guns, 2nd. Speech, 1st. You've got the wrong one when you're talking hunting and aiming. My opinion is that I had no choice but to contribute into that fund at ever increasing amounts as my income rose with the level of expertise I gained and the experience warranted. Now I want to get some of it back, theoreticly with interest considering that a weeks wages when I started this game is about an hours wages today. Yes, I get that. So you want to perpetuate the problem instead of solve it. I'd rather solve it than perpetuate it. In the meantime I think I have a right, based on all those years of contributing to this ponzi scheme, to not have to make a choice of groceries or medicine, groceries or property taxes, groceries or electricity, water, sewer, telephone yadda yadda... So your rights are trumping mine? Nice. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Andy Streich wrote: That does not seem accurate. Royalties from radio play and sales are significant to many artists. The songwriter I heard said she makes $0.09 (some sort of average figure) each time a song of hers is played on the radio and that sort of income was essential for her. Chances are if it's on the radio she no longer owns the song as it was put there by a label which takes possession of the content. They payment scheme is immaterial. She might be better off if she kept legal rights to her own work and could redistribute it to several sources. But since they're focused on play the current highly slanted game that's all they want to protect. Current law makes downloading different from your other options illegal because of the speed and quality of copy you can make and the ease of doing so with digital formats -- at least that's how the IPR argument goes. (This was the precise point of the Senate hearing I witnessed.) Lending a DVD is far faster than downloading it. Hell, riding my motorcycle to the library and checking out a book is often faster than downloading a book and they're far more compact digitally. In each case the content producer gets paid once (Library, friend, etc) and the intellectual property, the content, is distributed. Yet three of the four cases it is legal and has been encouraged for decades while the fourth, the exact same activity, is illegal. Yes, but now new technology has changed the game. Not really. The same arguments were presented for the cassette tape, writable CDs and writable DVDs. Oddly enough each technology has boosted sales, not diminished them. The game is exactly as it was before. Only difference is that the consumers are even easier to reach and please. There are many books I would not buy if I could get free electronic copies -- just the plain text would be enough. I can see an author being concerned about that. However when an author had the audacity to actually test the theory that releasing the books for free would increase sales that is exactly what happened. That author was Eric Flynt published by Baen. Since that day Baen has published books online, for free, because it makes them money. In fact, every book that David Weber (arguably their top author) puts out in hardcover includes a CD which contains, in four formats, every book he's published. I've bought 4 of his books in hardcover in the past few years. You think if they were taking a loss they'd continue to do it? In fact it has been so successful that they have recorded case where an author who consented to releasing a Baen book saw the sales of her books under other publishers go up. They've even published a book from an author who retained the electronic publishing rights though her print rights are still locked up with another pulp publisher. Yes, I can see the author being concerned. But I don't see it being a rational concern since most who are arguing against it are doing so without a rational test case and ignoring the one business decision this publisher has made! But I was thinking more of how established businesses (like Sun, IBM, HP, Intel) and startups would function without IPR laws and protections. I find it hard to imagine because we have no examples in developed countries, and I've benefited materially from being part of a tiny startup that was acquired for its IP. Many times it comes down to service based revenue vs. licensing. Which is how Stallman says programmers would feed themselves in a totally free software society akin to how architects and handymen do so now on the homes we own and are free to modify. I wish there was a way to get by without IPL because of the many positive things that would be enabled by doing so, but in a capitalist economy it doesn't seem viable to do away with it. And, imagining the USA and other developed countries moving to a different kind of economy any time soon isn't too realistic. Agreed on both points. Though I am always hopeful because of Baen's example and always cite it loudly when people say that it might not work. There's one example of it working now. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Gene Heskett wrote: So would I. But I'll be damned if I'll sit back and let them fix it by breaking the promise I was made in 1947 when I got an SS card so I could go to work the first time. If they can do it without upsetting the systems results, then I'm pretty much all for it. There's two problems with this. Someone, somewhere, is going to get shafted. That's just the rub of the game. So why me instead of you? Or the next generation after me? If not now, when? Here's the second problem. Outside of good ol' Thurm(?) who's in Congress now who was in then for you to hold accountable? Aren't they as much in the crapper as you are? You're demanding they continue because of what their predecessors put into place. Have you earned the same rights as I by putting your hard earned dollars into that revolving door as long as I have? Rights are not earned. Rights are not granted. Rights are inalienable and enumerated. You no more have a right to my property than I have rights to yours. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Andrew Sackville-West wrote: how exactly is my employee, who lost his job when his company outsourced his job to the far east, being irresponsible? He was a model employee, good time in, liked by all etc. Had two kids and a wife. Now he's shlepping burgers for me and gets EIC. How exactly is he irresponsible? Hmm? Please don't make such broad generalizations, they are inflammatory and inappropriate. When you answer how it is responsible that he gets income redistributed I'll pay attention to your feedback. Until then all I know is that EIC is pretty much a signpost on the sign to hell in this country. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mumia W wrote: Perhaps, Steve, you should have read this section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme#Are_national_retirement_programs_Ponzi_schemes.3F That section explains why national retirement schemes are *not* ponzi schemes. What makes you think I didn't. I read the entire page before posting. Just because it is on Wikipedia doesn't make it gospel. And just because Someone wants to nitpick that it isn't a ponzi scheme based on two dubious claims[1] doesn't change the the basic principle. I'm very much with Thomas Sowell when it comes to what Social Security is. [1] Those being that just because it doesn't make outlandish claims of immediate returns. However it does make an outlandish claim of extended returns. The second is that somehow the state using it's power of taxation somehow makes it alright. Lemme see, suckering someone to give you their money of their own free will = bad. Forcing someone to give you their money even if they don't want to = good! Sorry, I don't buy into the notion that the state's power of taxation changes the fundamental nature of the beast. Besides, that section of the page is flawed by the very facts in this nation. It says that since the state can tax the scheme won't fail. Yet what are we facing here in this nation? Oh, right, the collapse of the Social Security system in the mid 2020s. Sorry, already saw the man behind the curtain, Mumia. Might I suggest before you take anything on Wikipedia as gospel you do a minute amount of critical thinking. Flaws like the above aren't hard to spot. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: lists.debian.org vs google groups
Willie Wonka wrote: Oh - and I use Mozilla Mail - but this list (and others) have w-a-y too much mail for me to d/l and sort through - which is why I prefer webmail over pop3. I did subscribe to this list (for 10 minutes) once, but again, it's too tedious to try and use the webmail's severly hampered interface to delete, organize, etc...plus I do NOT use javascript in my browsers (except on occasion), and that makes it even 10x worse than what I described. Xen hosted virtual machine: $11.50/month Gb of bandwidth at LAN speeds: Included Debian installed to spec: $0 Running your own mail service the way you want, including webmail, IMAPD and server side filtering... priceless. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract WAS: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
chris roddy wrote: Mike McCarty wrote: I don't want to change the social order or be the downfall of capitalism, or kill MicroSoft or any of the other social goals so often associated with Linux. It sounds like you have gravely misunderstood the debian social contract, or you have not read it. Given that it falls under the first phrase in quotes I don't quite see how you could say that. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mike McCarty wrote: Johannes Wiedersich wrote: I once couldn't read or view my old work after switching employer, because I suddenly didn't have a licence for a certain program any more and all work that was done with that program was more or less lost. Umm, you never did have that license, then, and you used the software in an unauthorized manner. In short, you used a pirate copy. Uh, no Mike, he was behind door number 3. Legally using his employer's license while employed and unable to do so once no longer employed with that individual/company. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mike McCarty wrote: I understand the situation completely. You apparently do not. Sorry, no, you so are off your rocker it's not funny. See this, this is me not laughing. If he created (as he said) his *own* files using those tools, and not those of his employer, then he used a pirate copy. Bzt. That would be at the determination of the employer who licensed the use of that software. I am morally certain that the EULA did not include a clause like You are permitted to let other people who do not have a license use this software, for their own purposes, so long as you do not charge them, and they also use this software for you for your own purposes. Just as I am certain that EULA's don't include clauses like This can only be used for the promotion of the business form whom this license has been granted. Any use outside of aforementioned acceptable use is strictly forbidden. And since the software in question wasn't named there's no way you can justify your position any more than I can mine. Although my position does have fair use on it's side. So how about you pull your head out of your high horse's posterior. Trust me, there are no clues in there. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mike McCarty wrote: Well, since I got *PLONK*ed, there's no point in replying, is there? I don't like what I'm hearing, so I guess I'll put my fingers in my ears. Generally that's what one does when a child is wailing it's head off and the parents are nowhere in sight. Random noise is best not heard. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OT: Comparison of filesystems
Curt Howland wrote: My personal experience with ext2 was that the occasional power failure or accidental hitting of the switch caused just too many problems. I still let the fsck happen every 30 mounts or so, I don't turn that off. With my uptimes that's about once every 10 years. :/ -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Christopher Nelson wrote: So you are most definately Right Wing, as the DFSG, which support personal rights; changing the way 'traditional software' is developed; and is not business-associated; scares and irks you so greatly. DFSG is no more supportive of personal rights than proprietary software. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Social Contract
Mumia W wrote: You know we're talking about contemporary American politics. Because, as we all know, this is an American list and only American politics matter in the world. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Greg Folkert wrote: On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 13:59 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote: ssh stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/sshd For the record, -i at the end. Sort of why I put the comment: Now, since I have not tested this at all... it should really work, though YMMV. But anywho... you are quite correct. Yup. That was more for the archives in case anyone else has a similar question and does a search that brings up this thread. It has been quite informative. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Steve Lamb wrote: Joey Hess wrote: Many embedded systems don't have swap. ssh in inetd worked ok last time I used it as long as speed was not important. Thanks, Joey, I'll give it a whirl later on and let everyone know. Was just hoping that it was a question on dpkg-reconfigure that I was missing. Ok, the directions that Greg gave were spot on with the exception of the missed -i at the end of the inetd.conf line. Also I needed to get rid of the rc.d symlinks with a quick: cd /etc rm rc*.d/*ssh Also somehow flubbed stopping sshd and restarting inetd and locked myself out. The funny part is that it reminded me I have ssh access to my machine's console so if it weren't for scp I could always just ssh to the console and take up no RAM regardless. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Greg Folkert wrote: update-rc.d -f ssh remove Not true, that's the first thing I tried and none of the links were removed. :/ Oh, wait, maybe the -f makes a world of difference. *blush* Never logout of said machine completely until you can login back in Yeah, knew that but was doing 3 things at once. Lemme just say never play MMORPG and admin at the same time. :D -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Chris Lale wrote: [ snipped 46 lines of quoted material ] And another. Whoa, who let the AOLer in here. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: US Taxpayers: America's Army for Linux cancelled
Hal Vaughan wrote: Interesting dilemma for any Quakers (or members of any peace churches) who are FOSS advocates. Does one take the chance to advocate for open source or suggest that the entire program should be dropped? Scrap the whole thing unless I'm missing the make video games clause in the Constitution. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
ssh via inetd the Debian way
Is there some automated method of placing sshd into inetd? I've attempted to dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server to no avail. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Greg Folkert wrote: Why would one want sshd to run from inetd? Machine with low RAM that I rarely access via ssh. I do need access from time to time via ssh however. 500k of a resident ssh is 500k I could free up by moving it to inetd. ssh stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/sshd For the record, -i at the end. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: -i Specifies that sshd is being run from inetd(8). sshd is normally not run from inetd because it needs to generate the server key before it can respond to the client, and this may take tens of seconds. Uh, does this seem right? I recall sshd generating the key when it is first installed and don't recall the key changing every reboot which is when sshd would shutdown/startup like it would from inetd. :/ -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Matthew R. Dempsky wrote: Depending on how RAM limited the system is, you might also take a look at dropbear; it's a lightweight ssh server available in Debian. Ah, thanks. It's a 96 from unixshell.com. Trying to fit exim, apache(-ssl), SA, clamav all in 96Mb is rough. :( -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Matthew R. Dempsky wrote: It generates the host-specific keys at install time, but the v1 ssh protocol requires a second smaller RSA key generated that's not used for more than an hour, whereas the v2 protocol uses Diffie-Hellman. Ah, thanks for the explination! -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Martin A. Brooks wrote: If a process is unused for any length the time it will get swapped out and will use very little, if any, real memory until it's woken up. Limited swap as well. I just rather it be well and gone and only loaded when required. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ssh via inetd the Debian way
Joey Hess wrote: Many embedded systems don't have swap. ssh in inetd worked ok last time I used it as long as speed was not important. Thanks, Joey, I'll give it a whirl later on and let everyone know. Was just hoping that it was a question on dpkg-reconfigure that I was missing. -- Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream? PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do... ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
chris roddy wrote: so, just switch to mepis and unsubscribe from debian-user already. your show has gotten tiresome. Might I suggest a filter? Or maybe just pressing delete? I find it mildly ironic that people who flock to a distribution supposedly for it's social contract are some of the most anti-social one can run across. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Kent West wrote: I believe you misunderstand Joey's post. He's not asking for any help. He's just pointing out to Steve Lamb that Steve has ignored his previous post, which follows this timeline (as I recall it). I haven't ignored it. I am just not prone to me too posts. If I agree with a post what's the point of sending a message with that little content? Steve ignored this bit in favor of continuing to argue that Debian should be doing something for Steve's benefit which is neither legal nor in line with the Debian philosophy. No. I am not advocating that Debian do anything legal. But there is a wide gap between what is legal and what is acceptable by the DSC and thus a focus of Debian at large. Joey's pointed out a fine example of what would be a problem and a possible work around. But that is but one, specific, example and not applicable to all possible scenarios. Point is not all proprietary drivers have such complex issues as the one he cited. Not all proprietary software have the licensing issues that Java has. Debian, as a project, can gain a whole lot more if it were to address more of that middle ground instead of turning it's nose way up when it comes to such issues. Hell, if people think Debian has so much clout why not approach these vendors asking permission for distribution! These vendors don't seem opposed to other OSes packaging up their drivers for redistribution. I mean, as I wrote this message I decided to do some research and find out why ATI drivers aren't included based on a legal precedence and not one based on the social contract. After 10 minutes I had yet to find a license on ATI's page much less one restricting redistribution. Could someone please provide a pointer, I honestly want to see for myself. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Joey Hess wrote: Er, my point is that whinging about Debian's policy not allowing it to support installing to hardware that needs non-free drivers is pointless when there are examples of hardware that needs non-free drivers which Debian has been made to install to just fine. Most of this thread is based on false assumptions. No, it's not, Joey. There's a difference between Debian's policy not allowing it to support and has been made to install just fine. Debian, as a project vs. Debian as the OS. I'm pointing out the difference between Oh, you're on your own kid because that's BAD AND EVIL AND WRONG AND YOU'LL BURN IN HELL!!! versus the pragmatic approach (one that was much more evidenced in Debian of years past) of This'll get'cha going, it works but it's BAD AND EVIL AND WRONG and you really should convert to something else. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Steve Lamb wrote: No. I am not advocating that Debian do anything legal. But there is a Of course I meant illegal here, not legal. Oh for the ability to stop sending upon seeing errors like this a split second after hitting send. :) -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: Here's what I don't understand: If you like what other distributions do better, why are you so busy trying to convince debian to change? Why not just switch to one of the several distros you've mentioned? Several? I've mentioned one. Why? Because at the core it is Debian and I think like any good open source project when a fork occurs one should look honestly and what the fork is doing and incorporate what it is doing better into the mainline project. The alternative, of course, is that the mainline project dies out. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: Who are these most people, and why should it matter to the developers what most people want when they're not paying customers? Go through the archives of this list and read how many times people cite Apt as the reason they use and stick with Debian. The social contract gets hardly the same number of mentions. Why should the developers care? One presumes they have some interest in what the people whom are using their distribution are interested in. Otherwise they would be one very self-involved and isolated bunch. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Monique Y. Mudama wrote: Well, debian is pretty obvious about its purpose. It's a link right from the front page. Maybe people should be choosing other distros if they don't like bullet item number one of the social contract. Debian without the social contract would be just another distro. In other words, there would be no point to using debian without the contract. Funny, the #1 point for most people is apt, not the social contract. #1 for *you* maybe. And if more people are won over and stay here and start demanding for the same from those developers stuff gets done. 1% ain't gonna cut it. And a subset of 1% certainly ain't gonna cut it. I don't even understand this paragraph. 1% = total Linux install. Subset of 1% = Debian's cut of the above. IE, if Debian users have some dillusions of the power they currently wield with hardware vendors they really need to be disabused of that notion. Increase the Linux install base to 10% which would put Debian's install base about on par with Mac OSX now and you might see hardware vendors giving a crap. Until then Debian is doing itself no favors my being obstructionist and driving people away based on it's own restrictive use clauses. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN
Paul Johnson wrote: There's nothing stopping you from installing nonfree software on your system. You just probably won't be able to apt-get it. Case in point: You can get games for Linux at WalMart for around $20 per title. Sure there is. We're talking about the install here. Network card not found. Hmm, kinda hard to install if I can't get to the net to install anything. Video card not configured, there goes games. Hm, no net, no video, there goes Debian. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
