News Lily: You cannot reason with ignorance.
main \| science \| technology \| other \| worldnews \| music \| opinion \| politics \| humor \| pictures \| The_Economy \| lolwut \| psychology \| Us_News \| geekery \| All Stories
Sharing is Caring...

Home \| About Us \| Register \| Submit Link \| Upcoming \| Top Stories \| Random \| Comment Roll \| Epic Comments \| Blog \| RSS

Epic Comments

Ryan \| 2010-03-08 \| Man packs - Never go to the underwear aisle at wal mart ever again.
Men's socks only come in 2 varieties: clean and dirty; they should be paired accordingly.
Natalie \| 2010-02-26 \| The next jobs bill.
I still don't get basic economics, I guess. :) Here's my embarrassing and somewhat off-topic attempt to look at this in the most basic/naive way possible... First questions: Where does the extra money COME from? Turning resources (materials, time, energy) into things people will expend resources (materials, time, energy) to get? Create more stuff...but people don't have the money to buy those new things. They can't work more to get the money to buy them, because they already can't find jobs. Okay, so the creation of new stuff means there are new jobs to fill, so now people can work more to buy the new things, and total expenditures increase, so it works as expected. Hmm...this would imply that what /really/ stimulates an economy is inventing new ways (or applying old ways) to turn human labor/skills into stuff (goods or services) that people want. But then we're measuring an economy by how much people spend? I guess this is trying to get at how much value is being created... At the end of the book Atlas Shrugged (very pro-capitalism/free market), there's this bit where the characters are setting up an "ideal economy." The oil man says: "I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life. It used to take me five hours to fill that tank. It now takes three. The two I saved are mine--as pricelessly mine as if I moved my grave two further hours away from every five I've got. It's two hours released to work, to grow, to move forward... Only those who add to my life, not those who devour it, are my market. Only those who produce, not those who consume, can ever be anybody's market. If my oil takes less effort to produce, I ask less of the men to whom I trade it for the things I need. I add an extra span of time to their lives with every gallon of my oil that they burn. And since they're men like me, they keep inventing faster ways to make the things they make--so every one of them grants me an added minute, hour, or day with the bread I buy from them, with the clothes, the lumber, the metal..." So the point is to get faster at producing so that more things can be produced. Then people can use the value they produce to trade for other things they want. Indirectly, the system benefits everyone because things they want are getting produced. If you're making things faster (by automation and better processes) you need fewer people per unit of product. That frees up people to go out and create more value...which is a good thing, right? But then you're getting all this stuff produced and you even have to go out and create this job which is creating artificial value (advertising) in order to get people to keep valuing it, because your whole economy is based on people wanting the things you produce. Here's the question. There's a limit to how much stuff we can consume, and this model breaks down eventually! I'd argue that what makes people happy isn't the consumption, it's the production of value and the subsequent enjoyment of that value (which can be traded for equivalent value of another form to mix things up a bit). I think at this point we've almost produced too much value, and it's being sold too cheaply because it's too easy to produce. So people just consuming it don't need to produce much value to buy it (and maybe that's a good thing, because there's too much value being produced already) and they are completely missing out on the happiness that comes from producing value. Meanwhile the people who ARE producing it aren't very happy either, because on some level they realize what they're producing isn't actually valuable/being valued (because the people consuming it aren't trading much value for it). (note: and there are people still starving, and I don't know where that fits in...the skills needed to produce stuff have gone too high-level with all this automation and efficiency-improvement, and people without those skills can't compete?). My conclusion, which in some ways obvious but I hadn't ever arrived at it this way before, is: we are measuring/assigning value completely wrong right now. I need to think some more about a better alternative, but I'll venture a few thoughts. Here's one: with our current awareness that natural resources are finite, rather than focusing on the output end of things (how many different brands of toothpaste can we make?) we should be focusing on the input (how few resources and manufacturing processes can I put into this to make this toothpaste?) Does this make economic sense? Long term obviously, but that's not really the way it works. HMM.
Cody \| 2010-02-08 \| China ban on pet dog meat draw angry outcry
Look jackass not every lives in the modern Scottsdale and has Lamborghini's buzzing around the neighborhood . China is still very much a developing country. In rural China their protein options are limited . I would rather see people get some protein so they can have proper brain development than to succumb to western standard that we should keep little dogs in a purse and let them shit all over the living room carpet.
luke \| 2010-01-15 \| Enough hating the banks.
This comment = Epic
enkidu \| 2010-01-15 \| Enough hating the banks.
Surprise: people want people to hate...bankers that effed up and are getting payed despite that are an easy (and deserving) target. There are bigger issues at hand than bankers getting bonuses, but those are difficult to digest between Jersey Shore and The Real World.
Zestycookie \| 2010-01-12 \| China's Birth Rate To Leave 24 MILLION Men Single
Time to invest in some fleshlight stock.
enkidu \| 2009-12-23 \| 7 Tipping points that could transform Earth.
True story: The Earth is actually not massive enough to maintain it's current altitude above the surface of The Sun (Sol). Earth's mass alone would put it at an altitude of 1.5 AU (average); nearly the distance to Mars. Approximately 20,000 years ago (near the end of the last glacial age) Earth's orbit shifted dramatically. We fell considerably closer to The Sun. Many asto-physicists conject that this orbital shift was due to the introduction of massive, spherical objects commonly known as "Chuck Norris's testicles". It is likely that a world without Chuck Norris would be cold and inhabitable. It is for this reason that Chuck Norris cannot fly in airplanes.
kino101 \| 2009-12-18 \| Say it ain't so, Randi!
there are several flaws in the science, the method for measuring ocean temps has changed and the algorithm for adjusting is suspect. land temps have altered as well, more and more taken from urban heat sinks. tree rings have discrepancies only guessed at and so they have become unreliable as well. and Russia's announcement that most of Siberia's data is inaccurate at best, data from 16% of the earth's land mass has to be redone. this is a brief incomplete summary of potential flaws. (and the satellite data is another source of adjustments that haven't been around long enough to say for sure if they are accurate one way or another.) the more important idea is one I share w/Randi, that the scientists involved have thought themselves into a corner. seldom has so much counted on a consensus, the repercussions of recognizing possible flaws has hardly ever been greater, who would want to question conclusions under so much public scrutiny? career busters for sure. it is a human flaw, the wish to be right, to be part of the solution. there is safety in numbers, if this does turn out to be in error they all can point to each other, no one will be singled out. Randi is not a denialist, he is questioning the science and the motives, both healthy endeavours in a sceptic. I get the feeling he whipped this one out, it could have been written better. I'm not saying the flaws are enough to change the conclusions, I am saying that not enough attention has been paid to this, and I believe that this is because so much pressure is being focused that no one wants to be the first to re-evaluate the data. the people involved are far too deeply invested in their findings. of course, one has to be blind to not notice. whether or not this is a normal historic trend augmented or not by human activity is still a question in my deficient mind. we are still debating if the poles have switched, what caused mass extinctions and more. the conclusion that CO2 is the cause of warming is premature
Travers \| 2009-12-13 \| Glacier threat to Bolivia capital
M:Some guy is threatening to take over 60% of the water in Bolivia! Peon:I'll contact the United Na... M: NO! Put our best spy on the case: James MotherFing Bond!
Ryan \| 2009-11-02 \| The truth about disappearing honeybees
Korea. The answer is always Korea.
luke \| 2009-10-07 \| WSJ Editor Defends 'Too Big to Fail' Banks
One thing is for certain, this guy is a much better speaker than Larry. No wants wants the government to have to step in occationaly and help banks. People on the far right and people far left and people everywhere in between. It isn't good for the tax payer and it isn't good for businesses. Both guy agrees that the banks and shadow banks had to be saved and I do to. What they are debating is how to stop it from happening again. Both are looking to the government to do it. This guy wants the banks to have to hold a bunch of money back and not invest it. When things go bad again, that money will be the replacement for the government money. This will make the banks less profitable that are bigger. The benefits they get from being bigger will be eroded away because they will have to keep so much money in the vault. I don't know what Larry wants to do. How things were before Reagan's ideas came into vogue were banks could only be regional. This held there size down a lot. They also had to just be a bank, insurance company, brokerage, or holding company. They couldn't be a one stop shop. This held down there size a lot as well. Putting all this together in one company let them offer cheaper products and be more efficient, general a good thing for the economy. It also leads to a too big to fail and a company where not all the pieces are look at as a whole, which is what brought AIG down. It would be a good idea, but completely unworkable now. To me the best way to do it would be to have a lot higher capital requirement and have them on an scale where the bigger the company is, the higher percent they had to pay in taxes and have in capital. So that company that becomes to big to fail will be paying the government out the nose every year and they will have a huge amount of capital in the vault. It is not great option, but it might be the best right now.
Ryan \| 2009-09-30 \| Google Wave to be released to 100,000 testers Wednesday
Yes, it will. Google has a "long" (in internet terms) history of being able to monetize things that people insist up and down are worthless. At their inception, google maps and gmail both looked like completely worthless pits into which money could be deposited and never seen again. This has not been the case. Google wave will be another example of this. Google will, again, use their size to, again, change the industry. What I'm hoping/praying for is a piece of hardware that I can purchase from them as an appliance. Wave is great, but not so much when it all happens in the cloud. Bandwidth becomes a major issue.
Ryan \| 2009-09-18 \| Remember those kids that sent a camera up into space in a balloon and took some photos? This guy did the same thing and jumped jumped out of the balloon. An interview with Joe Kitinger.
I'm surprised the balloon even got off the ground with the weight of that guy's massive steel balls in it.
luke \| 2009-08-31 \| While the mainstream press portrays newly reappointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as a mild-mannered hero, the reality is he is responsible for much of the economic pain Americans are feeling.
It has been shown through history that the more political the Central bank of a country is, the worst the economy does. Politicians have often made short term decisions when they are in control of the central bank. Many have chosen to print more money to keep their economy going up, or make it go up faster. This often works in the short term, it always leads to huge bubbles though. They also have a tendency to lie about the economic status of their country. If they say inflation is low and growth is high they can get reelected, the truth might get them fired (or hung). Independent central banks don't have to worry about this. They can make fast decisions that politicians can't make as well because it is just 12(?) people making the decision. Congress doesn't have to come to a decision (or lack of a decision) every few months this way. The Fed can also do things that have to get done in a weekend (like the bailing out of financial giants) that are important to get done without congress's approval (which out be an impossible sell to the masses, but a necessary evil according to most economists). The Fed has also done a decent job since they were created. The US has only had inflation over 10% for one year. The longest period that it has had negative growth is 4 quarters(right now). Unemployement has only been over 10% for one year (it will soon be back over 10% though). For 70 years of controlling monetary policy, that isn't so bad. Most countries in the world have had >25% unemployment, >25% inflation, and a >10% drop in GDP several times over the last 70 years. Things are bad now, but the medicine might be worst than the disease.
Ryan \| 2009-08-26 \| If you've been outraged by the Republican Party's position on Intelligent Design , you should display equal outrage that Mr. Obama appointed a very publicly religious individual to head the National Institutes of Health. Intellectual honesty is de rigueur here.

Cody \| 2009-08-25 \| The decision to retain Bernanke as Fed chief sends a message: The president doesn't think the crisis is over.
I'm starting to think Obama might not be aggressive enough to be president. We should have elected a real man like Hillary Clinton
AaronJ \| 2009-08-13 \| America's Sex Laws, Unjust and Ineffective
oh my god the insanity. Its not the punishment for real offenders, but the fact that we still have states with the most inane laws, especially in the south. sex between teenagers!!!?? Urinating in public?!!! And these all get lumped with the rest of it? And this guy: "Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. It doesnt make it right, but it doesnt make him a threat to anybody, says Mr Norris. We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone whos done something heinous." ---- ok fair enough he knows this is wrong... yet he also says "it doesn't make it right" about two high schoolers having sex!! Although he sees the injustice, it is these ingrained notions about sex that he is still exhibiting that continue to cause this garbage.
AaronJ \| 2009-08-13 \| I'll never understand Americans
As for GDP per capita, what does that have to do with health care... and how is it even a measure of the success or an indicator of "failing economies". So Sweden, Britain, France, Germany, etc. may have lower GDP per capita, but they all have longer life expectancies than Americans, lower crime, lower infant mortality, their people all have excellent health care, their countries have built or are building amazing modern infrastructure with which there is not much to compare in the US, yet still have many great companies to work for and weeks of vacation time. How the hell are these failing economies because they have lower GDP per capita? Obviously at the indistrialized level but probably even lower, GDP per capita means absolutely nothing in terms of the welfare of the citizens of a nation and the strength and success of a society and economy.
Ryan \| 2009-08-10 \| America's Sex Laws, Unjust and Ineffective
These laws have become a joke. I attribute this to something I call "stupid old fat ugly woman" syndrome. Basically, stupid old fat ugly women (SOFUW: pronounced like sofa, which is where they sit watching Maurie and Oprah all day long while eating fattening foods like cheetos, ice cream, and the souls of young children) realize that they are simultaneously stupid, old, fat, and ugly. This does not make them happy. THEY NEED PURPOSE, DAMNIT! SO they find something like sex crimes, or madd, to get involved in. BUT! When they reach their goal...well...then their purpose is gone! They are now stupid, and fat, and ugly, and old again! OH NOES! WHAT WOULD THE OPRAH THINK OF THEM NOW!?!? So they keep pushing their agenda further and further into ridiculosity. Before you know it, all the smart, young, skinny, attractive people are in prison. THE SOFUWs WIN!
Ryan \| 2009-07-24 \| Apple claims 91% of the over $1000 PC market revenue in June
You know...reading this headline, I'm not sure that I even know of any consumer-level PCs that cost over $1000 (obviously servers, CAD/3d Modeling workstations)... I'm typing this from my acer aspire one right now and, honestly, this is more computer than I even need... I will admit that I am a bit odd, the only thing I really use my computer for is an SSH/HTTP client; certainly my usage habits are different than somebody like my mother.. But then there's my mother...I bought her one of these a few months ago, and she LOVES it. Her desktop machine (which she uses for running quicken or something like that) took a shit a few weeks ago, and her motivation to have me fix it is about 0. Her aspire is more computer than she really needs (except for, maybe, the screen. The resolution leaves a bit to be desired). So who IS buying computers that cost over a grand? Well, there are gamers...people who are most certainly not going to buy buying a mac (despite a lot of games being available on OSX, it still isn't up to speed with windows). They might spend over $1000 (I am not a gamer, so I don't really know what is required for gaming these days. If it can run tuxracer and armagetron then I'm content). Buuut....most of the gamers that I know buy their computers from newegg and put them together themselves. Even the desktops that I buy for my users at work only cost under $1k and that is with dell's "holy shit" service plan. Apple, you're dominating the over >$1000 market because you're the only one IN it. This claim would be akin to the coffee shop that I am sitting at claiming that they have 90% of the coffee market in Cross Lake, MN. They're the only coffee shop here.
Cody \| 2009-07-13 \| A Call to Jihad, Answered in America
How longer is the New York Times free?
Cody \| 2009-05-13 \| Why does the United States spend more on national security than the rest of the world combined, and why do so many members of the foreign policy community believe that it is either in our interest or our responsibility to interfere in so many places around the world?
When we save the world from invading aliens the world will thank us.
Ryan \| 2009-05-12 \| Give Me A Waterboard Dick Cheney & One Hour! Jesse Ventura
Do you listen to either of them on a regular basis? Let me give you the beck/venture forumla for action Step 1: Take a topic Step 2: Sensationalize it Step 3: Claim that it is destroying America Step 4: Write a book about it Step 5: Profit.
Joel \| 2009-04-09 \| Laid off workers seeking second career as DJ
I've been pretty busy at work and haven't really had time to make an epicly awesome response to this. Granted I'm totally ripping some vinyl while I write this out... I will say that I can pretty much name all of the gear that they have in those photo's off of the top of my head o_O I agree with most of what has been said but will give some [quote]insider[un-quote] info. One of the main things that I run into is people always asking me how much money I make or if I get paid for dj'ing. I don't. I don't make any money. Granted it's not without it's perks, most larger events (515) DJ's pretty much drink free, or even at smaller events like It Goes Boom (aka Lift Off) dj's get half-price drinks, which is still a pretty sweet deal. Whenever I play @ Mars Cafe I get a free meal/drink combo. This is pretty much a nice thing to do for us [the dj's] since a lot of these places don't necessarily make any extra money from patrons specifically there to hear the music. So, to the point of all this, it is sort of like what you said about it being the same shitty music all of the time, whereas I play what I like and what I am into and what I want to hear. I've got friends that would dj top 40 crap-hop at places like Kamodo Klub, and they'd make decent money, but I love [the]music enough that I'm not going to "sell out" to do it strictly for the money. This is part of the reason that most of these people won't work out. You can have someone that is totally diggin' the top40 or whatever tunes, and they're really going to get into it, this will make them inherently better then anyone that is just "doing it for the money." They'll be train-spotting it up and always on the prowl for whites, re-presses, and maybe will actually be in a position to get dubs. A key point from the image, is that I will bet my top dollar that the people in the photo are learning to mix house. House is fucking easy as shit to mix. A key concept (but not the only pillar of dj knowledge/skill) is beat matching. This is sort of the corner stone for dj'ing, essentially you match the beat in 2 records, and allow both to play out of the master channel so that both records are playing in sync simultaneously, this is how you transition from one track to the next. And what the hell is easier to mix then a massive BOOM kick drum every beat in 4/4 time. I'm not trying to knock house. It is one of the most popular genres of dance music, and rightly so, it's simplicity makes it one of the easiest things to get into. It sort of jives with your pulse. If you're not tappin' something you're a god damn robot with no musical soul. [I will stand by that statement to the end of time as would most any dj, imo.] This is sort of a lead-in to Ryan's point. It's not that it's exactly cheap to buy a bunch of gear and start dj'ing, but it's not THAT expensive, basically what I'm trying to get at is that it's not too hard to buy gear and spin house. The problem is, if you can do it, so can everyone else. This is sort of what we're getting in the job market right now. If you've got a job that pays 40k a year, and you've got a bunch of people applying for it, since people that normally wouldn't work for only 40k w/ their experience can't get any other job, the people w/ the most experience win. (Which totally fucking bones our generation, can't even get 32-5k /yr jobs) So that's just it, you've got a shit ton of people with decent skills (if that) that saturate the market, now this saturation can lead to an increased interest, which leads to higher demand, but that higher demand is going to be filled by the better dj's that have been around for a while, before the random noobs got the idea that they could make $20 /hr dj'ing b/c they read some fucking article on MSN.com (I swear there was one). The problems that arise here (in-part due to technological advances) are akin to those seen in the photography as well. Digital photography makes it easy so that everyone thinks they can be a pro b/c their camera shows the picture they took. Guess what, this same influx of retards occurred in the ྂ's with the advent of SLR's w/ auto-focus lenses. Unless you have the experience you're not going to be able to do it, well not easily, I don't want to be a hater, but it's not magic, and unless you really really work, and are really into it. I'm actually just really getting back into dj'ing. Not that I've "been away" anywhere, but things ebb and flow and now I've got reasons and people that are also into music surrounding me which causes me to want to put effort into it again. One of these things is occurring all across the US and that's the change from clubs back to parties. Ryan can attest to this as he just went to his first rave last weekend and is going to another BA one this weekend. Resurgence of "the scene" is a pretty big deal, I mean it's DSM for fucks sake, what does one have to do around here to get a decent party/music? I've pretty much already "decided" that I'm not going to "go pro" as it were, in the dj/music scene. I just do it because I love it, and that's good enough for me <3
luke \| 2009-04-08 \| Laid off workers seeking second career as DJ
This accutely describes why I would not be a good DJ.
luke \| 2009-02-02 \| Journalist gets a job at wal-mart.
I love Wal-Mart. It's true. I have for awhile now. It is partly because so many people hated it. That always draws me in, but I still need some reason to love them after that. Wal-Mart leads the country in doing things that are environmentally friendly. (OK, leading the country is a stretch). Wal-Mart is a bully. It makes other people do what it wants. It says jump and people say how high. The reason we use florescence bulbs is because Wal-Mart told GE to make more of them and cheaper. Yes, it can do that. GE can't afford not to do business with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart can afford not to do business with GE. We all use concentrated laundry detergent now because of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart didn't want to pay for moving laundry detergent around the country that was 80% water. That is a large waste of water, plastic to hold it in, and diesel to move it around it. They are having boxes shrink to the actual size of the products in them so they can ship more in one truck and not waste paper and storage space. They have also made it so every semi they send is full, saving tons of diesel. The list goes on an on as well. Wal-Mart has not always treated it's employees well. Fact. There is no denying it. It was brought to important people's attention and then was fixed. That happens in every corporation. I don't see how management is supposed to make sure that every one of the million of people is always happy. They aren't going to be. They are trying, and sometimes are going to make a wrong or bad decision. But they have a record of changing to do what is best for the whole. No one is perfect, not even Wal-Mart, but they are trying to be better. I find it strange when people say Wal-Mart won't allow Unions. People didn't start Unions because the companies wanted them. The employees got together and engaged in collective barraging to get what they wanted. This gave the employees the ability to shutdown a corporation. The employees of Wal-Mart can do the exact same thing and there is not a single thing Wal-Mart can do to stop them. Wal-Mart can't make people work for them. They can all decide to walk out. If Wal-Mart was truly a terrible company to work at this would have happened a long time ago like it did with the coal mines and dangerous factories. The thing is Wal-Mart knows it can find people to replace who ever want to walk out, even if a whole store does. You don't have to be a genius to work there and they pay a competitive wage. This means people will work their. And just like people have the right to join a Union or form one, Wal-Mart has the right to stop paying them it's money. Sweatshops: They are terrible places (most of the times, some are not bad jobs). Wal-Mart has rules they put in place to prevent people from being taken advantage of. They demand the people they contract out to to pay a competitive wage and have reasonable working conditions. They have a group that gos around and makes surprise visits to factories to make sure things are going like they should. That said, the terrible things we see on 20/20 still happen. I heard it put this way though - "who would benefit if the factories/sweatshop shutdown?" The people who worked in it wouldn't have a job to buy food with. The owner wouldn't have a job to buy higher ticket items that give someone else a job. We would have to pay more for the same item. No one is the real winner if it happens. PS. I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart. I much prefer Target because the people are prettier.
Ryan \| 2009-01-29 \| My Bipartisan Stimulus By RUSH LIMBAUGH
Does it anger you guys that he is right? The type of stimulus that Rush (and every single economist that isn't on Barack the Obama's payroll) is talking about here WORKS! It's like we're having a fire sale on American Investments and everything must go. Tell people that they are actually going to get to KEEP the money that they earn with their investments and they will flock to American companies the way that fat women flock to the desert cart at an all you can eat buffet late on a friday night when they are feeling alone and reading their latest Oprah Magazine about how "Fat is All That!". What happens when you pour cash into a business is the same thing that happens when you poor miracle grow on a dandelion. It gets big. It multiplies. It flourishes. We make jobs! We make money! People can continue living their lives of excess! THIS IS A GOOD THING! See, where the libs seem to have gone wrong is this idea that life is supposed to be painful. These people are so absolutely consumed with guilt when they see the less-fortunate that they are willing to sacrifice your money in order to make themselves feel right again. They're emotional masochists. Existence should be HARD, they believe, and they will do anything to make sure that you share the same struggle through life that they do. It is frightening. The people that we have given control over our country, our livelihood, to are emotional disasters.
Cody \| 2009-01-20 \| Apple Introduces A Revolutionary New Laptop Without A Keyboard: The Macbook Wheel (Parody)
MAC remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Travers \| 2009-01-20 \| New Blog by luke
Accepting your argument, I think it's more concise to say that they don't like murder or intent thereof. Cars, hell even bicycle accidents, I'm sure, result in more deaths than gun crime. You don't see anybody trying to ban cars or bicycles though. Now who can say that they think murder and crime is good? Even criminals have that inkling. Most everyone agrees that death sucks too. Is a gun sine qua non to killing people? Certainly not. You've got knives, bats, vehicles, etc. Even unarmed, people can kill. Hell, look what a couple of box cutters did on 9/11. If someone is going to go to the effort to kill someone else, the lack of a gun is not a show-stopper. So what does this boil down to? Stopping death? Stopping murder? No. Quite clearly, the gun in and of itself adds something to the picture. Perhaps because its only purpose is killing, be that food or people. (The aforementioned implements have other primary purposes.) While that is a gruesome fact, I doubt the removal of guns from the public and their psyche will result in any appreciable decline in murder. What I do believe it will result in, is the revocation of a person's right to defend themselves, their loved ones, and their property. While complete removal of guns would put everyone on a level playing field, say, knives for instance, that goal is impossible. Say a law is passed insofar citizens have to give up their guns. Well, good law abiding citizens will. Criminals will not. This results in a disproportionate balance of power. The cat is long out of the bag. Do you expect the police to guard you? This is big government. Abdicating personal responsibility in lieu of someone else. But now, who cares about you more than you? Who's going to be able to respond to a threat first? And while I hate to fear-monger, what happens when you can't protect your family from superior force because you've given up some of your rights? Could you live (assuming you're still living) with yourself after such an incident? Let me set up a scenario, sans guns, to argue another point. Lets say you're walking down the street, and get mugged by a bat wielding criminal. You're unarmed, and have the disadvantage. Someone sees the confrontation and calls the police. Well, as it turns out, the mugger beats the crap out of you, doing considerable harm, putting you in the hospital for quite some time. You receive physical wounds which you will never fully recover from, as well as psychological trauma. Can you sue the police? Are you entitled to compensation even though they arrived as soon as they could? No, my friend, you cannot. Why the hell not, you ask? Isn't it their job, which they failed to carry out? Well, at it is, they're not actually legally responsible for your well-being. There are some exceptions to this, but that's beside the point (if you're arrested, or are a dependent in their custody, like an insane person.) To conclude, the only person responsible for you and yours safety is yourself. Abdicating your personal responsibility to the government is inefficient, unAmerican, and personally, I find people who do it downright disgusting. The universal recall of guns is impossible; any attempts will only result in more power for criminals. I'm not even going to go into disproportionate citizen/government power. s/criminal/government/g
Ryan \| 2009-01-19 \| Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails
@Russian guy: bwahahahahahahahahahaha Here is why this will never, ever, ever happen. We have nukes. Lots and lots and lots and lots of nukes. Lots of them. If the United States falls, there is a very, very good chance that she is taking the rest of the world with her. Why? Well...mostly because we control the worlds food supply. You know that big, boring area in the middle of the country called "The Midwest"? It is feeding the rest of the world. Go ahead and try to think of an area in the world that farms as much food as we do. South America? No. It is covered in a rain forest? Africa? No, they're too busy shooting each other and having Angelina Jolie adopt their children. Europe? Australia? Europe? China? No. No. NO. So what happens when we start lacking money? We start jacking up the price of food, that is what we do. We starve the bastards to death so that we can keep eating our big macs and watching american idol in our gym socks and underwear while we hire a babysitter at $10 an hour to watch the offspring even while we're at home. But they won't STARVE, you might think. Don't worry, they will. People are going to get desperate...they're going to start bombing our cities..we'll look like a warzone. Tensions will get high, and somebody will launch a nuke. From then on, it is game over. That is our world, guys. It's fragile and, as of the mid 20th century, we are fully and completely capable of removing ourselves from existence.
Ryan \| 2009-01-16 \| Looking at the good in sweatshops
Are you reading my brain, luke? I swear I just had a rant about this the other day. Angelina Jolie types are constantly gallivanting across the Sahara slapping down wells and handing out Nikes at every disease-ridden village they can get their manicured hands on using their GPS and their Jeep. They get to come back to the promised land of America, hide in their $20,000,000 houses, sip their $4 vegan water that was sucked from the bottom of some natural spring in some far off corner of some far off country by a charming, poor, photogenic local that will soon have his face emblazoned across a National Geographic cover, all while screaming at their colleagues that by driving their hummers and wearing their non-fair-trade-clothing they are killing the children! Well guess what, hippies, YOU ARE MAKING THINGS WORSE! You're enabling them to continue a life that nature has been telling them for the last hundred years that they need to stop. They can't farm the land anymore, they isn't clean water, they're overpopulated and disease-ridden. They need to move. But what happens? You got mom-on-a-mission heading over to Africa to give them medication, and food. You've got prime-time infomercials telling you that for $0.05 a day you can build litte Anya a school! YOU CAN SAVE THEM! you are told. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! You can bring meaning to your cold, empty, worthless, pitiful, disgusting, immoral life. You can use these kids as unknowing adoptive children to fill the void that you created by alienating your own offspring. You get to sit at the country club feeling righteous because the Johnstons are talking about the Real Estate collapse, and you're talking about the HUMAN COLLAPSE (you pat yourself on the back for coming up with something so witty and tell yourself that you should probably be a columnist), you get behind people like Barack Obama who promise that make things better for EVERYONE! SMILESS! AND SUNSHINE! AND RAINBOWS!!!!!! Is that so bad!? YES! These kids need a job. The sweatshops provide them with one. They give the people a mechanism for self-sufficiency and the whole thing is mutually beneficial to you and to them. You get cheaper shoes, they get a bowl of rice. The infrastructure that these people need to survive gets built because of the massive influx of cash to the region. Something downright magical happens. When people are given something that they're afraid of losing, they will fight to the death to protect it! What does this mean? This means that the psychopathic warlords that live in these areas can no longer recruit 8 year olds to fight for them. This means that people learn that using a condom or abstaining from sex with everything that can walk will prolong their own demise. Aids starts drying up. Take the value away from somebody's life, and they aren't afraid of losing it. Give these people's lives value. Give them something to be proud of and the rest will work itself out.
Ryan \| 2008-12-24 \| New Blog by luke
Lucas, How dare you make a rationale, informed decision about something like this. We all know that the banks are evil, the federal reserve is evil and, most importantly, George Bush is the devil. Okay, in all honesty, the President of the US is more like the Queen of England (or king). They're a public relations officer. The real power lays in the house and the senate. Yes, the president can veto things, but the congress can over-power him. The president exists so that people like you will find on reddit (that is: people who refuse to actually learn anything) have somebody to blame when things go bad. You're right, Luke. The gas, the banks, the economy; none of it has anything to do with George Bush. Will we see short-term calm-down when Barack the Obama takes office? Yes, but that is just the eye of the storm. The majority of our economic woes come from people's "feelings". Investors are scared right now. People still HAVE money. The rich are still rich (why do you think they're cutting jobs? [i'll get to that in a sec]); they still have money to invest! The problem right now, is that when you turn on the news and hear about unemployment, and how the soup kitchens are going to start filling up soon and how everybody is going to lose their job, you hold on to your money like passengers on a sinking ship hold on to their life vests. We've got a catch 22. The consumers aren't spending (which accounts for 70% or some such huge number of the economy), meaning that businesses aren't making money, meaning that investors aren't investing money, meaning the business have to cut jobs. Its all a big feedback loop! The more the business lose, the more they WILL lose (this is why Barack The Obama's plan of punishing businesses for being successful is so ignorant). So back to the jobs. Rich people don't like losing their money. When it starts costing them more money to do businesses, what happens? Bonuses for working people get cut, raises don't happen, jobs get cut, everything tightens up. Liberals (or any other people who refuse to educate themselves) get so caught up in this idea that by TAXING wealthy people, they are going to be able to distribute money back down the chain and give it to poor people. It doesn't work like that! (I'm over-simplifying this here by using "Rich" and "Poor"). Rich people have got something to distribute: dollars. Poor people have ALSO got something to distribute: work (energy). The rich people want the energy from the poor people, so they trade them Dollars for energy (HAHA!! See, Ron, it ISN'T a closed system!). With their energy(work) converted into dollars, the poor people can buy things like houses, and televisions, and ipods. So to simplify: poor people can't simply BUILD an ipod. They need apple to do it for them. Apple wants dollars. So the poor people convert some of their energy into dollars and give them to apple in exchange for the ipod. Its like going to the bank and trading dollars for...euros, or pesos or something. Except they're trading energy(work(time)). Okay, now. What happens when the bank stops letting people trade their money for other currencies? Welll....they can't buy things with Euros anymore! They have to use dollars! Get it? If you don't have a job, you don't have a means for converting your energy(work(time)) into dollars. You can't buy a television, or a house, or an ipod. You can only have things that you can directly convert your energy(work) into. Things like....spears, bows, arrows, sod houses. WE ALREADY HAD SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT!!! it was called "everything leading up to the industrial revolution" So tax the wealthy people, retards, they will hold on to their money, not trade it for energy, and not give the poor people a means to convert their assets (energy) into anything other than what they can build themselves.
Travers \| 2008-07-29 \| U.S. Reports Drop in Homeless Population.... because the failing economy people have stopped feeding them. In other news the pigeon population is also in decline.
Yeah, get back in the pond you four-legged fish. Get a degree in the sciences and you won't have to compete with all those fratboys that have some sort of business or psychology degree. The market is flooded with fratboys. Can you even teach business? Sure you can teach numbers or something like that, but not imagination and ambition. But seriously though, what facilitates business? You have to have some sort of product to sell. For that you usually need some engineers to design it. The only exception is financial businesses, they're not selling anything, they're investing or you're investing in something. When you start getting up there with the big boys, you start to realize that the financial market is an onion--there are many layers--around ultimately nothing! Yes, I speak of fiat money and speculation. I digress. Liberals... If everyone is entitled to an education then its going to smother out the bright people via various methods. Teachings will have to be dumbed down so most everyone can pass and the market will be flooded. So people who are smart can't learn nor get a job as readily. Furthermore, if an employer is full of... everyone, well, smart people won't be welcome. Intelligence is NOT a valued trait among those that liberals think need the most attention. It is abhorrent; in its stead are brawn and social structure. Not to mention who is going to pay for this. Money does not grow on trees. Lovely--pay money to drive us back into the dark ages. Forcibly taking someone's assets and giving them to somebody else who is not in the least deserving is so fucking immoral I can't even begin... If I do not own what I earn, then I will stop working. Liberalism is parasitism--the liberals and even more so--their charges. It operates on the assumption that all men and women are equal in capacity. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Loans et al. are even more simple. The ability to PAY off a loan ought to be sine qua non to getting one. If money is loaned and not repaid, then you've got a serious economic problem on your hands. A very serious one indeed. Money can be converted into assets that are unrecoverable such as food, drugs, and depreciating consumer electronics. Creditors of course make their living off interest, and it is in their interest to make people keep paying that interest--keep them in debt. There are plenty of institutions out there that are a far cry from some of these predatory lenders. The reason why so many of the latter exist is people's willingness to screw themselves for a new TV. Et cetera. Et al. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum. Don't vote Republican either--those guys are crooks too!
Ryan \| 2008-07-29 \| U.S. Reports Drop in Homeless Population.... because the failing economy people have stopped feeding them. In other news the pigeon population is also in decline.
The current economic state can be completely blamed on liberal ideals. It is because not everyone should have a college education, and not everyone should own a house, and not everyone should be able to afford a brand new car. There HAS to be wealthy people, middle class people, and poor people. This is absolutely essential to our economy. This is what happened, and what will happen. Banks started giving out loans. Lots of them. They started giving loans to people who couldn't afford them. They started giving loans to immigrants, college students, people fresh out of school, people working in minimum wage jobs. Everybody, all you needed was a social security card and a smile on your face to get yourself a brand new 30% interest credit card with a $10,000 limit on it! But hey, everyone is special, right guys? Some of us just weren't born as fortunate as other! Stick it to the rich men! Them and their lives of privilege. Everyone deserves that, right?! RIGHT!?!?! Wrong. So what else were we giving out to people who didn't deserve it? College Educations. Yeah, that sounds stupid, doesn't it? I mean, everybody deserves an education, right? Why should only the rich kids have the privilege of getting a college degree? EVERYONE should make $100,000+ a year, right? Wrong. Giving every kid with a smiling face a college degree over saturated the market with "smart" people. Suddenly you've got kids fresh out of school, carrying a report card full of straigh A's and a resume' full of extra curriculars and they end up moving back in with mom and dad because they can't find any work. So what do they do? I mean, they're 23, they don't want to live at home with mom and dad, what if they want to bring home that blonde slut they met at Jordan's house party and bang her? WHAT THEN!? They can't exactly get down in mom and dad's basement, cause the blonde slut is a screamer and that would wake up mom and dad and they would end up some funny story that eventually gets told at some wedding at some point in the future when uncle Rob has had to much to drink. so they move out. but they need to work in order to pay for their new appartment in a pretty nice part of town. So they go out and use that college degree that they paid $90,000 for and find out that there are a few hundred thousand other kids doing the exact same thing! They can't demand the $150,000 that the brochures they got before entering college said they would be getting. So they settle. $30,000 they'll get a raise eventually. But now the blonde slut is complaining because their TV is too small, so...well....just this once, just this once they put the $3500 on the credit card. Never mind the fact that this is more that a month's salary, they need to impress the blonde slut, otherwise they're suddenly a 23 year old loser who can't get laid, and that is NOT HAPPENING!!! They WILL maintain the same level of sexual activity that they had in college come hell or high water! But the blonde slut leaves for some 40 year old with a Mercedes and a house in Paradise Valley. So now what? IF they get a new car, well then they can impress the blonde bitches, and then they can get laid, and then they're not a 23 year old who can't get ass and lives alone in an apartment with a dog and 2 fish. So they go down to the dealership. And they get a loan. $300 a month! the car guy says. $300 a month....well....if they make $2000 bucks a check...well...thats $1000 a month for rent. that leaves $1000, minus $300, minus $200 for insurance. That leavs $500 a month. ANYBODY can live on five hundred a month. Well, then there is the credit card payment..$100 bucks a month..oh and the student loans...$200 a month. Surely, anybody can live on $100 a month! I mean, everybody else figures it out somehow...right!? SO they get a car. But they can't get the blonde bitches if they aren't SEEN out in the car. SO they start going to the clubs. The expensive ones. The ones with a $15 cover and $10 drinks. But hey, it will lead to the blonde bitches, right? "Here is my visa card Mr. Bartender, it has a $10,000 limit!" But how can the banks do this you might ask? AhA! Because loans are traded as objects on the financial markets my dear boy! You see, big huge massive banks can afford the risk of taking on a few bad loans here or there. They are big enough to get their money one way or another. So the small banks get accustomed to giving out loans to people that feel as though they are entitled to things that they didn't earn. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots and lots of them. Fast forward to 2008. So now you've got a million or so kids out there not making any money, still $90,000 in debt because they keep differing their student loans until they get that next big raise. But then, uh oh, oh shit...yeah, see the banks ALSO did the same thing with the housing market. The small banks started realizing that they didn't have to carry the risk of the loans they were giving out. If they went bad, they would just sell them to a bigger bank who could handle the loss if they didn't get their money back. Houses on the wrong side of town, where there is a 50% chance of getting shot at every time you go for beer at the Circle K are selling for $300,000. But they aren't WORTH $300,000 you might say! Oh but they are. Oh but they are. They didn't used to be. Nobody wanted them. They weren't even close to the clubs full of the hott bitches! Sellers HAD to sell these houses for $50,000 because that was the only way people would buy them. But now EVERYBODY can afford a house. The demand for housing shoots through the roof, and suddenly people are willing to pay $300,000 for a two bedroom with no yard and several homeless people living behind the garage. Why? Because it isn't their money! its the banks! if they stop paying the loan, the bank will just repo the house and they'll go get another loan! Behold, the perfect economic storm. The college grad isn't getting the hott blonde bitches because he can't afford the same mercedes and affliction T-Shirt that the 40 year old divorced guy can. So he's racking up his credit card. Every tom dick and harry can now afford a house, so home values are through the roof. Banks are loving it because they're lending out more money (and making more interest) than ever. POP Now the banks realize that the college grads can't afford the mercedes, and the tom dick and harrys can't afford the $300,000 shack on the wrong side of the tracks. They close up the same way the blonde bitches would when our college grad told them he lived at home with mom and dad. They stop giving loans out. People stop buying things because they no longer can. You've got a million or so kids with completely worthless college degrees. So the economy starts tanking. The rich elite who CONTROL the economy start investing their money in other places. Jobs start moving overseas. It no longer makes any sense to put money into the domestic stock market because its tanking. The people who DO want to invest in the American economy can't because the banks are too afraid to loan money to anybody without a yacht. The economy grinds to a halt. But hey, we need CHANGE right? That will fix it...right? Right? We need to redistribute the wealth..right? EVERYBODY deserves a house, right? And a car And a college degree Right?

Epic Comments

Ryan \| 2010-03-08 \| Man packs - Never go to the underwear aisle at wal mart ever again.
Men's socks only come in 2 varieties: clean and dirty; they should be paired accordingly.
Natalie \| 2010-02-26 \| The next jobs bill.
I still don't get basic economics, I guess. :) Here's my embarrassing and somewhat off-topic attempt to look at this in the most basic/naive way possible... First questions: Where does the extra money COME from? Turning resources (materials, time, energy) into things people will expend resources (materials, time, energy) to get? Create more stuff...but people don't have the money to buy those new things. They can't work more to get the money to buy them, because they already can't find jobs. Okay, so the creation of new stuff means there are new jobs to fill, so now people can work more to buy the new things, and total expenditures increase, so it works as expected. Hmm...this would imply that what /really/ stimulates an economy is inventing new ways (or applying old ways) to turn human labor/skills into stuff (goods or services) that people want. But then we're measuring an economy by how much people spend? I guess this is trying to get at how much value is being created... At the end of the book Atlas Shrugged (very pro-capitalism/free market), there's this bit where the characters are setting up an "ideal economy." The oil man says: "I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life. It used to take me five hours to fill that tank. It now takes three. The two I saved are mine--as pricelessly mine as if I moved my grave two further hours away from every five I've got. It's two hours released to work, to grow, to move forward... Only those who add to my life, not those who devour it, are my market. Only those who produce, not those who consume, can ever be anybody's market. If my oil takes less effort to produce, I ask less of the men to whom I trade it for the things I need. I add an extra span of time to their lives with every gallon of my oil that they burn. And since they're men like me, they keep inventing faster ways to make the things they make--so every one of them grants me an added minute, hour, or day with the bread I buy from them, with the clothes, the lumber, the metal..." So the point is to get faster at producing so that more things can be produced. Then people can use the value they produce to trade for other things they want. Indirectly, the system benefits everyone because things they want are getting produced. If you're making things faster (by automation and better processes) you need fewer people per unit of product. That frees up people to go out and create more value...which is a good thing, right? But then you're getting all this stuff produced and you even have to go out and create this job which is creating artificial value (advertising) in order to get people to keep valuing it, because your whole economy is based on people wanting the things you produce. Here's the question. There's a limit to how much stuff we can consume, and this model breaks down eventually! I'd argue that what makes people happy isn't the consumption, it's the production of value and the subsequent enjoyment of that value (which can be traded for equivalent value of another form to mix things up a bit). I think at this point we've almost produced too much value, and it's being sold too cheaply because it's too easy to produce. So people just consuming it don't need to produce much value to buy it (and maybe that's a good thing, because there's too much value being produced already) and they are completely missing out on the happiness that comes from producing value. Meanwhile the people who ARE producing it aren't very happy either, because on some level they realize what they're producing isn't actually valuable/being valued (because the people consuming it aren't trading much value for it). (note: and there are people still starving, and I don't know where that fits in...the skills needed to produce stuff have gone too high-level with all this automation and efficiency-improvement, and people without those skills can't compete?). My conclusion, which in some ways obvious but I hadn't ever arrived at it this way before, is: we are measuring/assigning value completely wrong right now. I need to think some more about a better alternative, but I'll venture a few thoughts. Here's one: with our current awareness that natural resources are finite, rather than focusing on the output end of things (how many different brands of toothpaste can we make?) we should be focusing on the input (how few resources and manufacturing processes can I put into this to make this toothpaste?) Does this make economic sense? Long term obviously, but that's not really the way it works. HMM.
Cody \| 2010-02-08 \| China ban on pet dog meat draw angry outcry
Look jackass not every lives in the modern Scottsdale and has Lamborghini's buzzing around the neighborhood . China is still very much a developing country. In rural China their protein options are limited . I would rather see people get some protein so they can have proper brain development than to succumb to western standard that we should keep little dogs in a purse and let them shit all over the living room carpet.
luke \| 2010-01-15 \| Enough hating the banks.
This comment = Epic
enkidu \| 2010-01-15 \| Enough hating the banks.
Surprise: people want people to hate...bankers that effed up and are getting payed despite that are an easy (and deserving) target. There are bigger issues at hand than bankers getting bonuses, but those are difficult to digest between Jersey Shore and The Real World.
Zestycookie \| 2010-01-12 \| China's Birth Rate To Leave 24 MILLION Men Single
Time to invest in some fleshlight stock.
enkidu \| 2009-12-23 \| 7 Tipping points that could transform Earth.
True story: The Earth is actually not massive enough to maintain it's current altitude above the surface of The Sun (Sol). Earth's mass alone would put it at an altitude of 1.5 AU (average); nearly the distance to Mars. Approximately 20,000 years ago (near the end of the last glacial age) Earth's orbit shifted dramatically. We fell considerably closer to The Sun. Many asto-physicists conject that this orbital shift was due to the introduction of massive, spherical objects commonly known as "Chuck Norris's testicles". It is likely that a world without Chuck Norris would be cold and inhabitable. It is for this reason that Chuck Norris cannot fly in airplanes.
kino101 \| 2009-12-18 \| Say it ain't so, Randi!
there are several flaws in the science, the method for measuring ocean temps has changed and the algorithm for adjusting is suspect. land temps have altered as well, more and more taken from urban heat sinks. tree rings have discrepancies only guessed at and so they have become unreliable as well. and Russia's announcement that most of Siberia's data is inaccurate at best, data from 16% of the earth's land mass has to be redone. this is a brief incomplete summary of potential flaws. (and the satellite data is another source of adjustments that haven't been around long enough to say for sure if they are accurate one way or another.) the more important idea is one I share w/Randi, that the scientists involved have thought themselves into a corner. seldom has so much counted on a consensus, the repercussions of recognizing possible flaws has hardly ever been greater, who would want to question conclusions under so much public scrutiny? career busters for sure. it is a human flaw, the wish to be right, to be part of the solution. there is safety in numbers, if this does turn out to be in error they all can point to each other, no one will be singled out. Randi is not a denialist, he is questioning the science and the motives, both healthy endeavours in a sceptic. I get the feeling he whipped this one out, it could have been written better. I'm not saying the flaws are enough to change the conclusions, I am saying that not enough attention has been paid to this, and I believe that this is because so much pressure is being focused that no one wants to be the first to re-evaluate the data. the people involved are far too deeply invested in their findings. of course, one has to be blind to not notice. whether or not this is a normal historic trend augmented or not by human activity is still a question in my deficient mind. we are still debating if the poles have switched, what caused mass extinctions and more. the conclusion that CO2 is the cause of warming is premature
Travers \| 2009-12-13 \| Glacier threat to Bolivia capital
M:Some guy is threatening to take over 60% of the water in Bolivia! Peon:I'll contact the United Na... M: NO! Put our best spy on the case: James MotherFing Bond!
Ryan \| 2009-11-02 \| The truth about disappearing honeybees
Korea. The answer is always Korea.
luke \| 2009-10-07 \| WSJ Editor Defends 'Too Big to Fail' Banks
One thing is for certain, this guy is a much better speaker than Larry. No wants wants the government to have to step in occationaly and help banks. People on the far right and people far left and people everywhere in between. It isn't good for the tax payer and it isn't good for businesses. Both guy agrees that the banks and shadow banks had to be saved and I do to. What they are debating is how to stop it from happening again. Both are looking to the government to do it. This guy wants the banks to have to hold a bunch of money back and not invest it. When things go bad again, that money will be the replacement for the government money. This will make the banks less profitable that are bigger. The benefits they get from being bigger will be eroded away because they will have to keep so much money in the vault. I don't know what Larry wants to do. How things were before Reagan's ideas came into vogue were banks could only be regional. This held there size down a lot. They also had to just be a bank, insurance company, brokerage, or holding company. They couldn't be a one stop shop. This held down there size a lot as well. Putting all this together in one company let them offer cheaper products and be more efficient, general a good thing for the economy. It also leads to a too big to fail and a company where not all the pieces are look at as a whole, which is what brought AIG down. It would be a good idea, but completely unworkable now. To me the best way to do it would be to have a lot higher capital requirement and have them on an scale where the bigger the company is, the higher percent they had to pay in taxes and have in capital. So that company that becomes to big to fail will be paying the government out the nose every year and they will have a huge amount of capital in the vault. It is not great option, but it might be the best right now.
Ryan \| 2009-09-30 \| Google Wave to be released to 100,000 testers Wednesday
Yes, it will. Google has a "long" (in internet terms) history of being able to monetize things that people insist up and down are worthless. At their inception, google maps and gmail both looked like completely worthless pits into which money could be deposited and never seen again. This has not been the case. Google wave will be another example of this. Google will, again, use their size to, again, change the industry. What I'm hoping/praying for is a piece of hardware that I can purchase from them as an appliance. Wave is great, but not so much when it all happens in the cloud. Bandwidth becomes a major issue.
Ryan \| 2009-09-18 \| Remember those kids that sent a camera up into space in a balloon and took some photos? This guy did the same thing and jumped jumped out of the balloon. An interview with Joe Kitinger.
I'm surprised the balloon even got off the ground with the weight of that guy's massive steel balls in it.
luke \| 2009-08-31 \| While the mainstream press portrays newly reappointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as a mild-mannered hero, the reality is he is responsible for much of the economic pain Americans are feeling.
It has been shown through history that the more political the Central bank of a country is, the worst the economy does. Politicians have often made short term decisions when they are in control of the central bank. Many have chosen to print more money to keep their economy going up, or make it go up faster. This often works in the short term, it always leads to huge bubbles though. They also have a tendency to lie about the economic status of their country. If they say inflation is low and growth is high they can get reelected, the truth might get them fired (or hung). Independent central banks don't have to worry about this. They can make fast decisions that politicians can't make as well because it is just 12(?) people making the decision. Congress doesn't have to come to a decision (or lack of a decision) every few months this way. The Fed can also do things that have to get done in a weekend (like the bailing out of financial giants) that are important to get done without congress's approval (which out be an impossible sell to the masses, but a necessary evil according to most economists). The Fed has also done a decent job since they were created. The US has only had inflation over 10% for one year. The longest period that it has had negative growth is 4 quarters(right now). Unemployement has only been over 10% for one year (it will soon be back over 10% though). For 70 years of controlling monetary policy, that isn't so bad. Most countries in the world have had >25% unemployment, >25% inflation, and a >10% drop in GDP several times over the last 70 years. Things are bad now, but the medicine might be worst than the disease.
Ryan \| 2009-08-26 \| If you've been outraged by the Republican Party's position on Intelligent Design , you should display equal outrage that Mr. Obama appointed a very publicly religious individual to head the National Institutes of Health. Intellectual honesty is de rigueur here.

Cody \| 2009-08-25 \| The decision to retain Bernanke as Fed chief sends a message: The president doesn't think the crisis is over.
I'm starting to think Obama might not be aggressive enough to be president. We should have elected a real man like Hillary Clinton
AaronJ \| 2009-08-13 \| America's Sex Laws, Unjust and Ineffective
oh my god the insanity. Its not the punishment for real offenders, but the fact that we still have states with the most inane laws, especially in the south. sex between teenagers!!!?? Urinating in public?!!! And these all get lumped with the rest of it? And this guy: "Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. It doesnt make it right, but it doesnt make him a threat to anybody, says Mr Norris. We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone whos done something heinous." ---- ok fair enough he knows this is wrong... yet he also says "it doesn't make it right" about two high schoolers having sex!! Although he sees the injustice, it is these ingrained notions about sex that he is still exhibiting that continue to cause this garbage.
AaronJ \| 2009-08-13 \| I'll never understand Americans
As for GDP per capita, what does that have to do with health care... and how is it even a measure of the success or an indicator of "failing economies". So Sweden, Britain, France, Germany, etc. may have lower GDP per capita, but they all have longer life expectancies than Americans, lower crime, lower infant mortality, their people all have excellent health care, their countries have built or are building amazing modern infrastructure with which there is not much to compare in the US, yet still have many great companies to work for and weeks of vacation time. How the hell are these failing economies because they have lower GDP per capita? Obviously at the indistrialized level but probably even lower, GDP per capita means absolutely nothing in terms of the welfare of the citizens of a nation and the strength and success of a society and economy.
Ryan \| 2009-08-10 \| America's Sex Laws, Unjust and Ineffective
These laws have become a joke. I attribute this to something I call "stupid old fat ugly woman" syndrome. Basically, stupid old fat ugly women (SOFUW: pronounced like sofa, which is where they sit watching Maurie and Oprah all day long while eating fattening foods like cheetos, ice cream, and the souls of young children) realize that they are simultaneously stupid, old, fat, and ugly. This does not make them happy. THEY NEED PURPOSE, DAMNIT! SO they find something like sex crimes, or madd, to get involved in. BUT! When they reach their goal...well...then their purpose is gone! They are now stupid, and fat, and ugly, and old again! OH NOES! WHAT WOULD THE OPRAH THINK OF THEM NOW!?!? So they keep pushing their agenda further and further into ridiculosity. Before you know it, all the smart, young, skinny, attractive people are in prison. THE SOFUWs WIN!
Ryan \| 2009-07-24 \| Apple claims 91% of the over $1000 PC market revenue in June
You know...reading this headline, I'm not sure that I even know of any consumer-level PCs that cost over $1000 (obviously servers, CAD/3d Modeling workstations)... I'm typing this from my acer aspire one right now and, honestly, this is more computer than I even need... I will admit that I am a bit odd, the only thing I really use my computer for is an SSH/HTTP client; certainly my usage habits are different than somebody like my mother.. But then there's my mother...I bought her one of these a few months ago, and she LOVES it. Her desktop machine (which she uses for running quicken or something like that) took a shit a few weeks ago, and her motivation to have me fix it is about 0. Her aspire is more computer than she really needs (except for, maybe, the screen. The resolution leaves a bit to be desired). So who IS buying computers that cost over a grand? Well, there are gamers...people who are most certainly not going to buy buying a mac (despite a lot of games being available on OSX, it still isn't up to speed with windows). They might spend over $1000 (I am not a gamer, so I don't really know what is required for gaming these days. If it can run tuxracer and armagetron then I'm content). Buuut....most of the gamers that I know buy their computers from newegg and put them together themselves. Even the desktops that I buy for my users at work only cost under $1k and that is with dell's "holy shit" service plan. Apple, you're dominating the over >$1000 market because you're the only one IN it. This claim would be akin to the coffee shop that I am sitting at claiming that they have 90% of the coffee market in Cross Lake, MN. They're the only coffee shop here.
Cody \| 2009-07-13 \| A Call to Jihad, Answered in America
How longer is the New York Times free?
Cody \| 2009-05-13 \| Why does the United States spend more on national security than the rest of the world combined, and why do so many members of the foreign policy community believe that it is either in our interest or our responsibility to interfere in so many places around the world?
When we save the world from invading aliens the world will thank us.
Ryan \| 2009-05-12 \| Give Me A Waterboard Dick Cheney & One Hour! Jesse Ventura
Do you listen to either of them on a regular basis? Let me give you the beck/venture forumla for action Step 1: Take a topic Step 2: Sensationalize it Step 3: Claim that it is destroying America Step 4: Write a book about it Step 5: Profit.
Joel \| 2009-04-09 \| Laid off workers seeking second career as DJ
I've been pretty busy at work and haven't really had time to make an epicly awesome response to this. Granted I'm totally ripping some vinyl while I write this out... I will say that I can pretty much name all of the gear that they have in those photo's off of the top of my head o_O I agree with most of what has been said but will give some [quote]insider[un-quote] info. One of the main things that I run into is people always asking me how much money I make or if I get paid for dj'ing. I don't. I don't make any money. Granted it's not without it's perks, most larger events (515) DJ's pretty much drink free, or even at smaller events like It Goes Boom (aka Lift Off) dj's get half-price drinks, which is still a pretty sweet deal. Whenever I play @ Mars Cafe I get a free meal/drink combo. This is pretty much a nice thing to do for us [the dj's] since a lot of these places don't necessarily make any extra money from patrons specifically there to hear the music. So, to the point of all this, it is sort of like what you said about it being the same shitty music all of the time, whereas I play what I like and what I am into and what I want to hear. I've got friends that would dj top 40 crap-hop at places like Kamodo Klub, and they'd make decent money, but I love [the]music enough that I'm not going to "sell out" to do it strictly for the money. This is part of the reason that most of these people won't work out. You can have someone that is totally diggin' the top40 or whatever tunes, and they're really going to get into it, this will make them inherently better then anyone that is just "doing it for the money." They'll be train-spotting it up and always on the prowl for whites, re-presses, and maybe will actually be in a position to get dubs. A key point from the image, is that I will bet my top dollar that the people in the photo are learning to mix house. House is fucking easy as shit to mix. A key concept (but not the only pillar of dj knowledge/skill) is beat matching. This is sort of the corner stone for dj'ing, essentially you match the beat in 2 records, and allow both to play out of the master channel so that both records are playing in sync simultaneously, this is how you transition from one track to the next. And what the hell is easier to mix then a massive BOOM kick drum every beat in 4/4 time. I'm not trying to knock house. It is one of the most popular genres of dance music, and rightly so, it's simplicity makes it one of the easiest things to get into. It sort of jives with your pulse. If you're not tappin' something you're a god damn robot with no musical soul. [I will stand by that statement to the end of time as would most any dj, imo.] This is sort of a lead-in to Ryan's point. It's not that it's exactly cheap to buy a bunch of gear and start dj'ing, but it's not THAT expensive, basically what I'm trying to get at is that it's not too hard to buy gear and spin house. The problem is, if you can do it, so can everyone else. This is sort of what we're getting in the job market right now. If you've got a job that pays 40k a year, and you've got a bunch of people applying for it, since people that normally wouldn't work for only 40k w/ their experience can't get any other job, the people w/ the most experience win. (Which totally fucking bones our generation, can't even get 32-5k /yr jobs) So that's just it, you've got a shit ton of people with decent skills (if that) that saturate the market, now this saturation can lead to an increased interest, which leads to higher demand, but that higher demand is going to be filled by the better dj's that have been around for a while, before the random noobs got the idea that they could make $20 /hr dj'ing b/c they read some fucking article on MSN.com (I swear there was one). The problems that arise here (in-part due to technological advances) are akin to those seen in the photography as well. Digital photography makes it easy so that everyone thinks they can be a pro b/c their camera shows the picture they took. Guess what, this same influx of retards occurred in the ྂ's with the advent of SLR's w/ auto-focus lenses. Unless you have the experience you're not going to be able to do it, well not easily, I don't want to be a hater, but it's not magic, and unless you really really work, and are really into it. I'm actually just really getting back into dj'ing. Not that I've "been away" anywhere, but things ebb and flow and now I've got reasons and people that are also into music surrounding me which causes me to want to put effort into it again. One of these things is occurring all across the US and that's the change from clubs back to parties. Ryan can attest to this as he just went to his first rave last weekend and is going to another BA one this weekend. Resurgence of "the scene" is a pretty big deal, I mean it's DSM for fucks sake, what does one have to do around here to get a decent party/music? I've pretty much already "decided" that I'm not going to "go pro" as it were, in the dj/music scene. I just do it because I love it, and that's good enough for me <3
luke \| 2009-04-08 \| Laid off workers seeking second career as DJ
This accutely describes why I would not be a good DJ.
luke \| 2009-02-02 \| Journalist gets a job at wal-mart.
I love Wal-Mart. It's true. I have for awhile now. It is partly because so many people hated it. That always draws me in, but I still need some reason to love them after that. Wal-Mart leads the country in doing things that are environmentally friendly. (OK, leading the country is a stretch). Wal-Mart is a bully. It makes other people do what it wants. It says jump and people say how high. The reason we use florescence bulbs is because Wal-Mart told GE to make more of them and cheaper. Yes, it can do that. GE can't afford not to do business with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart can afford not to do business with GE. We all use concentrated laundry detergent now because of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart didn't want to pay for moving laundry detergent around the country that was 80% water. That is a large waste of water, plastic to hold it in, and diesel to move it around it. They are having boxes shrink to the actual size of the products in them so they can ship more in one truck and not waste paper and storage space. They have also made it so every semi they send is full, saving tons of diesel. The list goes on an on as well. Wal-Mart has not always treated it's employees well. Fact. There is no denying it. It was brought to important people's attention and then was fixed. That happens in every corporation. I don't see how management is supposed to make sure that every one of the million of people is always happy. They aren't going to be. They are trying, and sometimes are going to make a wrong or bad decision. But they have a record of changing to do what is best for the whole. No one is perfect, not even Wal-Mart, but they are trying to be better. I find it strange when people say Wal-Mart won't allow Unions. People didn't start Unions because the companies wanted them. The employees got together and engaged in collective barraging to get what they wanted. This gave the employees the ability to shutdown a corporation. The employees of Wal-Mart can do the exact same thing and there is not a single thing Wal-Mart can do to stop them. Wal-Mart can't make people work for them. They can all decide to walk out. If Wal-Mart was truly a terrible company to work at this would have happened a long time ago like it did with the coal mines and dangerous factories. The thing is Wal-Mart knows it can find people to replace who ever want to walk out, even if a whole store does. You don't have to be a genius to work there and they pay a competitive wage. This means people will work their. And just like people have the right to join a Union or form one, Wal-Mart has the right to stop paying them it's money. Sweatshops: They are terrible places (most of the times, some are not bad jobs). Wal-Mart has rules they put in place to prevent people from being taken advantage of. They demand the people they contract out to to pay a competitive wage and have reasonable working conditions. They have a group that gos around and makes surprise visits to factories to make sure things are going like they should. That said, the terrible things we see on 20/20 still happen. I heard it put this way though - "who would benefit if the factories/sweatshop shutdown?" The people who worked in it wouldn't have a job to buy food with. The owner wouldn't have a job to buy higher ticket items that give someone else a job. We would have to pay more for the same item. No one is the real winner if it happens. PS. I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart. I much prefer Target because the people are prettier.
Ryan \| 2009-01-29 \| My Bipartisan Stimulus By RUSH LIMBAUGH
Does it anger you guys that he is right? The type of stimulus that Rush (and every single economist that isn't on Barack the Obama's payroll) is talking about here WORKS! It's like we're having a fire sale on American Investments and everything must go. Tell people that they are actually going to get to KEEP the money that they earn with their investments and they will flock to American companies the way that fat women flock to the desert cart at an all you can eat buffet late on a friday night when they are feeling alone and reading their latest Oprah Magazine about how "Fat is All That!". What happens when you pour cash into a business is the same thing that happens when you poor miracle grow on a dandelion. It gets big. It multiplies. It flourishes. We make jobs! We make money! People can continue living their lives of excess! THIS IS A GOOD THING! See, where the libs seem to have gone wrong is this idea that life is supposed to be painful. These people are so absolutely consumed with guilt when they see the less-fortunate that they are willing to sacrifice your money in order to make themselves feel right again. They're emotional masochists. Existence should be HARD, they believe, and they will do anything to make sure that you share the same struggle through life that they do. It is frightening. The people that we have given control over our country, our livelihood, to are emotional disasters.
Cody \| 2009-01-20 \| Apple Introduces A Revolutionary New Laptop Without A Keyboard: The Macbook Wheel (Parody)
MAC remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Travers \| 2009-01-20 \| New Blog by luke
Accepting your argument, I think it's more concise to say that they don't like murder or intent thereof. Cars, hell even bicycle accidents, I'm sure, result in more deaths than gun crime. You don't see anybody trying to ban cars or bicycles though. Now who can say that they think murder and crime is good? Even criminals have that inkling. Most everyone agrees that death sucks too. Is a gun sine qua non to killing people? Certainly not. You've got knives, bats, vehicles, etc. Even unarmed, people can kill. Hell, look what a couple of box cutters did on 9/11. If someone is going to go to the effort to kill someone else, the lack of a gun is not a show-stopper. So what does this boil down to? Stopping death? Stopping murder? No. Quite clearly, the gun in and of itself adds something to the picture. Perhaps because its only purpose is killing, be that food or people. (The aforementioned implements have other primary purposes.) While that is a gruesome fact, I doubt the removal of guns from the public and their psyche will result in any appreciable decline in murder. What I do believe it will result in, is the revocation of a person's right to defend themselves, their loved ones, and their property. While complete removal of guns would put everyone on a level playing field, say, knives for instance, that goal is impossible. Say a law is passed insofar citizens have to give up their guns. Well, good law abiding citizens will. Criminals will not. This results in a disproportionate balance of power. The cat is long out of the bag. Do you expect the police to guard you? This is big government. Abdicating personal responsibility in lieu of someone else. But now, who cares about you more than you? Who's going to be able to respond to a threat first? And while I hate to fear-monger, what happens when you can't protect your family from superior force because you've given up some of your rights? Could you live (assuming you're still living) with yourself after such an incident? Let me set up a scenario, sans guns, to argue another point. Lets say you're walking down the street, and get mugged by a bat wielding criminal. You're unarmed, and have the disadvantage. Someone sees the confrontation and calls the police. Well, as it turns out, the mugger beats the crap out of you, doing considerable harm, putting you in the hospital for quite some time. You receive physical wounds which you will never fully recover from, as well as psychological trauma. Can you sue the police? Are you entitled to compensation even though they arrived as soon as they could? No, my friend, you cannot. Why the hell not, you ask? Isn't it their job, which they failed to carry out? Well, at it is, they're not actually legally responsible for your well-being. There are some exceptions to this, but that's beside the point (if you're arrested, or are a dependent in their custody, like an insane person.) To conclude, the only person responsible for you and yours safety is yourself. Abdicating your personal responsibility to the government is inefficient, unAmerican, and personally, I find people who do it downright disgusting. The universal recall of guns is impossible; any attempts will only result in more power for criminals. I'm not even going to go into disproportionate citizen/government power. s/criminal/government/g
Ryan \| 2009-01-19 \| Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails
@Russian guy: bwahahahahahahahahahaha Here is why this will never, ever, ever happen. We have nukes. Lots and lots and lots and lots of nukes. Lots of them. If the United States falls, there is a very, very good chance that she is taking the rest of the world with her. Why? Well...mostly because we control the worlds food supply. You know that big, boring area in the middle of the country called "The Midwest"? It is feeding the rest of the world. Go ahead and try to think of an area in the world that farms as much food as we do. South America? No. It is covered in a rain forest? Africa? No, they're too busy shooting each other and having Angelina Jolie adopt their children. Europe? Australia? Europe? China? No. No. NO. So what happens when we start lacking money? We start jacking up the price of food, that is what we do. We starve the bastards to death so that we can keep eating our big macs and watching american idol in our gym socks and underwear while we hire a babysitter at $10 an hour to watch the offspring even while we're at home. But they won't STARVE, you might think. Don't worry, they will. People are going to get desperate...they're going to start bombing our cities..we'll look like a warzone. Tensions will get high, and somebody will launch a nuke. From then on, it is game over. That is our world, guys. It's fragile and, as of the mid 20th century, we are fully and completely capable of removing ourselves from existence.
Ryan \| 2009-01-16 \| Looking at the good in sweatshops
Are you reading my brain, luke? I swear I just had a rant about this the other day. Angelina Jolie types are constantly gallivanting across the Sahara slapping down wells and handing out Nikes at every disease-ridden village they can get their manicured hands on using their GPS and their Jeep. They get to come back to the promised land of America, hide in their $20,000,000 houses, sip their $4 vegan water that was sucked from the bottom of some natural spring in some far off corner of some far off country by a charming, poor, photogenic local that will soon have his face emblazoned across a National Geographic cover, all while screaming at their colleagues that by driving their hummers and wearing their non-fair-trade-clothing they are killing the children! Well guess what, hippies, YOU ARE MAKING THINGS WORSE! You're enabling them to continue a life that nature has been telling them for the last hundred years that they need to stop. They can't farm the land anymore, they isn't clean water, they're overpopulated and disease-ridden. They need to move. But what happens? You got mom-on-a-mission heading over to Africa to give them medication, and food. You've got prime-time infomercials telling you that for $0.05 a day you can build litte Anya a school! YOU CAN SAVE THEM! you are told. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! You can bring meaning to your cold, empty, worthless, pitiful, disgusting, immoral life. You can use these kids as unknowing adoptive children to fill the void that you created by alienating your own offspring. You get to sit at the country club feeling righteous because the Johnstons are talking about the Real Estate collapse, and you're talking about the HUMAN COLLAPSE (you pat yourself on the back for coming up with something so witty and tell yourself that you should probably be a columnist), you get behind people like Barack Obama who promise that make things better for EVERYONE! SMILESS! AND SUNSHINE! AND RAINBOWS!!!!!! Is that so bad!? YES! These kids need a job. The sweatshops provide them with one. They give the people a mechanism for self-sufficiency and the whole thing is mutually beneficial to you and to them. You get cheaper shoes, they get a bowl of rice. The infrastructure that these people need to survive gets built because of the massive influx of cash to the region. Something downright magical happens. When people are given something that they're afraid of losing, they will fight to the death to protect it! What does this mean? This means that the psychopathic warlords that live in these areas can no longer recruit 8 year olds to fight for them. This means that people learn that using a condom or abstaining from sex with everything that can walk will prolong their own demise. Aids starts drying up. Take the value away from somebody's life, and they aren't afraid of losing it. Give these people's lives value. Give them something to be proud of and the rest will work itself out.
Ryan \| 2008-12-24 \| New Blog by luke
Lucas, How dare you make a rationale, informed decision about something like this. We all know that the banks are evil, the federal reserve is evil and, most importantly, George Bush is the devil. Okay, in all honesty, the President of the US is more like the Queen of England (or king). They're a public relations officer. The real power lays in the house and the senate. Yes, the president can veto things, but the congress can over-power him. The president exists so that people like you will find on reddit (that is: people who refuse to actually learn anything) have somebody to blame when things go bad. You're right, Luke. The gas, the banks, the economy; none of it has anything to do with George Bush. Will we see short-term calm-down when Barack the Obama takes office? Yes, but that is just the eye of the storm. The majority of our economic woes come from people's "feelings". Investors are scared right now. People still HAVE money. The rich are still rich (why do you think they're cutting jobs? [i'll get to that in a sec]); they still have money to invest! The problem right now, is that when you turn on the news and hear about unemployment, and how the soup kitchens are going to start filling up soon and how everybody is going to lose their job, you hold on to your money like passengers on a sinking ship hold on to their life vests. We've got a catch 22. The consumers aren't spending (which accounts for 70% or some such huge number of the economy), meaning that businesses aren't making money, meaning that investors aren't investing money, meaning the business have to cut jobs. Its all a big feedback loop! The more the business lose, the more they WILL lose (this is why Barack The Obama's plan of punishing businesses for being successful is so ignorant). So back to the jobs. Rich people don't like losing their money. When it starts costing them more money to do businesses, what happens? Bonuses for working people get cut, raises don't happen, jobs get cut, everything tightens up. Liberals (or any other people who refuse to educate themselves) get so caught up in this idea that by TAXING wealthy people, they are going to be able to distribute money back down the chain and give it to poor people. It doesn't work like that! (I'm over-simplifying this here by using "Rich" and "Poor"). Rich people have got something to distribute: dollars. Poor people have ALSO got something to distribute: work (energy). The rich people want the energy from the poor people, so they trade them Dollars for energy (HAHA!! See, Ron, it ISN'T a closed system!). With their energy(work) converted into dollars, the poor people can buy things like houses, and televisions, and ipods. So to simplify: poor people can't simply BUILD an ipod. They need apple to do it for them. Apple wants dollars. So the poor people convert some of their energy into dollars and give them to apple in exchange for the ipod. Its like going to the bank and trading dollars for...euros, or pesos or something. Except they're trading energy(work(time)). Okay, now. What happens when the bank stops letting people trade their money for other currencies? Welll....they can't buy things with Euros anymore! They have to use dollars! Get it? If you don't have a job, you don't have a means for converting your energy(work(time)) into dollars. You can't buy a television, or a house, or an ipod. You can only have things that you can directly convert your energy(work) into. Things like....spears, bows, arrows, sod houses. WE ALREADY HAD SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT!!! it was called "everything leading up to the industrial revolution" So tax the wealthy people, retards, they will hold on to their money, not trade it for energy, and not give the poor people a means to convert their assets (energy) into anything other than what they can build themselves.
Travers \| 2008-07-29 \| U.S. Reports Drop in Homeless Population.... because the failing economy people have stopped feeding them. In other news the pigeon population is also in decline.
Yeah, get back in the pond you four-legged fish. Get a degree in the sciences and you won't have to compete with all those fratboys that have some sort of business or psychology degree. The market is flooded with fratboys. Can you even teach business? Sure you can teach numbers or something like that, but not imagination and ambition. But seriously though, what facilitates business? You have to have some sort of product to sell. For that you usually need some engineers to design it. The only exception is financial businesses, they're not selling anything, they're investing or you're investing in something. When you start getting up there with the big boys, you start to realize that the financial market is an onion--there are many layers--around ultimately nothing! Yes, I speak of fiat money and speculation. I digress. Liberals... If everyone is entitled to an education then its going to smother out the bright people via various methods. Teachings will have to be dumbed down so most everyone can pass and the market will be flooded. So people who are smart can't learn nor get a job as readily. Furthermore, if an employer is full of... everyone, well, smart people won't be welcome. Intelligence is NOT a valued trait among those that liberals think need the most attention. It is abhorrent; in its stead are brawn and social structure. Not to mention who is going to pay for this. Money does not grow on trees. Lovely--pay money to drive us back into the dark ages. Forcibly taking someone's assets and giving them to somebody else who is not in the least deserving is so fucking immoral I can't even begin... If I do not own what I earn, then I will stop working. Liberalism is parasitism--the liberals and even more so--their charges. It operates on the assumption that all men and women are equal in capacity. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Loans et al. are even more simple. The ability to PAY off a loan ought to be sine qua non to getting one. If money is loaned and not repaid, then you've got a serious economic problem on your hands. A very serious one indeed. Money can be converted into assets that are unrecoverable such as food, drugs, and depreciating consumer electronics. Creditors of course make their living off interest, and it is in their interest to make people keep paying that interest--keep them in debt. There are plenty of institutions out there that are a far cry from some of these predatory lenders. The reason why so many of the latter exist is people's willingness to screw themselves for a new TV. Et cetera. Et al. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum. Don't vote Republican either--those guys are crooks too!
Ryan \| 2008-07-29 \| U.S. Reports Drop in Homeless Population.... because the failing economy people have stopped feeding them. In other news the pigeon population is also in decline.
The current economic state can be completely blamed on liberal ideals. It is because not everyone should have a college education, and not everyone should own a house, and not everyone should be able to afford a brand new car. There HAS to be wealthy people, middle class people, and poor people. This is absolutely essential to our economy. This is what happened, and what will happen. Banks started giving out loans. Lots of them. They started giving loans to people who couldn't afford them. They started giving loans to immigrants, college students, people fresh out of school, people working in minimum wage jobs. Everybody, all you needed was a social security card and a smile on your face to get yourself a brand new 30% interest credit card with a $10,000 limit on it! But hey, everyone is special, right guys? Some of us just weren't born as fortunate as other! Stick it to the rich men! Them and their lives of privilege. Everyone deserves that, right?! RIGHT!?!?! Wrong. So what else were we giving out to people who didn't deserve it? College Educations. Yeah, that sounds stupid, doesn't it? I mean, everybody deserves an education, right? Why should only the rich kids have the privilege of getting a college degree? EVERYONE should make $100,000+ a year, right? Wrong. Giving every kid with a smiling face a college degree over saturated the market with "smart" people. Suddenly you've got kids fresh out of school, carrying a report card full of straigh A's and a resume' full of extra curriculars and they end up moving back in with mom and dad because they can't find any work. So what do they do? I mean, they're 23, they don't want to live at home with mom and dad, what if they want to bring home that blonde slut they met at Jordan's house party and bang her? WHAT THEN!? They can't exactly get down in mom and dad's basement, cause the blonde slut is a screamer and that would wake up mom and dad and they would end up some funny story that eventually gets told at some wedding at some point in the future when uncle Rob has had to much to drink. so they move out. but they need to work in order to pay for their new appartment in a pretty nice part of town. So they go out and use that college degree that they paid $90,000 for and find out that there are a few hundred thousand other kids doing the exact same thing! They can't demand the $150,000 that the brochures they got before entering college said they would be getting. So they settle. $30,000 they'll get a raise eventually. But now the blonde slut is complaining because their TV is too small, so...well....just this once, just this once they put the $3500 on the credit card. Never mind the fact that this is more that a month's salary, they need to impress the blonde slut, otherwise they're suddenly a 23 year old loser who can't get laid, and that is NOT HAPPENING!!! They WILL maintain the same level of sexual activity that they had in college come hell or high water! But the blonde slut leaves for some 40 year old with a Mercedes and a house in Paradise Valley. So now what? IF they get a new car, well then they can impress the blonde bitches, and then they can get laid, and then they're not a 23 year old who can't get ass and lives alone in an apartment with a dog and 2 fish. So they go down to the dealership. And they get a loan. $300 a month! the car guy says. $300 a month....well....if they make $2000 bucks a check...well...thats $1000 a month for rent. that leaves $1000, minus $300, minus $200 for insurance. That leavs $500 a month. ANYBODY can live on five hundred a month. Well, then there is the credit card payment..$100 bucks a month..oh and the student loans...$200 a month. Surely, anybody can live on $100 a month! I mean, everybody else figures it out somehow...right!? SO they get a car. But they can't get the blonde bitches if they aren't SEEN out in the car. SO they start going to the clubs. The expensive ones. The ones with a $15 cover and $10 drinks. But hey, it will lead to the blonde bitches, right? "Here is my visa card Mr. Bartender, it has a $10,000 limit!" But how can the banks do this you might ask? AhA! Because loans are traded as objects on the financial markets my dear boy! You see, big huge massive banks can afford the risk of taking on a few bad loans here or there. They are big enough to get their money one way or another. So the small banks get accustomed to giving out loans to people that feel as though they are entitled to things that they didn't earn. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots and lots of them. Fast forward to 2008. So now you've got a million or so kids out there not making any money, still $90,000 in debt because they keep differing their student loans until they get that next big raise. But then, uh oh, oh shit...yeah, see the banks ALSO did the same thing with the housing market. The small banks started realizing that they didn't have to carry the risk of the loans they were giving out. If they went bad, they would just sell them to a bigger bank who could handle the loss if they didn't get their money back. Houses on the wrong side of town, where there is a 50% chance of getting shot at every time you go for beer at the Circle K are selling for $300,000. But they aren't WORTH $300,000 you might say! Oh but they are. Oh but they are. They didn't used to be. Nobody wanted them. They weren't even close to the clubs full of the hott bitches! Sellers HAD to sell these houses for $50,000 because that was the only way people would buy them. But now EVERYBODY can afford a house. The demand for housing shoots through the roof, and suddenly people are willing to pay $300,000 for a two bedroom with no yard and several homeless people living behind the garage. Why? Because it isn't their money! its the banks! if they stop paying the loan, the bank will just repo the house and they'll go get another loan! Behold, the perfect economic storm. The college grad isn't getting the hott blonde bitches because he can't afford the same mercedes and affliction T-Shirt that the 40 year old divorced guy can. So he's racking up his credit card. Every tom dick and harry can now afford a house, so home values are through the roof. Banks are loving it because they're lending out more money (and making more interest) than ever. POP Now the banks realize that the college grads can't afford the mercedes, and the tom dick and harrys can't afford the $300,000 shack on the wrong side of the tracks. They close up the same way the blonde bitches would when our college grad told them he lived at home with mom and dad. They stop giving loans out. People stop buying things because they no longer can. You've got a million or so kids with completely worthless college degrees. So the economy starts tanking. The rich elite who CONTROL the economy start investing their money in other places. Jobs start moving overseas. It no longer makes any sense to put money into the domestic stock market because its tanking. The people who DO want to invest in the American economy can't because the banks are too afraid to loan money to anybody without a yacht. The economy grinds to a halt. But hey, we need CHANGE right? That will fix it...right? Right? We need to redistribute the wealth..right? EVERYBODY deserves a house, right? And a car And a college degree Right?

oh my god the insanity. Its not the punishment for real offenders, but the fact that we still have states with the most inane laws, especially in the south. sex between teenagers!!!?? Urinating in public?!!! And these all get lumped with the rest of it?