How do you know I am not an addict too?

PS: [url]http://xkcd.com/592/[/url] Read the alt-text.

Quit sniping. I'm already too P.O.ed to put up with that garbage.

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/21331018[/url]

It is not bad enough that they were an integral part of the meltdown, they deny they did anything wrong. After all, another ratings agency blessed every single one of them.

Logical conclusion, both ratings agencies were corrupt.

I say blindfold em, stand em up against a wall, and start shooting. But make sure at least one gun is loaded with blanks. That way, every one of the shooters will have plausible deniability that they did the deed.

DarJones

[URL="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/02/04/fixing-too-big-to-fail/"]RMS talks economy[/URL]

Edit: [URL="http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2868#comic"]Relevant[/URL]

Richard is one of my personal heros. I was very impressed by his book "Free as in Freedom" outlining his views on the free software movement. I would guess that George is at least in principle in agreement with this point of view in his making the source code for Prime95 public (with stated reservations), and I applaud the ideal of making the free exchange of ideas possible free of economic considerations. Richard was a year older than me but two years ahead in class when I was a student at Harvard from 1972 through 1974. My friends and I assumed wrongly due to his conservative dress at that time that he was headed for the corporate world. We couldn't have been more wrong, happily! Richard is an original thinker and totally uncompromising in his view of the world. For anyone unfamiliar with his thinking, I would totally recommend either reading his written works or browsing his website.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;327657][URL="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/02/04/fixing-too-big-to-fail/"]RMS talks economy[/URL]

Edit: [URL="http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2868#comic"]Relevant[/URL][/QUOTE]

Thanks for both of those, but especially for the Stallman piece. Unfortunately, the more cogent a plan to effect change is, the more fiercely the "corp-rats", and their legislative and judicial pawns will fight to prevent its enactment.

Re: USPS
 

If you live in a rural area or Alaska, you are going to be out of luck. Fedex ain't giving you the same service.

BTW, I read a long-form article last week - cannot find a link now - that talked about how a lot of the USPS deficit is due to te Congress critters. Back in the mid-oughties when USPS was flush with cash, Congress made it pre-pay its pension contributions (alone among all federal agencies) so that Congress would have less trouble balancing its budget. If you take that out the USPS operating deficit is well under $1 billion. Congress prevents the USPS from charging the economic price of mailing a letter because it is regulated as a public good. And then they complain about the deficit. In Germany, for example, the cost of mailing a first class letter is 60% more.

The USPS is one of those institutions that is a common good. When it goes in this orgy of deficit-cutting, you will miss it.

As with USPS, so it is with Amtrak. Starved for funds because Congress says it should pay everything from the fare box, and even make a profit! Last I knew, they begrudged one billion for the entire nationwide rail system.

Amtrak, pitiful as it is compared to the rest of the developed world, should be treated as a common good, like the mail.

hmm north korea has made a nuclear trial.
Well, if NK do anything to SK, , some will feel their duty should be to free NK, right?
Oh and the weapon industry need a boost, right?
[COLOR="White"]this is trolling, don't over-react[/COLOR]

[URL="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/libor-lies-revealed-in-rigging-of-300-trillion-benchmark.html"]Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark [/URL]:[quote]The benchmark rate for more than $300 trillion of contracts was based on honesty. New evidence in banking's biggest scandal shows traders took it as a license to cheat.[/quote]I think the money quote from this article comes from "The Maestro":[quote=Alan Greenspan]Through all of my experience, what I never contemplated was that there were bankers who would purposely misrepresent facts to banking authorities. You were honorbound to report accurately, and it never entered my mind that, aside from a fringe element, it would be otherwise. I was wrong.[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;329877]... to convince the hoi polloi that ...[/QUOTE]
[pedantry]
Shame on you Ernst. I thought you knew that "hoi polloi" is Greek for "the people" and therefore doesn't require another definite article. I'll be charitable and assume that you failed to proof-read your text before posting.
[/pedantry]

:wink:

Too Big To Jail
 

Matt Taibbi's latest.
[URL]http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214[/URL]


[QUOTE]For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy. "Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."[/QUOTE]

Edit: Ooh! A two-fer:
[URL]http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/at-least-were-not-measles-rationalizing-drone-attacks-hits-new-low-20130214[/URL]
[QUOTE]In this piece, the author's thesis is that all this fuss about America's drone policy is overdone and perhaps a little hysterical. Yes, he admits, there are some figures that suggest that as many as 900 civilians have been killed in drone strikes between 2004 and 2013. But, he notes, that only averages out to about 100 civilians a year.
...
So there it is, folks. Welcome to the honor of American citizenship. Should we replace [I]E Pluribus Unum [/I]with [I]We Don[/I]'[I]t Kill as Many Children as Measles?[/I] Of course people aren't mad about bombs being dropped on them from space without reason; they're mad because anti-Americanism is alluring![/QUOTE]