Re: The US Has Insane Privacy Protections
John wrote: I honestly don't know what to say here. I am not trying to drive you away. I would just like, however, for you to view things from my perspective. I posted what I thought was a pretty fascinating, counter-conventional wisdom article that had a lot of interesting things to say.I get one response from it - a sarcastic, biting, caustic response that addresses not one whit of the issues I was hoping to discuss - but instead changes the subject to an unrelated, (and in my mind, baseless) partisan political attack. 1. It wasn't a sarcastic remark in that there was no intended irony or satire or ridicule intended. I seriously believe that the Bush Administration will use propaganda like that discussed in the article to try to deflect criticism from the 9/11 commission. 2. It _is_ related to the subject of culpability for the 9/11 attacks. The article suggests that some flunky lawyer is responsible for hamstringing the FBI and the security of the entire nation. This is something that I can imagine the FBI would love for us to believe, but I find the idea ludicrous. Furthermore, it attempts to pass the blame for 9/11 onto privacy advocates which is typical of the kind of song and dance used by the Bush administration to deflect criticism. 3. My remarks were not directed at you, but at the ideas behind the article. You didn't even say whether or not you agreed with the article in your initial post(though I assumed you did). Moreover, again from my view, this response accuses me rather directly of posting something which is not in fact at all interesting or fascinating, but rather, quote, spin - which makes me either a hack or a sucker to post such as thing as being in the fascinating/interesting. department that gets one to think outside the conventional wisdom. No, it makes you partisan and willing to jump on a line of reasoning that will bail your guy out if it's true. I did not intend to insult you personally at all and if I did, I'm sorry. So anyhow, I do respond to all of this with a bit of sarcasm myself - albeit certainly sarcasm that is no harsher than what I received from someone who disagreed with my Lord of the Rings *movie*review* - and yet I also take great care to make sure that I also address whatever substance there was in what you had to say - even if it does completely change the topic. We must be using a different definition of sarcasm. Clearly in your remarks there was an intent to ridicule me an a taunting manner. Trevis' remarks, while a bit harsh IMO, expressed his disagreement, and he attempted to soften the blow with the remarks that followed. And again, I don't believe I was changing the subject at all. I believe that the ideas in the article you ghosted may form the foundation of the Bush administrations attempt to deflect criticism from the 9/11 commission. And yet, I am getting a lecture about how I don't need to use sarcasm to make my points?Well, if I don't need to use sarcasm - how about you? Well to reiterate, my remarks were not sarcastic and more importantly they were not directed at you personally. Anyhow, like I said, I am *not* trying to drive you away. I feel that if we can just work out what the ground rules are, I'm sure that we can keep having civil disagreements on political issues here. I very much want to do that, as I do respect what you think and what you have to say. Contact me off-list about these ground rules if you want. What it basically comes down to is direct your criticism to the argument, not the person. If you feel you've been insulted, flesh the situation out instead of escalating it. I realize that I'm no picture of perfection so if you can tell me where you think I'm out of line, I'll listen and attempt to amend my attitude to take your criticisms into account. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 16:58:17 -0500 I think that I mentioned in my piece that having read the books 10 years ago, I was almost completely uninterested to how faithful the movie stayed to the deatils of the book. Actually, I am quite sure that I did. JDG I'm also quite sure of it myself. However I was just giving MY opinion on the trilogy, plus throwing in a friendly jab. And as to my opinion, I don't think you can really make any judgement on the movies, unless you compare them to the books, which is the true receptacle of the Lord Of The Rings story. This is just my own opinion... -Travis _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcommpgmarket=en-caRU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
From: Travis Edmunds [EMAIL PROTECTED] : opinion on the trilogy, plus throwing in a friendly jab. And as to my opinion, I don't think you can really make any judgement on the movies, unless you compare them to the books, which is the true receptacle of the Lord Of The Rings story. This is just my own opinion... I disagree. Although, personally it's hard for me to see the films in any light besides how faithful/unfaithful it is to the books, I don't think that's the only, or even primary, criteria for anyone but hardcore fans of the novel to use. Movies really do have to stand on, and should be judged by, their own merits. There's tons of movies out there based on books, which I've never read, and it's silly to think I couldn't make a judgement on them because of that. For example, I think The Green Mile was a fantastic film, and Firestarter was lousy, but I've never read those Stephen King works, and think it would be silly to judge them purely in terms of their faithfulness to their original works. And for most people it will be the same for LOTR, even if we hardcore fans have a hard time seeing it that way. _ Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed providers now. https://broadband.msn.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mexican Diplomat Charged With Helping Smuggle Arabs Into U.S.
I wrote: But illegal aliens work for far less than union scale. That's why a lot of companies break the law to hire them. Also, I won't dispute that citizen employees who work in construction get good benefits. But employers don't treat illegals the same. Rob replied: Bear with me on this. Anyone who would break one law by hiring a worker illegally and then would break or skirt another with discriminatory pay policies is not much better than a slaveowner. A real American would turn them in. (I'm serious!) I had a cousin who was a great friend when we were kids. I didn't see much of him after his time in the US Navy, but he started a roofing company. I later found out he wouldn't hire Americans. He would only hire illegals and then payed them less than minimum wage when he could get away with it. (This is in Houston mind you. Boiling in summer, miserable when its cold.) Oh yes, he was a real piece of work. He got caught cheating on his taxes, and when his lawyer informed him he would only have to pay pennies on the dollar he screamed at him I paid you so I wouldn't have to pay taxes at all. Apparently he felt that because he had served as a cook on an aircraft carrier during Gulf War 1, he shouldn't have to pay taxes. The jerk owned 3 houses, a real nice boat, several cars and that still wasn't good enough. [On a side note, he also was a Rush quoting fire breathing Republican without a concience, which goes a long way toward explaining why I mistrust the motives behind that party, even though I like the conservatives I know here on the List] Knowing all I know now, *I* would have turned his sorry ass in, but in one of his frequent drunk driving episodes he was killed in an auto accident along with 4 other people in the car he hit. He was about 33. But perhaps if he had been subjected to the full force of the law a few years earlier, he might have changed his ways and would still be here bitching about Clinton. Before I address the issue of reporting the guy, let me back up a step. The discussion in the thread was whether people would take jobs that illegal immigrants take for the pay that illegal immigrants make; in other words, would tossing out illegals directly translate to more jobs for Americans. I think the answer to that is pretty clearly no at this point, as shown by my quote earlier on the income of farm workers and by your example of illegal immigrant roofers being paid less than minimum wage. Having said that, I'd like to remind you that the report I was quoting on farm workers was on *all* farmworkers, not just illegal alien farmworkers. There are a few Americans who make a living (such as it is) following crops around the country, but they are the vast minority in the industry from my understanding of it. If all the illegals were tossed out of the country, the farming industry as we know it in America would cease to exist. There would be almost no one willing to do the work these people do at the rates of pay these people accept for their work and under the conditions in which they work. Food prices would skyrocket because the cost of hiring people to harvest the food would skyrocket. Of course this would only affect the part of the farm industry where there is not a lot of automation (or possibly not any way to do automation). And I'm pretty sure economies of scale would play into it as well, with giant corporate farms having more money available to hire higher priced workers, giving the corporate farms yet another advantage over the small-farm owner. And if in addition to deporting all the illegal aliens, we also threw in jail everyone who hired them, then not only would we have very few farmworkers left in America, we'd also have not many farm owners left. I've followed the farmworkers issue for quite a while. My family has fortunately never had to do that kind of work (Dad was in the military for a while as a radar guy, then worked for Bendix and eventually retired as an electrician from ATSF Railway Company, and Mom was a professional cosmetologist and even taught cosmetology for a while), but social justice issues have always been important to my family and in the hispanic community (at least around KC), the migrant farmworkers issue has always been one of the more prominent social justice issues. So I guess I knew about some of the complexity of the migrant farmworkers issue going back just about as far as I can remember. But I never knew much about the construction issue until I met this guy my niece decided to marry. I just assumed that the same kind of complexity existed in that industry as well and decided not to jump to conclusions about the guy who hired my niece's husband. Hopefully not everyone in construction who hires illegals is as much of a profiteer as your cousin. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The New Math
From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Out of curiosity, why do you think you are in a position to mock techniques that are fairly standard in science as well as economics? The normalizing out of known uninteresting variations, like seasonal variations, that do not help one answer a question one is interested is very standard. In this case, the change in the basic employment picture is of greatest interest. Since seasonal variations exist, and are not indicative of real trends, any trend analysis needs to normalize out this variation. It would be similar to normalizing/subtracting out a known time dependant background from a physical signal. If you are right, then some very successful scientific techniques must be bogus. If they are bogus, then the obvious question is why do they work? Maybe I am just misunderstanding. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 516,501 in the week ending Dec. 27, an increase of 91,785 from the previous week. There were 620,929 initial claims in the comparable week in 2002. It looks like a comparison between the previous week and then with the same week in the previous year. Where would you get a seasonal correction out of that? I would think that most people would read the sentence the same way the Fool did. I certainly did/do. What is it I am missing here? The statistical model assumes that hiring will increase before christmas. But that's not what's actually happening in reality as more people are losing their jobs for the past several weeks. Since seasonal patterns are being disrupted, the number becomes distorted. That's what happened this year. That what happened last year. That's what happens with bad statistical models. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] NOTE PLENTY OF SPOILERS AT THIS POINT, since I think that everyone has had a chance to see the movie. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 1) Overall, I think that The Two Towers is the best movie.The Fellowship of the Ring might have been good, but in my mind it was too slow, too confusing, and most of the great special effects were given away in the previews. The Return of the King was hyped a little less, and less was given away, so I place it in the middle. In fairness, I should note that my single most memorable moment from reading the entire Ring Trilogy was the meeting of the Ents - so The Two Towers probably had a bit of an advantage in that department for me. Nevertheless, I just found The Two Towers more intense, more fluid, more believable, and with overall the best battle scenes I had ever seen. For me, compared to the battle at Minas Tirith, the Helm's Deep Battle in TTT was a bit more satisfying and realistic, but it was dwarfed in terms of sheer spectacle. As long as it was, the Minas Tirith battle was too short to really fully show what happened. As usual in this movie, I suspect far more footage was filmed than was actually put into the move, so I'm hoping for more to be shown in the extended edition. O.k., I know that Gandalf is not supposed to be around in The Two Towers (which is one thing that ruined the climax to The Fellowship of the Ring for me - as I *knew* that Gandalf was supposed to perish in the pit with the balrog.), but by the second movie I'm not sure what you mean by this. Gandalf certainly is around in the TTT novel. The Balrog scenes with Gandalf are pretty much faithful to the books. The only real difference being that the movie shows the battle up front, while in the book, Gandalf tells it by flashback when he later meets up with Aragorn. But Gandalf meets up with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli right where he's supposed to. 2) In my mind the movie was too long... and too short. 3.5 hours is definitely a long time to sit in a crowded theatre, especially with 20 minutes of advertisements tacked on.At the same time, you could just tell that this movie was squeezed into the timeframe, as the storytelling was often choppy. Yes, all 3 movies seem slightly choppy to me because of this. The TTT extended edition fixes this greatly with 45 extra minutes of footage. I'm told the FOTR extended edition does the same for the first film, but I haven't seen it yet. And I'm betting the extended edition of ROTK will fix a lot of quibbles I have with the third movie. As just one example, where did the Eagles suddenly come from? I think they might have been in the first movie... but that was two The eagles arriving deus-ex-machina is a running thing in the LOTR world. They show up in the Hobbit, one rescues Gandalf in the Fellowship, and they show up at the Black Gate and to rescue Sam in ROTK. IIRC, the're a large moth that presages their arrival at the Gate, similar to the one Gandalf spoke with when trapped at Orthanc in Fellowship. years ago... an eternity. Overall, I would much rather have preferred that they go the Gettysburg route, make it a full four hours+, and put in an intermission.Or why not even make it two separate movies we are about making money after all, right? - and there is plenty of material in The Lord of the Rings to make the books into four movies. The initial plan was to split LOTR into two movies, and it was considered very risky at the time. When the studio saw how well it was going, it expanded the budget to allow for 3 films, but the situation was a huge gamble. They were spending $300 million to produce 3 films all at once without knowing how any of them would do. If LOTR flopped, it would mean the end of the studio. While I would have loved to see 4 movies, I doubt they would have been willing to gamble $400 million, and also, I'm not sure if there would be any good split-points to break the story into 4 parts. The ending of the movie is simply interminable. Maybe I have become a jaded American I guess you'd agree with Bemmzim then about being glad the scouring of the shire was not included; that'd have added at least another 15 minutes to the end, I'd guess. I'm glad the conclusion wasn't rushed. I really hate movies that have their big finale and then feel it necessary to immediately end the movie on that note. Sometimes some wind-down is nice to see. moviegoer, and maybe I shouldn't have caught a 10:30 showing, but after the raging climax. 3) The Army of the Dead is a major disappointment. Now, to be clear, I did not recall this scene at *all* from my reading of the novels a decade ago so I almost half-wondered if they were added in, but that seemed unlikely to me.Nevertheless, the story line just simply did not seem believeable. The Army of the Dead is part of the novel, but they do not fight at Minas Tirith. They drive off the
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
- Original Message - From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 10:53 PM Subject: Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton At 06:46 PM 1/3/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: Any corporation worth its salt can have small or zero profits from certain international operations. So, so you are saying that you disagree with the conclusions of the NY Times' investigation? If so, on what grounds? I have no doubt that the facts that they report are accurate. I'm saying that they are, virtually, meaningless. In a corporation, the splitting of the profits and costs between different cost/profit centers is fairly arbitrary. For example, a corporation may work in a country that prohibits taking profits out of that country. So, they make no profit in that country. However, the division of the company that rents tools to that operations in that country makes a nice profit. In addition, if there is anything like a cost plus bidding with a poor paper trail, it becomes a cost sink. Anyone who can get their costs association with that project can make their division balance sheet look a lot better. There are bonuses riding on those sheets, so there is an overwhelming incentive to do this. I'm not assuming any unusual bookkeeping here, just the stuff that oil service firms have been doing for decades. If not, then what *are* you saying, other than simply saying that no evidence will sway you from your pre-determined conclusion that Cheney Co. are looting America and Iraq for the profiteers at Halliburton? But, I never said that it was looting. I'd just be shocked if they didn't maximize return by using Iraq as a wonderful cost sink. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Why the Holocaust Happened: Its Religious Cause Scholarly Cover-Up
WHY the Holocaust Happened: Its Religious Cause Scholarly Cover-Up http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1931055432/qid=1073248273/sr =1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-246-7926360?v=glances=books Summary: http://members.tripod.com/~ejm/why_the_holacaust.htm And Hitler's Bible--Monumental History of Mankind: http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerBible.htm Which shows a key document in Hitler's own handwriting from _Hitler's Letters and Notes_ titled: The Bible - Monumental History of Mankind: http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/Hitler%27sBible.jpg -- Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded project. - James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The New Math
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 10:55 PM Subject: Re: The New Math - Original Message - From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 7:37 PM Subject: Re: The New Math Maybe I am just misunderstanding. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 516,501 in the week ending Dec. 27, an increase of 91,785 from the previous week. There were 620,929 initial claims in the comparable week in 2002. It looks like a comparison between the previous week and then with the same week in the previous year. Where would you get a seasonal correction out of that? I got it from The Labor Department (news - web sites) reported Wednesday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally adjusted 15,000 to 339,000 for the week ending Dec. 27. Which was in his first post on the subject. I also saw the report on the seasonal adjusted unemployment elsewhere. WellI read that in the original post also, but I don't see how it is relevant. Without more information, seasonally adjusted could well be a euphemism for sanitized for your misdirection. G IOW, the phrase by itself doesn't tell me what is being measured. 200k people are absent in that measurement as compared to the general stat and I am wondering what their status is that they don't count as unemployed. Please excuse my skepticism, but undefined statistics irritate me because they leave one guessing at the meaning of the information they are supposed to convey. MY guess is that the seasonally adjusted numbers exclude the people who are almost always unemployed at this time of year and/or those who *are* employed at a time when they normally wouldn't be. But that is purely a guess and I know this. xponent TIA Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Overpriced Shirts and Irregulars Question
Kevin Tarr wrote: I'm only asking this from a business POV. There are many things I do not know and would like some details. Let me back up a step. I get t-shirts made for two groups I'm involved in. I'm assuming you are not the one making those shirts, that physically you never touch them. Correct. My point is: if you are only making $3, then the company charges $14. Subtracting the cost of shipping, they are making up to if not over 200% profit. Some of that may be taken by their location (California), and definitely by website costs but that is a nice margin for not doing any extra work. On your side is the infamous Laffer curve. You aren't collecting taxes, but there is a relationship between what you charge and what you'll get back. Do you expect a hundred people to buy the shirt? Would 150 buy it if the price dropped another dollar? (I'm assuming no on both questions.) Yeah, you're probably right -- it's hard to imagine me getting that many sales, at least at first. My initial plan was to sell a few shirts through the site as a proof of concept, to see how they sell, before trying to get my own shirts made locally, and shipping them out myself. The first shirt isn't selling through the site so far, at least not at the current price. Some time this week, I'll see what it takes (and costs) to print shirts locally, and see if doing that can lower the price enough to help. What does the image feel like? Is it inkjetted on or like an iron-on? I'm embarassed to say that I haven't tried ordering from there yet. I just plain didn't do enough research beforehand. At least I was careful to read the legal agreement, to make sure I get to keep copyright on the images I upload to them (I do). I didn't think to check out reviews of the print quality. What I've found doesn't sound too good, like this epinions.com review of the store: http://www.epinions.com/content_67901361796 FABRIC ITEMS NEED IMPROVEMENT: The fabric items are much like the print-at-home and iron-on products you can buy locally. They only have white and ash shirts because the design is printed on a white heat-applied fabric. It's not professional looking, in my opinion. I've ordered the boxers and t-shirts and while I think they're a great idea, they need more work to be worth the money. The reviewer does seem to really like the quality of other items like mugs and ceramic tiles. Maybe I should concentrate on those. Charities, what about the WWF? Their expenditures are high, but I don't give them money so no harm no foul. It's certainly one to research, at least. Thanks. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Mexican Diplomat Charged With Helping Smuggle Arabs Into U.S.
- Original Message - From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 12:17 PM Subject: Re: Mexican Diplomat Charged With Helping Smuggle Arabs Into U.S. [Snip Stories of family excesses] Before I address the issue of reporting the guy, let me back up a step. The discussion in the thread was whether people would take jobs that illegal immigrants take for the pay that illegal immigrants make; in other words, would tossing out illegals directly translate to more jobs for Americans. I think the answer to that is pretty clearly no at this point, as shown by my quote earlier on the income of farm workers and by your example of illegal immigrant roofers being paid less than minimum wage. Yes, I am guilty of unanchoring the thread. G But back to the discussion at large: I think it is important to note that roofers and fruit pickers do not typify the overall employment of illegal aliens. Also important is the incredibly vast undereporting of illegal worker numbers. Having said that, I'd like to remind you that the report I was quoting on farm workers was on *all* farmworkers, not just illegal alien farmworkers. There are a few Americans who make a living (such as it is) following crops around the country, but they are the vast minority in the industry from my understanding of it. If all the illegals were tossed out of the country, the farming industry as we know it in America would cease to exist. There would be almost no one willing to do the work these people do at the rates of pay these people accept for their work and under the conditions in which they work. Food prices would skyrocket because the cost of hiring people to harvest the food would skyrocket. Of course this would only affect the part of the farm industry where there is not a lot of automation (or possibly not any way to do automation). And I'm pretty sure economies of scale would play into it as well, with giant corporate farms having more money available to hire higher priced workers, giving the corporate farms yet another advantage over the small-farm owner. And if in addition to deporting all the illegal aliens, we also threw in jail everyone who hired them, then not only would we have very few farmworkers left in America, we'd also have not many farm owners left. I'm gratified to see that you understand the labor market, because *that* is how it works! BTWI'm not promoting the idea that Illegal aliens should be kicked out of the US wholesale, but that immigration law should be modified to reflect reality and that American citizen lawbreakers (in regards to the subject of this discussion) should be brought to trial and vilified not just for breaking the law, but for attempting to set policy via means outside the established methods. [OTT Statement] If we continue to allow employers to hire illegal aliens and then offer amnesties over and over then, then if we are consistant, we will forgive the debts of tax evaders and make marijuana legal because so many participate in those acts. I've followed the farmworkers issue for quite a while. My family has fortunately never had to do that kind of work (Dad was in the military for a while as a radar guy, then worked for Bendix and eventually retired as an electrician from ATSF Railway Company, and Mom was a professional cosmetologist and even taught cosmetology for a while), but social justice issues have always been important to my family and in the hispanic community (at least around KC), the migrant farmworkers issue has always been one of the more prominent social justice issues. So I guess I knew about some of the complexity of the migrant farmworkers issue going back just about as far as I can remember. That is probably a bigger issue down in the Texas Valley (near the Mexican border) than it is in my area. Here the issues (for Hispanics) tend more toward employment opportunity, educational opportunity, and the police breaking down your door in the middle of the night and killing you. But I never knew much about the construction issue until I met this guy my niece decided to marry. I just assumed that the same kind of complexity existed in that industry as well and decided not to jump to conclusions about the guy who hired my niece's husband. Hopefully not everyone in construction who hires illegals is as much of a profiteer as your cousin. No, they all aren't. Especially the larger firms (large enough to be audited occasionally for whatever reasons) are quite progressive in their hiring and management practices. I know several smallish companies that treat all their employees equally and fairly. But there are enough of the other kind who underpay illegal aliens, not as a method towards competition, but for personal enrichment. Its the next best thing to owning slaves. xponent Fairness Fairy Maru rob
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
At 02:21 PM 1/4/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: In addition, if there is anything like a cost plus bidding with a poor paper trail, it becomes a cost sink. Anyone who can get their costs association with that project can make their division balance sheet look a lot better. There are bonuses riding on those sheets, so there is an overwhelming incentive to do this. I'm not assuming any unusual bookkeeping here, just the stuff that oil service firms have been doing for decades. So, in other words, it seems to me that you are making a non-falsifiable claim. There is absolutely no evidence that can be presented to you that will persuade you that Halliburton is profiteering, right? JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 02:21 PM 1/4/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: In addition, if there is anything like a cost plus bidding with a poor paper trail, it becomes a cost sink. Anyone who can get their costs association with that project can make their division balance sheet look a lot better. There are bonuses riding on those sheets, so there is an overwhelming incentive to do this. I'm not assuming any unusual bookkeeping here, just the stuff that oil service firms have been doing for decades. So, in other words, it seems to me that you are making a non-falsifiable claim. There is absolutely no evidence that can be presented to you that will persuade you that Halliburton is [sic _Not_] profiteering, right? Not when There are mutiple half billion dollar no bid contracts. Not when there are ongoing Multi-million dollar payments to Cheney. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Best Environmental Charities Re: Overpriced Shirts and Irregulars Question
At 09:53 PM 1/2/2004 -0600 Steve Sloan II wrote: As for the Irregulars question, Dr. Brin suggested that I donate part of each sale I make at my store to an appropriate charity, as a way to promote my store and do good at the same time. Which groups do good work preserving wildlife in general? Which ones are good at protecting the individual species that are so important to the Uplift stories, the dolphins, whales, chimps, and gorillas? One of my favorite charities for a long time, the recent Washington Post expose' notwithstanding, has been The Nature Conservancy.The philosophy behind The Nature Conservany is simple - just buy the land that needs preserving.I particularly like them because the operate worldwide - buying up everything from rainforests to things almost literally in our own backyards here in the States.In addition, as a geologist, I was particularly impressed that they stepped up to buy and preserve the land where Jack Horner discovered the Maiasauria breeding colony. Another charity in a similar vein that claims lots of rave reviews (unlike The Nature Conservancy) from the people who review charities is The Conservation Fund. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Howdy
We just got back from DC this afternoon. (My sister got married yesterday.) I've been going through the backlog of listmail. I probably won't be fully caught up until sometime tomorrow. I was planning on trying to get together with a couple of listmembers in DC, but by the time we were recovered from getting 2 infants and a toddler through the whole plane trip/rental car wringer, it was time to be up to our eyeballs in wedding stuff, and then getting home again. So my apologies to those who gave me phone numbers whom I didn't call. It was a nice wedding, I'm very pleased with my new brother-in-law, and I got to see a number of people I hadn't seen in years, and in fact met a cousin I'd never met before. So that was nice. And everyone seemed to like my children, which was very nice. But anyway, we're home, and it's a relief to be here. :) I don't think I'm going much distance from here again for another several months, at least, unless we very *carefully* work out a plan to visit Dan's parents. (Much distance means farther from here than Houston, which means I'll have no qualms about going to AggieCon in March, but we'll certainly miss DFWcon in February.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
Bryon Daly wrote: From: Travis Edmunds [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Calculating God (Robert J Sawyer/Anyone heard of him or the book?/He has won a Nebula) This is sitting on my pile of to-be-read books. I thought my pile was large, with about 40 or so sitting on the shelf, but it's dwarfed by Julia's pile. (Julia - where do you store all of them?) In the library. It's a 20' X 20' room over the garage; there are 21 bookcases against the walls, 5 on the west wall, 6 on the north wall, 6 on the east wall and 4 on the south wall. There's a map cabinet in front of the area under the window on the south wall. There's a closet door on the north wall, and we have some framed artwork in that closet. (We've been in the house for 18 months, still haven't hung all the art we mean to yet.) Of course, *most* of the books in the house are in the library, not just the ones I haven't read yet. I keep track of those partly with the help of a data file Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
Travis Edmunds wrote: From: Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Science Fiction In General Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 23:01:39 -0500 From: Travis Edmunds [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Calculating God (Robert J Sawyer/Anyone heard of him or the book?/He has won a Nebula) This is sitting on my pile of to-be-read books. I thought my pile was large, with about 40 or so sitting on the shelf, but it's dwarfed by Julia's pile. (Julia - where do you store all of them?) Well, I have it read (past-tense) now. It was a really neat book. Yes I think that's the appropriate word neat. I don't think Sawyer is a great writer, although he is very fast paced (in a good way), and very intelligent in the little things transferred from his head to paper. However his abilities as a great storyteller who envelopes one into his/her fictional world is certainly lacking. But the best thing about the book and Sawyer himself I suppose, is the originality and bold ideas put forward. Like I said, NEAT. Neat. His endings, at least the ones I've read so far, are neat -- in the tidy sense. A little too tidy, if you ask me. I really enjoy his books up to the last 3 pages or so, and then I get a little annoyed about the ending. :) Julia I would have appreciated the endings a lot more 10 years ago ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Overpriced Shirts and Irregulars Question
Steve Sloan II wrote: I'm pretty sure I set the price of the shirt at my online store too high, so as an apology, I've decreased it from $19.99 to $16.99. Do y'all consider $3 of profit per shirt fair? http://www.cafeshops.com/Sloan3D As for the Irregulars question, Dr. Brin suggested that I donate part of each sale I make at my store to an appropriate charity, as a way to promote my store and do good at the same time. Which groups do good work preserving wildlife in general? Which ones are good at protecting the individual species that are so important to the Uplift stories, the dolphins, whales, chimps, and gorillas? If you're making donations to a charitable organization and say so up front, in theory I'd be happy to pay an extra $1-3 per shirt to help that out. In practice, I'm not buying any shirts this month except maybe from Special Addition on North Lamar in Austin. :) But there's always next month and the month after As for the charity, off the top of my head, maybe the World Wildlife Fund would be good. And one other thing: Please don't hesitate to gripe at me if you think I'm spamming the list. :-) I determined earlier today that griping is not the optimal way to achieve the results you want. If I am ever of the opinion that you are spamming the list, I'll let you know in a direct, matter-of-fact way, doing my best to keep the tone not-griping. :) Julia an apology wins a lot more points than a confrontation, and makes the person who yelled at you look foolish (and then drives you to do interesting things to avoid that particular situation less than an hour later) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: NHL observation
John D. Giorgis wrote: At 09:53 PM 12/27/2003 -0600 Julia Thompson wrote: At one point, they were my second-favorite AFC team. Now I like half the AFC East better. Julia not saying which half unless pressed hard Consider yourself pressed. :) JDG - GO BILLS AND SQUISH THE FISH!* * - no points to anyone who points out that they are mammals and not fish. :) Well, I see we're going to have a disagreement on the question of favorite AFC East teams, but I think we can live with that. :) Patriots and Dolphins. Patriots, I grew up in New England. Dolphins, well, that's a slightly longer story. One day around the time we were going to move to New Hampshire from Massachusetts, I can't remember if we were house-hunting or if it was one of those weekends where we went to the newly-purchased house to do a few things around the house before we moved in, but one of those sorts of weekend days we ended up eating at IHOP for dinner. And at the cash register, they had a bunch of magnets in the shape of football helmets, with different team logos on them. And since, of course, this being New England and all, the Patriots ones had all been sold. Of the remaining ones, I thought the Dolphins one was the prettiest, and for some reason I really wanted one of those magnets, so I got the Dolphins magnet. Well, that and now Ricky Williams is playing for them :) Julia any other divisions you want my opinions on? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
- Original Message - From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 8:41 PM Subject: Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton At 02:21 PM 1/4/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: In addition, if there is anything like a cost plus bidding with a poor paper trail, it becomes a cost sink. Anyone who can get their costs association with that project can make their division balance sheet look a lot better. There are bonuses riding on those sheets, so there is an overwhelming incentive to do this. I'm not assuming any unusual bookkeeping here, just the stuff that oil service firms have been doing for decades. So, in other words, it seems to me that you are making a non-falsifiable claim. There is absolutely no evidence that can be presented to you that will persuade you that Halliburton is profiteering, right? What Dan is describing is a pretty common business practice. Its not unusual at all. Even outside the oil business. I know for a fact that my company and others in the same field will do a construction job at zero profit or even at a loss, just to get a long term maintenance contract later. Happens all the time. xponent Femurduggery Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton Maybe they should sell tee-shirts? (According to a different thread) Vilyehm Teighlore ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
In a message dated 1/4/2004 8:54:03 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In the library. It's a 20' X 20' room over the garage; there are 21 bookcases against the walls, 5 on the west wall, 6 on the north wall, 6 on the east wall and 4 on the south wall. You can really cause a panic if you ever get a telemarketer call from a carpet cleaner offering a set price wall to wall service. You got me beat, but not by volume per square foot. In a 12' by 12' bedroom, I have twelve bookshelves, four of them forming a central core. Oh, and a double stacked video rack tucked into one of the interior corners. William Taylor - Always needing more space. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] And the oil patch isn't the only place this kind of bookkeeping takes place, of course. Here are a couple of other examples of how money gets moved around and accounted for in, shall we say, interesting ways. Back in early 2000 there was a discussion on the moderated Babylon 5 newsgroup about this kind of thing in the entertainment industry. Hollywood has been pulling the no net profits trick on people for years... Mario Puzo never made any money on The Godfather, due to the same trick. My grandmother was friends with his wife, so they heard all about it at the time. It sort of worked out OK in the end for the Puzos, though, because then Hollywood wanted to make Godfather II, and they were able to get a far better deal that time around. I read some articles a while back about how the author of Gump was in a legal battle with the movie studio over not getting a penny from the $300 million movie release of Gump, which also managed to show zero net profit. Most recently, I just read an article discussing the likelihood that New Line Cinemas will likely show no net profit on the $2.7 *billion* in estimated worldwide revenues from the LOTR trilogy. Many (most?) of the actors had only been a net percentage deal, and so were likely not to make any money and were understandably upset. They banded together and told New Line that they were expected to travel around the world helping to promote the movie (ie: on talk shows, etc), but it would be tough finding the goodwill to do so if they were all getting screwed out of any money. New Line eventually cut some sort of deal with them, undisclosed terms, of course. I've seen the kind of stuff Reggie and Dan describe as well. I had a summer intership at NYNEX Materiel Enterprises, a subdivision of NYNEX that didn't fall under the phone company profit-cap regulations. It's whole purpose was to be the purchasing arm for the phone company; basically, if the phone division needed to buy a telephone switch (a big $$$ piece of equipment, not at all like a light switch), then the phone division was supposed to provide its requirements to my division (Materiel Enterprises), which would then meet with vendors, select and purchase the switch, and *resell* it to the phone division. This allowed the profit that Materiel Enterprises made to not be counted against the profit cap that the phone division was restricted by. A couple years after I left, I read that a new ruling (by the judge in charge of the phone company breakup) put an end to that scheme by forcing Materiel Enterprises' profits to also count towards the profit cap. -bryon _ Take advantage of our limited-time introductory offer for dial-up Internet access. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 1/4/2004 8:54:03 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In the library. It's a 20' X 20' room over the garage; there are 21 bookcases against the walls, 5 on the west wall, 6 on the north wall, 6 on the east wall and 4 on the south wall. You can really cause a panic if you ever get a telemarketer call from a carpet cleaner offering a set price wall to wall service. Well, that room isn't carpeted. :) Laminate. Laminate there, and in the entry and hallway back to the kitchen, and the room I'm typing in, and the nursery. You got me beat, but not by volume per square foot. In a 12' by 12' bedroom, I have twelve bookshelves, four of them forming a central core. Oh, and a double stacked video rack tucked into one of the interior corners. William Taylor - Always needing more space. Who isn't? :) Julia and we *had* enough closet space, until we moved Sam out of the nursery ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Republicans Attempting to get Bible classified as a'Textbook' inCA in Constitutional Amendment
John D. Giorgis wrote: At 09:13 AM 1/2/2004 -0600 The Fool wrote: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36386 Group promotes constitutional amendment to make it textbook A California group has submitted to the attorney general's office a proposed ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to make the King James Bible a textbook for public school students in grades 1 through 12 throughout the state. That's funny. I don't see the word Republican anywhere in here. Could The Fool possibly have given us ANOTHER misleading subject title? JDG I agree, it should be Ultra-conservative religious nut cases. : ) It certainly doesn't say, so serious biblical scholars COULD be involved. But reading between the lines, this does sound like another issue being pushed by Christian fundamentalists. (Do you want to bet?) As for using it as a textbook, one would have to be very careful. The two creation myths in Genesis could be studied along with those of other cultures, even in 1st grade. But wait, it wouldn't need to be a textbook for that. Fair use would certainly allow a teacher to copy a few verses. (So what DO the proposers have in mind? I bet they would not be happy to have biblical myths equated with other myths...) ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: NHL observation
From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] John D. Giorgis wrote: At 09:53 PM 12/27/2003 -0600 Julia Thompson wrote: At one point, they were my second-favorite AFC team. Now I like half the AFC East better. Julia not saying which half unless pressed hard Consider yourself pressed. :) JDG - GO BILLS AND SQUISH THE FISH!* * - no points to anyone who points out that they are mammals and not fish. :) Well, I see we're going to have a disagreement on the question of favorite AFC East teams, but I think we can live with that. :) Patriots and Dolphins. Patriots, I grew up in New England. Dolphins, well, that's a slightly longer story. One day around the time That's my current order of favorites as well... The Pats are my local team, so that's self explanatory. I like the Dolphins because, despite growing up in New Jersey, I knew a surprising amount of Dolphins fans, who got me into them. I have a love/hate relationship with the Jets, given my Jersey loyalties and the intense rivalry with the Pats. I used to hate the Bills (sorry John!), back from around the Giants-Bills superbowl days. I'm a big Drew Bledsoe fan (he's a total class act), though, so once they traded Bledsoe to Buffalo, I started routing for the Bills a bit. I'd really like to see him succeed. (John - any thoughts on Bledsoe? A lot of fans in Boston loved him, but many hated him. I'm curious if Buffalo fans are thinking the same thing now, with his recent not-so-great season.) Overall, it kind of leaves me pretty conflicted, since there's no teams in my division that I can freely despise. :-) -bryon _ Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work and yourself. http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
