Letters to the Editor
blunderdog
Published Letters: 526 Editor's Choice: 10
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Interesting Letter
[Read the article: I like him but he's weird about money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seems that the LW feels that this is a "piece of the relationship" to be addressed or fixed. Maybe it's just the relationship.
It's a mistake to put too much in the "filthy" description without more info. What qualifies as "filthy" for one person can be so radically different than another. I'm (regrettably) acquainted with how a schizophrenic will live "left to his own devices." That's "filthy" and squalid and all. A stain on the back of the toilet rim doesn't meet that kind of standard, but could be "filthy" for the LW.
Also, even slobs are able to live in clean environments without difficulty. Often easy to reform.
Ultimately, it's the constant criticism of extravagance that sounds like the biggest issue. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't.
The LW should just see other people but have fun with this guy. Tell him, of course.
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I'm Channelling Abbie Hoffman
[Read the article: Overbuilt America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sounds to me like a GREAT time to build a "squat-party" phenomenon.
Go find the empty McMansions and PARTY, everyone! Woo-hoo! I'm FINALLY goin' to the Hamptons!
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Invest in Inertia
[Read the article: The Strategic Pandering Reserve]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From a perspective of ruthless objectivity, I'd suggest that the notion of the SPR in general is just a nation-state's attempt to add inertia to a global commodity market.
Let's have more of that. That's something I'm actually content to pay taxes for. Let's be sure to encourage Germany to make a similar investment.
(Fill it, or at least have the futures to guarantee it being filled by tomorrow at 6am. ;)
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Can Do Better
[Read the article: In defense of Lou Dobbs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was briefly employed by a company called "Indotronix" because it specialized in bringing H1B Indians to high-tech long-term consulting jobs.
It helped enable a company like IBM to pay $90K a year cash for a "human resource" that would cost $150K a year if filled by a permanent employee.
There are reasons to be conscious of the _potential_ damage that corporate exploitation of H1B status can wreak. It's a simple example of the "race to the bottom" principle of capitalism and labor.
So, to factician, you needn't take the criticism of the policy personally. The problem is not with permitting people to come to the US and work and contribute and eventually become citizens. It can occur when economic discrepancies become too dramatic.
Wouldn't it be better if you could be sure that all H1B workers were being compensated according to the standards of the communities they lived in?
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Not for Nothing, but
[Read the article: Lawless in Guantánamo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can't we just torture this guy to death already and be DONE with it?
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No Vote in the General?
[Read the article: Tight race in Guam caucuses]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And out of a population of 170,000 people, only 5,000 voted in the Dem primary?
Wow. Talk about noise.
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Gambling's Recession Proof
[Read the article: Even Las Vegas gets the blues]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But travel isn't.
I think the difficulty of getting the $99 to Vegas or $199 RT airfare is the problem. If you have $1200 to spend on a weekend, you're not going to Vegas if it costs $450.
All over the country are other gambling (or "gaming," heh) outlets. Vegas has always been the best, and was worth the trip when gas was cheap.
They're losing their lower-income customers. One of the early examples of the secondary shock of loss of domestic tourism dollars.
It'll be interesting to see if Disney World takes a similar hit.
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Lieberman's Allegiance
[Read the article: Things that don't exist in Harry Reid's world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't Lieberman campaigning for John McCain?
Can't you throw him under the bus for that?
And if he's NOT campaigning for McCain...what the hell is he doing?
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Where are the modular desktops?
[Read the article: Are laptop PCs the environmentally correct choice?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The issue I see is that the market is not very effectively predicting or responding to customer demand.
When the dirt-cheap submicros came out recently, there was a lot of dismissive talk about them. "Who would buy a laptop with a tiny screen and no HDD?" But the Asus EEE PC (or whatever it was) sold out within days.
I think people are ready to start thinking about computers MUCH differently, but I don't see much effort to introduce changes from the corporate side. The big players have all driven themselves to the tiniest profit margins by competing with essentially identical offerings, and that's pretty stupid.
I want "desktop PCs" to evolve into tiny boxes which basically contain nothing but processors, video cards, hard-drives to boot from, and a TON of various I/O devices. The Mac Mini is the right form factor. These days, hard disks, CD/DVD drives, cameras, network adapters, etc, can all be external devices which are cheap and easy to replace, while the "desktop" can be a machine intended to function at a fixed performance level forever.
Rather than have large systems of generally redundant components that get thrown away, let the mini-size PCs just be recycled with new drives/processors as trade-ins on the purchase of the next faster processor.
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Forget Boycotts...STRIKES!
[Read the article: CNN, the Pentagon's "military analyst program" and Gitmo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Baldie asked a few pages back about what sort of civil disobedience and/or boycott might be effective.
I recommend two approaches.
1) Massive public STRIKES on pre-arranged dates.
Logic: The US government does not work for the interests of the "individual" citizen. The US government works for the interests of the "corporate" citizen. THUS, public mobilization against the corporations will result (very quickly, I'd expect) in the government getting the message that the peasants have had enough. As soon as shareholders' wealth is threatened, politicians will change their actions.
2) Simple tax revolt.
Logic: Anyone who earns a wage can legally request a W4 form and change their stated tax deductions. A person living alone, such as myself, might, for example, have perfectly valid reasons for declaring 12 deductions on their W4.
If 50,000 people would actually step up and make the (trivially small) "sacrifice" of having to pay taxes next April, PLENTY of folks in positions of power will get the message.
If 250,000 people make that same sacrifice (of convenience), we could likely make headway about affecting policy.
How many people are prepared to help? We're not talking about committing crimes that might result in arrest, like civil disobedience. We're not talking about rushing the barricades or grabbing our guns or any nonsense like that.
How many members of MoveOn! are there again? How many are serious?
As for me, I'm probably at risk of being disappeared for having suggested the latter option. Damn.