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Newgy's comments

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

Thank you for your brave work on this issue, you are a true patriot.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams, Founding Father

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

A major driver of U.S. costs that isn't discussed in the article is our parasite lawyer class, who drive up the cost of insurance for doctors and lead to widespread over-testing or "defensive medicine". Few Americans are proud of our litigious society.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: MPAA's Chris Dodd Calls SOPA Defeat a 'Watershed Event'

Classic Chris Dodd. Obvious outcomes -- like the 2008 financial crisis, which occurred on his watch as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee-- are "watershed" and heretofore "never seen before." This way, he can escape responsibility for the role his own actions played in creating the mess.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Maddox - I hope SOPA passes

At least two of the legislators on his target list have renounced support for SOPA:

Dennis A. Ross (R-FL) Lee Terry (R-NE)

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed

Traditionally, Hollywood (run by angry liberals) and the Republican Party are hostile, so this shift is more of politics reverting to the mean. The main reason GOP members were on SOPA was the support of Nashville and the NFL.

This shift is a very positive development, it means the bill is becoming impossible to pass in a Republican House (and where GOP Rep. Lamar Smith has discredited himself by leading fellow Republicans into the SOPA morass).

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

Everything we need is already in the Constitution, in the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. We just have to defend our freedoms...through protest and through votes.

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." --Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4,1777

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

This is just a leadership commitment in the Republican House, the U.S. Senate (controlled by Democrats, and where overall support for SOPA/PIPA seems stronger) could still take up the bill. There are ways to pass legislation that circumvent a direct House vote.

It is good news, but I'd wait to see what Senators say this week.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Go East, Young Man

I had your gameplan, but in the late 1990s. Spent a couple years in China, struggled with a number of issues, including significant cultural and language barriers with the local programming team.

My advice: only go to China as a expatriate hire with an established multinational firm.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Pledge to cancel your Comcast in support of SOPA

The cable companies are losing subscribers for the first time in history. Every headwind matters to them. Just as important, getting the idea out there that Comcast is against a free and open internet will undermine their marketing towards those consumers who do have a choice. It matters.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: SOPA Hearings Delayed, 140,000 Americans watched the hearings

The one way to ensure that all Congressmen are millionaires is to take away their pay. Honestly, the salary is already too small, they have to maintain a second residence in DC, which is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. In all seriousness, $174,000 is not enough money to support a family in a middle class lifestyle in DC. A townhouse in a safe neighborhood is $5,000/month, most of the public schools are terrible and the private schools expensive, and the local taxes are extremely high.

Also lawmakers can't spend their campaign warchests on personal items.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: The scandal of the Alabama poor cut off from water

The real scandal is the long pattern of corrupt political leadership of Birmingham.

Birmingham was once an industrial capital, and in the middle of the last century was bigger than Atlanta, and in many ways better positioned economically to lead the south east. High taxes and a corrupt political culture drove Birmingham into the dirt. A couple generations later, Atlanta has one of the busiest airports in America, world-class universities, and hosted the Olympics, while Birmingham can't provide running water.

Elections matter.

Newgy | 14 years ago | on: Create - A new kind of web editing interface

Same problem here. The admin site structure of the typical CMS is an abstraction that makes obvious sense to us developers, but not necessarily to the content managers. Inline is the future.
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