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Domain: zompist.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to zompist.com.

Comments · 56

  1. Re:Your timeline is off. by rodentia · · Score: 2 · on CNET Interviews Rep. Boucher

    You are right. I am thinking of Osorio or Fuentes or Armas? It was one of the South American, right-wing dictators of the era.

    q.

    v.

  2. Not Esperanto by yerricde · · Score: 2 · on Testing Technology on a Veritable Army of Children?

    Well, if we're going to try that, let's avoid Latin and start with Esperanto, or Lojban, or Klingon or something which at least starts out with fewer irregulars.

    Esperanto? Ecch! Too Polish. I'd suggest something based on one of the Interlinguas (Interlingua de IALA or Latino sine flexione) as the Latin/Romance bases of those language both sound less harsh than Slavic and prepare the children for the language of science.

    Heck, if you're going with a relatively regular language, you might as well use a regular alphabet, but note that regular alphabets may be more difficult for dyslexics to learn than Latin ASCII!


    .cixelsyd eb yam uoy ,siht daer nac uoy fI
  3. Re:Oh no ... by Dr.+� · · Score: 1 · on Quake3 v1.30 Final Is Out

    Yup.
    It's the motto of Syldavia: "Here I am, here I stay."

    For a full intro to Syldavian, see here

  4. Re:The World hates the US because: by flimflam · · Score: 1 · on Space War 2017: US v. China
    1) Was not democratically elected, was a left-wing junta. Just because commies say "the peoples this and that" a lot does NOT make them democratic.

    You might want to check your sources again. Salvador Allende was indeed democratically elected. He belonged to the socialist party, but it is worth noting that the policy that most angered the United States and prompted the Nixon administration to sponsor a military coup -- nationalizing the foreign-owned (mostly by US interests) copper mines -- was approved unanimously by the opposition-controlled congress.
    2)We did not sponsor them, we only trained certain units in counter-inssurgency tactics. Their own lack of morals did the rest.

    We did more than train them (though you might want to look into the kinds of tactics we trained them in). We gave them the arms that they used to commit these atrocities. All in all, we gave more than $4 billion to the Salvadoran military during the war. (This in a country of only 6 million people. And with all that aid they still couldn't win their war. Should tell you something about the level of popular support the government enjoyed) I'm particularly sensitive to this issue -- my wife is Salvadoran and lost her only brother and 2 sisters in that dirty war.
    3)The UN is about as useful as the League of Nations was. Lots of talk, only the big-boys have a real say. Why invest money in a bad idea?

    I won't bother getting into an argument about the merits of the UN, but the fact remains that we are obligated by treaty to pay a certain percentage of the UN's operational budget. We seem to want to have it both ways with the UN -- criticize it as infringing on our national sovereignty on the one hand, but use it as cover for our international interventions on the other.

    I guess with 4 you admit we had somewhat less than altruistic motives?

    For further understanding of why we are hated, especially in latin america, check out this page.
  5. Re:The net lets the disaffected connect by Anonymous+Coed · · Score: 1 · on Cyberdemocracy And The Public Sphere
    I admit, the US screwed over much of South and Latin America. However, the fact of the matter is that we didn't do it for shits and grins; we were fighting the Cold War.

    No, the fact of the matter is that the USA was 'screwing over' Latin America well before the Cold War gave us a more plausible excuse. Check your facts next time you spout off about American superiority.

    PS. I'm an American too and I'm not exactly proud of all the things my country has done in the past (and continues to do to this day.) We are not neccesarily "the good guys." We are an empire like any other, which happens to carry the biggest stick at the moment.

    Fun fact of the day: the term 'gook' did not come out of Korea or Vietnam -- American Marines were using it to refer to natives of Haiti as far back as 1915.


    ---

  6. Re:miltary asteroid use - the next arms race. by SEWilco · · Score: 1 · on Exploring the Asteroids
    Actually, the Space Shuttle can carry a bus. But a bus is hollow. A solid chunk of iron is much heavier.

    You can see the effects of a 150-foot piece. It's called Meteor Crater. Crater 2.4 miles in circumference.

    I agree with the previous poster. Read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress for the classic rocks-from-space show. Follow it up with Footfall.