I hate French bashing as well. But what I hate even more is people who complain about French bashing and then go on to bash the US. It is so childish and at its roots it suggests that one form of the bashing was somehow inherently justified. Why they think that the US bashing is OK but the French bashing is uncalled for (or vice versa) perplexes me. For me it would seem that they would look inward and not automatically bash the US because of its high probability to be hypocritical. In fact I would think that they would question whether either form of bashing was justified.
Unfortunately most people (including many tech geeks in this discussion) are unable to understand the utter triviality of bashing another nation in response to being bashed. I think it is part of a more general problem where it is intellectually easier to blame another person, religion, country, etc., than to do the intellectually difficult problem of debating and objecting to ideas.
No, 2 arms is base 2 and 16 fingers is base 16 because when you are counting, you are using your fingers as a counter position not as a digit. Sure, while if someone asks how far you can count with your fingers you can tell them 1023, most people will assume it to be 10. This is ironic since you don't use your digits to do digits.
Personally I find the thumbs to be annoying while counting so I never count higher than 255 which is useful because you can do a direct to hexadecimal conversion with the fingers of each hand (but using all of my normal parts I can get up to 2097151--more if I want to use the positions of my limbs as well).
Nice trying to shift the blame. It is the *job* of the UN to get member states involved--not the other way around (like it has been for the last 50 years). An international association that fails to get its members to work has failed as an organization--not just as failures of individual members.
If the UN cannot get any member states to contribute then a new organization is needed to do the job. In my opinion, the UN should be dissolved and a modified NATO should do the work (admitting a couple of new open democratic states like Japan and South Korea). I do not understand why we cling to this belief that if every country on Earth agrees with an action then it is justified, otherwise it is unjustified. We just run into the problem of despots doing unjustified actions that nobody can agree are actually unjustified.
Kick out the despots, and only admit open democratic states with strong protections on human rights. Otherwise the UN will continue to be completely worthless except for setting international standards for things like road signs.
You obviously missed my point. The laws are decided by American citizens, but we accept input in our discussions by anyone (though politicians may weigh them differently). This is not true for every country in the world. In particular, it is not legal to participate in any political discussion in Mexico if you are an immigrant.
So what you are saying is that if the US ever wants to solve its immigration problem, Canada must be destroyed? I'm on board! Long have we waited for just this excuse! It is time for a little payback from our setbacks during the War of 1812.
All joking aside, thanks for your comments. A big thing that has been missing from our national immigration debate in the US over the last couple of years has been input from various illegal immigrants on why they decided to come to the US. As a result various Americans have had to fill that spot often politicizing the issue. It is best to hear from the workers themselves what the issues are. I've seen from your other posts that you are college educated. It seems odd that the US gives so few work visas to those with college degrees since those workers will almost always be worth more than they pay in taxes (and won't be a burden on society). If nothing else comes out of our national immigration debate, hopefully we can adjust our work visa program to have much larger quotas for those with college degrees. There is no law in the US that says that foreigners (illegal or not) can't contribute to political discussions, so I hope that you continue passing on your experiences as the debate heats up this year (and it will). Cheers.
Not to mention how easy it makes it to convert modified GTA and RPG weapons to target civilian aircraft once these are installed.
Yeah, like a civilian aircraft that has beforehand listed its entire schedule and air travel route to the public and that is flying in a straight line with a radar signature larger than the size of a barn would be such a hard target. If someone wants to shoot down a civilian air transport plane, there is really nothing you can do about it. RPGs and SAMs were designed to shoot down things like F-16s or MiG-29s. They really aren't going to have a hard time taking down a 767.
Actually now that I've watched the movie again I've noticed that they were just comparing diameters. So it is correct that VV Cephei has a diameter roughly 200,000-300,000 times that of the Earth. As I discussed previously, the volume is a completely different beast. But even with such a large volume it is estimated that it only has a mass roughly 25-100 times that of the Sun. Based on its volume and mass it appears that the mean density of VV Cephei is much less than that of air.
Actually your calculation is off. VV Cephei is much larger. It's radius is 1.113 * 10^12 m to 1.322 * 10^12 m compared to the Earth's 6.372 * 10^6 m (which will give you a slightly smaller value range than your number). Now assume that both the Earth and VV Cephei are spheres and do a calculation for volume (you can divide VV Cephei's radius by an Earth radius for end units of Earth volumes to make your calculation simpler). The number is a little disturbing.
I didn't make an analogy. I only disputed the analogy given by another poster. I think you might have confused my initial response with the views of the parent of which I was responding. I like the ballistics jel analogy when it applies (for example with charged particles). But I certainly don't recall making any analogy during this discussion (other than the side comment that a neutron will 'bounce'--though I qualified it).
However, I am surprised that you didn't pick up the difference between an electromagnetic wave and/or photon and a wave of matter that the electromagnetic force mediates. I had no intention to discuss the dynamics of the ballistics jel analogy (that I didn't make) when my point was that no dynamics could exist due to the absence of a charge on an axion.
I understand that you (and other posters) think that I've been sort of a semantics-nazi during this discussion, but this was not my intention. I just don't want conceptually false analogies to be used that then allow people to make false statements about the characteristics of an axion in the future. In my opinion, understanding how a subatomic particle is detected is critical to understanding what it is. I certainly don't expect everyone here to be able to give a complete scientific description of the properties of an axion, I just expect them not to give misleading statements. If I heard the ballistics jel analogy without knowing better I would ask myself "If an axion can disturb a ballistics jel then doesn't that mean that it is composed of charged particles or is charged itself?"
I made a grievous error in my initial post by being technically incorrect; however, the message of what I was saying still stands, and it is what I clarified in my initial response. And I was probably too harsh on my response. I think we all finally understand the basic points that both you and I were trying to make. I should have been a little more explicit in the beginning to have avoided a lot of confusion.
The point that I was trying to make is that a zero charge particle doesn't interact electromagnetically so we can't use conceptual examples that involve the electromagnetic force regardless of how trivial to describe it. There do exist many particles that do interact electromagnetically and you could say they travel through a medium (such as a bubble chamber) like a bullet through a ballistics jel. Heck, I've even seen the extreme examples of this where I was able to observe Cherenkov radiation from a nuclear reactor's fuel elements (where a charged particle moves faster than the speed of light in that medium producing a really pretty blue light).
But the axion itself does not interact electromagnetically so by itself it does not produce a wake. The electron and positron produced will certainly produce wakes, but that point needs to be pointed out explicitly. The axion is not detected directly from electromagnetic interactions, only its decay products are (which are released symmetrically around the axis of the axion).
Wow, you must be fun at parties calling everyone stupid for disagreeing with you. My mention of the electromagnetic force is critical in this discussion because there is no evidence that the axion is composed of charged particles that when superimposed produce a zero net charge. If it had then those particles it could be detected electromagnetically (i.e. even the neutral neutron will bounce off of certain particles due to electromagnetic interactions--though I should note that strong nuclear interactions are also significant for a neutron). And without the electromagnetic force there will not be a wake through a ballistics jell which is the original issue that I pointed out.
I don't really care that it bothers you that I have simplified this to the simplest case (but as Einstein would suggest "no simpler"). Sure you can describe the perturbation of a ballistics jell with forces that are composed of special cases of the electromagnetic force but the fundamental point is that without the ability to interact electromagnetically at the lowest level all of those forces result to zero.
If an axion has a zero fundamental charge you can talk about impulses all night long but they still do not mean a damn thing. When you discuss subatomic particles you cannot use the special cases of the forces that we have come to love (because they make our lives simple). Spring constants have no meaning. Pressure has no meaning. Even things like angular momentum take on bizzare new forms that cannot use the classical theories.
"The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is due to the electromagnetic force."
And the Universe is powered by stupidity. The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is caused by the shockwave of the bullet's impact with the surface of the gel; a bullet is not a charged particle, nor magnetic, and it's way to big to create the ionization effects that traditional particle detectors use. I don't know how it is possible that, not only could say that a bullet causes a wake due to electromagnetic force, but that a mod actually believed that bullshit. Thank you for your comment. I am happy you are interested in physics. There are 4 forces: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Please feel free to tell me which forces you believe allow the shockwave of a bullet to develop. Be as technical as you wish (I have extensive experience in advanced physics). I will give you a hint though: particles that have a net neutral charge can still interact electromagnetically whenever the distances between the interacting charges isn't assumed to be infinite (think dipoles).
I hope this is a good learning experience for you and I hope that you don't recklessly call other posters stupid next time.
Wait... the electromagnetic force between atoms? Absolutely. There are four forces, but only two that people interact with on a day to day basis: the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force. Every time that I cut myself breaking a glass bottle, burn myself on a lightbulb, feel the warmth from sunlight, or get shot by a bullet I am interacting with the electromagnetic force (though the gravitational force might alter the trajectories of the glass bottle and the bullet).
Think of it like those high speed film clips of a bullet going through a block of ballistics gel. The particle hits the emulsion and leaves a detectable wake.
This is a bad description. The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is due to the electromagnetic force. The axion, in contrast does not experience that force. Like the neutron, it must be discovered indirectly (though it is more difficult to discover than a neutron). A useful part of the article:
After they are produced, axions rapidly decay into two electron pairs, the electron and the positron, he explained.
So basically, they discovered it by observing the electrically interacting positron and electron pair produced very close to the production with a specialized type of photographic film.
I understand what you are trying to say, but US law isn't built in some coordinated fashion. Implying that US laws written for the protection of passengers at airports have had any coordination with US laws written to minimize theft of copyrighted works is silly (before I get flamed note that I have not said that I support the way that either set has been written).
If you want to look for coordination, look towards the lobbyists. The RIAA and MPAA lobbyists who have helped pass the oppressive copyright protection laws don't have anything to do with the airline lobbyists or defense lobbyists who have helped write much of the War on Terror related laws.
What is new however is the fact that wars could now be fought without losing a single one of your own countrymen.
It is certainly interesting. The Iraq War is probably the closest major war to that idea that the US has ever been engaged. Only the Revolutionary War had less deaths. Even the Mexican American War had about 5 times the number of casualties. Considering the population growth of the US, it makes these numbers all the more striking.
Of course once you look at the number of enemy dead and civilian dead, we realize that the only thing that has changed is that the casualties have been shifted. If the American people didn't have a conscience about the opposition dead, the US would be completely unrestrained with the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen. Thank God that apathy that we had during the past several wars has faded. Many people around the world have said that the US is the greatest threat to world peace. They say this not because of the Iraq War (which is a trivial war in the big picture of the world), but because it showed that the war machine that was built up for 50 years and with trillions of dollars of investment could be unleashed at a moments notice if the wrong people were in charge. If the Iraq War would have gone smoothly (not the initial war, but the subsequent occupation), I think that the US would now be involved in a war in Syria, Iran, or North Korea.
I was not trying to insult you, so if you feel insulted I apologize. I don't think you stupid (you are a lawyer after all) nor do I think you a bad person. I think your support of these people harassed by the RIAA is very noble. But I also think your exaggerations and labeling of people as RIAA trolls are counterproductive. I want people who are concerned about the RIAA to tell their friends and family about the lawsuits on 7 year olds and 70 year old grandmas. I want people to talk about the number of lawsuits settled out of court. I want people to talk about the oppressive laws for which the RIAA has lobbied. I don't want people to go around saying that the RIAA is terrorizing people. Facts speak stronger than emotions. I also don't want people to ignore this issue because they have been labeled trolls by people who are overly sensitive about the RIAA tactics. Your long list of foes does more to hurt your anti-RIAA advocacy than any post that you have made. I rarely read RIAA threads due to just this issue.
Not once have I insulted you, while you have multiple times called me stupid, a troll, or a RIAA hack. Not once have I said that I supported the RIAA or didn't have pity for the victims but you implied I did. You are projecting your hate onto others. You see your victims and since you can't hurt the RIAA you instead lash out at people who are trying to calm you down. You are like the frightened cat in the animal shelter who bites the person who is trying to help it.
I pity the victims of the RIAA and I also pity you. You have a lot of hate and you haven't realized how cruelly that you are treating your fellow man.
Personally, I think this is one of the more disturbing elements of the 21st century. The only thing that stops us western powers invading the next oil-rich country is the fact that body-bags equals votes for your opposition. If you can fight a war where no people* die, then fighting war just became politically cheaper."War is a continuation of politics by other means."--Carl von Clausewitz
You act as if this is something new. We haven't exorcised all of the demons from the past, the least of all wars of conquest. A history of the Mexican War and the Spanish American War is much more useful in understanding the Iraq War's motivations that the Vietnam War. Both the Mexican War and the Spanish American War were optional wars spurned on by the U.S. drawing a line and looking for the means to make it look like the enemy started it (the Mexican attack north of the Rio Grande River and the sinking of the USS Maine respectively). The results from the Mexican War and the Spanish American War greatly increased US territory and power. While the Iraq War isn't for territory, it certainly is for power.
The difference between you and me is I'm speaking from experience, and you're not.
I talk to these people every day.
Many of them are truly terrorized.It is not entirely surprising that you would say this. You don't consider the term "reign of terror" to be an exaggeration so why would saying these people are being terrorized bother you. By changing the definition you have sidestepped the argument (which is what I would expect from a lawyer). I'm not going to follow you down 10 definitions to get to the point. I'll say it now: did these people feel that their lives were in immediate jeopardy? I'm not talking about their quality of life--I'm talking about their lives. Did they honestly expect someone to kill them?
Contrast your responses with the responses of Iraqis living in Baghdad. They are living through a reign of terror. Your clients are living through a reign of harassment.
"To those who might think that I might be exaggerating when I describe the RIAA's litigation campaign as a 'reign of terror', how's this one: in UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA not only subpoenaed the computer of Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away, but had their lawyer telephone the son's employer. See page 2, footnote 1."
This isn't a reign of terror. The purges of Stalin would classify as a reign of terror. The French Revolution would classify as a reign of terror. This classifies as merely harassment. I understand that the poster wants to bring up how loathsome the actions of the RIAA are, but exaggeration merely turns people off. When I hear someone talk about a "reign of terror" I typically just ignore that person since he or she is trying to convince me emotionally instead of rationally.
The Guangduong Province Station definately shows action measured at 0141 UTC and it was quiet for most of the day. It also doesn't show the rapid vibration you'd expect from an earthquake, but instead a slow displacement I think would be expected from a single pulse of energy. The station is located at 19.03 N, 109.84 E. The 4.2 earthquake event was measured at 41.311N, 129.114E at 0135 UTC. Using a great circle calculation (which is an overestimation, since the energy travels under the Earth's surface--but not that bad since the distances are close) I get 3076 km. Using a rough estimate of 8 km/s for a P-wave I get a travel time of 384 s, or about 6.5 minutes. Since the earthquake was measured at 0141 UTC, the USGS report of 0135 UTC is consistent.
Disclaimer: I'm not a geologist, but I watched one on South Park.
Just like in TV where there are very few 24s or Battlestar Galacticas, there are very few Baldurs Gate 2s or FFVIIs in the gaming genre. If I were like this asshole and judged the entire genre by a quick glimpse without knowing anything about it beforehand, I could easily understand how he could come to that conclusion. But I could come to the same conclusion watching TV and movies as well. Unless you search really hard, all you are going to find is shit, which is apparently what he found.
You forgot to mention the obvious: Burning cigarettes results (in part) in carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide being released into the air. So does burning fossil fuels. Both have been linked to global warming trends.
Nice try, please play again.
There would be no net increase due to just burning tobacco since tobacco is a crop. Each year they grow the tobacco crop it sucks an equal amount of CO2 out of the air as the CO or CO2 used when it is burned. Any positive net CO2 would be due to the farming equipment using gasoline or diesel, the transportation using gasoline or diesel, cigarette manufacturing using coal or another hydrocarbon, and a tiny amount of tar added to cigarettes. But you could say the same (except adding tar) for any crop: sugar, wheat, tomatoes, coffee, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate French bashing as well. But what I hate even more is people who complain about French bashing and then go on to bash the US. It is so childish and at its roots it suggests that one form of the bashing was somehow inherently justified. Why they think that the US bashing is OK but the French bashing is uncalled for (or vice versa) perplexes me. For me it would seem that they would look inward and not automatically bash the US because of its high probability to be hypocritical. In fact I would think that they would question whether either form of bashing was justified.
Unfortunately most people (including many tech geeks in this discussion) are unable to understand the utter triviality of bashing another nation in response to being bashed. I think it is part of a more general problem where it is intellectually easier to blame another person, religion, country, etc., than to do the intellectually difficult problem of debating and objecting to ideas.
No, 2 arms is base 2 and 16 fingers is base 16 because when you are counting, you are using your fingers as a counter position not as a digit. Sure, while if someone asks how far you can count with your fingers you can tell them 1023, most people will assume it to be 10. This is ironic since you don't use your digits to do digits.
Personally I find the thumbs to be annoying while counting so I never count higher than 255 which is useful because you can do a direct to hexadecimal conversion with the fingers of each hand (but using all of my normal parts I can get up to 2097151--more if I want to use the positions of my limbs as well).
Nice trying to shift the blame. It is the *job* of the UN to get member states involved--not the other way around (like it has been for the last 50 years). An international association that fails to get its members to work has failed as an organization--not just as failures of individual members.
If the UN cannot get any member states to contribute then a new organization is needed to do the job. In my opinion, the UN should be dissolved and a modified NATO should do the work (admitting a couple of new open democratic states like Japan and South Korea). I do not understand why we cling to this belief that if every country on Earth agrees with an action then it is justified, otherwise it is unjustified. We just run into the problem of despots doing unjustified actions that nobody can agree are actually unjustified.
Kick out the despots, and only admit open democratic states with strong protections on human rights. Otherwise the UN will continue to be completely worthless except for setting international standards for things like road signs.
You obviously missed my point. The laws are decided by American citizens, but we accept input in our discussions by anyone (though politicians may weigh them differently). This is not true for every country in the world. In particular, it is not legal to participate in any political discussion in Mexico if you are an immigrant.
So what you are saying is that if the US ever wants to solve its immigration problem, Canada must be destroyed? I'm on board! Long have we waited for just this excuse! It is time for a little payback from our setbacks during the War of 1812.
All joking aside, thanks for your comments. A big thing that has been missing from our national immigration debate in the US over the last couple of years has been input from various illegal immigrants on why they decided to come to the US. As a result various Americans have had to fill that spot often politicizing the issue. It is best to hear from the workers themselves what the issues are. I've seen from your other posts that you are college educated. It seems odd that the US gives so few work visas to those with college degrees since those workers will almost always be worth more than they pay in taxes (and won't be a burden on society). If nothing else comes out of our national immigration debate, hopefully we can adjust our work visa program to have much larger quotas for those with college degrees. There is no law in the US that says that foreigners (illegal or not) can't contribute to political discussions, so I hope that you continue passing on your experiences as the debate heats up this year (and it will). Cheers.
Correction, RPGs weren't designed to shoot down things like F-16s. They were designed for slow low flying aircraft (like helicopters).
Not to mention how easy it makes it to convert modified GTA and RPG weapons to target civilian aircraft once these are installed.
Yeah, like a civilian aircraft that has beforehand listed its entire schedule and air travel route to the public and that is flying in a straight line with a radar signature larger than the size of a barn would be such a hard target. If someone wants to shoot down a civilian air transport plane, there is really nothing you can do about it. RPGs and SAMs were designed to shoot down things like F-16s or MiG-29s. They really aren't going to have a hard time taking down a 767.
Actually now that I've watched the movie again I've noticed that they were just comparing diameters. So it is correct that VV Cephei has a diameter roughly 200,000-300,000 times that of the Earth. As I discussed previously, the volume is a completely different beast. But even with such a large volume it is estimated that it only has a mass roughly 25-100 times that of the Sun. Based on its volume and mass it appears that the mean density of VV Cephei is much less than that of air.
Actually your calculation is off. VV Cephei is much larger. It's radius is 1.113 * 10^12 m to 1.322 * 10^12 m compared to the Earth's 6.372 * 10^6 m (which will give you a slightly smaller value range than your number). Now assume that both the Earth and VV Cephei are spheres and do a calculation for volume (you can divide VV Cephei's radius by an Earth radius for end units of Earth volumes to make your calculation simpler). The number is a little disturbing.
I understand that you (and other posters) think that I've been sort of a semantics-nazi during this discussion, but this was not my intention. I just don't want conceptually false analogies to be used that then allow people to make false statements about the characteristics of an axion in the future. In my opinion, understanding how a subatomic particle is detected is critical to understanding what it is. I certainly don't expect everyone here to be able to give a complete scientific description of the properties of an axion, I just expect them not to give misleading statements. If I heard the ballistics jel analogy without knowing better I would ask myself "If an axion can disturb a ballistics jel then doesn't that mean that it is composed of charged particles or is charged itself?" I made a grievous error in my initial post by being technically incorrect; however, the message of what I was saying still stands, and it is what I clarified in my initial response. And I was probably too harsh on my response. I think we all finally understand the basic points that both you and I were trying to make. I should have been a little more explicit in the beginning to have avoided a lot of confusion.
I wasn't trying to be mischievous. Really!
The point that I was trying to make is that a zero charge particle doesn't interact electromagnetically so we can't use conceptual examples that involve the electromagnetic force regardless of how trivial to describe it. There do exist many particles that do interact electromagnetically and you could say they travel through a medium (such as a bubble chamber) like a bullet through a ballistics jel. Heck, I've even seen the extreme examples of this where I was able to observe Cherenkov radiation from a nuclear reactor's fuel elements (where a charged particle moves faster than the speed of light in that medium producing a really pretty blue light).
But the axion itself does not interact electromagnetically so by itself it does not produce a wake. The electron and positron produced will certainly produce wakes, but that point needs to be pointed out explicitly. The axion is not detected directly from electromagnetic interactions, only its decay products are (which are released symmetrically around the axis of the axion).
Wow, you must be fun at parties calling everyone stupid for disagreeing with you. My mention of the electromagnetic force is critical in this discussion because there is no evidence that the axion is composed of charged particles that when superimposed produce a zero net charge. If it had then those particles it could be detected electromagnetically (i.e. even the neutral neutron will bounce off of certain particles due to electromagnetic interactions--though I should note that strong nuclear interactions are also significant for a neutron). And without the electromagnetic force there will not be a wake through a ballistics jell which is the original issue that I pointed out.
I don't really care that it bothers you that I have simplified this to the simplest case (but as Einstein would suggest "no simpler"). Sure you can describe the perturbation of a ballistics jell with forces that are composed of special cases of the electromagnetic force but the fundamental point is that without the ability to interact electromagnetically at the lowest level all of those forces result to zero.
If an axion has a zero fundamental charge you can talk about impulses all night long but they still do not mean a damn thing. When you discuss subatomic particles you cannot use the special cases of the forces that we have come to love (because they make our lives simple). Spring constants have no meaning. Pressure has no meaning. Even things like angular momentum take on bizzare new forms that cannot use the classical theories.
And the Universe is powered by stupidity. The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is caused by the shockwave of the bullet's impact with the surface of the gel; a bullet is not a charged particle, nor magnetic, and it's way to big to create the ionization effects that traditional particle detectors use. I don't know how it is possible that, not only could say that a bullet causes a wake due to electromagnetic force, but that a mod actually believed that bullshit. Thank you for your comment. I am happy you are interested in physics. There are 4 forces: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Please feel free to tell me which forces you believe allow the shockwave of a bullet to develop. Be as technical as you wish (I have extensive experience in advanced physics). I will give you a hint though: particles that have a net neutral charge can still interact electromagnetically whenever the distances between the interacting charges isn't assumed to be infinite (think dipoles).
I hope this is a good learning experience for you and I hope that you don't recklessly call other posters stupid next time.
This is a bad description. The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is due to the electromagnetic force. The axion, in contrast does not experience that force. Like the neutron, it must be discovered indirectly (though it is more difficult to discover than a neutron). A useful part of the article:
So basically, they discovered it by observing the electrically interacting positron and electron pair produced very close to the production with a specialized type of photographic film.
I understand what you are trying to say, but US law isn't built in some coordinated fashion. Implying that US laws written for the protection of passengers at airports have had any coordination with US laws written to minimize theft of copyrighted works is silly (before I get flamed note that I have not said that I support the way that either set has been written).
If you want to look for coordination, look towards the lobbyists. The RIAA and MPAA lobbyists who have helped pass the oppressive copyright protection laws don't have anything to do with the airline lobbyists or defense lobbyists who have helped write much of the War on Terror related laws.
It is certainly interesting. The Iraq War is probably the closest major war to that idea that the US has ever been engaged. Only the Revolutionary War had less deaths. Even the Mexican American War had about 5 times the number of casualties. Considering the population growth of the US, it makes these numbers all the more striking.
Of course once you look at the number of enemy dead and civilian dead, we realize that the only thing that has changed is that the casualties have been shifted. If the American people didn't have a conscience about the opposition dead, the US would be completely unrestrained with the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen. Thank God that apathy that we had during the past several wars has faded. Many people around the world have said that the US is the greatest threat to world peace. They say this not because of the Iraq War (which is a trivial war in the big picture of the world), but because it showed that the war machine that was built up for 50 years and with trillions of dollars of investment could be unleashed at a moments notice if the wrong people were in charge. If the Iraq War would have gone smoothly (not the initial war, but the subsequent occupation), I think that the US would now be involved in a war in Syria, Iran, or North Korea.
I was not trying to insult you, so if you feel insulted I apologize. I don't think you stupid (you are a lawyer after all) nor do I think you a bad person. I think your support of these people harassed by the RIAA is very noble. But I also think your exaggerations and labeling of people as RIAA trolls are counterproductive. I want people who are concerned about the RIAA to tell their friends and family about the lawsuits on 7 year olds and 70 year old grandmas. I want people to talk about the number of lawsuits settled out of court. I want people to talk about the oppressive laws for which the RIAA has lobbied. I don't want people to go around saying that the RIAA is terrorizing people. Facts speak stronger than emotions. I also don't want people to ignore this issue because they have been labeled trolls by people who are overly sensitive about the RIAA tactics. Your long list of foes does more to hurt your anti-RIAA advocacy than any post that you have made. I rarely read RIAA threads due to just this issue.
Not once have I insulted you, while you have multiple times called me stupid, a troll, or a RIAA hack. Not once have I said that I supported the RIAA or didn't have pity for the victims but you implied I did. You are projecting your hate onto others. You see your victims and since you can't hurt the RIAA you instead lash out at people who are trying to calm you down. You are like the frightened cat in the animal shelter who bites the person who is trying to help it.
I pity the victims of the RIAA and I also pity you. You have a lot of hate and you haven't realized how cruelly that you are treating your fellow man.
Personally, I think this is one of the more disturbing elements of the 21st century. The only thing that stops us western powers invading the next oil-rich country is the fact that body-bags equals votes for your opposition. If you can fight a war where no people* die, then fighting war just became politically cheaper."War is a continuation of politics by other means."--Carl von Clausewitz
You act as if this is something new. We haven't exorcised all of the demons from the past, the least of all wars of conquest. A history of the Mexican War and the Spanish American War is much more useful in understanding the Iraq War's motivations that the Vietnam War. Both the Mexican War and the Spanish American War were optional wars spurned on by the U.S. drawing a line and looking for the means to make it look like the enemy started it (the Mexican attack north of the Rio Grande River and the sinking of the USS Maine respectively). The results from the Mexican War and the Spanish American War greatly increased US territory and power. While the Iraq War isn't for territory, it certainly is for power.
The difference between you and me is I'm speaking from experience, and you're not.
I talk to these people every day.
Many of them are truly terrorized.It is not entirely surprising that you would say this. You don't consider the term "reign of terror" to be an exaggeration so why would saying these people are being terrorized bother you. By changing the definition you have sidestepped the argument (which is what I would expect from a lawyer). I'm not going to follow you down 10 definitions to get to the point. I'll say it now: did these people feel that their lives were in immediate jeopardy? I'm not talking about their quality of life--I'm talking about their lives. Did they honestly expect someone to kill them?
Contrast your responses with the responses of Iraqis living in Baghdad. They are living through a reign of terror. Your clients are living through a reign of harassment.
The Guangduong Province Station definately shows action measured at 0141 UTC and it was quiet for most of the day. It also doesn't show the rapid vibration you'd expect from an earthquake, but instead a slow displacement I think would be expected from a single pulse of energy. The station is located at 19.03 N, 109.84 E. The 4.2 earthquake event was measured at 41.311N, 129.114E at 0135 UTC. Using a great circle calculation (which is an overestimation, since the energy travels under the Earth's surface--but not that bad since the distances are close) I get 3076 km. Using a rough estimate of 8 km/s for a P-wave I get a travel time of 384 s, or about 6.5 minutes. Since the earthquake was measured at 0141 UTC, the USGS report of 0135 UTC is consistent.
Disclaimer: I'm not a geologist, but I watched one on South Park.
Just like in TV where there are very few 24s or Battlestar Galacticas, there are very few Baldurs Gate 2s or FFVIIs in the gaming genre. If I were like this asshole and judged the entire genre by a quick glimpse without knowing anything about it beforehand, I could easily understand how he could come to that conclusion. But I could come to the same conclusion watching TV and movies as well. Unless you search really hard, all you are going to find is shit, which is apparently what he found.
There would be no net increase due to just burning tobacco since tobacco is a crop. Each year they grow the tobacco crop it sucks an equal amount of CO2 out of the air as the CO or CO2 used when it is burned. Any positive net CO2 would be due to the farming equipment using gasoline or diesel, the transportation using gasoline or diesel, cigarette manufacturing using coal or another hydrocarbon, and a tiny amount of tar added to cigarettes. But you could say the same (except adding tar) for any crop: sugar, wheat, tomatoes, coffee, etc.