Hurray for Russia. I'm sure they're very smart. I agree we need their technical know-how on long-term orbital facilities. But arguing that their space program is superior because of stuff that happened 10 or more years ago is poppycock. They've had more problems in the last 5 years than even NASA, and while they've been trying to get something... ANYTHING... into earth orbit, NASA has launched several interplanetary probes and probably 15 or 20 shuttle missions. Yes, our space program costs more. We also like to try to be sure our astronauts come back in one piece.
And, y'know, if the US had put off launching its modules for 2 years, we could likely have something better than a 386 up there now, too.
I know Mir has outlived its intended lifespan, but the Russians seem hell-bent on keeping it in orbit. Has nobody considered attaching it to the ISS? What kind of logistical problems might there be? If nothing else, it seems like it'd provide temporary living quarters, etc.
That makes more sense. Your first post wasn't particularly clear... it looked like you were telling him to use "economical" instead of "economic," which would've been incorrect. But then, my post wasn't very clear either. I was feeling ornery. Friends?
And, on the "tsk" vs "tisk" question: I was born without an alveolar ridge, and I don't appreciate you making fun of my condition.
Oh, brother. If I could, I'd mod you down for bogus 'corrections.
"The reasons> are... much more political and economic than technical" is a correct statement, both grammatically and syntactically (as well as from a content standpoint, for that matter). First, nobody's saying anything about low prices being technical and high prices being economic. Reread the sentence.
Second, "economical" is no longer used as a synonym for "economic." Instead, while "economic" refers to the the relationship between price and value, "economical" means, roughly, "offering good value for the price."
And speaking of sloppy language usage, how do you suck air out of your mouth?
Forgive me if I don't cry for the poor, abused shareholders. The products they invested in kill people.
One of the problems at the root of our current cultural malaise is greed, which is exemplified by the corporation, an entity whose sole purpose is to make as much money as possible by any means possible. If they can break the law and get away with it, they will. If they can screw the consumer, they will.
I'm not advocating a socialist state, because that won't work any better. But I do think there's a middle ground somewhere. Perhaps the size of the corporation could be limited somehow (For instance, AOL/Time Warner has _NO_ need to be that big. They were all making very tidy profits beforehand.). Corporations can be beneficial, and many are. Generally, though, there seems to be an inversely proportional relationship between a given corporation's size and its benefit to a given consumer.
These days everything is an advertisement and you can't get a human on the other end of the phone. It's getting worse.
City planning here in Atlanta SUCKS, and I have a feeling that we've gone too far down here to really fix it without a major investment. It is well-nigh impossible to get anywhere on Atlanta's decrepit, undersized and overworked public transit system (MARTA) because the 'burbanite yuppie hordes have decided that they'd rather drive their Lexus SUVs than invest in a long-term, workable public transit strategy.
Salon (I think) had a story recently outlining some of the hallmarks of a good city plan. Mixed-use buildings (buildings with retail/restaurant space on the first floor and apartments or condominia above), a grid layout, and the idea of the "five-minute walk" (i.e., you should be able to get to work, to school, to the store, etc. without walking more than five minutes from your front door) are all important factors, and Atlanta has none of these three. In fact, it generally takes between 30 and 45 minutes of driving to run the simplest errands in town. This is due to the fact that, generally, there are only one or two ways to get between two points (e.g., getting from Decatur to Atlanta requires you to take Ponce de Leon Ave., which is generally a parking lot around rush hour).
Developers, however, are also not helping things along--instead of fighting zoning regulations where it makes sense to do so, they're just adding cul-de-sac upon cul-de-sac outside the perimiter.
I suggest a moratorium on new developments, and a radical rezoning of Atlanta's downtown and midtown areas to mixed use, which would create affordable housing and go a long way to defeating the current car culture in this town. Bulldozing Buckhead would also be a good idea.
You buy a goat, 'cause you like goat milk. Then some guy shoots your goat with a gun that somebody else left lying around in some unnamed fourth party's unlocked car. But, get this... the GOAT DOESN'T DIE! So then the guy with the gun (Guy-sub-Alpha) sues the owner of the car, for leaving his door unlocked so that guy-sub-alpha could steal a gun that was incapable of killing a freakin' goat.
And there you are with a bloody, wounded goat on your hands, wondering what happened.
Trousers zipped. First off, I'm much less concerned with the Catholic church (which has had some problems in the past but has evolved into a reasonably respectable institution since Vatican II) than with the Protestant fundamentalist sects, such as the Southern Baptists and the numerous born-again evangelical denominations. It's easier to generalize that as "Christianity," since, down in the South where I live, everybody's Baptist anyway--even the Catholics. I know generalizations are bad; consider my wrist slapped.
I brought up the Holocaust and the Crusades not to cast blame on the Catholic church but to demonstrate that there is a difference between religious persecution and limits on proselytizing.
That said, I have a lot of respect for people who practice their faith in a tolerant, respectful way. I'm not here to hack on them. They have a perfect right to practice their religion, as long as they don't get in my face and tell me how to live my life. At that point, it becomes offensive, and hell yeah, I'm gonna say something about it.
As you say, I think we agree on more than we disagree on here. I'm sorry if you felt like I was attacking your faith; that wasn't my intention.
This is backward thinking. Nobody's saying you can't pray on your own time. Nobody's saying you can't pray in your own space. What they're saying is you can't force someone else to listen to your prayer. Just as (I'm sure) you wouldn't want to be forced to listen to a Wiccan or [gasp!] a Satanist prayer over the school intercom or at a football game (both of which are protected by first-amendment rights), they don't want to be forced to listen to yours. That's what this decision is about. It's not some vast left-wing conspiracy to deprive Christians of their rights.
Christians have lately taken to claiming that they're being persecuted. In fact, the Christian faith is by far the most widely accepted religion in the United States, and has been the dominant religious force in Western culture since at least 325 CE. Apparently, these days, if a Christian isn't handed a platform from which to speak and a captive audience, it's religious persecution.
Also, I think you're distorting the position of the amendments' authors when you say that they were "quite accepting of the individual states having an official religion." The fact that they didn't require the states not to establish religions had less to do with their acceptance than with their concern lest the federal government become too powerful.
Your point about the possibility that the student might be using the forum for something other than religious speech is a bit disingenuous. The state (in the form of the school) _is_ allowed by the Constitution to support environmental protection (or deforestation) or to support or attack homosexual rights. Religious speech is different from other protected forms of speech, a fact recognized by the framers when they assembled the Bill of Rights.
Finally, I take exception to your point that "Louis Farrakhan is not similarly labeled a left-wing Muslim." First of all, I think he's generally considered right-wing (I could be wrong about that), but in any case he is certainly considered a demagogue in the same league as Buchanan by many people, myself included.
I wouldn't be hostile toward organized Christianity if Christianity hadn't been hostile to me first. I find the churches' constant demands that they be afforded every opportunity to proselytize to me and to the millions of other non-Christians in the country nearly as offensive as their claims that, when they don't get such opportunities, they're being oppressed. The Holocaust and the Crusades are oppression. The current state of affairs is barely inconvenience.
I'm stuck using crappy Microsoft products like Windows, IE, and Word, because they've become the industry standards through Microsoft's illegal market tactics. Windows is terribly unstable. Netscape was (until bought by that _other_ monopoly) a _far_ superior product to IE. And don't get me started on all the ways Word makes my life Hell.
What all this means is that other companies who make _good_ products have three options: cut corners, raise prices through the roof, or go out of business. In order to compete in any meaningful way with Microsoft, a company needs either a complete niche market (which Microsoft will find and invade within a year) or an advertising budget on par with the GDP of Germany, the UK and the state of California. And the latter will only work until MS starts 'bundling' a ripped off, shoddy, competing product with its OS, which people will use because it's free.
If that's not harm, I don't know what is.
And to answer the other (stoopid) point... Sure, I'm jealous of Bill Gates. Who wouldn't be? The man parleyed a very basic knowledge of computers and a little business acumen into a multibillion-dollar software empire. Of course, the fact that I wouldn't mind sharing some of Gates' cash doesn't mean that he's not a monopolist, and that his company makes lousy, overpriced products that wouldn't move at all if they didn't already have the market cornered.
[CHOKE, SPLUTTER] Are we using the same Windows? If by "decent" you mean "crashes fewer than 20 times a day and works right at least 34% of the time" then, sure, Windows is decent. I've lost more far more time and work in one year using their FUBAR OS than I did in 3 years on a MacOS system.
You're kidding, right? Let's see... how about the cell they put Cale in... you know, the one that requires you to press two fingers against the forcefield in order to escape? Or maybe the time when they jettisoned Drew Barrymore... but first put her in a lifepod? Or the longwinded "Now the Humans die! For real! We're gonna kill them now! And this will be the end! Of the human race!" speeches, which gave the idiot lead character plenty of time to jam a penny in the faulty Titan fuse?
The intro said the Drej attacked because Humanity built the Titan.
Spoilers. Of course, Bluth did that already.
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 2
I think this proves once and for all that a bunch of/.ers will post anything, as long as it includes a "screw you" to Jon Katz.
This was, to put it bluntly, a terrible movie. The animation was OK--nothing to write home about. The plot was awful. The characters (except for the turtle guy, who was funny but seemed to have a completely different personality every time he appeared on screen) were lame, flat, and poorly voiced. The writing ranged from forgettable to laughable (see the Drej "speeches" for examples of the latter). The music was disposable pap.
A couple of the more obvious problems:
The Drej supposedly destroyed the Earth because the Humans built the Titan... a ship capable of creating a new planet for the Human species since their old one was destroyed by the Drej. Cause and effect, anyone?
Cale's dad, apparently an otherwise smart guy, made the activation of the Titan contingent upon Cale surviving the escape from Earth, being found by one of his buddies, not losing the ring (would YOU give a small, easily-losable device that was humanity's last, best hope to a 4-year-old?) and then finding the Titan.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seemed to me that to enjoy this movie, you'd have to not only shut off your brain, but remove it physically from your head and leave it at home.
Seeing the movie really isn't necessary in this case. I dropped seven bucks on it, and, frankly, I don't feel like I saw anything that wasn't in the trailer.
The animation was reasonably good, if you like characters that look like rejects from NIMH, although the combination of smooth CGI and hand-drawn characters often had the effect of making the hand-drawn portions of the animation look jumpy and rushed.
The plot, however, was TERRIBLE. I didn't see Battlefield Earth, so it's possible that BE is worse... but I don't know how. The writers trotted out every hackneyed cliche they could find for this one, and the only reason that the dumb good guys won was because, as usual, the bad guys were even dumber.
You'd think a species that had evolved into a pure-energy form (which, for some reason, still had two arms and two legs...) would be able to forego gloating last-minute victory speeches. Or at least to write decent ones.
The thing I found funniest, though, was that the dialog--but not the background music or sound effects--in the theater I was in cut out during the part where Cale explained how they were going to defeat the bad guys. So the effect was similar to this:
"We're screwed! They're closing in! They're going to kill us!"
"Yes, you're right! There's nothing we can do! Unless we [dead air, back of Cale's head indicating that he's speaking] which will save the day!"
I should've known something was up when I saw the preview with that crappy Creed song as background music.
...someone in the community took the time to really read UCITA and to create a piece of software with the most restrictive and absurd EULA allowed under UCITA (Put exorbitant monthly use charges on users' credit cards; make the EULA display only one 40-character line at a time when installing, etc.)?
I'm not sure about the legal ramifications of this, but what would happen if that programmer were then sued and just lost the case on purpose? Would an appeal to a federal court be possible, with the eventual possibility of the supreme court overthrowing UCITA b/c it's unconstitutional?
Oh yeah? Name even one. "The East is Red", maybe? 8-P
Let's see... Art & literature? Homer's Odyssey & Iliad... any of the great Greek sculptures... Catullus' poetry... Vergil's Aeneid... Tacitus' history. Actually, pretty much any art or literature that was produced before, say, 1600 was a product of someone working in a non-capitalist system.
Every artist I have ever known has created their art with no regard to its market value or what society thinks about it.
True enough. However, for art to last beyond the immediate requires societal involvement, generally from a broad segment of society. If a particular piece of art's appeal is confined to an individual or a small segment of society, it is far more susceptible to being forgotten or lost. Without a greater society to 'approve' and preserve works of art, we'd have an awfully empty culture.
Ok, so all corporations aren't necessarily bad. Heck, I eat at McDonald's, I buy gas at Amoco, and, generally speaking, I'm as likely as the next guy to have this or that piece of corporate-produced schtuff in my possession. However, I'm also much less likely to trust a corporation than I am to trust a real person. My rule of thumb is that the larger a corporation grows, the less likely it becomes that said corporation's behavior is anything approaching moral. Starbucks coffee was a great idea... when there were 2 or 3 Starbucks stores. Now, having worked for the corporation, I can say that, while individual employees are an OK bunch, the corporation as a whole is slime. Corporations do two things very well: they substitute convenience for quality, and they increase the noise-to-signal ratio. Things _are_ getting worse in both departments. Look at the toys kids play with these days and tell me they'll last as long as the toys their grandparents played with. Look at the code produced by Microsoft's hacks, and tell me it's anywhere near as tight as the code produced by individual hackers. Look at your TV for one hour and tell me that there aren't more commercials there than there were 10 years ago. That said, I will still probably eat at Mickey D's, drink Coke, and drive my Subaru. Sure, it's probably hypocritical, but at least I'm aware of what's going on.
First, assuming that the 1979 treaty exists (I've never heard of it), what makes you think that China will abide by the terms of the treaty? Let's say they ignore the treaty... not an unreasonable assumption, given their history. Will the US political establishment have the will to hold them to the treaty? Seems unlikely. Will other countries, who have had to give up various concessions to China in order to get trade want to help the US when we say "Give it to us for free?" Seems _really_ unlikely. So, from a practical standpoint, PNTR is a better guarantee that we will get what we want from China, for two reasons: the government backs it, and we will have the WTO standing with us. Now, this whole issue of the yearly MFN vote is just nonsense. What makes you think that the people in office now voting for PNTR would vote against MFN next year if PNTR didn't pass? The yearly MFN 'debate' is basically a rubber-stamp approval. Is there any evidence that the US has been able to sway China based on trade? The only evidence I've seen is that they seem very receptive to the idea of conforming to international regulations if we grant them PNTR. I've not seen _any_ such guarantees in exchange for yearly MFN status. Yes, life in China sucks. Yes, their government is evil. We're still gonna trade with 'em every year, because there are 1.5 billion Chinese people who will make cheap stuff for us. Simple as that. Why not actually get something in return? As for Cuba, I agree with your sentiment. The US' Cuba policy is mean-spirited, unproductive, and just plain stooopid.
Slashdot Mirror
And, y'know, if the US had put off launching its modules for 2 years, we could likely have something better than a 386 up there now, too.
Just my 27,000,000 lire.
Or maybe it's just a Dumb Idea(TM).
I don't. Or an 's' sound. Basically, when I say "tisk" it comes out "thithk."
And, on the "tsk" vs "tisk" question: I was born without an alveolar ridge, and I don't appreciate you making fun of my condition.
"The reasons> are... much more political and economic than technical" is a correct statement, both grammatically and syntactically (as well as from a content standpoint, for that matter). First, nobody's saying anything about low prices being technical and high prices being economic. Reread the sentence.
Second, "economical" is no longer used as a synonym for "economic." Instead, while "economic" refers to the the relationship between price and value, "economical" means, roughly, "offering good value for the price."
And speaking of sloppy language usage, how do you suck air out of your mouth?
One of the problems at the root of our current cultural malaise is greed, which is exemplified by the corporation, an entity whose sole purpose is to make as much money as possible by any means possible. If they can break the law and get away with it, they will. If they can screw the consumer, they will.
I'm not advocating a socialist state, because that won't work any better. But I do think there's a middle ground somewhere. Perhaps the size of the corporation could be limited somehow (For instance, AOL/Time Warner has _NO_ need to be that big. They were all making very tidy profits beforehand.). Corporations can be beneficial, and many are. Generally, though, there seems to be an inversely proportional relationship between a given corporation's size and its benefit to a given consumer.
These days everything is an advertisement and you can't get a human on the other end of the phone. It's getting worse.
City planning here in Atlanta SUCKS, and I have a feeling that we've gone too far down here to really fix it without a major investment. It is well-nigh impossible to get anywhere on Atlanta's decrepit, undersized and overworked public transit system (MARTA) because the 'burbanite yuppie hordes have decided that they'd rather drive their Lexus SUVs than invest in a long-term, workable public transit strategy.
Salon (I think) had a story recently outlining some of the hallmarks of a good city plan. Mixed-use buildings (buildings with retail/restaurant space on the first floor and apartments or condominia above), a grid layout, and the idea of the "five-minute walk" (i.e., you should be able to get to work, to school, to the store, etc. without walking more than five minutes from your front door) are all important factors, and Atlanta has none of these three. In fact, it generally takes between 30 and 45 minutes of driving to run the simplest errands in town. This is due to the fact that, generally, there are only one or two ways to get between two points (e.g., getting from Decatur to Atlanta requires you to take Ponce de Leon Ave., which is generally a parking lot around rush hour).
Developers, however, are also not helping things along--instead of fighting zoning regulations where it makes sense to do so, they're just adding cul-de-sac upon cul-de-sac outside the perimiter.
I suggest a moratorium on new developments, and a radical rezoning of Atlanta's downtown and midtown areas to mixed use, which would create affordable housing and go a long way to defeating the current car culture in this town. Bulldozing Buckhead would also be a good idea.
I'm done ranting now.
You buy a goat, 'cause you like goat milk. Then some guy shoots your goat with a gun that somebody else left lying around in some unnamed fourth party's unlocked car. But, get this... the GOAT DOESN'T DIE! So then the guy with the gun (Guy-sub-Alpha) sues the owner of the car, for leaving his door unlocked so that guy-sub-alpha could steal a gun that was incapable of killing a freakin' goat.
And there you are with a bloody, wounded goat on your hands, wondering what happened.
You see what I'm saying?
Leave Jon Katz alone! He had nothing to do with this!
I brought up the Holocaust and the Crusades not to cast blame on the Catholic church but to demonstrate that there is a difference between religious persecution and limits on proselytizing.
That said, I have a lot of respect for people who practice their faith in a tolerant, respectful way. I'm not here to hack on them. They have a perfect right to practice their religion, as long as they don't get in my face and tell me how to live my life. At that point, it becomes offensive, and hell yeah, I'm gonna say something about it.
As you say, I think we agree on more than we disagree on here. I'm sorry if you felt like I was attacking your faith; that wasn't my intention.
Christians have lately taken to claiming that they're being persecuted. In fact, the Christian faith is by far the most widely accepted religion in the United States, and has been the dominant religious force in Western culture since at least 325 CE. Apparently, these days, if a Christian isn't handed a platform from which to speak and a captive audience, it's religious persecution.
Also, I think you're distorting the position of the amendments' authors when you say that they were "quite accepting of the individual states having an official religion." The fact that they didn't require the states not to establish religions had less to do with their acceptance than with their concern lest the federal government become too powerful.
Your point about the possibility that the student might be using the forum for something other than religious speech is a bit disingenuous. The state (in the form of the school) _is_ allowed by the Constitution to support environmental protection (or deforestation) or to support or attack homosexual rights. Religious speech is different from other protected forms of speech, a fact recognized by the framers when they assembled the Bill of Rights.
Finally, I take exception to your point that "Louis Farrakhan is not similarly labeled a left-wing Muslim." First of all, I think he's generally considered right-wing (I could be wrong about that), but in any case he is certainly considered a demagogue in the same league as Buchanan by many people, myself included.
I wouldn't be hostile toward organized Christianity if Christianity hadn't been hostile to me first. I find the churches' constant demands that they be afforded every opportunity to proselytize to me and to the millions of other non-Christians in the country nearly as offensive as their claims that, when they don't get such opportunities, they're being oppressed. The Holocaust and the Crusades are oppression. The current state of affairs is barely inconvenience.
What all this means is that other companies who make _good_ products have three options: cut corners, raise prices through the roof, or go out of business. In order to compete in any meaningful way with Microsoft, a company needs either a complete niche market (which Microsoft will find and invade within a year) or an advertising budget on par with the GDP of Germany, the UK and the state of California. And the latter will only work until MS starts 'bundling' a ripped off, shoddy, competing product with its OS, which people will use because it's free.
If that's not harm, I don't know what is.
And to answer the other (stoopid) point... Sure, I'm jealous of Bill Gates. Who wouldn't be? The man parleyed a very basic knowledge of computers and a little business acumen into a multibillion-dollar software empire. Of course, the fact that I wouldn't mind sharing some of Gates' cash doesn't mean that he's not a monopolist, and that his company makes lousy, overpriced products that wouldn't move at all if they didn't already have the market cornered.
[CHOKE, SPLUTTER] Are we using the same Windows? If by "decent" you mean "crashes fewer than 20 times a day and works right at least 34% of the time" then, sure, Windows is decent. I've lost more far more time and work in one year using their FUBAR OS than I did in 3 years on a MacOS system.
Gravity was _everywhere_ in this movie... especially the outside of spaceships. Apparently you just have to use the right metal.
The aliens were STOOOOOOOOOOPID.
The intro said the Drej attacked because Humanity built the Titan.
This was, to put it bluntly, a terrible movie. The animation was OK--nothing to write home about. The plot was awful. The characters (except for the turtle guy, who was funny but seemed to have a completely different personality every time he appeared on screen) were lame, flat, and poorly voiced. The writing ranged from forgettable to laughable (see the Drej "speeches" for examples of the latter). The music was disposable pap.
A couple of the more obvious problems:
The Drej supposedly destroyed the Earth because the Humans built the Titan... a ship capable of creating a new planet for the Human species since their old one was destroyed by the Drej. Cause and effect, anyone?
Cale's dad, apparently an otherwise smart guy, made the activation of the Titan contingent upon Cale surviving the escape from Earth, being found by one of his buddies, not losing the ring (would YOU give a small, easily-losable device that was humanity's last, best hope to a 4-year-old?) and then finding the Titan.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seemed to me that to enjoy this movie, you'd have to not only shut off your brain, but remove it physically from your head and leave it at home.
The animation was reasonably good, if you like characters that look like rejects from NIMH, although the combination of smooth CGI and hand-drawn characters often had the effect of making the hand-drawn portions of the animation look jumpy and rushed.
The plot, however, was TERRIBLE. I didn't see Battlefield Earth, so it's possible that BE is worse... but I don't know how. The writers trotted out every hackneyed cliche they could find for this one, and the only reason that the dumb good guys won was because, as usual, the bad guys were even dumber.
You'd think a species that had evolved into a pure-energy form (which, for some reason, still had two arms and two legs...) would be able to forego gloating last-minute victory speeches. Or at least to write decent ones.
The thing I found funniest, though, was that the dialog--but not the background music or sound effects--in the theater I was in cut out during the part where Cale explained how they were going to defeat the bad guys. So the effect was similar to this:
"We're screwed! They're closing in! They're going to kill us!"
"Yes, you're right! There's nothing we can do! Unless we [dead air, back of Cale's head indicating that he's speaking] which will save the day!"
I should've known something was up when I saw the preview with that crappy Creed song as background music.
I'm not sure about the legal ramifications of this, but what would happen if that programmer were then sued and just lost the case on purpose? Would an appeal to a federal court be possible, with the eventual possibility of the supreme court overthrowing UCITA b/c it's unconstitutional?
This may be just a dumb idea. What do y'all say?
Let's see... Art & literature? Homer's Odyssey & Iliad... any of the great Greek sculptures... Catullus' poetry... Vergil's Aeneid... Tacitus' history. Actually, pretty much any art or literature that was produced before, say, 1600 was a product of someone working in a non-capitalist system.
Every artist I have ever known has created their art with no regard to its market value or what society thinks about it.
True enough. However, for art to last beyond the immediate requires societal involvement, generally from a broad segment of society. If a particular piece of art's appeal is confined to an individual or a small segment of society, it is far more susceptible to being forgotten or lost. Without a greater society to 'approve' and preserve works of art, we'd have an awfully empty culture.
Ok, so all corporations aren't necessarily bad. Heck, I eat at McDonald's, I buy gas at Amoco, and, generally speaking, I'm as likely as the next guy to have this or that piece of corporate-produced schtuff in my possession. However, I'm also much less likely to trust a corporation than I am to trust a real person. My rule of thumb is that the larger a corporation grows, the less likely it becomes that said corporation's behavior is anything approaching moral. Starbucks coffee was a great idea... when there were 2 or 3 Starbucks stores. Now, having worked for the corporation, I can say that, while individual employees are an OK bunch, the corporation as a whole is slime. Corporations do two things very well: they substitute convenience for quality, and they increase the noise-to-signal ratio. Things _are_ getting worse in both departments. Look at the toys kids play with these days and tell me they'll last as long as the toys their grandparents played with. Look at the code produced by Microsoft's hacks, and tell me it's anywhere near as tight as the code produced by individual hackers. Look at your TV for one hour and tell me that there aren't more commercials there than there were 10 years ago. That said, I will still probably eat at Mickey D's, drink Coke, and drive my Subaru. Sure, it's probably hypocritical, but at least I'm aware of what's going on.
First, assuming that the 1979 treaty exists (I've never heard of it), what makes you think that China will abide by the terms of the treaty? Let's say they ignore the treaty... not an unreasonable assumption, given their history. Will the US political establishment have the will to hold them to the treaty? Seems unlikely. Will other countries, who have had to give up various concessions to China in order to get trade want to help the US when we say "Give it to us for free?" Seems _really_ unlikely. So, from a practical standpoint, PNTR is a better guarantee that we will get what we want from China, for two reasons: the government backs it, and we will have the WTO standing with us. Now, this whole issue of the yearly MFN vote is just nonsense. What makes you think that the people in office now voting for PNTR would vote against MFN next year if PNTR didn't pass? The yearly MFN 'debate' is basically a rubber-stamp approval. Is there any evidence that the US has been able to sway China based on trade? The only evidence I've seen is that they seem very receptive to the idea of conforming to international regulations if we grant them PNTR. I've not seen _any_ such guarantees in exchange for yearly MFN status. Yes, life in China sucks. Yes, their government is evil. We're still gonna trade with 'em every year, because there are 1.5 billion Chinese people who will make cheap stuff for us. Simple as that. Why not actually get something in return? As for Cuba, I agree with your sentiment. The US' Cuba policy is mean-spirited, unproductive, and just plain stooopid.