Of course, as soon as your competitor develops a cure, you won't make any more money treating the disease and you won't make anything off of curing it either. See, the thing you have to realize is that pharmaceutical companies is plural. That means there are more than one of them. The first one to develop a cure makes money off of it, the rest stop making money off of treatments for the symptoms. There is more money to be made as the only one with the cure than there is as one of many treating symptoms.
The important thing about James Randi is this. In the '70s there were a whole lot of people claiming to have scientifically demonstrated paranormal abilities. There was a public perception that things like telepathy and various other paranormal phenomena valid subjects of scientific study. In fact many very reputable scientists were taken in. There were studies done that showed that such phenomena existed and were subject to scientific study. Then James Randi came along and duplicated the tests and outright said he was using trickery (even told you what trickery he was using). He then set up tests that would prevent people from getting the results using any of the tricks he knew. No one was able to get results under those conditions. It is quite likely that if it wasn't for James Randi (and a few others like him) parapsychology would be a recognized science today. The scientists of the 70's couldn't find any flaws in the experiments that were run to demonstrate various "psychic" abilities, James Randi did (and proved it).
Pink Floyd, The Wall. While there are some "singles" that had massive airplay, the entire "album" is a complete experience.
Honestly, there are many "albums" that are enjoyable from beginning to end. My experience is with older and/or harder rock but I will name a few for you: Yes, that is true. Pink Floyd, The Wall is an album designed to be listened to as a complete experience. So are albums from many of my favorite musicians. What you seem to have missed is that the OP was saying that he prefers not to listen to music that way, not that he didn't know of albums designed to be listened to that way. Occasionally, I enjoy listening to an entire album, but as a general rule, I prefer to listen to one or two songs by one artist and then something from a different artist. Only rarely do I wish to listen to an entire album's worth of music by the same artist. That is how I enjoy my music. You are free to listen to entire albums at a time, but, generally, I prefer not to.
You revealed your bias when you mentioned home schooling.
I may have revealed my bias, but those studies do in fact exist and are a major reason for my bias. I, also, know some very strange people who were home schooled by some very strange parents. However, I did not come across either the studies of child care or the studies of home schooling in a news site that had any sympathy for home schooling (as far as I can remember it wasn't particularly biased against it either). My best recollection is that both stories were listed on Yahoo or some similar news aggregator.
Actually, Public figures have less protection against libel and slander. There are certain types of statements that, if I make them about an individual who has never sought publicity, are actionable, but if I make them about a politician, or actor, or other person who has sought the public limelight are not.
The difference is that in the US, we have had unemployment rates around 4% to 5% for most of the last twenty years. It got really bad in the early 2000's (2000 to sometime in 2003) and got all the way up to a horrific 6.3%. While in the EU-15 the rate was at its lowest in 2006 (I don't have numbers for 2007) at 7.9%. Basically, the answer is supply and demand. The US has had what was considered "full employment" in the 1970's for most of the last 20+ years. What that means is that for most of that time just about everyone who wanted a job had a job. If you wanted to hire good people you had to pay a better wage than the next guy. Europe over the same time period has had a pool of people looking for a good job.
Studies have shown repeatedly that children who spend a significant amount of time in childcare (I forget what the number of hours involved was, but it was less than the amount of time that would be necessary if both parents work full time) are much more likely to be bullies and have other socially undesirable traits. Additionally, there have been several studies that indicate that children who are home schooled have significantly better social skills than those who went through the school system (considering that the researchers were expecting the opposite result, these latter studies are rather telling). Sorry, I no longer have the references for either of these studies, but I'm sure if you do a little research you can find them.
My suspicion is that children are better socialized by being exposed to adults who have already learned how to be responsible than to other children who have not yet learned this.
If the moratorium ends you will be paying tax on your internet connection to your local township (borough, city), the state and the federal government (that is assuming that the county doesn't dip in for a bite as well). Each of these will be some "reasonable" percentage of the bill, adding up to increase the cost of internet by 1/3 to 1/2 of what you are paying now. Oh btw, when this moratorium was originally passed, there were municipalities and states talking about taxes such as a couple cents on each email. So, it could possibly be more than a my estimates above. Oh yeah, some municipalities were talking about taxing (or trying to)all internet communication that passed through them.
However, on the boards...there are stories coming in now that the factory turbo's are blowing up...on both modded and 100% stock cars. Well, on cars that have any exhaust changes, etc....Mazda is flat refusinig to replace the turbo under warranty. Now...if you want to try to battle them...get some lawyers and $$...and put your car in the garage for a couple years I guess.
If it is happening on both stock and modded cars in the same manner, look for a major class action law suit in a couple of years. If this is not a result of things that people have done to their cars there is a chance that you could get a lawyer to take the case under the local state's lemon law.
I think there is a reasonable chance that the courts would rule differently in the Apple Phone case, but it would depend on the specific judge and what arguments the lawyers for both sides make.
BTW, I was replying to a post that said that Albrecht's claim that this was an important discovery should indicate that the topic was newsworthy. My reply was intended to inform that poster that such a comment didn't tell anyone (outside of the limited group familiar with who Albrecht was) anything. I am not a physicist. This is not a site for physicists (although they are welcome). Expecting me, as a random slashdot reader, to recognize what the top journals of physics are is ridiculous. The original poster should have given some credentials as to why Albrecht's opinion of this topic was significant. The poster who gave a link to a list of his papers assumed that I should have researched who Albrecht was by searching through the publications to see what he published. That poster should have said something along the lines of "He has published numerous papers in..., a prestigious peer reviewed physics journal." That would at least have told me something. I do not know what the prestigious physics publications are, so knowing what he published told me nothing. Why should I think more of his opinion than that of Peter Meszaros? Who I chose at random from the physics faculty of Pennsylvania State University.
I understand that you hold him in high regard based on your personal experience of him. That is all well and good, but without some indication of why he should be held in high regard quoting his opinion as meaning something is just an appeal to "ecclesiastical authority". You say that you think he is a Professor, well so was Ward Churchill (who is a complete crackpot) until earlier this year. You tell me to look at his research background, someone else posted a list of at least some of his papers, doesn't tell me a thing. You say look at his standing in the community....THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING, what is his standing in the community, what evidence is there that he has standing in the community of physicists?
http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/Cosmology/albrecht/Myinfo/Research%20Publications.pdf Here are his credentials. Not shut up before you talk, and do some research. So, he's published a bunch of papers, so have a lot of other physicists. What indicates that other scientists consider his views of what is important as normative? As I said before, has he received some prestigious award? Is he a member of some organization or board that demonstrates that other physicists hold him in high regard? Is there any evidence that he is held in high regard by other physicists?
I worked in retail and retail generally figures "margin" not "markup". That is "what is my margin?" is the question retailers generally ask. If the answer is less than 40%, (if I'm a retail manager) I'm generally not interested. This is a 30% margin. It is also very high volume, so I would be interested.
That is a valid argument. However, the posts I replied to said that paper money had no intrinsic value and therefore gold was a better base for money (thereby implying that gold had intrinsic value). The argument you made is the basis for the valid argument for a gold standard. I get annoyed because so many people who argue for a gold standard seem to believe that gold is valuable in and of itself. Gold is only valuable because people desire it. The argument that gold is a good standard for money because there is a finite supply of gold is the basis for any argument for a gold standard. The arguments for a free floating currency (I am incorrectly stating the theory in a manner that favors the gold standard argument because I can't remember the economists' term and can't be bothered to look it up) are much more complicated and I am not sure that I fully understand them. This is usually a reason for me to reject an argument, however, economics is a complicated arena and most of the parts of that field that I do understand do not lend themselves to simple explanations. This fact causes me to be as suspicious of the gold standard arguments (for their unusual simplicity for this field) as I am of the free floating currency arguments (for their complexity and opacity to my understanding). Additionally, I am not willing to do the research to form a reasonably informed opinion between them. I do however point out when people make logically flawed arguments on either side.
Besides being "a physicist at the University of California at Davis", who is Dr Andy Albrecht? and why should I think that he is any more likely than Jack Thompson to recognize one of the most important developments in the history of science? If we are talking Nobel Prize in Physics (or some other prestigious award in the field of physics) winner, maybe there is reason to believe that he is right, otherwise he is just "some dude from California who knows enough to understand the math".
I still don't understand why you think gold has intrinsic value. For myself, I would be willing to pay about $20 an ounce for gold (assuming that I wasn't planning on exchanging it for something else later and based on the amount I am paid for my work). If you are paying for gold based on what others will give you for it, how is it different than paper money?
The arsenic-in-ground-water-converted-to-steam idea is a good one - EXCEPT
that meteorites, when striking, are not hot. They are very, very cold; (
a freshly-fallen meteorite is usually covered with frost); the
glow of reentry is compression heating of the air in front of the meteorite,
not the meteorite itself.
So, in the absence of other evidence, I have to call "bull****" on a "steam
cloud loaded with arsenic" explanation.
- Dr. Crash
Actually, it is only sometimes that a freshly fallen meteorite has frost on it. Other meteorites are "burning hot to the touch" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorites). Considering the fact that the majority of meteorites burn up before they reach the Earth's surface it seems obvious that some of them would be hot when they hit. The temperature will vary according to the composition of the meteorite, some will cool because of the loss of heat as more volatile components near the surface of the object vaporize while less volatile parts remain. Others will get hot because the object is made up of materials that are highly conductive of heat and the heat from friction will quickly be conducted throughout the entire object.
Or how about the Muslim men that were asked to leave a flight because they spoke in Arabic?
If you are referring to the case I think you are, they did more than speak in Arabic. They were together in the airport. When they gt on the plane they sat separately..and not in their assigned seats. They asked for seatbelt extenders, even though none of them needed them. There were several other behaviors that were anomalous that I can't remember, but I do recall at the time it being noted that their behaviors resembled very closely the types of behavior that security experts were listing as warning signs.
Most losses that retail outlets incur come as the result of theft committed by employees - not customers. Why is it that you believe receipt checkers are effective against shoplifting?
Actually that is not true. I used to work as a retail manager. The companies always spouted that based on a survey. The last one I worked for hired a new head of Corporate Security shortly after I started there. He stated that the survey was flawed. It was based on the amount that people who had been caught stealing from a company admitted to having stolen. When employees are caught, they generally admit to having stolen previously, outside shoplifters usually don't.
The same place they are getting the money for the even more over inflated tuition. I used to manage college bookstores. I did an inflation comparison between the prices of textbooks and the prices of tuition. Tuition has gone up by almost twice as much as the cost of textbooks as a percentage of cost. I compared the price of text books and tuition from 1994 to the cost in 2000.
Also, professors often told the bookstore that they were expecting 30 students when enrollment was capped at 20 and the last couple of years there were only 15 students in the class. Oh yeah, then they would come down to the bookstore on the first night of class and raise a stink if there were not as many copies on the shelf as students in the class. For every copy of the book that the bookstore returns to the publisher it must sell one copy to break even (that is before publisher restocking fees, which were new when I was in the business).
I keep seeing the word "gaming" applied to a lot more than XBox type activities. World stock markets are being looked at in terms of gaming theory. Might they be going in that direction?
Applying game theory to stock markets and other similar things isn't new. They were applying game theory to things like that before there were computer games of any kind.
Every time I see a company go overseas to do this kind of thing, it breaks my heart.
We should ensure that any company that does work overseas, does it to US or higher standards. The includes Nike paying US minimum wages and Exxon following US pollution guidelines. If such a law was passed it would result in one of three things.
1. Nike (or other US company) would follow said law, foreign competitor, not bound by such a law, would put them out of business by selling better product for less.
2. Nike (and other US companies) would relocate out of the US and no longer be bound by said law.
3. Nike (and other US companies) would create foreign based companies that would do the manufacturing for them and not be bound by US law. (Actually, I think this is actually already, at least mostly, true).
Oh yeah, there would be at least one other result, the cost of everything would go up.
BTW, as a general rule, when American (and probably European, although I have never seen any information on that)companies open facilities in third world countries, they generally pay significantly better, with significantly better working conditions, than comparable jobs in that country.
I think you're getting "wars of conquest" from some very strange revisionist history books. No such things ever happened. Incidentally, Muslims went farther west than France, going all the way to Southern Spain, where the population is to this day still Muslim. Those places in Europe were not conquered by war, but ceded by treaty and assimilated by choice. Andalucia in Spain is Muslim today because they refused to lose their Muslim identity when the Islamic nation receded to be replaced by Christian governments.
This is just fantasy. There were no Muslims in Spain for many centuries. The current Muslim population of Spain is composed of immigrants and the descendants of relatively recent immigrants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain#Religion). When I said "France in the west" I was referring to their furthest expansion most people who are familiar with Muslim conquests in Europe know that they conquered Spain from the South. Many do not realize that they conquered as far as southern France before being turned back.
My belief in Muslim extremists who want to kill all non-Muslims who do not submit to their rule is based on a study of the history of Islam.
I highly doubt that.
Can you name a single time in history when a Muslim nation was at peace with its weaker (and not protected by a stronger more distant nation) non-Muslim neighboring nation?
Well yes, just about all of Islamic history bar the 20th century, when Muslim nations were hijacked by puppet regimes backed by western powers. There are no Muslim governments today, and there haven't been since WW1. If you want to really know what Muslims are like, go out and meet some. I think you'll find that there is nothing in Islam that encourages violence of any kind. You may (note, *may*) also realize that the whole Islam vs the West thing is just the next fabricated war to keep government strong and people afraid, just like when the Commies were coming to take all your money away and give it to the poor so you needed to spend all your tax dollars keeping them at bay instead of using it to build a healthy, well-educated society. I hope you do.
You live in a fantasy land. "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts." Come back to the real world and maybe we can have a discussion then.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, as soon as your competitor develops a cure, you won't make any more money treating the disease and you won't make anything off of curing it either. See, the thing you have to realize is that pharmaceutical companies is plural. That means there are more than one of them. The first one to develop a cure makes money off of it, the rest stop making money off of treatments for the symptoms. There is more money to be made as the only one with the cure than there is as one of many treating symptoms.
The important thing about James Randi is this. In the '70s there were a whole lot of people claiming to have scientifically demonstrated paranormal abilities. There was a public perception that things like telepathy and various other paranormal phenomena valid subjects of scientific study. In fact many very reputable scientists were taken in. There were studies done that showed that such phenomena existed and were subject to scientific study. Then James Randi came along and duplicated the tests and outright said he was using trickery (even told you what trickery he was using). He then set up tests that would prevent people from getting the results using any of the tricks he knew. No one was able to get results under those conditions. It is quite likely that if it wasn't for James Randi (and a few others like him) parapsychology would be a recognized science today. The scientists of the 70's couldn't find any flaws in the experiments that were run to demonstrate various "psychic" abilities, James Randi did (and proved it).
Honestly, there are many "albums" that are enjoyable from beginning to end. My experience is with older and/or harder rock but I will name a few for you:
Yes, that is true. Pink Floyd, The Wall is an album designed to be listened to as a complete experience. So are albums from many of my favorite musicians. What you seem to have missed is that the OP was saying that he prefers not to listen to music that way, not that he didn't know of albums designed to be listened to that way. Occasionally, I enjoy listening to an entire album, but as a general rule, I prefer to listen to one or two songs by one artist and then something from a different artist. Only rarely do I wish to listen to an entire album's worth of music by the same artist. That is how I enjoy my music. You are free to listen to entire albums at a time, but, generally, I prefer not to.
I may have revealed my bias, but those studies do in fact exist and are a major reason for my bias. I, also, know some very strange people who were home schooled by some very strange parents. However, I did not come across either the studies of child care or the studies of home schooling in a news site that had any sympathy for home schooling (as far as I can remember it wasn't particularly biased against it either). My best recollection is that both stories were listed on Yahoo or some similar news aggregator.
Actually, Public figures have less protection against libel and slander. There are certain types of statements that, if I make them about an individual who has never sought publicity, are actionable, but if I make them about a politician, or actor, or other person who has sought the public limelight are not.
The difference is that in the US, we have had unemployment rates around 4% to 5% for most of the last twenty years. It got really bad in the early 2000's (2000 to sometime in 2003) and got all the way up to a horrific 6.3%. While in the EU-15 the rate was at its lowest in 2006 (I don't have numbers for 2007) at 7.9%. Basically, the answer is supply and demand. The US has had what was considered "full employment" in the 1970's for most of the last 20+ years. What that means is that for most of that time just about everyone who wanted a job had a job. If you wanted to hire good people you had to pay a better wage than the next guy. Europe over the same time period has had a pool of people looking for a good job.
Studies have shown repeatedly that children who spend a significant amount of time in childcare (I forget what the number of hours involved was, but it was less than the amount of time that would be necessary if both parents work full time) are much more likely to be bullies and have other socially undesirable traits. Additionally, there have been several studies that indicate that children who are home schooled have significantly better social skills than those who went through the school system (considering that the researchers were expecting the opposite result, these latter studies are rather telling). Sorry, I no longer have the references for either of these studies, but I'm sure if you do a little research you can find them. My suspicion is that children are better socialized by being exposed to adults who have already learned how to be responsible than to other children who have not yet learned this.
If the moratorium ends you will be paying tax on your internet connection to your local township (borough, city), the state and the federal government (that is assuming that the county doesn't dip in for a bite as well). Each of these will be some "reasonable" percentage of the bill, adding up to increase the cost of internet by 1/3 to 1/2 of what you are paying now. Oh btw, when this moratorium was originally passed, there were municipalities and states talking about taxes such as a couple cents on each email. So, it could possibly be more than a my estimates above. Oh yeah, some municipalities were talking about taxing (or trying to)all internet communication that passed through them.
However, on the boards...there are stories coming in now that the factory turbo's are blowing up...on both modded and 100% stock cars. Well, on cars that have any exhaust changes, etc....Mazda is flat refusinig to replace the turbo under warranty. Now...if you want to try to battle them...get some lawyers and $$...and put your car in the garage for a couple years I guess.
If it is happening on both stock and modded cars in the same manner, look for a major class action law suit in a couple of years. If this is not a result of things that people have done to their cars there is a chance that you could get a lawyer to take the case under the local state's lemon law. I think there is a reasonable chance that the courts would rule differently in the Apple Phone case, but it would depend on the specific judge and what arguments the lawyers for both sides make.And all I asked was that the person who quoted him as an indication that the story was newsworthy tell us why his opinion mattered.
BTW, I was replying to a post that said that Albrecht's claim that this was an important discovery should indicate that the topic was newsworthy. My reply was intended to inform that poster that such a comment didn't tell anyone (outside of the limited group familiar with who Albrecht was) anything. I am not a physicist. This is not a site for physicists (although they are welcome). Expecting me, as a random slashdot reader, to recognize what the top journals of physics are is ridiculous. The original poster should have given some credentials as to why Albrecht's opinion of this topic was significant. The poster who gave a link to a list of his papers assumed that I should have researched who Albrecht was by searching through the publications to see what he published. That poster should have said something along the lines of "He has published numerous papers in ..., a prestigious peer reviewed physics journal." That would at least have told me something. I do not know what the prestigious physics publications are, so knowing what he published told me nothing. Why should I think more of his opinion than that of Peter Meszaros? Who I chose at random from the physics faculty of Pennsylvania State University.
I understand that you hold him in high regard based on your personal experience of him. That is all well and good, but without some indication of why he should be held in high regard quoting his opinion as meaning something is just an appeal to "ecclesiastical authority". You say that you think he is a Professor, well so was Ward Churchill (who is a complete crackpot) until earlier this year. You tell me to look at his research background, someone else posted a list of at least some of his papers, doesn't tell me a thing. You say look at his standing in the community....THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING, what is his standing in the community, what evidence is there that he has standing in the community of physicists?
I worked in retail and retail generally figures "margin" not "markup". That is "what is my margin?" is the question retailers generally ask. If the answer is less than 40%, (if I'm a retail manager) I'm generally not interested. This is a 30% margin. It is also very high volume, so I would be interested.
That is a valid argument. However, the posts I replied to said that paper money had no intrinsic value and therefore gold was a better base for money (thereby implying that gold had intrinsic value). The argument you made is the basis for the valid argument for a gold standard. I get annoyed because so many people who argue for a gold standard seem to believe that gold is valuable in and of itself. Gold is only valuable because people desire it. The argument that gold is a good standard for money because there is a finite supply of gold is the basis for any argument for a gold standard. The arguments for a free floating currency (I am incorrectly stating the theory in a manner that favors the gold standard argument because I can't remember the economists' term and can't be bothered to look it up) are much more complicated and I am not sure that I fully understand them. This is usually a reason for me to reject an argument, however, economics is a complicated arena and most of the parts of that field that I do understand do not lend themselves to simple explanations. This fact causes me to be as suspicious of the gold standard arguments (for their unusual simplicity for this field) as I am of the free floating currency arguments (for their complexity and opacity to my understanding). Additionally, I am not willing to do the research to form a reasonably informed opinion between them. I do however point out when people make logically flawed arguments on either side.
Besides being "a physicist at the University of California at Davis", who is Dr Andy Albrecht? and why should I think that he is any more likely than Jack Thompson to recognize one of the most important developments in the history of science? If we are talking Nobel Prize in Physics (or some other prestigious award in the field of physics) winner, maybe there is reason to believe that he is right, otherwise he is just "some dude from California who knows enough to understand the math".
I still don't understand why you think gold has intrinsic value. For myself, I would be willing to pay about $20 an ounce for gold (assuming that I wasn't planning on exchanging it for something else later and based on the amount I am paid for my work). If you are paying for gold based on what others will give you for it, how is it different than paper money?
What makes gold have intrinsic value? I'm not convinced that there is such a thing as "objective value".
that meteorites, when striking, are not hot. They are very, very cold; (
a freshly-fallen meteorite is usually covered with frost); the
glow of reentry is compression heating of the air in front of the meteorite,
not the meteorite itself.
So, in the absence of other evidence, I have to call "bull****" on a "steam
cloud loaded with arsenic" explanation.
- Dr. Crash
Actually, it is only sometimes that a freshly fallen meteorite has frost on it. Other meteorites are "burning hot to the touch" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorites). Considering the fact that the majority of meteorites burn up before they reach the Earth's surface it seems obvious that some of them would be hot when they hit. The temperature will vary according to the composition of the meteorite, some will cool because of the loss of heat as more volatile components near the surface of the object vaporize while less volatile parts remain. Others will get hot because the object is made up of materials that are highly conductive of heat and the heat from friction will quickly be conducted throughout the entire object.
Or how about the Muslim men that were asked to leave a flight because they spoke in Arabic?
If you are referring to the case I think you are, they did more than speak in Arabic. They were together in the airport. When they gt on the plane they sat separately..and not in their assigned seats. They asked for seatbelt extenders, even though none of them needed them. There were several other behaviors that were anomalous that I can't remember, but I do recall at the time it being noted that their behaviors resembled very closely the types of behavior that security experts were listing as warning signs.
Actually that is not true. I used to work as a retail manager. The companies always spouted that based on a survey. The last one I worked for hired a new head of Corporate Security shortly after I started there. He stated that the survey was flawed. It was based on the amount that people who had been caught stealing from a company admitted to having stolen. When employees are caught, they generally admit to having stolen previously, outside shoplifters usually don't.The same place they are getting the money for the even more over inflated tuition. I used to manage college bookstores. I did an inflation comparison between the prices of textbooks and the prices of tuition. Tuition has gone up by almost twice as much as the cost of textbooks as a percentage of cost. I compared the price of text books and tuition from 1994 to the cost in 2000. Also, professors often told the bookstore that they were expecting 30 students when enrollment was capped at 20 and the last couple of years there were only 15 students in the class. Oh yeah, then they would come down to the bookstore on the first night of class and raise a stink if there were not as many copies on the shelf as students in the class. For every copy of the book that the bookstore returns to the publisher it must sell one copy to break even (that is before publisher restocking fees, which were new when I was in the business).
Applying game theory to stock markets and other similar things isn't new. They were applying game theory to things like that before there were computer games of any kind.
We should ensure that any company that does work overseas, does it to US or higher standards. The includes Nike paying US minimum wages and Exxon following US pollution guidelines.
If such a law was passed it would result in one of three things. 1. Nike (or other US company) would follow said law, foreign competitor, not bound by such a law, would put them out of business by selling better product for less. 2. Nike (and other US companies) would relocate out of the US and no longer be bound by said law. 3. Nike (and other US companies) would create foreign based companies that would do the manufacturing for them and not be bound by US law. (Actually, I think this is actually already, at least mostly, true). Oh yeah, there would be at least one other result, the cost of everything would go up. BTW, as a general rule, when American (and probably European, although I have never seen any information on that)companies open facilities in third world countries, they generally pay significantly better, with significantly better working conditions, than comparable jobs in that country.
I think you're getting "wars of conquest" from some very strange revisionist history books. No such things ever happened. Incidentally, Muslims went farther west than France, going all the way to Southern Spain, where the population is to this day still Muslim. Those places in Europe were not conquered by war, but ceded by treaty and assimilated by choice. Andalucia in Spain is Muslim today because they refused to lose their Muslim identity when the Islamic nation receded to be replaced by Christian governments.
This is just fantasy. There were no Muslims in Spain for many centuries. The current Muslim population of Spain is composed of immigrants and the descendants of relatively recent immigrants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain#Religion). When I said "France in the west" I was referring to their furthest expansion most people who are familiar with Muslim conquests in Europe know that they conquered Spain from the South. Many do not realize that they conquered as far as southern France before being turned back.I highly doubt that.
Well yes, just about all of Islamic history bar the 20th century, when Muslim nations were hijacked by puppet regimes backed by western powers. There are no Muslim governments today, and there haven't been since WW1. If you want to really know what Muslims are like, go out and meet some. I think you'll find that there is nothing in Islam that encourages violence of any kind. You may (note, *may*) also realize that the whole Islam vs the West thing is just the next fabricated war to keep government strong and people afraid, just like when the Commies were coming to take all your money away and give it to the poor so you needed to spend all your tax dollars keeping them at bay instead of using it to build a healthy, well-educated society. I hope you do.
You live in a fantasy land. "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts." Come back to the real world and maybe we can have a discussion then.