It's interesting that/. completely ignored the world's second space tourist, and the first African in space. South African.com millionare Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Thawte, and who lists/., Linux and Mozilla among his favourite things, spent 11 days is space, from the 25th of April to the 5th of May.
I suppose that when you plunk down $20M for a weeklong junket, you don't care much about/....
Those cards don't mean that you have accomplished anything with your life. There are plenty of people that are Mensa members that are boorish, rude, and utterly lacking in morals. There are Mensa members who are drug abusers, wife beaters, thieves, etc.
We hear about senatorial inefficiency, and bureaucratic quagmires.
But what would the Republic/Empire be about? Obviously, here we have a multiracial universe where it only seems that Lucas' antropocentric tendencies would make humans more prevalent. (Or could there be Wokiee, or Huttese versions of the same story where humans would be the oddball alien in the cantina?).
So, what would a pan-racial government be? Here, we're talking about different planets whose indigenous inhabitants would be fare more different than simply having extremely thick, wavy blue hair on humanoid shapes... Those different races would have differing needs so trade would really be minimal, and interracial interactions would be rather exceptional. And even when several races would be in close contact, their physical needs as well as their cultural aspirations would be so disparate as there would be room for everyone.
A parallel here would be the french settlers in North-America. The french don't really care that much about private property (there is no french word for
trespassing), and the indians know nothing of it. So the french didn't mind the indians hunting on their land, as well as the indians didn't mind the french cultivating the land as they mostly did not live on the products of agriculture; in effect, you had two very different civilizations sharing the same area with very little conflict (but as soon as the english came about, with their incredibly assinine and constipated notions about private property, the indians got slaughtered en masse and the french relegated to nigger-class status).
But for those to be drawn under a common government... Surely that common government would certainly not stoop down to order about the minutiae of every planet's life; that would be best handled by the planets themselves, if only because of the ludicrousness of having one race decide for another...
Another parallel arises here, of the European Union, where wildly different cultures are united under one government, and where whole cultural actions are sometimes threatened by the central government, like the (yucky) finnish tobacco-chewing habit (frowned upon by southern Europe), or the (yummy) french raw-milk cheeses (frowned upon by the puritan protestant north)...
So, obviously, a pan-galactic interracial government would simply serve as a regulator of interplanetary/interspecies interaction. As such, it would mostly only regulate commerce, communication and ensure fairness.
It is also likely that within such a government, influence could also be based on commercial volume, so the Trade Federation would certainly not need to invade Naboo in the first time, as Naboo would certainly not have been able to legally tax trade routes.
Such a government would rather be streamlined and general, whose regulation would be more oriented towards procedure to solve conflicts once the major interactive guidelines are laid-down than actual regulation of process.
Therefore, it is doubtfull that Coruscant, the capital, would rise to trantoresque proportions as depicted in the movies, as well as the government would be paralyzed by squabbles to the point of not being able to arbiter a mere trade dispute...
While Mao was a monster, a lot of that 50 million is from starvation which was caused by poor agricultural policy. Horrible, yes, but not exactly a mechanized deathcamp in its intent.
Those 50 million are nothing compared to the billion chinese who, finally, got enough food to eat; those 50 million were mostly those landowners, merchants, speculators and bankers who made sure that most of the other billion would starve while they were grossly fattening themselves.
For this, Mao Tse-Tung is definitely the greatest statesman of the twentieth century.
As for the Jedi being blinded with arrogance, yeah I guess that's true. But if they hadn't fucked up somehow, you wouldn't have had Vader, or the Emporer, and Episodes IV-VI would just be about the Jedi council sitting around picking their noses.
Jedi knights don't pick their noses, especially at the Council. They don't need to. They use the force to unstick the boogers from their nasal cavity, and then they snort them in, so they can enjoy eating them in front of everybody without anyone noticing.
I think it is exactly to head off this sort of criticism that AOTC has all this silly business about the former Queen Amidala having been democratically elected. This, of course, makes no sense at all (why would the daughter of an elected i.e. non-hereditary ex-"queen" be a princess?) except that it makes the rebels seem a little less totalitarian.
At the height of mediaeval times, it used to be that the king be elected amongst barons by the same. But right after, the office became hereditary, just like other nobility titles (it used to be that anyone who could afford a horse and armor could become a knight, but that, too, quickly became hereditary).
In fact, by judging from patterns seen in the USA today, wealth is also becoming hereditary. It used to be that anyone who could afford education could aspire to good wealth, but now with the US public education system wrecked by the likes of "proposition 13", only the children of the rich can receive the proper education needed to make a proper living nowadays.
The British Army was not stupid, simply conventional--"standards-compliant", if I may. And don't forget that their standard of warfare, which incorporated a number of modern innovations, had served them well in the Napoleonic wars. First forcing Napoleon to work for his victories, then holding his armies at bay, then turning the tide, and finally defeating him. They had no reason to believe that the American revolutionary war would be any different.
Er... Slight problem. The American Revolutionary War happenned a good 15-20 years BEFORE the napoleonic wars...
Did you know that there was a day care center on the Death Star?
Quoting from the linked article above:
"As a stormtrooper and father of three, I'm very excited about the new day care center," Death Star citizen Ralph Sedgwick said. "It's a safe, nurturing environment, one in which my child will learn."
Stormtroopers, we learn in AOTC, are clones whose personalities have been genetically altered.
So, they definitely HAVE to be made homosexual, because:
Armies nevertheless always tend towards homosexuality. This is why the Dune emperor Leto II had his army of fish-speakers exclusively female...
Having scores of identical homosexual soldiers solve one of the biggest military problems: coping up with sex urge. Having soldiers go down on prostitutes brings a lot of V.D. problems. Having all identical soldiers having sex upon themselves simply eliminates the V.D. problems.
It neatly solves logistical problems, since you can have two or more soldiers sleep in the same bed.
Likewise, they certainly don't mind that, in the shower, other soldiers see their weenies and have a kick out of it!!!
Gay soldiers don't procreate, so their minds are freed from concern for their offspring, so they can merrily march to slaughter.
And they don't worry for their lovers because since they are all interchangeable, they know that their lovers will be taken good care of.
Gay soldiers won't also go and rape women of other worlds. They'll probably not rape men either because they have ready access to themselves.
Spartan elite troops were exclusively gay, so that they could demonstrate bravery in front of their lovers (but of course, having clones would mean that by all being identical, they would not have to boast to others).
But all this rises a few questions:
If the clones are all identical, why are there ranks within the clone army?
Gays are often posing as hyper-macho. Is it why Jango Fett is latino?
Come to think of it, if Jango Fett has to have Boba cloned-off him, then is he gay?
But then, if Jango Fett is gay, they don't have to genetically change that in the clones...
So, Jango Fett was deliberatly chosen because, amongst other "qualities", he was gay...
Finally, Boba Fett being so much cuter than Anakin definitely means that even if he won't fall for other men, other men will definitely fall for him...
I wish folks realized the post I've quoted is a troll. The entire Star Wars universe was created by a fellow who grew-up shortly after the entire Nazi fiasco occurred, I suspect that there IS a connection, and "Godwin's Law" does not apply.
Is Georges Lucas jewish? 'cause whenever you see something written in Star Wars, it's most always in hebrew...
Re:Nothing to do with "Terror"
on
Zeppelins on Patrol?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The LZ129 (Luftschiffe Hindenburg) was originally designed to be inflated with helium. However, the americans would not sell helium to DELAG (Deutsheluftschiffegesellshaft) because it had strategic value (the WW-1 zeppelin raids over London were still fresh memories then), so they had to inflate it with helium.
During a subsequent refit, after one or two seasons, staterooms were added since hydrogen provides more lift than helium.
The movie "The Hindenburg" does a very good job at recreating the luxurious interior
(the grand piano was made out of aluminium; the lavish duralumin armchairs weighed something like 5 pounds each). The LZ-128 also appeared in the Indiana Jones "The last crusade" movie, but don't expect much in terms of historical accuracy (the LZ-128 DID NOT have aircraft launch ramps!!!)
But the LZ-128 was not the last passenger zeppelin built: the far more luxurious LZ-129 (Luftschiffe Graf Zeppelin II) was completed shortly before the fateful New Jersey crash, but never entered revenue service. It was instead used for nazi tract spreading, and was promptly broken-up for aluminium when the war broke out.
We want to understand about the socio-economic relationships clones introduce when confronted to droids, and the threat such a relationship is towards the current Guild commercial ventures and business models!!!!
The simple solution to keeping people from skipping commercials is to make them worth watching. I would gladly sit through a few minutes of commercials if they were entertaining or informative.
Where I live, the most popular cinematographic event of the year is the presentation of the Lion awards of the Venice commercial festival. Plenty of people are glad to queue for hours, then plunk down plenty of money simply to watch 2 solid hours of superbly slick commercials from all over the world.
Slashdot Mirror
And Armenians...
But what would the Republic/Empire be about? Obviously, here we have a multiracial universe where it only seems that Lucas' antropocentric tendencies would make humans more prevalent. (Or could there be Wokiee, or Huttese versions of the same story where humans would be the oddball alien in the cantina?).
So, what would a pan-racial government be? Here, we're talking about different planets whose indigenous inhabitants would be fare more different than simply having extremely thick, wavy blue hair on humanoid shapes... Those different races would have differing needs so trade would really be minimal, and interracial interactions would be rather exceptional. And even when several races would be in close contact, their physical needs as well as their cultural aspirations would be so disparate as there would be room for everyone.
But for those to be drawn under a common government... Surely that common government would certainly not stoop down to order about the minutiae of every planet's life; that would be best handled by the planets themselves, if only because of the ludicrousness of having one race decide for another... So, obviously, a pan-galactic interracial government would simply serve as a regulator of interplanetary/interspecies interaction. As such, it would mostly only regulate commerce, communication and ensure fairness.It is also likely that within such a government, influence could also be based on commercial volume, so the Trade Federation would certainly not need to invade Naboo in the first time, as Naboo would certainly not have been able to legally tax trade routes.
Such a government would rather be streamlined and general, whose regulation would be more oriented towards procedure to solve conflicts once the major interactive guidelines are laid-down than actual regulation of process.
Therefore, it is doubtfull that Coruscant, the capital, would rise to trantoresque proportions as depicted in the movies, as well as the government would be paralyzed by squabbles to the point of not being able to arbiter a mere trade dispute...
For this, Mao Tse-Tung is definitely the greatest statesman of the twentieth century.
In fact, by judging from patterns seen in the USA today, wealth is also becoming hereditary. It used to be that anyone who could afford education could aspire to good wealth, but now with the US public education system wrecked by the likes of "proposition 13", only the children of the rich can receive the proper education needed to make a proper living nowadays.
So, they definitely HAVE to be made homosexual, because:
- Armies nevertheless always tend towards homosexuality. This is why the Dune emperor Leto II had his army of fish-speakers exclusively female...
- Having scores of identical homosexual soldiers solve one of the biggest military problems: coping up with sex urge. Having soldiers go down on prostitutes brings a lot of V.D. problems. Having all identical soldiers having sex upon themselves simply eliminates the V.D. problems.
- It neatly solves logistical problems, since you can have two or more soldiers sleep in the same bed.
- Likewise, they certainly don't mind that, in the shower, other soldiers see their weenies and have a kick out of it!!!
- Gay soldiers don't procreate, so their minds are freed from concern for their offspring, so they can merrily march to slaughter.
- And they don't worry for their lovers because since they are all interchangeable, they know that their lovers will be taken good care of.
- Gay soldiers won't also go and rape women of other worlds. They'll probably not rape men either because they have ready access to themselves.
- Spartan elite troops were exclusively gay, so that they could demonstrate bravery in front of their lovers (but of course, having clones would mean that by all being identical, they would not have to boast to others).
But all this rises a few questions:During a subsequent refit, after one or two seasons, staterooms were added since hydrogen provides more lift than helium.
The movie "The Hindenburg" does a very good job at recreating the luxurious interior (the grand piano was made out of aluminium; the lavish duralumin armchairs weighed something like 5 pounds each). The LZ-128 also appeared in the Indiana Jones "The last crusade" movie, but don't expect much in terms of historical accuracy (the LZ-128 DID NOT have aircraft launch ramps!!!)
But the LZ-128 was not the last passenger zeppelin built: the far more luxurious LZ-129 (Luftschiffe Graf Zeppelin II) was completed shortly before the fateful New Jersey crash, but never entered revenue service. It was instead used for nazi tract spreading, and was promptly broken-up for aluminium when the war broke out.
Well, "terrorists" will have a field day shooting them down... All they need is a small missile with a burning (cuban?) cigar on the end...
We want to understand about the socio-economic relationships clones introduce when confronted to droids, and the threat such a relationship is towards the current Guild commercial ventures and business models!!!!
OF COURSE government-developed software is pretty damn good!!!
They don't have fucking marketroids breathing down their necks!!!
And I never saw any of those commercials on TV!!!