I don't know whether to be amused or horrified that the only measure you can come up with for "contribution to the war" is economic. The fact of WW2 is that the US paid more in money but less in blood than any other major combatant. And blood is the only true currency of war.
Two answers to that one, and bear in mind that I'm playing Devil's advocate here:
1. "We the government" or "We the Republicans" does not carry the same weight as "We the people," nor should it.
2. The Republicans really are dangerous and anti-democratic; the Democrats aren't.
I'm really tired of the hip, cynical cult of moral equivalency that says all politics, and all politicians, are equal and should be treated with equal amounts of disdain. They're not, and they shouldn't. All politics and all politicians are kind of slimy, it's true, but only some of them are actively evil.
Please try to tell me seriously that the Republican Party is separate from the government of the United States.
Oh, I know that in theory it is, and it certainly should be, but the reality is that with the Republicans in charge of all three branches of government, and with the extraordinary party discipline they exercise (something the Democrats can only watch and envy) any Republican Party official is de facto an official of the government.
What possible benefit could the list could be to somebody? I mean it's not like these are potential swing votes. To me it would only give the Republicans political fodder for demonizing us democrats.
Generally speaking I agree with you, but I have to say that I rather like this answer from one of the Indymedia message boards:
We the people are not out to haraas but simply trying to track delegates who are aligned with the war party. We need to keep them under control as they are dangerous individuals who are known to back the anti-democratic minority. The procedure is similar to implementation of criminal registration procedures.:)
What the parent said. A few years ago, I talked my company into migrating from FileMaker (v.5, at the time) to a PHP/MySQL/PDFLib setup. (Save the PHP vs. Perl vs. Python and MySQL vs. PostgreSQL flames, please; this setup works for us, handling hundreds of thousands of dollars of business per month, and very nicely, too.) No, there's no one tool for such a setup that will replicate everything FileMaker does -- but the flexibility you gain is more than worth it in the end.
It's complicated. Was your father an officer? It used to be tradition (not sure if or when it was a matter of law) that officers didn't vote; the idea was to maintain a non-partisan officer corps. (An idea I would like to be brought back, but that's another debate...) And as your father can tell you, tradition in the military often has the force of law.
But as the parent poster said, enlisted personnel, including those serving far from home, have been eligible to vote in every election since 1864. And the fact that the nation chose not to cancel the election in the midst of the greatest crisis it has ever faced should serve as an object lesson to those who today think of manipulating the electoral schedule for partisan ends.
Pretentious suits love to use military jargon as it makes them feel tough and important. Not one of them would know what an actual "tactical deployment" looks like if it bit them in the ass, and they'd shit themselves and cry for their mommies if they were ever actually under fire, but there's precious little chance of that actually happening, so...
Of course, it was largely computer technology developed for the space program that allowed the Internet to grow into something more than an academic exercise. We wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't for the Apollo missions.
Can you point me to a single example where a Randriod has used violence against an unbeliever?
Economics generally doesn't stir people to violence the way religion does (Communism possibly excepted, though I'm inclined to regard that as a quasi-religion with an economic gloss) so that's not really the point. The ways in which Randroids remind me of al-Qaeda and other religious fanatics are:
1. Reliance on received wisdom: every question has an answer in the words of the Great Man (or Great Woman, as the case may be) and so there are really no unanswered questions.
2. Disagreement is not only wrong, but evil; anyone who disagrees with or even seriously questions the tenets of the G.[M|W]. is clearly a villain.
3. Even if there is some internal dissent, not for the fanatic the messiness of public debate! The High Command must present a unified face to the world.
4. Puritanism and social conservatism are signs of moral virtue; as for the evildoers, by their vulgar display of skin shall ye know them.
5. What happens to the rest of the human race is of no consequence as long as the True Believers prosper. (And don't try to give me that shit about the virtue of selfishness; Rand wrote approvingly of millions of people starving to death in Atlas Shrugged.)
These are not traits limited to Randroids and Islamofascists, of course -- they're frighteningly consistent in just about every type of religious and/or political fanaticism I can think of. I rather like Daniel Keys Moran's way of putting it: the most dangerous problem facing the human race is not ideologies, but ideologues.
Randroids are to economics as al-Qaeda followers are to religion. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that things are rarely that cut and dried.
Look at just about any operation your computer performs. Not only is it all math, it's generally fairly simple math. You could do it all with a pencil and paper -- but you can't do it as fast. It's speed that's the issue. On a ship, you have time to correct your errors. When landing on the Moon... you don't.
It's those who shout for equality who seem to be the first to highlight irrelevant differences
Funnily enough, the vast majority of people who say things like this (in the US, anyway) are white males from middle- or upper-class families who speak English with one of the standard American accents. What a remarkable coincidence.
Who came up with this 'digital divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as bringing the Internet to impoverished African states.
Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.
Who came up with this 'literacy divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as teaching kids impoverished African states to read.
Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.
I understand the legal issues, and I agree they're important and complex and should be dealt with. My post (I thought it was humorous; if you think it's lame, that's your business) was intended as a dismissal only of the parent post's implication that the the currently most powerful country in the world can do anything it wants and is not obligated to take other countries into account -- an idea that has poisoned every great empire in history, and led, quite directly, to their declines and falls. That's all.
In case you haven't noticed, when you're the only superpower in the world you can do pretty much any fucking thing you like, any time you like.
Yes, you're absolutely right!/R/o/m/e//S/p/a/i/n//F/r/a/n/c/e//B/r/i/t/a/i/n/ America is so powerful that no one will ever be able to challenge our hegemony! We are invincible!
Re:The best protection is DON'T USE WINDOWS
on
Always Use Protection
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You're right, of course, but the problem is that there are so many people out there for whom "computer" == "Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) running on Intel(R) Pentium(tm)" that this advice will usually fall on deaf ears. (Most of these people have no idea what the words actually mean, of course, but they know damn well that if it doesn't have Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) and and Intel(R) Pentium(tm), it's not a real COMPUTER -- they've seen the Dell ads!) For those folks, a guide like this might be helpful. If nothing else, in the process of trying to secure their Wintel boxes, they may learn something about how computers actually work, and therefore be a little more receptive to technically knowledgeable advice next time.
Re:What a week for women's rights
on
Virtual Girlfriend
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The point is that those are all cultural factors, not genetic ones. Citing the behavior of women in patriarchal cultures to justify a claim about inherent tendencies toward certain types of sexual behavior is kind of like citing the behavior of black people in Mississippi in 1952 to justify a claim that black people aren't interested in voting.
Re:What a week for women's rights
on
Virtual Girlfriend
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
There are some things that are simply built into the genes. Human men are compelled to have sex without commitment; women are compelled to form commitments.
This belief is one of the most successful memes of all time, for obvious reasons; it allows both sexes to justify things they want to justify in the first place. (Men get to say, "I can't help it, it's in my blood." Women get to say, "See, men are pigs! We're so much more virtuous.")
There's only one problem: it's not true. The fact is that both sexes are equally promiscuous -- perhaps for different reasons, perhaps not, but everyone pretty much screws around equally.
Of your last two paragraphs above, the second is one of the main reasons I disagree with the first, actually. Politicians love to throw numbers around when neither they nor the voters have any idea what those numbers actually mean. It takes a fair amount of math education to understand whether it's bullshit or not.
Oh, well. This is getting a bit long-winded, isn't it? You've inspired me to write an essay, which I'll probably be posting on my Web site sometime in the next few days. Check here this weekend, say, if you're interested.
Ah. Well, if that's your argument, then the problem starts at well below the college level. By the time they get to college, students should already know the basics of reading and composition. That they don't is indeed a failing of the educational system, but it's a failing that starts in kindergarten. Colleges have to make the best they can of what they've got.
Logic is sort of a special case. Indeed, students should be taught to identify logical fallacies, avoid or refute them, and make cogent arguments instead. But math is a wonderful tool for teaching logic and its applications; I'd argue that the combination of math and philosophy is more likely to produce people who can actually think logically than either by itself.
I feel that math, science, and engineering courses are very important - for mathmeticians, scientists, and engineers (and others who have an interest in said subjects).
Here's where my real problem with your argument lies. Sure, lots of humanities types have no interest in math or science, and have to suffer through their courses in those ares; similarly, lots of math and science types have no interest in the humanities, and have to suffer through their courses in those areas. You know what? Tough shit. If a college degree is to mean anything, it has to mean that the person holding it has been educated in a broad range of subjects, not merely in one major -- the literary critic who can't do any more math than basic arithmetic is just as uneducated as the engineer who couldn't write a decent book report to save his life. You may have plenty of arguments with how those required classes are taught; I do to. But in the modern world, as dependent as it is every day on the fruits of science and technology, it is absurd to deny that this type of learning has use for the "average person."
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know whether to be amused or horrified that the only measure you can come up with for "contribution to the war" is economic. The fact of WW2 is that the US paid more in money but less in blood than any other major combatant. And blood is the only true currency of war.
No, we weren't. We were smaller and weaker than we are now, but we were far from poor. America has pretty much always been a rich place.
Yep. It's like crank science -- as Carl Sagan said, "They also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
Two answers to that one, and bear in mind that I'm playing Devil's advocate here:
1. "We the government" or "We the Republicans" does not carry the same weight as "We the people," nor should it.
2. The Republicans really are dangerous and anti-democratic; the Democrats aren't.
I'm really tired of the hip, cynical cult of moral equivalency that says all politics, and all politicians, are equal and should be treated with equal amounts of disdain. They're not, and they shouldn't. All politics and all politicians are kind of slimy, it's true, but only some of them are actively evil.
Please try to tell me seriously that the Republican Party is separate from the government of the United States.
Oh, I know that in theory it is, and it certainly should be, but the reality is that with the Republicans in charge of all three branches of government, and with the extraordinary party discipline they exercise (something the Democrats can only watch and envy) any Republican Party official is de facto an official of the government.
What possible benefit could the list could be to somebody? I mean it's not like these are potential swing votes. To me it would only give the Republicans political fodder for demonizing us democrats.
:)
Generally speaking I agree with you, but I have to say that I rather like this answer from one of the Indymedia message boards:
We the people are not out to haraas but simply trying to track delegates who are aligned with the war party. We need to keep them under control as they are dangerous individuals who are known to back the anti-democratic minority. The procedure is similar to implementation of criminal registration procedures.
What the parent said. A few years ago, I talked my company into migrating from FileMaker (v.5, at the time) to a PHP/MySQL/PDFLib setup. (Save the PHP vs. Perl vs. Python and MySQL vs. PostgreSQL flames, please; this setup works for us, handling hundreds of thousands of dollars of business per month, and very nicely, too.) No, there's no one tool for such a setup that will replicate everything FileMaker does -- but the flexibility you gain is more than worth it in the end.
It's complicated. Was your father an officer? It used to be tradition (not sure if or when it was a matter of law) that officers didn't vote; the idea was to maintain a non-partisan officer corps. (An idea I would like to be brought back, but that's another debate ...) And as your father can tell you, tradition in the military often has the force of law.
But as the parent poster said, enlisted personnel, including those serving far from home, have been eligible to vote in every election since 1864. And the fact that the nation chose not to cancel the election in the midst of the greatest crisis it has ever faced should serve as an object lesson to those who today think of manipulating the electoral schedule for partisan ends.
Pretentious suits love to use military jargon as it makes them feel tough and important. Not one of them would know what an actual "tactical deployment" looks like if it bit them in the ass, and they'd shit themselves and cry for their mommies if they were ever actually under fire, but there's precious little chance of that actually happening, so ...
Of course, it was largely computer technology developed for the space program that allowed the Internet to grow into something more than an academic exercise. We wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't for the Apollo missions.
Can you point me to a single example where a Randriod has used violence against an unbeliever?
Economics generally doesn't stir people to violence the way religion does (Communism possibly excepted, though I'm inclined to regard that as a quasi-religion with an economic gloss) so that's not really the point. The ways in which Randroids remind me of al-Qaeda and other religious fanatics are:
1. Reliance on received wisdom: every question has an answer in the words of the Great Man (or Great Woman, as the case may be) and so there are really no unanswered questions.
2. Disagreement is not only wrong, but evil; anyone who disagrees with or even seriously questions the tenets of the G.[M|W]. is clearly a villain.
3. Even if there is some internal dissent, not for the fanatic the messiness of public debate! The High Command must present a unified face to the world.
4. Puritanism and social conservatism are signs of moral virtue; as for the evildoers, by their vulgar display of skin shall ye know them.
5. What happens to the rest of the human race is of no consequence as long as the True Believers prosper. (And don't try to give me that shit about the virtue of selfishness; Rand wrote approvingly of millions of people starving to death in Atlas Shrugged.)
These are not traits limited to Randroids and Islamofascists, of course -- they're frighteningly consistent in just about every type of religious and/or political fanaticism I can think of. I rather like Daniel Keys Moran's way of putting it: the most dangerous problem facing the human race is not ideologies, but ideologues.
Randroids are to economics as al-Qaeda followers are to religion. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that things are rarely that cut and dried.
Grandparent poster may have been referring to this, regardless of what CNN says.
Look at just about any operation your computer performs. Not only is it all math, it's generally fairly simple math. You could do it all with a pencil and paper -- but you can't do it as fast. It's speed that's the issue. On a ship, you have time to correct your errors. When landing on the Moon ... you don't.
It's those who shout for equality who seem to be the first to highlight irrelevant differences
Funnily enough, the vast majority of people who say things like this (in the US, anyway) are white males from middle- or upper-class families who speak English with one of the standard American accents. What a remarkable coincidence.
Who came up with this 'digital divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as bringing the Internet to impoverished African states.
Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.
Who came up with this 'literacy divide' crap? I only associate this phrase with ludicrous schemes such as teaching kids impoverished African states to read.
Call me old fashioned; but food, santitation, housing, education and social justice come first.
"If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
Now that, by God, is the way to deal with bullies!
I understand the legal issues, and I agree they're important and complex and should be dealt with. My post (I thought it was humorous; if you think it's lame, that's your business) was intended as a dismissal only of the parent post's implication that the the currently most powerful country in the world can do anything it wants and is not obligated to take other countries into account -- an idea that has poisoned every great empire in history, and led, quite directly, to their declines and falls. That's all.
In case you haven't noticed, when you're the only superpower in the world you can do pretty much any fucking thing you like, any time you like.
/R/o/m/e/ /S/p/a/i/n/ /F/r/a/n/c/e/ /B/r/i/t/a/i/n/ America is so powerful that no one will ever be able to challenge our hegemony! We are invincible!
Yes, you're absolutely right!
You're right, of course, but the problem is that there are so many people out there for whom "computer" == "Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) running on Intel(R) Pentium(tm)" that this advice will usually fall on deaf ears. (Most of these people have no idea what the words actually mean, of course, but they know damn well that if it doesn't have Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) and and Intel(R) Pentium(tm), it's not a real COMPUTER -- they've seen the Dell ads!) For those folks, a guide like this might be helpful. If nothing else, in the process of trying to secure their Wintel boxes, they may learn something about how computers actually work, and therefore be a little more receptive to technically knowledgeable advice next time.
The point is that those are all cultural factors, not genetic ones. Citing the behavior of women in patriarchal cultures to justify a claim about inherent tendencies toward certain types of sexual behavior is kind of like citing the behavior of black people in Mississippi in 1952 to justify a claim that black people aren't interested in voting.
There are some things that are simply built into the genes. Human men are compelled to have sex without commitment; women are compelled to form commitments.
This belief is one of the most successful memes of all time, for obvious reasons; it allows both sexes to justify things they want to justify in the first place. (Men get to say, "I can't help it, it's in my blood." Women get to say, "See, men are pigs! We're so much more virtuous.")
There's only one problem: it's not true. The fact is that both sexes are equally promiscuous -- perhaps for different reasons, perhaps not, but everyone pretty much screws around equally.
Of your last two paragraphs above, the second is one of the main reasons I disagree with the first, actually. Politicians love to throw numbers around when neither they nor the voters have any idea what those numbers actually mean. It takes a fair amount of math education to understand whether it's bullshit or not.
Oh, well. This is getting a bit long-winded, isn't it? You've inspired me to write an essay, which I'll probably be posting on my Web site sometime in the next few days. Check here this weekend, say, if you're interested.
Ah. Well, if that's your argument, then the problem starts at well below the college level. By the time they get to college, students should already know the basics of reading and composition. That they don't is indeed a failing of the educational system, but it's a failing that starts in kindergarten. Colleges have to make the best they can of what they've got.
Logic is sort of a special case. Indeed, students should be taught to identify logical fallacies, avoid or refute them, and make cogent arguments instead. But math is a wonderful tool for teaching logic and its applications; I'd argue that the combination of math and philosophy is more likely to produce people who can actually think logically than either by itself.
I feel that math, science, and engineering courses are very important - for mathmeticians, scientists, and engineers (and others who have an interest in said subjects).
Here's where my real problem with your argument lies. Sure, lots of humanities types have no interest in math or science, and have to suffer through their courses in those ares; similarly, lots of math and science types have no interest in the humanities, and have to suffer through their courses in those areas. You know what? Tough shit. If a college degree is to mean anything, it has to mean that the person holding it has been educated in a broad range of subjects, not merely in one major -- the literary critic who can't do any more math than basic arithmetic is just as uneducated as the engineer who couldn't write a decent book report to save his life. You may have plenty of arguments with how those required classes are taught; I do to. But in the modern world, as dependent as it is every day on the fruits of science and technology, it is absurd to deny that this type of learning has use for the "average person."