You seem to have left out some pretty important information also contained in that article:
"Despite some obvious economic and political successes, particularly in Central Europe, the failure of most former Communist countries to adopt democracy and free markets has had a devastating effect on local populations..."
and:
"The report attributed the decline to incomplete reforms and corrupt local political leaders who, it noted, are often the same apparatchiks who ran their countries during communism."
This would be true if "defending" was the main occupation of the "defense" department. Instead, it seems the Pentagon's main job now (along with being a very interventionist economic tool) is to realize the megalomaniac ambitions of ExxonMobil and its puppet-in-chief in Washington - and that hardly entails "defending" the country you love.
If you take away your foe's ability to attack you, then you have in effect defended yourself. It was megalomaniac economic ambitions that won the Cold War, not force of arms.
If the government decided to spend all that money (hundreds of billions each year) towards more noble causes such as renewable energy or solving humanity's problems.
Yes renewable energy would be cool as it would greatly reduce the cost of operating our stealth bombers. And just think what it would mean to our troops survivability against biological attacks if we could come up with a universal vaccine against infections. Plus, if we could figure out a way to keep them fed without supply lines we could maintain them in the field forever.
Not just economic interests. Islamic extremists don't hate us because we fill their coffers with oil money, they hate us because of our almost unconditional support of Israel. And keeping Israel afloat with tons of cash and weapons doesn't help us financially either. But that is the side we have chosen.
What is even funnier is it was the Arabs themselves who chose what side the U.S. would be on. Before the Soviet's instigated the 1967 war much of Israel's support came from France and Great Britain.
Why didn't airplanes have impermeable doors before 9-11?
Because it wasn't cost effective. Common sense and basic security took a back seat to the bottom line.
Even if the doors were impermeable what action do you think the pilot would have taken if the terrorists started killing passengers and told him they wouldn't stop until he opened it?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch reruns of Dukes of Hazzard.
This is wonderful if you believe in the absolute goodness of the US. You can say god blesses us all you want, but the proof is in the pudding. Look at all the wars in the last century, and who benefited from them. We benefited by being able to drive our SUV's around longer, but the people we "liberated," or saved from communism (if still alive) didn't benefit much. The rich became richer, and so on.
List of some countries saved from Communism:
Poland
Hungary
Germany
Bulgaria
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Albania
Serbia
Croatia
S. Korea
etc...
Shall I go on? Yes the Cold War like all wars was ugly and there were many casualities around the world, but I'll wager the people in these and many other countries feel they have benefited from being saved from communism.
Any curriculum that would suggest that the US was the decisive force in Europe in WWII, for example, is propagandistic at best.
Even if you could find a good argument were it wasn't tactically, strategically it certainly was. Since the U.S. mainland was virtually untouched by the war its factories and farms were able to pump out the weapons and food necessary to support the allied effort.
I never said the US wasn't the lesser of two evils, but they're not the police of the world. That's it.
You are right, they are not. But neither is anyone else. And until such time, if it ever comes, that there is a single unified global government with consistently enforced laws that apply equally to everyone it is up to the individual countries to do what they feel is in their own best interest.
Read what you quoted again, "buddy" - I was talking about unsupervised use. And I said investigated for child endangerment, not charged with abuse. Giving a child unsupervised access to a device that regularly displays unsolicited hardcore pornography is easily child endangerment.
It sounds like you're the one who needs supervision if you can't figure out how to keep your computer from displaying unsolicited hardcore porn.
File-sharers are knowingly breaking the law. These lawsuits are just what you'd expect if you'd ever heard of causality.
I.e. if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
What about "if you can't beat them join them."
The fact that RIAA's business model is outdated, and that they never will win this fight until they realize this is a completely different question; but the fact is that they are right by law and by any decent morals.
But you have to admit, they are guilty of stupidity. It seems everyone but the RIAA has figured out you don't have to put music on a CD to make money.
I was going to call you on that one, but sadly it is true. Guess that means that anyone who scans a pic of their kids favorite character for the desktop is a criminal too.
Just wondering. I'd hope that if someone were that broke, they'd focus their priorities (read: "budget") a little better.
Without a computer and internet access their children would basically be illiterate in the information age. I'd say the parents had their priorities focused very well.
Okay, this is not only a 12-year-old girl, but a 12-year-old girl LIVING IN THE PROJECTS. Her family is dirt poor.
Not only that, but this dirt poor family was willing to pay $29.95 a month for the "privilege" of listening to music over the internet. Talk about missing the boat RIAA. That money could've been going to your members if you would've only seen the light.
There's no "age" in KaZaa, so this was bound to happen. They'll drop the suit, but you jackasses make sure that you milk it for all the lame barbs you can while it lasts, mmmkay?
I don't know if this qualifies as a "lame barb", but notice that the family was willing to shell out $29.95 a month to pay for the music. This whole nasty business over downloading music could have been avoided if the record industry would have had the forsight to embrace new technology instead of trying to hang on to tired old business methods.
It's not hypocritical if it's a request to the Congoese Government. On a similar basis "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is not a commandment to kill killers.
From the same book:
"And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
and...
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Really now, religion and hypocrisy go hand in hand and both have caused much of the ills in the world today...plus discussing it would take us even farther off topic than we have already wandered.
That, and sites that pop-up auto-installs on entry with such software as Bonzi and Gator should be boycotted. Any site that attempts to install without warning or request should be considered an attempted attack.
Not only that, if they collect any data from the computer at all they may very well find themselves in violation of HIPAA regulations.
You would think, if there were any rationality in the world, that all decent people could agree that torture was generally a Bad Thing, and making an effort to stop it a Good Thing.
So let's send the troops in, round up the perpatrators, throw them in prison and stop the torture in these brutal regimes. Oh wait, we can't do that because it will torture the torturors.
Dude, you're suffering from some sort of neo-conservative delusion, brought on by listening too much to great pundits like Ollie and Rush.
Dude, I'm a liberal who supports and has even marched for civil rights in the 70's, gay rights in the 90's, and am constantly writing my representatives to support issues like a national health care system.
Where this idea come from that a person must support some fanatical fundamentalist movements right to segregrate the world by sex and religion to be a liberal I'll never understand.
You know, if that was the attitude we had 40 years ago African-Americans would still be riding on the back of the bus because that was just the way they did things down there so who were we to interfere with south's culture.
Hmm, are you saying that Amnesty International is evil or something?
No their not evil, just misguided and shortsighted.
On their homepage, for example, is a call to sign a petition to "Stop The Slaughter Now!" in the Congo. But rest assured if some western democracy decided to take the bull by the horns and do exactly that by sending in troops they would accuse that democracy of interfering with the locals right of self determination.
Okay, then return the results of the inspiration to the BSD community then B-).
Anyway, though I use and enjoy Gentoo, I've never really understood the logic of writing something as integral to the system as Portage in a language that requires an interpreter to function. One would think that system code should just run by itself.
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to have left out some pretty important information also contained in that article:
"Despite some obvious economic and political successes, particularly in Central Europe, the failure of most former Communist countries to adopt democracy and free markets has had a devastating effect on local populations..."
and:
"The report attributed the decline to incomplete reforms and corrupt local political leaders who, it noted, are often the same apparatchiks who ran their countries during communism."
ussia really looks like its been "saved" doesnt it. democracy, nor captitalism, are the be all and end all of social structure.
Are you a royalist?
This would be true if "defending" was the main occupation of the "defense" department. Instead, it seems the Pentagon's main job now (along with being a very interventionist economic tool) is to realize the megalomaniac ambitions of ExxonMobil and its puppet-in-chief in Washington - and that hardly entails "defending" the country you love.
If you take away your foe's ability to attack you, then you have in effect defended yourself. It was megalomaniac economic ambitions that won the Cold War, not force of arms.
Yet this Einstein letter recommends that the U.S. builds the atomic bomb. Perhaps he was a little more pragmatic than you give him credit for.
If the government decided to spend all that money (hundreds of billions each year) towards more noble causes such as renewable energy or solving humanity's problems.
Yes renewable energy would be cool as it would greatly reduce the cost of operating our stealth bombers. And just think what it would mean to our troops survivability against biological attacks if we could come up with a universal vaccine against infections. Plus, if we could figure out a way to keep them fed without supply lines we could maintain them in the field forever.
Not just economic interests. Islamic extremists don't hate us because we fill their coffers with oil money, they hate us because of our almost unconditional support of Israel. And keeping Israel afloat with tons of cash and weapons doesn't help us financially either. But that is the side we have chosen.
What is even funnier is it was the Arabs themselves who chose what side the U.S. would be on. Before the Soviet's instigated the 1967 war much of Israel's support came from France and Great Britain.
Why didn't airplanes have impermeable doors before 9-11?
Because it wasn't cost effective. Common sense and basic security took a back seat to the bottom line.
Even if the doors were impermeable what action do you think the pilot would have taken if the terrorists started killing passengers and told him they wouldn't stop until he opened it?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch reruns of Dukes of Hazzard.
That seems appropriate somehow...
This is wonderful if you believe in the absolute goodness of the US. You can say god blesses us all you want, but the proof is in the pudding. Look at all the wars in the last century, and who benefited from them. We benefited by being able to drive our SUV's around longer, but the people we "liberated," or saved from communism (if still alive) didn't benefit much. The rich became richer, and so on.
List of some countries saved from Communism:
Poland
Hungary
Germany
Bulgaria
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Albania
Serbia
Croatia
S. Korea
etc...
Shall I go on? Yes the Cold War like all wars was ugly and there were many casualities around the world, but I'll wager the people in these and many other countries feel they have benefited from being saved from communism.
Any curriculum that would suggest that the US was the decisive force in Europe in WWII, for example, is propagandistic at best.
Even if you could find a good argument were it wasn't tactically, strategically it certainly was. Since the U.S. mainland was virtually untouched by the war its factories and farms were able to pump out the weapons and food necessary to support the allied effort.
I never said the US wasn't the lesser of two evils, but they're not the police of the world. That's it.
You are right, they are not. But neither is anyone else. And until such time, if it ever comes, that there is a single unified global government with consistently enforced laws that apply equally to everyone it is up to the individual countries to do what they feel is in their own best interest.
Music studios have only the CD sales to offset the cost of making and promoting the CD.
Only because they can't figure out any other way to make a buck off their music.
Read what you quoted again, "buddy" - I was talking about unsupervised use. And I said investigated for child endangerment, not charged with abuse. Giving a child unsupervised access to a device that regularly displays unsolicited hardcore pornography is easily child endangerment.
It sounds like you're the one who needs supervision if you can't figure out how to keep your computer from displaying unsolicited hardcore porn.
They can't even survive a simple /.'ing? It's no wonder they don't want to sell their music on the internet.
File-sharers are knowingly breaking the law. These lawsuits are just what you'd expect if you'd ever heard of causality.
I.e. if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
What about "if you can't beat them join them."
The fact that RIAA's business model is outdated, and that they never will win this fight until they realize this is a completely different question; but the fact is that they are right by law and by any decent morals.
But you have to admit, they are guilty of stupidity. It seems everyone but the RIAA has figured out you don't have to put music on a CD to make money.
I was going to call you on that one, but sadly it is true. Guess that means that anyone who scans a pic of their kids favorite character for the desktop is a criminal too.
Just wondering. I'd hope that if someone were that broke, they'd focus their priorities (read: "budget") a little better.
Without a computer and internet access their children would basically be illiterate in the information age. I'd say the parents had their priorities focused very well.
Okay, this is not only a 12-year-old girl, but a 12-year-old girl LIVING IN THE PROJECTS. Her family is dirt poor.
Not only that, but this dirt poor family was willing to pay $29.95 a month for the "privilege" of listening to music over the internet. Talk about missing the boat RIAA. That money could've been going to your members if you would've only seen the light.
There's no "age" in KaZaa, so this was bound to happen. They'll drop the suit, but you jackasses make sure that you milk it for all the lame barbs you can while it lasts, mmmkay?
I don't know if this qualifies as a "lame barb", but notice that the family was willing to shell out $29.95 a month to pay for the music. This whole nasty business over downloading music could have been avoided if the record industry would have had the forsight to embrace new technology instead of trying to hang on to tired old business methods.
It's not hypocritical if it's a request to the Congoese Government. On a similar basis "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is not a commandment to kill killers.
From the same book:
"And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
and...
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Really now, religion and hypocrisy go hand in hand and both have caused much of the ills in the world today...plus discussing it would take us even farther off topic than we have already wandered.
That, and sites that pop-up auto-installs on entry with such software as Bonzi and Gator should be boycotted. Any site that attempts to install without warning or request should be considered an attempted attack.
Not only that, if they collect any data from the computer at all they may very well find themselves in violation of HIPAA regulations.
You would think, if there were any rationality in the world, that all decent people could agree that torture was generally a Bad Thing, and making an effort to stop it a Good Thing.
So let's send the troops in, round up the perpatrators, throw them in prison and stop the torture in these brutal regimes. Oh wait, we can't do that because it will torture the torturors.
Dude, you're suffering from some sort of neo-conservative delusion, brought on by listening too much to great pundits like Ollie and Rush.
Dude, I'm a liberal who supports and has even marched for civil rights in the 70's, gay rights in the 90's, and am constantly writing my representatives to support issues like a national health care system.
Where this idea come from that a person must support some fanatical fundamentalist movements right to segregrate the world by sex and religion to be a liberal I'll never understand.
You know, if that was the attitude we had 40 years ago African-Americans would still be riding on the back of the bus because that was just the way they did things down there so who were we to interfere with south's culture.
Hmm, are you saying that Amnesty International is evil or something?
No their not evil, just misguided and shortsighted.
On their homepage, for example, is a call to sign a petition to "Stop The Slaughter Now!" in the Congo. But rest assured if some western democracy decided to take the bull by the horns and do exactly that by sending in troops they would accuse that democracy of interfering with the locals right of self determination.
Okay, then return the results of the inspiration to the BSD community then B-).
Anyway, though I use and enjoy Gentoo, I've never really understood the logic of writing something as integral to the system as Portage in a language that requires an interpreter to function. One would think that system code should just run by itself.
I know this was modded funny, but the poster is absolutely right!