Nope! It as much a computer program as clocks are!
True... interesting how you could consider an old mechanical clock as a simple arthmetic machine. All it does is add 1 every second, and roll over the second hand every minute, the minute hand every hour, and the hour hand every 12 hours. The technology isn't that far back from the old adding machines with the hand crank on the side (which I actually had as a kid, if I remember correctly).
I knew this would make them come out of the woodwork.....that certain demographic of people who somehow think that the only fair price, is the:::lowest::: price.
These people haven't been in the woodwork - they've just been shopping over at Wal-mart.
Wal-mart has proven that for the majority of smaller items, most American consumers (and Canadian consumers) only care about price. All this BS about the economy becoming service based is incorrect. Even a yuppie 30 year old with kids in the back seat will get out in their skirt and high heels and pump their own gas. This should be a clue.
I hope it's all decided quickly, so the Canadian who sits next to me at work can stop bitching about the election all day every day. I swear she cares more deeply about this than I do.
Well, as a Canadian who works in the U.S., I'm with you - hope to hell it's over with tonight! I'm so sick of all the locals yabbering on about Kerry-this and Bush-that. Jesus Christ, people - it ain't really gonna matter who wins! Their policies are nearly identical, and they don't have as much influence as you think. Maybe some appointments or whatever, but so what...
To tell you the truth, from Canada's perspective, Bush is probably friendlier to trade than Kerry, as long as we send token contingents of Canadian soldiers to every country you guys invade.
I just can't figure out why it takes you guys a year to elect a leader. That's pathetic.
I have a feeling that the manufacturer hasn't seen the state of the roads in Detroit. One of these could seriously fall into a pot hole and be gone forever. I have a Nissan Sentra and a Sierra, and driving the car around Detroit is like commuting through an obstacle course every day. The SMART car is half the size of that. I don't care how well it performs in an accident, I'd rather not BE in an accident.
Maybe it's just because I grew up in the 80's which was during the height of the cold war (and the movie War Games, of course), but I've actually sat down and thought about the consequences of the U.S. duking it out with another country in a nuclear war (I live in Canada, BTW). These days, of course, it would be called a nukular war, which is a little different, but probably not any more fun.
I mean, it's not like everybody would die. Something like 40% of Americans live in rural areas, and most parts of the world would not be directly hit. But, the average family anywhere would live a pretty nasty, brutish, and short life after that. Billions would be sick from radiation sickness, which itself is torturous. There's no way current services and infrastructures would actually stay in control. The only way to maintain any kind of control in the harder hit areas would be to enforce a Saddam type rule.
And during all this, the only people mostly immune from all this destruction will be the people who pushed the button. They'll be safely tucked away in their mountain bunkers, while the rest of the world suffers the consequences.
Really, try imagining for a second, the complete collapse of society. How would you keep your family fed? How long would your ammo run out, if you bothered to stockpile any before the war? Would we even be able to find anything to eat that wouldn't kill us?
I know we all like the movie Mad Max, but is that really something to wish upon anyone?
... I will NOT purchase these DVDs, and my relatives are instructed not to buy them for me. I will only buy the THX remastered version on DVD, which we've been promised will never be released.
Screw Lucas. 50 years from now I'll still have my VHS tapes. Of course, I may have to get a video capture card and do the DVD thing myself.
You can do what my friends and I tried... we setup an online bookstore to sell books to students at our university. At the time, the bookstore was selling for about 2% below list price, so we set our prices about 5% below list. Not much, but it was a start. However, we had some problems with the publishers, shipping, delivery, etc., and didn't break even the first semester. It really is a logistical nightmare, but we didn't screw any students... most got their books, and the rest at least got their money back.
The next semester, we were considering pulling our prices down further, to 8% off list (the problem was we weren't getting enough orders to be taken seriously by the publishers), but just as we were about to do it, the university bookstore pulled their prices down to 10% off list. Good for the students, but it put us out of business at that point.
We thought we had at least accomplished something, but then the prices at the bookstore went back up the next semester to 2% off list.
While I agree with you that the terrorists are winning, I would like to point out that a lot of Americans are quite in favour of the U.S. government doing this in the name of protecting them. Since these are the voters, they will keep electing a government that says they can protect them from terrorism. Unfortunately, nobody can really be protected from terrorism, but most people can't accept that.
Based on the movie, just ammend the Asimov laws with #4: "Don't try to save humanity from itself". Maybe bump it up to #2 or #1.
I hate finding a program like that... where you can tell the programmer didn't know what s/he was doing, and just kept adding more code to try and make it work.
I prefer short elegant solutions, because more people can understand and study them. If 3 rules won't work, I want a mathematical proof why it can't ever work with the possible set of 3 rules, and then I'll start looking at 4 rules.:-)
I deal extensively with French corporations through my job. Every time I have French citizens in the US, they are shocked that the population is nearly evenly divided. They are surprised of any division at all. One remarked that he'd never seen any news of anti-war sentiment in the US at all.
You're making a strawman argument. I never suggested anything about the French being better informed than Americans. In fact, I don't particularly think that Americans are that poorly informed at all. I think they answer these polls this way because this is what they WANT to believe.
I'm pretty much agnostic, and I've had dozens of people try to show me the "evidence" for the existence of God, and I'm not convinced. On the other hand, take any religious person and put them through a dozen science courses, and I doubt they'll become less religious. This is because people don't base their opinions on evidence, but rather they base it on what they want to be true.
The reason this argument is so heated is that everyone wants to believe in the perfection and/or superiority of their society. Making a comment that challenges that belief can really set people off.
At any rate, going back to my original post, given that the U.S. is the only super-power remaining, that they will continue to dominate militarily over the next several decades, I make this assertion based on our discussion: American people are no worse, but no better morally than any other people in general. If that's true, shouldn't that make the rest of the world, even their allies, nervous? Is their system of government, and their prized constitution, really so perfect that it can compensate for all the human failings that we know about? All I was saying was that it makes me nervous.
This is completely false. The much publicized PIPA poll that linked the source of news to beliefs showed that 50% of Americans believed there was some link between Saddam and al Qaida (which means that half the nation believes there is no link).
How about this, this, and this? At least half thought that some of the hijackers were Iraqi. My apologies for saying "most" before. Only some thought that most were. As for half believing there was no link, apparently 36% couldn't answer the question.
I can't believe you're trying to say that the U.S. public is/was well informed about the war in Iraq. Look at where everyone gets their information from.
More than half of the American people do not support the Iraq war, so do you really beleive even half would support "kill[ing] 'em all?"
The reason the majority of Americans are not in support of the Iraq war has to do with the fact that they didn't expect as many American soldiers to die, and are tired of hearing about it in the news. Most Americans before the war thought that the majority of the 9/11 highjackers were from Iraq. Most right now probably don't know the difference between Casey Kasem and Osama bin Laden.
Look, I agree there are many moral people in the U.S., but going back to my original point, there is enough internal willingness in the U.S. to use a military superiority to bully other nations, even friendly ones. That's what I'm saying.
What I do see is someone that is rabidly biased against religion and America
I am biased against neither, mostly because that could get me locked up in your country.:-)
I'm sure that during war people in other countries never before have expressed those sentiments towards their enemies.
You're still holding yourself up in comparison against the worst. The question is whether it's right to do so, not whether or not other people do it.
I also made no claim to be worldly. In fact, I specifically claimed not to be.
However, despite your worldliness and extensive travels you still do not understand the difference between an intolerant ass, and your typical American citizen that would most likely not advocate mass murder when the time came to vote.
As another poster in this thread has pointed out, at least 32% of Americans are in favour of the use of torture in the war on terrorism. This is even though torture usually extracts faulty information.
Wasn't there a poll done a little while back that asked, if you could push a button that would transfer 1 million dollars into your bank account, and it would kill some peasant half way around the world that you didn't know, but nobody would ever know you did it, would you press it? In my recollection, which I admit to be rather fuzzy, Americans didn't fare very well on the moral scale. I found that difficult to find references to, but here's an interesting quote I found:
"Just how widespread is hostility? Very! Psychology Today (1983) asked, "If you could secretly push a button and thereby eliminate any person with no repercussions to yourself, would you press that button?" 69% of responding males said yes, 56% of women. Men would most often kill the U. S. president or some public figure; women would kill bosses, ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends and former partners of current lovers. Another survey of college students during the 80's indicated that 15% agreed that "if we could wipe out the Soviet Union, and be sure they wouldn't be able to retaliate, we should do it." That action could result in over 100 million deaths! The respondents seemed to realize the great loss of life because 26% said, "the United States should be willing to accept 25 million to 50 million casualties in order to engage in nuclear war." What an interesting combination of intelligence and mass violence in the same species. In light of the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, this kind of pugnacious, arrogant, uncaring thinking is really scary. The problem isn't stupid thinking as much as it is self-centered mean-spiritedness." - http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap7/chap7b.htm
This is talking about people you know. I assume the number would be higher for people you don't know. Now that's scary. Back to your point, that's clearly advocating mass murder, and these are American voters.
Keep in mind that several really large militaries might increase the chances of an unpleasant altercation, but that's a small price to pay for a multipolar world.
Keep in mind that we were arguably safer, as a species (or even the U.S. as a nation), during the cold war. Funny though that notion is, there is some merit to the theory.
The American culture is very well-balanced between personal moral values (religious and/or idealistic), and secular governmental structures. No other country that I am aware of is balanced in quite this way (I was born and have lived outside of the US).
Excuse me for a minute... there are over 260 countries in the world. You are not an expert. I've been to about 13 countries, and to about 70% of the U.S. states, and I am certainly no expert.
Anyway, the U.S. is far from the most secular. The separation of church and state is a myth. I don't need to google some more on that for you, do I?
There are also more democratic nations than the U.S. Switzerland jumps into my mind. In fact, the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy.
So are you saying that American values are based on a song's lyrics? I can tell that you are not American and that you really haven't been around the American hearland by the comments that you make. I am an American, and I can tell you that I won't let my country become a despotic, fascist, secular regime (e.g. -WW II Germany, USSR), nor a religious, totalitarian one (e.g.- Taliban). I can also tell you that I am by far not the exception around here.
My friend, I was visiting your heartland... Alabama actually, staying at a Holiday Inn Express (the last bastion of experts nation-wide:), and during breakfast while CNN was reporting on another suicide bomb attack against U.S. forces in Iraq, the American beside me pouring his coffee proudly proclaimed, "I say kill 'em all, fucking A-Rabs." I assure you that the reaction from the room was enthusiastically in support of this gentleman. That is your heartland, my friend. That is a bible-thumping, church-going, God-fearing, red-blooded American voter, and that's what his morals told him. I can also tell you that he was by far not the exception around there.
There is a frustration sometimes that America doing something bad dominates the world press, while much worse things done by much worse regimes are relatively ignored. I suppose that just indicates the U.S. doing something bad is still newsworthy, while it's just assumed of the dictators and truly repressive regimes of the world.
Do you see how this falls into the same trap that I was talking about? This is an example of defending the U.S. by saying that it's not as bad as other nations. In my limited experience with Americans, this type of logic seems VERY common, even dangerously so. Even if you're the most well behaved nation on Earth (arguably not), you should still be judging yourself based on your own moral standards, rather than against the worst offenders.
To make an analogy, I'm pretty sure Dell doesn't measure its own success against the local computer shop down the street. The leaders in any field need to set goals and standards for themselves independent of the other contenders. If they don't, then the underdogs will have an advantage.
I think that right now, the only real challenge for the U.S. is itself. If the U.S. sets a higher goal for itself, then it can strive to attain it, and set a good example for the world. However, if Americans continue to compare themselves to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, how long will it take for other nations to surpass the U.S. both morally and economically (which eventually leads to military superiority)?
As a non-American (but citizen of a supposed ally), the U.S. military's superiority makes me a little nervous when coupled with their "might-makes-right" attitude. For example, there's a popular new American song whose lyrics include, "we'll put a boot up your ass, it's the American way." Is this really the foundation of American values? Is this the mentality that the rest of the world can look forward to from the current economic and military leader of the world?
It's sad to me that growing up, I always regarded the U.S. as one of the good guys, but now I've realized that once they realized there was nobody who could stand up militarily, they are just as willing to coerce other nations with the threat of force as any other major power in history.
Let me give an example of current American attitudes toward right and wrong. When the news about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses came around, someone in the U.S. government (can't remember the name) publicly defended the actions saying that it wasn't as bad as what was happening there under Saddam. To that, I raise the question, "Do you want to be the good guys, or not?" My grade seven teacher told me to always compare yourself to the best, never to the worst, or else you'll eventually be no better than the worst.
Anyway, sorry this got a bit off topic, but I think it shares a major concern. I completely agree with the need for a nation to have adequate military strength to deter aggression, but is it inevitable that a nation that possesses such strength will invariably let that power overcome their sense of right and wrong?
Perhaps that's because we can't deduct our mortgages from our taxes like Americans can. If that changes then I predict a rise in prices here.
That means people would buy a bigger house, but the houses themselves wouldn't get more expensive, at least not in the long run. Construction companies would just make bigger houses, on average, to keep up with demand.
These comparisons are done based on living in the same size house in both cities.
Buddy, I graduated from the University of Waterloo in Computer Engineering. I'm wearing an Iron Ring. I'm completely aware of what you're saying, and trust me when I tell you, I've seen the real world, and nobody enforces this, and nobody much knows about it outside of engineering graduates. I spewed the same crap that was told to me when I was in school, and it's pretty much just that: BS. Don't trust your professors to know much about the real world.
The only time you'll actually see this enforced is if a company calls themself an engineering company, or tries to sell engineering services without having a bona fide P.Eng. on staff.
If little miss sales person puts "Sales Engineer" on her resume or business card, nobody cares (except us). There isn't some crime fighting unit out there cracking down on mis-uses of the word "engineer" in Canada. In reality, for a person, the only time you'll get in trouble is if you say that you're a professional engineer without having the certification. That's rare.
Um, I'm skeptical of the calculations they describe. Especially since they don't take into account the fact that Canadians are more likely to be prodigious accumulators of wealth than Americans, meaning we stick our money into tax shelters like RRSPs, and avoid paying tax on it. We also buy cheaper houses, because they don't cost as much as the same house in the U.S. They're assuming all the money is spent, but that's just not true.
For Americans this could be a downside: You can't be called an Engineer if you didn't do a 4 year college program... like, for exemple, MIT...
So no "Sales Engineer" around here...
I wish this were actually true in Canada. It's certainly something that we ringed people want to believe, but honestly, I did a co-op at a networking company in Ottawa (I'll leave out the name to protect the guilty), and sat across the cube aisle from a "Sales Engineer", who was actually just a sales person. She had absolutely no technical training at all, other than what she'd read in the product's user manual.
I can understand if a real engineer is working with the sales department, such as a so called "Engineer attached to Sales" or "Post-Sales Engineer", etc., but a Sales Engineer? Give me a break.
At this company, in the States, there's a "Proposal Engineer", but he seems to have an electrical engineering background, so I don't mind. Still, only one person here has a professional engineer's certificate, but most of the employees have "engineer" in their title.
To be honest, I think the "fad engineer" title left us with the dot-com crunch. I don't see domestic engineer and sanitation engineer (for house wives/husbands and garbage collectors, respectively) used much anymore.
Exactly... My guess is that that "40% less" is not 40% less than all states... just the ones that pay a lot, like California.
Try using the International Salary Calculator, it's handy. According to that, if you made $80,000 USD in San Francisco, you'd need to make just over $60,000 USD in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (a.k.a. "Silicon Valley North") to enjoy the same standard of living. Also, Ottawa is one of the top 5 most expensive places to live in Canada.
The biggest difference, of course, is that housing is cheaper in Canada, and so is food. You save a LOT on your medical expenses, since Americans spend on average $5400 USD per year on medical expenses, and Canadians only spend about $3500 on average, (if I remember correctly), but get better care than the average American, though I suppose not as nice as the richest.
Also, depending on the province you live in, you can save a lot of money if they have non-profit government run auto insurance. As well, automobiles themselves are cheaper, even ones built on the same assembly line. If you want to check, go to gm.com and do a "build your own vehicle", then do the same exact thing on gmcanada.com, and compare the final MSRPs. You have to do the conversion for the exchange, but it's much cheaper in Canada, even with the higher tax rate.
Gas is more expensive in Canada (about 25% higher, depending) due to taxes, but the cities are smaller, so you tend to spend less time commuting. Other things taxed more are alcohol and cigarettes, but that's supposed to help pay for the health care. Might as well be the drinkers and smokers that carry the burden there, eh?:-)
Food is cheaper in Canada, but clothing is more expensive. Electronics are more expensive, but you can always get a buddy to pick something up for you in the U.S. at cheaper prices.
Broadband internet access is generally wider spread in Canada, and cheaper, because Canadians are more urban than our American counterparts.
Income tax itself isn't that much different anymore, though it used to be. I know for certain, since I have to file both. I'm a computer engineer, and I find that I would pay the same in either country, within a couple hundred dollars. Sales tax, of course, is higher in Canada.
If you're right leaning, you can always move to Alberta, which is a booming wild west place. If you'd prefer the government pay your way, there's always the east coast, and if you're a greenpeace member, there's always the west coast. If you're an accountant, then you'll be at home in Ontario, but Quebec's always close by for those big let-your-hair-down parties. In particular, if you can't shovel snow, Toronto's the place for you, because if it ever snows more than 3 cm, they'll declare a state of emergency and call the army in to shovel your driveway for you.
Just to be fair... Manitoba's population density is 1.9 people per square kilometre and if your dog runs away there, you can still see him running 3 days later, and Saskatchewan is a cooler version of Arizona (dog thing also applies, but the dog will probably be eaten alive by grasshoppers by the 3rd day).
He's Scottish, and worked on his inventions all over the place. Claiming the telephone was invented by an American is quite a stretch.
Re:Changed the view of the US?
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Bobby Fischer Found
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· Score: 1, Insightful
The United States invented the motorized aircraft, the polio vaccinne, the internet, the light bulb, the movie camera.
So how come an American didn't invent the telephone, or the radio, or discover insulin? The list of things not invented by Americans is far more extensive than the list of things invented in the U.S., whether they were invented by an American or not. The fact that you don't know what those items are does not mean they don't exist, or that you don't enjoy the fruits of non-American genius.
By the way, the U.S. is known for its industrial prowess, not a distinct technological advantage, other than in military technology (which is because it dumps so much of its GDP into military research). Certainly it's inhabitants are no more insightful than those from any other place I've travelled (about 13 countries, which is a small sample, but far more countries than most Americans have been to).
But I suppose if you've been told over and over again every day while you grow up that you're the best, then you'd end up with one hell of an ego, wouldn't you?
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Nope! It as much a computer program as clocks are!
True... interesting how you could consider an old mechanical clock as a simple arthmetic machine. All it does is add 1 every second, and roll over the second hand every minute, the minute hand every hour, and the hour hand every 12 hours. The technology isn't that far back from the old adding machines with the hand crank on the side (which I actually had as a kid, if I remember correctly).
I knew this would make them come out of the woodwork.....that certain demographic of people who somehow think that the only fair price, is the :::lowest::: price.
These people haven't been in the woodwork - they've just been shopping over at Wal-mart.
Wal-mart has proven that for the majority of smaller items, most American consumers (and Canadian consumers) only care about price. All this BS about the economy becoming service based is incorrect. Even a yuppie 30 year old with kids in the back seat will get out in their skirt and high heels and pump their own gas. This should be a clue.
I hope it's all decided quickly, so the Canadian who sits next to me at work can stop bitching about the election all day every day. I swear she cares more deeply about this than I do.
Well, as a Canadian who works in the U.S., I'm with you - hope to hell it's over with tonight! I'm so sick of all the locals yabbering on about Kerry-this and Bush-that. Jesus Christ, people - it ain't really gonna matter who wins! Their policies are nearly identical, and they don't have as much influence as you think. Maybe some appointments or whatever, but so what...
To tell you the truth, from Canada's perspective, Bush is probably friendlier to trade than Kerry, as long as we send token contingents of Canadian soldiers to every country you guys invade.
I just can't figure out why it takes you guys a year to elect a leader. That's pathetic.
I have a feeling that the manufacturer hasn't seen the state of the roads in Detroit. One of these could seriously fall into a pot hole and be gone forever. I have a Nissan Sentra and a Sierra, and driving the car around Detroit is like commuting through an obstacle course every day. The SMART car is half the size of that. I don't care how well it performs in an accident, I'd rather not BE in an accident.
Maybe it's just because I grew up in the 80's which was during the height of the cold war (and the movie War Games, of course), but I've actually sat down and thought about the consequences of the U.S. duking it out with another country in a nuclear war (I live in Canada, BTW). These days, of course, it would be called a nukular war, which is a little different, but probably not any more fun.
I mean, it's not like everybody would die. Something like 40% of Americans live in rural areas, and most parts of the world would not be directly hit. But, the average family anywhere would live a pretty nasty, brutish, and short life after that. Billions would be sick from radiation sickness, which itself is torturous. There's no way current services and infrastructures would actually stay in control. The only way to maintain any kind of control in the harder hit areas would be to enforce a Saddam type rule.
And during all this, the only people mostly immune from all this destruction will be the people who pushed the button. They'll be safely tucked away in their mountain bunkers, while the rest of the world suffers the consequences.
Really, try imagining for a second, the complete collapse of society. How would you keep your family fed? How long would your ammo run out, if you bothered to stockpile any before the war? Would we even be able to find anything to eat that wouldn't kill us?
I know we all like the movie Mad Max, but is that really something to wish upon anyone?
Man, this world sucks.
... I will NOT purchase these DVDs, and my relatives are instructed not to buy them for me. I will only buy the THX remastered version on DVD, which we've been promised will never be released.
Screw Lucas. 50 years from now I'll still have my VHS tapes. Of course, I may have to get a video capture card and do the DVD thing myself.
You can do what my friends and I tried... we setup an online bookstore to sell books to students at our university. At the time, the bookstore was selling for about 2% below list price, so we set our prices about 5% below list. Not much, but it was a start. However, we had some problems with the publishers, shipping, delivery, etc., and didn't break even the first semester. It really is a logistical nightmare, but we didn't screw any students... most got their books, and the rest at least got their money back.
The next semester, we were considering pulling our prices down further, to 8% off list (the problem was we weren't getting enough orders to be taken seriously by the publishers), but just as we were about to do it, the university bookstore pulled their prices down to 10% off list. Good for the students, but it put us out of business at that point.
We thought we had at least accomplished something, but then the prices at the bookstore went back up the next semester to 2% off list.
Oh well, we tried.
With a lot of help from USA government.
While I agree with you that the terrorists are winning, I would like to point out that a lot of Americans are quite in favour of the U.S. government doing this in the name of protecting them. Since these are the voters, they will keep electing a government that says they can protect them from terrorism. Unfortunately, nobody can really be protected from terrorism, but most people can't accept that.
Based on the movie, just ammend the Asimov laws with #4: "Don't try to save humanity from itself". Maybe bump it up to #2 or #1.
:-)
I hate finding a program like that... where you can tell the programmer didn't know what s/he was doing, and just kept adding more code to try and make it work.
I prefer short elegant solutions, because more people can understand and study them. If 3 rules won't work, I want a mathematical proof why it can't ever work with the possible set of 3 rules, and then I'll start looking at 4 rules.
I deal extensively with French corporations through my job. Every time I have French citizens in the US, they are shocked that the population is nearly evenly divided. They are surprised of any division at all. One remarked that he'd never seen any news of anti-war sentiment in the US at all.
You're making a strawman argument. I never suggested anything about the French being better informed than Americans. In fact, I don't particularly think that Americans are that poorly informed at all. I think they answer these polls this way because this is what they WANT to believe.
I'm pretty much agnostic, and I've had dozens of people try to show me the "evidence" for the existence of God, and I'm not convinced. On the other hand, take any religious person and put them through a dozen science courses, and I doubt they'll become less religious. This is because people don't base their opinions on evidence, but rather they base it on what they want to be true.
The reason this argument is so heated is that everyone wants to believe in the perfection and/or superiority of their society. Making a comment that challenges that belief can really set people off.
At any rate, going back to my original post, given that the U.S. is the only super-power remaining, that they will continue to dominate militarily over the next several decades, I make this assertion based on our discussion: American people are no worse, but no better morally than any other people in general. If that's true, shouldn't that make the rest of the world, even their allies, nervous? Is their system of government, and their prized constitution, really so perfect that it can compensate for all the human failings that we know about? All I was saying was that it makes me nervous.
This is completely false. The much publicized PIPA poll that linked the source of news to beliefs showed that 50% of Americans believed there was some link between Saddam and al Qaida (which means that half the nation believes there is no link).
How about this, this, and this? At least half thought that some of the hijackers were Iraqi. My apologies for saying "most" before. Only some thought that most were. As for half believing there was no link, apparently 36% couldn't answer the question.
I can't believe you're trying to say that the U.S. public is/was well informed about the war in Iraq. Look at where everyone gets their information from.
More than half of the American people do not support the Iraq war, so do you really beleive even half would support "kill[ing] 'em all?"
The reason the majority of Americans are not in support of the Iraq war has to do with the fact that they didn't expect as many American soldiers to die, and are tired of hearing about it in the news. Most Americans before the war thought that the majority of the 9/11 highjackers were from Iraq. Most right now probably don't know the difference between Casey Kasem and Osama bin Laden.
Look, I agree there are many moral people in the U.S., but going back to my original point, there is enough internal willingness in the U.S. to use a military superiority to bully other nations, even friendly ones. That's what I'm saying.
What I do see is someone that is rabidly biased against religion and America
:-)
I am biased against neither, mostly because that could get me locked up in your country.
I'm sure that during war people in other countries never before have expressed those sentiments towards their enemies.
You're still holding yourself up in comparison against the worst. The question is whether it's right to do so, not whether or not other people do it.
I also made no claim to be worldly. In fact, I specifically claimed not to be.
However, despite your worldliness and extensive travels you still do not understand the difference between an intolerant ass, and your typical American citizen that would most likely not advocate mass murder when the time came to vote.
As another poster in this thread has pointed out, at least 32% of Americans are in favour of the use of torture in the war on terrorism. This is even though torture usually extracts faulty information.
Wasn't there a poll done a little while back that asked, if you could push a button that would transfer 1 million dollars into your bank account, and it would kill some peasant half way around the world that you didn't know, but nobody would ever know you did it, would you press it? In my recollection, which I admit to be rather fuzzy, Americans didn't fare very well on the moral scale. I found that difficult to find references to, but here's an interesting quote I found:
"Just how widespread is hostility? Very! Psychology Today (1983) asked, "If you could secretly push a button and thereby eliminate any person with no repercussions to yourself, would you press that button?" 69% of responding males said yes, 56% of women. Men would most often kill the U. S. president or some public figure; women would kill bosses, ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends and former partners of current lovers. Another survey of college students during the 80's indicated that 15% agreed that "if we could wipe out the Soviet Union, and be sure they wouldn't be able to retaliate, we should do it." That action could result in over 100 million deaths! The respondents seemed to realize the great loss of life because 26% said, "the United States should be willing to accept 25 million to 50 million casualties in order to engage in nuclear war." What an interesting combination of intelligence and mass violence in the same species. In light of the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, this kind of pugnacious, arrogant, uncaring thinking is really scary. The problem isn't stupid thinking as much as it is self-centered mean-spiritedness." - http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap7/chap7b.htm
This is talking about people you know. I assume the number would be higher for people you don't know. Now that's scary. Back to your point, that's clearly advocating mass murder, and these are American voters.
Keep in mind that several really large militaries might increase the chances of an unpleasant altercation, but that's a small price to pay for a multipolar world.
Keep in mind that we were arguably safer, as a species (or even the U.S. as a nation), during the cold war. Funny though that notion is, there is some merit to the theory.
The American culture is very well-balanced between personal moral values (religious and/or idealistic), and secular governmental structures. No other country that I am aware of is balanced in quite this way (I was born and have lived outside of the US).
:), and during breakfast while CNN was reporting on another suicide bomb attack against U.S. forces in Iraq, the American beside me pouring his coffee proudly proclaimed, "I say kill 'em all, fucking A-Rabs." I assure you that the reaction from the room was enthusiastically in support of this gentleman. That is your heartland, my friend. That is a bible-thumping, church-going, God-fearing, red-blooded American voter, and that's what his morals told him. I can also tell you that he was by far not the exception around there.
Excuse me for a minute... there are over 260 countries in the world. You are not an expert. I've been to about 13 countries, and to about 70% of the U.S. states, and I am certainly no expert.
Anyway, the U.S. is far from the most secular. The separation of church and state is a myth. I don't need to google some more on that for you, do I?
There are also more democratic nations than the U.S. Switzerland jumps into my mind. In fact, the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy.
So are you saying that American values are based on a song's lyrics? I can tell that you are not American and that you really haven't been around the American hearland by the comments that you make. I am an American, and I can tell you that I won't let my country become a despotic, fascist, secular regime (e.g. -WW II Germany, USSR), nor a religious, totalitarian one (e.g.- Taliban). I can also tell you that I am by far not the exception around here.
My friend, I was visiting your heartland... Alabama actually, staying at a Holiday Inn Express (the last bastion of experts nation-wide
There is a frustration sometimes that America doing something bad dominates the world press, while much worse things done by much worse regimes are relatively ignored. I suppose that just indicates the U.S. doing something bad is still newsworthy, while it's just assumed of the dictators and truly repressive regimes of the world.
Do you see how this falls into the same trap that I was talking about? This is an example of defending the U.S. by saying that it's not as bad as other nations. In my limited experience with Americans, this type of logic seems VERY common, even dangerously so. Even if you're the most well behaved nation on Earth (arguably not), you should still be judging yourself based on your own moral standards, rather than against the worst offenders.
To make an analogy, I'm pretty sure Dell doesn't measure its own success against the local computer shop down the street. The leaders in any field need to set goals and standards for themselves independent of the other contenders. If they don't, then the underdogs will have an advantage.
I think that right now, the only real challenge for the U.S. is itself. If the U.S. sets a higher goal for itself, then it can strive to attain it, and set a good example for the world. However, if Americans continue to compare themselves to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, how long will it take for other nations to surpass the U.S. both morally and economically (which eventually leads to military superiority)?
As a non-American (but citizen of a supposed ally), the U.S. military's superiority makes me a little nervous when coupled with their "might-makes-right" attitude. For example, there's a popular new American song whose lyrics include, "we'll put a boot up your ass, it's the American way." Is this really the foundation of American values? Is this the mentality that the rest of the world can look forward to from the current economic and military leader of the world?
It's sad to me that growing up, I always regarded the U.S. as one of the good guys, but now I've realized that once they realized there was nobody who could stand up militarily, they are just as willing to coerce other nations with the threat of force as any other major power in history.
Let me give an example of current American attitudes toward right and wrong. When the news about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses came around, someone in the U.S. government (can't remember the name) publicly defended the actions saying that it wasn't as bad as what was happening there under Saddam. To that, I raise the question, "Do you want to be the good guys, or not?" My grade seven teacher told me to always compare yourself to the best, never to the worst, or else you'll eventually be no better than the worst.
Anyway, sorry this got a bit off topic, but I think it shares a major concern. I completely agree with the need for a nation to have adequate military strength to deter aggression, but is it inevitable that a nation that possesses such strength will invariably let that power overcome their sense of right and wrong?
Perhaps that's because we can't deduct our mortgages from our taxes like Americans can. If that changes then I predict a rise in prices here.
That means people would buy a bigger house, but the houses themselves wouldn't get more expensive, at least not in the long run. Construction companies would just make bigger houses, on average, to keep up with demand.
These comparisons are done based on living in the same size house in both cities.
Buddy, I graduated from the University of Waterloo in Computer Engineering. I'm wearing an Iron Ring. I'm completely aware of what you're saying, and trust me when I tell you, I've seen the real world, and nobody enforces this, and nobody much knows about it outside of engineering graduates. I spewed the same crap that was told to me when I was in school, and it's pretty much just that: BS. Don't trust your professors to know much about the real world.
The only time you'll actually see this enforced is if a company calls themself an engineering company, or tries to sell engineering services without having a bona fide P.Eng. on staff.
If little miss sales person puts "Sales Engineer" on her resume or business card, nobody cares (except us). There isn't some crime fighting unit out there cracking down on mis-uses of the word "engineer" in Canada. In reality, for a person, the only time you'll get in trouble is if you say that you're a professional engineer without having the certification. That's rare.
Um, I'm skeptical of the calculations they describe. Especially since they don't take into account the fact that Canadians are more likely to be prodigious accumulators of wealth than Americans, meaning we stick our money into tax shelters like RRSPs, and avoid paying tax on it. We also buy cheaper houses, because they don't cost as much as the same house in the U.S. They're assuming all the money is spent, but that's just not true.
The down side, of course, is more tax. And the CBC.
Exactly what are you comparing the CBC to: CNN or FOX? Because compared to those, there is no comparison.
Given all that, I still prefer reading the CS Monitor, but I prefer internet news to radio and television anyway.
For Americans this could be a downside:
You can't be called an Engineer if you didn't do a 4 year college program... like, for exemple, MIT...
So no "Sales Engineer" around here...
I wish this were actually true in Canada. It's certainly something that we ringed people want to believe, but honestly, I did a co-op at a networking company in Ottawa (I'll leave out the name to protect the guilty), and sat across the cube aisle from a "Sales Engineer", who was actually just a sales person. She had absolutely no technical training at all, other than what she'd read in the product's user manual.
I can understand if a real engineer is working with the sales department, such as a so called "Engineer attached to Sales" or "Post-Sales Engineer", etc., but a Sales Engineer? Give me a break.
At this company, in the States, there's a "Proposal Engineer", but he seems to have an electrical engineering background, so I don't mind. Still, only one person here has a professional engineer's certificate, but most of the employees have "engineer" in their title.
To be honest, I think the "fad engineer" title left us with the dot-com crunch. I don't see domestic engineer and sanitation engineer (for house wives/husbands and garbage collectors, respectively) used much anymore.
Exactly... My guess is that that "40% less" is not 40% less than all states... just the ones that pay a lot, like California.
:-)
Try using the International Salary Calculator, it's handy. According to that, if you made $80,000 USD in San Francisco, you'd need to make just over $60,000 USD in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (a.k.a. "Silicon Valley North") to enjoy the same standard of living. Also, Ottawa is one of the top 5 most expensive places to live in Canada.
The biggest difference, of course, is that housing is cheaper in Canada, and so is food. You save a LOT on your medical expenses, since Americans spend on average $5400 USD per year on medical expenses, and Canadians only spend about $3500 on average, (if I remember correctly), but get better care than the average American, though I suppose not as nice as the richest.
Also, depending on the province you live in, you can save a lot of money if they have non-profit government run auto insurance. As well, automobiles themselves are cheaper, even ones built on the same assembly line. If you want to check, go to gm.com and do a "build your own vehicle", then do the same exact thing on gmcanada.com, and compare the final MSRPs. You have to do the conversion for the exchange, but it's much cheaper in Canada, even with the higher tax rate.
Gas is more expensive in Canada (about 25% higher, depending) due to taxes, but the cities are smaller, so you tend to spend less time commuting. Other things taxed more are alcohol and cigarettes, but that's supposed to help pay for the health care. Might as well be the drinkers and smokers that carry the burden there, eh?
Food is cheaper in Canada, but clothing is more expensive. Electronics are more expensive, but you can always get a buddy to pick something up for you in the U.S. at cheaper prices.
Broadband internet access is generally wider spread in Canada, and cheaper, because Canadians are more urban than our American counterparts.
Income tax itself isn't that much different anymore, though it used to be. I know for certain, since I have to file both. I'm a computer engineer, and I find that I would pay the same in either country, within a couple hundred dollars. Sales tax, of course, is higher in Canada.
If you're right leaning, you can always move to Alberta, which is a booming wild west place. If you'd prefer the government pay your way, there's always the east coast, and if you're a greenpeace member, there's always the west coast. If you're an accountant, then you'll be at home in Ontario, but Quebec's always close by for those big let-your-hair-down parties. In particular, if you can't shovel snow, Toronto's the place for you, because if it ever snows more than 3 cm, they'll declare a state of emergency and call the army in to shovel your driveway for you.
Just to be fair... Manitoba's population density is 1.9 people per square kilometre and if your dog runs away there, you can still see him running 3 days later, and Saskatchewan is a cooler version of Arizona (dog thing also applies, but the dog will probably be eaten alive by grasshoppers by the 3rd day).
He's Scottish, and worked on his inventions all over the place. Claiming the telephone was invented by an American is quite a stretch.
The United States invented the motorized aircraft, the polio vaccinne, the internet, the light bulb, the movie camera.
So how come an American didn't invent the telephone, or the radio, or discover insulin? The list of things not invented by Americans is far more extensive than the list of things invented in the U.S., whether they were invented by an American or not. The fact that you don't know what those items are does not mean they don't exist, or that you don't enjoy the fruits of non-American genius.
By the way, the U.S. is known for its industrial prowess, not a distinct technological advantage, other than in military technology (which is because it dumps so much of its GDP into military research). Certainly it's inhabitants are no more insightful than those from any other place I've travelled (about 13 countries, which is a small sample, but far more countries than most Americans have been to).
But I suppose if you've been told over and over again every day while you grow up that you're the best, then you'd end up with one hell of an ego, wouldn't you?
Check this out, brainiac: The History and Geography of Inventions.