So the Libertarian Arcology is out in the asteroids, and the Sunni Muslim Arcology is orbiting Mars, and the Shiites are near Venus, while the Baptists are at L5. Maybe the best thing about space is that it's BIG, and these different groups of like-minded people could stay separated.
But somehow I have this feeling that they would feel compelled to park all of their Arcologies in geosynchronous orbit over the Jerusalem/Mecca vicinity, and duke it out.
First "God's Eye View" game I ever heard of, or played. You played one of two (little "g") gods over a board of a "world", with a zoomed view. You could direct your followers in several ways, and do minor miracles, like raising/lowering land, earthquakes, volcanos, floods, swamps, etc. Normally the other god was computer-drive, though it had a multiplayer mode so you could play against someone else.
It came on 5.25" floppies.
Search terms of "populous" and "bullfrog" will get you to some good hits.
You missed my remark about being facetious with my comment. Being able to reclassify people in order to remove their rights is dangerous. That there is no independent review of that reclassification process makes it doubly dangerous.
Don't forget that in the past, Blacks have been through several "classifications." There has been precedent, but fortunately their rights have at least on paper moved in the right direction.
To end the Cold War, the US didn't duke it out with the USSR using weapons - we spent them into the ground. Even at that, with the deficits involved, we darned near spent ourselves into the ground, at the same time.
Right now China is heavily dependent on exporting the US, and it's helping to fuel their growth. I would expect that within 10-20 years their own economy and consumer base will be sufficiently developed that they won't need us, any more. I've already heard (unsubstantiated) that China could absorb *every* job in the US, and still have unemployment.
IMHO, by the year 2050, China will be able to spend the US into the ground, just like we did in the 1980's with the USSR.
I took away your "in Colombia" to increase accuracy. For something as easy as cocoa, marajuana, or poppies, source-level interdiction just isn't going to work. Source-level interdiction raises the street price, making it more profitable to become a source, making new sources come online at least as fast as you can eliminate the old ones. It's the Free Market at work.
IMHO, drugs should be legalized and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, simply because the budgetary and social cost of "crimes of financing" are exceeding the what the budgetary and social costs would be, if regulated. Simple, pragmatic economics.
Blast from the past, even praise for Richard Nixon: In 1968 Richard Nixon ran at least partly on reducing Crime. After election, he felt it necessary to deliver on his promises. Crimes of finance for drugs were felt to be a large part of the problem, so they were going to attack drugs. He was all set to go on a law'n'order, source-interdiction based drug policy, but his advisor(s) (Name forgotten, but there was a key one, here.) told him that it would never work. He had to work on demand reduction.
They put in place demand reduction, largely in the form of drug treatment. It worked, at least within the timeframe and measurements they used. They reduced crime.
By the 1972 race Viet Nam was the big issue, and everyone had forgotten about crime. After the election, they quietly dismantled the drug treatment programs, and the approach has largely lain fallow, since.
BTW, Clinton and Greenspan were aiming for a "soft landing" with the economy, breaking the boom/bust cycles. They felt they had just achieved their target, as the dot-com boom hit. Of course the boom was followed by a matching bust, and the soft landing goal has been forgotten, too.
The real question is how rapidly animals, including humans, will develop roundup tolerance. The first response to this tolerance in "weeds" will be of course to spray more and higher doses. That of course makes it more likely to get ingested by animals, and eventually through plant and animal sources, into our food supply.
Stuff wants to live, but a lot of stuff died finding the winning genes.
The scary thing is, my whole family, wife, son, daughter, and me, can all recite tag-lines from an old cartoon called, Freakazoid. It was made by Steven Spielberg, and only lasted 2 seasons. But in those two seasons were some of (IMHO) the BEST cartoons ever made, especially considering modern cartoons. (I would probably agree that the old Chuck Jones stuff was BEST, though I did like some earlier stuff, too.)
Every time I was able to hear Kerry say more than one complete sentence, I liked what I heard.
There are just two problems: First, our news organizations deal in nothing other than sound bites. I believe I heard Kerry actually speak, only 4 times - at the Convention and at the debates. Second, the Bush administration managed to put more words in Kerry's mouth than he did. They continuously put up straw-Kerrys and knocked them down. I suspect the nation based its impression of Kerry more on Republican information than on Democratic.
Indeed, some of us were gathered last Saturday, and one person said, "I liked Kerry during the debates, but as time goes on I like him less and less." Between the style of media coverage and relentless character assasination campaigning, that's what happens.
And indeed, Bob Dole said on Larry King (I think) that Clinton had used this strategy against him in 1996, and the Republicans were going to do it to Kerry this year. This campaign was run by the same Karl Rove that smeared McCain in the 2000 primaries with the black-love-child inuendo and patriotism smears.
Why don't you ask why the Republicans can't field a better candidate than Bush. When placed on his own, in front of the camera, for a sustained period in the debates, he didn't do very well. The reality is that Bush is a better campaigner than he is a President.
So criticize Kerry for being a poor campaigner - I'm not sure what it would have taken to be effective against Karl Rove. I'm not sure *anyone* could have done anything better. Keep in mind that for all of his effectiveness, Dean was taken down by an improperly done microphone feed. (Actually, his campaign finances were all wrong too, but that hadn't hit, yet.)
But I do believe Kerry would have been a good President, particularly for these times. He couldn't have led us far astray, because Congress would have checked him. At the same time, he would have checked Congress' more overzealous excesses.
The only possiblity for checks and balances in the new adminstration will be if the moderate Republicans rebel against the Religious Right. (Who appear to be holding the purse-strings.)
The thing to watch for 2008 is positioning within the Bush administration. Either they will get an 'heir apparent' into some visibal and powerful position within a year, or they know that they won't want to be in power between 2008 and 2012, as in the deficits finally driving the US Government into default in that timeframe.
Personally, I expect Cheney to resign in the next year, "for health reasons," and to see the new Republican Choice move in as Vice President. Either that, or some other properly-aged and electable (For instance, Hasturt probably isn't.) Republican put into a prominence.
If that doesn't happen, I wouldn't touch the Office with a 10 foot pole. (Actually, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, anyway.) Expect disaster.
Please don't be as guilty of stereotyping "Americans" as you accuse us of doing to others. In case you hadn't notices, there are a lot of Americans who don't vote for Bush, don't like the war in Iraq, don't like the Patriot Act, don't like Guantanamo Bay or Abu Graib, etc.
We Americans can be diverse, too. Even if some of us are a minority, we are a sizeable one. (After this election, I expect us to be an even more ignored minority, too.)
I don't perceive US citizens as being terribly well-liked, any more. Plus, to meet the US stereotype, I don't speak any languages other than US English. Besides being a US failing, it's my own failing - my talents lie in other directions - my foreign language requirement in high school was tough on me.
I've never afforded that hop across the Atlantic, (or Pacific, for that matter) and the current international environment makes me less likely to do so. Plus the current economic environment makes that less likely, too. (pay not keeping up with costs)
Thinking again, if at some point I do choose to go abroad, I suspect I'll at least probe through the Linux community. That way I'll at least have some sort of local contact, wherever I go.
As a kid, I was a bit of a pyromaniac. I'd like to think I was a "responsible" pyromaniac, in that I never burned anything down or destroyed anything. I just enjoyed the chemistry, the light, and the smoke of it all. For example, thermite was a joy to discover, and it helped me exercise the high-school chemistry I was taking at the time, to figure out the exact proportions. Though I never did do the experimentation to figure out if using Fe2O3 would be hotter and Fe3O2 better for welding.
Now I have a swimming pool, and it uses some high-energy chemicals. I was trying to learn more about "Shock'n'Swim" - AKA Sodium Monopersulphate, and found myself at a home explosives page.
In the old days, I would have lingered at the page and checked out some links. I might have even tried a few experiments.
As a guy with a beard, I can tell you that this is a pain in the neck. For some reason, after years of not flying at all, in the year after 9/11 I flew 4 times. While AFAIK I have no Middle Eastern ancestors, my features could be taken as such.
I got use to getting "random" searches at the gate, and automatically taking my shoes off at security.
Slashdot Mirror
So the Libertarian Arcology is out in the asteroids, and the Sunni Muslim Arcology is orbiting Mars, and the Shiites are near Venus, while the Baptists are at L5. Maybe the best thing about space is that it's BIG, and these different groups of like-minded people could stay separated.
But somehow I have this feeling that they would feel compelled to park all of their Arcologies in geosynchronous orbit over the Jerusalem/Mecca vicinity, and duke it out.
First "God's Eye View" game I ever heard of, or played. You played one of two (little "g") gods over a board of a "world", with a zoomed view. You could direct your followers in several ways, and do minor miracles, like raising/lowering land, earthquakes, volcanos, floods, swamps, etc. Normally the other god was computer-drive, though it had a multiplayer mode so you could play against someone else.
It came on 5.25" floppies.
Search terms of "populous" and "bullfrog" will get you to some good hits.
You missed my remark about being facetious with my comment. Being able to reclassify people in order to remove their rights is dangerous. That there is no independent review of that reclassification process makes it doubly dangerous.
Don't forget that in the past, Blacks have been through several "classifications." There has been precedent, but fortunately their rights have at least on paper moved in the right direction.
Turn off the computer and go to bed!!
(worst thing was, when I finished MI1 and saw that screen, it was past midnight and my wife was fast asleep.)
Oh, that's so very, very sad.
(in my best Dexter's mother's voice)
What group recorded that hit song, linux-2.6.10.tar.bz?
I wasn't speaking of *their* economics. I was speaking of my tax dollars.
Forget that.
To end the Cold War, the US didn't duke it out with the USSR using weapons - we spent them into the ground. Even at that, with the deficits involved, we darned near spent ourselves into the ground, at the same time.
Right now China is heavily dependent on exporting the US, and it's helping to fuel their growth. I would expect that within 10-20 years their own economy and consumer base will be sufficiently developed that they won't need us, any more. I've already heard (unsubstantiated) that China could absorb *every* job in the US, and still have unemployment.
IMHO, by the year 2050, China will be able to spend the US into the ground, just like we did in the 1980's with the USSR.
I took away your "in Colombia" to increase accuracy. For something as easy as cocoa, marajuana, or poppies, source-level interdiction just isn't going to work. Source-level interdiction raises the street price, making it more profitable to become a source, making new sources come online at least as fast as you can eliminate the old ones. It's the Free Market at work.
IMHO, drugs should be legalized and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, simply because the budgetary and social cost of "crimes of financing" are exceeding the what the budgetary and social costs would be, if regulated. Simple, pragmatic economics.
Blast from the past, even praise for Richard Nixon:
In 1968 Richard Nixon ran at least partly on reducing Crime. After election, he felt it necessary to deliver on his promises. Crimes of finance for drugs were felt to be a large part of the problem, so they were going to attack drugs. He was all set to go on a law'n'order, source-interdiction based drug policy, but his advisor(s) (Name forgotten, but there was a key one, here.) told him that it would never work. He had to work on demand reduction.
They put in place demand reduction, largely in the form of drug treatment. It worked, at least within the timeframe and measurements they used. They reduced crime.
By the 1972 race Viet Nam was the big issue, and everyone had forgotten about crime. After the election, they quietly dismantled the drug treatment programs, and the approach has largely lain fallow, since.
BTW, Clinton and Greenspan were aiming for a "soft landing" with the economy, breaking the boom/bust cycles. They felt they had just achieved their target, as the dot-com boom hit. Of course the boom was followed by a matching bust, and the soft landing goal has been forgotten, too.
The real question is how rapidly animals, including humans, will develop roundup tolerance. The first response to this tolerance in "weeds" will be of course to spray more and higher doses. That of course makes it more likely to get ingested by animals, and eventually through plant and animal sources, into our food supply.
Stuff wants to live, but a lot of stuff died finding the winning genes.
It's not just a planet, it's a whole Universe. As said in Contact, if there's nobody out there, it's a terrible waste of real estate.
Actually, the concept of God isn't difficult. What's difficult is connecting a "realistic" God to man's religions.
The scary thing is, my whole family, wife, son, daughter, and me, can all recite tag-lines from an old cartoon called, Freakazoid. It was made by Steven Spielberg, and only lasted 2 seasons. But in those two seasons were some of (IMHO) the BEST cartoons ever made, especially considering modern cartoons. (I would probably agree that the old Chuck Jones stuff was BEST, though I did like some earlier stuff, too.)
I stand corrected.
Perhaps I should be happy that I can't quote Star Wars correctly, but I wouldn't want to be insulting towards you.
I see your "acquisition of land" and I raise you, "corporations."
Every time I was able to hear Kerry say more than one complete sentence, I liked what I heard.
There are just two problems:
First, our news organizations deal in nothing other than sound bites. I believe I heard Kerry actually speak, only 4 times - at the Convention and at the debates.
Second, the Bush administration managed to put more words in Kerry's mouth than he did. They continuously put up straw-Kerrys and knocked them down. I suspect the nation based its impression of Kerry more on Republican information than on Democratic.
Indeed, some of us were gathered last Saturday, and one person said, "I liked Kerry during the debates, but as time goes on I like him less and less." Between the style of media coverage and relentless character assasination campaigning, that's what happens.
And indeed, Bob Dole said on Larry King (I think) that Clinton had used this strategy against him in 1996, and the Republicans were going to do it to Kerry this year. This campaign was run by the same Karl Rove that smeared McCain in the 2000 primaries with the black-love-child inuendo and patriotism smears.
Why don't you ask why the Republicans can't field a better candidate than Bush. When placed on his own, in front of the camera, for a sustained period in the debates, he didn't do very well. The reality is that Bush is a better campaigner than he is a President.
So criticize Kerry for being a poor campaigner - I'm not sure what it would have taken to be effective against Karl Rove. I'm not sure *anyone* could have done anything better. Keep in mind that for all of his effectiveness, Dean was taken down by an improperly done microphone feed. (Actually, his campaign finances were all wrong too, but that hadn't hit, yet.)
But I do believe Kerry would have been a good President, particularly for these times. He couldn't have led us far astray, because Congress would have checked him. At the same time, he would have checked Congress' more overzealous excesses.
The only possiblity for checks and balances in the new adminstration will be if the moderate Republicans rebel against the Religious Right. (Who appear to be holding the purse-strings.)
Don't you really mean, "Our way or Guantanamo Bay!"
The thing to watch for 2008 is positioning within the Bush administration. Either they will get an 'heir apparent' into some visibal and powerful position within a year, or they know that they won't want to be in power between 2008 and 2012, as in the deficits finally driving the US Government into default in that timeframe.
Personally, I expect Cheney to resign in the next year, "for health reasons," and to see the new Republican Choice move in as Vice President. Either that, or some other properly-aged and electable (For instance, Hasturt probably isn't.) Republican put into a prominence.
If that doesn't happen, I wouldn't touch the Office with a 10 foot pole. (Actually, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, anyway.) Expect disaster.
We're being pulled toward that small moon.
That's not a moon, that's a spaceship!
(as long as this topic is on the same day as another "Star Wars: The Phantom Edit" discussion.)
If more libertarians (vs Libertarians) sounded like you, I'd be more tempted to vote that way.
I'm a staunch middle-of-the-roader, with contrarian leanings.
The "L" in Libertarian is too capitalized for my taste.
Please don't be as guilty of stereotyping "Americans" as you accuse us of doing to others. In case you hadn't notices, there are a lot of Americans who don't vote for Bush, don't like the war in Iraq, don't like the Patriot Act, don't like Guantanamo Bay or Abu Graib, etc.
We Americans can be diverse, too. Even if some of us are a minority, we are a sizeable one. (After this election, I expect us to be an even more ignored minority, too.)
I'm just a little fearful of going abroad.
I don't perceive US citizens as being terribly well-liked, any more. Plus, to meet the US stereotype, I don't speak any languages other than US English. Besides being a US failing, it's my own failing - my talents lie in other directions - my foreign language requirement in high school was tough on me.
I've never afforded that hop across the Atlantic, (or Pacific, for that matter) and the current international environment makes me less likely to do so. Plus the current economic environment makes that less likely, too. (pay not keeping up with costs)
Thinking again, if at some point I do choose to go abroad, I suspect I'll at least probe through the Linux community. That way I'll at least have some sort of local contact, wherever I go.
As a kid, I was a bit of a pyromaniac. I'd like to think I was a "responsible" pyromaniac, in that I never burned anything down or destroyed anything. I just enjoyed the chemistry, the light, and the smoke of it all. For example, thermite was a joy to discover, and it helped me exercise the high-school chemistry I was taking at the time, to figure out the exact proportions. Though I never did do the experimentation to figure out if using Fe2O3 would be hotter and Fe3O2 better for welding.
Now I have a swimming pool, and it uses some high-energy chemicals. I was trying to learn more about "Shock'n'Swim" - AKA Sodium Monopersulphate, and found myself at a home explosives page.
In the old days, I would have lingered at the page and checked out some links. I might have even tried a few experiments.
In the new days, I closed it, ASAP.
Ahhh, but the Constitution says nothing about "terrorist." Therefore it affords no rights or protections to "terrorists."
I say that in all facetiousness, but I fear that some people would take this as a logical argument that they could run with.
As a guy with a beard, I can tell you that this is a pain in the neck. For some reason, after years of not flying at all, in the year after 9/11 I flew 4 times. While AFAIK I have no Middle Eastern ancestors, my features could be taken as such.
I got use to getting "random" searches at the gate, and automatically taking my shoes off at security.
Have you ever chopped off a chicken's head? (to prepare for dinner)
Sounds like Windows runs longer. The chicken only ran/flew for less than 30 seconds.