Korea - 1904 - Marines land in Russo-Japanese War Yugoslavia - 1919 - fought serbs in Dalmatia Korean War - 1951-1953 Iran - 1953 - Overthrew democratic Iranian government Iraq - 1963 - Supported Ba'ath coup Iran - 1980s - material support for Saddam Hussein against Iran Iraq - 1990-1991 - Gulf War Iraq - 1990s - airstrikes, embargoes Yugoslavia - 1992-1994 - Naval blockade of Serbia, airstrikes Yugoslavia - 1999 - NATO airstrikes, occupation of Kosovo Iraq - 2003-Present - Invasion and occupation of Iraq Korea - 1951-Present - military stationed at the 38th parallel
Syria is sort of small potatoes, but we currently use them to outsource the torture of terrorism suspects. The military in control there is like the royal family in Saudi Arabia - they raise their voices to impress their subjects, but never enough to lose favor with the imperial army that's stationed at two of their borders.
The correct question, really, is to ask where we have not had our military involved in the last 100 years. I doubt you could come up with twenty nations outside of Africa where our boots have not been felt.
That's funny. I don't remember any of those countries attacking the United States, but I do remember the United States attacking them. I guess you meant "future threats to our empire."
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. -William Tecumseh Sherman
government in all of its forms is inherently wasteful
More importantly, does the inherent waste lose more money than the demand for profit? The reason the government has to subsidize private companies who muscled their way into Medicare is because private companies cannot compete with government provided care.
You mistakenly believe that if you ask a population how resources should be spent that you will get the same answer if you just gave everyone money and told them to do whatever they wanted. Humans aren't very good at considering long term consequences through the infinite agencies of capitalism, but we are good at defining what we want, and what we consider right and wrong. It just can't be effectively achieved through the market alone.
If the libertarian belief system - and yes, it's a matter of faith - yielded better results, then Somalia should be paradise on earth. America would at least have better poverty rates, life expectancy, and happier citizens than the social democracies of Europe - but we don't.
Even if you completely killed-off the military, the debt since Bush left would still have increased +1.3 trillion.
This is a nonsensical argument. We have been outspending the rest of the world combined since the end of World War II. Since 1960, we have spent a total of 25 trillion dollars according to the government, which is on the low side since they pull accounting tricks to get military spending under the DoE and other branches. Of course, we also had to borrow money to pay for the previous debt, and who knows how high that would be, but even at a very conservative 30 trillion dollars, we could have reduced our military spending by just a third and have very little debt, if any.
Go ahead with your little rationalization. I'm sure I'll have heard it before.
Do you really think America has only been spending money on the military since 2008? You know, it's really tough to argue with people whose memories only last an election cycle.
Do you know what happens when you lower taxes for the wealthy at the same time you start two foreign wars? The economics of this are so basic that it's ridiculous to have to explain further. As McCain would say, before his opinions were no longer allowed by his new campaign managers: "The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction,"
The difference is that American society has been led to believe that the only form of investment that's worth anything is one with a high ROI. Infrastructure simply doesn't work that way.
Let's say you have a country with one million people, mostly concentrated in a capital city. Let's say the richest 10% of that country mostly live in the capital, and 70% of the population does as well. There is little incentive for a corporation to spend the same amount of money connecting 70% of the population on connecting the other 30%. The ROI is too low.
Furthermore, they have little incentive to provide a reasonable price to everyone, instead of a high price to the richest 10% who can afford it, and a middle price to the top two quintiles of income, and just forget about the rest. If this were just some luxury product, this is all to be expected, and not exactly harmful to the economy at large. Have a look at any South American country that was forced to follow these stupid rules: a two tier economy, with the top doing extremely well, and 90% wallowing in poverty with little access to infrastructure to help them get out.
When it comes to infrastructure, privatization is the quickest way to destroy an advancing economy. What if lobbyists decided in the 30s that electrification was a luxury? Or decided that a national road system was a luxury? Without widespread and reliable infrastructure, you simply have no foundation for a good economy. If I want to open a business, the first thing I'm going to look for is the place that has the best infrastructure for it: ports, railroads, reliable electric grid, and of course, a population that can actually do the work.
In 30 years, if the libertarian pretenders have their way, America will have a lopsided two tier economy, degraded infrastructure, and perhaps less public debt. But not one of the corporations is going to give a shit about the debt. They're going to take one look at our uneducated population, poor internet connectivity, unreliable coal-fired electric grid, and oil-dependent transportation network, and ask if we're willing to work for Ugandan wages, because the Chinese middle class is looking for a new textile manufacturing base.
Approximately 70% of the American population lives in 1% of it's landmass, which I believe is about 100 metro areas. We are not a rural nation, and haven't been for some time. (Here's an article that says 80% of the population lives within metro areas.)
Norway and Sweden have similar population clusters and sparse country areas, and they have near universal broadband coverage, both wired and wireless. The difference is that they spend more money on investing in infrastructure and less on maintaining an overseas empire and a police state.
As far as average population density, America has 83 people per square mile, Norway has 32 per square mile, and Sweden has 53 per square mile.
It's a failure of vision, investment, and will. It has nothing to do with population density.
This is something you can squarely blame on MBA programs. They emphasize "thinking outside the box" but the important part about brainstorming is throwing away all the crappy ideas you just had and being able to keep the good ones.
Just about every business model/decision that has you thinking "What the fuck?" can be traced back to brainstorming that wasn't followed with any constructive criticism.
Bubba knew all there was to know about the movie business...
"There's dumb fucks, stupid fucks, lying fucks, stealing fucks, lawyer fucks, producer fucks, and they're all trying to fuck you out of your ideas and passion. And that's... that's about it."
As cliche as it sounds, it's all about what works best for you.
I totally agree. I've been vocal about the shortcomings about Windows and Linux (no Quickbooks alternative!?) for a depressing amount of time. Though I wouldn't exactly put Windows in the "substandard OS" category if I wasn't throwing OS X and Linux in the same box as well.
The issue I have with Apple is that the pride has turned to arrogance. Now you're buying "magical and revolutionary devices" that "change the world" and people are actually believing the bullshit. I mean, their phones suck at making phone calls, but good news! You can edit movies instead. And if video chat is a revolution, don't tell the Japanese consumers who have been doing it for years. Or anyone who's used Skype.
I guess it taps into the same disappointment I have with people in general when it comes to propaganda. But maybe the only thing worse than someone who thinks a phone or an iPod Touch XL is going to change their life is the guy with so much free time he decides to complain publicly about it...
As everybody knows, Apple is just another company and pursues open standards when it suits them. They favor closed ecosystems, censorship, top-down control, and form over function.
If you want to open yourself up to legal liability for running the software of your choice on your own hardware, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay 200% markup on parts for your computer, or for hard drives for your server farm, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay extra for dismal 3D application performance, Apple is the company for you.
And if you want to develop brand loyalty for an organization whose primary purpose is profit - and be admired for such an empty gesture - my friends, there is no better choice than Apple.
I don't know. Let's call some ancient English professor and see if shortening "the cellphone microscope" to "the microscope" later in the same paragraph qualifies it for points off in some imaginary thesis.
I imagine his response would be, "Well, if your audience is incapable of reading comprehension for more than a few sentences, I wouldn't bother in the first place."
I don't know, maybe you just have a different definition for safe chemicals. I consider safe something that I don't need gloves to touch, or a Hazmat team to clean up if there's an accident. I guess those dumbasses at MIT are trying to get rid of all of the devices that contain mercury - including sphygmomanometers - because they just like to waste time and money.
It's cool, though. I know how you really feel about anyone who doesn't cuddle with toxic metals.
Let's help the environment by killing all of the environmentalists. How much carbon is generated by bloviating environmentalists spewing FUD by publishing badly flawed studies such as this one? It has to be in the megatons. By reducing the carbon footprints of all environmentalists to zero we could reduce energy consumption, carbon-dioxide production and we'd have fewer annoying fucks to deal with.
by multiplexo on Monday January 12 2009, @12:22AM (#26413305)
Danger! Corrosive. Harmful if inhaled. May be absorbed through intact skin. Causes eye and skin irritation and possible burns. May cause severe respiratory tract irritation with possible burns. May cause severe digestive tract irritation with possible burns. May cause liver and kidney damage. May cause central nervous system effects. This substance has caused adverse reproductive and fetal effects in animals. Inhalation of fumes may cause metal-fume fever. Possible sensitizer.
Target Organs: Blood, kidneys, central nervous system, liver, brain.
Just ignore that. Go play with some, preferably in the room where you sleep.
This is where critical thinking comes in handy. I don't think any serious scientist will suggest that plants are not well adjusted to EM radiation from the sun.
As far as "nothing noticed so far," I imagine that was the same phrase they used when they were handling raw mercury without protection in science labs not too long ago. Ignorance is no substitute for reality.
Remember, Louis Pasteur only finally disproved the theory of spontaneous generation with a simple experiment involving meat broth and a long necked decanter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
There's no reason to doubt that the certain frequencies we consider harmless are in fact slowly destroying delicate parts of our biosphere. We're the same scientists who didn't think lead paint or asbestos were a problem, and discovered germ theory only a short time ago. The article itself is not sensational, and even the DIY scientist is modest in her conclusions.
Less is also used with numbers when they are on their own and with expressions of measurement or time, e.g.:
His weight fell from 18 stone to less than 12. Their marriage lasted less than two years. Heath Square is less than four miles away from Dublin city centre
Listen, when your marketing literally states that you are "changing the world" with your phone, and apparently you didn't properly engineer the antenna, your customers are going to complain bitterly. And then everyone who realizes that Apple is just Microsoft with better industrial designers and better marketing are going to laugh at the brand loyalists who got bitten again because Apple favors form over function.
As the Afghan way of life seems to be based on intolerance, blood feuds, petty local dictatorships, the oppression of women and other such charming traditions, I am not overly impressed by their right to keep it.
And in what ways is this any different from the American way of life in the 1800s? Do you think it would have helped if Spain had somehow won the war and forced their way of life on us at the turn of the century?
That the earth is warming? I think it's a pretty simple premise to start from, given the data. Then we can move on to things like, will there be enough water in the new climate? If no, can we take steps to reduce it's effects? Should we begin slowly migrating away from the coast instead of waiting until it's too late to rebuild the infrastructure?
Or to translate it into American political terms, how can I take away your god-given right to limitless natural resources and destroy your dignity by making you pay the true costs for what you consume?
Slashdot Mirror
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
(I added a little here and there from memory)
Korea - 1904 - Marines land in Russo-Japanese War
Yugoslavia - 1919 - fought serbs in Dalmatia
Korean War - 1951-1953
Iran - 1953 - Overthrew democratic Iranian government
Iraq - 1963 - Supported Ba'ath coup
Iran - 1980s - material support for Saddam Hussein against Iran
Iraq - 1990-1991 - Gulf War
Iraq - 1990s - airstrikes, embargoes
Yugoslavia - 1992-1994 - Naval blockade of Serbia, airstrikes
Yugoslavia - 1999 - NATO airstrikes, occupation of Kosovo
Iraq - 2003-Present - Invasion and occupation of Iraq
Korea - 1951-Present - military stationed at the 38th parallel
Syria is sort of small potatoes, but we currently use them to outsource the torture of terrorism suspects. The military in control there is like the royal family in Saudi Arabia - they raise their voices to impress their subjects, but never enough to lose favor with the imperial army that's stationed at two of their borders.
The correct question, really, is to ask where we have not had our military involved in the last 100 years. I doubt you could come up with twenty nations outside of Africa where our boots have not been felt.
That's funny. I don't remember any of those countries attacking the United States, but I do remember the United States attacking them. I guess you meant "future threats to our empire."
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. -William Tecumseh Sherman
government in all of its forms is inherently wasteful
More importantly, does the inherent waste lose more money than the demand for profit? The reason the government has to subsidize private companies who muscled their way into Medicare is because private companies cannot compete with government provided care.
You mistakenly believe that if you ask a population how resources should be spent that you will get the same answer if you just gave everyone money and told them to do whatever they wanted. Humans aren't very good at considering long term consequences through the infinite agencies of capitalism, but we are good at defining what we want, and what we consider right and wrong. It just can't be effectively achieved through the market alone.
If the libertarian belief system - and yes, it's a matter of faith - yielded better results, then Somalia should be paradise on earth. America would at least have better poverty rates, life expectancy, and happier citizens than the social democracies of Europe - but we don't.
Even if you completely killed-off the military, the debt since Bush left would still have increased +1.3 trillion.
This is a nonsensical argument. We have been outspending the rest of the world combined since the end of World War II. Since 1960, we have spent a total of 25 trillion dollars according to the government, which is on the low side since they pull accounting tricks to get military spending under the DoE and other branches. Of course, we also had to borrow money to pay for the previous debt, and who knows how high that would be, but even at a very conservative 30 trillion dollars, we could have reduced our military spending by just a third and have very little debt, if any.
Go ahead with your little rationalization. I'm sure I'll have heard it before.
Do you really think America has only been spending money on the military since 2008? You know, it's really tough to argue with people whose memories only last an election cycle.
Do you know what happens when you lower taxes for the wealthy at the same time you start two foreign wars? The economics of this are so basic that it's ridiculous to have to explain further. As McCain would say, before his opinions were no longer allowed by his new campaign managers: "The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction,"
Here's fifty years of military waste, presented in video form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVUQIwb-iM
The difference is that American society has been led to believe that the only form of investment that's worth anything is one with a high ROI. Infrastructure simply doesn't work that way.
Let's say you have a country with one million people, mostly concentrated in a capital city. Let's say the richest 10% of that country mostly live in the capital, and 70% of the population does as well. There is little incentive for a corporation to spend the same amount of money connecting 70% of the population on connecting the other 30%. The ROI is too low.
Furthermore, they have little incentive to provide a reasonable price to everyone, instead of a high price to the richest 10% who can afford it, and a middle price to the top two quintiles of income, and just forget about the rest. If this were just some luxury product, this is all to be expected, and not exactly harmful to the economy at large. Have a look at any South American country that was forced to follow these stupid rules: a two tier economy, with the top doing extremely well, and 90% wallowing in poverty with little access to infrastructure to help them get out.
When it comes to infrastructure, privatization is the quickest way to destroy an advancing economy. What if lobbyists decided in the 30s that electrification was a luxury? Or decided that a national road system was a luxury? Without widespread and reliable infrastructure, you simply have no foundation for a good economy. If I want to open a business, the first thing I'm going to look for is the place that has the best infrastructure for it: ports, railroads, reliable electric grid, and of course, a population that can actually do the work.
In 30 years, if the libertarian pretenders have their way, America will have a lopsided two tier economy, degraded infrastructure, and perhaps less public debt. But not one of the corporations is going to give a shit about the debt. They're going to take one look at our uneducated population, poor internet connectivity, unreliable coal-fired electric grid, and oil-dependent transportation network, and ask if we're willing to work for Ugandan wages, because the Chinese middle class is looking for a new textile manufacturing base.
Approximately 70% of the American population lives in 1% of it's landmass, which I believe is about 100 metro areas. We are not a rural nation, and haven't been for some time. (Here's an article that says 80% of the population lives within metro areas.)
Norway and Sweden have similar population clusters and sparse country areas, and they have near universal broadband coverage, both wired and wireless. The difference is that they spend more money on investing in infrastructure and less on maintaining an overseas empire and a police state.
As far as average population density, America has 83 people per square mile, Norway has 32 per square mile, and Sweden has 53 per square mile.
It's a failure of vision, investment, and will. It has nothing to do with population density.
It's one of those in-jokes that will cause you to blend ennui with joy at the thought of your existence at this particular moment in time...
This is something you can squarely blame on MBA programs. They emphasize "thinking outside the box" but the important part about brainstorming is throwing away all the crappy ideas you just had and being able to keep the good ones.
Just about every business model/decision that has you thinking "What the fuck?" can be traced back to brainstorming that wasn't followed with any constructive criticism.
Bubba knew all there was to know about the movie business...
"There's dumb fucks, stupid fucks, lying fucks, stealing fucks, lawyer fucks, producer fucks, and they're all trying to fuck you out of your ideas and passion. And that's... that's about it."
As cliche as it sounds, it's all about what works best for you.
I totally agree. I've been vocal about the shortcomings about Windows and Linux (no Quickbooks alternative!?) for a depressing amount of time. Though I wouldn't exactly put Windows in the "substandard OS" category if I wasn't throwing OS X and Linux in the same box as well.
The issue I have with Apple is that the pride has turned to arrogance. Now you're buying "magical and revolutionary devices" that "change the world" and people are actually believing the bullshit. I mean, their phones suck at making phone calls, but good news! You can edit movies instead. And if video chat is a revolution, don't tell the Japanese consumers who have been doing it for years. Or anyone who's used Skype.
I guess it taps into the same disappointment I have with people in general when it comes to propaganda. But maybe the only thing worse than someone who thinks a phone or an iPod Touch XL is going to change their life is the guy with so much free time he decides to complain publicly about it...
As everybody knows, Apple is just another company and pursues open standards when it suits them. They favor closed ecosystems, censorship, top-down control, and form over function.
If you want to open yourself up to legal liability for running the software of your choice on your own hardware, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay 200% markup on parts for your computer, or for hard drives for your server farm, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay extra for dismal 3D application performance, Apple is the company for you.
And if you want to develop brand loyalty for an organization whose primary purpose is profit - and be admired for such an empty gesture - my friends, there is no better choice than Apple.
I don't know. Let's call some ancient English professor and see if shortening "the cellphone microscope" to "the microscope" later in the same paragraph qualifies it for points off in some imaginary thesis.
I imagine his response would be, "Well, if your audience is incapable of reading comprehension for more than a few sentences, I wouldn't bother in the first place."
Isn't that an update nearly every 20 seconds? How fast do people need to see that you're currently wiping your butt?
It seems you have forgotten how full of shit the average Twit is.
He's probably referring to that specific microscope at that particular cost.
Kidney dialysis machines that are $100,000: great if you live in the west. Kidney dialysis machines that are $1,000: great if you live anywhere.
I don't know, maybe you just have a different definition for safe chemicals. I consider safe something that I don't need gloves to touch, or a Hazmat team to clean up if there's an accident. I guess those dumbasses at MIT are trying to get rid of all of the devices that contain mercury - including sphygmomanometers - because they just like to waste time and money.
It's cool, though. I know how you really feel about anyone who doesn't cuddle with toxic metals.
Let's help the environment by killing all of the environmentalists. How much carbon is generated by bloviating environmentalists spewing FUD by publishing badly flawed studies such as this one? It has to be in the megatons. By reducing the carbon footprints of all environmentalists to zero we could reduce energy consumption, carbon-dioxide production and we'd have fewer annoying fucks to deal with.
by multiplexo on Monday January 12 2009, @12:22AM (#26413305)
Okay, I fucked up. And you know, I learned something today: Pepsi is the choice of a new generation.
https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/96252.htm
Danger! Corrosive. Harmful if inhaled. May be absorbed through intact skin. Causes eye and skin irritation and possible burns. May cause severe respiratory tract irritation with possible burns. May cause severe digestive tract irritation with possible burns. May cause liver and kidney damage. May cause central nervous system effects. This substance has caused adverse reproductive and fetal effects in animals. Inhalation of fumes may cause metal-fume fever. Possible sensitizer.
Target Organs: Blood, kidneys, central nervous system, liver, brain.
Just ignore that. Go play with some, preferably in the room where you sleep.
2. the sun dumps all kinds of EM on everything.
This is where critical thinking comes in handy. I don't think any serious scientist will suggest that plants are not well adjusted to EM radiation from the sun.
As far as "nothing noticed so far," I imagine that was the same phrase they used when they were handling raw mercury without protection in science labs not too long ago. Ignorance is no substitute for reality.
Remember, Louis Pasteur only finally disproved the theory of spontaneous generation with a simple experiment involving meat broth and a long necked decanter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
There's no reason to doubt that the certain frequencies we consider harmless are in fact slowly destroying delicate parts of our biosphere. We're the same scientists who didn't think lead paint or asbestos were a problem, and discovered germ theory only a short time ago. The article itself is not sensational, and even the DIY scientist is modest in her conclusions.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/grammartiplessorfewer
Less is also used with numbers when they are on their own and with expressions of measurement or time, e.g.:
His weight fell from 18 stone to less than 12.
Their marriage lasted less than two years.
Heath Square is less than four miles away from Dublin city centre
And since you're in marketing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
Listen, when your marketing literally states that you are "changing the world" with your phone, and apparently you didn't properly engineer the antenna, your customers are going to complain bitterly. And then everyone who realizes that Apple is just Microsoft with better industrial designers and better marketing are going to laugh at the brand loyalists who got bitten again because Apple favors form over function.
It's really not more complicated than that.
As the Afghan way of life seems to be based on intolerance, blood feuds, petty local dictatorships, the oppression of women and other such charming traditions, I am not overly impressed by their right to keep it.
And in what ways is this any different from the American way of life in the 1800s? Do you think it would have helped if Spain had somehow won the war and forced their way of life on us at the turn of the century?
If the WSJ supported everything that could make a profit, they already would be supporting it.
Not until AGW is more profitable than all non carbon neutral industries combined. Which is to say, probably until it's far too late.
What's your point?
That the earth is warming? I think it's a pretty simple premise to start from, given the data. Then we can move on to things like, will there be enough water in the new climate? If no, can we take steps to reduce it's effects? Should we begin slowly migrating away from the coast instead of waiting until it's too late to rebuild the infrastructure?
Or to translate it into American political terms, how can I take away your god-given right to limitless natural resources and destroy your dignity by making you pay the true costs for what you consume?