Ad hominems are a poor rebuttal to a good argument: it's better for a kid to learn something advanced and intellectually stimulating instead of the rudiments of an immature operating system. Giving a kid a half-broken chemistry set may have the opposite effect you intend.
There is a saying, nothing can get between a 14 yr old and a bucket of porn...
it's hard enough to stumble across regular porn if you're not looking for it.
Cue the backpedalling...
Secondly, your using the same "think of the children" logical fallacy, viewing rape makes rapists
Viewing any amount of violence can lead to desensitization, emulation, and regular exposure can lead to PTSD and other unfortunate effects. That's why you said
seeing a rape video would disturb the crap out of me at the age of 30.
Teaching your children about the dangers of consuming graphic violence and blocking access to it are certainly the best ways of taking care of them. It's like having a gun safe and a gun safety class. I know, it's a nuanced position completely outside of your comprehension, but that's one of the reasons you don't have children. (Lack of attempted procreation aside.)
Please don't breed, I'd hate to see the adult you'd bring into this world.
I helped raise my two sisters. One is studying to be a nurse, the other is a special needs teacher. But I'll let them know some random thoughtless cunt from the internet had something to say about their upbringing. It'll give them a chuckle.
Now a child would absolutely hate having to assemble their own computer from scratch, learn how to install an OS, drivers and what not. I mean there was this Danish plastics manufacture who went bankrupt, they only made little plastic bricks
The interest maintained in spatial reasoning by small children has little to do with being unable to use a computer because it has piss poor fundamentals. I guess twenty years ago you'd be teaching your kids on an Altair and telling them the blinking lights were for their own good; never mind KidPix or those stupid GUI operating systems.
It's just like getting them interested in painting. Take them out to pasture, harvest the horse hair, cut down a tree, whittle a paintbrush, traverse the countryside in horse and buggy (just like the good old days!) and then a few months later, when you've finally procured all of the necessary pigments, properly mixed them, fashioned your own paper with your home-built mill and pulp processor, you child will truly understand the creativity of painting. And anyone else who picked up a water color set at the shop; why, they're just ill equipping their kids for the real world! Stunting their creative potential with short cuts and technology!
Hey mikey, why weren't you on IM earlier? Oh, you wanted to watch a flash video but the new ATI driver totally hosed your xorg.conf and you spent the whole afternoon trying to rollback the driver, even though the open one totally sucks, huh? Well, I learned some more python and watched some more TED talks. Chat ya tomorrow! I mean, if you can get a GUI working again!
The commodore 64 wasn't open source. It did come with dev tools. All of the nonsense about freedom is empty rhetoric, which fails to disguise the immature state of GUI development on Linux. It's really close, but close isn't good enough. It's not going to matter what platform you choose, really - the next generation of great programmers will make do with whatever platform they're given. But I have some good guesses on who will get more chances to get some programming done instead of fussing with incomplete and immature standards.
And I'm sorry, "good parenting" cannot change the fact that you can get any information at all on the internet. I don't care what sort of talk you give your 14 year old, if he stumbles upon simulated rape porn. He's being damaged emotionally, and exposed to subjects he should never encounter in his entire life. If a parent wants to give their kids WikiPedia and not HentaiRapeFestival, that's their business.
PS: A hint on the jokes: for people to get'em, they have to be funny. It's an important prerequisite.
After they become Mac fanboys they'll become dependent on the OS doing their thinking for them and recognise that the restrictions placed on them by their own computers is for their own good.
You can talk shit when GNU/Hurd is finished. Until then, leave the adults alone while they get work done.
Buying a Mac is going to be way cheaper than dealing with viruses on Windows or trying to learn being a Sysadmin on Linux. Buy Mac Minis and cheap monitors/keyboards/mice or pick up a used MacBook or iMac. Look for something that has the extended warranty - hardware failures will be repaired for free. You could even consider getting them an iPad with a keyboard, and only installing the applications you want them to use.
Just keep a local account on each system with a password that they REALLY don't know, create their accounts with the instructions provided above, and you're done. For extra protection, have someone write a script for you that sends an e-mail every time the Administrator account logs in, so you can know if they have figured it out.
Also, don't bother with virus protection. Weekly backups and nightly syncing their documents is a much more realistic and effective option. Pick up a Time Capsule and their computers will backup automatically. Just make sure you restrict their hard drive quota so all of their information will fit.
"Balance of power" during the Cold War consisted of the Soviet Union arming and funding communist insurgencies, coups and outright invasions, and the US desperately trying to contain the spread, until around 1980.
Oooh! Scarrry communists! They're teaching children to read in Nicaragua and kicking out our corporations in El Salvador! Quick, someone rape and kill some nuns!For freedom!
By the way, if you're afraid of the Nicaraguan Army, you're a coward.
Negotiation with a sovereign nation with an elected government is quite different from dictating to a puppet regime that came to power in a coup.
Your best evidence is that the Ford administration and subsequent administrations are guilty of not caring enough about East Timor. Not caring enough does not equal support.
SUHARTO: I would like to speak to you, Mr. President, about another problem, Timor... in the latest Rome Agreement the Portuguese government wanted to invite all parties to negotiate... Fretelin has declared it's independence unilaterally... if this continues it will prolong the suffering of the refugees and increase the instability in the area... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.
FORD: We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.
KISSINGER: You appreciate that the use of US made arms could create problems... It depends on how we construe it, whether it is in self interest or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly, we would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. This may be there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorized way... We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.
FORD: It would be more authoritative if we can do it in person...
KISSINGER: If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home.
There's a cable called "Plans for Indonesian Invasion of East Timor" that is still classified which Kissinger received before this conversation occurred.
A more appropriate spectrum would be 'totalitarianism' and 'freedom', with people like me coming down on the side of 'freedom', and "leftists" like Chomsky coming down on the side of totalitarianism.
You're an apologist for depraved violence as long as the person holding the gun is wrapped in an American flag and saying some nice words that you don't really comprehend. The only difference between you and a sovi
Remove government setting of interest rates, remove government distortion of lending markets though things like FHA loan guarantees, Freddie and Fannie, student loan guarantees, FDIC insuranc, etc, etc, and you won't need the regulations.
Banking crises before regulations, FDIC, The Fed, Glass Steagall:
Panic of 1819, a U.S. recession with bank failures; culmination of U.S.'s first boom-to-bust economic cycle Panic of 1837, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 5-year depression Panic of 1857, a U.S. recession with bank failures Panic of 1873, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 4-year depression Panic of 1893, a U.S. recession with bank failures The Great Depression
Banking crises after regulations, FDIC, The Fed, Glass Steagall:
Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S. (which came after deregulation)
Fannie and Freddie were originated in the 30s and expanded in the 70s. FHA insurance was created in the 30s and strengthened in the 70s. The current banking crises began with the bubble that started with the internet bubble, and was sustained through 2008 by "irrational exuberance" and a completely deregulated banking environment.
Oh yes, because they know what they are talking about. They pointed out the obviousness of the coming inevitable crash in the US economy in 2002, right? And saw through the bubble building low interest rates? Right???
The point is that when Forbes is running opinion columns called "Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed" then you should be paying attention.
Because there has to be a relatively uncorrupted third party to enforce contracts for a market to function properly. That's why strong governments dominate economically worldwide. When a government is unable to enforce it's own laws, either by lack of power or by corruption of it's governing body, it's called a failed state.
If there are no rules than there can be no coherent markets, since it has the same incentive structure as a casino. Put your money in Blue Chips! Sometimes, you get your money back!
Well yes, you do need government regulation if the government intentionally fucks over the market correction.
If Glass Steagall had been left intact, there would be nothing to correct. It kept the markets from crashing for well over 70 years, because it forced financial institutions to remain too small to get bailed out. Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions led to the Savings and Loan Crisis. Deregulation of the banks - The Financial Services Act of 1999 - led to the conditions that make the banks to big to fail.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed - Forbes.com
To paraphrase Churchill, capitalist market economies open to trade and financial flows may be the worst economic regime--apart from the alternatives. However, while this crisis does not imply the end of market-economy capitalism, it has shown the failure of a particular model of capitalism. Namely, the laissez-faire, unregulated (or aggressively deregulated), Wild West model of free market capitalism with lack of prudential regulation, supervision of financial markets and proper provision of public goods by governments.
There is the failure of ideas--such as the "efficient market hypothesis," which deluded its believers about the absence of market failures such as asset bubbles; the "rational expectations" paradigm that clashes with the insights of behavioral economics and finance; and the "self-regulation of markets and institutions" that clashes with the classical agency problems in corporate governance--that are themselves exacerbated in financial companies by the greater degree of asymmetric information. For example, how can a chief executive or a board monitor the risk taking of thousands of separate profit and loss accounts? Then there are the distortions of compensation paid to bankers and traders.
This crisis also shows the failure of ideas such as the one that securitization will reduce systemic risk rather than actually increase it. That risk can be properly priced when the opacity and lack of transparency of financial firms and new instruments leads to unpriceable uncertainty rather than priceable risk.
The rules of accountability only apply to people who don't have any money. Every middle class American needs to accept responsibility for their actions, even if they are victims of simple misfortune.
Banks and corporations play by a different set of rules. They make big bets, pay themselves billions in bonuses for providing the illusion of profit, and then walk away without a slap on the wrist when the illusion collapses. I think today this is referred to as a "free" market. But the costs are indeed very high.
Did you know you cannot even compel a credit agency to produce the documentation proving that you owe the claimed debt? Verification involves them contacting the party reporting the debt, saying "This guy owes money, right?" When they reply in the affirmative, that's called "verified."
Financial regulations in the United States are practically non-existent. The reason for uncertainty in our markets has nothing to do with government regulations - it has to do with the total lack of accountability and transparency required. Every five years the scheisters are exposed, and the markets collapse, because everyone - Wall Street, the credit rating agencies, and of course the companies themselves - are in on the take.
The ' persons protected ' by the Convention are the wounded and sick, as defined in Article 13 , and medical personnel and chaplains, as defined in Articles 24 to 26...
' Wilful killing ' covers all cases in which the wounded or sick are put to death without any resistance on their part. It also covers any attempts on the life of medical personnel or chaplains, whether serving with their country's forces or when captured or retained by the enemy to care for prisoners...
' Wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. ' This phrase is intented to cover acts which, without amounting to "torture or inhuman treatment", are liable to affect the physique or health of wounded or sick persons, medical personnel or chaplains. We might take as an example the mutilation of the wounded or their exposure to useless and unnecessary suffering...
' Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ' This definition covers, in particular, cases of destruction of buildings or material belonging to enemy medical units, in violation, for example, of Article 33, paragraph 3
You're way out in left field, and no one is playing baseball.
If you still don't get it, I have to request that you don't breed.
I'll sleep soundly knowing that requesting the same from you would carry assumptions that are very unlikely.
Upton Sinclair was a socialist who wanted a socialist movement in America, and wrote the book to those ends.
Hey, you read something! Too bad it was after the fact.
It's said that there is even a report by the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Husbandry that offered a point-by-point refutation of Sinclair's more outrageous claims... though it seems to have been buried by history, probably for political incorrectness
Speaking of propaganda...
The abolition of slavery and freedom of speech were won with war - Civil and Revolutionary.
So, the principles the army fought for had no prior history as popular movements? I guess the abolitionists and tea partiers and revolutionaries demanding the right to self-rule were just coincidental precursors.
Now try to use your vote to change the shitty treatment you get at the DMV, or remedy the essential seizure of your property because some "endangered" microscopic shrimp were found in a mud puddle. I wonder how voting is working out for Krister Evertson.
The federal government oversteps its bounds all the time. It's a flawed human institution, and will always be so. Krister had ten metric tons of sodium metal stored improperly, according to the government. It looks like he got the book thrown at him, and that is unjust, especially since there was no damage to the environment - just the potential. However, it's not unique to governments. Abuses of power occur in the Catholic Church, in corporations, and anywhere humans are. I personally don't like centralized federal governments, but I recognize their necessity for keeping state and local justice systems in line.
Of course, if your health insurance provider does deny a claim, you can pay for the procedure yourself without being shot, unlike in Canada.
Using data culled from California's Department of Managed Care’s Web site, the CNA said it found that the state's five largest insurers rejected 31.2 million claims for care from 2002 through June of this year. According to the nurses’ union, PacificCare denied the largest percentage of claims (40 percent), followed by Cigna (33 percent), HealthNet (30 percent) and Kaiser (29 percent).
The freedom to pay $100,000 to save your newborn infant's life, due to BCBS denying coverage due to preexisting conditions - even though one of the parents had BCBS - is not something I'd be proud of.
I was unable to find any news articles on Canadians getting shot for paying for medical procedures.
Over what?
Over anything they want which you possess.
Damaging private property is already covered by common law.
And if a company sucks the aquifer dry that used to supply your farm with water, how are you going to pursue legal recourse? Is the court local and regularly bribed by the company?
Ordinary people don't receive services from Blackwater. Blackwater caters to governments, and is therefore responsive to their needs, not the needs of ordinary people. Why don't you try giving us a relevant example?
The answer is in a question: How much are you willing to pay for electricity? How much are you willing to pay for running water? How much are you willing to pay to access the roads you use in order to get to work?
If those services were privatized, please explain how the prices would go down.
The ONLY thing I claimed was that your statement (paraphrased) "the geneva conventions clearly state that killing is illegal.", was false.
I said, "The Geneva Conventions clearly delineate willful killing as a grave breach of the agreement."
Google search: legal definition willful, first result:
There is no precise definition of the term willful because its meaning largely depends on the context in which it appears. It generally signifies a sense of the intentional as opposed to the inadvertent, the deliberate as opposed to the unplanned, and the voluntary as opposed to the compelled. After centuries of court cases, it has no single meaning, whether as an adjective (willful) or an adverb (willfully)....
A willful violation, for example, may mean a deliberate intent to violate the law, an intent to perform an act that the law forbids, an intent to refrain from performing an act that the law requires, an indifference to whether or not action or inaction violates the law, or some other variant.
You could have argued that the action was not willful in a legal sense, but you didn't understand what the word willful meant. Instead, you are trying to deny the clear language of Article 50:
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment
Again, meditate on this one bit of text for a few years: "not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly". That is the text you are ignoring, so that is the text you need to focus on.
That's the text I bolded. There's no military necessity to open fire on people who are not engaged in hostile action, and certainly none to open fire on a van that pulls up and tries to help the wounded. You yourself said, "does not indiscriminately harm non-combatants." The difference is that you think the troops should be able to label anyone a combatant and then kill them just by claiming they are hostile when that's obviously not the case. If all the men in the video were hostile, they wouldn't be milling around on a street corner. They would be taking cover and returning fire.
The problem when you ignore the rules of engagement, and fail to verify the threat before you eliminate it, is that you end up killing a lot of innocent people. In this case, it was two Reuters employes and anyone unfortunate enough to be near camera equipment, and a good Samaritan and his two daughters, though the two girls thankfully survived.
Restraint of force is a primary component if you're trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals. Recently I read this story:
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from General McChrystal seeking to reduce the killing of innocents. The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate — a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation...
“There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents,” Sergeant Major Hall told troops during the videoconference. “Every time there is an escalation of force we are finding that innocents are being killed.”
I hope you learned something, because I'm bored with you now.
I have already learned that there are an endless supply of apologists for American power who are unable to grasp basic moral concepts. And in your case, ill prepared, unread, and sadly typical.
So, if you are thinking about planning to be a "hero", consider very carefully the total result of your actions. For my part, I will remind you that thoughtcrime is punishable by death. The Party is the only entity capable of discerning what the truth is, or what it was, or who indeed should know it.
Sincerely, Citizen O'Brien Inner Party
WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE. WHO CONTROLS THE PRESENT CONTROLS THE PAST.
"Guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality'. And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
FIRETHORN: You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions.
COPPONEX: The Geneva Conventions clearly delineate willful killing as a grave breach of the agreement.
YAKASHA: Clearly. It probably states that on line 1 right? "Willfully killing people is against the law." I'm still a little unclear about this though. How do wars work again?
COPPONEX: Here's the bit that states it's illegal.
YAKASHA: Stating "It is unlawful to willfully kill somebody" is a misquote, a lie, or insanely stupid.
GENEVA CONVENTIONS: Article 49
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those provided by Article 105 and those following, of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949.
Art. 50. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
If you simply don't believe that the Geneva Conventions apply, that's one way to justify their reckless behavior. Morally contemptible, but I doubt that bothers you in the slightest.
Don't worry comrade. I'm sure the other members of the party will reward your unswerving support of our military, in all of her righteous activities across the globe to defend this great nation from the saboteurs and terrorists that seek her destruction. I will let you know next week who's on the list.
The USSR. After 1945, wherever there was a war, if it wasn't started by the USSR backing communist insurgency or outright conquest, it was there pouring fuel on the fire.
Wow. Just wow. You may want to slow down on those daily viewings of Red Dawn. I think everyone can understand certain cold war moves in terms of balance of power, but I doubt you have any particular understanding on anything that happened before 1980.
That is manifestly not how "we" are "running" Afghanistan and Iraq. Both nations are sovereign, and both have our enemies in power.
So, as long as the Soviets said Afghanistan was a sovereign nation whose government requested their help - which they did - then the military presence had no effect on their government? That's a wonderful bit of fantasy. Is that why the White House was negotiating with the government of Iraq on how long US troops would stay in 2008? Why wasn't Iraq allowed to hire Iraqi contractors to rebuild the country instead of western companies that are much more expensive?
What happened in East Timor most certainly wasn't supported by the US.
Once again, you are a liar.
The Archive's postings reveal a consistent pattern by successive U.S. administrations - stretching over twenty-five years - of subordinating East Timor's right to self-determination to its relations with Indonesia. They also demonstrate that Washington realized Indonesia's intention of taking East Timor by force far earlier than previously recognized, was aware of - and discounted or suppressed - credible reports of ongoing Indonesian atrocities from 1975 to 1983, turned a blind eye to the extensive use of U.S. weapons in East Timor, and through 1999 viewed the crisis in East Timor primarily as a distraction from its priority of maintaining close relations with the Indonesian government and armed forces. (Since this briefing book overlaps with the Archive's previous document release on East Timor, readers are encouraged to consult that briefing book for more background on the Portuguese revolution, the decolonization of East Timor, the period immediately surrounding the invasion of East Timor and other essential material) Among the revelations in these documents:
notice how the left wasn't complaining
You fail to notice that there is no "left" or "right" - those are just labels in your head. However, having judged you by your words, I can say that you're a spurious and ill informed person, and you lack the capacity to place the most basic information in context. And sadly, you can't even bring yourself to consider being critical of the place where you were born. I would like to say that I don't need to draw the obvious parallels between yourself and the hapless shortsightedness of citizens of nations past, but I doubt you'd fucking get it otherwise.
Read before you write. Especially when it's obvious that you haven't read anything. You apparently don't know who Upton Sinclair was, or why he wrote, or the fact that people have mixed fact with fictional plot lines in order to get certain points across. I swear to God this is like arguing with someone who's illiterate.
Many of the book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906
The rending of human flesh wasn't confirmed in the report, but the meat packing companies had been cleaning up for three weeks before the on site inspection began. Here's a newspaper article from 1906 in case your dimly lit bulb is still lost at sea:
Your single vote cannot hope to change government policy.
Funny. Popular movements stopped slavery, got women and non-whites the right to vote, stopped the Vietnam War, got us the right to freedom of speech, a 40 hour workweek, overtime pay, and ended child labor. But you'd have to have the most basic understanding of labor history to understand these facts. Here's a good place to start.
Plus, you still are required to pay taxes.
Oh, fuck. News to me! I guess it's time to privatize every piece of infrastructure we have, and when all of those basic services triple in cost, we can gloat about how we don't pay any taxes. Hooray! We're winners!
With a corporation, you can refrain from buying their products, depriving them of profit.
You may literally be too dumb to argue with. Exactly how are you going to deprive your insurance company of profit when they deny your claim to life-saving procedures on technicalities? How are you going to battle Microsoft if they take you to court with a team of lawyers making $10,000 an hour? How are you going to sue the coal mine for poisoning your well if there are no environmental regulations?
Your sense of economics can only comprehend widgets and customers and buyers. What are you going to do next? Model the real estate market with a game of Monopoly?
Thus, corporations are far more responsive to their customers than anyone working for the government. Compare the service you get at McDonalds with the service you get at the DMV or the post office.
I'd rather deal with my local DMV than Comcast or AT&T or dozens of other companies. Why don't you compare the service you get from the US Military to the kind you receive from Blackwater? Alright, ten times the cost, none of the accountability! Way to go.
Likewise, go smoke some more Chomsky.
Really? Kind of a downer. I figure you would have copied a t-shirt witticism, and pretended it was your own. I guess all the kids on American Idol are just wearing graphic tees these days.
And no, we haven't "invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany"
Alright. Post the country that has us beat.
And it's meaning doesn't include "build a base for the guys you're sending to the back end of nowhere to train the local government's troops.
This is pure horse shit. Read about the Prague Spring. Basically, a satellite state of the CCCP instituted reforms that Moscow didn't like. So they threatened military force, and then used it when Czechoslovakia didn't capitulate. Once order was restored, the government forced up on the people was backed by local installations of Russian military. It's the same way England ruled India, and Rome ruled the Levant. It's the same way we run Afghanistan and Iraq, and the same reasoning behind our CIA's involvement in the overthrow of democracies the world over since the 1950s, and the same reasoning behind our newest form of empire: economic slavery. That's now the preferred option, since it costs less resources to implement. Even if there isn't a full scale invasion, the goal is always controlling the affairs of sovereign nations to further our own interests.
This is the behavior the United States uses across the world, without exception. If you have resources, you'd better give us access or else. If you don't have resources, who cares about your plight. Black africans being murdered by muslim militias? Too bad there's no oil there. Genocide in Rwanda, or by one of our allies in East Timor? Who cares. Funding oppression and censorship in Communist China? Hey, they're still shipping on time.
All of your prancing around definitions won't change the reality. You can whine about America policing the world the moment it does something for justice instead of money and power.
Nice lie you have there. I notice that the Wikipedia article says nothing of the sort.
If you've never heard of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, or about labor laws in general, I recommend an education. And, those are some direct links from the article I provided. All you have to do is click on them.
I suppose next you'll tell us "Why, you can write your congressperson!". What a joke.
With a functioning democracy you have some chance of making things change. When it's you versus an immortal fictional person that makes your yearly salary every minute, you have no chance.
You wouldn't be able to see the offshore oil rigs from the condo in the first place.
Nevermind. Go back to watching the TV. You're a lost cause.
In the last 40 years, that would be Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan
Not counting airlifts and small skirmishes:
1970s operations in Cambodia the Vietnam War
1980s El Salvador Columbia Nicaragua Panama Lebanon Grenada Honduras
1990s Persian Gulf War Yogoslav Wars Haiti
2000s Afghanistan Iraq
This list does not include foreign intervention by way of arms sales, CIA coups, or trade embargoes. And does not including the permanent deployment of 250,000 troops around the globe in over 130 countries with over 700 military bases.
The point being, you can stop and start the dates any time you like. The United States now has the most vast system of military bases in human history, and has invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany. We account for over half of all arms sales, and equal the rest of the world combined in military expenditures, despite having 3% of the population and under 3% of the landmass.
We are the empire. Any whining to the contrary is evidence of a painful amount of historical ignorance.
Please count the number of countries China has invaded in the last 3000 years.
Please count the number of countries Russia has invaded in the past 40 years.
Please count the number of countries where we have troops and military bases right now.
Please shut the fuck up.
Re:Free The iPad Of Apple Domination
on
iPad Progress Report
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· Score: 0, Troll
The warranty? You mean the multi-day wait at the "Genius Bar" or the automatic refusal to cover warranty parts because you accidentally used the product for work?
where governments are increasingly using technology to snoop on every aspect of the lives of their citizens and subjects
Fuck me. Is the PATRIOT ACT just a figment of my imagination? The difference is that America denies it is doing any packet inspection, while in other countries they admit to it. Which one do you think is more dangerous?
No you're not. Like the people that screamed about how they'd move to Canada or New Zealand in 2004 if Bush won re-election, you're going to stay right where you are and bitch some more on the Internet.
My flight out is this month. Not everyone was kidding.
Slashdot Mirror
My name is Ian, increase your medication.
Ad hominems are a poor rebuttal to a good argument: it's better for a kid to learn something advanced and intellectually stimulating instead of the rudiments of an immature operating system. Giving a kid a half-broken chemistry set may have the opposite effect you intend.
There is a saying, nothing can get between a 14 yr old and a bucket of porn...
it's hard enough to stumble across regular porn if you're not looking for it.
Cue the backpedalling...
Secondly, your using the same "think of the children" logical fallacy, viewing rape makes rapists
Viewing any amount of violence can lead to desensitization, emulation, and regular exposure can lead to PTSD and other unfortunate effects. That's why you said
seeing a rape video would disturb the crap out of me at the age of 30.
Teaching your children about the dangers of consuming graphic violence and blocking access to it are certainly the best ways of taking care of them. It's like having a gun safe and a gun safety class. I know, it's a nuanced position completely outside of your comprehension, but that's one of the reasons you don't have children. (Lack of attempted procreation aside.)
Please don't breed, I'd hate to see the adult you'd bring into this world.
I helped raise my two sisters. One is studying to be a nurse, the other is a special needs teacher. But I'll let them know some random thoughtless cunt from the internet had something to say about their upbringing. It'll give them a chuckle.
Now a child would absolutely hate having to assemble their own computer from scratch, learn how to install an OS, drivers and what not. I mean there was this Danish plastics manufacture who went bankrupt, they only made little plastic bricks
The interest maintained in spatial reasoning by small children has little to do with being unable to use a computer because it has piss poor fundamentals. I guess twenty years ago you'd be teaching your kids on an Altair and telling them the blinking lights were for their own good; never mind KidPix or those stupid GUI operating systems.
It's just like getting them interested in painting. Take them out to pasture, harvest the horse hair, cut down a tree, whittle a paintbrush, traverse the countryside in horse and buggy (just like the good old days!) and then a few months later, when you've finally procured all of the necessary pigments, properly mixed them, fashioned your own paper with your home-built mill and pulp processor, you child will truly understand the creativity of painting. And anyone else who picked up a water color set at the shop; why, they're just ill equipping their kids for the real world! Stunting their creative potential with short cuts and technology!
Hey mikey, why weren't you on IM earlier? Oh, you wanted to watch a flash video but the new ATI driver totally hosed your xorg.conf and you spent the whole afternoon trying to rollback the driver, even though the open one totally sucks, huh? Well, I learned some more python and watched some more TED talks. Chat ya tomorrow! I mean, if you can get a GUI working again!
The commodore 64 wasn't open source. It did come with dev tools. All of the nonsense about freedom is empty rhetoric, which fails to disguise the immature state of GUI development on Linux. It's really close, but close isn't good enough. It's not going to matter what platform you choose, really - the next generation of great programmers will make do with whatever platform they're given. But I have some good guesses on who will get more chances to get some programming done instead of fussing with incomplete and immature standards.
And I'm sorry, "good parenting" cannot change the fact that you can get any information at all on the internet. I don't care what sort of talk you give your 14 year old, if he stumbles upon simulated rape porn. He's being damaged emotionally, and exposed to subjects he should never encounter in his entire life. If a parent wants to give their kids WikiPedia and not HentaiRapeFestival, that's their business.
PS: A hint on the jokes: for people to get'em, they have to be funny. It's an important prerequisite.
After they become Mac fanboys they'll become dependent on the OS doing their thinking for them and recognise that the restrictions placed on them by their own computers is for their own good.
You can talk shit when GNU/Hurd is finished. Until then, leave the adults alone while they get work done.
See you in twenty years or so!
http://theappleblog.com/2009/01/13/kid-proofing-a-mac-with-parental-controls/
Buying a Mac is going to be way cheaper than dealing with viruses on Windows or trying to learn being a Sysadmin on Linux. Buy Mac Minis and cheap monitors/keyboards/mice or pick up a used MacBook or iMac. Look for something that has the extended warranty - hardware failures will be repaired for free. You could even consider getting them an iPad with a keyboard, and only installing the applications you want them to use.
Just keep a local account on each system with a password that they REALLY don't know, create their accounts with the instructions provided above, and you're done. For extra protection, have someone write a script for you that sends an e-mail every time the Administrator account logs in, so you can know if they have figured it out.
Also, don't bother with virus protection. Weekly backups and nightly syncing their documents is a much more realistic and effective option. Pick up a Time Capsule and their computers will backup automatically. Just make sure you restrict their hard drive quota so all of their information will fit.
"Balance of power" during the Cold War consisted of the Soviet Union arming and funding communist insurgencies, coups and outright invasions, and the US desperately trying to contain the spread, until around 1980.
Oooh! Scarrry communists! They're teaching children to read in Nicaragua and kicking out our corporations in El Salvador! Quick, someone rape and kill some nuns! For freedom!
By the way, if you're afraid of the Nicaraguan Army, you're a coward.
Negotiation with a sovereign nation with an elected government is quite different from dictating to a puppet regime that came to power in a coup.
Is it different from overthrowing a democracy in Iran in 1953 and installing the Shah? Or funding coups throughout central and south America and in fact, all over the world? Is it different from hand-picking Saddam Hussein to rule the Ba'ath Party, support his rise to power, removing him from the State Sponsors of Terror in order to arm him with chemical weapons, and then claim America had nothing to do with it when he stops following orders?
Your best evidence is that the Ford administration and subsequent administrations are guilty of not caring enough about East Timor. Not caring enough does not equal support.
You're a fucking liar. Again.
Here's the source document: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc4.pdf
Here's the important text:
SUHARTO: I would like to speak to you, Mr. President, about another problem, Timor... in the latest Rome Agreement the Portuguese government wanted to invite all parties to negotiate... Fretelin has declared it's independence unilaterally... if this continues it will prolong the suffering of the refugees and increase the instability in the area... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.
FORD: We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.
KISSINGER: You appreciate that the use of US made arms could create problems... It depends on how we construe it, whether it is in self interest or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly, we would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. This may be there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorized way... We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.
FORD: It would be more authoritative if we can do it in person...
KISSINGER: If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home.
There's a cable called "Plans for Indonesian Invasion of East Timor" that is still classified which Kissinger received before this conversation occurred.
A more appropriate spectrum would be 'totalitarianism' and 'freedom', with people like me coming down on the side of 'freedom', and "leftists" like Chomsky coming down on the side of totalitarianism.
You're an apologist for depraved violence as long as the person holding the gun is wrapped in an American flag and saying some nice words that you don't really comprehend. The only difference between you and a sovi
Remove government setting of interest rates, remove government distortion of lending markets though things like FHA loan guarantees, Freddie and Fannie, student loan guarantees, FDIC insuranc, etc, etc, and you won't need the regulations.
List of Banking Crises
Banking crises before regulations, FDIC, The Fed, Glass Steagall:
Panic of 1819, a U.S. recession with bank failures; culmination of U.S.'s first boom-to-bust economic cycle
Panic of 1837, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 5-year depression
Panic of 1857, a U.S. recession with bank failures
Panic of 1873, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 4-year depression
Panic of 1893, a U.S. recession with bank failures
The Great Depression
Banking crises after regulations, FDIC, The Fed, Glass Steagall:
Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S. (which came after deregulation)
Fannie and Freddie were originated in the 30s and expanded in the 70s. FHA insurance was created in the 30s and strengthened in the 70s. The current banking crises began with the bubble that started with the internet bubble, and was sustained through 2008 by "irrational exuberance" and a completely deregulated banking environment.
Oh yes, because they know what they are talking about. They pointed out the obviousness of the coming inevitable crash in the US economy in 2002, right? And saw through the bubble building low interest rates? Right???
The point is that when Forbes is running opinion columns called "Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed" then you should be paying attention.
Why does it require government regulation?
Because there has to be a relatively uncorrupted third party to enforce contracts for a market to function properly. That's why strong governments dominate economically worldwide. When a government is unable to enforce it's own laws, either by lack of power or by corruption of it's governing body, it's called a failed state.
If there are no rules than there can be no coherent markets, since it has the same incentive structure as a casino. Put your money in Blue Chips! Sometimes, you get your money back!
Well yes, you do need government regulation if the government intentionally fucks over the market correction.
If Glass Steagall had been left intact, there would be nothing to correct. It kept the markets from crashing for well over 70 years, because it forced financial institutions to remain too small to get bailed out. Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions led to the Savings and Loan Crisis. Deregulation of the banks - The Financial Services Act of 1999 - led to the conditions that make the banks to big to fail.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed - Forbes.com
To paraphrase Churchill, capitalist market economies open to trade and financial flows may be the worst economic regime--apart from the alternatives. However, while this crisis does not imply the end of market-economy capitalism, it has shown the failure of a particular model of capitalism. Namely, the laissez-faire, unregulated (or aggressively deregulated), Wild West model of free market capitalism with lack of prudential regulation, supervision of financial markets and proper provision of public goods by governments.
There is the failure of ideas--such as the "efficient market hypothesis," which deluded its believers about the absence of market failures such as asset bubbles; the "rational expectations" paradigm that clashes with the insights of behavioral economics and finance; and the "self-regulation of markets and institutions" that clashes with the classical agency problems in corporate governance--that are themselves exacerbated in financial companies by the greater degree of asymmetric information. For example, how can a chief executive or a board monitor the risk taking of thousands of separate profit and loss accounts? Then there are the distortions of compensation paid to bankers and traders.
This crisis also shows the failure of ideas such as the one that securitization will reduce systemic risk rather than actually increase it. That risk can be properly priced when the opacity and lack of transparency of financial firms and new instruments leads to unpriceable uncertainty rather than priceable risk.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/18/depression-financial-crisis-capitalism-opinions-columnists_recession_stimulus.html
The rules of accountability only apply to people who don't have any money. Every middle class American needs to accept responsibility for their actions, even if they are victims of simple misfortune.
Banks and corporations play by a different set of rules. They make big bets, pay themselves billions in bonuses for providing the illusion of profit, and then walk away without a slap on the wrist when the illusion collapses. I think today this is referred to as a "free" market. But the costs are indeed very high.
Did you know you cannot even compel a credit agency to produce the documentation proving that you owe the claimed debt? Verification involves them contacting the party reporting the debt, saying "This guy owes money, right?" When they reply in the affirmative, that's called "verified."
Financial regulations in the United States are practically non-existent. The reason for uncertainty in our markets has nothing to do with government regulations - it has to do with the total lack of accountability and transparency required. Every five years the scheisters are exposed, and the markets collapse, because everyone - Wall Street, the credit rating agencies, and of course the companies themselves - are in on the take.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/COM/365-570061?OpenDocument
The ' persons protected ' by the Convention are the wounded and sick, as defined in Article 13 , and medical personnel and chaplains, as defined in Articles 24 to 26...
' Wilful killing ' covers all cases in which the wounded or sick are put to death without any resistance on their part. It also covers any attempts on the life of medical personnel or chaplains, whether serving with their country's forces or when captured or retained by the enemy to care for prisoners...
' Wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. ' This phrase is intented to cover acts which, without amounting to "torture or inhuman treatment", are liable to affect the physique or health of wounded or sick persons, medical personnel or chaplains. We might take as an example the mutilation of the wounded or their exposure to useless and unnecessary suffering...
' Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ' This definition covers, in particular, cases of destruction of buildings or material belonging to enemy medical units, in violation, for example, of Article 33, paragraph 3
You're way out in left field, and no one is playing baseball.
If you still don't get it, I have to request that you don't breed.
I'll sleep soundly knowing that requesting the same from you would carry assumptions that are very unlikely.
Upton Sinclair was a socialist who wanted a socialist movement in America, and wrote the book to those ends.
Hey, you read something! Too bad it was after the fact.
It's said that there is even a report by the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Husbandry that offered a point-by-point refutation of Sinclair's more outrageous claims... though it seems to have been buried by history, probably for political incorrectness
Speaking of propaganda...
The abolition of slavery and freedom of speech were won with war - Civil and Revolutionary.
So, the principles the army fought for had no prior history as popular movements? I guess the abolitionists and tea partiers and revolutionaries demanding the right to self-rule were just coincidental precursors.
Now try to use your vote to change the shitty treatment you get at the DMV, or remedy the essential seizure of your property because some "endangered" microscopic shrimp were found in a mud puddle. I wonder how voting is working out for Krister Evertson.
The federal government oversteps its bounds all the time. It's a flawed human institution, and will always be so. Krister had ten metric tons of sodium metal stored improperly, according to the government. It looks like he got the book thrown at him, and that is unjust, especially since there was no damage to the environment - just the potential. However, it's not unique to governments. Abuses of power occur in the Catholic Church, in corporations, and anywhere humans are. I personally don't like centralized federal governments, but I recognize their necessity for keeping state and local justice systems in line.
Of course, if your health insurance provider does deny a claim, you can pay for the procedure yourself without being shot, unlike in Canada.
Using data culled from California's Department of Managed Care’s Web site, the CNA said it found that the state's five largest insurers rejected 31.2 million claims for care from 2002 through June of this year. According to the nurses’ union, PacificCare denied the largest percentage of claims (40 percent), followed by Cigna (33 percent), HealthNet (30 percent) and Kaiser (29 percent).
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f
The freedom to pay $100,000 to save your newborn infant's life, due to BCBS denying coverage due to preexisting conditions - even though one of the parents had BCBS - is not something I'd be proud of.
I was unable to find any news articles on Canadians getting shot for paying for medical procedures.
Over what?
Over anything they want which you possess.
Damaging private property is already covered by common law.
And if a company sucks the aquifer dry that used to supply your farm with water, how are you going to pursue legal recourse? Is the court local and regularly bribed by the company?
Ordinary people don't receive services from Blackwater. Blackwater caters to governments, and is therefore responsive to their needs, not the needs of ordinary people. Why don't you try giving us a relevant example?
The answer is in a question: How much are you willing to pay for electricity? How much are you willing to pay for running water? How much are you willing to pay to access the roads you use in order to get to work?
If those services were privatized, please explain how the prices would go down.
The ONLY thing I claimed was that your statement (paraphrased) "the geneva conventions clearly state that killing is illegal.", was false.
I said, "The Geneva Conventions clearly delineate willful killing as a grave breach of the agreement."
Google search: legal definition willful, first result:
There is no precise definition of the term willful because its meaning largely depends on the context in which it appears. It generally signifies a sense of the intentional as opposed to the inadvertent, the deliberate as opposed to the unplanned, and the voluntary as opposed to the compelled. After centuries of court cases, it has no single meaning, whether as an adjective (willful) or an adverb (willfully)....
A willful violation, for example, may mean a deliberate intent to violate the law, an intent to perform an act that the law forbids, an intent to refrain from performing an act that the law requires, an indifference to whether or not action or inaction violates the law, or some other variant.
You could have argued that the action was not willful in a legal sense, but you didn't understand what the word willful meant. Instead, you are trying to deny the clear language of Article 50:
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment
Again, meditate on this one bit of text for a few years: "not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly". That is the text you are ignoring, so that is the text you need to focus on.
That's the text I bolded. There's no military necessity to open fire on people who are not engaged in hostile action, and certainly none to open fire on a van that pulls up and tries to help the wounded. You yourself said, "does not indiscriminately harm non-combatants." The difference is that you think the troops should be able to label anyone a combatant and then kill them just by claiming they are hostile when that's obviously not the case. If all the men in the video were hostile, they wouldn't be milling around on a street corner. They would be taking cover and returning fire.
The problem when you ignore the rules of engagement, and fail to verify the threat before you eliminate it, is that you end up killing a lot of innocent people. In this case, it was two Reuters employes and anyone unfortunate enough to be near camera equipment, and a good Samaritan and his two daughters, though the two girls thankfully survived.
Restraint of force is a primary component if you're trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals. Recently I read this story:
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from General McChrystal seeking to reduce the killing of innocents. The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate — a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation...
“There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents,” Sergeant Major Hall told troops during the videoconference. “Every time there is an escalation of force we are finding that innocents are being killed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27afghan.html
I hope you learned something, because I'm bored with you now.
I have already learned that there are an endless supply of apologists for American power who are unable to grasp basic moral concepts. And in your case, ill prepared, unread, and sadly typical.
So, if you are thinking about planning to be a "hero", consider very carefully the total result of your actions. For my part, I will remind you that thoughtcrime is punishable by death. The Party is the only entity capable of discerning what the truth is, or what it was, or who indeed should know it.
Sincerely,
Citizen O'Brien
Inner Party
WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE. WHO CONTROLS THE PRESENT CONTROLS THE PAST.
What is non-factual about this ?
"Guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality'. And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879#
FIRETHORN: You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions.
COPPONEX: The Geneva Conventions clearly delineate willful killing as a grave breach of the agreement.
YAKASHA: Clearly. It probably states that on line 1 right? "Willfully killing people is against the law." I'm still a little unclear about this though. How do wars work again?
COPPONEX: Here's the bit that states it's illegal.
YAKASHA: Stating "It is unlawful to willfully kill somebody" is a misquote, a lie, or insanely stupid.
GENEVA CONVENTIONS:
Article 49
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those provided by Article 105 and those following, of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949.
Art. 50. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
If you simply don't believe that the Geneva Conventions apply, that's one way to justify their reckless behavior. Morally contemptible, but I doubt that bothers you in the slightest.
Don't worry comrade. I'm sure the other members of the party will reward your unswerving support of our military, in all of her righteous activities across the globe to defend this great nation from the saboteurs and terrorists that seek her destruction. I will let you know next week who's on the list.
Yours in Christ,
Comrade Cheney
The USSR. After 1945, wherever there was a war, if it wasn't started by the USSR backing communist insurgency or outright conquest, it was there pouring fuel on the fire.
Wow. Just wow. You may want to slow down on those daily viewings of Red Dawn. I think everyone can understand certain cold war moves in terms of balance of power, but I doubt you have any particular understanding on anything that happened before 1980.
That is manifestly not how "we" are "running" Afghanistan and Iraq. Both nations are sovereign, and both have our enemies in power.
So, as long as the Soviets said Afghanistan was a sovereign nation whose government requested their help - which they did - then the military presence had no effect on their government? That's a wonderful bit of fantasy. Is that why the White House was negotiating with the government of Iraq on how long US troops would stay in 2008? Why wasn't Iraq allowed to hire Iraqi contractors to rebuild the country instead of western companies that are much more expensive?
What happened in East Timor most certainly wasn't supported by the US.
Once again, you are a liar.
The Archive's postings reveal a consistent pattern by successive U.S. administrations - stretching over twenty-five years - of subordinating East Timor's right to self-determination to its relations with Indonesia. They also demonstrate that Washington realized Indonesia's intention of taking East Timor by force far earlier than previously recognized, was aware of - and discounted or suppressed - credible reports of ongoing Indonesian atrocities from 1975 to 1983, turned a blind eye to the extensive use of U.S. weapons in East Timor, and through 1999 viewed the crisis in East Timor primarily as a distraction from its priority of maintaining close relations with the Indonesian government and armed forces. (Since this briefing book overlaps with the Archive's previous document release on East Timor, readers are encouraged to consult that briefing book for more background on the Portuguese revolution, the decolonization of East Timor, the period immediately surrounding the invasion of East Timor and other essential material) Among the revelations in these documents:
notice how the left wasn't complaining
You fail to notice that there is no "left" or "right" - those are just labels in your head. However, having judged you by your words, I can say that you're a spurious and ill informed person, and you lack the capacity to place the most basic information in context. And sadly, you can't even bring yourself to consider being critical of the place where you were born. I would like to say that I don't need to draw the obvious parallels between yourself and the hapless shortsightedness of citizens of nations past, but I doubt you'd fucking get it otherwise.
Read before you write. Especially when it's obvious that you haven't read anything. You apparently don't know who Upton Sinclair was, or why he wrote, or the fact that people have mixed fact with fictional plot lines in order to get certain points across. I swear to God this is like arguing with someone who's illiterate.
Many of the book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
The rending of human flesh wasn't confirmed in the report, but the meat packing companies had been cleaning up for three weeks before the on site inspection began. Here's a newspaper article from 1906 in case your dimly lit bulb is still lost at sea:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19060529&id=UdAgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vWoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1292,1463035
Your single vote cannot hope to change government policy.
Funny. Popular movements stopped slavery, got women and non-whites the right to vote, stopped the Vietnam War, got us the right to freedom of speech, a 40 hour workweek, overtime pay, and ended child labor. But you'd have to have the most basic understanding of labor history to understand these facts. Here's a good place to start.
Plus, you still are required to pay taxes.
Oh, fuck. News to me! I guess it's time to privatize every piece of infrastructure we have, and when all of those basic services triple in cost, we can gloat about how we don't pay any taxes. Hooray! We're winners!
With a corporation, you can refrain from buying their products, depriving them of profit.
You may literally be too dumb to argue with. Exactly how are you going to deprive your insurance company of profit when they deny your claim to life-saving procedures on technicalities? How are you going to battle Microsoft if they take you to court with a team of lawyers making $10,000 an hour? How are you going to sue the coal mine for poisoning your well if there are no environmental regulations?
Your sense of economics can only comprehend widgets and customers and buyers. What are you going to do next? Model the real estate market with a game of Monopoly?
Thus, corporations are far more responsive to their customers than anyone working for the government. Compare the service you get at McDonalds with the service you get at the DMV or the post office.
I'd rather deal with my local DMV than Comcast or AT&T or dozens of other companies. Why don't you compare the service you get from the US Military to the kind you receive from Blackwater? Alright, ten times the cost, none of the accountability! Way to go.
Likewise, go smoke some more Chomsky.
Really? Kind of a downer. I figure you would have copied a t-shirt witticism, and pretended it was your own. I guess all the kids on American Idol are just wearing graphic tees these days.
And no, we haven't "invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany"
Alright. Post the country that has us beat.
And it's meaning doesn't include "build a base for the guys you're sending to the back end of nowhere to train the local government's troops.
This is pure horse shit. Read about the Prague Spring. Basically, a satellite state of the CCCP instituted reforms that Moscow didn't like. So they threatened military force, and then used it when Czechoslovakia didn't capitulate. Once order was restored, the government forced up on the people was backed by local installations of Russian military. It's the same way England ruled India, and Rome ruled the Levant. It's the same way we run Afghanistan and Iraq, and the same reasoning behind our CIA's involvement in the overthrow of democracies the world over since the 1950s, and the same reasoning behind our newest form of empire: economic slavery. That's now the preferred option, since it costs less resources to implement. Even if there isn't a full scale invasion, the goal is always controlling the affairs of sovereign nations to further our own interests.
This is the behavior the United States uses across the world, without exception. If you have resources, you'd better give us access or else. If you don't have resources, who cares about your plight. Black africans being murdered by muslim militias? Too bad there's no oil there. Genocide in Rwanda, or by one of our allies in East Timor? Who cares. Funding oppression and censorship in Communist China? Hey, they're still shipping on time.
All of your prancing around definitions won't change the reality. You can whine about America policing the world the moment it does something for justice instead of money and power.
Nice lie you have there. I notice that the Wikipedia article says nothing of the sort.
If you've never heard of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, or about labor laws in general, I recommend an education. And, those are some direct links from the article I provided. All you have to do is click on them.
I suppose next you'll tell us "Why, you can write your congressperson!". What a joke.
With a functioning democracy you have some chance of making things change. When it's you versus an immortal fictional person that makes your yearly salary every minute, you have no chance.
You wouldn't be able to see the offshore oil rigs from the condo in the first place.
Nevermind. Go back to watching the TV. You're a lost cause.
Please elucidate on how killing an unarmed man helping a wounded suspect is justified by military necessity.
In the last 40 years, that would be Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan
Not counting airlifts and small skirmishes:
1970s
operations in Cambodia
the Vietnam War
1980s
El Salvador
Columbia
Nicaragua
Panama
Lebanon
Grenada
Honduras
1990s
Persian Gulf War
Yogoslav Wars
Haiti
2000s
Afghanistan
Iraq
This list does not include foreign intervention by way of arms sales, CIA coups, or trade embargoes. And does not including the permanent deployment of 250,000 troops around the globe in over 130 countries with over 700 military bases.
The point being, you can stop and start the dates any time you like. The United States now has the most vast system of military bases in human history, and has invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany. We account for over half of all arms sales, and equal the rest of the world combined in military expenditures, despite having 3% of the population and under 3% of the landmass.
We are the empire. Any whining to the contrary is evidence of a painful amount of historical ignorance.
Please count the number of countries China has invaded in the last 3000 years.
Please count the number of countries Russia has invaded in the past 40 years.
Please count the number of countries where we have troops and military bases right now.
Please shut the fuck up.
The warranty? You mean the multi-day wait at the "Genius Bar" or the automatic refusal to cover warranty parts because you accidentally used the product for work?
But hey man, Garage Band clinics are free!
where governments are increasingly using technology to snoop on every aspect of the lives of their citizens and subjects
Fuck me. Is the PATRIOT ACT just a figment of my imagination? The difference is that America denies it is doing any packet inspection, while in other countries they admit to it. Which one do you think is more dangerous?
No you're not. Like the people that screamed about how they'd move to Canada or New Zealand in 2004 if Bush won re-election, you're going to stay right where you are and bitch some more on the Internet.
My flight out is this month. Not everyone was kidding.