Microsoft vice-president Lyndon Johnson was keen to point out that the first 21,000 people that MS have sent to Vietnam were not classified as salesmen, but are merely civilian "advisors".
Hey, don't you remember those photos of John Kerry holding hands with a prominent member of the House Of Saud?
Oh, what? Never mind, my mistake.
(Of course, the Right excuse the House Of Saud from criticism, because they're our favourite kind of islamofascists -- ones that will sell us all the oil we want)
I did, but it was a joke. Long before the word "software" existed, BSA stood for "Birmingham Small Arms", who made the guns that built the British Empire. Later, they branched into motorcycles, making some of the best British bikes ever.
Much as we might laugh at the BSA's (don't they make guns and motorcycles?) figures, illegal software distribution (I refuse to call it piracy until is bad for open source. Every low budget company that copies top-of-the-line software that it can't afford is the loss of another business that might be persuaded at the cost efficiency of a Free Software solution.
Look at the Mann scandal. This is what the global warming school are relying on.
I've looked at the Mann scandal. It's not scandalous. The methodology of Mann's critics were far, far dodgier than those of Mann et al. The only scandalous part about was that Mann's critics were able to generate far more uncritical publicity than their work deserved, simply because it supported the pipedreams of the Bush administration.
So you can't logically use the fact that sea level is not rising proportionally faster as the ice shelves disintegrate faster as evidence that global warming is not happening.
I know. In fact, this was precisely the point I was making.
Fact is, the ice caps aren't melting at a rate anywhere near fast enough to cause disruption to the gulf stream. To say otherwise is a blatant lie.
Peer reviewed journals have printed article after article, written by people actually in the Polar Regions, taking measurements, that say that it's quite likely that the ice caps are melting fast enough. Few climate scientists express it in the Manichean language of Greenpeace, but most people who've studied the data believe it to be a definite possibility.
Now -- excepting your regurgitation of received opinion -- where's your data?
But climate scientists are covering it up because as everyone knows, there's a lot more money to be earned scaremongering in universities than reassuring multinational oil companies that everything's just dandy.
What I meant is, global warming is not the worldwide effect people shape it up to be
While those atmospheric temperature changes (which are believed to be anthropogenic) tend to be localised, the effect of them need not be. The earth's climate is probably the most complicated non-linear system ever studied in any depth and any argument discussion of it based on global averages of anything is extremely unlikely to be very rewarding.
Antarctica goes through cycles every hundred/thousand years
It does. That's not actually a very good reason not to care about inducing a cycle artificially, and one a much shorter timescale.
There has only been a small (0.5, 1cm) rise in seawater levels
Damn, if the floating ice shelves really were melting, surely the sea-levels would rocket!
Except, you know, to the extent that Archimedes Principle says that they won't. Oh, and the fact that in the last ten years we've watched some of the largest ones in existence disintegrate.
[Off to Norway tomorrow for a conference on Ice Shelf Processes]
it doesn't change the fact that you have laws that tell people they aren't allowed to work hard
Working hard is not the same as working for a long time. There's no restriction on how hard you can work. Please don't mistake the two.
How exactly do you reconcile that with personal liberty and freedom?
Does the US have any labour laws? Yes. Do those laws constrain what employees and employers can and cannot do at work? Yes.
So, how do you reconcile, say, minimum wage legislation, with personal liberty. If I want to work for $1/hr, should I not be able to?
Theoretically yes, and yet you have a minimum wage. Why is that? Because the absence of a minumum wage makes it very easy for the wealthy to exploit to poor, and most people would agree that that exploitation is a bad thing. The Working Time Directive (on which I'm not terribly keen) performs the same function.
The minimum wage says "You cannot exploit me by paying me next to nothing". The Working Time Directive says "You cannot exploit me by making me work every hour God sends."
I have heard that the UK has a more free market style economy than France and Germany (closer to the USA's but not quite). Is that true?
Yes, that's exactly correct. We swung over to American style laissez-faire during the reigns of Margaret Thatcher and Reagan -- privatisation of state industries, some successfully (Telecoms), some disastrously (Railways) -- but successive governments since then have swung us gently back towards a more European model.
And of course, through all that time, we've had the National Health Service.
Who is creating wealth that the "common good" can live on?
Companies are. Contrary to popular opinion, capitalism can co-exist with taxation. We're not against the market forces, we just believe they can happily co-exist with a level of public welfare spending that Americans would consider "Socialism" (which, again, we're quite happy with). Without ever condoning totalitarian communism, many of us are quite happy paying higher taxes in order to ensure that the poorest members of society get a reasonable standard of living, and a reasonable standard of free health care, and reasonable public schools, and public transport. Contrary to received wisdom from the US, this does not necessarily result in either i) the utter collapse of the economy ii) forced labour camps.
Hell, even PJ O'Rourke was prepared to admit that the Swedish social model ("good socialism", in his phrase) results in a high standard of living. He contrasted this with the unrestrained free market of Albania ["bad capitalism"], Castro's Cuba ["bad socialism"] and Wall Street ["good capitalism"].
As someone much smarter than me once said: "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
PS : As an extra bonus, we also save money by not starting bogus wars every 20 years.
Good point. Also, those countries are all at different points in the economic cycle, so that statistic is particularly meaningless..
Add to that the fact that French unemployed are receive handsome benefits, whereas US unemployed do considerably less well... so high unemployment is not as great a social ill.
Man, I get tired of having to explain to American's that their socio-economic model is not the only one, and that whether it's the "best" depends entirely on what you mean by "best." What good does it do the US to have the highest GDP per capita, if most of that money is concentrated in the bank accounts of the extremely wealthy.
It's usually at this point I get called a Communist. Ho hum.
But, it's not Insightful, because the proposed EU Constitution has been rejected by the people [and, as a pro-European, even I'd have voted against that monstrosity], and will be dead within 12 months.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I did know that, which is why I described LBJ as VP. I'd've said POTUS JFK but the CEO of MS is BG3.
"Could've" is fine, and correct, and actually means something.
"I could of died", is the conditional of "I of died", which is meaningless.
Windows VC is just another name for Windows ME.
Because if you buy it, you end up looking a right Charlie.
Microsoft vice-president Lyndon Johnson was keen to point out that the first 21,000 people that MS have sent to Vietnam were not classified as salesmen, but are merely civilian "advisors".
Hey, don't you remember those photos of John Kerry holding hands with a prominent member of the House Of Saud?
Oh, what? Never mind, my mistake.
(Of course, the Right excuse the House Of Saud from criticism, because they're our favourite kind of islamofascists -- ones that will sell us all the oil we want)
I did, but it was a joke. Long before the word "software" existed, BSA stood for "Birmingham Small Arms", who made the guns that built the British Empire. Later, they branched into motorcycles, making some of the best British bikes ever.
Much as we might laugh at the BSA's (don't they make guns and motorcycles?) figures, illegal software distribution (I refuse to call it piracy until is bad for open source. Every low budget company that copies top-of-the-line software that it can't afford is the loss of another business that might be persuaded at the cost efficiency of a Free Software solution.
One slight problem: how do you distinguish between those who've done nothing illegal and those who have, if you've no idea who anyone is.
i) Climate is not weather
ii) The climate is exceedingly complex, and global warming does not mean a uniform temperature increase across the globe.
Now -- excepting your regurgitation of received opinion -- where's your data?
But climate scientists are covering it up because as everyone knows, there's a lot more money to be earned scaremongering in universities than reassuring multinational oil companies that everything's just dandy.
Incidentally, here's a groovy NASA animation of the Larsen B ice shelf breaking up and floating out to sea.
Except, you know, to the extent that Archimedes Principle says that they won't. Oh, and the fact that in the last ten years we've watched some of the largest ones in existence disintegrate.
[Off to Norway tomorrow for a conference on Ice Shelf Processes]
So, how do you reconcile, say, minimum wage legislation, with personal liberty. If I want to work for $1/hr, should I not be able to?
Theoretically yes, and yet you have a minimum wage. Why is that? Because the absence of a minumum wage makes it very easy for the wealthy to exploit to poor, and most people would agree that that exploitation is a bad thing. The Working Time Directive (on which I'm not terribly keen) performs the same function.
The minimum wage says "You cannot exploit me by paying me next to nothing".
The Working Time Directive says "You cannot exploit me by making me work every hour God sends."
We must be doing something right.
And of course, through all that time, we've had the National Health Service.
i) the utter collapse of the economy
ii) forced labour camps.
Hell, even PJ O'Rourke was prepared to admit that the Swedish social model ("good socialism", in his phrase) results in a high standard of living. He contrasted this with the unrestrained free market of Albania ["bad capitalism"], Castro's Cuba ["bad socialism"] and Wall Street ["good capitalism"].
As someone much smarter than me once said:
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
PS : As an extra bonus, we also save money by not starting bogus wars every 20 years.
Good point. Also, those countries are all at different points in the economic cycle, so that statistic is particularly meaningless..
Add to that the fact that French unemployed are receive handsome benefits, whereas US unemployed do considerably less well... so high unemployment is not as great a social ill.
Man, I get tired of having to explain to American's that their socio-economic model is not the only one, and that whether it's the "best" depends entirely on what you mean by "best." What good does it do the US to have the highest GDP per capita, if most of that money is concentrated in the bank accounts of the extremely wealthy.
It's usually at this point I get called a Communist. Ho hum.
Incidentally, UK unemployment rate: 4.6% and falling
Now, don't get me wrong, that's Funny. (+1)
But, it's not Insightful, because the proposed EU Constitution has been rejected by the people [and, as a pro-European, even I'd have voted against that monstrosity], and will be dead within 12 months.
How we differ from most Americans is that we don't believe that laissez-faire capitalism will solve all our social problems.
And lets face it, it hasn't solved America's.