I have noting against the PDF standard - but when I view PDF files on my Mac, I set up Preview as the default application because, frankly, Preview can open a PDF file an order of magnitude faster. As a simple file-viewer, Acrobat makes PDF's the 2nd to last choice for convenience (with MS Word being the last choice, of course).
Passive-aggressive tendencies in one or the other partner yield the situation of: "I shouldn't have to tell him/her I'm mad at him/her, he/she should be sensitive enough to my needs to KNOW it without me saying anything." . . . and of course, that causes resentment to build, possibly on both sides. There's got to be communication, even if it's bad news. And it's a two way street - one partner has to be willing to tell the bad news, and the other partner has to be accessible to listen to it, and accept it, or whatever.
The biggest problem I have in my marriage is that my wife thinks I work too much, and my boss thinks I work too little (~45 hrs/wk). The problem is, in my situation, I don't have a lot of choice employment-wise, if I were to lose this job. No matter what a person's employment situation is, the answer can't always be: go look for another job. The choice is: work the job you have, or be homeless. When a spouse can't accept that, and gets selfish, or needy, or takes overtime as a personal affront, then that's a difficult problem.
Yes, you can't put your job ahead of your spouse - on the other hand, neglecting your job altogether is not an option either. There has to be some middle ground. This is the hardest task for me. After 14 years, it hasn't gotten any easier. A man HAS to work to support his family.
I don't think it makes sense to drop 500 (or 1000) tons of explosives in a hole, blowing it up and pretending it to be a nuke. Such a small explosion would certainly give the idea of a fizzle, showing that NK does not have weapons yet (since the "prototype" failed). It would also show that a nuclear capability is imminent, so everyone interested would be acting to prevent that.
If Kim's aim is Nuclear Blackmail - a "fizzle" does lend more credibility than no test at all.
On the other hand, it's possible that it was a conventional-fake, AND a fizzle. They may have loaded their tunnel with much more explosives, intending to create the impression of a much larger blast, and maybe something went wrong. Conventional explosions also fizzle from time to time, perhaps due to the physical configuration of the tunnel, enough rock was displaced in the initial detonation that the blast wave could not propagate to all of the explosives (maybe stacked in side-tunnels, etc.).
If it was a fake - yes, it makes no sense to intentionally make the blast this low yield.
In Kim's case - most analysts seem to think that more than anything else, Kim's aim here is to provoke a response. They want the international community to give them something in return for sign-on to nuclear non-proliferation. It's also possible that he's trying to keep a certain segment of his domestic population appeased as well, and from a propaganda perspective, they can get the message out that they had a successful nuke test, and anyone who claims it was a fake, or a failure, is just a liar. Inside NK, they have enough control over the media to enforce that.
Either Sturgeon disappeared her, or she disappeared herself, with the money.
If the latter was the case, she did a good job of making herself look dead, with the abandoned car, and the groceries.
If what Reiser is alleging is true, it would really suck for him to end up going to jail (or getting executed) for essentially being a victim in an extortion/love triangle.
Holy crap - this is one seriously fucked up story. . . Had I not already responded to other posts in this thread, I would have modded you up.
Synopsys: Reiser alleges that Sean Sturgeon drugged his wife, seduced her, practiced BDSM on her, then loaned a bunch of money to namesys, which SHE then spent, and then Sturgeon attempted to extort the company from him, via legal threats, and threats of violence.
A US Company (Rumsfeld was a senior director at the time) sold nuclear power plant technology to NK in 2000.
The US Sold Israel cluster munitions, under the auspices of an agreement not to use them in civilian areas. In the last 4 days of the recent conflict, Israel dropped hundreds of thousands of these (about 30% of which remain unexploded, as "unintentional mines") throughout civilian areas of Southern Lebanon.
The US is the world's largest arms dealer.
More death, chaos, and destruction results from American arms sales than any other country in the world. With Russia and China a close second - given their massive exports of AK-47's (not to mention the bulk quantities of Chinese Machetes sold to Rwanda in the early 1990's in preparation for the massacre).
Am I worried about NK nuclear arms proliferation? Yes. But if we eliminated that - there'd still be just as much reason to fear.
A "dud" (or partial) sounds consistent with everything else we know.
We know that it's probably a plutonium device (using processed fuel from a reactor that had been secured and monitored until they kicked out the inspectors).
A plutonium device is an implosion device, and implosion devices are usually much harder to get right the first time (hence the need for testing).
To keep things in perspective - they're still a long way from being able to put an operationally reliable device on an operationally reliable ICBM.
um. Hate to disappoint you, but in at least one conversation he discussed going to his house so he wouldn't get caught providing the minor with alcohol. So yes, that was very much law-breaking. Additionally, of course, he was breaking the law he himself wrote, which applies to minors under 18, not local age of consent.
Now, I suppose they could quibble with the definition of "human being", which of course, from my point of view takes us down the road employed by those who seek to dehumanize others (such as Nazis etc).
Baloney. The anti-abortionists are quibbling about the definition of "human being" - (ie. posesses a soul). The problem with - even their "infallible" scripture isn't clear. In fact, there is some language that indicates that the soul enters the body upon the first breath. There is other language that implies predestination, where you have a soul long before your parents ever had intercourse, long before the planet on which they walk was formed.
What is debated is whether its wrong to kill the human.
That's not what is debated at all. If you listen to the anti-abortionist argument, it inevitably devolves to "babies are a consequence of sex" - as in; children are God's Righteous Punishment (to women) for your evil sexual pervosity. How DARE you defy God's Law and have sex; premarital, homosexual, with animals, or even within the bounds of matrimony, for the purposes of pleasure rather than procreation? This is the root of the Abortion argument.
The argument is rather uncleverly framed as a "moral" argument, or "won't someone please think of the children!" - - when it is really about sexual control and patriarchal dominance, and "wah! I can't feel comfortable living in a society where I'm not on the winning team, and as long as those evil women over there are having sex and enjoying it, I'm not winning!"
As I demonstrated in another post, there's no clear scriptural documentation backing up the assertion that "Abortion is evil" - there's no clear scientific direction on whether Legalized Abortion is good or bad for society overall (though there's a vague guidance that there ought to be a limit on how far along in the development process can be generally acceptable - ie. we don't want to slippery-slope embryos to post-birth humans).
So while abortion is a cover for church-state separation, it's really not. It's really about Patriarchal Authoritarianism versus well, Modern Democratic Civilized Humanity.
But the folks who are in cognitive dissonance about what religion our great Founding Fathers were, and what the meaning of the Bill of Rights are (including the First Amendment), would rather try to sweep all that under the rug, and work the "emotional" angle.
Of course they've gotten all impatient lately, because the Republicans have found it handy to exploit their money and votes to get into power (notice: complete control of our government, yet no success in banning abortion).
So, instead of pressuring Republicans on substantive progress on their supposed "single issue" - they broaden the fight to things like school prayer, gay-bashing, ten commandments, etc. All proxy-fights for the role of religion in public policymaking, which really all boils down to parsing or repealing the establishment clause of the First Amendment. (they have to try "Parsing" because they're terrified of the awful truth: they don't believe in the First Amendment in particular, and Rights in general).
Given the obvious and reasonable axiom of self-ownership
Define "Self" - does a fetus have a "self"? A blastocyst?, An embryo? A sperm?
And define "ownership" - if I have a right to "own" myself, does that mean I should be able to levitate, because I have a right to defy the evil tyranny of gravity?
The principle of "self-ownership" has it's limitations.
Actually, Scientific American changed hands around 2000, and their overall quality has gone sharply downhill. I ended my subscription after 15 years in 2000. Losing Gardner's column was another serious blow.
My 1972 Volkswagen, when it was running, had over 200,000 miles on the frame, (maybe 50k on the current engine). On the other hand, I had to tweak the timing or the carb adjustment literally every other week to keep it running smoothly, and adjust the valve clearance pretty much at every oil change (3000 miles - the classic 1600cc Air Cooled VW engine has NO oil filter stock). Yes, I tinkered with it, I've swapped engines, rebuilt engines, swapped transaxles, bolted on some suspension modifications, etc.
My 2003 Volkswagen. . . I pop the hood for oil changes every 5000 miles. I expect 200,000 miles with no unscheduled maintenance, and given anaecdotes from other Jetta owners, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
On the third hand - if something DID go wrong with the 2003 VW, I'd pretty much have to take it to a shop. I own a nice set of tools, a timing light, tach/dwell meter, even a bore kit for carb jets, compression tester, and I have rebuilt the 34-pict carb blindfolded (as an exercise). But I couldn't even begin to troubleshoot a complex fuel-injection timing or turbocharger problem with the 2003 VW. Even if I had the necessary manuals, I don't have the experience or the equipment. And I would expect the equipment to run north of $10k. (though the VAG-COM serial cable and software is pretty slick - that's the exception in the industry today, not the rule).
So I'm somewhat "on the fence" as to whether I'm better off with today's cars. Definately, when one takes into account, safety features - air bags, crumple-zones, antilock brakes, more advanced suspension designs, etc. And the lower-maintenance factor is mighty convenient. But the inability to DIY (partially caused by emissions regulations - partially by IP-law profiteering) is a big minus.
Slashdot Mirror
I have noting against the PDF standard - but when I view PDF files on my Mac, I set up Preview as the default application because, frankly, Preview can open a PDF file an order of magnitude faster. As a simple file-viewer, Acrobat makes PDF's the 2nd to last choice for convenience (with MS Word being the last choice, of course).
The RNC plans to name it just "Bush".
Yeah, but a thunderstorm killed my build server this morning, including the backup drive.
Usually not superstitious.
But this Friday the 13th sucked rocks.
Too true.
Passive-aggressive tendencies in one or the other partner yield the situation of: "I shouldn't have to tell him/her I'm mad at him/her, he/she should be sensitive enough to my needs to KNOW it without me saying anything." . . . and of course, that causes resentment to build, possibly on both sides. There's got to be communication, even if it's bad news. And it's a two way street - one partner has to be willing to tell the bad news, and the other partner has to be accessible to listen to it, and accept it, or whatever.
The biggest problem I have in my marriage is that my wife thinks I work too much, and my boss thinks I work too little (~45 hrs/wk). The problem is, in my situation, I don't have a lot of choice employment-wise, if I were to lose this job. No matter what a person's employment situation is, the answer can't always be: go look for another job. The choice is: work the job you have, or be homeless. When a spouse can't accept that, and gets selfish, or needy, or takes overtime as a personal affront, then that's a difficult problem.
Yes, you can't put your job ahead of your spouse - on the other hand, neglecting your job altogether is not an option either. There has to be some middle ground. This is the hardest task for me. After 14 years, it hasn't gotten any easier. A man HAS to work to support his family.
I don't think it makes sense to drop 500 (or 1000) tons of explosives in a hole, blowing it up and pretending it to be a nuke. Such a small explosion would certainly give the idea of a fizzle, showing that NK does not have weapons yet (since the "prototype" failed). It would also show that a nuclear capability is imminent, so everyone interested would be acting to prevent that.
If Kim's aim is Nuclear Blackmail - a "fizzle" does lend more credibility than no test at all.
On the other hand, it's possible that it was a conventional-fake, AND a fizzle. They may have loaded their tunnel with much more explosives, intending to create the impression of a much larger blast, and maybe something went wrong. Conventional explosions also fizzle from time to time, perhaps due to the physical configuration of the tunnel, enough rock was displaced in the initial detonation that the blast wave could not propagate to all of the explosives (maybe stacked in side-tunnels, etc.).
If it was a fake - yes, it makes no sense to intentionally make the blast this low yield.
In Kim's case - most analysts seem to think that more than anything else, Kim's aim here is to provoke a response. They want the international community to give them something in return for sign-on to nuclear non-proliferation. It's also possible that he's trying to keep a certain segment of his domestic population appeased as well, and from a propaganda perspective, they can get the message out that they had a successful nuke test, and anyone who claims it was a fake, or a failure, is just a liar. Inside NK, they have enough control over the media to enforce that.
Sounds like a Corporal Max Klinger looking for a Section 8.
Its about how talking to dictators generally doesnt change them and actually allows them to flourish.
I guess I should stop talking to George Bush now.
Seriously though - has Bush's passive-agressive approach of "not talking" to Kim Jong Il yielded any success?
Clinton's Approach: zero NK nukes.
Bush's Approach: 4-10 nukes, one test.
Except in Vista, 99% of drivers DON'T reside and CAN NO LONGER reside in kernel space.
hm. One wonders where Mark Russinovich's FileMon filterdriver is going to reside - now that he's a Microsoft employee. . .
Either Sturgeon disappeared her, or she disappeared herself, with the money.
If the latter was the case, she did a good job of making herself look dead, with the abandoned car, and the groceries.
If what Reiser is alleging is true, it would really suck for him to end up going to jail (or getting executed) for essentially being a victim in an extortion/love triangle.
Holy crap - this is one seriously fucked up story. . .
Had I not already responded to other posts in this thread, I would have modded you up.
Synopsys:
Reiser alleges that Sean Sturgeon drugged his wife, seduced her, practiced BDSM on her, then loaned a bunch of money to namesys, which SHE then spent, and then Sturgeon attempted to extort the company from him, via legal threats, and threats of violence.
If what Reiser alleges is true, holy fuck.
hotjava was a java-based browser you could download from Sun for free, back in the 1990's.
Unfortunately, it only meets one of your criteria - the other; it was not widely used.
A Friendly Reminder:
The US Sold chemical munitions to Saddam Hussein.
A US Company (Rumsfeld was a senior director at the time) sold nuclear power plant technology to NK in 2000.
The US Sold Israel cluster munitions, under the auspices of an agreement not to use them in civilian areas. In the last 4 days of the recent conflict, Israel dropped hundreds of thousands of these (about 30% of which remain unexploded, as "unintentional mines") throughout civilian areas of Southern Lebanon.
The US is the world's largest arms dealer.
More death, chaos, and destruction results from American arms sales than any other country in the world. With Russia and China a close second - given their massive exports of AK-47's (not to mention the bulk quantities of Chinese Machetes sold to Rwanda in the early 1990's in preparation for the massacre).
Am I worried about NK nuclear arms proliferation?
Yes.
But if we eliminated that - there'd still be just as much reason to fear.
A "dud" (or partial) sounds consistent with everything else we know.
We know that it's probably a plutonium device (using processed fuel from a reactor that had been secured and monitored until they kicked out the inspectors).
A plutonium device is an implosion device, and implosion devices are usually much harder to get right the first time (hence the need for testing).
To keep things in perspective - they're still a long way from being able to put an operationally reliable device on an operationally reliable ICBM.
But this is still very bad news.
um. Hate to disappoint you, but in at least one conversation he discussed going to his house so he wouldn't get caught providing the minor with alcohol. So yes, that was very much law-breaking. Additionally, of course, he was breaking the law he himself wrote, which applies to minors under 18, not local age of consent.
Good one.
By the way, the rest of y'all? Get off my lawn!
Now, I suppose they could quibble with the definition of "human being", which of course, from my point of view takes us down the road employed by those who seek to dehumanize others (such as Nazis etc).
Baloney. The anti-abortionists are quibbling about the definition of "human being" - (ie. posesses a soul). The problem with - even their "infallible" scripture isn't clear. In fact, there is some language that indicates that the soul enters the body upon the first breath. There is other language that implies predestination, where you have a soul long before your parents ever had intercourse, long before the planet on which they walk was formed.
What is debated is whether its wrong to kill the human.
That's not what is debated at all. If you listen to the anti-abortionist argument, it inevitably devolves to "babies are a consequence of sex" - as in; children are God's Righteous Punishment (to women) for your evil sexual pervosity. How DARE you defy God's Law and have sex; premarital, homosexual, with animals, or even within the bounds of matrimony, for the purposes of pleasure rather than procreation? This is the root of the Abortion argument.
The argument is rather uncleverly framed as a "moral" argument, or "won't someone please think of the children!" - - when it is really about sexual control and patriarchal dominance, and "wah! I can't feel comfortable living in a society where I'm not on the winning team, and as long as those evil women over there are having sex and enjoying it, I'm not winning!"
As I demonstrated in another post, there's no clear scriptural documentation backing up the assertion that "Abortion is evil" - there's no clear scientific direction on whether Legalized Abortion is good or bad for society overall (though there's a vague guidance that there ought to be a limit on how far along in the development process can be generally acceptable - ie. we don't want to slippery-slope embryos to post-birth humans).
So while abortion is a cover for church-state separation, it's really not. It's really about Patriarchal Authoritarianism versus well, Modern Democratic Civilized Humanity.
Oh - we see it alright.
But the folks who are in cognitive dissonance about what religion our great Founding Fathers were, and what the meaning of the Bill of Rights are (including the First Amendment), would rather try to sweep all that under the rug, and work the "emotional" angle.
Of course they've gotten all impatient lately, because the Republicans have found it handy to exploit their money and votes to get into power (notice: complete control of our government, yet no success in banning abortion).
So, instead of pressuring Republicans on substantive progress on their supposed "single issue" - they broaden the fight to things like school prayer, gay-bashing, ten commandments, etc. All proxy-fights for the role of religion in public policymaking, which really all boils down to parsing or repealing the establishment clause of the First Amendment. (they have to try "Parsing" because they're terrified of the awful truth: they don't believe in the First Amendment in particular, and Rights in general).
Given the obvious and reasonable axiom of self-ownership
Define "Self" - does a fetus have a "self"? A blastocyst?, An embryo? A sperm?
And define "ownership" - if I have a right to "own" myself, does that mean I should be able to levitate, because I have a right to defy the evil tyranny of gravity?
The principle of "self-ownership" has it's limitations.
Actually, Scientific American changed hands around 2000, and their overall quality has gone sharply downhill. I ended my subscription after 15 years in 2000. Losing Gardner's column was another serious blow.
Foley's record or ideology isn't important.
What IS important is the FACT that House Leadership (ie. Hastert) knew about Foleys abuse of minors at least 2 years ago.
My guess is that FoxNews will report that Hastert is a Democrat when he announces his resignation.
former VW-geek. It was a short-lived obsession.
'Who would want to live out in the desert in the middle of nowhere?' I'd agree with you, but then again, the residents of Vegas might not.
1. Buy up cheap land in West Texas.
2. Bribe state govt. to legalize prostitution and gambling.
3. PROFIT!!!
Yeah, 6 of one, half-dozen of the other. . .
My 1972 Volkswagen, when it was running, had over 200,000 miles on the frame, (maybe 50k on the current engine). On the other hand, I had to tweak the timing or the carb adjustment literally every other week to keep it running smoothly, and adjust the valve clearance pretty much at every oil change (3000 miles - the classic 1600cc Air Cooled VW engine has NO oil filter stock). Yes, I tinkered with it, I've swapped engines, rebuilt engines, swapped transaxles, bolted on some suspension modifications, etc.
My 2003 Volkswagen. . . I pop the hood for oil changes every 5000 miles. I expect 200,000 miles with no unscheduled maintenance, and given anaecdotes from other Jetta owners, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
On the third hand - if something DID go wrong with the 2003 VW, I'd pretty much have to take it to a shop. I own a nice set of tools, a timing light, tach/dwell meter, even a bore kit for carb jets, compression tester, and I have rebuilt the 34-pict carb blindfolded (as an exercise). But I couldn't even begin to troubleshoot a complex fuel-injection timing or turbocharger problem with the 2003 VW. Even if I had the necessary manuals, I don't have the experience or the equipment. And I would expect the equipment to run north of $10k. (though the VAG-COM serial cable and software is pretty slick - that's the exception in the industry today, not the rule).
So I'm somewhat "on the fence" as to whether I'm better off with today's cars.
Definately, when one takes into account, safety features - air bags, crumple-zones, antilock brakes, more advanced suspension designs, etc. And the lower-maintenance factor is mighty convenient. But the inability to DIY (partially caused by emissions regulations - partially by IP-law profiteering) is a big minus.
terrorism is force against civilians for political purposes
What is fearmongering using terrorists for political purposes?
Two words:
Strobe Light.