I am a fan of the Patriot Act and I fucking hate the FCC, but you need to get a grip on reality. US human rights abuses pale in comparison to what China has to offer. The US has less then a thousand people locked up in Guantanamo, all of which were taken from a war zone. Abu Ghraib was against the law and the people involved are being prosecuted. The Patriot act, while managing to step on some previous legal rights (not human rights though, learn the difference), is pocket change compared to what China has.
The comparison is stupid and can't be made. That is like advocating execution for a kid who gets into a fist fight because homicidal rapist are executed. I mean, both are violent acts, right?
... and it worked. The Soviet Union was beaten by out spending it to death on weapons. After the collapse of the USSR though, the US and the western world just lost their will to continue the battle through violent or treats of violence. People are weary of cold wars, so China is getting a new treatment. The theory is that if you blast China with enough Western consumerism and culture, they will end up becoming more like the west. I think in the long term it might work, but I certainly don't see happening in the next 50 years.
This new method has its perks and its drawbacks. The perks are that we don't need to kill millions with sanctions and both countries stand to profit greatly with business relationships. The obvious drawbacks is that contact with the west means a leg up on technology, weapons, and does nothing to cause their little empire to collapse in on itself like the USSR did.
I personally have no clue if engaging China is the right thing, but I think there is not much of a choice in the matter right now. The US and the EU are the two economic powers that matter. The US is probably the only one of those two that even begins to have the will try and isolate China. Even as we speak, the EU is working on new regulations to sell arms to China. The only obstacle they are running into is France. France's objection to the new regulations are that they want less transparency so that the arms trades can be conducted in secret... so obviously the EU isn't looking going to be the moral back bone to stand up to China. The US is slightly more antagonistic, but not much more so. The US won't be selling China F-16's any time soon, especially with the distance worry that we might rumble with China over Taiwan. That said, the US likes having access to China's markets and really won't do anything to rock the boat unless absolutely necessary.
So, the short answer is that, for better or for worse, the western world simply has no desire to engage in another cold war, and a cold war is exactly what you would get if you tried to cut off China's trade.
I know some people are going to violently disagree, but I personally like it when a good game quickly gets another good game out under the same engine. KoTOR is a good example of a game I have no problem offering up seconds. So long as the story is solid and they don't lose depth, I am okay with passing up the latest technology for a second helping of something good.
I don't know about anyone else, but after I beat Half Life 2 for the second time, I was itching to play unamed rebel # 5. Nothing would make me happier then if companies brought on a few more level designers and a skilled writer or two so that they could follow up a good game with a second good game based off the same technology.
To those who say that economic capitalism leads to democracy, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath.
I should point out that China is not a capitalist's dream, and it couldn't ever even begin to be confused with laissez-faire capitalism that Americans tend try and strive towards (but by no means achieve). China is a very corrupt business environment. There is absolutely no distinction between politics and economics. The high level politicians own the economic systems and bend the laws to their own ends. I am not suggesting that there is not room scrape out some cash for multinational corporations, but don't confuse China for a big free market capitalistic love fest. China's economy is still very much owned and controlled by the state. If you do business in China, you WILL deal with both corruption and the Chinese state.
China is trying to bring in the goods of a capitalist economy while retaining totalitarian control over both society and economy. So far it has managed to do a decent, if horribly inefficient job at this, but I don't think China is going to catch up with the West, Japan, or even keep pace with India any time soon.
Star Trek is not for adults because it has superior science. Star Trek is more adult oriented for the themes it touches and, more the anything else, because it is a drama. Star Wars is not a drama, it is action/adventure head to foot. Now, that is not to say that the Star Wars universe is incapable of being a drama, but the movies most certainly are not.
The actual science of sci-fi is generally geek nitpicking. Personally, I think that any sci-fi set over 100+ years from now that doesn't have god like AIs that put all humans intellect to shame either better have a good reason or is taking liberties with technology. That said, I don't really mind it when sci-fi takes liberties with technology. The point of sci-fi is not to predict the future (though some times it tries). The point is to put characters and society into a unique position you can't have a traditional setting. It doesn't matter if that setting bends or snaps and half and spits on laws of physics.
I agree with everything you said, except for the quality of the good/evil system. If I had one complaint against KoTR it was that they did a horrible job on the dark side. Basically, I saw KoTR has always presenting three options. Good, cautiously pragmatic, stupidly evil. If in KoTR you ran across an orphanage while on the run from the law, you would have three options.
Good: Hide in the orphanage and try and help them in their plight to raise money. Cautiously pragmatic: Hide in the orphanage, but lay low and don't help them. Stupidly Evil: Burn the orphanage to the ground and kill every little boy and girl that comes out, and follow this up by feasting on their bones. Then arrange the bones to so that ships passing over head can see "P0wn3d by S1T|-|".
My problem was that they never made the 'moral' decision hard. If you played the entire game simply being as good as possible, you end up with the most money, the most experience, and never suffer a negative consequence. If you play the game 'evil', then you need to make uncountable stupid mistakes and spend the game struggling forward.
What I would have liked to of seen are tough moral choices with consequences that do not always favor doing the 'right' thing. It would be nice if you could 'fall into' the dark side without sitting there and consciously picking the most evil thing you could do each time you hit a dialogue tree.
Free market education determines that access is based as much on wealth as it is on academic ability.
Speak for yourself. My Dad went to school with absolutely no help from his parents (who were divorced and very poor). I went to school to a private university on full scholarship. I would trade my private education for the world. There is more then enough floating out there to get you through school. The difference is that you might have to work a little for it instead of waiting for a hand out.
I think the point is that the economy and the environment are both shared resources. If the US was to vanish off of the face of the earth tomorrow, pollution levels might fall off some, but the world economy would be utterly and completely destroyed. Economic disaster kills people too.
I am not saying that the environment, especially in relation to the climate, should not be preserved. I am saying that an eye to the economic impact to it needs to be taken into consideration. There is no reason to protect the environment for its own sake. Global warming is small change compared to other natural disasters that the earth has endured. The danger of global warming is the danger that it brings to the economy and the lives of other humans. With that in mind, you want to balance any attempts to preserve the environment for the sake of saving lives and the economy, compared to the cost in lives and economy such a change brings about.
Anyone who claims you can do both is either ignorant or a liar. When you are talking about global change, either in regards to the environment and the economy, people will die no matter what you do. Someone is going to pay a price of the Kyoto treaty is not signed, but someone is also going to pay a price if it is signed. The challenge is to find the place that inflicts the least amount of suffering on humans. The problem is that we know so very little about global warming, the environment, and in many ways the economy. We are stuck doing a LOT of guess work. We know environmental destruction is bad, and we know that economic destruction is bad, but we have absolutely no clue where the balance exists between those two.
So, when I see something like that we failed to ratify the Kyoto treaty, it is hard to have a strong opinion. I could tell you what I feel is the right answer, but it is just a feeling and nothing more. We simply don't know the answer, and so we can only bicker back and forth based upon our ignorant opinions and the gaping holes in the data that we have.
What would doing what you say prove? That it would suck if an ice moon crashed into the earth and melted? Everything on earth could melt and the ocean levels still wouldn't rise 200 meters. There is a good reason why people don't take global warming seriously - stupid transparent scare tactics. It is nearly impossible to find sift the serious concerns from the propaganda.
One thing to realize, is that while the US might be the biggest polluter, the US is also 1/4th of the worlds economy. It should come as any surprise that the worlds largest economy (largest by a very large margine) pumps a lot of CO2 in the air. I am not saying there isn't room for improvement, just realize the difference between a nation like China, which has a smaller economy then Italy, and a nation like the US which dwarfs all other nation's economies.
Psst, just because you don't like the guy who won, doesn't mean the election was stolen. Ukraine on the other hand is an example of an autocrat who first tried to kill his opponent, then conducted massive and blatant voter fraud. If there is a reason why Americans don't revolt against Bush, it is because over half of them voted for the guy, and vast majority of the people who didn't vote for the guy realize that a candidate two steps (if that many) left of Bush isn't worth a rebellion.
The issue isn't that Americans are too gutless to remove Bush, they just don't give a shit that the rest of the world doesn't like him.
I know everyone thinks that it is the end of the world after each election because your party lost, but for fucks sake, grow up. This happens every four years. Every four years there is a loser. Every four years the losing party beat their chests in anger, and every four we go through the same stupid shit. Republica wailed like children when Carter and Clinton won, and democrats broke down into quivering masses when Regan and Bush won. Every four years they are surprised that the US isn't turned into one big Democrat communist death camp, or one big Republican church / armory that uses the poor for slave labor / food. And no, the world is not going to end this time either. Yes terrorism is scary and all (yawn), but two super powers sitting atop enough nukes to glass over the world and the will to go through with it is roughly a million times scarier and more serious. Don't worry, the world will be there in four more years so that Hillary and Arnold can battle it out.
w00t. So I get to pick between 6.54% increase in spending or a 6.17% increase in spending. I don't think that proves democrats are the cheap alternative. I think it proves both parties can't keep their god damn hands out of the cookie jar.
I would love to see an election where at least one guy (or gal) managed to win WITHOUT promising to spend a pile of money.
Don't take me as an expert on libertarians, but I believe they tackle the environment three different ways.
First and foremost, as you said, they believe in ownership. If it can be owned, a libertarian would likely see that as the preferable method of conservation. Namely, a libertarian would be more inclined to let Sierra club take care the forests and not the government. Like any solution, ownership isn't a perfect solution, but it does have its perks. If an environmentalist organization (or coalition of them) owned Yellow Stone, talk about letting a few companies sneak in to log wouldn't be an issue. That said, the obvious counter point is that a company could simply buy the land it wants and log it bare... which leads to the second method.
Second, libertarians advocate more liability. So, if you log an area flat and a mud slide muddies a river or flattens a road, libertarians would advocate using the courts. Now, you might argue that you can already do this to a certain extent. Libertarians advocate taking it a step further though. Right now, if a company is sued to the ground, the worst you can do is bankrupt the company and force it to sell off its assets. Libertarians would remove the protection and personhood that a corporation enjoys. In a libertarian world, if a company was sued, anyone who owned a part of the company would be held liable. So, if you own half of the shares of a company doing something bad, in the libertarian world, you are half liable. The result they believe would be to make investors much more demanding when it comes to following the rules and not bringing down lawsuits. If you buy stock in a company, the last thing in the world you want is to have to help settle their litigation fees.
Third, libertarians advocate using market mechanisms for public property, namely air and water. So, when a libertarian set out to make it so that only X amount of a green house gas is put into the air, instead of telling each factor how much they are allowed to put out and regulating what type of systems they must use in order to clean their waste, they would be more inclined to let the market work on the problem. Namely, they would dictate that only X amount of a waste gas is allowed to be released. They would then sell off the rights to pollute and allow those polluting rights to be bought, sold, and traded.
So, let's say we have two polluting factories, a widget factory, and a dohicky factory. The dohicky factory thinks they can cheaply reduce their pollution levels by installing some new cheap factory. The widget factory on the other hand simply can't produce widgets without polluting. In system that regulates each individual factory, the dohicky factory wouldn't bother to install the cheap pollution reduction equipment because they are under their pollution quota anyways. The widget factory on the other hand would go out of business because no matter how hard they try, they simply can make widgets without polluting. In the libertarian system, the dohicky factory would invest the money to reduce its pollution levels so that it could sell its pollution rights to the widget factory. The dohicky factory is cleaner, and the widget factory is still in business.
Right on. Bush is killing true fiscal conservatives. Right now is a horrible time to be a fiscal conservative or have any sort of Libertarian beliefs, no matter how moderate. For a fiscal conservative, it didn't really matter who you voted for. Both wanted to merrily spend money. The only difference was on what, and if they were also going to raise taxes while they were at it. Personally, I wish the government would just stop trying to 'fix' fill in your favorite subject here. It isn't working.
At the very least, I wish that at least one party would put forward a fiscal conservative. Hell, the guy (or gal) doesn't even have to win, I just want one person to make the argument that perhaps we are spending too much money, instead of watching two idiots argue over who can spend the most. Just hearing a politician talk about spending less would be music to my ears. One nice thing about Bush winning in 2004 and there being zero chance of Cheney running for president is that both sides to get start fresh. I know this is naïve, but I am hopping that maybe with some fresh faces we can talk about NOT spending money again.
I don't disagree in the slightest with the problems you point out. I think using one of these things will be a skill, and people skilled in it will have an advantage over those who don't have that skill. Part of that skill might very well be the ability to stay focused in whatever manner is required. Like I said, I bet it is something everyone could use to one degree or another, but likely only a certain subset of the population would be able to use it to its fullest.
It is the difference between a person who can do enough math to get by on his tax returns, a theoretical physicist. Math is useful to both of them, but one of them takes it to an entirely new level of usefulness. So, any idiot might be able to turn on a light by thinking about it or bang out a paper with a little back spacing to remove unwanted thoughts, but a true master of the skill might be able to run a six legged war robot or perform complex surgery with multiple tools at once.
The problem with TV is not a lack of programming I want to watch. The problem is that I don't have time to waste bending to network time slots. For instance, I am a Trekie at heart. No matter how bad the Star Trek of the year is, I will gladly spend an hour watching it if I can. With Netflixs I happily found the time to watch Deep Space 9 from start to finish in order. It is something I would have done a long time ago if I had had the ability. I would like to watch Enterprise. The problem is that my life is just too damn busy to sit down for a regular time slot, and if I had my choice I would watch start at first episode and watch them all in order. When I new one came out, I would happily watch it. I don't care if it has commercials. I can stomach some commercials to watch something I like. I just can't stomach being stuck to a networks time slot.
Why in the hell there is no cable service that is purely on demand programming is completely beyond me. I simply don't see what networks have to lose. They can keep the commercials in. Hell, they could charge advertisers for each house hold that watches their commercial instead of just guessing. They could collect a few cents each time a person watches the Old Spice commercial while watching friends. Advertisers would be happy because they know more about how many households are really watching their adds, networks are happy because they can charge more for the improved advertising data, and cable companies can merrily skim off the top.
I honestly don't see why networks have dug their heels in so deeply and cling so tightly to their old marketing model when there clearly is a new way. Personally, I will not lose much sleep over this. I see it two ways. Either networks and cable companies get their shit together and realize that people want EVERYTHING on demand and accommodate them, or they continue to slip in the market place.
Call me American, but nothing brings a smile to my face like seeing companies get battered in the market place for ignoring the demands of their customer while other companies notice the changing tides and cash in.
Maybe down there browsing at -1 troll you see stuff about playing god. Up here at +5 though you are the only one you has said anything about god. There is a moderation system. Use it and love it. Speaking of trolls, how in the hell did your post manage to score a positive number?
I think you are dead on about the productivity boost this could have. The simple invention of e-mail caused an industrial boom. Imagine combining a non-invasive cap and a little wireless networking action. Even if they could only get output from your head, the productivity boost would be massive if you could get fine enough control to write. Simply blanket a company with a wireless network, give everyone a thinking cap, and sit back and watch productivity soar.
Walk up to a screen which needs some fields filled in, like an invoice, and think the input in. While you are talking with someone, be jotting down notes without twitching a muscle. Think about the data or instructions you need and have it pop up on your PDA. When you need to bang out a report, type the words as fast as you can think them.
I personally think it would cause a revolution in technology and productivity. Imagine the environment responding to people's thoughts instead of something kludgy like movement sensors. Lights turn as you think them on. Your coffee pot starts up in the morning the second you think it to.
You might even be talking about something as revolutionary as a whole new human skill, like writing. It might be that using this near telepathic ability requires a skill that needs to be learned. Really skilled thinkers might have the ability to act as super computers for automation. Any idiot might be able to turn on lights, but a truly skilled thinker might be able to perform surgery with finely controlled robotic arms, or perform microscope work and manipulation at electron microscope magnification levels.
It might even be a way to get around computer and programming limitations. A computer might have a rough time balancing and operating a military robot built to imitate human movements and mobility, but I bet a skilled thinker with a pair of VR glasses and a lot of training could do it with ease.
The possibilities are endless. If something as mundane as e-mail can revolutionize the business world (and e-mail DID revolutions the business world), imagine what this sort of stuff could do.
Granted, I have not read this report, but if it is talking about a single summer and using that as evidence of something happening, I would be inclined to not swallow it hook, line, and sinker. As an engineer, I would be leery of looking at a single data point and concluding anything. I would also be leery of looking at two trends (human industrialization and temperature) and concluding that they are related.
I think the bigger piece is a distrust of the scientist involved. I am exceedingly weary of people with an agenda who go out to try and prove what they already believe. My girlfriend is a sociologist who is working with a PhD. They wrote a paper together about the (negative) effects of globalization on a small village in China. The thing that disturbed me is that it seemed to me, as an outsider, they had already made up their minds when they started doing research. The work was looking for the evidence to prove it.
My concern is that the same thing is happening with climate studies. Showing that green house gas production and temperature have a correlation isn't useful. It might suggest something of an avenue of exploration, but it is without a doubt proof of nothing. In fact, an earlier poster said that they scientist concluded that human activity only might be the reason. Now, not having read the report that might not be true, but if it is, I think it shows why people and leery of such reports. If a report goes ahead and shows a correlation, but in the end says that it has no evidence of causation, you just spent a few hundred pages proving what is already known. The earth was once hot, got cold, and is getting hot again.
What we really need is a very good atmospheric model WITH good atmospheric data from previous years. The problem is that we have neither. We have only begun to start collecting good atmospheric data.
So, are people skeptical, sure. There is an overall cause, namely environmentalism, that wants to find evidence of global warming. Industry doesn't want to find it. Americans, tending to be more capitalistic in nature and sympathetic to industry tend to want to believe more on the side of industry. Europeans being more socialistic in nature and being more hateful towards industry tend to want to find it. I don't think it is a big mystery is to why Europe and the US thinks differently. I also don't think that either are right. The simple fact of the matter is that we have scant evidence, poor atmospheric models, a massive complex system that involves a lot more then just the atmosphere, and are working in a science where running a controlled experiment is extremely hard. Each side might intuitively have an opinion, and some scientist have scratched around the surface, but the simple fact the matter is that no one knows. Anyone who claims to know the answer one way or the other is a liar, pure and simple.
If someone in 1940 told me that you can't go faster then the speed of sound, I would have told him he was full of shit and shot him.
It seems like a pretty flimsy argument. I think it was pretty damn clear at the time that not only can go things break the sound barrier, but that it was being done ALL the time. Maybe the local parishiner in the middle of nowhere believed that it was impossible, but certainly not any scientist who managed to get through High School.
Darwin already got his ass kicked
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1
We already beat the shit of natural selection when we developed agriculture. In the good old days before technology if you made it out of childhood, you were doing pretty damn good. These days I think the US infant mortality rate is well below 1%.
HIV is a drop in the bucket when it comes to deaths. HIV has a minimal impact on population growth, even in African nations. In the US and Europe, HIV has no noticeable impact. If overpopulation is really your concern, burning farms and getting rid of antibiotics would do a lot more.
Over population isn't the problem. We have been overpopulated beyond what nature can allow for thousands of years. The question is now what we can do to curb population growth, but what we can do better handle a large population. Seeing as how we are at 6 billion + strong and living longer then ever, I would say we are doing a pretty good job.
I used to play MMORPGs. I played WoW Beta. I will never play another MMORPG until someone gets a fucking clue and offers me a massive multiplayer role playing world WITHOUT grinding, levels, and dice rolling combat tedium. For fucks sake, are we so unimaginative that we can't possibly see the union of a FPS combat system and advancement (or lack there of) combined with a role playing game - especially a massive role playing game?
Is it utterly impossible to picture Morrowind stripped of its inhumanly shitty combat engine and replaced with agile FPS combat? Does an RPG, especially an MMORPG have to have shitty combat in order to have all the other trappings of an RPG? Has no one ever played Fallout and thought how much that game would rock if the combat was like Counter Strike. Has no one played Half-Life 2 and thought of how awesome the struggle between the Combine and the Rebels would be if it was a persistent role playing game with things to do besides fighting? Can no one imagine Grand Theft Auto with a few thousand people and player run gangs and police in a massive online city?
No, I am not talking about PlanetSide. PlanetSide is a FPS on a big battle field with lots of other people. It has all the social interaction and things to do besides combat as CounterStrike. In PlanetSide, if you are not in combat, you are on your way to combat. I am suggesting taking an MMORPG and stripping only one thing from it - its shitty AD&D hold over combat engine. That, or taking a FPS and stuffing all the trappings of a MMORPG into it (minus the shitty MMORPG combat system and skills).
So, did WoW improve the nauseating EverQuest formula? Sure, but it isn't anything revolutionary. It scores a point for being evolutionary, but the revolution will have to wait until someone grows the balls to break the mold and throwing the fucking AD&D book out. Make me a massive online role playing world with a combat engine that doesn't suck beyond all words, and they can charge me $50 a month to play it - money I would happily shell out.
Pesronally, I couldn't be happier with Steam. I got my game quickly and have been playing it non-stop. I switched computers, loaded up HL2 on it without having to bother to find my CD key or even the CD. I personally hope that more video game companies switch to this method. The fact that a company that I like is making an extra pile of cash just pleases me more. Hopefully they will crank out a few more worthwhile games with that money.
Maybe there are people who could do without Steam and would like an alternative, but there are plenty of people that are pleased as piss about Steam. Geek nitpicking aside, Steam dumped an awesome game onto my desktop and is sparing me from having to keep track of a CD. It hasn't presented a single problem for me personally so far. I couldn't be happier. My only wish is that Valve would hurry up and offer their other games on Steam.
The 'backdoor draft' as those articles put it is no secret. When you sign up to join an armed service, you sign a contract. Included in that contract is an agreement that you can be called upon even to serve again even after your tour of duty. When you sign up for an armed service, you sign up for everything that comes with it. That includes being sent places you might not want to go, to do a mission you might not find worthy, at a time you find not to your liking. I would suggest people who find that thought that they might be pulled back into service unthinkable NOT sign up in the first place. If you sign a contract that with the US government that says you agree to be called upon at any time to serve, even after your service is over, don't be surprised when the government comes to collect. I personally could never live under such terms - hence I never signed such a contract.
Next, the president does have the power to instate the draft WITH the approval of congress. I absolutely would laud Bush a hypocrite if he ever did such a thing. The point is that he hasn't ever even proposed reinstating a draft. If anything, I think Bush clearly understands the implications of the draft, as do most Americans who grew up in that time. Bush decided to dodge it. I don't see how doing everything in your power to not get drafted is proof that one doesn't understand the implications of it. On the contrary, I think it shows a clear understanding of the implications - getting sent to fight war you don't believe in and potentially being shot in killed without ever once having agreed to such terms. If your argument is that only people who have been drafted understand the implications of the draft, and therefore are the only people who should be allowed to serve as president, then I shouldn't need to point out that none of the presidential contenders on any side had ever been drafted, Kerry included. If your point is that you need to service in the military in order to be able to command, then again I should point out that most presidents and most politicians have not done this, including ex-president Clinton and the vast majority of congressmen and woman.
Finally, I didn't say that young people should not be held to their decisions. I said that there decisions at the age of 18 (17 for Kerry) shouldn't be considered the end all and be all of their existence. Most people change their opinions radically over those years. Kerry was practically a communist by the time he got back from Vietnam, but I sure as shit wouldn't hold him to everything he said. He was a young left wing radical, like many young people are. If their opinions change after 30+ years, good. Dredging up Bush's attempts at the age of 18 to get out of being sent over to fight a war he didn't want to fight in against his will, is like dredging up the ultra-leftists crap that Kerry said at the same age and calling him a hypocrite now for being a moderate democrat. It is stupid and an example of dumb political game where each guy tries to one up the other on some dumb and minor point, instead of focusing on a real issue.
There are lots of reasons to dislike Bush or Kerry that actually has relevance and meaning. The dumb shit they did when they were still just teenagers doesn't need to be dragged into it - 30 years after the fact. For fucks sake, I hope I never run for presidency. Someone might find out that I played D&D a few times in the sixth grade, which as everyone knows is a clear sign of Satanism.
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times?
on
Buggy Voting Machines
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I think you miss the point entirely. Draft dodgers elected to their position have the right to send a volunteer army arm into war. The difference between Iraq and Vietnam, and this is a stark difference, is that the army fighting in Iraq is made up of men and woman who volunteered to fight in the US armed services. They made a conscious choice to their life to whatever endeavor that the US puts them too. In this case, the congress gave the president the power to go to war, and the president used it. The system worked like it was supposed to. You might not like the outcome. Hell, I don't like the outcome, but the simple fact of the matter is that Iraq is a far cry from being anything like Vietnam so long as it is fought with a volunteer army.
The draft is a disgusting practice. I can't think of anything more revolting then a nation demanding that its citizens surrender their lives against their will. I don't care what the cause is. If the cause is so good and so great, they will do it willingly. If Bush or Kerry dodged the draft or came back to speak against it, good for them. Decrying this disgusting practice or dodging it all together - especially when they are still CHILDREN - doesn't cause me to lose any sleep. If Bush wanted to reinstate the draft, you would certainly have flimsy, but at least credible argument, if you utterly ignoring that you are judging the actions of someone who was just barely a man, some 30 years after the fact.
Dredging up what those two did as children when the government was using violence against its own populace to compel them to go to war is stupid and childish political banter. There are a lot of reasons to dislike Bush and Kerry, but none of those reasons have anything to do with what either one of those children did in Vietnam
Slashdot Mirror
I am a fan of the Patriot Act and I fucking hate the FCC, but you need to get a grip on reality. US human rights abuses pale in comparison to what China has to offer. The US has less then a thousand people locked up in Guantanamo, all of which were taken from a war zone. Abu Ghraib was against the law and the people involved are being prosecuted. The Patriot act, while managing to step on some previous legal rights (not human rights though, learn the difference), is pocket change compared to what China has.
The comparison is stupid and can't be made. That is like advocating execution for a kid who gets into a fist fight because homicidal rapist are executed. I mean, both are violent acts, right?
... and it worked. The Soviet Union was beaten by out spending it to death on weapons. After the collapse of the USSR though, the US and the western world just lost their will to continue the battle through violent or treats of violence. People are weary of cold wars, so China is getting a new treatment. The theory is that if you blast China with enough Western consumerism and culture, they will end up becoming more like the west. I think in the long term it might work, but I certainly don't see happening in the next 50 years.
This new method has its perks and its drawbacks. The perks are that we don't need to kill millions with sanctions and both countries stand to profit greatly with business relationships. The obvious drawbacks is that contact with the west means a leg up on technology, weapons, and does nothing to cause their little empire to collapse in on itself like the USSR did.
I personally have no clue if engaging China is the right thing, but I think there is not much of a choice in the matter right now. The US and the EU are the two economic powers that matter. The US is probably the only one of those two that even begins to have the will try and isolate China. Even as we speak, the EU is working on new regulations to sell arms to China. The only obstacle they are running into is France. France's objection to the new regulations are that they want less transparency so that the arms trades can be conducted in secret... so obviously the EU isn't looking going to be the moral back bone to stand up to China. The US is slightly more antagonistic, but not much more so. The US won't be selling China F-16's any time soon, especially with the distance worry that we might rumble with China over Taiwan. That said, the US likes having access to China's markets and really won't do anything to rock the boat unless absolutely necessary.
So, the short answer is that, for better or for worse, the western world simply has no desire to engage in another cold war, and a cold war is exactly what you would get if you tried to cut off China's trade.
I know some people are going to violently disagree, but I personally like it when a good game quickly gets another good game out under the same engine. KoTOR is a good example of a game I have no problem offering up seconds. So long as the story is solid and they don't lose depth, I am okay with passing up the latest technology for a second helping of something good.
I don't know about anyone else, but after I beat Half Life 2 for the second time, I was itching to play unamed rebel # 5. Nothing would make me happier then if companies brought on a few more level designers and a skilled writer or two so that they could follow up a good game with a second good game based off the same technology.
To those who say that economic capitalism leads to democracy, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath.
I should point out that China is not a capitalist's dream, and it couldn't ever even begin to be confused with laissez-faire capitalism that Americans tend try and strive towards (but by no means achieve). China is a very corrupt business environment. There is absolutely no distinction between politics and economics. The high level politicians own the economic systems and bend the laws to their own ends. I am not suggesting that there is not room scrape out some cash for multinational corporations, but don't confuse China for a big free market capitalistic love fest. China's economy is still very much owned and controlled by the state. If you do business in China, you WILL deal with both corruption and the Chinese state.
China is trying to bring in the goods of a capitalist economy while retaining totalitarian control over both society and economy. So far it has managed to do a decent, if horribly inefficient job at this, but I don't think China is going to catch up with the West, Japan, or even keep pace with India any time soon.
Star Trek is not for adults because it has superior science. Star Trek is more adult oriented for the themes it touches and, more the anything else, because it is a drama. Star Wars is not a drama, it is action/adventure head to foot. Now, that is not to say that the Star Wars universe is incapable of being a drama, but the movies most certainly are not.
The actual science of sci-fi is generally geek nitpicking. Personally, I think that any sci-fi set over 100+ years from now that doesn't have god like AIs that put all humans intellect to shame either better have a good reason or is taking liberties with technology. That said, I don't really mind it when sci-fi takes liberties with technology. The point of sci-fi is not to predict the future (though some times it tries). The point is to put characters and society into a unique position you can't have a traditional setting. It doesn't matter if that setting bends or snaps and half and spits on laws of physics.
I agree with everything you said, except for the quality of the good/evil system. If I had one complaint against KoTR it was that they did a horrible job on the dark side. Basically, I saw KoTR has always presenting three options. Good, cautiously pragmatic, stupidly evil. If in KoTR you ran across an orphanage while on the run from the law, you would have three options.
Good: Hide in the orphanage and try and help them in their plight to raise money. Cautiously pragmatic: Hide in the orphanage, but lay low and don't help them.
Stupidly Evil: Burn the orphanage to the ground and kill every little boy and girl that comes out, and follow this up by feasting on their bones. Then arrange the bones to so that ships passing over head can see "P0wn3d by S1T|-|".
My problem was that they never made the 'moral' decision hard. If you played the entire game simply being as good as possible, you end up with the most money, the most experience, and never suffer a negative consequence. If you play the game 'evil', then you need to make uncountable stupid mistakes and spend the game struggling forward.
What I would have liked to of seen are tough moral choices with consequences that do not always favor doing the 'right' thing. It would be nice if you could 'fall into' the dark side without sitting there and consciously picking the most evil thing you could do each time you hit a dialogue tree.
Free market education determines that access is based as much on wealth as it is on academic ability.
Speak for yourself. My Dad went to school with absolutely no help from his parents (who were divorced and very poor). I went to school to a private university on full scholarship. I would trade my private education for the world. There is more then enough floating out there to get you through school. The difference is that you might have to work a little for it instead of waiting for a hand out.
I think the point is that the economy and the environment are both shared resources. If the US was to vanish off of the face of the earth tomorrow, pollution levels might fall off some, but the world economy would be utterly and completely destroyed. Economic disaster kills people too.
I am not saying that the environment, especially in relation to the climate, should not be preserved. I am saying that an eye to the economic impact to it needs to be taken into consideration. There is no reason to protect the environment for its own sake. Global warming is small change compared to other natural disasters that the earth has endured. The danger of global warming is the danger that it brings to the economy and the lives of other humans. With that in mind, you want to balance any attempts to preserve the environment for the sake of saving lives and the economy, compared to the cost in lives and economy such a change brings about.
Anyone who claims you can do both is either ignorant or a liar. When you are talking about global change, either in regards to the environment and the economy, people will die no matter what you do. Someone is going to pay a price of the Kyoto treaty is not signed, but someone is also going to pay a price if it is signed. The challenge is to find the place that inflicts the least amount of suffering on humans. The problem is that we know so very little about global warming, the environment, and in many ways the economy. We are stuck doing a LOT of guess work. We know environmental destruction is bad, and we know that economic destruction is bad, but we have absolutely no clue where the balance exists between those two.
So, when I see something like that we failed to ratify the Kyoto treaty, it is hard to have a strong opinion. I could tell you what I feel is the right answer, but it is just a feeling and nothing more. We simply don't know the answer, and so we can only bicker back and forth based upon our ignorant opinions and the gaping holes in the data that we have.
What would doing what you say prove? That it would suck if an ice moon crashed into the earth and melted? Everything on earth could melt and the ocean levels still wouldn't rise 200 meters. There is a good reason why people don't take global warming seriously - stupid transparent scare tactics. It is nearly impossible to find sift the serious concerns from the propaganda.
One thing to realize, is that while the US might be the biggest polluter, the US is also 1/4th of the worlds economy. It should come as any surprise that the worlds largest economy (largest by a very large margine) pumps a lot of CO2 in the air. I am not saying there isn't room for improvement, just realize the difference between a nation like China, which has a smaller economy then Italy, and a nation like the US which dwarfs all other nation's economies.
Psst, just because you don't like the guy who won, doesn't mean the election was stolen. Ukraine on the other hand is an example of an autocrat who first tried to kill his opponent, then conducted massive and blatant voter fraud. If there is a reason why Americans don't revolt against Bush, it is because over half of them voted for the guy, and vast majority of the people who didn't vote for the guy realize that a candidate two steps (if that many) left of Bush isn't worth a rebellion.
The issue isn't that Americans are too gutless to remove Bush, they just don't give a shit that the rest of the world doesn't like him.
I know everyone thinks that it is the end of the world after each election because your party lost, but for fucks sake, grow up. This happens every four years. Every four years there is a loser. Every four years the losing party beat their chests in anger, and every four we go through the same stupid shit. Republica wailed like children when Carter and Clinton won, and democrats broke down into quivering masses when Regan and Bush won. Every four years they are surprised that the US isn't turned into one big Democrat communist death camp, or one big Republican church / armory that uses the poor for slave labor / food. And no, the world is not going to end this time either. Yes terrorism is scary and all (yawn), but two super powers sitting atop enough nukes to glass over the world and the will to go through with it is roughly a million times scarier and more serious. Don't worry, the world will be there in four more years so that Hillary and Arnold can battle it out.
w00t. So I get to pick between 6.54% increase in spending or a 6.17% increase in spending. I don't think that proves democrats are the cheap alternative. I think it proves both parties can't keep their god damn hands out of the cookie jar.
I would love to see an election where at least one guy (or gal) managed to win WITHOUT promising to spend a pile of money.
Don't take me as an expert on libertarians, but I believe they tackle the environment three different ways.
First and foremost, as you said, they believe in ownership. If it can be owned, a libertarian would likely see that as the preferable method of conservation. Namely, a libertarian would be more inclined to let Sierra club take care the forests and not the government. Like any solution, ownership isn't a perfect solution, but it does have its perks. If an environmentalist organization (or coalition of them) owned Yellow Stone, talk about letting a few companies sneak in to log wouldn't be an issue. That said, the obvious counter point is that a company could simply buy the land it wants and log it bare... which leads to the second method.
Second, libertarians advocate more liability. So, if you log an area flat and a mud slide muddies a river or flattens a road, libertarians would advocate using the courts. Now, you might argue that you can already do this to a certain extent. Libertarians advocate taking it a step further though. Right now, if a company is sued to the ground, the worst you can do is bankrupt the company and force it to sell off its assets. Libertarians would remove the protection and personhood that a corporation enjoys. In a libertarian world, if a company was sued, anyone who owned a part of the company would be held liable. So, if you own half of the shares of a company doing something bad, in the libertarian world, you are half liable. The result they believe would be to make investors much more demanding when it comes to following the rules and not bringing down lawsuits. If you buy stock in a company, the last thing in the world you want is to have to help settle their litigation fees.
Third, libertarians advocate using market mechanisms for public property, namely air and water. So, when a libertarian set out to make it so that only X amount of a green house gas is put into the air, instead of telling each factor how much they are allowed to put out and regulating what type of systems they must use in order to clean their waste, they would be more inclined to let the market work on the problem. Namely, they would dictate that only X amount of a waste gas is allowed to be released. They would then sell off the rights to pollute and allow those polluting rights to be bought, sold, and traded.
So, let's say we have two polluting factories, a widget factory, and a dohicky factory. The dohicky factory thinks they can cheaply reduce their pollution levels by installing some new cheap factory. The widget factory on the other hand simply can't produce widgets without polluting. In system that regulates each individual factory, the dohicky factory wouldn't bother to install the cheap pollution reduction equipment because they are under their pollution quota anyways. The widget factory on the other hand would go out of business because no matter how hard they try, they simply can make widgets without polluting. In the libertarian system, the dohicky factory would invest the money to reduce its pollution levels so that it could sell its pollution rights to the widget factory. The dohicky factory is cleaner, and the widget factory is still in business.
Right on. Bush is killing true fiscal conservatives. Right now is a horrible time to be a fiscal conservative or have any sort of Libertarian beliefs, no matter how moderate. For a fiscal conservative, it didn't really matter who you voted for. Both wanted to merrily spend money. The only difference was on what, and if they were also going to raise taxes while they were at it. Personally, I wish the government would just stop trying to 'fix' fill in your favorite subject here. It isn't working.
At the very least, I wish that at least one party would put forward a fiscal conservative. Hell, the guy (or gal) doesn't even have to win, I just want one person to make the argument that perhaps we are spending too much money, instead of watching two idiots argue over who can spend the most. Just hearing a politician talk about spending less would be music to my ears. One nice thing about Bush winning in 2004 and there being zero chance of Cheney running for president is that both sides to get start fresh. I know this is naïve, but I am hopping that maybe with some fresh faces we can talk about NOT spending money again.
I don't disagree in the slightest with the problems you point out. I think using one of these things will be a skill, and people skilled in it will have an advantage over those who don't have that skill. Part of that skill might very well be the ability to stay focused in whatever manner is required. Like I said, I bet it is something everyone could use to one degree or another, but likely only a certain subset of the population would be able to use it to its fullest.
It is the difference between a person who can do enough math to get by on his tax returns, a theoretical physicist. Math is useful to both of them, but one of them takes it to an entirely new level of usefulness. So, any idiot might be able to turn on a light by thinking about it or bang out a paper with a little back spacing to remove unwanted thoughts, but a true master of the skill might be able to run a six legged war robot or perform complex surgery with multiple tools at once.
The problem with TV is not a lack of programming I want to watch. The problem is that I don't have time to waste bending to network time slots. For instance, I am a Trekie at heart. No matter how bad the Star Trek of the year is, I will gladly spend an hour watching it if I can. With Netflixs I happily found the time to watch Deep Space 9 from start to finish in order. It is something I would have done a long time ago if I had had the ability. I would like to watch Enterprise. The problem is that my life is just too damn busy to sit down for a regular time slot, and if I had my choice I would watch start at first episode and watch them all in order. When I new one came out, I would happily watch it. I don't care if it has commercials. I can stomach some commercials to watch something I like. I just can't stomach being stuck to a networks time slot.
Why in the hell there is no cable service that is purely on demand programming is completely beyond me. I simply don't see what networks have to lose. They can keep the commercials in. Hell, they could charge advertisers for each house hold that watches their commercial instead of just guessing. They could collect a few cents each time a person watches the Old Spice commercial while watching friends. Advertisers would be happy because they know more about how many households are really watching their adds, networks are happy because they can charge more for the improved advertising data, and cable companies can merrily skim off the top.
I honestly don't see why networks have dug their heels in so deeply and cling so tightly to their old marketing model when there clearly is a new way. Personally, I will not lose much sleep over this. I see it two ways. Either networks and cable companies get their shit together and realize that people want EVERYTHING on demand and accommodate them, or they continue to slip in the market place.
Call me American, but nothing brings a smile to my face like seeing companies get battered in the market place for ignoring the demands of their customer while other companies notice the changing tides and cash in.
Maybe down there browsing at -1 troll you see stuff about playing god. Up here at +5 though you are the only one you has said anything about god. There is a moderation system. Use it and love it. Speaking of trolls, how in the hell did your post manage to score a positive number?
I think you are dead on about the productivity boost this could have. The simple invention of e-mail caused an industrial boom. Imagine combining a non-invasive cap and a little wireless networking action. Even if they could only get output from your head, the productivity boost would be massive if you could get fine enough control to write. Simply blanket a company with a wireless network, give everyone a thinking cap, and sit back and watch productivity soar.
Walk up to a screen which needs some fields filled in, like an invoice, and think the input in. While you are talking with someone, be jotting down notes without twitching a muscle. Think about the data or instructions you need and have it pop up on your PDA. When you need to bang out a report, type the words as fast as you can think them.
I personally think it would cause a revolution in technology and productivity. Imagine the environment responding to people's thoughts instead of something kludgy like movement sensors. Lights turn as you think them on. Your coffee pot starts up in the morning the second you think it to.
You might even be talking about something as revolutionary as a whole new human skill, like writing. It might be that using this near telepathic ability requires a skill that needs to be learned. Really skilled thinkers might have the ability to act as super computers for automation. Any idiot might be able to turn on lights, but a truly skilled thinker might be able to perform surgery with finely controlled robotic arms, or perform microscope work and manipulation at electron microscope magnification levels.
It might even be a way to get around computer and programming limitations. A computer might have a rough time balancing and operating a military robot built to imitate human movements and mobility, but I bet a skilled thinker with a pair of VR glasses and a lot of training could do it with ease.
The possibilities are endless. If something as mundane as e-mail can revolutionize the business world (and e-mail DID revolutions the business world), imagine what this sort of stuff could do.
Granted, I have not read this report, but if it is talking about a single summer and using that as evidence of something happening, I would be inclined to not swallow it hook, line, and sinker. As an engineer, I would be leery of looking at a single data point and concluding anything. I would also be leery of looking at two trends (human industrialization and temperature) and concluding that they are related.
I think the bigger piece is a distrust of the scientist involved. I am exceedingly weary of people with an agenda who go out to try and prove what they already believe. My girlfriend is a sociologist who is working with a PhD. They wrote a paper together about the (negative) effects of globalization on a small village in China. The thing that disturbed me is that it seemed to me, as an outsider, they had already made up their minds when they started doing research. The work was looking for the evidence to prove it.
My concern is that the same thing is happening with climate studies. Showing that green house gas production and temperature have a correlation isn't useful. It might suggest something of an avenue of exploration, but it is without a doubt proof of nothing. In fact, an earlier poster said that they scientist concluded that human activity only might be the reason. Now, not having read the report that might not be true, but if it is, I think it shows why people and leery of such reports. If a report goes ahead and shows a correlation, but in the end says that it has no evidence of causation, you just spent a few hundred pages proving what is already known. The earth was once hot, got cold, and is getting hot again.
What we really need is a very good atmospheric model WITH good atmospheric data from previous years. The problem is that we have neither. We have only begun to start collecting good atmospheric data.
So, are people skeptical, sure. There is an overall cause, namely environmentalism, that wants to find evidence of global warming. Industry doesn't want to find it. Americans, tending to be more capitalistic in nature and sympathetic to industry tend to want to believe more on the side of industry. Europeans being more socialistic in nature and being more hateful towards industry tend to want to find it. I don't think it is a big mystery is to why Europe and the US thinks differently. I also don't think that either are right. The simple fact of the matter is that we have scant evidence, poor atmospheric models, a massive complex system that involves a lot more then just the atmosphere, and are working in a science where running a controlled experiment is extremely hard. Each side might intuitively have an opinion, and some scientist have scratched around the surface, but the simple fact the matter is that no one knows. Anyone who claims to know the answer one way or the other is a liar, pure and simple.
If someone in 1940 told me that you can't go faster then the speed of sound, I would have told him he was full of shit and shot him.
It seems like a pretty flimsy argument. I think it was pretty damn clear at the time that not only can go things break the sound barrier, but that it was being done ALL the time. Maybe the local parishiner in the middle of nowhere believed that it was impossible, but certainly not any scientist who managed to get through High School.
We already beat the shit of natural selection when we developed agriculture. In the good old days before technology if you made it out of childhood, you were doing pretty damn good. These days I think the US infant mortality rate is well below 1%.
HIV is a drop in the bucket when it comes to deaths. HIV has a minimal impact on population growth, even in African nations. In the US and Europe, HIV has no noticeable impact. If overpopulation is really your concern, burning farms and getting rid of antibiotics would do a lot more.
Over population isn't the problem. We have been overpopulated beyond what nature can allow for thousands of years. The question is now what we can do to curb population growth, but what we can do better handle a large population. Seeing as how we are at 6 billion + strong and living longer then ever, I would say we are doing a pretty good job.
FPS have more then just the controls right.
I used to play MMORPGs. I played WoW Beta. I will never play another MMORPG until someone gets a fucking clue and offers me a massive multiplayer role playing world WITHOUT grinding, levels, and dice rolling combat tedium. For fucks sake, are we so unimaginative that we can't possibly see the union of a FPS combat system and advancement (or lack there of) combined with a role playing game - especially a massive role playing game?
Is it utterly impossible to picture Morrowind stripped of its inhumanly shitty combat engine and replaced with agile FPS combat? Does an RPG, especially an MMORPG have to have shitty combat in order to have all the other trappings of an RPG? Has no one ever played Fallout and thought how much that game would rock if the combat was like Counter Strike. Has no one played Half-Life 2 and thought of how awesome the struggle between the Combine and the Rebels would be if it was a persistent role playing game with things to do besides fighting? Can no one imagine Grand Theft Auto with a few thousand people and player run gangs and police in a massive online city?
No, I am not talking about PlanetSide. PlanetSide is a FPS on a big battle field with lots of other people. It has all the social interaction and things to do besides combat as CounterStrike. In PlanetSide, if you are not in combat, you are on your way to combat. I am suggesting taking an MMORPG and stripping only one thing from it - its shitty AD&D hold over combat engine. That, or taking a FPS and stuffing all the trappings of a MMORPG into it (minus the shitty MMORPG combat system and skills).
So, did WoW improve the nauseating EverQuest formula? Sure, but it isn't anything revolutionary. It scores a point for being evolutionary, but the revolution will have to wait until someone grows the balls to break the mold and throwing the fucking AD&D book out. Make me a massive online role playing world with a combat engine that doesn't suck beyond all words, and they can charge me $50 a month to play it - money I would happily shell out.
Pesronally, I couldn't be happier with Steam. I got my game quickly and have been playing it non-stop. I switched computers, loaded up HL2 on it without having to bother to find my CD key or even the CD. I personally hope that more video game companies switch to this method. The fact that a company that I like is making an extra pile of cash just pleases me more. Hopefully they will crank out a few more worthwhile games with that money.
Maybe there are people who could do without Steam and would like an alternative, but there are plenty of people that are pleased as piss about Steam. Geek nitpicking aside, Steam dumped an awesome game onto my desktop and is sparing me from having to keep track of a CD. It hasn't presented a single problem for me personally so far. I couldn't be happier. My only wish is that Valve would hurry up and offer their other games on Steam.
The 'backdoor draft' as those articles put it is no secret. When you sign up to join an armed service, you sign a contract. Included in that contract is an agreement that you can be called upon even to serve again even after your tour of duty. When you sign up for an armed service, you sign up for everything that comes with it. That includes being sent places you might not want to go, to do a mission you might not find worthy, at a time you find not to your liking. I would suggest people who find that thought that they might be pulled back into service unthinkable NOT sign up in the first place. If you sign a contract that with the US government that says you agree to be called upon at any time to serve, even after your service is over, don't be surprised when the government comes to collect. I personally could never live under such terms - hence I never signed such a contract.
Next, the president does have the power to instate the draft WITH the approval of congress. I absolutely would laud Bush a hypocrite if he ever did such a thing. The point is that he hasn't ever even proposed reinstating a draft. If anything, I think Bush clearly understands the implications of the draft, as do most Americans who grew up in that time. Bush decided to dodge it. I don't see how doing everything in your power to not get drafted is proof that one doesn't understand the implications of it. On the contrary, I think it shows a clear understanding of the implications - getting sent to fight war you don't believe in and potentially being shot in killed without ever once having agreed to such terms. If your argument is that only people who have been drafted understand the implications of the draft, and therefore are the only people who should be allowed to serve as president, then I shouldn't need to point out that none of the presidential contenders on any side had ever been drafted, Kerry included. If your point is that you need to service in the military in order to be able to command, then again I should point out that most presidents and most politicians have not done this, including ex-president Clinton and the vast majority of congressmen and woman.
Finally, I didn't say that young people should not be held to their decisions. I said that there decisions at the age of 18 (17 for Kerry) shouldn't be considered the end all and be all of their existence. Most people change their opinions radically over those years. Kerry was practically a communist by the time he got back from Vietnam, but I sure as shit wouldn't hold him to everything he said. He was a young left wing radical, like many young people are. If their opinions change after 30+ years, good. Dredging up Bush's attempts at the age of 18 to get out of being sent over to fight a war he didn't want to fight in against his will, is like dredging up the ultra-leftists crap that Kerry said at the same age and calling him a hypocrite now for being a moderate democrat. It is stupid and an example of dumb political game where each guy tries to one up the other on some dumb and minor point, instead of focusing on a real issue.
There are lots of reasons to dislike Bush or Kerry that actually has relevance and meaning. The dumb shit they did when they were still just teenagers doesn't need to be dragged into it - 30 years after the fact. For fucks sake, I hope I never run for presidency. Someone might find out that I played D&D a few times in the sixth grade, which as everyone knows is a clear sign of Satanism.
I think you miss the point entirely. Draft dodgers elected to their position have the right to send a volunteer army arm into war. The difference between Iraq and Vietnam, and this is a stark difference, is that the army fighting in Iraq is made up of men and woman who volunteered to fight in the US armed services. They made a conscious choice to their life to whatever endeavor that the US puts them too. In this case, the congress gave the president the power to go to war, and the president used it. The system worked like it was supposed to. You might not like the outcome. Hell, I don't like the outcome, but the simple fact of the matter is that Iraq is a far cry from being anything like Vietnam so long as it is fought with a volunteer army.
The draft is a disgusting practice. I can't think of anything more revolting then a nation demanding that its citizens surrender their lives against their will. I don't care what the cause is. If the cause is so good and so great, they will do it willingly. If Bush or Kerry dodged the draft or came back to speak against it, good for them. Decrying this disgusting practice or dodging it all together - especially when they are still CHILDREN - doesn't cause me to lose any sleep. If Bush wanted to reinstate the draft, you would certainly have flimsy, but at least credible argument, if you utterly ignoring that you are judging the actions of someone who was just barely a man, some 30 years after the fact.
Dredging up what those two did as children when the government was using violence against its own populace to compel them to go to war is stupid and childish political banter. There are a lot of reasons to dislike Bush and Kerry, but none of those reasons have anything to do with what either one of those children did in Vietnam