The issue is not free music, it is the method of shopping. For a while I was happily shelling out my monthly fee to e-music. They supported the type of shopping I wanted to do. I want to go, download a bunch of stuff that I could potentially hate and listen to it. Hopefully I will find a few golden eggs. Every month they got my check (credit card actually, but who is counting?). Then they decided to go to a more 'regular' installment where you have to buy x number of songs at x price, completely missing the fucking point as to why people would pick e-music over any other service.
Look, all that I want is to be able to explore new music. I want to do it simply and easily. I don't want to dick around and spend my time searching for it. Nothing under the sun is going to make me buy a horde of CDs hoping that some of them don't suck. Nothing is going to make me go out and research which bands suck and don't suck before I buy them. I honestly don't care enough to waste my time doing this. I'll happily shell out my money for the right to explore someone's database of music. I'll shell it out every single month. Hell, I do it already for movies. I couldn't be happier with NetFlix.com - care free exploration of movies at a flat rate. They get my 20 a month instead of blockbuster now because they realized that I am a different type of shopper. I used to pirate movies all of the time, until I found NetFlix.
Until these idiots listen to the market, it will be NetFlix for movies and my P2P of choice for music. The first company to satisfy my music buying style gets my cash. NetFlix won my movie dollars, now hopefully some idiot will win my music dollars. They can sue their asses off. I break the law all the time; I speed, I smoke the evil herb occasionally, I drank under 21 (when I was still under 21), and I merrily pirate music. It is just another calculated risk. Most people violate the law reguarly knowing a potential risk involved with doing it. The RIAA will never win this game. Only growing the balls to compete in the market is going to win me back.
Everything you point out is certainly true - if you are a plant or animal. If you are a non-human animal or tree, having humans around sucks. Lucky for us, we are all human here. I care about the environment exactly as much as it has some sort of impact on humans.
So yes, agriculture has completely changed the face of the world and wiped out many pieces of the environment, but I give agriculture a big thumbs up. Agriculture means that I don't have to go get my own food, and that gives me plenty of time to be an engineer, doctors work on extending my life, and scientists to unlock new technologies.
Simply put, humans have a very consistent track record of improving their situation. They fuck up from time to time to be sure. We would be gods if we could avoid every mistake, and obviously we are not gods. That said, the general trend is clear. When humans sit down to work a problem they come up with solutions better then they had before. We as a species live longer and healthier lives now then we did in the past. The world is by no means perfect, and it has more then its fair share of problems, but clearly things are always getting better. A clear and obvious indication of this is the fact that human life expectancy continues to climb without faltering. Even through all of our mistakes we get enough right to leave our children with longer lives then we have, and so I thumb my nose to arguments that decry we shouldn't touch something simply because we might make a mistake. Of course we might make a mistake, but we also might make a great achievement. Relentlessly moving forward is all apart of being human. It would be unwise to forget that the darkest moments in our history are when we forget this.
I don't **know** that the meat I am eating is free of mad cow disease. I don't really care though because I live with one a few billion odds.
There is certainly a risk involved with genetically modified things. Hell, we know this for a fact because we have been doing it for hundreds of years through more primitive means, and we have screwed up in the past. That said, there comes a point when you need to go over your fear and dive in. We will never know anything for sure, and pretty sure is good enough most of the time. I am pretty sure I am not going to die in a car accident on the way to work each morning and that is good enough for me.
Now, there are plenty of reasons to be weary of modified plants and animals, but all of them are patenting and legal issues. As to the raw science of it though, such concerns are negligible with enough foresight. I don't know about you, but I would merrily risk two or three people in an entire population dying because genetically modified super corn gives them an allergic reaction then watch a few hundred thousand people die because their refuse to grow in the barren land that they live.
People need to put a careful eye to potential risks and rewards. Humans are horribly crafty bastards. Sure, we screw up for time to time, but we are not all that bad at dealing with the consequences. If you need any proof that we fix things more then we break them, you need only look at the average human life expectancy has changed over time.
If $10 or $15 dollars is a lot, you need to get allowance money or a job. That is like going to one movie a month. Even at minium wage that 2 to 3 hours worth of work a month. For most people, it is probably less then an hours worth of work a month.
The pricing model is fine. I'll happily pay 10$ a month for a game I'll play for more then 10 hours a month. Hell, I have bought more then one full price game just to be done with it after 10 hours.
It takes me 5 minutes to fill up my car, most of that time is spent paying for it. I can put 330 miles on my car before I need to refill. I drive 70 miles a day to and from work. I probably average 65-85 miles per hour, but spend at least 20 minutes in traffic under 20 miles per hour. When I park my car at night I park it on the street as I have no garage access.
There certainly are electric cars, but none of them could do what I need them to do. I can't recharge my car unless the street is fitted with charging stations or I feel like waiting at a charging station for my car to recharge. The electric motor does not have the range nor the ability to handle the range of speeds that I need. Simply put, an electric car can't do the job that a car run off of gas can. Certainly they exist, but for someone who uses their car to do more then drive around town and return to a garage, an electric car simply doesn't cut it. Further, my needs are pretty slim compared to the needs of a truck used for hauling goods.
I am all for R&D into electric cars, but the simple fact of the matter is that they need a hell of a lot more work before they are going to a staple. Electric cars are not going to overtake gas powered cars any time soon. As I said, for many uses nothing tops a gas powered motor.
Now, hybrids do offer some promise, though they still have a long way to go. They still are too costly and it remains to be seen how well they maintain once the warranty is out. Further, if you want people to buy them it is going to take more then just a warm feeling one gets when they use less. They are going to need to justify their added cost in the long run.
Of course, OPEC could make all of these arguments moot. If oil prices climb high enough then hybrids will justify their costs without further engineering. I think we are a ways away from that point. Oil prices are at an all time high... if you ignore inflation. Include inflation and the black stuff is still relatively cheap. The only reason to buy a hybrid is to be trendy and help the environment. There isn't an economic force behind it yet.
I think you are way off base. Fusion power would not end energy companies. I doubt it would even end fossile fuel exploitation. Oil gives more bang for the buck then any other fuel source which is why we are so addicted to the damned stuff. Bonus points for the fact that it is cheap and easy to make an engine that will run on it.
Now, fusion offers a great deal of possibilities, but there are two very large problems with it even when it is 'worked out'. First, it will be expensive. It is a major task to build such a plants. Building enough to power the world would take many decades and cost far more then I imagine most nations would be willing to spend. I am not saying that it couldn't eventually be done, but don't expect it to happen over night. Further, even if the world was covered in fusion plants, that energy would not be free. You still need to pay for all the parts and labor it takes to keep such a plant going. Sure, you might cut costs on material expenses, but they would rise everywhere else. Electricty wouldn't suddenly become cheap, just abundent. Second, fusion is large. You can't throw a fusion engine in your car and electric motors just don't have the capacity of a gas engine. If electricity was free tomorrow we still wouldn't hav electric cars.
I doubt energy companies are cowering at the prospects of fusion. Even if fusion was to completely upset the need for oil and coal, there is still the fact that people need energy and in a nation like the US that energy is going to be brought by a corportation. An energy company is in a perfect position to fill that need. At worst it means they have to shift their bussiness to focus less on oil and coal and move to fussion. The world won't end for them.
I don't like Bush, but pointing out that he tried to avoid getting sent to a war with a DRAFT and suggesting that that somehow makes him unable to lead a war is foolish. The Vietnam war was a war with a DRAFT. That means that the government could forcibly send you to go fight and die. The Iraq war, while certainly with its faults, is a war being fought by people who signed up knowing the consequences of signing up. Everyone who is there is there because they chose to join an armed service.
If you join an armed service, you have to expect that you might very well go to a war. That includes reservist, national guards, and people who thought there was no chance the shit would hit the fan while they were in. If you want to be a professional soldier, don't act surprised when someone tells you to go fight.
As for Bush being a 'coward' for not wanting to get dragged into the blood bath that was Vietnam, he wasn't the only one. Many sane and rational people decide dying for a war they never volunteered to fight was a shitty idea. Some got doctors to give them bull shit excuses to not fight. Some joined an armed service where they figured they would avoid having to fight. Some people just booked it out of the country. None of the above was bad things. The government should never have the authority to demand its citizens die, and if it does, the citizens should rightfully resist any way they can.
Bush is a shit head, but comparing penises as to who dodged the most bullets is thoroughly unimpressive. I don't give a shit who was stupider and felt more immortal when they were 18 years old. I want the best leader, not the one who had the biggest penis when he was 18.
Getting out of going to a war while there is a draft is not cowardly, it is smart. If the government can't get people to sign up for a war then they have no bussiness forcing people to go to it. People kick around draft dodging like it is a bad thing. Screw that. No government has the right to tell me that it is my time to die. You can bet your ass I would dodge any draft myself if I didn't believe in the cause.
I sure hope no one draws any conclusions from this survay, or if they do, they are damned careful about it. A good survay always tries to randomize who is asked within a certain selection of qualified people. In this case, the results will without a doubt be skewed. I wouldn't believe a single number produced about this survay, and I would not draw any conculsions about the 'jobless recovery' from it either.
The argument might be put forward that slashdotting the place is the perfect way to make sure the right people answer the survay. I would utterly disagree though. I would bet my eye teeth that slashdot's demographics are horribly skewed.
The average slashdotter is more likely to be out of work simply because people who are out of work have more time to read slashdot. It might also be that slashdotters are more likely to be working because they are generally more interested in their field of work and hence more dedicated. I couldn't tell you how it is skewed, but I can tell you that it WILL be skewed. I would take the survay results with a grain of salt. I would call them interesting, and perhaps even an interesting in relation to the employment of people visit slashdot and other sites that link to the survay, but the utterly meaningless in terms of the population as a whole.
So, enjoy the survay, but I wouldn't get upset if you see that your job prospects suck or that everyone else is making more/less money then you.
"If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there."
And here lies the problem. Some people enjoy gambling, some people don't. It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard. I dislike the idea even more now that I have seen the alternative in the former E-Music and peer to peer.
Simply put, I will spend X number of dollars each month. It doesn't matter how much music is out there, I have a set amount of money I am willing to spend. I don't want to gamble one wasting my money on things I don't like. I don't even want to bother researching the music to improve my odds. I simply want to listen on my own time, and if I find something I like, keep it instead of deleting it.
Until someone accomidates me I am simply going to follow the path of least resistance. E-music used to be that path. I happily shelled out my money and downloaded and listened when I had the chance. Since E-music when to their foolish new pricing plan I have simply gone back to peer to peer applications. The advertised service means nothing to me. I simply want to download music at a fixed price and forget about it. I don't ever want to sit there and make a judgement call as to if I am wasting my money by buying one song or another.
Hurray for independent labels and no DRM, but stuff like this is for someone else. I'll stick to stealing.
Speaking as someone who is dating a woman with a mental illness, if they can find a way to treat this stuff better, good. It might seem like a good idea on the outside to just let things run their course, but the truth is that mental illness is no less a medical problem that needs ot be treated then allegies and diabetes. Few things in this world are more painful then seeing someone physically unable to be happy simply because some chemical in their brain has gone askew. The world could be perfect and they could still be miserable to depths I will never ever feel.
Mental illness is as much of a world health problem as AIDs or cancer. The sooner these problems can be stamped out, the better.
This has happened before the US at least two times already. Both times the US ended up on top because no matter what your politics, you can't deny that the US has one of the most agile markets in the world and the US worker is the most productive worker in the world.
The US once was existed almost purely off of farming and agriculture. Agriculture has been all but wiped out now. Only a small fraction of the population still works in that field. The US moved on. Manufacturing was once king. Manufacturing has had massive hunks taken out of it in the later half of the last 20th century. We moved on. Ok, so the next level of technology and the next field is in the process of getting wiped out... GOOD.
There is always pain involved in these transitions. It is something that can not be avoided, but in the end the ability to move forward and on has been a great asset to the US. Certainly we dabble in protectionism, but when it comes down to it the US is generally willing to let industries die or keep them on the most minimal of life support.
I don't want the US to keep industries that are dying here alive. The longer we wait to move on, the more painful it is going to be when we MUST change or loose our status as the most powerful economy in the world. Imagine if the US had resisted moving away from an agrarian or industrial state? Imagine if today half of all American's were farmers. Do you think the nation we have today would even be recognizable? It is a good thing that industries die and we have the strength and perseverance to move on. To pull out the old line, move on for the children so that they are not handed a dead protectionist economy with no hope of moving into the future.
It is a hard thing to let the market take its course, but the truth is that few nations are in as good of a position as the US to let the chips fall as they may. Is the US economy going to have to change? Yes, but in the end it will be for the better. We don't want to compete with Taiwan for manufacturing in the same way we don't want to compete with India for low level IT. Let those industries die, concentrate on retraining, and accept the future. It is better to struggle in an economy that is dynamic enough to slug its way forward then to circle the wagons and protect an industry that is dying.
Protectionism is a shortsighted and the death of this nation for the long term. I don't want my kids to be working IS support for pennies a day getting the way pay of a third world nation because the people in those industries today were too short sighted to let them move on. I want my kids in the industries of the future worthy of the first world position the US has since the modern age.
I want only one thing. Perm death. If a company does TRUE perm death, you will have a one of a kind game. No ressurections, no stupid stories as to why the orc didn't tear your head off to make sure the job is done, no cheap or dirty tricks to get out of dying. If a game builds true, honest to god perm death, that game will be different. If they try and make a perm death game like Everquest, it will fail miserably, and that is exactly why I want it. Make a game perm death, and things will have to change or the game will be a total failure.
Oh well, perhaps some day someone will get the guts to do it. Until then, Everquest clones rule the day.
'They know what they are doing' is the battle cry for every single MMORPG fan since the begining of time. It is a stupid argument that always proves false.
More to the point, simply look at the features they are touting. Do you see a single thing new? I see some enhancement and general evolution, but there is no revolution here. They don't have the guts to do anything new. They are just going to pump out the same crap. The fan boys who blindly follow will buy it and drop it a month or two later. The addicts will provide steady profit. Unless you are an addict, I wouldn't get your hopes up, especially as any fool can look at the features they are bragging about and see right now this very day that there is nothing new. This is the same old MMORPG with the same old features. The only difference is a grpahics upgrade and some extra polish.
Why in the hell are you people excited over this game? I am totally blown away by the reception WoW is getting. As far as I can tell this game offers absolutely nothing new other then the setting, and it isn't like the setting was a great leap in creativity either. Honestly, look at the features they promise and try and find the ones they are offering that will be new. What it comes down to is that they are offering more of the same, but swear they will do it 'right'. Please.
WoW looks and feels like every other MMORPG out there to date. You will log on, kill stuff, and be bored in a month unless you are an addict. Truly addictive behavior is the only to enjoy this game, and I am not sure I would call even that 'enjoyable'.
WoW is not revolution or true advancement. It is just the same shit refined a little bit more. I personally have absolutely no excitment for this game or MMORPGs in general these days. MMORPG makers are just getting more and more spineless. They are taking fewer risks and the genera is stagnating. Personally, I will not waste my time even applying for WoW beta. I will wait until a game comes and takes a few risks. Everquest/AC/DAoC refined, which is all that WoW offers, has no interest for me.
Re:Culture of Empire vs. Culture of Exploration.
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The Future of NASA
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You live in a fantasy world if you think NASA has always been about exploration. NASA was never about exploration. NASA has done some fine work, but all of the 'big' things they have done walk hand in hand with the military. NASA has always had a close relationship with the military and has always been an tool for national progandia/pride. The moon mission was not done out of lust for exploration, but to show up the Russians. I am not saying that is a good or bad thing, but it wasn't just an attempt to explore.
Further, NASA never acts like explores. There are thousands... millions of people who would happily risk life and limb in space. NASA never needs to worry about finding a bunch of guts young intilligent people to fling into space who don't care if the bucket of bolts they are riding has safty equipment or not. Explorse take bold risks and worry about life and limb later. NASA is fantically obsessed with preserving the life of their explores to the point where they are unwilling to take risks. Hell, they want to put a freaking escape craft on the shuttle that would reduce its cargo capacity to zero.
The best thing for NASA would be if they one day woke up that it is okay to spend lives so long as those lives know that they are being spent. People would take a one way trip to mars knowning full well that they might not make it alive, and that they might not ever come home. I am not saying throw lives away, but don't be afraid to risk a few. The exploration lust of Americans far outweighs anything NASA has. I bet you could easily find a thousand intiligent volunteers to jump into a rocket, land on mars, live until life sport systems shit out, and die, knowing full well they cut their life spans down to two years before they left.
I don't suggest NASA do such a thing, but I would rather see be more reckless then not. If ripping out escape pods means you can carry another piece of scientific equipment or lets them stay out in space for another couple of days, they should do it.
The US IS a force against dictatorships in general, but they pick and choose their battles. Further, the US is willing to make 'deals with the devil' to further their ends against larger evils. The prime example of course is the Cold War. The US struggled with that dictatorship with fanatical zeal, and I don't think anyone can argue against that. The US sat with their finger hovering over nuclear oblivion because they had such a fanatical devotion to elimiting this oppressive regiem.
Now, why does the US not directly fight all places and even let some off the hook? Simply because the US is limited. The US could not invade North Korea without destroying South Korea and racking up a body count to make all the wars since after World War II look like skirmishes. So, the US fights North Korea through sanctions and diplomacy.
In the ideal US world, everyone is a democracy. It would be nice if they were all capitalist democracies, but the US only lets out the occasional grumble for those who choose the path of socialism. We might mumble about France, but to this day the US would not hesitate for even a second to send the entire US military to France's defense without thought of cost in lives or money. The US defends democracies and defends them fanatically. Just because they don't fight every war at once and still act out of pragmatism when it comes to picking battles does not mean the US is not a force a democracy in the world.
I personally think that this is good for employees, especially the hard working type. Recently there were reports of mangers encouraging their employees to write they only worked 40 hours a week for Walmart when they actually worked more. In this system there is no filling out a time card, and if it is something that is done as you enter and leave, then there is simply no confusion and no room to press people to lie about their hours. I personally like the idea as it would ensure that over time is paid and that people who are late do not drain the company. This can only help hard working employees.
I am constantly and consistently amazed at how frightened people can become over global warming. To me, there are two ways to look at it. You can look at it either from the environments perspective and ours.
From the environments perspective, humans are a brief hiccup. The earth has seen drastically more damaging environmental disasters, and simply put, disasters are how nature changes and evolution is produced. Disasters are in fact a fine things to happen if biodiversity is your concern as they give rise to new and more exotic creatures with each passing. Even the most terrible of disasters, such as the comet that killed the dinosaurs, are not enough to put nature down and out. In fact, that disaster is what led to our rise in the first place. Humanity could probably rape and pillage this world with all of its might, and in the long term things would be okay. I am not suggesting that we do so, but I am not going to sweat much if biodiversity takes a short term fall.
So some animals die? New animals will replace them. Granted, it isn't going to happen on a time scale we can appreciate, but I think that is the problem. Environmentalist look at the world on their time scale which has the attention span of 50 years, when evolution and natural selection is far more concerned with a much broader picture in which sudden mass extinctions are not the end of life.
The other perspective from the human perspective. From the human perspective, this problem is more of a nuisance. There is absolutely nothing humanity could willingly do to the environment that could kill off humanity outside of all out nuclear/biological war (and even then). Humans force evolution upon themselves too damned quick to kill themselves. The entire ozone layer could vanish tomorrow in a single instance and humanity as a whole would go on. We can certainly make our selves struggle a little and rack up a body count in the process, but in the end, humanity will go on, even if it means we have to live inside or protect ourselves from our own environment. That isn't exactly a pretty way to live, but it certainly is not a sigh of the end.
More then the simple fact that we will cling to life and force our own evolution through technology to survive, we also can repair the damage we do in time. Already we have learned some powerful bioremediation techniques to clean up some of the more harmful things we have done. It would come as little shock if in 50 or 100 years we have the capacity to do nature's job and produce new creatures from scratch that can live wherever we please them to live. It might be that 200 years from now biodiversity has shot through the roof far beyond anything nature has ever seen simply because we wanted it that way. It also would come as little surprise if we simply expand our terraforming powers to include the entire earth. Instead of altering the environment to suit our needs immediately surrounding ourselves with clothes, cars, and houses, it is no stretch of the imagination to see humanity setting its goals even broader and altering the entire earth's environment to our needs. It might very well be that there comes a day when we simply decide that we want a thicker ozone layer and build machines to build more ozone and repair the damage we have done.
Our impact on the environment is no threat to humanity or the environment as a whole. Yes, we can shoot ourselves in the foot in the short term and that should certainly be avoided. I don't fancy the idea that I can't go to the beach without SPF 100 on. That said, we need to moderate how much we are willing to sacrifice for the environment and keep it in perspective that this is an issue of comfort and health, not life or death for humanity and the environment as a whole. Take steps to slow wanton destruction, but don't tie humanities hands in the process.
The problem with ID is that a universe that does not comply with the ID theory would not be able to be observed. ID basically states that the universe is so well put together and that things fit so perfectly to allow certain things, most notably life, that there must be some force behind it.
What ID completely ignores is the fact that any universe that would have rules that would be shitty for life and intelligence would never realize it. In other words, there could have been a billion big bangs all that developed different laws. In all of these big bangs there might have been only one where all the laws arrived to allow for intelligence (humans) to observe it.
ID theory also suffers from the simple fact that a good theory can devise be disproved. You can never prove a good theory, but you can always find a way to disprove it. If you develop a theory that can not be disproved, then you have not added much. You have just engaged a logic exercise, not any sort of true science.
ID has no place in science. ID is a just a catch all for things we don't understand. It might very well come that one day we discover through science some intelligent power that created everything, however, until that time ID is very much a premature. ID is based upon the observation that the universe is elegant in its construction. To automatically assume that this means that some higher power is at work is utterly foolish.
As to the topic at hand, the only thing that this proves is that current theories could be potentially incomplete. It very well could be that the universe is older then it appears, and this would of course require modifying or scrapping the current theories. It isn't a death blow by any stretch of the imagination. It also is still need a great deal more scientific validation before it can be shown that what we are looking at is as old as these scientist claim.
You are right in that Russian played a major role in turning the war, but I don't think you realize how close Russia was to being overtaken. The war in Russia was VERY close. Without the other front, Germany would have almost certainly over run Russia. All the troops Germany sent into Africa and to guard France from Allied invasion would have otherwise been in Russia.
Germany could have been defeated if Russia had lost by the Americans, but it would have been so many times more terrible and costly then it was. The Russians on the other hand would have almost without question lost to Germany had the allies not been putting pressure on them in the west.
I personally find this ruling to be terrible and not thought out. When you are paying for an online game, you are paying for a service. Now, if the service states that under the event of bugs, hackers, or whatever, you are entitled to reimbursement and they fail to provide this, fine. Take them to court. They are breathing their end of the agreement. If on the other hand this is not a promised piece of the agreement, then this is utterly ridiculous. For online games to be viable services, they need flexibility to decide how they want to deal with problems like lost virtual property.
As an intelligent consumer you might very well make your decision about what games you play based upon the level of security they are willing to offer. Second Life for instance states that any thing you create is yours. Other games make no such claim. If you like that sort of agreement, then shell out money to Second Life and not SWG or Everquest.
If there was a true breach of contract here, great, the company got what it deserved if it did not live up the services it said it would give. If on the other hand there was no such promise then this sort of decision is a blow the online games (at least in China).
I really was not advocating war, just explaining the reason for it. I think the justification I gave is the one that Bush's team uses. I was just pointing out that WMDs was just the excuse, and not the real reason.
As to the actual morality of it, I don't think you can simply approach it as 'war kills people'. 'Not war' also kills people. Sanctions for instance kill people, and in fact kill far more then any US lead war in Iraq could. The difference is that instead of people dying from bullets, they die to weakened immune systems from malnutrition, poor medical equipment, or because they didn't have enough power or money to run an AC and grandma died. That doesn't even include the people who died for political reasons. The war probably saved lives. I think the absolute worst high end projections for the Iraq war put it at 10,000 deaths including combatants and civilians. That is pocket change next to what sanctions and Saddam killed.
The bigger issues with war is that it is forcing your will upon someone, it is expensive for Americans, and Americans die.
The forcing of will doesn't really bother me much. Yeah, so the US is forcing their style of government down Iraq's throat. Saddam was forcing his style of government down their throat as well. Both governments were run through forcing one's will upon the people. So, you might as well just pick the government that was 'more good' despite the fact that both are founded on force. I would say the US government in Iraq is 'more good' because it generally tries to avoid mass executions and respects the will of the people more so then Saddam's government. You can protest the US lead government and you won't be gunned down unless someone pulls out a gun. Further, the US troops are going to leave one day and hopefully a democracy will be left in its place. This seems more good then a brutal dictator who also used force to stay in power. Both used force, but I would call the US force the lesser of two evils.
The real issue fore me would be the cost in American lives and money. I hate to sound callus, but the cost in American lives doesn't bother me much either. We have not lost a lot of lives. Significantly more Americans die to alcohol then war. That is no consolation to someone who has lost someone, but if society is willing to put with the cost in lives of alcohol, then I don't see why it can't put up with the cost in lives of Iraq. Further, if you are in the armed forces it is understood that you are taking the risk that you will have to fight for the nations interests. Everything is done to avoid the risk of death in the armed forces, but the guns are not just for show, and it should be well understood that the armed forces are not just there for defense of the nations borders. If they were, we would have a much smaller military. So, anyone who has gone in has accepted that they could potentially be used as they are being used in Iraq. It comes with the job.
Finally, there is the issue of money. To me, this is the biggest pause. Iraq is an investment. The investment is good if Iraq one day turns out like Japan. All the money spent on the occupation of Japan was made up and then a thousand times over in trade and technology. Japan and Germany are examples of nations that were occupied that we would happily do again simply because it turned out so good. The converse of Japan and Germany would Vietnam, Haiti, and Somalia. Those are nations that the US occupied, paid a high price, and at the end of the day they are still a mess.
Was the Iraqi war worth it? I don't think we will know for at least another 10-30 years. If 30 years from now Iraq looks like Japan in the desert, I imagine everyone would agree it was completely worth it. If 30 years from now Iraq looks like Vietnam, then this was a total waste of lives and money. The jury is still out as far as I am concerned. If the decision had been mine to make, I wouldn't have been strongly pushed in either direction. I understand booth sides, but both sides are just guessing blindly at the future. It is a gamble, only time will tell if it was a good one.
I understand the sentiment that people think you should just teach them to not do stupid things and give them full access. While that is nice in theory, it is hard to teach children, especially younger children the important lessons without burning through a few computers. Unfortunately, the brighter they are, the more likely they are to break something. On occasion I head home and every time I do I have to fix two machines FILLED with Trojan programs and spyware. I educate, but there is only so much I can do. Kids are stupid and can be tricked, pure and simple. If you have a shared computer that does serious work, then it means constantly fighting the crap that gets on just to keep important things running. If someone could answer this question, I would appreciate so I don't have to constantly be battling to keep these computers working.
The best solution of course is to get them their own computer to use and destroy. This is fine if your kid just wants to beat around the Internet as you can buy a cheap POS computer for pocket change these days. However, if you have a young aspiring gamer it becomes much more difficult, as a gamer needs something with power behind it. Dropping a couple thousand dollars just for a kid to have his own computer no one else uses is a rather expensive proposition.
What I would REALLY like answered is if there is a way on an XP machine to keep Trojans and spyware programs out. Yes, I know adaware and spybot can clean this stuff, but I have found that most of the time it is far too late and the damage is done. Does anyone have any good suggestions for keepings this crap off in the first place?
With regards to your complaint that the American public needs to have things sugar coated, I completely agree with you. It irks me when I hear people breathing a sigh of relief because Saddam can no longer nuke the US. It is kind of sad that most people can't see through the thinly veiled excuse the US used to make the war 'legal' (or at least more legal). Iraq was invaded because the US wanted a free market democracy in the Middle East to influence the nations around it, pure and simple, right or wrong. WMDs was like nailing a mobster on tax evasion charges - it was an excuse. I wish people would judge the validity of the war based on what it was really about. That isn't to say you can't still support the war, just understand the real reason behind it instead of chanting mantra.
Of course, both sides are guilty of chanting stupid mantra. "No more blood for oil" was chanted as much as "don't let Saddam nuke the US". Both were stupid arguments dumbed down for the masses.
Perhaps that is the reason why the Bush administration continues on with its charade about WMDs - people are stupid. Anti-war people rally their stupid supports with dumb no blood for oil mantra and boil the entire conflict down to just evil corporations looking to make a quick buck. Pro-war people rally their stupid supports with fear of WMDs and terrorist about to turn American cities into dust. Both are infinitely stupid arguments and don't even begin to scratch the truth what really happened and why. If you think Bush attacked Iraq to make a quick buck or if you think he did it to keep US cities from feeling WMDs, you are ignoring the fact that the world is not as black and white and as complicated as it is.
Any time you receive and argument where there is an obvious good guy and bag guy, then that should set off a dozen warnings in your head that you are being fed bullshit. If you can't see both sides of the argument and understand how someone on both sides feels, then you are better off keeping your mouth shut because you clearly don't understand the totality of the situation.
Perhaps people deserve to be treated like idiots. Stupid mantra seems to have done well enough to mobilize both sides. If people are shut stupid sheep that they will believe such simple and inane explanations of the world around them, then perhaps we are getting what we deserve. It is a sad commentary.
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The issue is not free music, it is the method of shopping. For a while I was happily shelling out my monthly fee to e-music. They supported the type of shopping I wanted to do. I want to go, download a bunch of stuff that I could potentially hate and listen to it. Hopefully I will find a few golden eggs. Every month they got my check (credit card actually, but who is counting?). Then they decided to go to a more 'regular' installment where you have to buy x number of songs at x price, completely missing the fucking point as to why people would pick e-music over any other service.
Look, all that I want is to be able to explore new music. I want to do it simply and easily. I don't want to dick around and spend my time searching for it. Nothing under the sun is going to make me buy a horde of CDs hoping that some of them don't suck. Nothing is going to make me go out and research which bands suck and don't suck before I buy them. I honestly don't care enough to waste my time doing this. I'll happily shell out my money for the right to explore someone's database of music. I'll shell it out every single month. Hell, I do it already for movies. I couldn't be happier with NetFlix.com - care free exploration of movies at a flat rate. They get my 20 a month instead of blockbuster now because they realized that I am a different type of shopper. I used to pirate movies all of the time, until I found NetFlix.
Until these idiots listen to the market, it will be NetFlix for movies and my P2P of choice for music. The first company to satisfy my music buying style gets my cash. NetFlix won my movie dollars, now hopefully some idiot will win my music dollars. They can sue their asses off. I break the law all the time; I speed, I smoke the evil herb occasionally, I drank under 21 (when I was still under 21), and I merrily pirate music. It is just another calculated risk. Most people violate the law reguarly knowing a potential risk involved with doing it. The RIAA will never win this game. Only growing the balls to compete in the market is going to win me back.
Everything you point out is certainly true - if you are a plant or animal. If you are a non-human animal or tree, having humans around sucks. Lucky for us, we are all human here. I care about the environment exactly as much as it has some sort of impact on humans.
So yes, agriculture has completely changed the face of the world and wiped out many pieces of the environment, but I give agriculture a big thumbs up. Agriculture means that I don't have to go get my own food, and that gives me plenty of time to be an engineer, doctors work on extending my life, and scientists to unlock new technologies.
Simply put, humans have a very consistent track record of improving their situation. They fuck up from time to time to be sure. We would be gods if we could avoid every mistake, and obviously we are not gods. That said, the general trend is clear. When humans sit down to work a problem they come up with solutions better then they had before. We as a species live longer and healthier lives now then we did in the past. The world is by no means perfect, and it has more then its fair share of problems, but clearly things are always getting better. A clear and obvious indication of this is the fact that human life expectancy continues to climb without faltering. Even through all of our mistakes we get enough right to leave our children with longer lives then we have, and so I thumb my nose to arguments that decry we shouldn't touch something simply because we might make a mistake. Of course we might make a mistake, but we also might make a great achievement. Relentlessly moving forward is all apart of being human. It would be unwise to forget that the darkest moments in our history are when we forget this.
I don't **know** that the meat I am eating is free of mad cow disease. I don't really care though because I live with one a few billion odds.
There is certainly a risk involved with genetically modified things. Hell, we know this for a fact because we have been doing it for hundreds of years through more primitive means, and we have screwed up in the past. That said, there comes a point when you need to go over your fear and dive in. We will never know anything for sure, and pretty sure is good enough most of the time. I am pretty sure I am not going to die in a car accident on the way to work each morning and that is good enough for me.
Now, there are plenty of reasons to be weary of modified plants and animals, but all of them are patenting and legal issues. As to the raw science of it though, such concerns are negligible with enough foresight. I don't know about you, but I would merrily risk two or three people in an entire population dying because genetically modified super corn gives them an allergic reaction then watch a few hundred thousand people die because their refuse to grow in the barren land that they live.
People need to put a careful eye to potential risks and rewards. Humans are horribly crafty bastards. Sure, we screw up for time to time, but we are not all that bad at dealing with the consequences. If you need any proof that we fix things more then we break them, you need only look at the average human life expectancy has changed over time.
If $10 or $15 dollars is a lot, you need to get allowance money or a job. That is like going to one movie a month. Even at minium wage that 2 to 3 hours worth of work a month. For most people, it is probably less then an hours worth of work a month.
The pricing model is fine. I'll happily pay 10$ a month for a game I'll play for more then 10 hours a month. Hell, I have bought more then one full price game just to be done with it after 10 hours.
It takes me 5 minutes to fill up my car, most of that time is spent paying for it. I can put 330 miles on my car before I need to refill. I drive 70 miles a day to and from work. I probably average 65-85 miles per hour, but spend at least 20 minutes in traffic under 20 miles per hour. When I park my car at night I park it on the street as I have no garage access.
There certainly are electric cars, but none of them could do what I need them to do. I can't recharge my car unless the street is fitted with charging stations or I feel like waiting at a charging station for my car to recharge. The electric motor does not have the range nor the ability to handle the range of speeds that I need. Simply put, an electric car can't do the job that a car run off of gas can. Certainly they exist, but for someone who uses their car to do more then drive around town and return to a garage, an electric car simply doesn't cut it. Further, my needs are pretty slim compared to the needs of a truck used for hauling goods.
I am all for R&D into electric cars, but the simple fact of the matter is that they need a hell of a lot more work before they are going to a staple. Electric cars are not going to overtake gas powered cars any time soon. As I said, for many uses nothing tops a gas powered motor.
Now, hybrids do offer some promise, though they still have a long way to go. They still are too costly and it remains to be seen how well they maintain once the warranty is out. Further, if you want people to buy them it is going to take more then just a warm feeling one gets when they use less. They are going to need to justify their added cost in the long run.
Of course, OPEC could make all of these arguments moot. If oil prices climb high enough then hybrids will justify their costs without further engineering. I think we are a ways away from that point. Oil prices are at an all time high... if you ignore inflation. Include inflation and the black stuff is still relatively cheap. The only reason to buy a hybrid is to be trendy and help the environment. There isn't an economic force behind it yet.
I think you are way off base. Fusion power would not end energy companies. I doubt it would even end fossile fuel exploitation. Oil gives more bang for the buck then any other fuel source which is why we are so addicted to the damned stuff. Bonus points for the fact that it is cheap and easy to make an engine that will run on it.
Now, fusion offers a great deal of possibilities, but there are two very large problems with it even when it is 'worked out'. First, it will be expensive. It is a major task to build such a plants. Building enough to power the world would take many decades and cost far more then I imagine most nations would be willing to spend. I am not saying that it couldn't eventually be done, but don't expect it to happen over night. Further, even if the world was covered in fusion plants, that energy would not be free. You still need to pay for all the parts and labor it takes to keep such a plant going. Sure, you might cut costs on material expenses, but they would rise everywhere else. Electricty wouldn't suddenly become cheap, just abundent. Second, fusion is large. You can't throw a fusion engine in your car and electric motors just don't have the capacity of a gas engine. If electricity was free tomorrow we still wouldn't hav electric cars.
I doubt energy companies are cowering at the prospects of fusion. Even if fusion was to completely upset the need for oil and coal, there is still the fact that people need energy and in a nation like the US that energy is going to be brought by a corportation. An energy company is in a perfect position to fill that need. At worst it means they have to shift their bussiness to focus less on oil and coal and move to fussion. The world won't end for them.
I don't like Bush, but pointing out that he tried to avoid getting sent to a war with a DRAFT and suggesting that that somehow makes him unable to lead a war is foolish. The Vietnam war was a war with a DRAFT. That means that the government could forcibly send you to go fight and die. The Iraq war, while certainly with its faults, is a war being fought by people who signed up knowing the consequences of signing up. Everyone who is there is there because they chose to join an armed service.
If you join an armed service, you have to expect that you might very well go to a war. That includes reservist, national guards, and people who thought there was no chance the shit would hit the fan while they were in. If you want to be a professional soldier, don't act surprised when someone tells you to go fight.
As for Bush being a 'coward' for not wanting to get dragged into the blood bath that was Vietnam, he wasn't the only one. Many sane and rational people decide dying for a war they never volunteered to fight was a shitty idea. Some got doctors to give them bull shit excuses to not fight. Some joined an armed service where they figured they would avoid having to fight. Some people just booked it out of the country. None of the above was bad things. The government should never have the authority to demand its citizens die, and if it does, the citizens should rightfully resist any way they can.
Bush is a shit head, but comparing penises as to who dodged the most bullets is thoroughly unimpressive. I don't give a shit who was stupider and felt more immortal when they were 18 years old. I want the best leader, not the one who had the biggest penis when he was 18.
Getting out of going to a war while there is a draft is not cowardly, it is smart. If the government can't get people to sign up for a war then they have no bussiness forcing people to go to it. People kick around draft dodging like it is a bad thing. Screw that. No government has the right to tell me that it is my time to die. You can bet your ass I would dodge any draft myself if I didn't believe in the cause.
I sure hope no one draws any conclusions from this survay, or if they do, they are damned careful about it. A good survay always tries to randomize who is asked within a certain selection of qualified people. In this case, the results will without a doubt be skewed. I wouldn't believe a single number produced about this survay, and I would not draw any conculsions about the 'jobless recovery' from it either.
The argument might be put forward that slashdotting the place is the perfect way to make sure the right people answer the survay. I would utterly disagree though. I would bet my eye teeth that slashdot's demographics are horribly skewed.
The average slashdotter is more likely to be out of work simply because people who are out of work have more time to read slashdot. It might also be that slashdotters are more likely to be working because they are generally more interested in their field of work and hence more dedicated. I couldn't tell you how it is skewed, but I can tell you that it WILL be skewed. I would take the survay results with a grain of salt. I would call them interesting, and perhaps even an interesting in relation to the employment of people visit slashdot and other sites that link to the survay, but the utterly meaningless in terms of the population as a whole.
So, enjoy the survay, but I wouldn't get upset if you see that your job prospects suck or that everyone else is making more/less money then you.
"If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there."
And here lies the problem. Some people enjoy gambling, some people don't. It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard. I dislike the idea even more now that I have seen the alternative in the former E-Music and peer to peer.
Simply put, I will spend X number of dollars each month. It doesn't matter how much music is out there, I have a set amount of money I am willing to spend. I don't want to gamble one wasting my money on things I don't like. I don't even want to bother researching the music to improve my odds. I simply want to listen on my own time, and if I find something I like, keep it instead of deleting it.
Until someone accomidates me I am simply going to follow the path of least resistance. E-music used to be that path. I happily shelled out my money and downloaded and listened when I had the chance. Since E-music when to their foolish new pricing plan I have simply gone back to peer to peer applications. The advertised service means nothing to me. I simply want to download music at a fixed price and forget about it. I don't ever want to sit there and make a judgement call as to if I am wasting my money by buying one song or another.
Hurray for independent labels and no DRM, but stuff like this is for someone else. I'll stick to stealing.
Speaking as someone who is dating a woman with a mental illness, if they can find a way to treat this stuff better, good. It might seem like a good idea on the outside to just let things run their course, but the truth is that mental illness is no less a medical problem that needs ot be treated then allegies and diabetes. Few things in this world are more painful then seeing someone physically unable to be happy simply because some chemical in their brain has gone askew. The world could be perfect and they could still be miserable to depths I will never ever feel.
Mental illness is as much of a world health problem as AIDs or cancer. The sooner these problems can be stamped out, the better.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
This has happened before the US at least two times already. Both times the US ended up on top because no matter what your politics, you can't deny that the US has one of the most agile markets in the world and the US worker is the most productive worker in the world.
The US once was existed almost purely off of farming and agriculture. Agriculture has been all but wiped out now. Only a small fraction of the population still works in that field. The US moved on. Manufacturing was once king. Manufacturing has had massive hunks taken out of it in the later half of the last 20th century. We moved on. Ok, so the next level of technology and the next field is in the process of getting wiped out... GOOD.
There is always pain involved in these transitions. It is something that can not be avoided, but in the end the ability to move forward and on has been a great asset to the US. Certainly we dabble in protectionism, but when it comes down to it the US is generally willing to let industries die or keep them on the most minimal of life support.
I don't want the US to keep industries that are dying here alive. The longer we wait to move on, the more painful it is going to be when we MUST change or loose our status as the most powerful economy in the world. Imagine if the US had resisted moving away from an agrarian or industrial state? Imagine if today half of all American's were farmers. Do you think the nation we have today would even be recognizable? It is a good thing that industries die and we have the strength and perseverance to move on. To pull out the old line, move on for the children so that they are not handed a dead protectionist economy with no hope of moving into the future.
It is a hard thing to let the market take its course, but the truth is that few nations are in as good of a position as the US to let the chips fall as they may. Is the US economy going to have to change? Yes, but in the end it will be for the better. We don't want to compete with Taiwan for manufacturing in the same way we don't want to compete with India for low level IT. Let those industries die, concentrate on retraining, and accept the future. It is better to struggle in an economy that is dynamic enough to slug its way forward then to circle the wagons and protect an industry that is dying.
Protectionism is a shortsighted and the death of this nation for the long term. I don't want my kids to be working IS support for pennies a day getting the way pay of a third world nation because the people in those industries today were too short sighted to let them move on. I want my kids in the industries of the future worthy of the first world position the US has since the modern age.
I want only one thing. Perm death. If a company does TRUE perm death, you will have a one of a kind game. No ressurections, no stupid stories as to why the orc didn't tear your head off to make sure the job is done, no cheap or dirty tricks to get out of dying. If a game builds true, honest to god perm death, that game will be different. If they try and make a perm death game like Everquest, it will fail miserably, and that is exactly why I want it. Make a game perm death, and things will have to change or the game will be a total failure.
Oh well, perhaps some day someone will get the guts to do it. Until then, Everquest clones rule the day.
'They know what they are doing' is the battle cry for every single MMORPG fan since the begining of time. It is a stupid argument that always proves false.
More to the point, simply look at the features they are touting. Do you see a single thing new? I see some enhancement and general evolution, but there is no revolution here. They don't have the guts to do anything new. They are just going to pump out the same crap. The fan boys who blindly follow will buy it and drop it a month or two later. The addicts will provide steady profit. Unless you are an addict, I wouldn't get your hopes up, especially as any fool can look at the features they are bragging about and see right now this very day that there is nothing new. This is the same old MMORPG with the same old features. The only difference is a grpahics upgrade and some extra polish.
Why in the hell are you people excited over this game? I am totally blown away by the reception WoW is getting. As far as I can tell this game offers absolutely nothing new other then the setting, and it isn't like the setting was a great leap in creativity either. Honestly, look at the features they promise and try and find the ones they are offering that will be new. What it comes down to is that they are offering more of the same, but swear they will do it 'right'. Please.
WoW looks and feels like every other MMORPG out there to date. You will log on, kill stuff, and be bored in a month unless you are an addict. Truly addictive behavior is the only to enjoy this game, and I am not sure I would call even that 'enjoyable'.
WoW is not revolution or true advancement. It is just the same shit refined a little bit more. I personally have absolutely no excitment for this game or MMORPGs in general these days. MMORPG makers are just getting more and more spineless. They are taking fewer risks and the genera is stagnating. Personally, I will not waste my time even applying for WoW beta. I will wait until a game comes and takes a few risks. Everquest/AC/DAoC refined, which is all that WoW offers, has no interest for me.
You live in a fantasy world if you think NASA has always been about exploration. NASA was never about exploration. NASA has done some fine work, but all of the 'big' things they have done walk hand in hand with the military. NASA has always had a close relationship with the military and has always been an tool for national progandia/pride. The moon mission was not done out of lust for exploration, but to show up the Russians. I am not saying that is a good or bad thing, but it wasn't just an attempt to explore.
Further, NASA never acts like explores. There are thousands... millions of people who would happily risk life and limb in space. NASA never needs to worry about finding a bunch of guts young intilligent people to fling into space who don't care if the bucket of bolts they are riding has safty equipment or not. Explorse take bold risks and worry about life and limb later. NASA is fantically obsessed with preserving the life of their explores to the point where they are unwilling to take risks. Hell, they want to put a freaking escape craft on the shuttle that would reduce its cargo capacity to zero.
The best thing for NASA would be if they one day woke up that it is okay to spend lives so long as those lives know that they are being spent. People would take a one way trip to mars knowning full well that they might not make it alive, and that they might not ever come home. I am not saying throw lives away, but don't be afraid to risk a few. The exploration lust of Americans far outweighs anything NASA has. I bet you could easily find a thousand intiligent volunteers to jump into a rocket, land on mars, live until life sport systems shit out, and die, knowing full well they cut their life spans down to two years before they left.
I don't suggest NASA do such a thing, but I would rather see be more reckless then not. If ripping out escape pods means you can carry another piece of scientific equipment or lets them stay out in space for another couple of days, they should do it.
The US IS a force against dictatorships in general, but they pick and choose their battles. Further, the US is willing to make 'deals with the devil' to further their ends against larger evils. The prime example of course is the Cold War. The US struggled with that dictatorship with fanatical zeal, and I don't think anyone can argue against that. The US sat with their finger hovering over nuclear oblivion because they had such a fanatical devotion to elimiting this oppressive regiem.
Now, why does the US not directly fight all places and even let some off the hook? Simply because the US is limited. The US could not invade North Korea without destroying South Korea and racking up a body count to make all the wars since after World War II look like skirmishes. So, the US fights North Korea through sanctions and diplomacy.
In the ideal US world, everyone is a democracy. It would be nice if they were all capitalist democracies, but the US only lets out the occasional grumble for those who choose the path of socialism. We might mumble about France, but to this day the US would not hesitate for even a second to send the entire US military to France's defense without thought of cost in lives or money. The US defends democracies and defends them fanatically. Just because they don't fight every war at once and still act out of pragmatism when it comes to picking battles does not mean the US is not a force a democracy in the world.
I personally think that this is good for employees, especially the hard working type. Recently there were reports of mangers encouraging their employees to write they only worked 40 hours a week for Walmart when they actually worked more. In this system there is no filling out a time card, and if it is something that is done as you enter and leave, then there is simply no confusion and no room to press people to lie about their hours. I personally like the idea as it would ensure that over time is paid and that people who are late do not drain the company. This can only help hard working employees.
I am constantly and consistently amazed at how frightened people can become over global warming. To me, there are two ways to look at it. You can look at it either from the environments perspective and ours.
From the environments perspective, humans are a brief hiccup. The earth has seen drastically more damaging environmental disasters, and simply put, disasters are how nature changes and evolution is produced. Disasters are in fact a fine things to happen if biodiversity is your concern as they give rise to new and more exotic creatures with each passing. Even the most terrible of disasters, such as the comet that killed the dinosaurs, are not enough to put nature down and out. In fact, that disaster is what led to our rise in the first place. Humanity could probably rape and pillage this world with all of its might, and in the long term things would be okay. I am not suggesting that we do so, but I am not going to sweat much if biodiversity takes a short term fall.
So some animals die? New animals will replace them. Granted, it isn't going to happen on a time scale we can appreciate, but I think that is the problem. Environmentalist look at the world on their time scale which has the attention span of 50 years, when evolution and natural selection is far more concerned with a much broader picture in which sudden mass extinctions are not the end of life.
The other perspective from the human perspective. From the human perspective, this problem is more of a nuisance. There is absolutely nothing humanity could willingly do to the environment that could kill off humanity outside of all out nuclear/biological war (and even then). Humans force evolution upon themselves too damned quick to kill themselves. The entire ozone layer could vanish tomorrow in a single instance and humanity as a whole would go on. We can certainly make our selves struggle a little and rack up a body count in the process, but in the end, humanity will go on, even if it means we have to live inside or protect ourselves from our own environment. That isn't exactly a pretty way to live, but it certainly is not a sigh of the end.
More then the simple fact that we will cling to life and force our own evolution through technology to survive, we also can repair the damage we do in time. Already we have learned some powerful bioremediation techniques to clean up some of the more harmful things we have done. It would come as little shock if in 50 or 100 years we have the capacity to do nature's job and produce new creatures from scratch that can live wherever we please them to live. It might be that 200 years from now biodiversity has shot through the roof far beyond anything nature has ever seen simply because we wanted it that way. It also would come as little surprise if we simply expand our terraforming powers to include the entire earth. Instead of altering the environment to suit our needs immediately surrounding ourselves with clothes, cars, and houses, it is no stretch of the imagination to see humanity setting its goals even broader and altering the entire earth's environment to our needs. It might very well be that there comes a day when we simply decide that we want a thicker ozone layer and build machines to build more ozone and repair the damage we have done.
Our impact on the environment is no threat to humanity or the environment as a whole. Yes, we can shoot ourselves in the foot in the short term and that should certainly be avoided. I don't fancy the idea that I can't go to the beach without SPF 100 on. That said, we need to moderate how much we are willing to sacrifice for the environment and keep it in perspective that this is an issue of comfort and health, not life or death for humanity and the environment as a whole. Take steps to slow wanton destruction, but don't tie humanities hands in the process.
The problem with ID is that a universe that does not comply with the ID theory would not be able to be observed. ID basically states that the universe is so well put together and that things fit so perfectly to allow certain things, most notably life, that there must be some force behind it.
What ID completely ignores is the fact that any universe that would have rules that would be shitty for life and intelligence would never realize it. In other words, there could have been a billion big bangs all that developed different laws. In all of these big bangs there might have been only one where all the laws arrived to allow for intelligence (humans) to observe it.
ID theory also suffers from the simple fact that a good theory can devise be disproved. You can never prove a good theory, but you can always find a way to disprove it. If you develop a theory that can not be disproved, then you have not added much. You have just engaged a logic exercise, not any sort of true science.
ID has no place in science. ID is a just a catch all for things we don't understand. It might very well come that one day we discover through science some intelligent power that created everything, however, until that time ID is very much a premature. ID is based upon the observation that the universe is elegant in its construction. To automatically assume that this means that some higher power is at work is utterly foolish.
As to the topic at hand, the only thing that this proves is that current theories could be potentially incomplete. It very well could be that the universe is older then it appears, and this would of course require modifying or scrapping the current theories. It isn't a death blow by any stretch of the imagination. It also is still need a great deal more scientific validation before it can be shown that what we are looking at is as old as these scientist claim.
You are right in that Russian played a major role in turning the war, but I don't think you realize how close Russia was to being overtaken. The war in Russia was VERY close. Without the other front, Germany would have almost certainly over run Russia. All the troops Germany sent into Africa and to guard France from Allied invasion would have otherwise been in Russia.
Germany could have been defeated if Russia had lost by the Americans, but it would have been so many times more terrible and costly then it was. The Russians on the other hand would have almost without question lost to Germany had the allies not been putting pressure on them in the west.
I personally find this ruling to be terrible and not thought out. When you are paying for an online game, you are paying for a service. Now, if the service states that under the event of bugs, hackers, or whatever, you are entitled to reimbursement and they fail to provide this, fine. Take them to court. They are breathing their end of the agreement. If on the other hand this is not a promised piece of the agreement, then this is utterly ridiculous. For online games to be viable services, they need flexibility to decide how they want to deal with problems like lost virtual property.
As an intelligent consumer you might very well make your decision about what games you play based upon the level of security they are willing to offer. Second Life for instance states that any thing you create is yours. Other games make no such claim. If you like that sort of agreement, then shell out money to Second Life and not SWG or Everquest.
If there was a true breach of contract here, great, the company got what it deserved if it did not live up the services it said it would give. If on the other hand there was no such promise then this sort of decision is a blow the online games (at least in China).
I really was not advocating war, just explaining the reason for it. I think the justification I gave is the one that Bush's team uses. I was just pointing out that WMDs was just the excuse, and not the real reason.
As to the actual morality of it, I don't think you can simply approach it as 'war kills people'. 'Not war' also kills people. Sanctions for instance kill people, and in fact kill far more then any US lead war in Iraq could. The difference is that instead of people dying from bullets, they die to weakened immune systems from malnutrition, poor medical equipment, or because they didn't have enough power or money to run an AC and grandma died. That doesn't even include the people who died for political reasons. The war probably saved lives. I think the absolute worst high end projections for the Iraq war put it at 10,000 deaths including combatants and civilians. That is pocket change next to what sanctions and Saddam killed.
The bigger issues with war is that it is forcing your will upon someone, it is expensive for Americans, and Americans die.
The forcing of will doesn't really bother me much. Yeah, so the US is forcing their style of government down Iraq's throat. Saddam was forcing his style of government down their throat as well. Both governments were run through forcing one's will upon the people. So, you might as well just pick the government that was 'more good' despite the fact that both are founded on force. I would say the US government in Iraq is 'more good' because it generally tries to avoid mass executions and respects the will of the people more so then Saddam's government. You can protest the US lead government and you won't be gunned down unless someone pulls out a gun. Further, the US troops are going to leave one day and hopefully a democracy will be left in its place. This seems more good then a brutal dictator who also used force to stay in power. Both used force, but I would call the US force the lesser of two evils.
The real issue fore me would be the cost in American lives and money. I hate to sound callus, but the cost in American lives doesn't bother me much either. We have not lost a lot of lives. Significantly more Americans die to alcohol then war. That is no consolation to someone who has lost someone, but if society is willing to put with the cost in lives of alcohol, then I don't see why it can't put up with the cost in lives of Iraq. Further, if you are in the armed forces it is understood that you are taking the risk that you will have to fight for the nations interests. Everything is done to avoid the risk of death in the armed forces, but the guns are not just for show, and it should be well understood that the armed forces are not just there for defense of the nations borders. If they were, we would have a much smaller military. So, anyone who has gone in has accepted that they could potentially be used as they are being used in Iraq. It comes with the job.
Finally, there is the issue of money. To me, this is the biggest pause. Iraq is an investment. The investment is good if Iraq one day turns out like Japan. All the money spent on the occupation of Japan was made up and then a thousand times over in trade and technology. Japan and Germany are examples of nations that were occupied that we would happily do again simply because it turned out so good. The converse of Japan and Germany would Vietnam, Haiti, and Somalia. Those are nations that the US occupied, paid a high price, and at the end of the day they are still a mess.
Was the Iraqi war worth it? I don't think we will know for at least another 10-30 years. If 30 years from now Iraq looks like Japan in the desert, I imagine everyone would agree it was completely worth it. If 30 years from now Iraq looks like Vietnam, then this was a total waste of lives and money. The jury is still out as far as I am concerned. If the decision had been mine to make, I wouldn't have been strongly pushed in either direction. I understand booth sides, but both sides are just guessing blindly at the future. It is a gamble, only time will tell if it was a good one.
I understand the sentiment that people think you should just teach them to not do stupid things and give them full access. While that is nice in theory, it is hard to teach children, especially younger children the important lessons without burning through a few computers. Unfortunately, the brighter they are, the more likely they are to break something. On occasion I head home and every time I do I have to fix two machines FILLED with Trojan programs and spyware. I educate, but there is only so much I can do. Kids are stupid and can be tricked, pure and simple. If you have a shared computer that does serious work, then it means constantly fighting the crap that gets on just to keep important things running. If someone could answer this question, I would appreciate so I don't have to constantly be battling to keep these computers working.
The best solution of course is to get them their own computer to use and destroy. This is fine if your kid just wants to beat around the Internet as you can buy a cheap POS computer for pocket change these days. However, if you have a young aspiring gamer it becomes much more difficult, as a gamer needs something with power behind it. Dropping a couple thousand dollars just for a kid to have his own computer no one else uses is a rather expensive proposition.
What I would REALLY like answered is if there is a way on an XP machine to keep Trojans and spyware programs out. Yes, I know adaware and spybot can clean this stuff, but I have found that most of the time it is far too late and the damage is done. Does anyone have any good suggestions for keepings this crap off in the first place?
With regards to your complaint that the American public needs to have things sugar coated, I completely agree with you. It irks me when I hear people breathing a sigh of relief because Saddam can no longer nuke the US. It is kind of sad that most people can't see through the thinly veiled excuse the US used to make the war 'legal' (or at least more legal). Iraq was invaded because the US wanted a free market democracy in the Middle East to influence the nations around it, pure and simple, right or wrong. WMDs was like nailing a mobster on tax evasion charges - it was an excuse. I wish people would judge the validity of the war based on what it was really about. That isn't to say you can't still support the war, just understand the real reason behind it instead of chanting mantra.
Of course, both sides are guilty of chanting stupid mantra. "No more blood for oil" was chanted as much as "don't let Saddam nuke the US". Both were stupid arguments dumbed down for the masses.
Perhaps that is the reason why the Bush administration continues on with its charade about WMDs - people are stupid. Anti-war people rally their stupid supports with dumb no blood for oil mantra and boil the entire conflict down to just evil corporations looking to make a quick buck. Pro-war people rally their stupid supports with fear of WMDs and terrorist about to turn American cities into dust. Both are infinitely stupid arguments and don't even begin to scratch the truth what really happened and why. If you think Bush attacked Iraq to make a quick buck or if you think he did it to keep US cities from feeling WMDs, you are ignoring the fact that the world is not as black and white and as complicated as it is.
Any time you receive and argument where there is an obvious good guy and bag guy, then that should set off a dozen warnings in your head that you are being fed bullshit. If you can't see both sides of the argument and understand how someone on both sides feels, then you are better off keeping your mouth shut because you clearly don't understand the totality of the situation.
Perhaps people deserve to be treated like idiots. Stupid mantra seems to have done well enough to mobilize both sides. If people are shut stupid sheep that they will believe such simple and inane explanations of the world around them, then perhaps we are getting what we deserve. It is a sad commentary.