You've actually observed tens of millions of people?
Indirectly, yes. Via that thing that you have every four years. Leap Year? The Quadrennial Defense Review? The Olympics? Watching Canada Lose at the Summer Olympics?
37% favor teaching Creationism instead of Evolution in schools, and 65% favor teaching both.
And 2% are a bit confused.:)
Cheers Stor While what you said is funny, it's a bit off. 37% wish they would ONLY teach Creationism in schools. 65% would accept it if they taught creationism alongside evolution. Most Christians will argue that they're in favor of teaching evolution in schools "in context". Of course this means teaching that "sure, some things evolve, but humans were made as-is by God. Praise Jesus! And even IF we DID evolve from some sort of primate, God was behind it." It's the overlapping 28% that scares me, because they have a much better chance of actually winning this round.
Luckily, 35% of our population is still somewhat sane...
You are a Shadow. He is a Vorlon. The truth, of course, lies in the middle. Our society benefits from alternating order and chaos. The chaos forces competition and innovation, while the order allows us to rebuild and improve upon whatever was destroyed during the chaos. Perhaps we will evolve as a species to be more like the Vorlons. Perhaps we will be more self-motivated and decide to stop fighting and just try to improve things. Perhaps not. Either way, I think it's inevitable that we not only will destroy ourselves, but that we'll recover from it and continue to expand.
Don't forget that we have to subjugate some natives. That is so 19th century! The new method is to convert them to our religion, build their economies, and convince them to tithe 10% of their incomes to Earth Church while selling their resources to us. It's really much more efficient this way.
I wasn't going to apply, because you're obviously either an idiot or troll, but I'll do so because other people reading this might actually think you have a point.
Funny, you're obviously the racist one here. You assume that because he's white he grew up in a wealthy or middle class family with a house and a white picket fence? I'm not sure why you think he said "only black people listen to rap", but he didn't. Rap glorifies crime, poverty, and violence. Yes, it reflects the problems facing many lower class families. No, it's not positive. The song was "Smack my Bitch Up", not "I'm so Poor but I Really Want to get a Good Job."
Cultures that glorify crime, particularly theft, assault, murder, and drug use are going to lead to a certain percentage of that population wanting to follow that path instead of working their way out of that situation in a positive manner. Some of them are going to follow this lifestyle and become good rappers in the process. They will get wealthy and continue to spread The Word about the great life. This is why it is self-perpetuating. In addition, the majority of people who attempt to follow this path will be in and out of prison most of their lives simply because they made the wrong choices. Choices that were influenced by this sub-culture in addition to their financial status. Many of them could have improved their lives instead of ruining their lives. This is what's called self-inflicted poverty and crime.
I dislike the majority of rap and I am rarely forced to listen to it, but I will continue to speak out about the negative impact of this culture because it really does end up hurting people and our economy as a whole.
Personally, I'd rather have all of those impoverished people make more money so that I can make more money off them, bulldoze the low-income housing and develop it into something more profitable. I feel that this will never happen unless the predominantly black and hispanic sub-culture in America realizes that their priorities should be on self-improvement and advancement in society, and it makes me sad that they still haven't. Of course every time I say that I wish they were better off, but they won't be until their culture changes, someone calls me a racist. This is not about race. This is about a sub-culture and income bracket that is predominately black and hispanic.
And yes, even a song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb can have a negative effect on society if its message is the glorification of drugs, crime, and imprisonment. This is about the rap sub-culture, not necessarily all rap music.
I'm not racist, just pointing out that the entire culture is a self perpetuating cycle of self-inflicted poverty and crime. Umm... that's the point. That's actually why we sell them gangster rap. Well that and the fact that it's profitable. But it's a great tool for keeping the black man down. Can you imagine what this country would be like if black children strived to be the president instead of being hard? Hell, we'd have black presidents! I don't know how Obama got through the cracks, but we can't let him win!
Quite seriously, it's amazing how often people jump to call you racist when you simply mention that there may be differences in culture and sub-culture between non-white ethnicities in America. You can joke about the Irish drinking too much, the Germans being Nazis, the French being pussies, and the Spanish/Latins trying to be macho, but if you even mention that the gangster rap subculture has a negative effect on society and its members, you're a racist. Hell, there are people who won't even talk to me anymore because they heard me say that I felt affirmative action was an insult to minorities! I'd be livid if somebody told me I needed a lower GPA and SAT scores to get into a college because less was expected of my race.
Slightly back on topic, I did notice when I was in Korea that people there play games much longer in cyber cafes and watch StarCraft tournaments on TV. If China has a similar problem with people dying because they tried to play 70 hours straight, perhaps this isn't such a bad idea.
Sad. You're not only technically wrong in the technical part, you're wrong in the joke part, too. As somebody else already pointed out, chimps share the most recent common ancestor of all other known life on Earth, but we did not evolve from chimps. In addition, we didn't use chainsaws. We burned down the whole damned jungle.
Quite true, and I agree with what you said, but that's no reason for me not to poke holes in your wording and pretend I defeated your argument, even if I technically did.:)
"Rights come with responsibilities" is such an irritating sound-bite meme that doesn't really carry any meaning. Responsibilities are whatever burdens society deems fit to leverage on you that you are unable or not interested in removing.
Rights are whatever freedoms society either grants you or that you have managed to claim and defend.
I, personally, don't see the connection between the two. I don't "purchase" my right to life by paying my taxes. Funny, he's right for the wrong reasons and you're wrong for the right ones. Rights come with corresponding responsibilities, by definition. The right to life means you do not have the right to take the life of another. This means you have a responsibility to not take the life of another. The same is true with all rights: speech, property, religion, etc.
If you are going to grant chimps the right to live without being murdered, you must admit that chimps do not have the right to kill one another.
And since systematically flinging poo at humans would be considered a human rights violation if your government did it, I demand that the chimp from the San Diego Zoo be charged and arrested.
Does that include babies or people with learning difficulties? If we only allow human rights on demand what about people who can't speak the language. Actually, most countries do have such laws. In most countries, you are not given legal counsel unless you ask for one. Of course some places may have laws where they have to ask if you would like a lawyer, but this is not always the case. In addition, as a traveler in many countries your embassy will not be notified if you are arrested or detained. The requirement for them to allow you a phone call, lawyer, or notification of your government quite often begins only when you ask for it. Of course this all depends on the laws of the nation you are visiting as well as its treaties with the nation of your citizenship.
I have often wondered why it is hard for some to grasp that very few modern creatures have living genetic ancestors. My parents are still somewhat alive... Actually, I still have a grandparent left, too, but his health is failing him. I didn't think I was in that rare of a situation.
If I eat 112 bananas, will I have a soul too? Two souls? Gastrointestinal distress? If you attempt to put 112 bananas into your body, you'll turn out like the goatse man!
nothing that exists has a soul, that's what I know. You're wrong! That kid I went to grade school with has a soul. I sold it to him for $5 and a pack of bubble gum.
Of all the planets we have directly observed, the Earth is the only one to harbor visible life. So which planets are harboring invisible life, and how can we destroy them?
You really haven't thought of the flood of Sci-Fi channel movies we're going to be hit with?
"Sci-Fi Channel presents, Spelunker. A team of Martian astronauts are ordered into a Martian cave, and encounter more than they're ready for. With Paris Hilton, Pauly Shore, Michael Shanks, and Lance Henriksen." That sounds more like a bad porn movie to me.
Crikey I didn't realise Che Guevara was working in open source now. Bill must be quaking in his boots. No, he's just working there on the side. His full time job is in the cool t-shirt business.
Perhaps it is high time for random testing of all products available for human consumption. Where faults are found, suitable prison terms can be handed out to the executives responsible. That a couple of high school students found the fault is a even greater black mark against the government of those countries.
How the hell is a consumer meant to survive in this era of corporate lies, when the governments of the day do absolutely nothing to ensure the products on the shelves actually adhere to the claims of the manufacturers.
It is becoming abundantly clear that governments must institute an accurate system of verification and validation to ensure that product labelling is accurate and factual or are they going to so blatantly and corruptly ignore a growing problem, just so their corporate benefactors can rake in a few more percentage points of profit that the electorate has to die for.
I do agree that there should be more severe criminal penalties for those responsible for dangerous corporate practices, but I have to disagree with the government testing and verifying all products. Certainly the FDA needs to exist and continue to test medicines and foods, but I hate to see government expand even further. Perhaps a change can be made in the way class action lawsuits are handled. How about a system designed to encourage people to do testing like this, perhaps even establish businesses that can profit from it? Perhaps the person who discovers the evidence of false advertising or fraudulent ingredient labels should receive 10% of any class action settlements that may result?
There is no need to hastily run to the government from protection. Most of the corporate dangers that face consumers were created by the limited liability given to corporations by our government. Removing some of that protection might be a more balanced approach than creating another bloated government agency.
These clowns just don't get it, there are to many eyes and too many people that are connected, it the good old P. T. Barnum principal "You can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time" and with the internet if you can't fool all the people all the time there is no sense in tring to fool anybody. Then why did I have just have to delete another email with the subject "Best rates on medication, shipping worldwide!"? You don't need to fool everybody all the time! All you need to do is fool enough people long enough to turn a profit and then weasel your way out of any consequences coming your way. A $200,000 fine for GSK means a 1/43,694 reduction in their net income for 2006. I'm sure they will miss it.
Although MS has always used a very odd version numbering system, I think it is fair to call Windows 95-98 version 4.x, 2000 5.x, and XP 6.x, and SP1 6.1, although I admit that that numbering system discounts Windows 2003 and doesn't jive with Microsoft's numbering.
NO NO NO NO NO
Windows 2000 is not a descendant of the Windows 9x line. Windows 2000 was originally going to be NT 5.0. If you run ver in a command prompt in Windows 2000 it will return something like "Windows 2000 [Version 5.0]"
XP is NT 5.1, 2003 is NT 5.2. I'm not sure if Vista returns as 6.0 or not.
The predecessor to 2000 is NT 4, and NT 4's predecessor was 3.51, then 3.5, and then NT 3.1. Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that they are the same line. I know they were entirely different operating systems for a long time, although XP seems to be some weird hybrid between the two. I was simply trying to point out that a service pack was more than a minor security update.
You're talking about going from one MAJOR kernel version to a different MAJOR kernel version. Yes, that is what we're talking about.
Why would you deploy a MAJOR change on production servers without massive testing? That is exactly what the GP said. To paraphrase, "Why would a large corporation roll out an update without thorough testing? They wouldn't. Doing proper, thorough testing costs money, and it saves us money when they only release non-critical updates every so often."
A "service pack" would be more like lib-foo_2.1.2 going to lib-foo_2.1.3. No, it wouldn't. Perhaps you are accusing the regular Tuesday Updates with Service Packs. While Windows does not have a monolithic kernel, it does have various combinations of files, libraries, and programs which perform the same functions. In a service pack, a multitude of these files are updated. Native support for new hardware is introduced. Memory leaks, overflows, and security holes are plugged. New features of the operating system itself are introduced. To compare this massive replacement of core system files to the MINOR upgrade of a package is absurd at best.
If you want an example, please consider the Windows 95 B and C releases (4.03.1212-1214), which added USB functionality.
Although MS has always used a very odd version numbering system, I think it is fair to call Windows 95-98 version 4.x, 2000 5.x, and XP 6.x, and SP1 6.1, although I admit that that numbering system discounts Windows 2003 and doesn't jive with Microsoft's numbering.
I know I'm a bit long-winded today, but please bear with me because I think I address these points well.
Isn't that statement a little dishonest? GDP is a measurement of good&services produced by a country.
Although that would generally be accepted as a correct definition, it is important to note that the GDP implies slightly more. It is a very good measure of the size of an economy. GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports - imports) (thanks, wikipedia). You did acknowledge that I was talking about this ratio being "X% of the economy put towards defense", but the math does still jive because, like all other aspects of the economy, military spending gets re-used. Nearly the entire military budget ends up being spent in stores, real estate, health care, R&D, and even being re-taxed by the government.
A better comparison would be percentage of federal budget spent on defense compare to previous empires' percentage of budget spent on defense.
If you could do that accurately, you would be a better man than me, but I don't think it is possible to make that comparison in an accurate way because of the vast differences between our economy and that of say, Rome. Most nations today have central governments that provide goods and services that would not have been expected from the Roman government: health care, organizational dues, foreign aid, tuition assistance and education, and transportation safety and security agencies just to name a few. Most of these did not exist in previous empires, but most of the ones that did were generally paid for by wealthy people, philanthropists, rulers, etc. so military spending should have been a larger proportion of the budget simply because there were less items alongside it in the budgets. As we both know, this isn't the only significant change we've seen lately.
Before the industrial revolution, the wealth of a nation was generally determined by sufficient food and valuable trading items, such as gold or spices. As the world industrialized, pure production capability become the real standard. Currency no longer needed to be backed by precious metals because the economy would continue producing valuable goods from its raw resources. Of course, as we've globalized and begun to move into a new era, it matters less whether the resources are yours to begin with or where the products are produced, as long as the wealth created by the production trickles back down into your society. This has changed not only the way economies function, but our motives and end-state when it comes to international hostilities.
Rome conquered lands to plunder resources, capture slaves, and expand their borders. They did have some astonishing advancements, but they primarily maintained their empire with force. America, on the other hand, does not directly acquire conquered lands or plunder resources/people. Instead, it attempts to establish governments that will not only be more favorable to America, but also become trading partners. History has taught us that the best way to seal peace between countries is to ensure the improvement of the economy and standard of living of your opponent after a victory. Because of this, most of America's former adversaries are now allies, trading partners, and economic competitors. One could probably argue that the benefits of trading with Germany and Japan made WWII a profitable venture.
Since a military can, and is, used to expand, improve, or shape the global economy in a manner favorable to the nation investing in it, I would say that comparing military expenses to the GDP is fair. Not to mention the fact that a strong military prevents or deters the thing that has destroyed countless economies throughout history: [losing] war.
Of course none of this is meant in a political way. Wars can be just or unjust, just like anything else. I'm just trying to say that America's economy obviously is not struggling because of its military budget and it gets re
200 billion? That's almost half the American defense budget.. Shit, your defence has a 400 billion budget? Thats insane! Actually, it's more like $500 billion for 2007. In comparison to previous empires, though, this is remarkably low. Consider that it is only roughly 4% of the GDP, and the two biggest spending areas are benefits/compensation for soldiers and R&D. Imagine if 4% of your economy could guarantee the ability to absolutely destroy any nation that opposed you. I would call it a remarkably good deal. Of course it's only this low because the US spent so much on R&D and infrastructure during WWII and continued it through the Cold War.
Of course I'm not saying it is a small amount of money, but it is relatively small when compared to the economy and military capabilities. Of course we all know that, in a perfect world, a military should not be necessary and $500B/year could be used to make significant advances in technology, science, and infrastructure, but that's more of a political and ideological discussion.
Personally I don't think it's wise to cease developing a military when other nations are making dramatic leaps and bounds in theirs unless the effects of the military spending is severely impacting an economy.
Slashdot Mirror
And 2% are a bit confused.
Cheers
Stor While what you said is funny, it's a bit off. 37% wish they would ONLY teach Creationism in schools. 65% would accept it if they taught creationism alongside evolution. Most Christians will argue that they're in favor of teaching evolution in schools "in context". Of course this means teaching that "sure, some things evolve, but humans were made as-is by God. Praise Jesus! And even IF we DID evolve from some sort of primate, God was behind it." It's the overlapping 28% that scares me, because they have a much better chance of actually winning this round.
Luckily, 35% of our population is still somewhat sane...
You are a Shadow. He is a Vorlon. The truth, of course, lies in the middle. Our society benefits from alternating order and chaos. The chaos forces competition and innovation, while the order allows us to rebuild and improve upon whatever was destroyed during the chaos. Perhaps we will evolve as a species to be more like the Vorlons. Perhaps we will be more self-motivated and decide to stop fighting and just try to improve things. Perhaps not. Either way, I think it's inevitable that we not only will destroy ourselves, but that we'll recover from it and continue to expand.
Crikey. Please read "apply" as "reply". Thank you.
I wasn't going to apply, because you're obviously either an idiot or troll, but I'll do so because other people reading this might actually think you have a point.
Funny, you're obviously the racist one here. You assume that because he's white he grew up in a wealthy or middle class family with a house and a white picket fence? I'm not sure why you think he said "only black people listen to rap", but he didn't. Rap glorifies crime, poverty, and violence. Yes, it reflects the problems facing many lower class families. No, it's not positive. The song was "Smack my Bitch Up", not "I'm so Poor but I Really Want to get a Good Job."
Cultures that glorify crime, particularly theft, assault, murder, and drug use are going to lead to a certain percentage of that population wanting to follow that path instead of working their way out of that situation in a positive manner. Some of them are going to follow this lifestyle and become good rappers in the process. They will get wealthy and continue to spread The Word about the great life. This is why it is self-perpetuating. In addition, the majority of people who attempt to follow this path will be in and out of prison most of their lives simply because they made the wrong choices. Choices that were influenced by this sub-culture in addition to their financial status. Many of them could have improved their lives instead of ruining their lives. This is what's called self-inflicted poverty and crime.
I dislike the majority of rap and I am rarely forced to listen to it, but I will continue to speak out about the negative impact of this culture because it really does end up hurting people and our economy as a whole.
Personally, I'd rather have all of those impoverished people make more money so that I can make more money off them, bulldoze the low-income housing and develop it into something more profitable. I feel that this will never happen unless the predominantly black and hispanic sub-culture in America realizes that their priorities should be on self-improvement and advancement in society, and it makes me sad that they still haven't. Of course every time I say that I wish they were better off, but they won't be until their culture changes, someone calls me a racist. This is not about race. This is about a sub-culture and income bracket that is predominately black and hispanic.
And yes, even a song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb can have a negative effect on society if its message is the glorification of drugs, crime, and imprisonment. This is about the rap sub-culture, not necessarily all rap music.
Quite seriously, it's amazing how often people jump to call you racist when you simply mention that there may be differences in culture and sub-culture between non-white ethnicities in America. You can joke about the Irish drinking too much, the Germans being Nazis, the French being pussies, and the Spanish/Latins trying to be macho, but if you even mention that the gangster rap subculture has a negative effect on society and its members, you're a racist. Hell, there are people who won't even talk to me anymore because they heard me say that I felt affirmative action was an insult to minorities! I'd be livid if somebody told me I needed a lower GPA and SAT scores to get into a college because less was expected of my race.
Slightly back on topic, I did notice when I was in Korea that people there play games much longer in cyber cafes and watch StarCraft tournaments on TV. If China has a similar problem with people dying because they tried to play 70 hours straight, perhaps this isn't such a bad idea.
Sad. You're not only technically wrong in the technical part, you're wrong in the joke part, too. As somebody else already pointed out, chimps share the most recent common ancestor of all other known life on Earth, but we did not evolve from chimps. In addition, we didn't use chainsaws. We burned down the whole damned jungle.
Quite true, and I agree with what you said, but that's no reason for me not to poke holes in your wording and pretend I defeated your argument, even if I technically did. :)
"Rights come with responsibilities" is such an irritating sound-bite meme that doesn't really carry any meaning. Responsibilities are whatever burdens society deems fit to leverage on you that you are unable or not interested in removing.
Rights are whatever freedoms society either grants you or that you have managed to claim and defend.
I, personally, don't see the connection between the two. I don't "purchase" my right to life by paying my taxes. Funny, he's right for the wrong reasons and you're wrong for the right ones. Rights come with corresponding responsibilities, by definition. The right to life means you do not have the right to take the life of another. This means you have a responsibility to not take the life of another. The same is true with all rights: speech, property, religion, etc.
If you are going to grant chimps the right to live without being murdered, you must admit that chimps do not have the right to kill one another.
And since systematically flinging poo at humans would be considered a human rights violation if your government did it, I demand that the chimp from the San Diego Zoo be charged and arrested.
"Sci-Fi Channel presents, Spelunker. A team of Martian astronauts are ordered into a Martian cave, and encounter more than they're ready for. With Paris Hilton, Pauly Shore, Michael Shanks, and Lance Henriksen." That sounds more like a bad porn movie to me.
How the hell is a consumer meant to survive in this era of corporate lies, when the governments of the day do absolutely nothing to ensure the products on the shelves actually adhere to the claims of the manufacturers.
It is becoming abundantly clear that governments must institute an accurate system of verification and validation to ensure that product labelling is accurate and factual or are they going to so blatantly and corruptly ignore a growing problem, just so their corporate benefactors can rake in a few more percentage points of profit that the electorate has to die for.
I do agree that there should be more severe criminal penalties for those responsible for dangerous corporate practices, but I have to disagree with the government testing and verifying all products. Certainly the FDA needs to exist and continue to test medicines and foods, but I hate to see government expand even further. Perhaps a change can be made in the way class action lawsuits are handled. How about a system designed to encourage people to do testing like this, perhaps even establish businesses that can profit from it? Perhaps the person who discovers the evidence of false advertising or fraudulent ingredient labels should receive 10% of any class action settlements that may result?There is no need to hastily run to the government from protection. Most of the corporate dangers that face consumers were created by the limited liability given to corporations by our government. Removing some of that protection might be a more balanced approach than creating another bloated government agency.
NO NO NO NO NO
Windows 2000 is not a descendant of the Windows 9x line. Windows 2000 was originally going to be NT 5.0. If you run ver in a command prompt in Windows 2000 it will return something like "Windows 2000 [Version 5.0]"
XP is NT 5.1, 2003 is NT 5.2. I'm not sure if Vista returns as 6.0 or not.
The predecessor to 2000 is NT 4, and NT 4's predecessor was 3.51, then 3.5, and then NT 3.1. Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that they are the same line. I know they were entirely different operating systems for a long time, although XP seems to be some weird hybrid between the two. I was simply trying to point out that a service pack was more than a minor security update.
If you want an example, please consider the Windows 95 B and C releases (4.03.1212-1214), which added USB functionality.
Although MS has always used a very odd version numbering system, I think it is fair to call Windows 95-98 version 4.x, 2000 5.x, and XP 6.x, and SP1 6.1, although I admit that that numbering system discounts Windows 2003 and doesn't jive with Microsoft's numbering.
Isn't that statement a little dishonest? GDP is a measurement of good&services produced by a country.
Although that would generally be accepted as a correct definition, it is important to note that the GDP implies slightly more. It is a very good measure of the size of an economy. GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports - imports) (thanks, wikipedia). You did acknowledge that I was talking about this ratio being "X% of the economy put towards defense", but the math does still jive because, like all other aspects of the economy, military spending gets re-used. Nearly the entire military budget ends up being spent in stores, real estate, health care, R&D, and even being re-taxed by the government.
A better comparison would be percentage of federal budget spent on defense compare to previous empires' percentage of budget spent on defense.
If you could do that accurately, you would be a better man than me, but I don't think it is possible to make that comparison in an accurate way because of the vast differences between our economy and that of say, Rome. Most nations today have central governments that provide goods and services that would not have been expected from the Roman government: health care, organizational dues, foreign aid, tuition assistance and education, and transportation safety and security agencies just to name a few. Most of these did not exist in previous empires, but most of the ones that did were generally paid for by wealthy people, philanthropists, rulers, etc. so military spending should have been a larger proportion of the budget simply because there were less items alongside it in the budgets. As we both know, this isn't the only significant change we've seen lately.
Before the industrial revolution, the wealth of a nation was generally determined by sufficient food and valuable trading items, such as gold or spices. As the world industrialized, pure production capability become the real standard. Currency no longer needed to be backed by precious metals because the economy would continue producing valuable goods from its raw resources. Of course, as we've globalized and begun to move into a new era, it matters less whether the resources are yours to begin with or where the products are produced, as long as the wealth created by the production trickles back down into your society. This has changed not only the way economies function, but our motives and end-state when it comes to international hostilities.
Rome conquered lands to plunder resources, capture slaves, and expand their borders. They did have some astonishing advancements, but they primarily maintained their empire with force. America, on the other hand, does not directly acquire conquered lands or plunder resources/people. Instead, it attempts to establish governments that will not only be more favorable to America, but also become trading partners. History has taught us that the best way to seal peace between countries is to ensure the improvement of the economy and standard of living of your opponent after a victory. Because of this, most of America's former adversaries are now allies, trading partners, and economic competitors. One could probably argue that the benefits of trading with Germany and Japan made WWII a profitable venture.
Since a military can, and is, used to expand, improve, or shape the global economy in a manner favorable to the nation investing in it, I would say that comparing military expenses to the GDP is fair. Not to mention the fact that a strong military prevents or deters the thing that has destroyed countless economies throughout history: [losing] war.
Of course none of this is meant in a political way. Wars can be just or unjust, just like anything else. I'm just trying to say that America's economy obviously is not struggling because of its military budget and it gets re
Shit, your defence has a 400 billion budget? Thats insane! Actually, it's more like $500 billion for 2007. In comparison to previous empires, though, this is remarkably low. Consider that it is only roughly 4% of the GDP, and the two biggest spending areas are benefits/compensation for soldiers and R&D. Imagine if 4% of your economy could guarantee the ability to absolutely destroy any nation that opposed you. I would call it a remarkably good deal. Of course it's only this low because the US spent so much on R&D and infrastructure during WWII and continued it through the Cold War.
Of course I'm not saying it is a small amount of money, but it is relatively small when compared to the economy and military capabilities. Of course we all know that, in a perfect world, a military should not be necessary and $500B/year could be used to make significant advances in technology, science, and infrastructure, but that's more of a political and ideological discussion.
Personally I don't think it's wise to cease developing a military when other nations are making dramatic leaps and bounds in theirs unless the effects of the military spending is severely impacting an economy.