"Pushing back against a bully would not be wrong".
So, having read TFA, you think that the customer was the bully? Not the vast monopoly, or the callous employer? Either you're very rich, or you believe (probably wrongly) that you will be one day.
"Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend".
"Actually right to work is exactly like it sounds. You have the right to work without paying to join a union".
You may think this odd, but to my mind "right to work" sounds like "right to work". "Right to work without having to join a union" sounds subtly different.
So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc. All the firing boss has to do is to insist it was because you wore a bow tie (which, as we now know, denotes insubordination). Or because you were insufficiently productive, against an arbitrary standard chosen by him. Or because you were rude (according to another employee who must remain anonymous to avoid causing them stress, in that employee's opinion). Or...
That's an easy game to play, isn't it? Tell you what: first, since it was mentioned first, YOU give ME a citation for some hard evidence substantiating the claim of Russian involvement in the J.P. Morgan affair.
And if you want a citation for the CIA allegations, Google is your friend.
Very much like the utterly unsubstantiated claims that Russia had something to do with the shooting down of MH17. John Kerry said that there was a mountain of evidence, but so far not a single shred of evidence has been published by the US government. The Russians released a good deal of hard evidence, including radar traces and the locations of known BUK units. Basically, MH17 was shot down either by cannon fire from one or more fighters, or by a BUK SAM. The only fighters in the air that day were Ukrainian government planes, and while the rebels may have captured a BUK unit, it had no radar. However the Ukrainian military units near Donetsk had at least three BUK units, complete with radar and trained crews - one of which was in exactly the right place to have shot down MH17, given where it came down.
So the Western media were flooded with "stenographic" reports and opinion echoing US government statements (almost word for word) and without any skepticism or investigative journalism. Although there has still been no evidence produced to incriminate Russia or the Ukrainian rebels, virtually all Westerners have been so heavily and repeatedly brainwashed with the certainty that Russia was responsible that they think they "know" it.
Perhaps the recently revealed large and widespread payments made by the CIA to American media (and others) in return for the printing of CIA-written propaganda helps to explain many of these odd situations. And media corporations are all the more disposed to go along with the scam because their circulations are shrinking and they laying off journalists and editors left, right and centre. It's a double win: money for nothing, and masses of copy that has been written elsewhere. The only losers are any remaining readers who are foolish enough to believe what they read in the newspapers and what they hear on radio and TV.
"How is the government not concerned about corporate espionage, terrorism, and other criminal activity, you'd think from a security standpoint, they would want encryption to be legit".
Because they don't actually believe there is any terrorist or criminal threat. That nonsense is just for the benefit of the foolish sheeple. Besides, those who run the government are fully aware that THEY are the apex predators - any real terrorist or criminal who strays onto their patch or annoys them would be vanished (or possibly hired).
It has been so far - you can see the charts in any serious discussion of population. Moreover, that's the simplified model that Malthus proposed.
Now of course reality never complies exactly with simplistic mathematical models. But the population of any species that isn't constrained by food, disease, space, predators, etc. tends to grow exponentially. Until it runs hard into one or more of those limits - at which point it usually crashes.
There are many arguments about human population growth will level off and even go negative - but always at some time in the future. When I was a young man the world population was 3 billion; today it's over 7 billion. Now we're told it will hit 11-12 billion at least before it starts to level off (if that even happens).
" I direct you to this Guardian story that explicitly states that as a fact".
Wow. The Guardian! Well, that certainly is an impeccable source. It's not as if the Guardian has ever got its facts wrong, still less deliberately distorted or suppressed facts it didn't like.
Actually Russia doesn't even want the rebel south-eastern part of the Ukraine, even though it's by far the most valuable part of the country. Putin and his representatives have repeatedly told the rebels that Russia will not annex their territory even if they ask it to. Crimea was a special case, as it is historically part of Russia AND the great majority of its inhabitants voted to rejoin Russia.
Especially since the EU has gone out of its way to harm Russia, the best outcome from the Russians' point of view would be for the Ukraine to join the EU. Then it will have to support that basket case of a nation indefinitely, at great cost to all the idiots who decided to try to harm Russia.
That won't happen. The USA never tackles any nation that can defend itself, and Russia is just as well equipped for war as the USA is. Moreover, it has ample thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems. Attacking Russia would be racial suicide.
And THAT is why Russia will be arranging, promptly, to make whatever it needs internally. When the USSR was dissolved, many Russians believed the ideological propaganda from the West about how sweetness and light would ensue if they just let "the market" rule. They did that, and oligarchs (not all Russian) ran away with about a third of their wealth. Now they have discovered that the USA and EU are quite happy to blackmail them with sanctions and financial weapons.
So naturally they will turn away from the West, and find other trading partners and allies. Starting with any nation that has been bullied and exploited by the USA - that would be several dozen at least. Most recently Argentina.
Yeah, smartass, just like Malthus' warnings about population - which have been consistently "proved wrong" as the linear improvements in crop yield, etc. have kept marginally ahead of the exponential rise of population. You may believe that linear increases can stay ahead of an exponential curve, but mathematics is against you. Just stick around a while.
Of course if those crop yields turn out to be unsustainable... or large areas of arable land turn into dust and blow away, as looks like happening to the western USA right now... you just got an extra 2 billion mouths to feed with food that won't necessarily be there.
Likewise, you have an entire civilization that's utterly dependent on cheap oil. Not just oil, but CHEAP oil. Good luck with that when no one but the government can afford petroleum products.
Actually Crimea became part of Russia a few years before the USA came into existence. And about 50 years before it stole Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico and what became parts of other states from Mexico - cutting Mexico's territory by more than half.
Yes, thank goodness the stupid Russians are so inept when it comes to technology and heavy engineering. Remind me, how do you Yanks get up the ISS these days? Some of the stupid Russians have been suggesting you try using a trampoline, since you don't want their rockets.
Actually any "get out of jail free card" had a very short lifespan. Look at Libya now - and look at Qadafi.
In fact Libya suffered severely when the USA decided to court Iran when it was building up a coalition against Iraq. It seems very likely that the Lockerbie bombing was an act of revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes just a few months before. US intelligence agencies immediately blamed Iran for Lockerbie - until the administration decided that it wanted to cozy up to Iran, when Libya was abruptly switched into the "guilty" seat.
"...Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... "
Although the masters of the universe in Washington, with their short attention spans, will perhaps whimsically decide to raise their sanctions when they decide that Russia has been "punished" enough, Russia will not reciprocate. That's because its sanctions were not imposed out of a sense of grudge or malice, or to "punish" anyone, but in the long-term interests of Russia. The USA and EU have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted, and no matter what they do or say in future that will not change. A liar and a cheat remains a liar and a cheat regardless of how many promises and fair words he utters.
Consequently Russia will obtain most of its food imports from South America, Africa and Asia; manufacture far more of its own machinery and electronics; sell its oil and gas within Asia; and deal, as far as possible, in roubles, yuan, and other currencies other than the dollar and sterling. Not because its leaders are in a towering snit, but because they are calm and rational.
It's mildly annoying when ignorant, arrogant Americans suggest that France is a nation of cowards. Perhaps you should read your Mark Twain: when he visited France over 100 years ago, his main complaint was that every square foot of its territory had been drenched in blood through centuries of warfare. You might also reflect that, without the decisive help of a French fleet and army, the American Revolution would almost certainly have been defeated.
Had the German invasion of 1940 somehow been launched into the USA rather than France, it would have been just as rapidly decisive. Roosevelt deliberately set up Poland to resist German demands for Danzig, and then demanded that Britain and France guarantee Poland's integrity. He promised that if they declared war on Germany, the USA would join them... real soon. Then he sat on his hands and did nothing while the war raged in Europe - largely because 95 percent of US public opinion was against war, but also because the USA had hardly any weapons or trained men. Please recall that the USA remained steadfastly neutral for two years, three months, and a week until Japan and Germany declared war on IT. And you accuse the French, who did declare war on Germany two years earlier, of being cowards?
1. The two helicopter carriers are of marginal value to the Russians; many of their decision-makers would be happy if the sale were cancelled.
2. The Russians have already paid, so if the French don't deliver they have to repay the money plus penalties - and their reputation for being reliable and trustworthy is shot.
3. A large part of the ships is to be added in a Russian shipyard - so if the French keep the ships, they will be useless.
But the US administration has certainly succeeded in its main objective of driving a big wedge between the EU and Russia. The Europeans have cooperated in harming themselves - serve them right.
If you look closer, of course, you see that certain European politicians have done themselves a lot of good by carrying out Washington's instructions. In due course they will retire and mysteriously become multi-millionaires. Meanwhile, the European people and nations whom they are supposed to serve will suffer. Thank goodness for democracy!
It's also quite something to reflect that Hitler did a far better job fixing his country's economy between 1933 and 1939 than Roosevelt did. Things are seldom what they seem.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
Slashdot Mirror
"Pushing back against a bully would not be wrong".
So, having read TFA, you think that the customer was the bully? Not the vast monopoly, or the callous employer? Either you're very rich, or you believe (probably wrongly) that you will be one day.
"Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend".
"Actually right to work is exactly like it sounds. You have the right to work without paying to join a union".
You may think this odd, but to my mind "right to work" sounds like "right to work". "Right to work without having to join a union" sounds subtly different.
So you can (in reality) be fired for race, age, gender, etc. All the firing boss has to do is to insist it was because you wore a bow tie (which, as we now know, denotes insubordination). Or because you were insufficiently productive, against an arbitrary standard chosen by him. Or because you were rude (according to another employee who must remain anonymous to avoid causing them stress, in that employee's opinion). Or...
Although I did go to the CIA Web site and searched for "propaganda media". This is what I saw next:
Search is Temporarily Unavailable
Search is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.
Posted: Aug 27, 2012 04:31 PM
Last Updated: Aug 27, 2012 04:31 PM
"Citation please".
That's an easy game to play, isn't it? Tell you what: first, since it was mentioned first, YOU give ME a citation for some hard evidence substantiating the claim of Russian involvement in the J.P. Morgan affair.
And if you want a citation for the CIA allegations, Google is your friend.
Very much like the utterly unsubstantiated claims that Russia had something to do with the shooting down of MH17. John Kerry said that there was a mountain of evidence, but so far not a single shred of evidence has been published by the US government. The Russians released a good deal of hard evidence, including radar traces and the locations of known BUK units. Basically, MH17 was shot down either by cannon fire from one or more fighters, or by a BUK SAM. The only fighters in the air that day were Ukrainian government planes, and while the rebels may have captured a BUK unit, it had no radar. However the Ukrainian military units near Donetsk had at least three BUK units, complete with radar and trained crews - one of which was in exactly the right place to have shot down MH17, given where it came down.
So the Western media were flooded with "stenographic" reports and opinion echoing US government statements (almost word for word) and without any skepticism or investigative journalism. Although there has still been no evidence produced to incriminate Russia or the Ukrainian rebels, virtually all Westerners have been so heavily and repeatedly brainwashed with the certainty that Russia was responsible that they think they "know" it.
Perhaps the recently revealed large and widespread payments made by the CIA to American media (and others) in return for the printing of CIA-written propaganda helps to explain many of these odd situations. And media corporations are all the more disposed to go along with the scam because their circulations are shrinking and they laying off journalists and editors left, right and centre. It's a double win: money for nothing, and masses of copy that has been written elsewhere. The only losers are any remaining readers who are foolish enough to believe what they read in the newspapers and what they hear on radio and TV.
"How is the government not concerned about corporate espionage, terrorism, and other criminal activity, you'd think from a security standpoint, they would want encryption to be legit".
Because they don't actually believe there is any terrorist or criminal threat. That nonsense is just for the benefit of the foolish sheeple. Besides, those who run the government are fully aware that THEY are the apex predators - any real terrorist or criminal who strays onto their patch or annoys them would be vanished (or possibly hired).
Thank you for saying something nice about Ada! It's been such a long time...
It has been so far - you can see the charts in any serious discussion of population. Moreover, that's the simplified model that Malthus proposed.
Now of course reality never complies exactly with simplistic mathematical models. But the population of any species that isn't constrained by food, disease, space, predators, etc. tends to grow exponentially. Until it runs hard into one or more of those limits - at which point it usually crashes.
There are many arguments about human population growth will level off and even go negative - but always at some time in the future. When I was a young man the world population was 3 billion; today it's over 7 billion. Now we're told it will hit 11-12 billion at least before it starts to level off (if that even happens).
" I direct you to this Guardian story that explicitly states that as a fact".
Wow. The Guardian! Well, that certainly is an impeccable source. It's not as if the Guardian has ever got its facts wrong, still less deliberately distorted or suppressed facts it didn't like.
OK, I withdraw the "ignorant" bit. Everyone has at least one nationality they like to mock.
Putin and his representatives have repeatedly told the rebels that Russia will not annex their territory even if they ask it to.
http://www.ukrainewar.info/rus...
"In a mature society, 'civil servant' is semantically equal to 'civil master.'"
- Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love"
Actually Russia doesn't even want the rebel south-eastern part of the Ukraine, even though it's by far the most valuable part of the country. Putin and his representatives have repeatedly told the rebels that Russia will not annex their territory even if they ask it to. Crimea was a special case, as it is historically part of Russia AND the great majority of its inhabitants voted to rejoin Russia.
Especially since the EU has gone out of its way to harm Russia, the best outcome from the Russians' point of view would be for the Ukraine to join the EU. Then it will have to support that basket case of a nation indefinitely, at great cost to all the idiots who decided to try to harm Russia.
That won't happen. The USA never tackles any nation that can defend itself, and Russia is just as well equipped for war as the USA is. Moreover, it has ample thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems. Attacking Russia would be racial suicide.
And THAT is why Russia will be arranging, promptly, to make whatever it needs internally. When the USSR was dissolved, many Russians believed the ideological propaganda from the West about how sweetness and light would ensue if they just let "the market" rule. They did that, and oligarchs (not all Russian) ran away with about a third of their wealth. Now they have discovered that the USA and EU are quite happy to blackmail them with sanctions and financial weapons.
So naturally they will turn away from the West, and find other trading partners and allies. Starting with any nation that has been bullied and exploited by the USA - that would be several dozen at least. Most recently Argentina.
It looks like the date for "peak cheap oil" just pushed out awhile, again. Unless you're American and you want to pay for it with dollars.
FTFY.
Yeah, smartass, just like Malthus' warnings about population - which have been consistently "proved wrong" as the linear improvements in crop yield, etc. have kept marginally ahead of the exponential rise of population. You may believe that linear increases can stay ahead of an exponential curve, but mathematics is against you. Just stick around a while.
Of course if those crop yields turn out to be unsustainable... or large areas of arable land turn into dust and blow away, as looks like happening to the western USA right now... you just got an extra 2 billion mouths to feed with food that won't necessarily be there.
Likewise, you have an entire civilization that's utterly dependent on cheap oil. Not just oil, but CHEAP oil. Good luck with that when no one but the government can afford petroleum products.
Actually Crimea became part of Russia a few years before the USA came into existence. And about 50 years before it stole Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico and what became parts of other states from Mexico - cutting Mexico's territory by more than half.
Yes, thank goodness the stupid Russians are so inept when it comes to technology and heavy engineering. Remind me, how do you Yanks get up the ISS these days? Some of the stupid Russians have been suggesting you try using a trampoline, since you don't want their rockets.
Actually any "get out of jail free card" had a very short lifespan. Look at Libya now - and look at Qadafi.
In fact Libya suffered severely when the USA decided to court Iran when it was building up a coalition against Iraq. It seems very likely that the Lockerbie bombing was an act of revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes just a few months before. US intelligence agencies immediately blamed Iran for Lockerbie - until the administration decided that it wanted to cozy up to Iran, when Libya was abruptly switched into the "guilty" seat.
"...Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... "
Although the masters of the universe in Washington, with their short attention spans, will perhaps whimsically decide to raise their sanctions when they decide that Russia has been "punished" enough, Russia will not reciprocate. That's because its sanctions were not imposed out of a sense of grudge or malice, or to "punish" anyone, but in the long-term interests of Russia. The USA and EU have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted, and no matter what they do or say in future that will not change. A liar and a cheat remains a liar and a cheat regardless of how many promises and fair words he utters.
Consequently Russia will obtain most of its food imports from South America, Africa and Asia; manufacture far more of its own machinery and electronics; sell its oil and gas within Asia; and deal, as far as possible, in roubles, yuan, and other currencies other than the dollar and sterling. Not because its leaders are in a towering snit, but because they are calm and rational.
It's mildly annoying when ignorant, arrogant Americans suggest that France is a nation of cowards. Perhaps you should read your Mark Twain: when he visited France over 100 years ago, his main complaint was that every square foot of its territory had been drenched in blood through centuries of warfare. You might also reflect that, without the decisive help of a French fleet and army, the American Revolution would almost certainly have been defeated.
Had the German invasion of 1940 somehow been launched into the USA rather than France, it would have been just as rapidly decisive. Roosevelt deliberately set up Poland to resist German demands for Danzig, and then demanded that Britain and France guarantee Poland's integrity. He promised that if they declared war on Germany, the USA would join them... real soon. Then he sat on his hands and did nothing while the war raged in Europe - largely because 95 percent of US public opinion was against war, but also because the USA had hardly any weapons or trained men. Please recall that the USA remained steadfastly neutral for two years, three months, and a week until Japan and Germany declared war on IT. And you accuse the French, who did declare war on Germany two years earlier, of being cowards?
1. The two helicopter carriers are of marginal value to the Russians; many of their decision-makers would be happy if the sale were cancelled.
2. The Russians have already paid, so if the French don't deliver they have to repay the money plus penalties - and their reputation for being reliable and trustworthy is shot.
3. A large part of the ships is to be added in a Russian shipyard - so if the French keep the ships, they will be useless.
But the US administration has certainly succeeded in its main objective of driving a big wedge between the EU and Russia. The Europeans have cooperated in harming themselves - serve them right.
If you look closer, of course, you see that certain European politicians have done themselves a lot of good by carrying out Washington's instructions. In due course they will retire and mysteriously become multi-millionaires. Meanwhile, the European people and nations whom they are supposed to serve will suffer. Thank goodness for democracy!
It's also quite something to reflect that Hitler did a far better job fixing his country's economy between 1933 and 1939 than Roosevelt did. Things are seldom what they seem.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956