You say, "I was there, right?" And you assume that means we have to accept every statement of fact, every judgment, and every opinion you present us with.
But where exactly was "there"? How many of its quarter-million square miles did you personally inspect? How fluent are you in written and spoken Dari, Pashto, Uzbek and Turkmen? How many of the 29 million inhabitants did you interview? (And, given that you knew who you were, how likely is it that they told you the truth?)
Because if you just sat around in air-conditioned offices, shooting the breeze with other Americans over a cold beer - you might have stayed at home in the good ol' US of A for all the value your testimony has.
No, you completely and utterly fucked up, and they were right to terminate you. The customers asked how much it cost THEM, not what the individual components cost. You should have simply given them a number based on the amount of work you put in, and the knowledge you had coming into the assignment.
You cost your company a lot of money by fucking up like that.
So you really, seriously, believe that it's OK and perfectly normal to charge customers for software that someone has written and explicitly made available free of charge? I guess you also believe that there's a sucker born every minute, and it's immoral not to fleece them for all they've got.
Attitudes like that make me ashamed to be a human.
The way I see it, the human race evolved with certain abilities - but not everyone has all those abilities and inclinations to equal degrees. Thus, we have the familiar broad categories of extrovert and introvert, for instance. Everyone has seen extreme cases. Like the extrovert who can't be happy unless surrounded by people, talking, winding each other up, having relationships... always something happening. Or the introvert who hates social occasions because it's so hard to get a word in edgeways, and even then the wrong words somehow seem to pop out of your mouth so your clever pick-up line comes out as an offensive slur, or your clever joke falls flat because the timing is off. Much easier and better to stay alone reading, coding, watching moves, and maybe drop someone an email from time to time.
Guess what? Sales and marketing people tend to be extroverts, and programmers tend to be introverts. It's not a perfect correlation, of course - there are outstanding exceptions, and some perfectly bloody people seem to be good-looking, sociable, popular, good at sports, clever, and able to accomplish huge amounts working either alone or in a team. But it seems to me that sales and marketing are merely extensions of a natural human ability that most of us have to varying degrees: the ability to persuade, to manipulate people, to make oneself liked. Most really good salespeople know the important rule that the first thing you must sell is yourself; once clients like you, they want to help you and do what you suggest, and half the battle is won. (Incidentally, politicians tend to be consummate salespeople, which is why so few of them are introverts - and those few who are don't usually get very far).
Meanwhile, a lot of introverts end up studying and working a lot - because they don't have the urge to be partying and socialising - and become experts in relatively solitary subjects such as science, math, and programming. In the process, they learn the central importance of intellectual integrity - in other words, respect for objective truth. To an engineer building a ship or a bridge, or a programmer developing a suite of code, the facts are mostly clear, solid, and not up for debate. This is the core running gag in Dilbert: the engineers share a vast body of scientific facts and figures, which is their common heritage. In contrast, the PHB is a quintessential salesperson/manipulator. To him, it's hardly important if something is true or false; all he cares about is whether it will get him what he wants.
Our future - if we have one - depends on developing our ability to think scientifically. That means logically, honestly, objectively, and with intellectual integrity. Everything you think you know should be open for discussion, and when someone else demonstrates that one of your opinions is wrong, you should be pleased because now you know more and you have shed a false belief. Unfortunately, clear honest objective thinking is as alien to human nature as breathing air is to the average fish. Long ago, as we know, some primitive fish scrambled out of the water and gradually gained the ability to breathe air and stay on land for longer and longer periods - and from them sprang the whole immense diversity of air-breathing life we see around us today. But even air-breathing land-living mammals still enjoy a refreshing swim (providing there aren't any man-eating sharks around). Just so, even when people have learned to think regularly, clearly, and honestly, that doesn't mean they will lose their emotions and the ability to "groom" one another and enjoy socializing. But it does mean we'll get our priorities right, and decide important issues by scientific thinking, not by crocodile-brain manipulation of other people's emotions.
After Midway, when Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu were sunk, the Japanese had no really good fleet carriers left except Shokaku and Zuikaku. It is true that they were increasingly unable to scrape up enough planes and pilots even for the few carriers they had left, but even with a full complement they would have been hopelessly outnumbered. Between 1942 and 1945, the USA commissioned no fewer than 17 of the Essex class alone (each of which could carry over 100 combat aircraft).
My point was that Japan began the war (as of Pearl Harbor) with a roughly equivalent force of fleet carriers to the USN's. From then on, the USA built an additional 100+ carriers while Japan, as far as I recall, did not build a single additional fleet carrier. (It did cobble together a lot of ad-hoc half-measures, and Shinano - the converted Yamato-class battleship - would have made a superb carrier had it ever been completed, and if all the Japanese aircraft and pilots not been shot down by then).
Prince of Wales and her sister ships (the King George V class) compromised on 14-inch guns due to treaty requirements, whereas the USA had already standardized on 16-inch, Germany and Italy on 15-inch, and the Japanese actually moved up to 18-inch for the immense Yamato class.
Compare a KGV to an Iowa, South Dakota, or North Carolina and you'll find the American ships were superior in every way.
Long before the USA was even founded, communities like the New England Puritans thought and behaved almost exactly like modern Islamic fundamentalists.
Today, the US government does not need to suppress dissident views, because it can afford to ignore them altogether - which is far more effective. No doubt you will tell me that this is because all US citizens support government policy.
Much like antifoidulus mistakenly states that there were no traces of WMD's in Iraq, huh? I remember a few speeches by Colin Powell to the contrary but don't let my memories interfere with your revisionism, "Dude".
The Argentines' timing was off. The Thatcher government was in a fair way to eviscerate the British armed forces in order to save money. Another few years and it was have been quite impossible to mount a counter-attack on the Falklands.
Americans can have little idea of the kind of shoestring operations the British have been accustomed to since 1945. The task force was defended by a grand total of 34 Sea Harriers - minus the usual quota under repair at any given time.
Brecher claimed that "the Argentine Air Force managed to shred the British fleet". Maybe it did succeed in keeping the fleet at arm's length - but that's a far cry from "shredding" it.
Nukes being the only justification for GW2 is a straw horse that has been generally used by those such as yourself wanting to portray it as completely unjustified
It was completely unjustified. Quite apart from being a perfect example of aggressive war - described by the Nuremberg Tribunal as the ultimate war crime - the invaders killed some 1.5 million people, maimed many more, exiled more or less permanently 3-4 million, destroyed the national infrastructure and made sure that it would not be repaired, and virtually finished off Iraq as a viable nation.
If the "Western" nations were consistent or honest, the instigators of the invasion would all have been hanged by now.
'During the trial, the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated:
'"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole"'.
There's a difference when, in the US, you are permitted to publicly disagree.
Respectfully, that's not a difference when the government feels free to ignore any and all public disagreement. What you have in the USA is a vastly improved and far more elegant form of fascism. Just as in the more obvious dictatorships, the government can do whatever it wants and dispose of anyone who seriously threatens to obstruct it. Essentially, US citizens have the following freedoms:
1. Say whatever they like. 2. Vote for either a Republican or a Democrat president and Congress - both of which will pursue much the same policies.
So they are just about as free as a goldfish in a bowl.
Iran do have [sic] a multi stage ballistic missile which could probably hit southern Europe...
So the Iranians could do some harm to Greece, Italy, maybe Spain... Why???
Incidentally, Israel has nuclear missiles just as good as the USA's, which could obliterate any city in the WHOLE of Europe at any time. Why no one thinks that might be a problem is left as an exercise for the reader.
The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries.
Can you justify "lunatics"? It is a strong word to use, presumably of the government of a sovereign nation. It is also redolent of the ancient technique of belittling potential enemies in order to make them seem less formidable, and undercut any possible objections to treating them badly (or killing them).
If by "lunatics" you mean "religious fanatics", and you disapprove of any government run or influenced by such people, can you explain how the Iranian government is more influenced by religious fanatics than those of (say) the USA or Israel? Or do you think that American politicians who claim to have fanatical religious beliefs in order to get elected, but in fact have few or no religious beliefs at all, are better in some way than politicians whose religious beliefs are sincerely held?
Interesting article that seems to be plausible in its main thrust. But Gary Brecher can't resist bloviating about WW2 parallels, and in the process he reveals a pretty impressive degree of ignorance about the naval history of that era.
"The little biplanes buzzed out...and sank every ship. First a destroyer, then the huge German battleship, then all three US battleships. The Navy tried to ignore the results, but with Mitchell yapping at their heels, they finally started moving from battleship-based to aircraft-carrier-based battle groups".
1. Actually, the "little biplanes" that sank the German battleship Ostfriesland dropped 1-ton (2000 lb) bombs. Some of the worst damage was done by bombs that were deliberately dropped as near-misses, using massive water pressure pulses to rupture the vulnerable underwater part of the hull. Of course, Ostfriesland was unmanned and did not defend itself - there were none of the repair parties that would normally fight any breaches in the hull, and the aircraft could come as close as they liked. Amusingly, Mitchell himself told Congress that, "In my opinion, the Navy actually tried to prevent our sinking the Ostfriesland."
2. The British Royal Navy began using ship-launched aircraft in earnest during WW1 (1914-18). The Japanese also began experimenting with aircraft carriers at least as early as the USA. The reason why the USA built so many (and such big) carriers in the1930s and 1940s was mainly that it could - it had the huge wealth necessary to build over 100 carriers during WW2 alone, while other nations like Japan built hardly any. Also, aircraft carriers were very suitable for the Pacific war, with its vast expanses of open ocean and usually good flying weather.
"The British didn't pay any attention to Mitchell's demonstration. Their battleships were better made, better armed, and better manned".
This, too, is unfair. The British knew very well that their battleships were no better (to say the least) than those of the USA and Germany. Because Britain ended WW1 almost bankrupt, and owing huge amounts to the USA, its defence budgets were run on a shoestring right up to (and through) WW2. HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, for example, were smaller and slower than battleships built between the wars by the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France. The British knew very well that aircraft would be very dangerous to warships, but they couldn't stop building battleships because there was still a need for them.
"Why didn't the British think of it in 1940? There was plenty of evidence that battleships were nothing but giant coffins. They just decided not to think about it".
This is where Brecher gets altogether carried away and parts company with reality. Battleships were still necessary, in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres if less so in the Pacific. Although the German battleship Bismarck was crippled by a (very lucky) aerial torpedo hit, it took two British battleships to pound her into scrap before she was sent to the bottom by torpedoes. At the battle of Matapan, three British battleships sank three powerful Italian cruisers in a matter of minutes, changing the whole balance of the war in the Mediterranean. And the complex air, sea and land struggle for Guadalcanal was arguably settled when the battleship USS Washington smashed the less powerful Japanese battleship Kirishima, helping to give the USN supremacy in the waters around the strategic island. Certainly battleships were increasingly endangered, but until 1945 they still had important roles to play. The same is true about US carriers today. The fact that they may easily be sunk if they venture into a landlocked body of water like the Persian Gulf does not mean they are not enormously useful.
"In the Falklands War, the Argentine Air Force, which ain't exactly the A Team, managed to shred the British fleet, coming in low and fast to launch the Exocets".
In fact the Argentine Exocets sank exactly one British warship, HMS Sheffield. They also damaged three other ships (and admitte
To bury someone means to place their dead body underground, in the earth or a tomb. Being launched into space is pretty close to the opposite of burial.
A reasonable and rational argument about bias on Slashdot? You, sir are in violation of a large number of internet rules and I am afraid you must sit out a two hour ban on Internet usage for being entirely too rational
Thank you very much indeed. What a charming compliment!
Seriously? Look at the posts above you. The clear majority are blatantly bashing the US, just like every single topic that has anything to do with politics on slashdot.
Hell, Iran is better liked on slashdot than the US.
Well, that may be true - I haven't counted them. But it's a special case, don't you think? The topic is a public statement that many of us find fishy, and so we say so. Even died-in-the-wool American patriots may find it hard to believe, simply on the grounds that "he would say that, wouldn't he?"
But I disagree that they are "bashing the US". Rather, they are pointing out that *in this specific case* one American has said something that doesn't appear all that credible. Furthermore, if it seems that Iran is better liked than the USA, couldn't that just be that the only context in which they are compared is the apparent US government campaign to demonize Iran as a preliminary to attacking it?
Now, if Slashdot were ever to discuss - say - religious freedom in the USA and Iran, I feel sure that almost everyone would agree that the USA comes out streets ahead.
I have always admired Major General Carl Schurz's statement. "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right". Although born in Germany, he was a patriotic American: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schurz
As a european we distrust the Russian's a lot more than the American's [sic]
As another European, I disagree. I don't trust any rich and powerful country that could blot out my country any time it felt like it, and whose government is strictly interested in looking after those people who look after it (clue: not necessarily the voters). Either Russia or the USA (or China or the UK or France or Israel or India...) could be bad news for the citizens of another nation, and anyone who trusts the powerful to act against their own interests out of sheer altruism needs his head examined. It may be true, of course, that Russians are more inclined to tell it as they see it, and less inclined to dress things up in fancy moral terms, than Americans (or many other "Westerners").
Thucydides nailed this more than 2400 years ago:
"...[R]ight, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".
Considering Slashdot is slight more anti-American than the Taliban that's obviously not true.
Sorry, but I won't sit still for that. As a European who has always tried very hard to be cosmopolitan - a citizen of the world, and a member of the human race, rather than any kind of nationalist - I find that Slashdot is quite sophisticated technically, a bit less so politically, and actually exhibits a quite noticeable pro-American bias.
Of course there are exceptions: I'm one of them. And there are a few people who blame everything on America. But what I'm saying is that, even among apparently sensible, well-educated, reasonable Slashdotters I find that, on average, there is a slight but very definite US "home team advantage". And that is quite natural, seeing how many Slashdotters are American; there's nothing wrong with patriotism and pride in your country.
A Gartner report back in 1990 or thereabouts said that something like 100 billion lines of corporate COBOL existed. By 2010, that had doubled to about 200 billion.
That's not surprising, as many core industrial, financial, commercial and government computing systems are written in COBOL and run on mainframes. The number, size, and importance of those systems is not decreasing but rather sharply increasing.
Slashdot Mirror
You say, "I was there, right?" And you assume that means we have to accept every statement of fact, every judgment, and every opinion you present us with.
But where exactly was "there"? How many of its quarter-million square miles did you personally inspect? How fluent are you in written and spoken Dari, Pashto, Uzbek and Turkmen? How many of the 29 million inhabitants did you interview? (And, given that you knew who you were, how likely is it that they told you the truth?)
Because if you just sat around in air-conditioned offices, shooting the breeze with other Americans over a cold beer - you might have stayed at home in the good ol' US of A for all the value your testimony has.
No, you completely and utterly fucked up, and they were right to terminate you. The customers asked how much it cost THEM, not what the individual components cost. You should have simply given them a number based on the amount of work you put in, and the knowledge you had coming into the assignment.
You cost your company a lot of money by fucking up like that.
So you really, seriously, believe that it's OK and perfectly normal to charge customers for software that someone has written and explicitly made available free of charge? I guess you also believe that there's a sucker born every minute, and it's immoral not to fleece them for all they've got.
Attitudes like that make me ashamed to be a human.
The way I see it, the human race evolved with certain abilities - but not everyone has all those abilities and inclinations to equal degrees. Thus, we have the familiar broad categories of extrovert and introvert, for instance. Everyone has seen extreme cases. Like the extrovert who can't be happy unless surrounded by people, talking, winding each other up, having relationships... always something happening. Or the introvert who hates social occasions because it's so hard to get a word in edgeways, and even then the wrong words somehow seem to pop out of your mouth so your clever pick-up line comes out as an offensive slur, or your clever joke falls flat because the timing is off. Much easier and better to stay alone reading, coding, watching moves, and maybe drop someone an email from time to time.
Guess what? Sales and marketing people tend to be extroverts, and programmers tend to be introverts. It's not a perfect correlation, of course - there are outstanding exceptions, and some perfectly bloody people seem to be good-looking, sociable, popular, good at sports, clever, and able to accomplish huge amounts working either alone or in a team. But it seems to me that sales and marketing are merely extensions of a natural human ability that most of us have to varying degrees: the ability to persuade, to manipulate people, to make oneself liked. Most really good salespeople know the important rule that the first thing you must sell is yourself; once clients like you, they want to help you and do what you suggest, and half the battle is won. (Incidentally, politicians tend to be consummate salespeople, which is why so few of them are introverts - and those few who are don't usually get very far).
Meanwhile, a lot of introverts end up studying and working a lot - because they don't have the urge to be partying and socialising - and become experts in relatively solitary subjects such as science, math, and programming. In the process, they learn the central importance of intellectual integrity - in other words, respect for objective truth. To an engineer building a ship or a bridge, or a programmer developing a suite of code, the facts are mostly clear, solid, and not up for debate. This is the core running gag in Dilbert: the engineers share a vast body of scientific facts and figures, which is their common heritage. In contrast, the PHB is a quintessential salesperson/manipulator. To him, it's hardly important if something is true or false; all he cares about is whether it will get him what he wants.
Our future - if we have one - depends on developing our ability to think scientifically. That means logically, honestly, objectively, and with intellectual integrity. Everything you think you know should be open for discussion, and when someone else demonstrates that one of your opinions is wrong, you should be pleased because now you know more and you have shed a false belief. Unfortunately, clear honest objective thinking is as alien to human nature as breathing air is to the average fish. Long ago, as we know, some primitive fish scrambled out of the water and gradually gained the ability to breathe air and stay on land for longer and longer periods - and from them sprang the whole immense diversity of air-breathing life we see around us today. But even air-breathing land-living mammals still enjoy a refreshing swim (providing there aren't any man-eating sharks around). Just so, even when people have learned to think regularly, clearly, and honestly, that doesn't mean they will lose their emotions and the ability to "groom" one another and enjoy socializing. But it does mean we'll get our priorities right, and decide important issues by scientific thinking, not by crocodile-brain manipulation of other people's emotions.
...he only made 68K (in pounds, so in dollars it's something like 130K).
Actually, it's just over $105K.
In the USA it is forbidden to have any religious test as a requirement of office.
And yet no one who does not purport to be strongly religious - specifically, Christian - has the least shadow of a chance of being elected.
After Midway, when Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu were sunk, the Japanese had no really good fleet carriers left except Shokaku and Zuikaku. It is true that they were increasingly unable to scrape up enough planes and pilots even for the few carriers they had left, but even with a full complement they would have been hopelessly outnumbered. Between 1942 and 1945, the USA commissioned no fewer than 17 of the Essex class alone (each of which could carry over 100 combat aircraft).
My point was that Japan began the war (as of Pearl Harbor) with a roughly equivalent force of fleet carriers to the USN's. From then on, the USA built an additional 100+ carriers while Japan, as far as I recall, did not build a single additional fleet carrier. (It did cobble together a lot of ad-hoc half-measures, and Shinano - the converted Yamato-class battleship - would have made a superb carrier had it ever been completed, and if all the Japanese aircraft and pilots not been shot down by then).
Prince of Wales and her sister ships (the King George V class) compromised on 14-inch guns due to treaty requirements, whereas the USA had already standardized on 16-inch, Germany and Italy on 15-inch, and the Japanese actually moved up to 18-inch for the immense Yamato class.
Compare a KGV to an Iowa, South Dakota, or North Carolina and you'll find the American ships were superior in every way.
Long before the USA was even founded, communities like the New England Puritans thought and behaved almost exactly like modern Islamic fundamentalists.
Today, the US government does not need to suppress dissident views, because it can afford to ignore them altogether - which is far more effective. No doubt you will tell me that this is because all US citizens support government policy.
Much like antifoidulus mistakenly states that there were no traces of WMD's in Iraq, huh? I remember a few speeches by Colin Powell to the contrary but don't let my memories interfere with your revisionism, "Dude".
Please tell me you are joking about Colin Powell's speeches. See, to take just one example among hundreds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZTLmOoPzjs Or maybe http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-08-powell-iraq_x.htm
Powell freely admitted that the information he presented to the UN was untrue, and that he was thoroughly ashamed of his role in justifying the war.
The Argentines' timing was off. The Thatcher government was in a fair way to eviscerate the British armed forces in order to save money. Another few years and it was have been quite impossible to mount a counter-attack on the Falklands.
Americans can have little idea of the kind of shoestring operations the British have been accustomed to since 1945. The task force was defended by a grand total of 34 Sea Harriers - minus the usual quota under repair at any given time.
Brecher claimed that "the Argentine Air Force managed to shred the British fleet". Maybe it did succeed in keeping the fleet at arm's length - but that's a far cry from "shredding" it.
Nukes being the only justification for GW2 is a straw horse that has been generally used by those such as yourself wanting to portray it as completely unjustified
It was completely unjustified. Quite apart from being a perfect example of aggressive war - described by the Nuremberg Tribunal as the ultimate war crime - the invaders killed some 1.5 million people, maimed many more, exiled more or less permanently 3-4 million, destroyed the national infrastructure and made sure that it would not be repaired, and virtually finished off Iraq as a viable nation.
If the "Western" nations were consistent or honest, the instigators of the invasion would all have been hanged by now.
'During the trial, the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated:
'"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole"'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression
There's a difference when, in the US, you are permitted to publicly disagree.
Respectfully, that's not a difference when the government feels free to ignore any and all public disagreement. What you have in the USA is a vastly improved and far more elegant form of fascism. Just as in the more obvious dictatorships, the government can do whatever it wants and dispose of anyone who seriously threatens to obstruct it. Essentially, US citizens have the following freedoms:
1. Say whatever they like.
2. Vote for either a Republican or a Democrat president and Congress - both of which will pursue much the same policies.
So they are just about as free as a goldfish in a bowl.
Iran do have [sic] a multi stage ballistic missile which could probably hit southern Europe...
So the Iranians could do some harm to Greece, Italy, maybe Spain... Why???
Incidentally, Israel has nuclear missiles just as good as the USA's, which could obliterate any city in the WHOLE of Europe at any time. Why no one thinks that might be a problem is left as an exercise for the reader.
Luckily, no Asian nation is willing to buy oil from Iran or capable of refining it.
The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries.
Can you justify "lunatics"? It is a strong word to use, presumably of the government of a sovereign nation. It is also redolent of the ancient technique of belittling potential enemies in order to make them seem less formidable, and undercut any possible objections to treating them badly (or killing them).
If by "lunatics" you mean "religious fanatics", and you disapprove of any government run or influenced by such people, can you explain how the Iranian government is more influenced by religious fanatics than those of (say) the USA or Israel? Or do you think that American politicians who claim to have fanatical religious beliefs in order to get elected, but in fact have few or no religious beliefs at all, are better in some way than politicians whose religious beliefs are sincerely held?
Interesting article that seems to be plausible in its main thrust. But Gary Brecher can't resist bloviating about WW2 parallels, and in the process he reveals a pretty impressive degree of ignorance about the naval history of that era.
"The little biplanes buzzed out...and sank every ship. First a destroyer, then the huge German battleship, then all three US battleships. The Navy tried to ignore the results, but with Mitchell yapping at their heels, they finally started moving from battleship-based to aircraft-carrier-based battle groups".
1. Actually, the "little biplanes" that sank the German battleship Ostfriesland dropped 1-ton (2000 lb) bombs. Some of the worst damage was done by bombs that were deliberately dropped as near-misses, using massive water pressure pulses to rupture the vulnerable underwater part of the hull. Of course, Ostfriesland was unmanned and did not defend itself - there were none of the repair parties that would normally fight any breaches in the hull, and the aircraft could come as close as they liked. Amusingly, Mitchell himself told Congress that, "In my opinion, the Navy actually tried to prevent our sinking the Ostfriesland."
2. The British Royal Navy began using ship-launched aircraft in earnest during WW1 (1914-18). The Japanese also began experimenting with aircraft carriers at least as early as the USA. The reason why the USA built so many (and such big) carriers in the1930s and 1940s was mainly that it could - it had the huge wealth necessary to build over 100 carriers during WW2 alone, while other nations like Japan built hardly any. Also, aircraft carriers were very suitable for the Pacific war, with its vast expanses of open ocean and usually good flying weather.
"The British didn't pay any attention to Mitchell's demonstration. Their battleships were better made, better armed, and better manned".
This, too, is unfair. The British knew very well that their battleships were no better (to say the least) than those of the USA and Germany. Because Britain ended WW1 almost bankrupt, and owing huge amounts to the USA, its defence budgets were run on a shoestring right up to (and through) WW2. HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, for example, were smaller and slower than battleships built between the wars by the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France. The British knew very well that aircraft would be very dangerous to warships, but they couldn't stop building battleships because there was still a need for them.
"Why didn't the British think of it in 1940? There was plenty of evidence that battleships were nothing but giant coffins. They just decided not to think about it".
This is where Brecher gets altogether carried away and parts company with reality. Battleships were still necessary, in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres if less so in the Pacific. Although the German battleship Bismarck was crippled by a (very lucky) aerial torpedo hit, it took two British battleships to pound her into scrap before she was sent to the bottom by torpedoes. At the battle of Matapan, three British battleships sank three powerful Italian cruisers in a matter of minutes, changing the whole balance of the war in the Mediterranean. And the complex air, sea and land struggle for Guadalcanal was arguably settled when the battleship USS Washington smashed the less powerful Japanese battleship Kirishima, helping to give the USN supremacy in the waters around the strategic island. Certainly battleships were increasingly endangered, but until 1945 they still had important roles to play. The same is true about US carriers today. The fact that they may easily be sunk if they venture into a landlocked body of water like the Persian Gulf does not mean they are not enormously useful.
"In the Falklands War, the Argentine Air Force, which ain't exactly the A Team, managed to shred the British fleet, coming in low and fast to launch the Exocets".
In fact the Argentine Exocets sank exactly one British warship, HMS Sheffield. They also damaged three other ships (and admitte
Burial now has the common connotation of any type of interring of a body in any location: sea, land, or space.
Unfortunately for your argument, "interring" means "covering with earth".
Could you have been any more pedantic?
I certainly hope not. What you deride as "pedantic", I consider "accurate".
When it's time for me to kick the bucket I plan on piloting the Burj Khalifa directly into the Louvre.
You are Randall Munroe and I claim my $64,000.
To bury someone means to place their dead body underground, in the earth or a tomb. Being launched into space is pretty close to the opposite of burial.
A reasonable and rational argument about bias on Slashdot? You, sir are in violation of a large number of internet rules and I am afraid you must sit out a two hour ban on Internet usage for being entirely too rational
Thank you very much indeed. What a charming compliment!
Seriously? Look at the posts above you. The clear majority are blatantly bashing the US, just like every single topic that has anything to do with politics on slashdot.
Hell, Iran is better liked on slashdot than the US.
Well, that may be true - I haven't counted them. But it's a special case, don't you think? The topic is a public statement that many of us find fishy, and so we say so. Even died-in-the-wool American patriots may find it hard to believe, simply on the grounds that "he would say that, wouldn't he?"
But I disagree that they are "bashing the US". Rather, they are pointing out that *in this specific case* one American has said something that doesn't appear all that credible. Furthermore, if it seems that Iran is better liked than the USA, couldn't that just be that the only context in which they are compared is the apparent US government campaign to demonize Iran as a preliminary to attacking it?
Now, if Slashdot were ever to discuss - say - religious freedom in the USA and Iran, I feel sure that almost everyone would agree that the USA comes out streets ahead.
I have always admired Major General Carl Schurz's statement. "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right". Although born in Germany, he was a patriotic American: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schurz
As a european we distrust the Russian's a lot more than the American's [sic]
As another European, I disagree. I don't trust any rich and powerful country that could blot out my country any time it felt like it, and whose government is strictly interested in looking after those people who look after it (clue: not necessarily the voters). Either Russia or the USA (or China or the UK or France or Israel or India...) could be bad news for the citizens of another nation, and anyone who trusts the powerful to act against their own interests out of sheer altruism needs his head examined. It may be true, of course, that Russians are more inclined to tell it as they see it, and less inclined to dress things up in fancy moral terms, than Americans (or many other "Westerners").
Thucydides nailed this more than 2400 years ago:
"...[R]ight, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".
If you haven't read about the Melian Dialog, you really should: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian_dialogue (the complete text is at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/melian.htm). It tells you almost everything you need to know about international politics.
Considering Slashdot is slight more anti-American than the Taliban that's obviously not true.
Sorry, but I won't sit still for that. As a European who has always tried very hard to be cosmopolitan - a citizen of the world, and a member of the human race, rather than any kind of nationalist - I find that Slashdot is quite sophisticated technically, a bit less so politically, and actually exhibits a quite noticeable pro-American bias.
Of course there are exceptions: I'm one of them. And there are a few people who blame everything on America. But what I'm saying is that, even among apparently sensible, well-educated, reasonable Slashdotters I find that, on average, there is a slight but very definite US "home team advantage". And that is quite natural, seeing how many Slashdotters are American; there's nothing wrong with patriotism and pride in your country.
A Gartner report back in 1990 or thereabouts said that something like 100 billion lines of corporate COBOL existed. By 2010, that had doubled to about 200 billion.
That's not surprising, as many core industrial, financial, commercial and government computing systems are written in COBOL and run on mainframes. The number, size, and importance of those systems is not decreasing but rather sharply increasing.