Well...I don't recall it going for days with no stories, but check out the wayback machine as there are some older front pages from slashdot there that kinda point at what I am talking about. There were not as many stories back then...and sure, one could argue that it's because the site has grown...but the number of good stories is seldom any higher. Now we get alot more Anime/Manga crap and really bad politics. Granted - I am pretty cool with this community sticking it to the RIAA/MPAA/DMCA and a few other acronyms, but I think they seriously need to get a clue on some of the other political articles (Slashdot logic often goes like this: If you agree with my politics, you are intelligent and cultured. If not, you are a moron.)...some of the writing is just plain rediculous and inflammatory. The writing was never great...I know...but I didn't recall it sinking to the levels it has been on occasion, in recent memory. Oh well...at least in the end Katz got outted as a kook for once and for all...I never did hear exactly what happened there, but not too long after the Junis incident, he kinda vanished.
In fairness, todays stories actually weren't too bad, which is why I am actually surfing slashdot today...but like I said...IMHO (and I don't think I am alone), I think the overall quality of slashdot has really slid alot. They've tried to appeal to alot broader of an audience (hey...it pays $. Maybe Malda is due for a new BMW by now...the lease is probably up on his last one.), and it's kinda alienated alot of geeks on some level.
Eh...I am just ranting. Pay no attention...it's all just MHO.
the business model has changed. They can't go for days without posting many stories...even if there isn't much good news on those days. Then they wouldn't get page hits and generate ad revenue...which is why you often see old news, and crap dressed up like news, instead of something actually new and interesting.
This is why I seriously think they'd LIKE to keep a few rediculously biased jerks with political agendas on the editor staff...like it or not - they crank out page hits with the flamewars that follow some of their dumber stories. Junis from Afghanistan took the freaking cake! That one was so rediculous I think they had to get rid of Katz just to save some image. Then there is Michael who posts 80% crap (usually with twisted politics), and has some interesting little exploits himself...and then lies about it on the very project site he basically hijacked...and even the other editors know it. Seriously...the editors need to clean up their freaking acts...it's been said that they don't even read their own site anymore, and I'd believe it, what with all the dupes and typos, etc. They can just keep milking it like the little cash cow it is.
I am not trying to be a troll myself for saying it - it's my humble opinion. Mod me troll if you want...at least I had the balls to say it while logged in.
Thing is, there's no way USA can match indian prices, and indian software engineers are usually quite decent, so USA is going to lose more and more IT jobs.
Well...being that the U.S. dollar and the Euro are pretty close to the same value right now, I'd think this would concern you too. I am guessing you are from Europe juding by your nick and comments here. India (and other such countries) would be undercutting Europeans by pretty close to the same amount.
That brings me to a question...why go from a conversation about undercutting U.S. developers from India to talking about how the European Union can deal with our "protectionist policies"? Like I said...I think this one is a potential problem for Europeans as well. Why are you so anxious to talk about a protectionist war with the U.S. when your own side of things is likely to be just as damaged by the matter? I don't think your conclusion is 100% correct (and that's a subject for a whole other debate), and really...get over yourselves.
Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy.
I've no doubt in my mind that they can do it, if they put their focus on such a goal and really put the effort into it....the problem is, is that you wouldn't want to pay for it. Add to that, the fact that you won't be using that machine in 30 years due to advancements in technology, and I've kinda gotta wonder why you'd want a computer that would live that long.
Mostly, it's price though. People like cheap electronics...like the article about how low quality consumer electronics have become from a few weeks ago. Now that they want and 'need' to have everything...they don't want to or cannot pay top dollar for it all.
You're talking about potential people here, yet again. I've said before: I just don't think that's a valid rationale for considering whether zygotes are of moral concern. By that rationale, you deprive people of life just by not having as many kids as you can all the time, in exactly the same way.
This just goes to show that your not understanding what I am saying in the least. I've explained this multiple times now, and differentiated my feelings on the subjects from what you have expressed.
1.) By not having kids, no one is being deprived of life by another. There is no one there to deprive of life...it never happened, so no one can play a part in what becomes of it. No one took the actions neccessary to create a life, so there is no life to be taken away, and more importantly, no one TOOK a life away - even as a possibility.
2.) By manually destroying a zygote (which was created by a concious action), as a concious action itself, you have taken something that would have had an opportunity to become a person, and made it so that it now has NO opportunity to become a person, deliberately. (The deliberate part of it is what makes the difference to me.) If someone does that, they may or may not have deprived a human being of it's life, that it would have had, if the other individual not done something.
That is why I take it somewhat seriously...to destroy the zygote as a deliberate and concious decision, may have taken a life that otherwise would have been. The guilt of that action (potential deprivation of life) is on those who had a part in it. If it passes through and never takes to the uterine wall to develope onward, without outside interferance, there is no one to blame as it was the natural course. No one even might have deprived another of life as even a possibility, and especially, no one did such a thing deliberately. (Fate may not be the best word for it, but it is the natural course of things. No one took the action, no one is there to blame for the outcome. This has nothing to do with souls, faith or religeon. It's a somewhat philosophical and completely secular way to think about it.)
Admittedly, it's a philosophical view with a scientific component (although I think the trail of logic is sound). You seem to be speaking almost strictly to the most scientific side of the argument, as to exactly when it is unique (and what that means), and when it is a life, etc, and there is a whole other realm to the matter that is being overlooked. It's all to easy to forget the microscopic repercussions that get thrown out from doing it...but that is just my humble opinion. I am not asking anyone to make laws based on what I think on the matter...rather I am explaining why I tend to frown on alot of what goes on personally.
I am probably not going to drag this out any further, and believe it or not, it's been interesting and yes - these things do make me think...but I am sticking to my guns on this one. Disagreeing is fine, but I'd kinda like to think that you'll give my side some serious thought too.
The problem is that you just asserted that a zygote is a unique human being. But it's not necessarily: it could split off into two beings. Or three. None of them genetically unique.
Perhaps it would have been better explained as genetically unique from it's parents, and anyone else who is already living (Well...it's rather likely as the understatement of the year). The fact that it could become multiple identical offspring reinforces what I have been saying more than anything...maybe that zygote you aborted actually deprived 4 people of lives they would have had. (Maybe it didn't...maybe they would have never taken to the uterine wall. You just don't know - which means you gambled with human life.)
A zygote has no potential either: in fact if it doesn't implant in the uterine wall, it won't develop into a fetus at all. Your criteria for "potential" is thus arbitrary: you are denying potential because of additional steps necessary in one case: utterly ignoring the prescence of additional steps in the other case.
Umm...no. A zygote has a CHANCE of being a person. A sperm does not have a chance to be a person...a sperm has a chance to fertilize an egg - and at that point, and only under those circumstances - does it have the chance to be a PART of what makes up a person, MAYBE. There's a huge difference there: A zygote will have a chance at becoming a person (or people, for the nitpicky's sake) as it's own entity(s). A sperm or an egg will not have a chance at becoming their own person as individuals. If you don't fertilize and egg, nothing has ever been there to take something away from. If you fertilize and egg and destroy it, there was a potential life...which now does not have a chance.
This part kinda gets me...
you are denying potential because of additional steps necessary in one case: utterly ignoring the prescence of additional steps in the other case.
No...I made an implied leap of logic there that I perhaps didn't explain well enough, so I'll take a stab at it, in case I have explained it clearly enough already: I am not ignoring additional steps. Here's the logic simply put:
A sperm is not a person and has no chance on it's own of becoming a person. At best it COULD go on one day to contribute half of the genetic material to make a person. As it stand, a sperm has zero potential.
An egg is not a person and has a situation much like the sperm. It has no potential to become a person without some other events happening.
These 'other events' we are talking about aren't things that just happen spontaneously. (Unless someone thinks they have an 'immaculate conception' on their hands here...) A person conciously takes the actions that fertilizes an egg...that's where the line is drawn in my mind. If someone conciously takes the actions to fertilize the egg knowing full well what the potential is, then they are responsible for their actions. If it fertilizes, and they kill it, they might have deprived someone of life (it might have attached to the uterine wall and grown up strong and healthy, it might have simply passed...for which no one is conciously responsible...it's just something that mothernature does. Convieniently, we'll never know now for sure, after it's done), through a series of concious actions leading up to the denouement we are discussing here. They might have cost someone their life...that should not be taken lightly, particularly if it was simply their own irresponsibility that lead up to this happening. (IMHO) My feelings on the matter hinge on personal responsibility for what happens.
Just to rehash: A zygote is a fertilized egg; the beginning stages of a person. It consists of the genetic material of a mother and father...and is genetically unique from both, and any other living person. It has the direct possibility of attaching the the uterine wall, and growing into a mature adult human. This is something that just a sperm or egg cannot do on their own. If it does not attach to the uterine wall, then it dies...that the way it went today in the land of mother nature. If it dies because someone caused it to intentionally, then there exists the possibility that you have taken someone's life. They might have been fine before that happened.
It's alot like shooting a rifle into the air in a crowded area and hoping no one got killed when the bullet lands. If someone does that, maybe they didn't kill anyone...maybe they did. If the individual can do something like that and sleep entirely well at night...I wonder about that person.
If put into an egg, a sperm will be someone too. Same difference. Indeed, the "someone" we think of when we think of particular someones is only _marginally_ due to the genetic code: life's experiences, nutritional intake, and a whole host of other things make just as much of a difference.
Life experiences and nutrition have nothing to do with this...the fact is, is that if you have a fertilized egg that is trying to grow into a human being, and you destroy it, you've possibly destroyed a human being. It was an individual or individuals...they didn't have a chance to exibit a personality to the world...that does not magically make them somehow less of an individual.
But I HAVE thought about it a great great deal. You can't grant moral rights to a being that has no interests to begin with based simply on future possibilities anymore than you can lock someone in jail just because they have a "potential" to be a murderer. Nor can any genetical fallacy of natural inevitability help.
This is a bad strawman argument. No...you cannot lock someone in jail because they could potentially kill someone. Of course you can't (or at least shouldn't). However I suppose it is ok to pull the trigger on a potentially loaded weapon at someone(s) who isn't/aren't developed enough for our liking at the time. Yes...this is somewhat of a strawman itself, but IMHO, alot less so than the one I was given.
How would you define 'interests' that this fetus must have? Someone in certain type of coma is not concious and likely doesn't express any interests...but we can't simply do whatever the heck we want with them...at least not as casually. We can SEE them...so it might make someone think about it more. They might have interests again when they wake up in (for examples sake) 9 months. A zygote might too, but people dismiss it because they don't have to look at it, and it's very convienient.
Twins are not genetically unique. Is it okay to kill the spare? No.
Well...we are almost debating semantics here we could be talking about identical or fraternal twins. I am still sticking to my feelings on the matter as this is how I feel about either one: Identical twins originate from the same egg, if memory serves, so at some point the embryo is an individual human being that is growing. Like I said...give it a DNA test...I am pretty sure it's going to confirm the humanity part. When it splits to form twins, then they are no longer unique due to each others existance, but they are unique from their parents...they are human lives starting and progressing, if allowed to take their natural course. To destroy either one is to deprive a human being of it's life, as detailed above. And obviously, fraternal twins are not identical, and are unique individuals which would also be deprived of life just the same, as previously explained.
But that's just as silly as giving rights to sperm because of its potential.
No...it isn't. Sperm has no potential for life on it's own...neither does an egg - alone. A sperm isn't going to be delivered and need to be fed. An embryo or fetus are very different from just having either one egg or one sperm, when your talking about what it is, and what it will become - and especially who it is, and who it will be. An embryo will be someone...it might be the next great mind like Einstein and Stephen Hawking, or it might be a worthless first post troll, but it will be someone. To conciously take away it's chance to be that, is to deprive a human of it's life. If fate has it that the embryo doesn't come to term...well...it had it's chance. No one made the decision to take away that chance at life. (I think of taking it's chance away as kinda like death by firing squad: in a firing squad, only a few of the shooters have live ammo...so no one in the squad knows who shot and killed the prisoner. It makes it convieniently easy to deal with the moral issues. I don't particularly care to be a shooter in a firing squad...it means I might kill someone who's death I may or may not feel is justifyable. Just the same...I don't think very highly of aborting even a young fetus or embryo. I might have just taken a life away from a human being, if I do. I see alot of people make the argument that alot of embryo's simply never come to term, and this is how I justify my feelings about that. I don't feel it diminishes the moral component of the matter.)
It might shock alot of people to know that I am not even close to strictly pro-life judging by what I write (and what pro-life feelings I have are not the zealous type, there are circumstances that I find such things are justifyable. My whole view of the matter is a complicated one to say the least.)...but I don't think that people should take such things as lightly as they seem to want to...it's a very very serious thing, IMHO. It's easy to try to think so little of it because we don't have to look at it...but the situation is what it is.
Sorry, but that just runs into the second half of the prong: you're just begging the question by assuming that a zygote is already something of moral concern: a "someone" that can be deprived of something.
It's a genetically unique individual that is forming...yes...a genetically unique individual can be deprived of something. A genetically unique individual that does not yet exist, cannot be deprived of something, since it does not yet exist...it's simple logic and this is all I am saying. The arguement you made previously was that any women that I didn't impregnate was an individual being deprived of life, and that is a little crazy. There's nothing there to deprive of life...you can't take from something that does not exist.
If you set the wheels into motion to create a new being, fertilizing an egg and mixing genes, then there is something there that you can take away from. If you take it's life, you take it's life, but calling it anything else is just sugar coating it, which people seem fond of doing to make the reality of their actions easier to deal with and justify...it's kind of scarey in a way....IMHO at least.
Actually...I would make a different arguement to it. There are still high end items out there to be had in almost any industry...they are expensive.
I'll give two reasons....
The one reason everyone has such cheap crap, is that people want so much crap in general, but have limited funds. They want a half-dozen computers in their place that have adquate processor power, and they can get them - but unless they are very wealthy, they are going to be running on slower IDE harddrives, with cheapo power supplies that fluxuate (sp?) badly, on cheap motherboards, usually in cheap 20 dollar cases, 25 dollar DVDRom's....you get the idea...compare such boxen to one of the tanklike machines of days gone by. (Or the ones that can be made with the high-end parts of today.) They aren't happy with one TV in their house...they need one for every other fucking room, so usually rather than buy one really nice one for the living room with all the trimmings, they end up spreading out their purchasing power and get maybe one pretty good one (at best here...i am being generous...), and all of the others are bought with price on their mind. DVD players? Well...now that we have all these TV's we need those too. It's basically a problem for people who have money and want material things, but who have little common sense when it comes to quality...REAL quality, not just percieved quality that they get from buying a fashionable brand.
The other reason has alot to do with why I am so conservative technologically. (My only DVD player is my computer, etc.) With Electronics these days, the technology changes so fast, it never has enough to time mature properly. As soon as one standard comes out, a better one will be there in 3 years time...so why build anything to last? It's going to get scrapped so we can all go out and buy the newer shinier thing. DVD's are around for how many years now, and they are already talking about the 'next big thing'...give me another VHS type of technology that is good enough to make it for 20 or 25 years...but it's no matter - all they have to do is release some new gadget and the overly materialist and gadget-happy crowds must have it. They buy it...it succeeds. It shouldn't have.
How about raising the bar on the quality of the goods you seek? Then, in a free market, the people who design their products well, and build them well, will make money - and if they are smart - keep doing exactly what they are doing.
That's the thing that frustrates me with slashdot and oftentimes, the editors here. They are so blatantly gadget happy and contributing to the problems of such things...and sit there and wonder why the problems happen.
It's more complicated than that. By your understanding, you are depriving a human being of life by not impregnating every woman you meet.
No...I am not. There's not a life there to deprive. You can't deprive someone of life when their very beginnings have never happened....you CAN deprive someone of life when you set the beginnings of their exitance into motion and then suddenly take it away.
Deprive means "To take away"....you can't take something away from something that does not yet exist. It's not there to be taken from. If you take it away from something that does exist...your depriving it - in this case, of it's very life.
Give the embryo a DNA test and lets see what it tells us it is.
An embryo is a human being that is not yet conscious...but it will be almost definitely, if allowed to follow it's normal course. Just because you have a penis does not make it VERY likely that you will be a rapist. Bad strawman...bad.
So...that brings me to the way I think about it. It's a human that haven't gotten concious yet...so if a person isn't concious yet, can we all just do whatever we want to them?
Reguardless of how people feel about whether or not abortion should be allowed, make no illusions about it - you are depriving a human being of life.
The part that might shock you is that I don't think abortion should be outlawed, because it won't work. I think abortion should be allowed especially in certain cases...and unfortunately, idiots who fuck around senselessly will just claim one of those cases when they need one and overcomplicate the whole thing...it just wouldn't work. An outright ban of abortion wouldn't have the needed support to ever pass, and a more restrictive partial ban won't work. And for the record, an outright ban of abortion wouldn't have the needed support even in the republican community for that matter...I love hearing about how they are going to do such things in centers of left wing groupthink like this.
This kinda machine sounds like something right out of the game "Jet Moto" for the old playstation. You basically race a jetski/bike on water and land against others. Kinda fun game.
Umm...I didn't troll. I stated my opinion. I have mine...you have yours. Why so overly sensitive? Did I just put down your favorite pud yankin' material or something?
Like I said...large children. Hey...least I have the guts to post as myself when I voice my opinion.
Imagine a world in which they made cartoons that had writing and art that wasn't targeted at small children
Heh...all I see are cartoons with writing and art that is targeted at large children...and I am not talking about 7 year olds with a pituitary disorder.
I'd be way happier with a few more "The Learning Channels"...they can keep their tentacle porn on the other side of the ocean.
Not trolling...just really dislike 99% of the stuff.
and it doesn't mean that GM or Ford are suddenly making better cars
Well...here are the longer term figures from the 1998 model year. It's a pretty mixed bag, but it looks like half of GM's brands did pretty well. Cadillac took second place, even beating Mercedes Benz. I am still sticking to my guns on the domestics...they really don't hold up half bad comparatively. I am still driving my car from college at 127k miles right now, and I've got no complaints...I have a friend who has almost the same car at 145k-ish now...same story...and neither of those are from a make that even made the most reliable lists. Sure...those aren't rediculously high milages...but not too shabby and still going strong. I think vehicle longevity (assuming the original vehicle is at least half decent) is really affected by maintenance and storage and the such.
Well...you've got some inches on me in height, and actually I just rode in a Mazda Protegé earlier this week for the first time...they are reasonbly roomy on the inside. Never looked at an Echo in person....but for each small car with a decent interior size you list, I can probably list one that doesn't fair as well at all. That being said, I can make due with most cars for short drives...but it's the long trips that usually kill me. I sat in a Miata once and knew from that point on I wouldn't want one...ever. The insides sucked.
It's true about the SUV's though...for alot of them at least. Alot of them aren't too big on the inside (aside from the open space behind you, but some are much better than others) and to make matters worse, they pack them with every stupid thing they can find to clutter it up even more. I really wish people would outgrow those things...it's a trend that has gotten out of hand.
You apparently don't see the highways that I see. No one is denying that people will buy little foreign cars...and when that was the mentality, we had just come out of an oil crisis, and the build quality of japenese imports was actually starting to get good - as the quality of American cars was going into a rut.
Right now, the quality of American cars is actually improving. On the last JD Power and Associates quality ratings, GM just knocked Nissan out of third...and all of the domestic makers are playing around with hybrid designs. (I think GM's experimental one is currently leading them all in miliage figures at somewhere around 80 Mpg.) The domestic manfacturers are actually making some pretty good stuff this time around...and I don't think Americans want big powerful cars (although big relative to a japenese maybe, but come on...I am 6'2" tall and small cars actually kinda hurt after awhile)...but yes...we like powerful cars. American roads and highways have something to do with that too...although I don't know what the people in the city's excuses are. (Ironically, the cities are generally very liberal politically, and the liberals are generally "environmentally concerned", and a HUGE number of SUV's are in the city...but that's a debate for another day.)
Truthfully...I am glad toyota is trying to make such a commitment too though, mainly because it will force some of the other makers hands to get more similar offerings out sooner. Tis a good thing.
Actually, in the last JD Power and Associates quality ratings, GM knocked Nissan out of third. Toyota was definitely one of the top ones, but you guys seriously have to take a look at whats going on in the domestic world...some damn nice stuff is out there.
GM also has an experimental hybrid that gets better miliage figures than pretty much any other automakers experiments to date, last I looked. Pretty wild design.
Well...you wrote: "I'm sure you already have a bad enough opinion of China and Russia, thanks to US media" - perhaps not words in my mouth, but thoughts in my head at the least. Any opinions I have of Russia and China I've formed on my own...actually somewhat through people who lived in both (people I knew in college, and worked with)...and through other sources. Why I am explaining that I have no idea.
Actually, while they did in some conventional cases, they specifically did *not* do so before Hiroshima. It was completely unanounced. There *were* leaflets dropped afterwards to citizens urging them to help convince the Japanese leadership to surrender.
Actually, you got me on that one. You are correct about the timing of the leaflets...had to double check that one. I do still stick by the other part of it though - it likely did save lives. The estimates by how much seem to vary pretty wildly, but it's pretty widely accepted. Sure...some will disagree. Unfortunately, we don't have a magic crystal ball to tell us how it would have turned out. In addition to likely saving lives, it sent a rather strong signal to Russia that they'd best behave in Europe.
Oh, bullshit. There is absolutely no way we get "dragged" into bombing the crap out of a country. We may have incentives, like better oil prices, but the US hasn't looked at an invasion for two hundred years now.
Hey...look at Bosnia and Kosovo. American muscle was needed in there. Look at the previous Iraq conflict. Believe it or not, Saudi Arabia actually requested U.S. forces come there to defend against a possible attack. The U.N. declared Iraq's annexation of Kuwait void long before a bomb was ever dropped there. The U.K. and France were putting troops in the gulf before congress even authorized Bush to go to war. Saddam rejected the U.N. resolutions and didn't get out by the deadline. The U.S. provided most of the firepower to fix it, but there sure was alot more than just the U.S. involved there. Or how about the Falklands...a little U.S. logistic support there was kinda needed. In Afghanistan there really weren't many things in the incentives department...that was a bad situation that had to be dealt with, and was dealt with - with U.N. approval.
Europe and a number of countries have alot of trouble handling military matters on their own...so America ends up involved.
No, it's because of expected attrition -- assume some don't work, assume some are destroyed before launch, assume anti-ICBM defenses are developed and able to take out N missiles. It's why China is a lot more upset over ABM than Russia -- it'd be a bitch to stop all of the ICBMs from Russia, but China's arsenal could be neutralized
Well...I am inclined to assume that the quantity we are disarming to is quite sufficient...if memory serves it was around 2000 warheads. Even if half were unable to be used, that is a helluva lot of firepower. As for China's opinion...from the point of view of their leadership - not liking anti ballistic missile tech is understandable. To alot of people in the world, being occasionally uneasy about China is kinda understandable too. I wish Taiwan the best on that.
It would be more justifiable to use it on another country?
I never said that nor implied it. My point is that he'd just as soon have a little genocide party on the Kurds right under the world's nose with those weapons. No...using it on someone else does not make it better...and I have no idea where the heck that is coming from. The point is that he's got a history of being bad news with that stuff.
I'm sure you already have a bad enough opinion of China and Russia, thanks to US media
Ok...that right there is nothing more than putting words in my mouth to make it easier for you to lump me into a group that you can just casually dismiss. No offense, but fuck you. You don't know me any more than I know you.
US: only country ever to actually nuke another.
Are you aware that they airdropped leaflets urging people to flee the city way in advance before doing it, telling them exactly what was going to happen? Actually, by most people's calculations, it did save lives on both sides. Stretching on a conventional war for longer would have been a very ugly proposition for both sides. Hell, some Japenese (soldiers in particular) actually killed their own families because their government propaganda was telling them that the Americans were coming to enslave them all and rape their women...they thought they were saving them from a worse fate. (The kinda fate, ironically, that Japenese soldiers were known for inflicting...) You can think of me what you like, but from everything I have read, the U.S. was FAR more ethical the most countries with reguards to WWII. Yes...we have/had muscle...yes, we used it.
US has been in conflicts with more countries than any other single country over the last century
The U.S. gets dragged into alot of other people's messes because they can't deal with them properly. Blair had to get Clinton to get involved in Bosnia and Kosovo, because Europe's conventional military is a bit on weak side these days. (Gotta prop up those social programs from somewhere...high taxes aren't the only cost...) Doesn't matter...we still get the blame for being involved militarily. And as for WWII, your welcome over there, ya frickin' ungrateful whiners.:) Prior to that point in history, the U.S. didn't do much on the world state...we got dragged into it because Europe couldn't clean up their own back yard.
US...leading developer of chemical (and up until two decades ago) a leading developer of bioweapons.
Not a good thing - granted, but I honestly don't care who has more of it. We aren't the only country to have a great deal of it...and even a relatively small amount is all it takes. It's like the cold war prick waving contest between the USSR and the USA...both had enough nukes to end the world x number of times. Kinda pointless really, bragging rights aside. For that matter, Saddam is the one actually using the stuff these days...on Kurds in his own country.
The most responsible thing you can do with nukes is *not use them*, and we've already failed that test.
No...there is nothing magical about a nuke that makes it good or evil. It's a tool like any other. If using it saves lives, such as in WWII, then yes...use it. It's horrible to say, and it's a hard call, but take a look at what a WWII style ground war looked like. Those were some damn tough soldiers and they've got my gratitude and respect.
Contrary to popular american beliefs, Europe is NOT pro-Iraq, we're just not as keen on resorting to force nowadays since we saw the result of it at home.
I would have hoped you also saw the result of NOT using force when it should have been...like keeping Hitler from rearming after WWI.
I am not trying to be a troll or leave the wrong impression, but Saddam and his crew are not the types you want to have that kinda stuff. The U.N. knows it and made resolutions to prevent it...unfortunately, none of them are being enforced.
There were agreements made to stop the last war...like weapons inspectors that wouldn't be interferred with etc. Saddam isn't abiding by his side of the deal, so the other side isn't bound to the ceasefire either. This has very little to do with GWB wanting to kill him because of his father...and that is a really really lame accusation, IMHO.
huge organizations designed to aggregate money with all the rights and abilities as citizens. how can the interests of individuals even come close to being recognized in an arena like that?
It's ironic really...here is an apparent liberal on Slashdot, politicizing the death of this poor guy and his family. I thought the "conservatives" were the root of all such evil.
There are so many postings by users that I just shocked that the U.S. even ranked 17th...I am not shocked. Actually, it should be higher if not for journalists trying to get into secured areas, and actually being arrested for it, and the such. (Image that...actually enforcing laws.)
Well...I have a theory as to why so many are shocked by the fact that we did that well.
They read stuff like slashdot every day, with plenty of "America bad, Europe/Canada good" articles and postings. (Seriously...I have no idea why the editors still live in this country if it's so fucking terrible and all the great tech is overseas...same goes for so many users.) The biases here and on other sites really do take a toll on the perspectives of it's audience.
Well...wake up call....the U.S. is actually pretty good. It's the best at many things, and very seldom actually bad about anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Well...I don't recall it going for days with no stories, but check out the wayback machine as there are some older front pages from slashdot there that kinda point at what I am talking about. There were not as many stories back then...and sure, one could argue that it's because the site has grown...but the number of good stories is seldom any higher. Now we get alot more Anime/Manga crap and really bad politics. Granted - I am pretty cool with this community sticking it to the RIAA/MPAA/DMCA and a few other acronyms, but I think they seriously need to get a clue on some of the other political articles (Slashdot logic often goes like this: If you agree with my politics, you are intelligent and cultured. If not, you are a moron.)...some of the writing is just plain rediculous and inflammatory. The writing was never great...I know...but I didn't recall it sinking to the levels it has been on occasion, in recent memory. Oh well...at least in the end Katz got outted as a kook for once and for all...I never did hear exactly what happened there, but not too long after the Junis incident, he kinda vanished.
In fairness, todays stories actually weren't too bad, which is why I am actually surfing slashdot today...but like I said...IMHO (and I don't think I am alone), I think the overall quality of slashdot has really slid alot. They've tried to appeal to alot broader of an audience (hey...it pays $. Maybe Malda is due for a new BMW by now...the lease is probably up on his last one.), and it's kinda alienated alot of geeks on some level.
Eh...I am just ranting. Pay no attention...it's all just MHO.
the business model has changed. They can't go for days without posting many stories...even if there isn't much good news on those days. Then they wouldn't get page hits and generate ad revenue...which is why you often see old news, and crap dressed up like news, instead of something actually new and interesting.
This is why I seriously think they'd LIKE to keep a few rediculously biased jerks with political agendas on the editor staff...like it or not - they crank out page hits with the flamewars that follow some of their dumber stories. Junis from Afghanistan took the freaking cake! That one was so rediculous I think they had to get rid of Katz just to save some image. Then there is Michael who posts 80% crap (usually with twisted politics), and has some interesting little exploits himself...and then lies about it on the very project site he basically hijacked...and even the other editors know it. Seriously...the editors need to clean up their freaking acts...it's been said that they don't even read their own site anymore, and I'd believe it, what with all the dupes and typos, etc. They can just keep milking it like the little cash cow it is.
I am not trying to be a troll myself for saying it - it's my humble opinion. Mod me troll if you want...at least I had the balls to say it while logged in.
Thing is, there's no way USA can match indian prices, and indian software engineers are usually quite decent, so USA is going to lose more and more IT jobs.
Well...being that the U.S. dollar and the Euro are pretty close to the same value right now, I'd think this would concern you too. I am guessing you are from Europe juding by your nick and comments here. India (and other such countries) would be undercutting Europeans by pretty close to the same amount.
That brings me to a question...why go from a conversation about undercutting U.S. developers from India to talking about how the European Union can deal with our "protectionist policies"? Like I said...I think this one is a potential problem for Europeans as well. Why are you so anxious to talk about a protectionist war with the U.S. when your own side of things is likely to be just as damaged by the matter? I don't think your conclusion is 100% correct (and that's a subject for a whole other debate), and really...get over yourselves.
Now if only computer manufacturers could make equipment even remotely this sturdy.
I've no doubt in my mind that they can do it, if they put their focus on such a goal and really put the effort into it....the problem is, is that you wouldn't want to pay for it. Add to that, the fact that you won't be using that machine in 30 years due to advancements in technology, and I've kinda gotta wonder why you'd want a computer that would live that long.
Mostly, it's price though. People like cheap electronics...like the article about how low quality consumer electronics have become from a few weeks ago. Now that they want and 'need' to have everything...they don't want to or cannot pay top dollar for it all.
You're talking about potential people here, yet again. I've said before: I just don't think that's a valid rationale for considering whether zygotes are of moral concern. By that rationale, you deprive people of life just by not having as many kids as you can all the time, in exactly the same way.
This just goes to show that your not understanding what I am saying in the least. I've explained this multiple times now, and differentiated my feelings on the subjects from what you have expressed.
1.) By not having kids, no one is being deprived of life by another. There is no one there to deprive of life...it never happened, so no one can play a part in what becomes of it. No one took the actions neccessary to create a life, so there is no life to be taken away, and more importantly, no one TOOK a life away - even as a possibility.
2.) By manually destroying a zygote (which was created by a concious action), as a concious action itself, you have taken something that would have had an opportunity to become a person, and made it so that it now has NO opportunity to become a person, deliberately. (The deliberate part of it is what makes the difference to me.) If someone does that, they may or may not have deprived a human being of it's life, that it would have had, if the other individual not done something.
That is why I take it somewhat seriously...to destroy the zygote as a deliberate and concious decision, may have taken a life that otherwise would have been. The guilt of that action (potential deprivation of life) is on those who had a part in it. If it passes through and never takes to the uterine wall to develope onward, without outside interferance, there is no one to blame as it was the natural course. No one even might have deprived another of life as even a possibility, and especially, no one did such a thing deliberately. (Fate may not be the best word for it, but it is the natural course of things. No one took the action, no one is there to blame for the outcome. This has nothing to do with souls, faith or religeon. It's a somewhat philosophical and completely secular way to think about it.)
Admittedly, it's a philosophical view with a scientific component (although I think the trail of logic is sound). You seem to be speaking almost strictly to the most scientific side of the argument, as to exactly when it is unique (and what that means), and when it is a life, etc, and there is a whole other realm to the matter that is being overlooked. It's all to easy to forget the microscopic repercussions that get thrown out from doing it...but that is just my humble opinion. I am not asking anyone to make laws based on what I think on the matter...rather I am explaining why I tend to frown on alot of what goes on personally.
I am probably not going to drag this out any further, and believe it or not, it's been interesting and yes - these things do make me think...but I am sticking to my guns on this one. Disagreeing is fine, but I'd kinda like to think that you'll give my side some serious thought too.
The problem is that you just asserted that a zygote is a unique human being. But it's not necessarily: it could split off into two beings. Or three. None of them genetically unique.
Perhaps it would have been better explained as genetically unique from it's parents, and anyone else who is already living (Well...it's rather likely as the understatement of the year). The fact that it could become multiple identical offspring reinforces what I have been saying more than anything...maybe that zygote you aborted actually deprived 4 people of lives they would have had. (Maybe it didn't...maybe they would have never taken to the uterine wall. You just don't know - which means you gambled with human life.)
A zygote has no potential either: in fact if it doesn't implant in the uterine wall, it won't develop into a fetus at all. Your criteria for "potential" is thus arbitrary: you are denying potential because of additional steps necessary in one case: utterly ignoring the prescence of additional steps in the other case.
Umm...no. A zygote has a CHANCE of being a person. A sperm does not have a chance to be a person...a sperm has a chance to fertilize an egg - and at that point, and only under those circumstances - does it have the chance to be a PART of what makes up a person, MAYBE. There's a huge difference there: A zygote will have a chance at becoming a person (or people, for the nitpicky's sake) as it's own entity(s). A sperm or an egg will not have a chance at becoming their own person as individuals. If you don't fertilize and egg, nothing has ever been there to take something away from. If you fertilize and egg and destroy it, there was a potential life...which now does not have a chance.
This part kinda gets me...
you are denying potential because of additional steps necessary in one case: utterly ignoring the prescence of additional steps in the other case.
No...I made an implied leap of logic there that I perhaps didn't explain well enough, so I'll take a stab at it, in case I have explained it clearly enough already: I am not ignoring additional steps. Here's the logic simply put:
A sperm is not a person and has no chance on it's own of becoming a person. At best it COULD go on one day to contribute half of the genetic material to make a person. As it stand, a sperm has zero potential.
An egg is not a person and has a situation much like the sperm. It has no potential to become a person without some other events happening.
These 'other events' we are talking about aren't things that just happen spontaneously. (Unless someone thinks they have an 'immaculate conception' on their hands here...) A person conciously takes the actions that fertilizes an egg...that's where the line is drawn in my mind. If someone conciously takes the actions to fertilize the egg knowing full well what the potential is, then they are responsible for their actions. If it fertilizes, and they kill it, they might have deprived someone of life (it might have attached to the uterine wall and grown up strong and healthy, it might have simply passed...for which no one is conciously responsible...it's just something that mothernature does. Convieniently, we'll never know now for sure, after it's done), through a series of concious actions leading up to the denouement we are discussing here. They might have cost someone their life...that should not be taken lightly, particularly if it was simply their own irresponsibility that lead up to this happening. (IMHO) My feelings on the matter hinge on personal responsibility for what happens.
Just to rehash: A zygote is a fertilized egg; the beginning stages of a person. It consists of the genetic material of a mother and father...and is genetically unique from both, and any other living person. It has the direct possibility of attaching the the uterine wall, and growing into a mature adult human. This is something that just a sperm or egg cannot do on their own. If it does not attach to the uterine wall, then it dies...that the way it went today in the land of mother nature. If it dies because someone caused it to intentionally, then there exists the possibility that you have taken someone's life. They might have been fine before that happened.
It's alot like shooting a rifle into the air in a crowded area and hoping no one got killed when the bullet lands. If someone does that, maybe they didn't kill anyone...maybe they did. If the individual can do something like that and sleep entirely well at night...I wonder about that person.
If put into an egg, a sperm will be someone too. Same difference. Indeed, the "someone" we think of when we think of particular someones is only _marginally_ due to the genetic code: life's experiences, nutritional intake, and a whole host of other things make just as much of a difference.
Life experiences and nutrition have nothing to do with this...the fact is, is that if you have a fertilized egg that is trying to grow into a human being, and you destroy it, you've possibly destroyed a human being. It was an individual or individuals...they didn't have a chance to exibit a personality to the world...that does not magically make them somehow less of an individual.
But I HAVE thought about it a great great deal. You can't grant moral rights to a being that has no interests to begin with based simply on future possibilities anymore than you can lock someone in jail just because they have a "potential" to be a murderer. Nor can any genetical fallacy of natural inevitability help.
This is a bad strawman argument. No...you cannot lock someone in jail because they could potentially kill someone. Of course you can't (or at least shouldn't). However I suppose it is ok to pull the trigger on a potentially loaded weapon at someone(s) who isn't/aren't developed enough for our liking at the time. Yes...this is somewhat of a strawman itself, but IMHO, alot less so than the one I was given.
How would you define 'interests' that this fetus must have? Someone in certain type of coma is not concious and likely doesn't express any interests...but we can't simply do whatever the heck we want with them...at least not as casually. We can SEE them...so it might make someone think about it more. They might have interests again when they wake up in (for examples sake) 9 months. A zygote might too, but people dismiss it because they don't have to look at it, and it's very convienient.
Twins are not genetically unique. Is it okay to kill the spare? No.
Well...we are almost debating semantics here we could be talking about identical or fraternal twins. I am still sticking to my feelings on the matter as this is how I feel about either one: Identical twins originate from the same egg, if memory serves, so at some point the embryo is an individual human being that is growing. Like I said...give it a DNA test...I am pretty sure it's going to confirm the humanity part. When it splits to form twins, then they are no longer unique due to each others existance, but they are unique from their parents...they are human lives starting and progressing, if allowed to take their natural course. To destroy either one is to deprive a human being of it's life, as detailed above. And obviously, fraternal twins are not identical, and are unique individuals which would also be deprived of life just the same, as previously explained.
But that's just as silly as giving rights to sperm because of its potential.
No...it isn't. Sperm has no potential for life on it's own...neither does an egg - alone. A sperm isn't going to be delivered and need to be fed. An embryo or fetus are very different from just having either one egg or one sperm, when your talking about what it is, and what it will become - and especially who it is, and who it will be. An embryo will be someone...it might be the next great mind like Einstein and Stephen Hawking, or it might be a worthless first post troll, but it will be someone. To conciously take away it's chance to be that, is to deprive a human of it's life. If fate has it that the embryo doesn't come to term...well...it had it's chance. No one made the decision to take away that chance at life. (I think of taking it's chance away as kinda like death by firing squad: in a firing squad, only a few of the shooters have live ammo...so no one in the squad knows who shot and killed the prisoner. It makes it convieniently easy to deal with the moral issues. I don't particularly care to be a shooter in a firing squad...it means I might kill someone who's death I may or may not feel is justifyable. Just the same...I don't think very highly of aborting even a young fetus or embryo. I might have just taken a life away from a human being, if I do. I see alot of people make the argument that alot of embryo's simply never come to term, and this is how I justify my feelings about that. I don't feel it diminishes the moral component of the matter.)
It might shock alot of people to know that I am not even close to strictly pro-life judging by what I write (and what pro-life feelings I have are not the zealous type, there are circumstances that I find such things are justifyable. My whole view of the matter is a complicated one to say the least.)...but I don't think that people should take such things as lightly as they seem to want to...it's a very very serious thing, IMHO. It's easy to try to think so little of it because we don't have to look at it...but the situation is what it is.
Sorry, but that just runs into the second half of the prong: you're just begging the question by assuming that a zygote is already something of moral concern: a "someone" that can be deprived of something.
It's a genetically unique individual that is forming...yes...a genetically unique individual can be deprived of something. A genetically unique individual that does not yet exist, cannot be deprived of something, since it does not yet exist...it's simple logic and this is all I am saying. The arguement you made previously was that any women that I didn't impregnate was an individual being deprived of life, and that is a little crazy. There's nothing there to deprive of life...you can't take from something that does not exist.
If you set the wheels into motion to create a new being, fertilizing an egg and mixing genes, then there is something there that you can take away from. If you take it's life, you take it's life, but calling it anything else is just sugar coating it, which people seem fond of doing to make the reality of their actions easier to deal with and justify...it's kind of scarey in a way....IMHO at least.
Hey...with a GPS transponder, we can make missiles home in on it pretty darned accurately.
Rip me off on ebay, and your part of MY axis of evil...
Actually...I would make a different arguement to it. There are still high end items out there to be had in almost any industry...they are expensive.
I'll give two reasons....
The one reason everyone has such cheap crap, is that people want so much crap in general, but have limited funds. They want a half-dozen computers in their place that have adquate processor power, and they can get them - but unless they are very wealthy, they are going to be running on slower IDE harddrives, with cheapo power supplies that fluxuate (sp?) badly, on cheap motherboards, usually in cheap 20 dollar cases, 25 dollar DVDRom's....you get the idea...compare such boxen to one of the tanklike machines of days gone by. (Or the ones that can be made with the high-end parts of today.) They aren't happy with one TV in their house...they need one for every other fucking room, so usually rather than buy one really nice one for the living room with all the trimmings, they end up spreading out their purchasing power and get maybe one pretty good one (at best here...i am being generous...), and all of the others are bought with price on their mind. DVD players? Well...now that we have all these TV's we need those too. It's basically a problem for people who have money and want material things, but who have little common sense when it comes to quality...REAL quality, not just percieved quality that they get from buying a fashionable brand.
The other reason has alot to do with why I am so conservative technologically. (My only DVD player is my computer, etc.) With Electronics these days, the technology changes so fast, it never has enough to time mature properly. As soon as one standard comes out, a better one will be there in 3 years time...so why build anything to last? It's going to get scrapped so we can all go out and buy the newer shinier thing. DVD's are around for how many years now, and they are already talking about the 'next big thing'...give me another VHS type of technology that is good enough to make it for 20 or 25 years...but it's no matter - all they have to do is release some new gadget and the overly materialist and gadget-happy crowds must have it. They buy it...it succeeds. It shouldn't have.
How about raising the bar on the quality of the goods you seek? Then, in a free market, the people who design their products well, and build them well, will make money - and if they are smart - keep doing exactly what they are doing.
That's the thing that frustrates me with slashdot and oftentimes, the editors here. They are so blatantly gadget happy and contributing to the problems of such things...and sit there and wonder why the problems happen.
Ok...I'll stop ranting now. Sorry.
It's more complicated than that. By your understanding, you are depriving a human being of life by not impregnating every woman you meet.
No...I am not. There's not a life there to deprive. You can't deprive someone of life when their very beginnings have never happened....you CAN deprive someone of life when you set the beginnings of their exitance into motion and then suddenly take it away.
Deprive means "To take away"....you can't take something away from something that does not yet exist. It's not there to be taken from. If you take it away from something that does exist...your depriving it - in this case, of it's very life.
Give the embryo a DNA test and lets see what it tells us it is.
An embryo is a human being that is not yet conscious...but it will be almost definitely, if allowed to follow it's normal course. Just because you have a penis does not make it VERY likely that you will be a rapist. Bad strawman...bad.
So...that brings me to the way I think about it. It's a human that haven't gotten concious yet...so if a person isn't concious yet, can we all just do whatever we want to them?
Reguardless of how people feel about whether or not abortion should be allowed, make no illusions about it - you are depriving a human being of life.
The part that might shock you is that I don't think abortion should be outlawed, because it won't work. I think abortion should be allowed especially in certain cases...and unfortunately, idiots who fuck around senselessly will just claim one of those cases when they need one and overcomplicate the whole thing...it just wouldn't work. An outright ban of abortion wouldn't have the needed support to ever pass, and a more restrictive partial ban won't work. And for the record, an outright ban of abortion wouldn't have the needed support even in the republican community for that matter...I love hearing about how they are going to do such things in centers of left wing groupthink like this.
War boating?
For some reason, the phrase "You sunk my battleship!" is coming to mind.
This kinda machine sounds like something right out of the game "Jet Moto" for the old playstation. You basically race a jetski/bike on water and land against others. Kinda fun game.
Umm...I didn't troll. I stated my opinion. I have mine...you have yours. Why so overly sensitive? Did I just put down your favorite pud yankin' material or something?
Like I said...large children. Hey...least I have the guts to post as myself when I voice my opinion.
Imagine a world in which they made cartoons that had writing and art that wasn't targeted at small children
Heh...all I see are cartoons with writing and art that is targeted at large children...and I am not talking about 7 year olds with a pituitary disorder.
I'd be way happier with a few more "The Learning Channels"...they can keep their tentacle porn on the other side of the ocean.
Not trolling...just really dislike 99% of the stuff.
and it doesn't mean that GM or Ford are suddenly making better cars
Well...here are the longer term figures from the 1998 model year. It's a pretty mixed bag, but it looks like half of GM's brands did pretty well. Cadillac took second place, even beating Mercedes Benz. I am still sticking to my guns on the domestics...they really don't hold up half bad comparatively. I am still driving my car from college at 127k miles right now, and I've got no complaints...I have a friend who has almost the same car at 145k-ish now...same story...and neither of those are from a make that even made the most reliable lists. Sure...those aren't rediculously high milages...but not too shabby and still going strong. I think vehicle longevity (assuming the original vehicle is at least half decent) is really affected by maintenance and storage and the such.
Well...you've got some inches on me in height, and actually I just rode in a Mazda Protegé earlier this week for the first time...they are reasonbly roomy on the inside. Never looked at an Echo in person....but for each small car with a decent interior size you list, I can probably list one that doesn't fair as well at all. That being said, I can make due with most cars for short drives...but it's the long trips that usually kill me. I sat in a Miata once and knew from that point on I wouldn't want one...ever. The insides sucked.
It's true about the SUV's though...for alot of them at least. Alot of them aren't too big on the inside (aside from the open space behind you, but some are much better than others) and to make matters worse, they pack them with every stupid thing they can find to clutter it up even more. I really wish people would outgrow those things...it's a trend that has gotten out of hand.
You apparently don't see the highways that I see. No one is denying that people will buy little foreign cars...and when that was the mentality, we had just come out of an oil crisis, and the build quality of japenese imports was actually starting to get good - as the quality of American cars was going into a rut.
Right now, the quality of American cars is actually improving. On the last JD Power and Associates quality ratings, GM just knocked Nissan out of third...and all of the domestic makers are playing around with hybrid designs. (I think GM's experimental one is currently leading them all in miliage figures at somewhere around 80 Mpg.) The domestic manfacturers are actually making some pretty good stuff this time around...and I don't think Americans want big powerful cars (although big relative to a japenese maybe, but come on...I am 6'2" tall and small cars actually kinda hurt after awhile)...but yes...we like powerful cars. American roads and highways have something to do with that too...although I don't know what the people in the city's excuses are. (Ironically, the cities are generally very liberal politically, and the liberals are generally "environmentally concerned", and a HUGE number of SUV's are in the city...but that's a debate for another day.)
Truthfully...I am glad toyota is trying to make such a commitment too though, mainly because it will force some of the other makers hands to get more similar offerings out sooner. Tis a good thing.
Actually, in the last JD Power and Associates quality ratings, GM knocked Nissan out of third. Toyota was definitely one of the top ones, but you guys seriously have to take a look at whats going on in the domestic world...some damn nice stuff is out there.
GM also has an experimental hybrid that gets better miliage figures than pretty much any other automakers experiments to date, last I looked. Pretty wild design.
I don't believe I put words into your mouth
Well...you wrote: "I'm sure you already have a bad enough opinion of China and Russia, thanks to US media" - perhaps not words in my mouth, but thoughts in my head at the least. Any opinions I have of Russia and China I've formed on my own...actually somewhat through people who lived in both (people I knew in college, and worked with)...and through other sources. Why I am explaining that I have no idea.
Actually, while they did in some conventional cases, they specifically did *not* do so before Hiroshima. It was completely unanounced. There *were* leaflets dropped afterwards to citizens urging them to help convince the Japanese leadership to surrender.
Actually, you got me on that one. You are correct about the timing of the leaflets...had to double check that one. I do still stick by the other part of it though - it likely did save lives. The estimates by how much seem to vary pretty wildly, but it's pretty widely accepted. Sure...some will disagree. Unfortunately, we don't have a magic crystal ball to tell us how it would have turned out. In addition to likely saving lives, it sent a rather strong signal to Russia that they'd best behave in Europe.
Oh, bullshit. There is absolutely no way we get "dragged" into bombing the crap out of a country. We may have incentives, like better oil prices, but the US hasn't looked at an invasion for two hundred years now.
Hey...look at Bosnia and Kosovo. American muscle was needed in there. Look at the previous Iraq conflict. Believe it or not, Saudi Arabia actually requested U.S. forces come there to defend against a possible attack. The U.N. declared Iraq's annexation of Kuwait void long before a bomb was ever dropped there. The U.K. and France were putting troops in the gulf before congress even authorized Bush to go to war. Saddam rejected the U.N. resolutions and didn't get out by the deadline. The U.S. provided most of the firepower to fix it, but there sure was alot more than just the U.S. involved there. Or how about the Falklands...a little U.S. logistic support there was kinda needed. In Afghanistan there really weren't many things in the incentives department...that was a bad situation that had to be dealt with, and was dealt with - with U.N. approval.
Europe and a number of countries have alot of trouble handling military matters on their own...so America ends up involved.
No, it's because of expected attrition -- assume some don't work, assume some are destroyed before launch, assume anti-ICBM defenses are developed and able to take out N missiles. It's why China is a lot more upset over ABM than Russia -- it'd be a bitch to stop all of the ICBMs from Russia, but China's arsenal could be neutralized
Well...I am inclined to assume that the quantity we are disarming to is quite sufficient...if memory serves it was around 2000 warheads. Even if half were unable to be used, that is a helluva lot of firepower. As for China's opinion...from the point of view of their leadership - not liking anti ballistic missile tech is understandable. To alot of people in the world, being occasionally uneasy about China is kinda understandable too. I wish Taiwan the best on that.
It would be more justifiable to use it on another country?
I never said that nor implied it. My point is that he'd just as soon have a little genocide party on the Kurds right under the world's nose with those weapons. No...using it on someone else does not make it better...and I have no idea where the heck that is coming from. The point is that he's got a history of being bad news with that stuff.
I'm sure you already have a bad enough opinion of China and Russia, thanks to US media
:) Prior to that point in history, the U.S. didn't do much on the world state...we got dragged into it because Europe couldn't clean up their own back yard.
Ok...that right there is nothing more than putting words in my mouth to make it easier for you to lump me into a group that you can just casually dismiss. No offense, but fuck you. You don't know me any more than I know you.
US: only country ever to actually nuke another.
Are you aware that they airdropped leaflets urging people to flee the city way in advance before doing it, telling them exactly what was going to happen? Actually, by most people's calculations, it did save lives on both sides. Stretching on a conventional war for longer would have been a very ugly proposition for both sides. Hell, some Japenese (soldiers in particular) actually killed their own families because their government propaganda was telling them that the Americans were coming to enslave them all and rape their women...they thought they were saving them from a worse fate. (The kinda fate, ironically, that Japenese soldiers were known for inflicting...) You can think of me what you like, but from everything I have read, the U.S. was FAR more ethical the most countries with reguards to WWII. Yes...we have/had muscle...yes, we used it.
US has been in conflicts with more countries than any other single country over the last century
The U.S. gets dragged into alot of other people's messes because they can't deal with them properly. Blair had to get Clinton to get involved in Bosnia and Kosovo, because Europe's conventional military is a bit on weak side these days. (Gotta prop up those social programs from somewhere...high taxes aren't the only cost...) Doesn't matter...we still get the blame for being involved militarily. And as for WWII, your welcome over there, ya frickin' ungrateful whiners.
US...leading developer of chemical (and up until two decades ago) a leading developer of bioweapons.
Not a good thing - granted, but I honestly don't care who has more of it. We aren't the only country to have a great deal of it...and even a relatively small amount is all it takes. It's like the cold war prick waving contest between the USSR and the USA...both had enough nukes to end the world x number of times. Kinda pointless really, bragging rights aside. For that matter, Saddam is the one actually using the stuff these days...on Kurds in his own country.
The most responsible thing you can do with nukes is *not use them*, and we've already failed that test.
No...there is nothing magical about a nuke that makes it good or evil. It's a tool like any other. If using it saves lives, such as in WWII, then yes...use it. It's horrible to say, and it's a hard call, but take a look at what a WWII style ground war looked like. Those were some damn tough soldiers and they've got my gratitude and respect.
Contrary to popular american beliefs, Europe is NOT pro-Iraq, we're just not as keen on resorting to force nowadays since we saw the result of it at home.
I would have hoped you also saw the result of NOT using force when it should have been...like keeping Hitler from rearming after WWI.
I am not trying to be a troll or leave the wrong impression, but Saddam and his crew are not the types you want to have that kinda stuff. The U.N. knows it and made resolutions to prevent it...unfortunately, none of them are being enforced.
There were agreements made to stop the last war...like weapons inspectors that wouldn't be interferred with etc. Saddam isn't abiding by his side of the deal, so the other side isn't bound to the ceasefire either. This has very little to do with GWB wanting to kill him because of his father...and that is a really really lame accusation, IMHO.
huge organizations designed to aggregate money with all the rights and abilities as citizens. how can the interests of individuals even come close to being recognized in an arena like that?
Corporations can't vote. People can.
It's ironic really...here is an apparent liberal on Slashdot, politicizing the death of this poor guy and his family. I thought the "conservatives" were the root of all such evil.
There are so many postings by users that I just shocked that the U.S. even ranked 17th...I am not shocked. Actually, it should be higher if not for journalists trying to get into secured areas, and actually being arrested for it, and the such. (Image that...actually enforcing laws.)
Well...I have a theory as to why so many are shocked by the fact that we did that well.
They read stuff like slashdot every day, with plenty of "America bad, Europe/Canada good" articles and postings. (Seriously...I have no idea why the editors still live in this country if it's so fucking terrible and all the great tech is overseas...same goes for so many users.) The biases here and on other sites really do take a toll on the perspectives of it's audience.
Well...wake up call....the U.S. is actually pretty good. It's the best at many things, and very seldom actually bad about anything.