You may or may not be correct about the company's prospects, but I'm sitting here raising my hand, and I know a lot of others are too. It's *nice* to have a reasonably stable distribution from an identifiable vendor when you're stamping out new servers for your enterprise.
The drinking age in the U.S.A. is 21; it's the same for all alcoholic drinks. This is the highest drinking age in the world, at least according to this google result.
Don't forget, we had full national prohibition of alcohol less than 100 years ago. There are still a number of dry counties in various states; that is, parts of states where alcohol sale (not possession, I believe) is prohibited. These counties tend to have drive-thru liquor stores just outside their borders.
Re:Common viruses to look out for...
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Obesity Contagious?
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Fat folks are basically the only people it's widely considered okay to make fun of anymore.
Don't forget men, especially caucasian men. Nobody will mind if you make fun of them.
I'm not sure you're right about that; some people do mind. There are a number of whiny-ass crybabies who can't handle the fact that membership in an incredibly privileged group comes with a little bit of ribbing, and can't see the difference between making fun of the powerful versus making fun of people who can point to real damage caused by discrimination against their group.::shrug::
And if you leave your front door unlocked you are granting access to anyone who wants to enter. NOT!
Uhh, our analogies need some work. For one thing, the "resource" in question was available off the property of the "victim".
That said, I'd like to respectfully suggest that this is less like eating a pie that the homeowner left cooling on the sidewalk, and more like collecting water that is running into the gutter since the homeowner left his hose on.
This is a transparent attempt on Microsoft's part to avoid being crushed by the rising juggernaut of web app development that is Ruby On Rails. If RoR has an AJAX framework, then ASP.NET has no choice but to follow in its footsteps in hopes of eking out some meager semblance of survival on David Hansson's waste products.
It's interesting to see an attempt at genuine discussion of these topics (on/., no less!). Since you've took the time to make a thoughtful post, I'll try to reply thoughtfully.
This is not (necessarily) an incorrect position, but it is important that you understand that it is strictly a modern position. Prior to recent times, moral standards were regarded througha communitarian lens. Something could be regarded as harmful to the community even if those participating had no problem with it and there was no direct, discernible effect on anyone else.
Yes, individualism as a societal value is a modern trait. In developed countries at least, material scarcity is rare enough that the survival of individual families/clans/bloodlines/whatever is all but assured. This frees us up to actually think about such pastimes as emotional fulfillment and personal happiness, and ascribe value to them. Not that this has always had 100% positive results, but I'd argue that it's positive overall.
The bottom line is that the prohibition against exclusive homosexuality is not a recent, Christian phenomenon. It has been present in virtually all cultures, at all times, in all places.
...
There was no sense in which homosexuality was regarded as an alternative to heterosexuality - instead, it was regarded as a fling, something that one did when young and with the young.
...
The point is that you can't find any culture, anywhere, that practiced the kind of homosexuality that gay rights folks advocate today. There never has been gay marriage, because gay marriage made no sense when gay sex was just a fling and the absurd notion of "orientation" had not yet been invented. And I challenge you to cite a *single* counter-example.
You are right about all of this, but to me it seems pretty irrelevant to the question of whether homosexual behavior is ethical or not -- which was where this discussion started, yes?
If you are trying to argue that the propaganda efforts of some gay right activists draw false conclusions about homosexual behaviors in antiquity, well, you're probably right.
If you are trying to argue that modern ideas about homosexual identity and behavior are wrong because they are not historical, then you are mightily mistaken. Just because something is relatively new does not make it automatically wrong, as you well know.
Furthermore, it is evident that "gay marriage" - at least among male homosexuals - is not equivalent to heterosexual marraige in an important respect. Namely, it is rarely, if ever, monogamous. This has been borne out by so many studies that it is proven, and it has even been admitted by gay advocates in some forums. Gay marriages tend to define monogamy in emotional terms rather than physical terms.
Your "if ever" is over the top -- do you really doubt that there is even one gay marriage out there that is wholly monogamous? It might be rare, but then it's far from universal in heterosexual marriages. In any case, as you've pointed out, gay behavior has an historical bias toward promiscuity; those members of the gay community who skew traditionalist enought to want to get married will likely bear some imprint of this, and a lot of them will struggle with monogamy, even if they hold it as a goal. I'd be willing to bet that this will change as gay marriage is slowly integrated into society, and that monogamy among the gay and straight communities will tend to converge over time.
Finally, there is overwhelming eviedence, which the gay press willfully ignores, that homosexual orientation can be changed. Here are a few representative, published, peer-reviewed articles to prove the point.
First, a quibble: you need to decide whether "orientation" is an "absurd notion" or n
Me too. Niceta meetcha! Course, there's a lot of room for play under a label like 'libertarian'.
I don't claim that the left is the sole source - that's disengenuous on your part.
Ouch! Hoist by my own petard!
But I will say it again; I've never seen these kinds of hate filled, non-sensical attacks from the left on President Bush from the right.
Oops, never mind. Or perhaps I'm wrong altogether, and you're not being disingenuous (faking ignorance) but are in fact actually ignorant.
I suppose I should just breathe deeply and give you the benefit of the doubt: you really do think that the extreme reactions of some lefties to Bush outshine the extreme reaction of some righties toward Clinton. That someone could seriously hold this opinion seems shocking and unlikely to me, but opinion it is, so I should probably back off the 'disingenous' thing.
As far as the impeachment thing... yeah, Clinton lied under oath, and it was reprehensible. Asserting that Bush didn't lie during his SOTU address, though, is hair-splitting of a truly Clintonian nature.
In any case, I don't think Bush should be impeached for lying in his SOTU address. I think he should be impeached for dragging the country into an unnecessary war, in which effort a lot of lying (and metric tons of not-technically-lying-but-prevaricating) were instrumental. Not that I think his behavior was necessarily legally actionable in the sense of impeachment; I'd just *like* to see him impeached, is all. You can think me unreasonable for holding such a view, but there it is.
I don't think he should be assasinated(!!) or even whacked with a whiffle bat, and it pains me that some people would call for such, even jokingly. I sure do remember some veiled (and not-so-veiled) threats of violence from righties against Clinton, though. Members of Congress even, if memory serves.
I also don't know of anything approximating the scope and intensity and organization of the Arkansas Project being directed at President Bush. Nor do I see anything like the years-long, super-expensive Whitewater witch hunt. By all means, let me know if I've missed it.
Your post is very similar to many things I heard from partisan Democrats during the Clinton years (especially the second term). Things like, "Clinton is the most Republican Democrat in history, why to righties hate him so?" and "Clinton may be flawed, but he's better than [insert Republican president here] because X and Y and Z, so those Republicans should lay off!"
I know it goes both ways, but I've never seen such extremism as I've seen coming from the left.
My eyes just bulged out of my head when I read this. Is the unhinged reaction of some lefties toward Bush any more extreme than the unhinged reaction of some righties toward Clinton? I haven't seen anything from the left that approaches the frothing-with-spittle response to any mention of Clinton that I grew so sadly used to during the Clinton years. Of course, maybe the left has its own Free Republic or Little Green Footballs and I just don't know about it. They probably do, in fact.
Honestly, Dean (and the others) are engaging in partisan politics because they're politicians trying to unseat a president from another party. Left, right, whatever, they all behave the same way. Yes it sucks, but it's not new and it's not going away. Whining about it is probably unproductive, but accusing the 'other side' of being the sole source of it is just disingenuous.
By the way, if you think disgust with Bush is an automatic indication of leftism, I have some libertarians to introduce you to.
Threats of violence in blog comments, apart from being really stupid, are an unfortunate problem for various types of political blogs. There's a real question there of legality and liability.
However, in Atrios's post describing the incident, he claims that he offered to remove the offending comments, and that Luskin demanded instead that the whole post and all of its comments be removed.
I especially love how most of the screenshots on this page have a brushed metal interface.
Note that Apple has been moving to more and more brushed metal interfaces in their recent operating system releases as well as many apps, and even their website. This has not been universally well-received, but it seems that Microsoft just can't help playing copycat.
Or maybe Windows already had brushed metal windows, or maybe my eyes are just fooling me. Anyway, it's amusing to speculate.
I do think the use of XML to specify UI elements (referenced in the article I link to at the top) is interesting, and probably a step in the right direction. Many Windows developers will probably think that Microsoft invented the concept, but whatever.
Pick up _New Legends_ (1995, edited by Greg Bear) and read the story "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan contained therein. Interesting cellular automata stuff. Just a sci-fi short story, not hardcore philosophy.
I have always hated "mod the parent up!" posts but here it is.
This is a significant mindshare problem for AI; in some sense, AI is the comp sci equivalent of 'magic'. Speculative future abilities are considered AI only until they become possible. A lot of people subconsciously restrict the definition of intelligence to "things they can't understand".
So you think the world was a better place *with* Saddam?
This is exactly the kind of straw-man crap I'm complaining about. If we weren't for the war, then we must be pro-Saddam, anti-American, blah blah blah. So mindless! So stupid!
We didn't have any problem with Saddam back in the 80s when he was actually using chemical weapons and so on. Back then he was *our* guy, so it didn't matter that he was a dictator; we sent Rumsfeld over there to kiss his ass, we sold him arms, etc. The issue is not whether Saddam was a bad guy; the issues include the question of whether he was actually worse than dictatorships that we continue to support, whether he actually had WMDs, whether he was any kind of credible threat to the U.S., whether there were other motivations for invading Iraq that were smokescreened by the terrorism hysteria, and so on.
The sad fact is that America is willing to support dictatorships when it is expedient to U.S. interests to do so. That this does not reflect the moral outlook of the American people only makes it a larger tragedy.
As far as getting troops out of the middle east goes: bin Laden's stated intent was to get U.S. military bases out of Saudi Arabia, which it seems he has accomplished; we've also overthrown the major secular government in the region that bin Laden wanted to get rid of, and at the same time inflamed passions among many fundamentalist Muslims in the Arab world, which should make it easier for Qaeda and similar groups to gain new followers. If we do what we've said we plan to do, and allow the Iraqi people to choose their own government, then Iraq will become an Iran-style theocracy; watch for the American controllers to influence the process to make sure that doesn't happen. The last time the West played the regime change game in Iraq, we got the Ba'ath party. But I'm sure it'll work this time, Citizen of Earth.:)
It just bugs me the hypocricy of those who criticize everything the U.S. does but either do it inconsistently or who fail to appropriately criticize those who have done enormously worse.
The point is not that the U.S. is worse than other countries; comparing American foreign policy to that of Stalin's USSR or various other monstrous regimes is just ridiculous.
The problem is that most Americans assume that since America is such a great place to live, our foreign policy must also be great, bighearted, generous, unselfish, etc. This is also not true; our foreign policy is sometimes nice and sometimes spectacularly bad, in measure approximately equal to other large powers (the difference being that we're the most powerful!).
I genuinely believe that if Americans could have the magical ability to suddenly see American foreign policy from the perspective of non-U.S. citizens, most of them would be horrified and embarrassed about many things. But if anybody, including Americans like myself, try to point out the excesses of U.S. behavior in the world - in the interests of improving the country we love so much - our patriotism is called into question and we're immediately discredited.
9/11 was horrifying and tragic; of that there's no question. But it's equally obvious that the response has been all out of proportion, and that some of the actions taken in the fight against terrorism have been politically motivated and/or resulted in less security, not more.
What's sickening is your opinion of the body of ELECTED officials
The 'elected' part is arguable. I'm not kidding.
Do you really believe that America was not at much greater risk of being subject to terrorist attack from opportunistic extremists as we go to war against an insane regime already proven to be capable ___(Fill in the atrocity)___?
I really believe America is at a greater risk of terrorist attacks now that we are occupying a Muslim country in the middle east. Being happy to see Saddam go is *not* the same as believing that Bush is acting in the Iraqis' best interests. In any case, we weren't so worried about Saddam's atrocities back in the 80's when he was committing them; back then, he was useful to American interests, so Rumsfeld flew over there to kiss his ass.
The opportunists you should be wary of are the repressive dictatorial regimes in the Arab world that squander their countries' resources, enriching themselves, and fomenting religious fervor among their people in hopes that they overlook their own pathetic existence
You mean, like, our biggest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia? Hussein suppressed religious fervor. Or maybe you were talking about our ally Gen. Musharraf, the military dictator of Pakistan, a country which housed (prob'ly still does) more Qaeda training camps than Afghanistan?
like the rest of the slashdot community, you are just a liberal extremist
Umm... nearly every nerd I know is a libertarian. Disbelieving Bush isn't about liberalism.
...when it was Republican taking action to help those who needed it most...
If I thought that there was even an outside chance that this war was about freeing the Iraqi people...
You think it's the academic computing dept., but it's not. I work for one. We just got Blackboard running and, believe me, none of us thought it was a good idea. Writing our own might have actually been cheaper.
Geez, WNight, haven't you heard? Simplistic black-and-white approaches to complex problems are ALWAYS 100% WRONG!!!
Seriously though, your algorithm is flawed in many ways. It seems to be predicated on the conceit that events occuring before one's birth can have no negative (or positive?) effect on one's life, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect.
No kidding! I am also surprised by this. I have heard people in my program complain about the fact that the CS dept. is part of the Div. of Math Sciences instead of the College of Engineering. That's one of my favorite things about it! I don't want it to be (just) a training program for programmers. I was a programmer before I went back to finish my B.S. I suppose I might be a slightly better-paid one if I go back to it after graduation, but it just feels like... oh, like I've been there before. What else does programming have to offer me?
School, on the other hand, while arduous and financially risky in many ways, comes with the promise of being paid to learn new stuff that nobody knows yet... my fantasy life!
I'm continually dumbfounded by this whole TIA thing. I've heard people invoke various aspects of _1984_ as political invective before, but this is the first time I've ever felt like Big Brother was really coming. I mean, we've created the minitruth for chrissakes. Surreal!
The fact that they apparently put John freaking Poindexter in charge of this thing makes me feel really secure about it too. At least we know he won't horribly abuse his power in an illegal and unconstitutional effort to support some psychotic partisan ideal and then lie to congress and the American people about it and get off scot-free. Whew! One less thing to worry about!
Seriously though, I'm wondering if we'll see a big upswing in militia membership. Has Charlton Heston come out against this yet? When's the NRA march on Washington to protest this thing? Do Republican civil libertarians have the courage of their convictions, or are they just as spineless as the Democrats? It'll be interesting to see.
I don't think that they apply for a job per se. My understanding is that the prostitutes are technically independent contractors who pay the house a percentage of their take.
I'm guessing that they are already pros before they ever make contact with one of the legal bordellos, but that's just speculation.
Of course, this comes from a dimly remembered magazine article I read a few years ago, so salt to taste.
Re:Guardian Interview with Christopher Reeve
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Politicizing Science
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It is interesting, given that the founders of our country picked no bones about having no such separation.
You are wrong about that.
In fact, the Declaration of Independence talks about the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
This is unsurprising. The Declaration was drafted by Deists. Deists weren't Christians. They dropped a few references like the one above, in the vague manner of Deists ("divine providence", "the judge of the world", "creator") but they avoided any specific religious reference. Probably pissed off the Christians of the time, too. If you don't agree that these references are purposefully vague, go read the beginning of the Mayflower Compact.
Truth is, it is impossible to separate Church and State because the rock that our moral code is built upon comes from God. And a people's belief in and worship of God directly effects how they want to be governed.
"The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
-George Washington, in the Treaty of Tripoli
Our currency carries our motto, "In God we Trust!" Our pledge states that we are a nation indivisible "under God"
I don't know the history of the currency, but the religious reference in the pledge was a cynical political ploy; it was added during the McCarthy witch-hunt era.
I realize I haven't addressed your argument about stem cells, but holy crap! If you're a Christian, can't you see that politicians who parade their religious morality are just acting the part of the Pharisees?
Go read Peter McWilliams's excellent "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do", from which I borrowed a bit here.
Counteranecdote: I went in precisely the opposite direction (private->public). In corporate work, I was undervalued, taken advantage of, and set up to fail time and time again as part of the impenetrable Machiavellian schemes that were always being played out in the ranks above me. It eventually got so bad that I absolutely dreaded going in to work every day, and finally had to move on out of disgust. Note that this is not something that happened just once; I am talking about several different jobs over a period of about 4 years.
I work for a University now. The pay is much less than I could get elsewhere, but is take-home pay the only valid metric? I value my home life a great deal, and do *not* appreciate working long hours to fix other people's mistakes. The benefits here are awesome, the low-stress and relatively relaxed environment allows me to play and learn about new things, I rarely arrive before 8:30 or leave after 5, and I am thrice as productive as I was in the private sector (that figure may be off; I just like saying 'thrice':).
Also, the university doesn't enforce any process- or time-management scheme that is a net productivity loss (unlike *every single company* that I worked for). I am accountable for my productivity and the time I spend on various projects, but I don't have to account for my time in 15-minute increments right down to how long I spend in the bathroom. I like that.
The fact is, different people react differently to different situations. Some people will find the public sector pleasant and rewarding, while others will be more comfortable in the private sector. As has been suggested by many others, try both and get a feel for what you enjoy.
Also, don't neglect the possibility that the difference between two institutions in the same sector may be greater than the average difference between sectors. If the place you're in stinks, you just have to keep your eye out for a place that doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what "hobophomes" means, but it is an awesome word and I plan to use it often.
Seriously. What a great word.
You may or may not be correct about the company's prospects, but I'm sitting here raising my hand, and I know a lot of others are too. It's *nice* to have a reasonably stable distribution from an identifiable vendor when you're stamping out new servers for your enterprise.
The drinking age in the U.S.A. is 21; it's the same for all alcoholic drinks. This is the highest drinking age in the world, at least according to this google result.
Don't forget, we had full national prohibition of alcohol less than 100 years ago. There are still a number of dry counties in various states; that is, parts of states where alcohol sale (not possession, I believe) is prohibited. These counties tend to have drive-thru liquor stores just outside their borders.
And if you leave your front door unlocked you are granting access to anyone who wants to enter. NOT!
Uhh, our analogies need some work. For one thing, the "resource" in question was available off the property of the "victim".
That said, I'd like to respectfully suggest that this is less like eating a pie that the homeowner left cooling on the sidewalk, and more like collecting water that is running into the gutter since the homeowner left his hose on.
Ok, maybe my analogies still need some work too.
Well, I'm glad somebody got it.
This is a transparent attempt on Microsoft's part to avoid being crushed by the rising juggernaut of web app development that is Ruby On Rails. If RoR has an AJAX framework, then ASP.NET has no choice but to follow in its footsteps in hopes of eking out some meager semblance of survival on David Hansson's waste products.
Bow, Microsoft, bow before your Ruby masters!
Yes, individualism as a societal value is a modern trait. In developed countries at least, material scarcity is rare enough that the survival of individual families/clans/bloodlines/whatever is all but assured. This frees us up to actually think about such pastimes as emotional fulfillment and personal happiness, and ascribe value to them. Not that this has always had 100% positive results, but I'd argue that it's positive overall.
You are right about all of this, but to me it seems pretty irrelevant to the question of whether homosexual behavior is ethical or not -- which was where this discussion started, yes?
If you are trying to argue that the propaganda efforts of some gay right activists draw false conclusions about homosexual behaviors in antiquity, well, you're probably right.
If you are trying to argue that modern ideas about homosexual identity and behavior are wrong because they are not historical, then you are mightily mistaken. Just because something is relatively new does not make it automatically wrong, as you well know.
Your "if ever" is over the top -- do you really doubt that there is even one gay marriage out there that is wholly monogamous? It might be rare, but then it's far from universal in heterosexual marriages. In any case, as you've pointed out, gay behavior has an historical bias toward promiscuity; those members of the gay community who skew traditionalist enought to want to get married will likely bear some imprint of this, and a lot of them will struggle with monogamy, even if they hold it as a goal. I'd be willing to bet that this will change as gay marriage is slowly integrated into society, and that monogamy among the gay and straight communities will tend to converge over time.
First, a quibble: you need to decide whether "orientation" is an "absurd notion" or n
I am a libertarian
Me too. Niceta meetcha! Course, there's a lot of room for play under a label like 'libertarian'.
I don't claim that the left is the sole source - that's disengenuous on your part.
Ouch! Hoist by my own petard!
But I will say it again; I've never seen these kinds of hate filled, non-sensical attacks from the left on President Bush from the right.
Oops, never mind. Or perhaps I'm wrong altogether, and you're not being disingenuous (faking ignorance) but are in fact actually ignorant.
I suppose I should just breathe deeply and give you the benefit of the doubt: you really do think that the extreme reactions of some lefties to Bush outshine the extreme reaction of some righties toward Clinton. That someone could seriously hold this opinion seems shocking and unlikely to me, but opinion it is, so I should probably back off the 'disingenous' thing.
As far as the impeachment thing... yeah, Clinton lied under oath, and it was reprehensible. Asserting that Bush didn't lie during his SOTU address, though, is hair-splitting of a truly Clintonian nature.
In any case, I don't think Bush should be impeached for lying in his SOTU address. I think he should be impeached for dragging the country into an unnecessary war, in which effort a lot of lying (and metric tons of not-technically-lying-but-prevaricating) were instrumental. Not that I think his behavior was necessarily legally actionable in the sense of impeachment; I'd just *like* to see him impeached, is all. You can think me unreasonable for holding such a view, but there it is.
I don't think he should be assasinated(!!) or even whacked with a whiffle bat, and it pains me that some people would call for such, even jokingly. I sure do remember some veiled (and not-so-veiled) threats of violence from righties against Clinton, though. Members of Congress even, if memory serves.
I also don't know of anything approximating the scope and intensity and organization of the Arkansas Project being directed at President Bush. Nor do I see anything like the years-long, super-expensive Whitewater witch hunt. By all means, let me know if I've missed it.
Partisan politics sucks.
True. You should stop engaging in it.
Your post is very similar to many things I heard from partisan Democrats during the Clinton years (especially the second term). Things like, "Clinton is the most Republican Democrat in history, why to righties hate him so?" and "Clinton may be flawed, but he's better than [insert Republican president here] because X and Y and Z, so those Republicans should lay off!"
I know it goes both ways, but I've never seen such extremism as I've seen coming from the left.
My eyes just bulged out of my head when I read this. Is the unhinged reaction of some lefties toward Bush any more extreme than the unhinged reaction of some righties toward Clinton? I haven't seen anything from the left that approaches the frothing-with-spittle response to any mention of Clinton that I grew so sadly used to during the Clinton years. Of course, maybe the left has its own Free Republic or Little Green Footballs and I just don't know about it. They probably do, in fact.
Honestly, Dean (and the others) are engaging in partisan politics because they're politicians trying to unseat a president from another party. Left, right, whatever, they all behave the same way. Yes it sucks, but it's not new and it's not going away. Whining about it is probably unproductive, but accusing the 'other side' of being the sole source of it is just disingenuous.
By the way, if you think disgust with Bush is an automatic indication of leftism, I have some libertarians to introduce you to.
Threats of violence in blog comments, apart from being really stupid, are an unfortunate problem for various types of political blogs. There's a real question there of legality and liability.
However, in Atrios's post describing the incident, he claims that he offered to remove the offending comments, and that Luskin demanded instead that the whole post and all of its comments be removed.
If true, that pretty much invalidates your point.
I especially love how most of the screenshots on this page have a brushed metal interface.
Note that Apple has been moving to more and more brushed metal interfaces in their recent operating system releases as well as many apps, and even their website. This has not been universally well-received, but it seems that Microsoft just can't help playing copycat.
Or maybe Windows already had brushed metal windows, or maybe my eyes are just fooling me. Anyway, it's amusing to speculate.
I do think the use of XML to specify UI elements (referenced in the article I link to at the top) is interesting, and probably a step in the right direction. Many Windows developers will probably think that Microsoft invented the concept, but whatever.
Pick up _New Legends_ (1995, edited by Greg Bear) and read the story "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan contained therein. Interesting cellular automata stuff. Just a sci-fi short story, not hardcore philosophy.
This is a significant mindshare problem for AI; in some sense, AI is the comp sci equivalent of 'magic'. Speculative future abilities are considered AI only until they become possible. A lot of people subconsciously restrict the definition of intelligence to "things they can't understand".
This is exactly the kind of straw-man crap I'm complaining about. If we weren't for the war, then we must be pro-Saddam, anti-American, blah blah blah. So mindless! So stupid!
We didn't have any problem with Saddam back in the 80s when he was actually using chemical weapons and so on. Back then he was *our* guy, so it didn't matter that he was a dictator; we sent Rumsfeld over there to kiss his ass, we sold him arms, etc. The issue is not whether Saddam was a bad guy; the issues include the question of whether he was actually worse than dictatorships that we continue to support, whether he actually had WMDs, whether he was any kind of credible threat to the U.S., whether there were other motivations for invading Iraq that were smokescreened by the terrorism hysteria, and so on.
The sad fact is that America is willing to support dictatorships when it is expedient to U.S. interests to do so. That this does not reflect the moral outlook of the American people only makes it a larger tragedy.
As far as getting troops out of the middle east goes: bin Laden's stated intent was to get U.S. military bases out of Saudi Arabia, which it seems he has accomplished; we've also overthrown the major secular government in the region that bin Laden wanted to get rid of, and at the same time inflamed passions among many fundamentalist Muslims in the Arab world, which should make it easier for Qaeda and similar groups to gain new followers. If we do what we've said we plan to do, and allow the Iraqi people to choose their own government, then Iraq will become an Iran-style theocracy; watch for the American controllers to influence the process to make sure that doesn't happen. The last time the West played the regime change game in Iraq, we got the Ba'ath party. But I'm sure it'll work this time, Citizen of Earth. :)
The point is not that the U.S. is worse than other countries; comparing American foreign policy to that of Stalin's USSR or various other monstrous regimes is just ridiculous.
The problem is that most Americans assume that since America is such a great place to live, our foreign policy must also be great, bighearted, generous, unselfish, etc. This is also not true; our foreign policy is sometimes nice and sometimes spectacularly bad, in measure approximately equal to other large powers (the difference being that we're the most powerful!).
I genuinely believe that if Americans could have the magical ability to suddenly see American foreign policy from the perspective of non-U.S. citizens, most of them would be horrified and embarrassed about many things. But if anybody, including Americans like myself, try to point out the excesses of U.S. behavior in the world - in the interests of improving the country we love so much - our patriotism is called into question and we're immediately discredited.
9/11 was horrifying and tragic; of that there's no question. But it's equally obvious that the response has been all out of proportion, and that some of the actions taken in the fight against terrorism have been politically motivated and/or resulted in less security, not more.
What's sickening is your opinion of the body of ELECTED officials
The 'elected' part is arguable. I'm not kidding.
Do you really believe that America was not at much greater risk of being subject to terrorist attack from opportunistic extremists as we go to war against an insane regime already proven to be capable ___(Fill in the atrocity)___?
I really believe America is at a greater risk of terrorist attacks now that we are occupying a Muslim country in the middle east. Being happy to see Saddam go is *not* the same as believing that Bush is acting in the Iraqis' best interests. In any case, we weren't so worried about Saddam's atrocities back in the 80's when he was committing them; back then, he was useful to American interests, so Rumsfeld flew over there to kiss his ass.
The opportunists you should be wary of are the repressive dictatorial regimes in the Arab world that squander their countries' resources, enriching themselves, and fomenting religious fervor among their people in hopes that they overlook their own pathetic existence
You mean, like, our biggest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia? Hussein suppressed religious fervor. Or maybe you were talking about our ally Gen. Musharraf, the military dictator of Pakistan, a country which housed (prob'ly still does) more Qaeda training camps than Afghanistan?
like the rest of the slashdot community, you are just a liberal extremist
Umm... nearly every nerd I know is a libertarian. Disbelieving Bush isn't about liberalism.
If I thought that there was even an outside chance that this war was about freeing the Iraqi people...
You think it's the academic computing dept., but it's not. I work for one. We just got Blackboard running and, believe me, none of us thought it was a good idea. Writing our own might have actually been cheaper.
Seriously though, your algorithm is flawed in many ways. It seems to be predicated on the conceit that events occuring before one's birth can have no negative (or positive?) effect on one's life, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect.
School, on the other hand, while arduous and financially risky in many ways, comes with the promise of being paid to learn new stuff that nobody knows yet... my fantasy life!
The fact that they apparently put John freaking Poindexter in charge of this thing makes me feel really secure about it too. At least we know he won't horribly abuse his power in an illegal and unconstitutional effort to support some psychotic partisan ideal and then lie to congress and the American people about it and get off scot-free. Whew! One less thing to worry about!
Seriously though, I'm wondering if we'll see a big upswing in militia membership. Has Charlton Heston come out against this yet? When's the NRA march on Washington to protest this thing? Do Republican civil libertarians have the courage of their convictions, or are they just as spineless as the Democrats? It'll be interesting to see.
I don't think that they apply for a job per se. My understanding is that the prostitutes are technically independent contractors who pay the house a percentage of their take.
I'm guessing that they are already pros before they ever make contact with one of the legal bordellos, but that's just speculation.
Of course, this comes from a dimly remembered magazine article I read a few years ago, so salt to taste.
You are wrong about that.
In fact, the Declaration of Independence talks about the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
This is unsurprising. The Declaration was drafted by Deists. Deists weren't Christians. They dropped a few references like the one above, in the vague manner of Deists ("divine providence", "the judge of the world", "creator") but they avoided any specific religious reference. Probably pissed off the Christians of the time, too. If you don't agree that these references are purposefully vague, go read the beginning of the Mayflower Compact.
Truth is, it is impossible to separate Church and State because the rock that our moral code is built upon comes from God. And a people's belief in and worship of God directly effects how they want to be governed.
"The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
-George Washington, in the Treaty of Tripoli
Our currency carries our motto, "In God we Trust!" Our pledge states that we are a nation indivisible "under God"
I don't know the history of the currency, but the religious reference in the pledge was a cynical political ploy; it was added during the McCarthy witch-hunt era.
I realize I haven't addressed your argument about stem cells, but holy crap! If you're a Christian, can't you see that politicians who parade their religious morality are just acting the part of the Pharisees?
Go read Peter McWilliams's excellent "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do", from which I borrowed a bit here.
Counteranecdote: I went in precisely the opposite direction (private->public). In corporate work, I was undervalued, taken advantage of, and set up to fail time and time again as part of the impenetrable Machiavellian schemes that were always being played out in the ranks above me. It eventually got so bad that I absolutely dreaded going in to work every day, and finally had to move on out of disgust. Note that this is not something that happened just once; I am talking about several different jobs over a period of about 4 years.
:).
I work for a University now. The pay is much less than I could get elsewhere, but is take-home pay the only valid metric? I value my home life a great deal, and do *not* appreciate working long hours to fix other people's mistakes. The benefits here are awesome, the low-stress and relatively relaxed environment allows me to play and learn about new things, I rarely arrive before 8:30 or leave after 5, and I am thrice as productive as I was in the private sector (that figure may be off; I just like saying 'thrice'
Also, the university doesn't enforce any process- or time-management scheme that is a net productivity loss (unlike *every single company* that I worked for). I am accountable for my productivity and the time I spend on various projects, but I don't have to account for my time in 15-minute increments right down to how long I spend in the bathroom. I like that.
The fact is, different people react differently to different situations. Some people will find the public sector pleasant and rewarding, while others will be more comfortable in the private sector. As has been suggested by many others, try both and get a feel for what you enjoy.
Also, don't neglect the possibility that the difference between two institutions in the same sector may be greater than the average difference between sectors. If the place you're in stinks, you just have to keep your eye out for a place that doesn't.
I like the one from Google's translation service better.
'kick ass'
Eng->Ger: Stoßesel
Ger->Eng: Impact donkey