If you think Switzerland could have stood up to the German army I recommend you look at the relative sizes of the economies and armies of those countries at the time. Being located between the two axes powers Italy and Germany Switzerland was truly between a rock and a hard place. I guess the majority of Swiss people simply felt that they did not want to play hero. Not a very noble sentiment but then again all too human.
Its the nasty rumors aka Jeb Bush rigged the felon list in favor of his brother and the lenient judges in the supreme court were put there by daddy Bush that give it such a bad 3rd world smell.
All this may be just innuendo but one fact remains: Usually you don't find these kind of familly dynastic elements in a healthy democratic system.
They plan to launch it with the Ariane and purchase the launch commercially so they certainly can get into an Earth orbit if they can scrap together enough money.
What exactly do you know about the OECD? Attacking this institution without any facts to back you up makes you just sound like a very shrill xenophobe.
Given the error of margin it is intellectually dishonest or plain stupid - your pick - to say that either Gore or Bush won Florida. From a scientific standpoint we simply don't know. If you get such data from a measurement of a lab experiment there is only one thing you can do. Measure again and collect enough data to get a significant result.
This is flamebait. The EU has a mix of different institutions for instance a directly elected EU parliament.
The parliament has been gathering more and more powers over the last couple of decades in order to better control the EU commission that is selected by the member governments that are all democratically elected.
So please explain to me again why the EU is supposed to be not democratic?
I assume by the same logic you want the US dissolved - after all the federal government is a dangerous concentration of power. Having 50 fully sovereign nations instead - each with their own nukes - is clearly preferable.
Reasons that were very convincing in the 18th century before there was mass media and the kind of cultural homogeneity the US enjoys today. It simply is an anachronism these days. Face it: The US is running Democracy 1.0 and never bothered to update. Was great when it first came out. Truly ahead of its time but now all the Johnny come latelys in Europe are running more sophisticated systems and Democracy 1.0 is at the very last tether of its scalability.
The US certainly survived the 2000 election but also managed to shatter an awful lot of credibility that this is a functioning democratic system.
If you do not count all votes and if a court arbitrarily decides who to put into power you are setting a very bad example especially if the guy whom the victory was awarded to didn't even get the popular vote.
If this was to happen in a 3rd world country monitored by the OECD this result would have been regarded as laughable.
As an outside observer (I am German living in the states) and following the presidental campaign with avid ethnological interest I am pretty certain that Karl Rove will never engage into any dirty tricks if there's any chance that he leaves finger prints behind.
as a physist I enjoyed reading "A Brief History of Time" because I know a bit about the physics behind it at enjoyed the conversational tone of the books. Yet, I think without this background this book would just have given me very strange ideas about the universe "lies to children" as Terry Pratchett is fond of calling it. There is only so much that can be truely comprehended without Mathematics.
How could a point mass within a finite event horizon possibly violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? That'll imply that you could place the point mass with absolute certainty within the center of the event horizon. Since nature does not allow us to measure that this is actually the case there is really no reason to fear that the uncertainty principle could be compromised.
Nevertheless, I am not a big fan of a point masses either for the very same reason. You can never perform any direct measurements on them being always hidden within their own event horizon. But if we can not measure it at all why assuming that it is real? IMHO they are more a meta-physical object or at best a mathematical construct but not really anything worth to be considered a physical reality.
Although your historic point of view is fascinating and reminds me of the grudge that the Greek still hold against the Vatican for the sacking of Constantinople. I think speculation on the part of what motivated France to take a stance is pretty pointless.
Fact is they got it right - but if the US would have played their hand a little bit better it would have never come to this.
I am not fundamentally opposed to the goals of the neocons at all. Although I think trying to bring democracy by force is risky business there was a chance that they could have succeeded. But unfortunately the best plan and intention can not compensate for utter incompetence of execution. The difference in your countries military execution to the political one in all things Iraq is just appalling. And the first political mistake was to give phony reasons to go to war and not being able to unite the Western world in the cause. The US used to be the leader of the free world and a damn good one. That's no more. It's a shame.
I don't think your comparison with the USSR holds water. Kim Jon Il is no Gorbachev. The latter was already in power when Reagan made his eveil empire statement. Gorbachev at this time was already very kean on proving that he was not an evil boogy-man.
Kim on the other hand is a card carrying psychopath.
I live in the US but my country at this point is Germany. If Germany was to be attacked I think I'd volunteer in a second to help defend it. Fortunately this is rather hypothetical. Thanks to the diplomatic skills of many German politicians since WWII at this point Israel as well as Palestine regards us a friendly nation. Same goes for the rest of the middle East.
I do not believe in the concept of pre-emptive war. If this kind of war is regarded as defending America I do not want any part of it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you think Switzerland could have stood up to the German army I recommend you look at the relative sizes of the economies and armies of those countries at the time. Being located between the two axes powers Italy and Germany Switzerland was truly between a rock and a hard place. I guess the majority of Swiss people simply felt that they did not want to play hero. Not a very noble sentiment but then again all too human.
Its the nasty rumors aka Jeb Bush rigged the felon list in favor of his brother and the lenient judges in the supreme court were put there by daddy Bush that give it such a bad 3rd world smell.
All this may be just innuendo but one fact remains: Usually you don't find these kind of familly dynastic elements in a healthy democratic system.
Dude. I have honestly no idea what you are talking about.
RTFA - they are only building the probe not the launch vehicle. It is launched commercially with an Ariane rocket.
RTFA - they do not build their own launch vehicle. They want to hitch a cheap ride on Ariane when there is excess capacity.
Most of the money will go into building the probe.
They plan to launch it with the Ariane and purchase the launch commercially so they certainly can get into an Earth orbit if they can scrap together enough money.
Maybe you should have read the article.
I guess you mean the same Haider that visited and comforted Saddam shortly before the US invaded? The same guy who still believes his good old buddy Saddam could have never been stupid enough to be captured by the US?
Silly European countries to be upset that such a freak gets so many votes in Austria.
What exactly do you know about the OECD? Attacking this institution without any facts to back you up makes you just sound like a very shrill xenophobe.
Given the error of margin it is intellectually dishonest or plain stupid - your pick - to say that either Gore or Bush won Florida. From a scientific standpoint we simply don't know. If you get such data from a measurement of a lab experiment there is only one thing you can do. Measure again and collect enough data to get a significant result.
This is flamebait. The EU has a mix of different institutions for instance a directly elected EU parliament.
The parliament has been gathering more and more powers over the last couple of decades in order to better control the EU commission that is selected by the member governments that are all democratically elected.
So please explain to me again why the EU is supposed to be not democratic?
I assume by the same logic you want the US dissolved - after all the federal government is a dangerous concentration of power. Having 50 fully sovereign nations instead - each with their own nukes - is clearly preferable.
2nd Google fun fact of the day. Many people from Iceland believe there country is the oldest democracy because their first parliament was founded in the year 930.
Fun Google fact of the day. Some kiwis claim the have the oldest democracy
Switzerland managed to be incredibly stable in war torn Europe retaining its current form since 1848.
If India can do it with a much larger and much more illiterate population I fail to see how the US couldn't.
Reasons that were very convincing in the 18th century before there was mass media and the kind of cultural homogeneity the US enjoys today. It simply is an anachronism these days. Face it: The US is running Democracy 1.0 and never bothered to update. Was great when it first came out. Truly ahead of its time but now all the Johnny come latelys in Europe are running more sophisticated systems and Democracy 1.0 is at the very last tether of its scalability.
The US certainly survived the 2000 election but also managed to shatter an awful lot of credibility that this is a functioning democratic system.
If you do not count all votes and if a court arbitrarily decides who to put into power you are setting a very bad example especially if the guy whom the victory was awarded to didn't even get the popular vote.
If this was to happen in a 3rd world country monitored by the OECD this result would have been regarded as laughable.
As an outside observer (I am German living in the states) and following the presidental campaign with avid ethnological interest I am pretty certain that Karl Rove will never engage into any dirty tricks if there's any chance that he leaves finger prints behind.
Toyota is the 4th largest car-maker after Ford.
Maybe you were thinking of Volvo Cars which now belongs to the Ford Motor Company (albeit still managed rather independently).
as a physist I enjoyed reading "A Brief History of Time" because I know a bit about the physics behind it at enjoyed the conversational tone of the books. Yet, I think without this background this book would just have given me very strange ideas about the universe "lies to children" as Terry Pratchett is fond of calling it. There is only so much that can be truely comprehended without Mathematics.
How could a point mass within a finite event horizon possibly violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? That'll imply that you could place the point mass with absolute certainty within the center of the event horizon. Since nature does not allow us to measure that this is actually the case there is really no reason to fear that the uncertainty principle could be compromised.
Nevertheless, I am not a big fan of a point masses either for the very same reason. You can never perform any direct measurements on them being always hidden within their own event horizon. But if we can not measure it at all why assuming that it is real? IMHO they are more a meta-physical object or at best a mathematical construct but not really anything worth to be considered a physical reality.
Although your historic point of view is fascinating and reminds me of the grudge that the Greek still hold against the Vatican for the sacking of Constantinople. I think speculation on the part of what motivated France to take a stance is pretty pointless.
Fact is they got it right - but if the US would have played their hand a little bit better it would have never come to this.
I am not fundamentally opposed to the goals of the neocons at all. Although I think trying to bring democracy by force is risky business there was a chance that they could have succeeded. But unfortunately the best plan and intention can not compensate for utter incompetence of execution. The difference in your countries military execution to the political one in all things Iraq is just appalling. And the first political mistake was to give phony reasons to go to war and not being able to unite the Western world in the cause. The US used to be the leader of the free world and a damn good one. That's no more. It's a shame.
I am not holding my breath.
I don't think your comparison with the USSR holds water. Kim Jon Il is no Gorbachev. The latter was already in power when Reagan made his eveil empire statement. Gorbachev at this time was already very kean on proving that he was not an evil boogy-man.
Kim on the other hand is a card carrying psychopath.
I live in the US but my country at this point is Germany. If Germany was to be attacked I think I'd volunteer in a second to help defend it. Fortunately this is rather hypothetical. Thanks to the diplomatic skills of many German politicians since WWII at this point Israel as well as Palestine regards us a friendly nation. Same goes for the rest of the middle East.
I do not believe in the concept of pre-emptive war. If this kind of war is regarded as defending America I do not want any part of it.