I don't know about China but Russia tried to "buy in" to the anti-ballistic missile system. They wanted the EU shield to be extended over Russia to protect their citizens too.
They were flat turned down. What a stupid move by Obama (or McCain, or whoever is pulling the strings).
I blame Obama because Russia asked for the shield to be extended over Russian territoru, and he turned them down. I think that decision was stupid; you will protect all your EU democratic allies but not Russia? Not even the western half ot it? Talk about giving the middle finger.
Russia asked to be part of the European missile shield (so it would cover both the EU and the RF), which that disproves your claim they are fundamentally opposed to the idea.
Wow the ignorance on this topic is amazing (probably from pro-war propaganda on NBC, FOX, CNN... in other words the defense corporations). Iran doesn't even HAVE a missile capable of reaching Israel. The only missile that has the necessary carrying capacity for the weight of a nuke only goes 100+ miles. They have longer missiles that reach 1000 miles, but that's still far short of Israel, and those only carry a few pounds of TNT/conventional bombs. So why on earth are you worried about a missile strike that is beyond Iran's capability?
Besides Israel has 300+ nuclear weapons. They don't need the U.S. to act because in the event of a war, Israel will have already turned Iran into a wasteland, long before our soldiers arrive on the scene. They are more than capable of wiping-out their Arab neighbors (which is why they don't attack).
Final thought: Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty with the U.S., England, France, and so on. Israel is not. There's nothing to hold them back.
>>> they are both backers of a nuclear Iran, which just sounds wonderful considering the frequency of their "death to America" and "death to Israel" proclamations.
When did these statements happen? Citation please. Oh and before you drag-out that tired "wipe Israel off the map" quote..... the phrase wipe off the map does not exist in the Iranian language. It was a very poor translation. What was actually stated by the Iranian president was this: "In a few years the government of Isreal will collapse and fade into history." Somewhat similar to what Reagan said about the communist government of Russia.
Nice stereotyping. Iranians and Pakistanis have no more interest in dying than you or I do. In fact it is MAD that keeps these two Muslim countries peaceful, because both Iran & Pakistan know if they nuked either Israel or India, then those countries would turn Iran/Pakistan into a nuclear wasteland.
>>> the US is selling things to countries that lessens the value of the things that Russia and China want to sell to different countries.
Flat wrong. Russia asked to be part of the shield and buy anti-missile missiles direct from the U.S. just like the Europeans are doing. But the U.S. turned them down (President Obama said "nyet"). So your theory doesn't fly.
President Obama flat turned them down. President Medvedev was not happy, and recorded a very stern video explaining why rejecting Russia was bound to escalate tensions along the EU-RF border. (In other words he didn't like hearing "no" to being part of the missile shield.)
I can't figure it out. Why would President Obama say no to a potential partner and ally in this endeavor? It was the kind of thing I would expect from Bush not Obama.
Where did you get the $7500 figure? It appears you are underestimating the costs of complying with the various regulations (such as making sure a banana has 25 degrees curvature, else it must be discarded) the government has imposed. Any one regulation is not a big deal but take all 150,000 pages of the current code, and it adds up to millions of dollars.
Oh and no I'm not anti-regulation, anymore than I am anti-government. Obviously we need a little of both.
Last I checked the Constitution is still the Law, and if Congress members (or presidents) are ignoring the law then that IS a serious problem. In fact it's probably why over the last 11 years we have slowly-but-surely lost our various rights (SOPA, ACTA, NDAA jail without trial, and Patriot Act searches without warrants). Because the Constitutional Law is no longer being obeyed by the congress.
A large corporation can afford to follow Congressional laws and go buy all these private, expensive standards. Small businesses cannot. It's yet another way that regulations are used by megacorps to protect themselves from new, upstart competition.
There's nothing inherently wrong with fossil fuels. We're just running out is all. (Oh and I seriously doubt the OP is a fossil fuel corporation. No need for ridiculous attacks.)
>>>I have been hearing about biofuels since the early 80's so I don't think they have a record that is any better than fusion.
I can run my car or truck on ethanol or biodiesel respectively. Now show me where I can buy electricity that came from a fusion reactor. Oh it doesn't exist. QED biofuels have a better record than fusion.
I don't favor either NIF or ITER because frankly I don't care, but I've been hearing "Fusion is almost at the break-even point" for the last 20 years.
In my lexicon almost =/= 20 years and I have to wonder why it was not achieved back in 1995 or 2000 (as they claimed would happen). Perhaps they should be more careful with their claims of "almost there", else we'll start viewing them like the boy who cried wolf.
And for energy sources, why not just burn liquefied sugar (ethanol) and other plant oils in our cars? It's plentiful and renewable and inexhaustible (as long as the sun keeps shining). It appears to be working for the Brazilians.
Another thing that would help is having 1/10th as many people, thereby decreasing the energy need by 1/10th. I think China has the right idea (1 child per couple) even though it is morally repugnant. But then so too is overpopulation and starvation; if we don't limit our growth then Nature will do it for us.
I ask the same question about women (or men) that have rolls of fat. How is that in any way sexy? Especially when you consider what it's doing internally (blocked arteries, making the heart wear-out faster, cirrhosis of the liver, etc).
Let's TP the mother's home. My mom was/is very conservative but she never made a fuss about literature she found objectionable. She simply told the teacher that her kid would not be reading that book/seeing the movie until he was older (high school). That's the proper way to handle it. Like an adult instead of a whiny little bitch demanding the teacher be fired.
Nudity == nudity not porn. It is our natural state and nothing to be ashamed of.
Porn == sex. I don't recall any sex in Ender's Game (or the sequel Speaker for the Dead). So NOT pornographic.
This is as crazy as the government arresting teens who took nude photos with their phones, and then claiming it's porn. It isn't porn if there's no sex stupid cops and stupid politicians. Arrest them for the actual crime committed (nudity)..... oh that's right. The SCOTUS said nudity is not a crime.
GIF was developed in the early 80s by CompuServe (national BBS) and I don't remember anyone fighting against it? On the contrary the user community was still small but they embraced GIF. It gradually became the defacto standard when you wanted to share images across multiple platforms (Atari, Commodore, IBM, Mac). When Mosaic browser introduced webpages with images, GIF was already the default.
>>>GIFs are a great example, people still use them all over despite PNG being more or less in every way superior
My ISP (and Opera's Turbo) can compress GIFs and JPEGs prior to sending them, and thereby speed up webpage loads. Not so with PNGs. As for the rest of your post I agree completely; the OSS crowd acted too late with their development of a new video standard. (And WebM really is not better than MPEG3 in quality; it's inferior.)
Also with physical books or magazines you can resell them. I was just looking at the resale price of 3-year-old Fantasy & Science magazine, and they are going for $6 each. Not bad for something that only cost me $3 originally. (Good luck trying to resale an ebook or emag; you get a few pennies if that.)
re: Googlemail. I use it because my house might burn down and take my USB drive with it. At least I'll still have a backup of my e-books (even if only partial) on my googlemail.
Anon.Coward wrote: >>>Warning: The post above me was made by a homosexual. Stay back so you don't catch the gay.
There are some things that should be an automatic banning of the poster's IP address. Using the N-word for example. Or saying victims of genocide "deserved it". And comparing being gay to an illness. Just because someone has a right to free speech, doesn't mean that right extends to this privately-owned website.
They didn't cost more in the 1800s when the dollar held its value (pre-federal reserve). Inflation is not a given, and in fact there's no good reason for it to exist. The dollar and prices should hold constant.
BTW who is Ron Apul?
And where does it say in the Constitution that a private bank (the Fed) should be given an exclusive monopoly by the Congress? There's nothing that I can find. I see Congress has the power to create an army and a navy and a post office, but nothing about creating a private bank & giving it monopoly power.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about China but Russia tried to "buy in" to the anti-ballistic missile system. They wanted the EU shield to be extended over Russia to protect their citizens too.
They were flat turned down.
What a stupid move by Obama (or McCain, or whoever is pulling the strings).
Obama is a neocon (just in case you hadn't noticed). He loves war just as much as the last guy.
I blame Obama because Russia asked for the shield to be extended over Russian territoru, and he turned them down.
I think that decision was stupid; you will protect all your EU democratic allies but not Russia? Not even the western half ot it? Talk about giving the middle finger.
Russia asked to be part of the European missile shield (so it would cover both the EU and the RF), which that disproves your claim they are fundamentally opposed to the idea.
Wow the ignorance on this topic is amazing (probably from pro-war propaganda on NBC, FOX, CNN... in other words the defense corporations). Iran doesn't even HAVE a missile capable of reaching Israel. The only missile that has the necessary carrying capacity for the weight of a nuke only goes 100+ miles. They have longer missiles that reach 1000 miles, but that's still far short of Israel, and those only carry a few pounds of TNT/conventional bombs. So why on earth are you worried about a missile strike that is beyond Iran's capability?
Besides Israel has 300+ nuclear weapons. They don't need the U.S. to act because in the event of a war, Israel will have already turned Iran into a wasteland, long before our soldiers arrive on the scene. They are more than capable of wiping-out their Arab neighbors (which is why they don't attack).
Final thought: Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty with the U.S., England, France, and so on. Israel is not. There's nothing to hold them back.
>>> they are both backers of a nuclear Iran, which just sounds wonderful considering the frequency of their "death to America" and "death to Israel" proclamations.
When did these statements happen?
Citation please.
Oh and before you drag-out that tired "wipe Israel off the map" quote..... the phrase wipe off the map does not exist in the Iranian language. It was a very poor translation. What was actually stated by the Iranian president was this: "In a few years the government of Isreal will collapse and fade into history." Somewhat similar to what Reagan said about the communist government of Russia.
Nice stereotyping. Iranians and Pakistanis have no more interest in dying than you or I do. In fact it is MAD that keeps these two Muslim countries peaceful, because both Iran & Pakistan know if they nuked either Israel or India, then those countries would turn Iran/Pakistan into a nuclear wasteland.
>>> the US is selling things to countries that lessens the value of the things that Russia and China want to sell to different countries.
Flat wrong. Russia asked to be part of the shield and buy anti-missile missiles direct from the U.S. just like the Europeans are doing. But the U.S. turned them down (President Obama said "nyet"). So your theory doesn't fly.
President Obama flat turned them down. President Medvedev was not happy, and recorded a very stern video explaining why rejecting Russia was bound to escalate tensions along the EU-RF border. (In other words he didn't like hearing "no" to being part of the missile shield.)
I can't figure it out. Why would President Obama say no to a potential partner and ally in this endeavor? It was the kind of thing I would expect from Bush not Obama.
Where did you get the $7500 figure? It appears you are underestimating the costs of complying with the various regulations (such as making sure a banana has 25 degrees curvature, else it must be discarded) the government has imposed. Any one regulation is not a big deal but take all 150,000 pages of the current code, and it adds up to millions of dollars.
Oh and no I'm not anti-regulation, anymore than I am anti-government. Obviously we need a little of both.
Last I checked the Constitution is still the Law, and if Congress members (or presidents) are ignoring the law then that IS a serious problem. In fact it's probably why over the last 11 years we have slowly-but-surely lost our various rights (SOPA, ACTA, NDAA jail without trial, and Patriot Act searches without warrants). Because the Constitutional Law is no longer being obeyed by the congress.
Another quote from a town meeting:
Congresswoman Pelosi, can you tell me where in the Constitution it gives Congress power to provide government hospitals?
"Are you serious? Are you serious???"
Yes I am serious. You pledged an oath to obey the Constitution and its amendments.
"(walks away)"
This is probably done on purpose.
A large corporation can afford to follow Congressional laws and go buy all these private, expensive standards. Small businesses cannot. It's yet another way that regulations are used by megacorps to protect themselves from new, upstart competition.
There's nothing inherently wrong with fossil fuels. We're just running out is all. (Oh and I seriously doubt the OP is a fossil fuel corporation. No need for ridiculous attacks.)
>>>I have been hearing about biofuels since the early 80's so I don't think they have a record that is any better than fusion.
I can run my car or truck on ethanol or biodiesel respectively.
Now show me where I can buy electricity that came from a fusion reactor.
Oh it doesn't exist. QED biofuels have a better record than fusion.
I don't favor either NIF or ITER because frankly I don't care, but I've been hearing "Fusion is almost at the break-even point" for the last 20 years.
In my lexicon almost =/= 20 years and I have to wonder why it was not achieved back in 1995 or 2000 (as they claimed would happen). Perhaps they should be more careful with their claims of "almost there", else we'll start viewing them like the boy who cried wolf.
And for energy sources, why not just burn liquefied sugar (ethanol) and other plant oils in our cars? It's plentiful and renewable and inexhaustible (as long as the sun keeps shining). It appears to be working for the Brazilians.
Another thing that would help is having 1/10th as many people, thereby decreasing the energy need by 1/10th. I think China has the right idea (1 child per couple) even though it is morally repugnant. But then so too is overpopulation and starvation; if we don't limit our growth then Nature will do it for us.
I ask the same question about women (or men) that have rolls of fat. How is that in any way sexy? Especially when you consider what it's doing internally (blocked arteries, making the heart wear-out faster, cirrhosis of the liver, etc).
Let's TP the mother's home. My mom was/is very conservative but she never made a fuss about literature she found objectionable. She simply told the teacher that her kid would not be reading that book/seeing the movie until he was older (high school). That's the proper way to handle it. Like an adult instead of a whiny little bitch demanding the teacher be fired.
Nudity == nudity not porn. It is our natural state and nothing to be ashamed of.
Porn == sex. I don't recall any sex in Ender's Game (or the sequel Speaker for the Dead). So NOT pornographic.
This is as crazy as the government arresting teens who took nude photos with their phones, and then claiming it's porn. It isn't porn if there's no sex stupid cops and stupid politicians. Arrest them for the actual crime committed (nudity)..... oh that's right. The SCOTUS said nudity is not a crime.
GIF was developed in the early 80s by CompuServe (national BBS) and I don't remember anyone fighting against it? On the contrary the user community was still small but they embraced GIF. It gradually became the defacto standard when you wanted to share images across multiple platforms (Atari, Commodore, IBM, Mac). When Mosaic browser introduced webpages with images, GIF was already the default.
>>>GIFs are a great example, people still use them all over despite PNG being more or less in every way superior
My ISP (and Opera's Turbo) can compress GIFs and JPEGs prior to sending them, and thereby speed up webpage loads. Not so with PNGs. As for the rest of your post I agree completely; the OSS crowd acted too late with their development of a new video standard. (And WebM really is not better than MPEG3 in quality; it's inferior.)
The European Union isn't any better when it comes to censoring books or the teachers. See my sig:
We currently use MPEG1, MPEG2, and JPEG in our browsers (and TVs) but the world has not collapsed, or our personal savings wiped out.
I don't see any problem with moving onward with MPEG4 audio and video (AACplusSBR)(h.264)(ATSC 2008).
Also with physical books or magazines you can resell them. I was just looking at the resale price of 3-year-old Fantasy & Science magazine, and they are going for $6 each. Not bad for something that only cost me $3 originally. (Good luck trying to resale an ebook or emag; you get a few pennies if that.)
re: Googlemail. I use it because my house might burn down and take my USB drive with it. At least I'll still have a backup of my e-books (even if only partial) on my googlemail.
Anon.Coward wrote:
>>>Warning: The post above me was made by a homosexual. Stay back so you don't catch the gay.
There are some things that should be an automatic banning of the poster's IP address. Using the N-word for example. Or saying victims of genocide "deserved it". And comparing being gay to an illness. Just because someone has a right to free speech, doesn't mean that right extends to this privately-owned website.
>>>Things cost more over time in dollar terms
They didn't cost more in the 1800s when the dollar held its value (pre-federal reserve). Inflation is not a given, and in fact there's no good reason for it to exist. The dollar and prices should hold constant.
BTW who is Ron Apul?
And where does it say in the Constitution that a private bank (the Fed) should be given an exclusive monopoly by the Congress? There's nothing that I can find. I see Congress has the power to create an army and a navy and a post office, but nothing about creating a private bank & giving it monopoly power.