If you want to ask why Spain is so dry, same answer: deforested mainly during roman times.
Seriously? You were just demonstrated to be full of manure and typing up the content of the wrong orifice. Instead of running away in shame and changing your/. account to reduce the frequency of nightmares of this public planing set to haunt you for years to come, instead of seeking counseling or joining a monastery, you are right back here fighting some sort of rearguard action?
No, I don't want to ask, why Spain is dry — it is the topic of neither the TFA nor of our cute little conversation here.
The semi-humorous point I was making is that the Earth — already inhabited by Homo Sapiense — has undergone many changes — some of them with very dramatic effects. In addition to Sahara's changes, I can name
Ice-sheet around Kodiak islands melting, forever isolating Kodiak bears (who can not swim) and forcing them to fork their own branch, so to speak — 11700 years ago.
The seas rising enough to make Tasmania an island about 10000 years ago (roughly 25000 years after the first humans arrived there);
Village of Mulifanua drowned in the sea about 3000 years ago;
City of Heracleion in Northern Africa sinks in the Mediterranian 1200 years ago. Well, finally, something you can blame on those Roman loggers.
And, of course, the giant elephant, nay mammoth in every AGW-alarmist's room: the Ice Age... If such stupendous changes in climate, ice-sheets, and sea-levels happened for some reasons before the humans had the technology blamed by the (in)famous "hockey stick" for the changes of today, is it not reasonable to doubt, anything other than those same reasons are responsible for what little changes are observed today?
And is it really so wrong — trolling and flamebaiting — to mock those, who insist, without any proof, some other reasons must be at play?
Saudi Arabia also requires exit visas to leave the country
You don't cite any sources, so I had to look things up myself. Yes, one needs an exit visa, but only if the leaving is permanent. Which means, you don't need it to escape a repressive regime. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia remain a very attractive destination for millions of people — and has the luxury of using deportation as punishment.
which can only be obtained with permission from your employer
Only if you weren't a citizen and entered the country in order to work in the first place.
Cuba did finally allow foreign travel starting in 2013
That — a citizen's ability to emigrate — was only one of the tell-tale signs.
And we kept diplomatic relations and some commerce open with the Warsaw Pact
Yes, and even, holding up our nose, with the USSR — because we had to. But in today's world few countries are as oppressive and bad for their own citizens as Cuba.
Not a very nice country, but still in a completely different league from Cuba.
Yes, they now have a major scandal with President accused of killing a prosecutor.
Now, can you even imagine Fidel Castro being indicted in Cuba today? Or do you not think, Fidel has ordered enough assassinations during his decades of being the Dear Leader?
Argentina, where the President just had someone assassinated?
Seriously??! Argentine, where a recently-elected President has just been publicly indicted over one assassination, is, in your opinion, worse than Cuba, where the decades-long dictator an his secret police have been assassinating and imprisoning hundreds for all of those decades — without any publicly-expressed disapproval?
Pakistan, where there is still a major Taliban presence?
So?..
Israel [...] keep Palestinians in a borderline starvation situation?
Is that why those Arabs — both in Gaza and in West Bank — live better, than Egyptians and Jordanians across their respective borders? Marrying a Gazan is a major win for a Egyptian bride.
Yes, Israel, under whose "occupation" the population of the supposedly "borderline starved" Arabs is growing faster, than Israel's own (even among the Muslim Israelis), is certainly a nicer country than Cuba.
Countries worse then Cuba? Most Arab allies is a good start.
Nope. False — because you can leave them.
Cuba is a far better place to live than Saudi Arabia humans rights wise, to give one obvious example.
Immigrating to Saudi Arabia is the proverbial light at the end of tunnel for many, even though there is no hope of citizenship for such immigrants. When the moronic Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein in 1990-ies, Saud's response was immediate deportation of them all — as a punishment.
You would've called it "ethnic cleansing", if Israel did such a thing, and it was. But the point is, Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, is attractive to humans, whereas Cuba is a place to escape from. To risk lifeThe US has had close ties to countries and dictators far worse or equal to Cuba
Yeah, why don't name them? "Informative" my behind...
The Sahara as we know it now exists mainly because during 'roman times' (+/-500 years) the woods there got lumbered down.
Here is the timeline — already linked to once before:
22,000 to 10,500 years ago: The Sahara was devoid of any human occupation outside the Nile Valley and extended 250 miles further south than it does today.
10,500 to 9,000 years ago: Monsoon rains begin sweeping into the Sahara, transforming the region into a habitable area swiftly settled by Nile Valley dwellers.
9,000 to 7,300 years ago: Continued rains, vegetation growth, and animal migrations lead to well established human settlements, including the introduction of domesticated livestock such as sheep and goats.
7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.
Then there is this article, in which a NASA scientist explains the climate-change with changes in Earth's orbit. It also dates the end of the "Green Sahara" at about 5500 years ago. Or, roughly, three thousand years before the nameless momma-wolf suckled the fateful human twins...
Can one get any more wrong than blaming Roman lumber industry for Sahara's climate-change? I suppose, one can. But you are certainly within the top 1% territory...
Lots of other stuff on the subject is along the same line, but nothing blames the humans today. Whether the humans of the times blamed each other, was my original question.
the question to ask is simple. will lifting the embargo hurt americans?
A remarkably self-serving attitude. With such an approach, I can point at some other laws ripe for abolishing. Like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — why should American corporations be enjoined from using bribery to win foreign contracts? If the sophisticated Europeans and the even more sophisticated Chinese are free to use the tool to gain valuable business, why should America keep itself at disadvantage?
That makes it an excellent argument for why subject matter experts must be free to say they are properly qualified and politicians must not be free to claim the same level of qualification when they have not earned it.
Wonderful. Unfortunately, requiring certification — as seems to be your proposal — will continue to allow those same politicians to control, just who is free to call themselves a "subject matter expert".
And that's a graver danger, than a few schmucks being misled by a liar.
The author of "Unix in Rust" just abandoned Rust in favor of Nim
Somebody, who wrote a book an a language I've never heard of, has now switched to another new language. Whether he has an agile and flexible mind or simply is not particularly loyal to anything, I'm not impressed...
the First Ammendment, like the Second Ammendment, is not an absolute
Heh-heh... Yes, finally, the First Amendment is compared with the Second. Indeed, we must introduce the following pragmatic and common sense measures and clarifications:
For a petition to be covered, it may only be for redress of grievances;
A petitioner must register with the government, undergo a background check, and have a valid petitioner license at the time of petitioning (which, of course, turns it from a right into a privilege, but never mind that).
The right may be stripped from convicted (or even merely suspected) criminals.
Additional restrictions — such as mandatory waiting period — can be added by the States to any would-be petitioner.
claiming to be qualified in these professions when you are not is then against the law
You are making an argument against the First Amendment. May be, you have a point. Indeed, many countries live without such law and/or do not consider the freedom of speech to be particularly sacred. But it is the law of the land here and is, generally, cherished by most Americans.
Not because we want to hear more liars, but because we are afraid, the government's regulation required to keep them at bay is worse than the original problem itself. Examples of China, Iran, and Russia give solid substantiation to this fear.
The "broadcast licenses", "fairness doctrines", and other "common sense" measures are encroachments on that freedom and should be exposed, mocked, and rejected as such. You may call them "pragmatic", I choose to call them "unprincipled". And — because the violated principle happens to be a law — illegal.
This research clearly shows, the comments must be regulated — to ensure, only the certified experts are allowed to express opinions, and that all different points of view are fairly represented. The current so-called "freedom" is, obviously, putting us in danger — and it is over-rated anyway.
To keep the "playing field" level, the hitherto unregulated online news-sources (which also attract the most dangerous comments) shall be subjected to the same rules as TV-broadcasters, thus shutting down the smaller and annoyingly quirky ones among them. The respected (and, incidentally, government-supporting) establishments will thus be (smartly) helped.
Dissemination of information deemed incorrect by the benevolent and omniscient regulators, or failures to represent all points of view fairly, shall lead to the withdrawals of certification and any other licenses — easy to achieve without much fuss because a license, by definition is a permission granted by the Executive, and can be withdrawn (or not-renewed) without having to convince the skeptical Judiciary. Anybody talking about the First Amendment shall be ignored (and put on a watch-list) as a fringe crazy — this is not the 60-ies, you can not protest like that.
while at the mean time management, bureaucrat and "soft skill" jobs are on the rise
Unfortunately, those too are awarded with consideration to "minority" status and like things, which should have no effect on hiring decisions. That moron just fired by Sony is a plump example...
. No, there will be no "PROFIT!!!!" at the end — elimination (or, at best, reduction) of profit is the goal here.
Why would various corporations suddenly start doing that to themselves? The only possible reason is undue pressure... Some free country we got ourselves into...
In Eastern Outer Mongolia, age is traditionally determined based on the number of full moons since conception for girls, and the number of new moons since birth for boys.
People didn't generally assume such a thing back when the mortality rate for infants and small children was so high that even naming them was considered a waste of time until they were old enough to be expected to need to be called by name.
That a kid may die on his own, did not mean killing him (after birth) was not a murder — the two are completely orthogonal and irrelevant to each other.
until they're over 2 years old. Which is long after those who wail about the slaughter of innocent "baby" fetuses have lost interest in how precious they are and at a point in time when many of them are complaining about what a bunch of parasites the little monsters are.
Citation needed. Please, post links to the "wailers" calling 2 year-olds "little monsters".
Stealing their hard-earned money for welfare programs.
Yet another irrelevant item — one wonders, how do you manage to convince anybody of anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously? You were just demonstrated to be full of manure and typing up the content of the wrong orifice. Instead of running away in shame and changing your /. account to reduce the frequency of nightmares of this public planing set to haunt you for years to come, instead of seeking counseling or joining a monastery, you are right back here fighting some sort of rearguard action?
No, I don't want to ask, why Spain is dry — it is the topic of neither the TFA nor of our cute little conversation here.
The semi-humorous point I was making is that the Earth — already inhabited by Homo Sapiense — has undergone many changes — some of them with very dramatic effects. In addition to Sahara's changes, I can name
And, of course, the giant elephant, nay mammoth in every AGW-alarmist's room: the Ice Age... If such stupendous changes in climate, ice-sheets, and sea-levels happened for some reasons before the humans had the technology blamed by the (in)famous "hockey stick" for the changes of today, is it not reasonable to doubt, anything other than those same reasons are responsible for what little changes are observed today?
And is it really so wrong — trolling and flamebaiting — to mock those, who insist, without any proof, some other reasons must be at play?
You don't cite any sources, so I had to look things up myself. Yes, one needs an exit visa, but only if the leaving is permanent. Which means, you don't need it to escape a repressive regime. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia remain a very attractive destination for millions of people — and has the luxury of using deportation as punishment.
Only if you weren't a citizen and entered the country in order to work in the first place.
That — a citizen's ability to emigrate — was only one of the tell-tale signs.
Yes, and even, holding up our nose, with the USSR — because we had to. But in today's world few countries are as oppressive and bad for their own citizens as Cuba.
Not a very nice country, but still in a completely different league from Cuba.
Yes, they now have a major scandal with President accused of killing a prosecutor.
Now, can you even imagine Fidel Castro being indicted in Cuba today? Or do you not think, Fidel has ordered enough assassinations during his decades of being the Dear Leader?
Seriously??! Argentine, where a recently-elected President has just been publicly indicted over one assassination, is, in your opinion, worse than Cuba, where the decades-long dictator an his secret police have been assassinating and imprisoning hundreds for all of those decades — without any publicly-expressed disapproval?
So?..
Is that why those Arabs — both in Gaza and in West Bank — live better, than Egyptians and Jordanians across their respective borders? Marrying a Gazan is a major win for a Egyptian bride.
Yes, Israel, under whose "occupation" the population of the supposedly "borderline starved" Arabs is growing faster, than Israel's own (even among the Muslim Israelis), is certainly a nicer country than Cuba.
Nope. False — because you can leave them.
Immigrating to Saudi Arabia is the proverbial light at the end of tunnel for many, even though there is no hope of citizenship for such immigrants. When the moronic Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein in 1990-ies, Saud's response was immediate deportation of them all — as a punishment.
You would've called it "ethnic cleansing", if Israel did such a thing, and it was. But the point is, Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, is attractive to humans, whereas Cuba is a place to escape from. To risk lifeThe US has had close ties to countries and dictators far worse or equal to Cuba
Yeah, why don't name them? "Informative" my behind...
Here is the timeline — already linked to once before:
Then there is this article, in which a NASA scientist explains the climate-change with changes in Earth's orbit. It also dates the end of the "Green Sahara" at about 5500 years ago. Or, roughly, three thousand years before the nameless momma-wolf suckled the fateful human twins...
Can one get any more wrong than blaming Roman lumber industry for Sahara's climate-change? I suppose, one can. But you are certainly within the top 1% territory...
Lots of other stuff on the subject is along the same line, but nothing blames the humans today. Whether the humans of the times blamed each other, was my original question.
I wonder, on what the changes of climate, that eventually turned Sahara into an inhospitable desert, were blamed by the shamans of the time...
Could it possibly have been the burning of too much of the wrong fuels by the selfish population? Or some other sacrilege?
And who would that be? I can only think of North Korea, who are worse than Cuba...
A remarkably self-serving attitude. With such an approach, I can point at some other laws ripe for abolishing. Like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — why should American corporations be enjoined from using bribery to win foreign contracts? If the sophisticated Europeans and the even more sophisticated Chinese are free to use the tool to gain valuable business, why should America keep itself at disadvantage?
You don't seem to have any problem with the tyrant.
Yeah, yeah. "Pragmatic" is just a better-sounding spin on "unprincipled".
Thus doing what little they can to help finance Castro's regime. Good job!
Wonderful. Unfortunately, requiring certification — as seems to be your proposal — will continue to allow those same politicians to control, just who is free to call themselves a "subject matter expert".
And that's a graver danger, than a few schmucks being misled by a liar.
Ah, well, then continue to censor yourself and others in whatever hole it is you are residing.
Speech is dangerous to the would-be tyrants, who want it regulated. It is not dangerous to the actual society of free citizens.
"Words," — Stalin, said — "are more dangerous than bullets, so why should we not control words?"
You are in good company.
Yes, and our point is, any law prohibiting such claims is contrary to the First Amendment.
Now, actually offering medical services — there things are less obvious, I'll give you that...
Go ahead, then, you know the process.
Somebody, who wrote a book an a language I've never heard of, has now switched to another new language. Whether he has an agile and flexible mind or simply is not particularly loyal to anything, I'm not impressed...
Can't we wait for the actual book to be written, published, and reviewed by one of ours — instead of seeing more vaporware appear on the /. front-page?
Heh-heh... Yes, finally, the First Amendment is compared with the Second. Indeed, we must introduce the following pragmatic and common sense measures and clarifications:
Did I miss anything?
You are making an argument against the First Amendment. May be, you have a point. Indeed, many countries live without such law and/or do not consider the freedom of speech to be particularly sacred. But it is the law of the land here and is, generally, cherished by most Americans.
Not because we want to hear more liars, but because we are afraid, the government's regulation required to keep them at bay is worse than the original problem itself. Examples of China, Iran, and Russia give solid substantiation to this fear.
The "broadcast licenses", "fairness doctrines", and other "common sense" measures are encroachments on that freedom and should be exposed, mocked, and rejected as such. You may call them "pragmatic", I choose to call them "unprincipled". And — because the violated principle happens to be a law — illegal.
This research clearly shows, the comments must be regulated — to ensure, only the certified experts are allowed to express opinions, and that all different points of view are fairly represented. The current so-called "freedom" is, obviously, putting us in danger — and it is over-rated anyway.
To keep the "playing field" level, the hitherto unregulated online news-sources (which also attract the most dangerous comments) shall be subjected to the same rules as TV-broadcasters, thus shutting down the smaller and annoyingly quirky ones among them. The respected (and, incidentally, government-supporting) establishments will thus be (smartly) helped.
Dissemination of information deemed incorrect by the benevolent and omniscient regulators, or failures to represent all points of view fairly, shall lead to the withdrawals of certification and any other licenses — easy to achieve without much fuss because a license, by definition is a permission granted by the Executive, and can be withdrawn (or not-renewed) without having to convince the skeptical Judiciary. Anybody talking about the First Amendment shall be ignored (and put on a watch-list) as a fringe crazy — this is not the 60-ies, you can not protest like that .
Unfortunately, those too are awarded with consideration to "minority" status and like things, which should have no effect on hiring decisions. That moron just fired by Sony is a plump example...
By breaking, what works:
. No, there will be no "PROFIT!!!!" at the end — elimination (or, at best, reduction) of profit is the goal here.
Why would various corporations suddenly start doing that to themselves? The only possible reason is undue pressure... Some free country we got ourselves into...
Weird. Chinese have always considered the time of conception (approximate) rather than the actual birthday as the start of one's age. And Mongolians have a similar practice, but only for females:
That a kid may die on his own, did not mean killing him (after birth) was not a murder — the two are completely orthogonal and irrelevant to each other.
Citation needed. Please, post links to the "wailers" calling 2 year-olds "little monsters".
Yet another irrelevant item — one wonders, how do you manage to convince anybody of anything.
Not very original, are you?
Please, don't hate.