The world doesn't need or want any more pyramids, so cancer will do the trick.
It sound like you are disapproving... Will you refuse any treatment developed with a "silicon sultan's" money — because the benefactor's purpose was not sufficiently pure in your opinion?
Will you demand, the laboratories be staffed by people of all races and genders, and that any developed drugs be manufactured by unionized workers and/or be "Fair Trade" certified — before you agree to accept the cure?
Will you reject it, because "not everyone" can afford it — or will you, perhaps, wish, such "unfair" drug was never developed in the first place?
What's with the "robber" nonsense? Whom did the "silicon sultans" rob and of what? Are the toiling masses of the downtrodden not better off with Internet-connections to a dazzling variety of sites and cellular phones in their pockets?
You have negative freedom, that is freedom from interference and limits on your behavior
And that's the only freedom there can be...
Then you have positive freedom, the freedom to participate in society and to prosper.
You are confused. The freedoms to participate in society and to prosper are the same as those from interference and limits. One does not have a right to prosperity and/or happiness, but only to a pursuit of them — America's founding fathers noted this right in the Declaration of Independence (before the war was won and the Constitution written).
In Europe that kind of thing would clash with a person's freedom to have a private life, i.e. to privately grieve for their loved on at the funeral.
This makes no sense — you can not have a right to privacy in a public place. Those crazy Democrats "thanking god" for dead American soldiers may be an extreme case, but if you devise a law to shut them up, will it not also apply to weddings and birthdays, which are bound to take place on the same block, where other folks are grieving?
We also see the right to a private life
I fail to see, how you can demand privacy while in public — and that includes your making connections to other people's servers.
US company's desire to profile everyone and use their personal data for commercial gain, which Europeans consider to be a massive loss of freedom but Americans consider to be a corporation exercising its free speech rights.
No, actually, one's right to record and remember whatever he has once observed has nothing to do with free speech. I, once again, fail to see, how you can possibly demand somebody forgets about you without opening yourself up to the same demands from others. Do you want your ex- to be able to force you to undergo a memory-alteration procedure — to make you forget, how she looks naked?
GP never said anything about the US being a paragon of free speech protections.
Well, somebody should have said it — and I applaud you for saying it fairly well. Thank you.
The US is a paragon of free speech — not because there is no room for improvement, but because all (certainly most) other societies are worse in this regard. And though various Illiberals do come up from time to time with seductively-sounding proposals to ban "hate" speech, and even claim, the Constitution is outdated and "people can’t really protest like that anymore", the prevailing opinion remains, that any speech should be allowed and countered only with one's own speech.
Back to the question about UK, that country is certainly sliding farther away from liberty — along with the rest of the Western world. When a fatwa was issued calling for death of Salman Rushdie, for example, over his insulting Islam in an otherwise unremarkable book, the man received police protection and other support from his government. Nobody — except, maybe, that valiant Illiberal Jimmie Carter — blamed the victim for "deserving" the danger.
"hates on Obama" isn't the same as someone who "hates Obama"
Neah, the slang "hate on" (according to your own link) still has the same meaning: "To ridicule, insult, or act hatefully [emphasis mine] toward," — as the regular "hate". That otherwise well-written and spoken people would denigrate their speech to slang is just what I was referring to. I'm glad, it passed...
"He hit the girl" and "He hit on the girl"
Well, here the word "hit" has a completely different and unrelated meaning. A "hit" of something (like cocaine) is yet another unrelated meaning. That's not like "hate (on)" at all...
I'm afraid you can't blame or give credit to Obama for that
BS. Of course, I can blame Obama — he could have and should have gotten Iraqi government to agree for us to stay there longer — based on the new developments.
Then, of course, if you are killing suspected terrorists instead of capturing and interrogating them (so that, heaven forbid, no new prisoners appear in Guantanamo), you might not even be aware of those new developments until you see some decapitations on YouTube. Either way, the affirmative action wonder is as sorry excuse of a president, as Carter was before him...
That their systems were so easily and so thoroughly penetrated hints, that the company is mismanaged.
The revealed conversations confirm it. The particular item — which dwells on NYT's Maureen Down (herself an Illiberal icon) as willing to abolish fundamental journalist principles "for the Greater Good" — cites the following conversation-snippet:
Pascal emailed Dowd, saying “I THOUGHT THE STORY WAS GREAT I HOPE YOUR HAPPY"
Dowd responded: “I hope you’re happy! Thanks for helping. Let’s do another.”
Pascal replied, “Your my favorite person so yes”
Dowd finished the conversation with “you’re mine! you’re amazing”
After Obama was elected, when dissent stopped being patriotic, and the only possible reason underlying any sort of disapproval of government was racism, the "haters" were often accused of "hating on Obama". That use of "on" was hardly proper English, and I for one was wondering, if Illiberals are genuinely Illiterate, or are deliberately ruining their speech — perhaps, to better commiserate with the downtrodden. Fortunately, the "on" slowly disappeared and my question went away...
Ms. Pascal's repeated use of "your" instead of "you're" — even after being gently corrected by her wordsmith correspondent — makes me wonder again. Her use of ALL CAPS identifies her as a moron rather firmly in my book — any sort of stupid Sony does, while she remains at the helm, will not surprise me one bit.
wrote that 22 states permit direct sales of automobiles by Tesla to retail buyers, and of those the majority--14 of them-- voted for President Obama
There is a much fresher data-point for the political leanings of those states — we had elections a month ago. That this non-biased and bi-partisan article — the kind we've come to expect from the Newspaper of Record — chose to use the two year old data instead to illustrate its point, means, the point probably is not supported by the more recent poll...
He suggested that Democratic California, Illinois, and New York "have freer markets in auto retailing than Texas," which is presently Republican.
Is it "freer markets" for everyone, or just for the "green" technology — which got a major government loan (on very sweet terms) to survive and ought to be helped to avoid embarrassing the Democratic administration? Would those Democratic bastions of free markets be as supporting of freedom, if it were about sale of, say, high-capacity toilets?
If you really care for free markets, you'll vote Libertarian — with anybody else you still need a bloody permit to do (or sell) almost anything. Splitting hairs about who is more likely to permit this vs. that is stupid — you have your right to pursue happiness. Selling cars the way you want certainly ought to be covered by that.
Is the small bit of evidence enough to make a case?
No, it is not. To show, which party supports freer markets, one would need to study the market-freedom across different goods and services. Cherry-picking one item, that is so dear to one party's heart, in an industry, that is heavily-regulated by all states (as well as Federal government) is meaningless and reveals nothing but bare partisanship.
That Illiberals at Slate criticize Bush and free markets is no surprise. That they also criticize the premature withdrawal of American forces — that's noteworthy. It is like having your mama tell you, you have an ugly nose — it must be really ugly...
Bush lost the war.
Bush conquered the entire country, replaced its government, captured its previous leader and handed him over to the new government to be hung by the neck. If that is still "losing", I don't know, what "winning" is...
Did you volunteer? Where did you earn your battle stripes?
Oh, this is so special! So only the military must have a say on matters of foreign policy? Is that your argument — or did you just get carried away with your ad hominem a little?
Yeah... Although I have not gone to movies in the last 7 years or so (since renovating a house with home theater in it), I was thinking of going to see this one just to stick to those assholes ("Guardians of Peace").
I was just deliberating with myself, whether I am, perhaps, falling for a sneaky marketing ploy, but now Sony officially pulled the movie release making the answer easy and the question moot.
What did Bush leave Obama? Anarchy, controlled by armed gangs. Now the strongest force is the Islamic State.
Not true at all. Iraq was moving in the right direction, its various groups learning to talk to rather than fight rivals.
Withdrawal was grossly premature. That it was done not as an honest mistake, but for cynical political considerations ("See? I did not close Guantanamo, but I did get us out of Iraq"), makes it all the more disgusting...
And now you've left a giant power vacuum which has destabilized the entire region.
Yes, this — withdrawal of troops for political expedience, rather than because the situation really allowed it — was a mistake, which I consider shameful.
Being in Iraq was such an epic failure
Not at all — we did destroy Saddam Hussein's regime and caused himself to be duly punished. Iraq stopped being a threat to its neighbors and was on its way to becoming a decent country. If only we stuck around for longer...
the world doesn't want any more of your "help"
Your other alternatives are China and Russia. Make your pick...
Politicians set up the next person from their party for votes.
Vice-President is traditionally nominated for the next Presidency by the same pary — unless (like Cheney) he explicitly rejects such plans from the very beginning.
I doubt, Joe Biden will score even so much as a nomination — despite his desires — which will, of course, be even more embarrassing for the Democrats, than him losing the subsequent election.
No, I don't think, Obama sincerely cares about his nominal "Number 2"... It was a marriage of convenience — the man was supposed to "bring foreign policy heft" to the ticket. Ha-ha-ha...
And if it requires 10+ years of US military occupation for a country to recover from "collapse", how is that exactly good for us (or them)?
It is "good" simply because it is better than the alternatives: a) remain under Saddam Hussein; b) be taken over by ISIS (or Iran).
10 years is not that long — had we pulled out from Western Germany in 1955, for example, that country (with plenty of Nazis still inside and USSR's massive armies right across the border) too would've been in deep trouble.
"Some" oppression? What a wonderful understatement... You have to register with police — and get their permission — just to travel from one town to another...
but it's not like the US is torture-free either.
Yeah, this was the first thing, that struck me upon moving to America 20 years ago. Your ready willingness to equate the petty misdeeds of your country's government with the gross human rights violations of others. To you and yours, McCarthy — who caused a hundred or so people (most of them actual Communists) to lose their jobs — is equivalent to Beria, who killed millions.
What little torture we did use, was applied to enemies — and most of us are duly ashamed of it anyway. The worst, that political opposition has to fear in the US, is an IRS audit. Do you understand, what's going to happen to a Cuban questioning Fidel's competence?
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for confirming, that today's downtrodden do have plenty to pillage from them.
I think, we have Capitalism to thank for this...
It sound like you are disapproving... Will you refuse any treatment developed with a "silicon sultan's" money — because the benefactor's purpose was not sufficiently pure in your opinion?
Will you demand, the laboratories be staffed by people of all races and genders, and that any developed drugs be manufactured by unionized workers and/or be "Fair Trade" certified — before you agree to accept the cure?
Will you reject it, because "not everyone" can afford it — or will you, perhaps, wish, such "unfair" drug was never developed in the first place?
And I for one will applaud him the way Heinlein would've done — not call him a "robber"...
What's with the "robber" nonsense? Whom did the "silicon sultans" rob and of what? Are the toiling masses of the downtrodden not better off with Internet-connections to a dazzling variety of sites and cellular phones in their pockets?
Perhaps, comparing value-creating capitalists to the highway plunderers of the dark-ages — as has been the Illiberal Socialists' wont for nearly 150 years — is not entirely warranted?
What was that about surrendering essential freedoms to gain temporary security?
And that's the only freedom there can be...
You are confused. The freedoms to participate in society and to prosper are the same as those from interference and limits. One does not have a right to prosperity and/or happiness, but only to a pursuit of them — America's founding fathers noted this right in the Declaration of Independence (before the war was won and the Constitution written).
This makes no sense — you can not have a right to privacy in a public place. Those crazy Democrats "thanking god" for dead American soldiers may be an extreme case, but if you devise a law to shut them up, will it not also apply to weddings and birthdays, which are bound to take place on the same block, where other folks are grieving?
I fail to see, how you can demand privacy while in public — and that includes your making connections to other people's servers.
No, actually, one's right to record and remember whatever he has once observed has nothing to do with free speech. I, once again, fail to see, how you can possibly demand somebody forgets about you without opening yourself up to the same demands from others. Do you want your ex- to be able to force you to undergo a memory-alteration procedure — to make you forget, how she looks naked?
Well, somebody should have said it — and I applaud you for saying it fairly well. Thank you.
The US is a paragon of free speech — not because there is no room for improvement, but because all (certainly most) other societies are worse in this regard. And though various Illiberals do come up from time to time with seductively-sounding proposals to ban "hate" speech, and even claim, the Constitution is outdated and "people can’t really protest like that anymore", the prevailing opinion remains, that any speech should be allowed and countered only with one's own speech.
Back to the question about UK, that country is certainly sliding farther away from liberty — along with the rest of the Western world. When a fatwa was issued calling for death of Salman Rushdie, for example, over his insulting Islam in an otherwise unremarkable book, the man received police protection and other support from his government. Nobody — except, maybe, that valiant Illiberal Jimmie Carter — blamed the victim for "deserving" the danger.
Years later, reaction to Mohammed-mocking cartoons is rather more mixed. And while it is still legal to burn American flag, if you decide to burn Koran, everybody from local to federal authorities will be on your case pressuring you to abandon your exercise of free speech.
If for one stopped caring, when "RSVP" became not only a verb, but a noun too!...
Neah, the slang "hate on" (according to your own link) still has the same meaning: "To ridicule, insult, or act hatefully [emphasis mine] toward," — as the regular "hate". That otherwise well-written and spoken people would denigrate their speech to slang is just what I was referring to. I'm glad, it passed...
Well, here the word "hit" has a completely different and unrelated meaning. A "hit" of something (like cocaine) is yet another unrelated meaning. That's not like "hate (on)" at all...
BS. Of course, I can blame Obama — he could have and should have gotten Iraqi government to agree for us to stay there longer — based on the new developments.
Then, of course, if you are killing suspected terrorists instead of capturing and interrogating them (so that, heaven forbid, no new prisoners appear in Guantanamo), you might not even be aware of those new developments until you see some decapitations on YouTube. Either way, the affirmative action wonder is as sorry excuse of a president, as Carter was before him...
That Sony Picture Entertainment — like most of Hollywood — are Illiberal-dominated is well-known.
That their systems were so easily and so thoroughly penetrated hints, that the company is mismanaged.
The revealed conversations confirm it. The particular item — which dwells on NYT's Maureen Down (herself an Illiberal icon) as willing to abolish fundamental journalist principles "for the Greater Good" — cites the following conversation-snippet:
After Obama was elected, when dissent stopped being patriotic, and the only possible reason underlying any sort of disapproval of government was racism, the "haters" were often accused of "hating on Obama". That use of "on" was hardly proper English, and I for one was wondering, if Illiberals are genuinely Illiterate, or are deliberately ruining their speech — perhaps, to better commiserate with the downtrodden. Fortunately, the "on" slowly disappeared and my question went away...
Ms. Pascal's repeated use of "your" instead of "you're" — even after being gently corrected by her wordsmith correspondent — makes me wonder again. Her use of ALL CAPS identifies her as a moron rather firmly in my book — any sort of stupid Sony does, while she remains at the helm, will not surprise me one bit.
There is a much fresher data-point for the political leanings of those states — we had elections a month ago. That this non-biased and bi-partisan article — the kind we've come to expect from the Newspaper of Record — chose to use the two year old data instead to illustrate its point, means, the point probably is not supported by the more recent poll...
Is it "freer markets" for everyone, or just for the "green" technology — which got a major government loan (on very sweet terms) to survive and ought to be helped to avoid embarrassing the Democratic administration? Would those Democratic bastions of free markets be as supporting of freedom, if it were about sale of, say, high-capacity toilets?
If you really care for free markets, you'll vote Libertarian — with anybody else you still need a bloody permit to do (or sell) almost anything. Splitting hairs about who is more likely to permit this vs. that is stupid — you have your right to pursue happiness. Selling cars the way you want certainly ought to be covered by that.
No, it is not. To show, which party supports freer markets, one would need to study the market-freedom across different goods and services. Cherry-picking one item, that is so dear to one party's heart, in an industry, that is heavily-regulated by all states (as well as Federal government) is meaningless and reveals nothing but bare partisanship.
Only if some kind of hacker steals it from Sony and makes publicly available. Oh, wait...
Seriously, a free release of the movie is what Mitt Romney just called on Sony to do.
Actually, the proper term is "seppuku". "Harakiri" is a word used by lower classes...
Well, of course, if von Clausowitz said it, it must be truth and nothing but the truth, sure...
We remained in Germany for decades after that — had we withdrawn in 1955, Germany too could've become a failed state — or be run over by USSR.
Yes, I can. And I am far from being the only one. And I'm not just talking about RethugliKKKans: even Leon Panetta was rather critical of the President over this.
That Illiberals at Slate criticize Bush and free markets is no surprise. That they also criticize the premature withdrawal of American forces — that's noteworthy. It is like having your mama tell you, you have an ugly nose — it must be really ugly...
Bush conquered the entire country, replaced its government, captured its previous leader and handed him over to the new government to be hung by the neck. If that is still "losing", I don't know, what "winning" is...
Oh, this is so special! So only the military must have a say on matters of foreign policy? Is that your argument — or did you just get carried away with your ad hominem a little?
Yeah... Although I have not gone to movies in the last 7 years or so (since renovating a house with home theater in it), I was thinking of going to see this one just to stick to those assholes ("Guardians of Peace").
I was just deliberating with myself, whether I am, perhaps, falling for a sneaky marketing ploy, but now Sony officially pulled the movie release making the answer easy and the question moot.
Not true at all. Iraq was moving in the right direction, its various groups learning to talk to rather than fight rivals.
Withdrawal was grossly premature. That it was done not as an honest mistake, but for cynical political considerations ("See? I did not close Guantanamo, but I did get us out of Iraq"), makes it all the more disgusting...
No. American forces replaced that — there was no vacuum. The vacuum appeared, when we pulled out.
Citation needed.
"The nice thing about Secretaries of State is that there are so many of them to choose from"
Of course, we did.
There are more people dying from guns in Chicago, than were in Iraq.
Wrong. But off-topic...
Yes, this — withdrawal of troops for political expedience, rather than because the situation really allowed it — was a mistake, which I consider shameful.
Not at all — we did destroy Saddam Hussein's regime and caused himself to be duly punished. Iraq stopped being a threat to its neighbors and was on its way to becoming a decent country. If only we stuck around for longer...
Your other alternatives are China and Russia. Make your pick...
Vice-President is traditionally nominated for the next Presidency by the same pary — unless (like Cheney) he explicitly rejects such plans from the very beginning.
I doubt, Joe Biden will score even so much as a nomination — despite his desires — which will, of course, be even more embarrassing for the Democrats, than him losing the subsequent election.
No, I don't think, Obama sincerely cares about his nominal "Number 2"... It was a marriage of convenience — the man was supposed to "bring foreign policy heft" to the ticket. Ha-ha-ha...
It is "good" simply because it is better than the alternatives: a) remain under Saddam Hussein; b) be taken over by ISIS (or Iran).
10 years is not that long — had we pulled out from Western Germany in 1955, for example, that country (with plenty of Nazis still inside and USSR's massive armies right across the border) too would've been in deep trouble.
"Some" oppression? What a wonderful understatement... You have to register with police — and get their permission — just to travel from one town to another...
Yeah, this was the first thing, that struck me upon moving to America 20 years ago. Your ready willingness to equate the petty misdeeds of your country's government with the gross human rights violations of others. To you and yours, McCarthy — who caused a hundred or so people (most of them actual Communists) to lose their jobs — is equivalent to Beria, who killed millions.
What little torture we did use, was applied to enemies — and most of us are duly ashamed of it anyway. The worst, that political opposition has to fear in the US, is an IRS audit. Do you understand, what's going to happen to a Cuban questioning Fidel's competence?
Obama pulled us out too soon from the collapsed country. That was a mistake, not the bringing upon the collapse (of Saddam Hussein's regime) itself.