Well, Iraq was pushed to collapse. That did not go so well.
What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
Seeing that happen, Muamar Qaddafi relented too — without costing us another dollar or a drop of blood.
That the current Administration managed to destroy those successes by pulling from Iraq too soon and hunting down Qaddafi on made-up pretexts is a shame, but that does not mean, the original plan was flawed.
I am not sure the push-to-collapse strategy has any successes to its name
The only alternatives to such slow suffocation are: a) military intervention; b) pretending, it is Ok. Which do you prefer?
Yes, exactly. They are as poor as a Socialist economy can be and, had it not been for Russia's support, would've collapsed long ago.
Another 55 years should do the trick for sure!
May as well, for all we should care. No skin off our back. But Fidel is unlikely to last that much longer, and this sort of regimes tend to change dramatically with each new Dear Leader.
Yeah, you'll love it. The girls in the worker's paradise are up to just about anything with a foreign tourist, who are all immeasurably wealthy by Cuban standards...
It does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.
Why the heck not, exactly? The evil needs to be destroyed — both to end it, and to discourage future evil. If we don't have the stomach to end it with a (military) surgery, we should continue with therapy.
Simply pretending, there is no decease in the first place is stupid — and dangerous.
We are pushing Russia towards collapse today — which is a good thing, indeed. Why let Cuba off the hook?
I am not sure. It is just that all evidence of racism, that has been brought to my attention in the 20+ years since I moved to this country, was bullshit.
treating different races differently is the essence of racism
Is that so? Is saying, that Blacks have more melanin in their skin, "racism"? No, you'll probably agree, that it is not.
How about saying, that a Black American is 4 times more likely to have grown up without father, than an Asian American? "Warmer", is not it — but still perfect truth...
The best way to see what exists is to change people's race and nothing else about them, and observe how things go.
Ah, but we do know other things about them — the likelihood of them to have grown-up fatherless is much higher. Which, in turn, makes them far more likely to be not right in the head... And this knowledge explains the first reaction to such strangers — until we do learn more about them.
The proposed experiment may show increased negativity towards "painted" characters, which will be interpreted as racism — incorrectly. Because to a racist anyone of the "inferior" race is inferior — even after they do get to know the individual, they'll still be thinking less of him, because of his race. But the initial reaction to skin color is not necessarily evidence of racism. Not at all.
He sees Asians doing "so well" and concludes that it must be some unfair racial advantage
No, I say nothing of the kind. I bring up the Asians' success in this still predominantly-White country as evidence, that the dominant race — the Whites — are not in fact racist. Or, if they are, it is not to the extent, that would explain the Blacks' high incarceration rates and low incomes.
so it is perfectly acceptable if they get deducted points for identifying as "Asian".
No, it is not at all acceptable — you pulled words out of thin air and are trying to attribute them to me. I don't think, it is acceptable in the slightest — but it is nonetheless done by the very people, who pretend to "fight racism"...
it is imaginary racism, cause Blacks SIMPLY ARE MORE PRONE TO CRIME.
You really are good with strawmen, aren't you? No, it is not because "Blacks are simply more prone to crime" — it is the people, who grew up fatherless, who are more prone to crime and are otherwise not right in the head. Whatever your race, not having a loving father when you grew up is a major handicap.
But blaming Whitey for the scandalous 67%-figure I quoted above is much harder, than accusing him of things unmeasurable and unverifiable.
Certainly not about English, because it would mean that a majority of English speaking population would usually talk mostly using words from a closely related language - that would be what, Frisian? - with English accent and grammar.
It does not have to be "closely related" — you just need to have a sizable chunk of population fluent in it. Over the years Americans, for example, have borrowed plenty from Yidish ("potz", "schmuck", "boychik"), Russian ("da"), Italian ("capish?").
Centuries ago, when the good Cardinal was establishing Académie française, he did it to fight for the purity of the language — would anyone had bothered, if the phenomenon you are disputing did not, in fact, exist?
It doesn't work for Russian at all, Russians don't usually mix their language
That's because today's Russians rarely know another languages, while all other peoples from the (thankfully — USSR) know Russian fairly well. 200 years ago Russian elite spoke French a lot — entire pages of "War and World" consists of dialogs in the language. Various French words were borrowed ("tuzhurka", "amicachon"). Before then — during Peter I, came Dutch words like "galstuk" and "zontik", which Ukrainian also borrowed, but from different direction: "kravatka" (cravat) and "parasolka" (parasol).
English has a similar dominance today and words like "router", "avatar", "account", "website" are already firmly in Russian vernacular.
Living in the US today, most Russian-speakers easily slip into English and back in their speech — sometimes in mid-sentence. I'm sure, you can notice the same in Germany. And not just Russians — riding the train every morning I sometimes hear a person talking on the phone in a completely foreign (to me) language suddenly speaking into English for a few phrases and then go back. It takes a conscientious effort to keep oneself talking in one language and most people don't bother.
Given that all Ukrainians grew up knowing Russian (even if against their will), it is not at all surprising, that the speech of most of them is "polluted" by it, just like the speech of those emigrants is polluted by the local languages.
Finally, even without the influence of languages of the neighbors, Russians are just as capable of ruining their own speech as anybody else: most, for example, confuse the verbs "dress" (odevat') and "put on" (nadevat').
But, despite all that, a Russian announcing his language, does not get snide responses about him probably not knowing it very well...
It's possible to be biased against one race and not others.
It is possible, I suppose, but it is rare. The typical text-book racist dislikes others because they are different from him — skin color, face-shape... Such equal-opportunity racist would treat all other races the same — if, indeed, it was the skin color, that formed the basis of his (irrational) negativity...
The prejudice becomes far less irrational, when it is based on the fact, that a man of a particular race is 3 times more likely to have grown up without a father — which, in turn, greatly increases the risk, he is not right in the head.
It is still unfair to the particular individual, but it is no longer irrational or even automatically wrong...
For the life of me I can't figure why you'd use that to support your claim that Asians don't suffer from racism...
They certainly do suffer from racism. The real racism of a system, that pretends to be anti-racism.
They do not, however, show any of the symptoms, for which the imaginary racism is usually blamed when failures of Blacks are discussed: they are not incarcerated disproportionally more often than others (heck, you can't even find them on the chart!) and their incomes aren't lower than those of Whites — quite the opposite, in fact...
Probably the fact that tons of us have tried to tell people this in our jobs in the past, but few have been able to put it as clearly and as succinctly as this, while still stating all the factors that play into it.
And this, in your opinion, is a problem unique to IT? Seriously?
For our cars, if we wanted function we'd all be driving minivans
Not at all. Minivans — and even most SUVs — drive like crap. And I don't mean engine — the suspension is nowhere near where it needs to be, to make driving enjoyable. None of them come with a manual transmission either — the command-line of driving — so, no...
There are people, who might choose a different model, because it comes in a particular color, but that falls into the "clothes style" category, which I already mentioned, anyway.
with stow-n-go seats.
This is an important consideration — and people do consider it. For example, I always preferred Volkswagens (and now that I've grown up — Audis) because their rear seats can be laid flat. A standard feature, whereas in BMW and Mercedes you have to pay extra for it (if it is available in the first place).
Which rules are those, that prohibit police from looking at one's front yard? They didn't enter any premises and whatever can be legally observed, can be recorded...
I don't understand, why... They didn't enter his house — they recorded his front door — and front yard. That ought to be Ok — whatever can be legally seen, can be legally recorded is the general principle.
A camera is just an extension for a policeman's eyes. Would it have been illegal for the department to post an officer in front of the man's house? No. So the camera standing there instead should be just as legal...
Because technology changes much more quickly than real world analogs
And yet, the functionality is still more important than a fad in (almost) all walks of life — with the exception of clothing styles, perhaps — not just in Information Technology...
Imaginary reality to "prove" imaginary racism. How fitting...
Hint: it ain't the skin-color. If "whitey" really were racist, Asians would've suffered from it too. But they are doing rather well. So well, in fact, that schools and colleges alike deduct points from applicants, who identify themselves as "Asians".
The most likely explanation is single-parenthood rate: children growing up with only a mother (which is still the overwhelming majority of single-"parent" households) are much likelier to grow up with problems live sucky lives — all human civilizations knew this and frowned upon unwed mothers. Not because "sex is a sin", as is the common Illiberal's strawman, but because bringing a child into this world without a loving father is a sin... Heck, we know it too!
For some reason, currently 67% of Black kids grow up in such families — compared with merely 17% of Asians and 25% of Whites... But only the KKKonservative Libertarians connect the dots.
Many people say that they speak Ukrainian. Most of them speak either an ugly mongrel
The same can be said about English and Russian — the two other languages I'm fluent in. From that I'd extrapolate, that all languages have this problem.
It may (or even may not) be lamentable, but that's not, what I wanted to talk about.
Whether it is biased against Obama is irrelevant to the point of whether or not we've had a record-low number of hurricanes. If you disputed that point, it could've made some sense for you to attack the site's credibility. But you conceded it instead. That you could not resist to attack the site anyway caused me to wonder...
not to mention how to interpret both graphs and what I wrote.
You claimed, we are now living through 40-year high of hurricanes world-wide. As evidence — sole evidence — you pointed at a chart, which ends not in 2014 or even 2013, but in 2005. Need I say more?
pre-packaged anecdote-based opinion
That there still people resorting to this sort of argument, nearly 200 years after a brilliant man made such fun of it, continues to amaze me...
But OK, so hurricane frequency is at a 30 year low in America.
If you don't dispute the message, why did you have to attack the messenger? Sigh...
World-wide, hurricanes, cyclones, & similar category 3+ storms are at a 40+ year high
The chart you linked to a) ends in 2005 (9 years ago!); b) does not suggest anything of the kind. The number of "named systems" peaked in the early 1930-ies, according to it, with spikes in 1968 and 1994 being below that of 80 years ago. Given the state of most of the world back then — and the quality of communications in particular — I am not at all surprised, we aren't even aware of some of the major storms hitting remote places in 1920-1950ies...
For example, according to Wikipedia Chavez High School in Houston is less than a quarter mile from chemical plants owned by Texas Petroleum, Denka Chemical, USS Chemical, and Goodyear Chemical. I'm going to say that's not a good outcome in my book.
Get a new book then. Because if the children live near those plants — such as because their parents work there and don't want too long a commute — they may as well study there.
That said, I think those decisions should be made at a local level
It is not any better at "local level" — the opportunities for graft and other abuses still exist, and the fundamental principle of the owner having full control of the property is still violated.
Are you out of your mind? Listen to me, Charlie. Get out of L.A. Now. Cause if there's one thing I know, it's that you never mess with Mother Nature, mother-inlaws, or mother-fucking Ukrainians.
Oh, it has quite a bit to do with frequency — if there are no hurricanes to begin with, for example, you can claim they have any intensity — such is one of the funkier properties of the empty set.
More seriously, here is a scientific write-up, which has the following to say about the 2004 study:
Furthermore, the idealized study of Knutson and Tuleya (2004) assumed the existence of hurricanes [emphasis mine] and then simulated how intense they would become. Thus, that study could not address the important question of the frequency of intense hurricanes.
If I assume the existence of unicorns, I too may be able to predict global warming's impact on the length of their horns...
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What do you mean? The country was then conquered within months by us. Saddam Hussein himself was then captured, tried publicly, and executed deservingly.
Seeing that happen, Muamar Qaddafi relented too — without costing us another dollar or a drop of blood.
That the current Administration managed to destroy those successes by pulling from Iraq too soon and hunting down Qaddafi on made-up pretexts is a shame, but that does not mean, the original plan was flawed.
The only alternatives to such slow suffocation are: a) military intervention; b) pretending, it is Ok. Which do you prefer?
Yes, exactly. They are as poor as a Socialist economy can be and, had it not been for Russia's support, would've collapsed long ago.
May as well, for all we should care. No skin off our back. But Fidel is unlikely to last that much longer, and this sort of regimes tend to change dramatically with each new Dear Leader.
Yeah, you'll love it. The girls in the worker's paradise are up to just about anything with a foreign tourist, who are all immeasurably wealthy by Cuban standards...
Why the heck not, exactly? The evil needs to be destroyed — both to end it, and to discourage future evil. If we don't have the stomach to end it with a (military) surgery, we should continue with therapy.
Simply pretending, there is no decease in the first place is stupid — and dangerous.
We are pushing Russia towards collapse today — which is a good thing, indeed. Why let Cuba off the hook?
I am not sure. It is just that all evidence of racism, that has been brought to my attention in the 20+ years since I moved to this country, was bullshit.
Is that so? Is saying, that Blacks have more melanin in their skin, "racism"? No, you'll probably agree, that it is not.
How about saying, that a Black American is 4 times more likely to have grown up without father, than an Asian American? "Warmer", is not it — but still perfect truth...
Ah, but we do know other things about them — the likelihood of them to have grown-up fatherless is much higher. Which, in turn, makes them far more likely to be not right in the head... And this knowledge explains the first reaction to such strangers — until we do learn more about them.
The proposed experiment may show increased negativity towards "painted" characters, which will be interpreted as racism — incorrectly. Because to a racist anyone of the "inferior" race is inferior — even after they do get to know the individual, they'll still be thinking less of him, because of his race. But the initial reaction to skin color is not necessarily evidence of racism. Not at all.
No, I say nothing of the kind. I bring up the Asians' success in this still predominantly-White country as evidence, that the dominant race — the Whites — are not in fact racist. Or, if they are, it is not to the extent, that would explain the Blacks' high incarceration rates and low incomes.
No, it is not at all acceptable — you pulled words out of thin air and are trying to attribute them to me. I don't think, it is acceptable in the slightest — but it is nonetheless done by the very people, who pretend to "fight racism"...
You really are good with strawmen, aren't you? No, it is not because "Blacks are simply more prone to crime" — it is the people, who grew up fatherless, who are more prone to crime and are otherwise not right in the head. Whatever your race, not having a loving father when you grew up is a major handicap.
But blaming Whitey for the scandalous 67%-figure I quoted above is much harder, than accusing him of things unmeasurable and unverifiable.
It does not have to be "closely related" — you just need to have a sizable chunk of population fluent in it. Over the years Americans, for example, have borrowed plenty from Yidish ("potz", "schmuck", "boychik"), Russian ("da"), Italian ("capish?").
Centuries ago, when the good Cardinal was establishing Académie française, he did it to fight for the purity of the language — would anyone had bothered, if the phenomenon you are disputing did not, in fact, exist?
That's because today's Russians rarely know another languages, while all other peoples from the (thankfully — USSR) know Russian fairly well. 200 years ago Russian elite spoke French a lot — entire pages of "War and World" consists of dialogs in the language. Various French words were borrowed ("tuzhurka", "amicachon"). Before then — during Peter I, came Dutch words like "galstuk" and "zontik", which Ukrainian also borrowed, but from different direction: "kravatka" (cravat) and "parasolka" (parasol).
English has a similar dominance today and words like "router", "avatar", "account", "website" are already firmly in Russian vernacular.
Living in the US today, most Russian-speakers easily slip into English and back in their speech — sometimes in mid-sentence. I'm sure, you can notice the same in Germany. And not just Russians — riding the train every morning I sometimes hear a person talking on the phone in a completely foreign (to me) language suddenly speaking into English for a few phrases and then go back. It takes a conscientious effort to keep oneself talking in one language and most people don't bother.
Given that all Ukrainians grew up knowing Russian (even if against their will), it is not at all surprising, that the speech of most of them is "polluted" by it, just like the speech of those emigrants is polluted by the local languages.
Finally, even without the influence of languages of the neighbors, Russians are just as capable of ruining their own speech as anybody else: most, for example, confuse the verbs "dress" (odevat') and "put on" (nadevat').
But, despite all that, a Russian announcing his language, does not get snide responses about him probably not knowing it very well...
It is possible, I suppose, but it is rare. The typical text-book racist dislikes others because they are different from him — skin color, face-shape... Such equal-opportunity racist would treat all other races the same — if, indeed, it was the skin color, that formed the basis of his (irrational) negativity...
The prejudice becomes far less irrational, when it is based on the fact, that a man of a particular race is 3 times more likely to have grown up without a father — which, in turn, greatly increases the risk, he is not right in the head.
It is still unfair to the particular individual, but it is no longer irrational or even automatically wrong...
They certainly do suffer from racism. The real racism of a system, that pretends to be anti-racism.
They do not, however, show any of the symptoms, for which the imaginary racism is usually blamed when failures of Blacks are discussed: they are not incarcerated disproportionally more often than others (heck, you can't even find them on the chart!) and their incomes aren't lower than those of Whites — quite the opposite, in fact...
And this, in your opinion, is a problem unique to IT? Seriously?
Whenever "bringing joy" is among the functions, more enjoyable means more functional.
Only if the objectives programmed in its algorithm(s) match mine. I'm yet to encounter a car, that is so programmed...
And my point was, that people, who do choose a sports(ier)-car and/or a 4x4, do so for reasons other than mere fad.
Not at all. Minivans — and even most SUVs — drive like crap. And I don't mean engine — the suspension is nowhere near where it needs to be, to make driving enjoyable. None of them come with a manual transmission either — the command-line of driving — so, no...
There are people, who might choose a different model, because it comes in a particular color, but that falls into the "clothes style" category, which I already mentioned, anyway.
This is an important consideration — and people do consider it. For example, I always preferred Volkswagens (and now that I've grown up — Audis) because their rear seats can be laid flat. A standard feature, whereas in BMW and Mercedes you have to pay extra for it (if it is available in the first place).
Which rules are those, that prohibit police from looking at one's front yard? They didn't enter any premises and whatever can be legally observed, can be recorded...
I don't understand, why... They didn't enter his house — they recorded his front door — and front yard. That ought to be Ok — whatever can be legally seen, can be legally recorded is the general principle.
A camera is just an extension for a policeman's eyes. Would it have been illegal for the department to post an officer in front of the man's house? No. So the camera standing there instead should be just as legal...
And yet, the functionality is still more important than a fad in (almost) all walks of life — with the exception of clothing styles, perhaps — not just in Information Technology...
What's so IT-specific about this maxim, that it warrants being on Slashdot? A slow news day?
Imaginary reality to "prove" imaginary racism. How fitting...
Hint: it ain't the skin-color. If "whitey" really were racist, Asians would've suffered from it too. But they are doing rather well. So well, in fact, that schools and colleges alike deduct points from applicants, who identify themselves as "Asians".
The most likely explanation is single-parenthood rate: children growing up with only a mother (which is still the overwhelming majority of single-"parent" households) are much likelier to grow up with problems live sucky lives — all human civilizations knew this and frowned upon unwed mothers. Not because "sex is a sin", as is the common Illiberal's strawman, but because bringing a child into this world without a loving father is a sin... Heck, we know it too!
For some reason, currently 67% of Black kids grow up in such families — compared with merely 17% of Asians and 25% of Whites... But only the KKKonservative Libertarians connect the dots.
The same can be said about English and Russian — the two other languages I'm fluent in. From that I'd extrapolate, that all languages have this problem.
It may (or even may not) be lamentable, but that's not, what I wanted to talk about.
Whether it is biased against Obama is irrelevant to the point of whether or not we've had a record-low number of hurricanes. If you disputed that point, it could've made some sense for you to attack the site's credibility. But you conceded it instead. That you could not resist to attack the site anyway caused me to wonder...
You claimed, we are now living through 40-year high of hurricanes world-wide. As evidence — sole evidence — you pointed at a chart, which ends not in 2014 or even 2013, but in 2005. Need I say more?
That there still people resorting to this sort of argument, nearly 200 years after a brilliant man made such fun of it, continues to amaze me...
If you don't dispute the message, why did you have to attack the messenger? Sigh...
The chart you linked to a) ends in 2005 (9 years ago!); b) does not suggest anything of the kind. The number of "named systems" peaked in the early 1930-ies, according to it, with spikes in 1968 and 1994 being below that of 80 years ago. Given the state of most of the world back then — and the quality of communications in particular — I am not at all surprised, we aren't even aware of some of the major storms hitting remote places in 1920-1950ies...
Get a new book then. Because if the children live near those plants — such as because their parents work there and don't want too long a commute — they may as well study there.
It is not any better at "local level" — the opportunities for graft and other abuses still exist, and the fundamental principle of the owner having full control of the property is still violated.
That's not zoning. You can still change your home into a business, if you wish.
Touche!
Oh, it has quite a bit to do with frequency — if there are no hurricanes to begin with, for example, you can claim they have any intensity — such is one of the funkier properties of the empty set.
More seriously, here is a scientific write-up, which has the following to say about the 2004 study:
If I assume the existence of unicorns, I too may be able to predict global warming's impact on the length of their horns...