It is not acceptable for someone who buys a desktop from MS to use Word, to be forced to use a MS server - these are completely different beasts, and there is not good reason why they should have to come from the same company
I think you're confused--or misinformed. As I type this message on slashdot I am sitting at work where, at the moment, I am writing a macro for MS Word. Guess where all our word files and macro templates are stored? A Samba server. It's free. Novell offers a competitor to MS Server. I believe Apple does (based on Samba). IBM does. How am I being forced to use a MS server (FreeBSD in use here if you were wondering).
Then the consumer can make a choice based on performance, rather than being forced to opt for an inferior product, simply because it's the only game in town.
We use OpenOffice for people who just write the occasional letter, and Word and WordPerfect for people who deal with incoming files (we get in a huge number of files). How am I being denied a choice here? WP, OpenOffice, Abi Word--they all support MS OFfice. What's the problem?
Even if this were true Apple is not a monopoly
Even *IF* it is true? Have you even used OS X and XP/2K (comparing roughly contemporary products)?
Nice try anonymous coward, did you even read my post? It's easy, painless, NOT HARD to uninstall windows media player, or, replace it with something else (winamp...quicktime...realplayer...there is no shortage of media players for windows)
First of all, it's easy to not install Windows Media Player, or replace it with another App. See "Program Access and Defaults" icon that is on the start menu!
Second, Microsoft is accused of leveraging its dominant position from PCs into low-end servers, the computers which provide core services to PCs in corporate networks.
The EU wants Microsoft to disclose more code to its competitors, to allow them to make sure their systems can work together with Microsoft's rather than being disadvantaged by Microsoft's dominant market position.
Why on Earth should microsoft have to do this? I just can think of no explanation why they should be FORCED to give away their code and secrets. If the EU forces this through, it's going to be the deathknell of traditional commercial software in Europe--will every other company who has a dominant App have to open the code or be given the boot from Europe?
And why is no one in Europe worried about Apple? OS X includes EVEN MORE apps than does Windows--the only difference is not as many people use OS X.
Moreover, since IE is no longer free in a post-XP world, its only a matter of time before Microsoft stops handing out free patches.
How do you figure? Well firstly, how do you figure that ie is no longer free in a post-xp world? I don't follow. Secondly, even IF that was true, how do you figure that IE is required for patches?
You can download anything you want incidentally--the wup interface is just that--a nice interfce. You can download individual patches (largely intended for corporate installs etc).
Run nmap against any MS product and cringe at the crap open by default. Run nessus against it and watch it die...
Ok, done and done. 3 open ports--135,139,445. All related to ms networking/domain functionality. Easy enough to manage the domain security and filesharing defaults. (w2k if you were wondering)
They are difficult to administer in any sane manner, lacking just basic command line control and scripting
Sorry, but there's a difference between "lacking" and "not knowing about." I'd be glad to point you to tons, and tons of information about the ms command line and scripting (ever heard of wsh? Apparently not!!) but I'm sure that a "seasoned network admin" knows how to use the interweb to search for this type of information (I recommend Google!)
where in MS land I am stuck with (Godhelpus) exchange/outlook/IE
Wow, do I even need to respond to your overwhelming ignorance/malevolence here?
I disagree. Property rights are at the very foundation of everything that America stands for. The right to own property, the right to sell, and the right to be protected from others who would seek to rob you. These are absolutely fundamental ideas not only to the US but to any other halfway decent country.
Your comment is the biggest load of BS I've ever heard.
For one thing, we have very, very exact records of the number of presses, what towns they were in, and roughly what they were printing. They are probably not available online, but if you go to a nearby university library I'd bet you can find it--I've written on this, so I'm sure I can dig up some sources for you if you like. Anyway, from the time Gutenberg invented the Printing Press, within 30 years, the Press had spread from Germany to Andalusia (the first Granadan printing press opened in 1485 IIRC--could be wrong about this date, but only by a couple years) and at the same time we have presses in the East as far as Hungary. In 1492 with the fall of Granada as part of the reconquista tens of thousands of Jews fled, many going to Istanbul (the Turkish pronunciation of Constantinople [puningly referred to in many Turkish texts as Islambul--or "Islam Abounding"]) thus we know that the first printing press in Istanbul opened in 1495. Let's not forget Caxton in England whose importance is HUGE.
So in conclusion, if you think Gutenberg held back the printing press, and are attempting to make some weak analogue to modern day patent IP disputes you suffer from the common slashdotitis--too much zeal and far, far too little knowledge. I would REALLY recommend reading some history of 1450-1500, it's one of my absolute favorite periods of history. Very great.
btw here's a thought for you--did you ever think that maybe it was BECAUSE of the Printing Guild that printing spread throughout Europe like wildfire? No, I'm sure you hadn't of that, because it's clear from your comments you know nothing about this period.
There are a number of differences between the Gutenberg Press and what MT the East Asians invented. Also, it is often claimed that MT came to Gutenberg from East Asia, and there is no evidence of this. From what I know, I would think that Gutenberg's type was an independent creation. There ARE other earlier examples of primitive European printing, I believe called Xylography (woodblock printing).
Just as an example--we know for sure that paper as a concept was invented in the East and slowly moved West largely via Arab traders and the Islamicate civilizations. Yet by the 15th century AD European paper was signifigantly better than Chinese paper at the same time (many scholars argue that this, and a literacy rate higher than anywhere else in the world are what made Gutenberg's Press a reality). Paper is a clear example of a technology which was invented in the East, moved West, and was improved (essentially made feasible) by the West. I simply don't see any analogues for MT.
I don't understand what your point is--are you saying that the Indian workers who have been fortunate enough to become educated and then snag well paying jobs are not making money by working? If you are, I'm afraid you need to take a serious look at economics both global, local, and international. You're working off very faulty and ignorant assumptions.
Let me guess... if you wanted to buy software/movies/a tv/a refrigerator/ANYTHING, you would find the place that had the best deal. Is this evil? Yet when companies hire the employees that offer a best deal they are evil?
You forget about the standard of living issue. Not to mention that America is still seen as a highly desirable place to be (at least by those living outside of Europe).
Then don't fly...if enough people had your concerns then airlines would lose business. Maybe you could even start your own airlines that's prime seller was NOT having video tapings. You could make a killing if anyone actually cares about this.
That's bull. Mac OS X only helps "just getting work done" if you're functionally computer illiterate.
Hmm. Consider this. What if each car was entirely different (like Linux boxen can be). Let's say there are NO standards. Gas pedal could be on the left or right. There could be a gas BUTTON on the steering wheel. Breaks could likewise be accessable via a lever. And that's assuming that you keep the same rough configuration (that is, driver sits on the left side [in the US]). Just imagine if every car you ever had to drive was radically different. THat's what Linux is like.
1) Focus-follows-mouse, always shunned by non-Unix systems and now even by Unix systems (OS X, GNOME) saves endless point-and-click strokes (find titlebar, click to focus)
Since when do you have to click the title bar of an app to focus to it? And since when has there not been a laucher/dock/etc (first one I used was in OS/2 however I'm sure they were around before that)
2) Fast cut/paste. Here again, the reviled behavior of X (highlight with left button, move to another window that focuses automatically, middle click where you want it to paste) saves incredible amounts of time versus the OS X or Windows behaviors (highlight with left button, hit CTRL-C, click on titlebar of destination window, click where you want to place cursor for paste, hit CTRL-V). The combination of focus-follows-mouse and keystroke-free copy/paste here again saves hours, not just minutes, when performing reptitious tasks.
It may save hours for you--but shouldn't the interface be irrelevant unless you're computer illiterature (your words, not mine). Personally, I get terribly frustrated when I'm trying to paste over something and end up accidentally clearing my clipboard buffer in oldschool X. I prefer windows/mac style (I have mice button bound to copy/paste actually--doesn't work NEARLY as well in X because of the issue I just cited).
6) Scriptability/rapid application development. Yes, the dreaded command line shell. Many of my most intense post-production tasks (i.e. laying out posters with their captions, borders, copyright notices, anti-aliasing, interpolating to proper sizes, etc.) are database driven and processed through command line tools like ImageMagick. etc etc
I'm not an AppleScript pro by anymeans, but from what I know, AppleScript is the exact functional equivalent of traditional unix style scripting tools. There's a macro recorder for one thing which is a GREAT feature that unixes have no equivalent too. In addition AppleScript can be used to control any applicationsm, to an incredible degree. I've worked in DTP, try searching for Quark AppleSCripts--the things some of them can do are AMAZING, IThink you'd be surprised. I hope that's not too techno-spiritual for you;)
Just to be clear--don't get me wrong, I'm very glad you like Linux. But I don't think most people even WANT the kind of control and variability that you need. It's all great for people like you and I, who hang out and slashdot and do this stuff for fun, to talk about the user experience, but from my work experiences, most of the people who use computers don't care about how they work--they just want them to be easy to use and to not break:p I'm sure you've seen a user befuddled when something changes slightly. One graphic designer I was helping recover email for last week couldn't figure out how to get into her netscale email because some of her settings had gotten trashed and the "mail" button (along with Composer, NAvigator on that little floating bar) were at the bottom of the screen instead of floating to the side where they had been..I had to show exactly where to click. To most people, computers are a tool and nothing more. Like I said earlier, can you imagine if all cars interior controls etc were totally designed by the whim of the moment?
He, he. No, it was because of term limits. Bill could have otherwise comfortably won a third term against Bush, and every GOPpy knows it, and that makes them mad as hell.
~shrug~ I guess we'll never know. But I doubt that. Look at post-Reagan. Reagan was enormously popular giving a rather unglamorous candidate the win. Clinton couldn't do that for Gore. So either Gore was just a terrible candidate (and looking at the candidate's this time around I wouldn't call him terrible:p) or Clinton wasn't as popular as you believe.
Hardly. If you examine the figures I linked to, roughly half of EU oil comes from Russia, plus considerable amounts from Africa.
You misunderstood--I was saying that of the European oil that the EU uses (I wasn't counting Russia as part of Europe, though that's up for debate) most of it comes to Norway, whose reserves are very limited.
BP's figures clearly disprove that.
What do they say? I can send you a number of links that say "over half" or "50%" or similar numbers (of European oil from middle east). I couldn't find where I remembered reading 60%, so I guess that was wrong. It doesn't seem to be at least 50% of oil though.
That's fresh, considering the US is still by far leading the world in oil consumption, with no end in sight.
Yep, we are the leading consumbers of oil. We're also by far the world's largest economy and producer of goods. If you look at Germany now, I believe around 30% of German electricity comes from nuclear sources, and around 65% from petroleum. Germany does a much better job of utilizing nuclear resources than US (US is under 20% nuclear). But, there will be no new German nuclear power plants, and many of the current ones are old--with what will they be replaced? You sound as I slapped you for suggesting that European oil usage would increase--that wasn't my intent, and I'm sorry..I'm just looking at the numbers and energy realities.
Your Magic Hat of Figures and Numbers must be defective
While I don't have a magical hat (sounds nice) I will make a concession, I mistyped. Replace with "almost all European oil imports come from middleeast"..A large portion of EU oil comes from within Europe, though those reserves (north sea--norway primarily) are slated to run dry within 40 years. The figures I've seen are ~60% (or more) of total EU oil consumption comes from the middleeast.
In fact, by far the biggest takers of Arab oil are Asian countries, but nobody's mad at them for that.
Mad? If you thought I was mad at Europe for oil consumption...I'm definitely not. and if I were, I would only be getting madder, becuase thanks to EU-aversion to nuclear oil usage is slated to multiply over the upcoming decades. I do think Oil is the curse of the middle east, but there's no changing that. The arab world will have to mature (and by that I mean politically--no more Saudis and monarchies) when oil runs out, so quite frankly I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
wrt to incest, while you are correct that it's an issue that most people find repulsive, you fail to address the issue of children. Children of incest often have many recessive gene trait problems. So what do you do, require an abortion if incestuous partners accidentally get pregnant? This of course totally ignores the problem of households where technically the age of consent has been reached--16 year old daughter..a parent who "fancies" her as you say--the parent's "right" to have sex with her? So would you want to raise the age of consent for children-parent relations given the domination/power over children that parents naturally have?
wrt to necro (lol is this offtopic..). So is a blowup doll a consenting adult? a corpse can neither consent nor object..it's not a person... no one gets harmed... this by your logic.
the point about consent. I'll explain it more fundamentally this time since you haven't gotten it yet. You say consent matters. Well to whom does consent matter? The law. The fact that the law MUST worry about consent means that the law must worry about sexual acts. So the law MUST concern itself with such acts.
So incest is ok between consenting adults? Necrophiliacs? The other "person" isn't exactly a person. So you see, it IS the business of law. By your own tacit admission that that consent is of interest to Law you bolster my point:)
UN is the most irrelevant organization ever created. It's unimportance is only rivalled bit it's ineffectualness.
t would have been quite presumtious to level Germany at that time
But military buildups such as what Hitler did were illegal by the terms of surrender? Would you have let Hitler slide?
Not every petty little dictator that wants to take over the world has any realistic chance or opportunity to do so. Striking him down at the very thought of it makes us no better than him, just stronger.
Hehe, that's true, or else Mr Niyazov would be out of office (Mr. Niyazov is a personal favorite of mine--search for his name of BBC [Turkmenistan]--REALLY funny stuff). Yet at the same time most of the petty despots don't break their terms of surrender after starting two largescale wars in a a ten year period.
I really don't see what the big deal is. CIA believes Uranium deal -> President uses it in a speech. Now we get "former" intelligence operatives saying there were doubts. Well the British foreign service has no doubts. We don't even know the truth _now_ so how can it be a lie? For it to be a lie you would have to assume that Bush preternaturally knew that the CIA would realize in several months time that there was no Uranium... impossible.
I never liked the way Iraq was associated with al-Qaeda. I don't know if it's true (heh, duh), it's definitely possible. It's definite that al-Qaeda worked within Iraq's borders, though with or without Baathist approval ~shrug~ It's also known that Baathist regime supprted Palestinian "terrorists". If by war on terror you mean war on al-Qaeda, then no, I don't think Iraq was a part of the war on terror. But that's not what the war on terror is--the war on terror goes against all rogue nations and all those who flout international law. Had Iraq had not maliciously and repeatedly broken their terms of surrender, Saddam would still be in power...
It was my understand that the library required a court order. IS this incorrect?
Updating. Things like the roving tap. This to me is a very Good Thing. technology changes (duh). As technology changes, law should not stand statically as criminals find ways to circumvent law. Thus the updating.
Enemy combatant. Padilla had been to Saudi and Afghanistan. As far as I know, everyone @ Guantanamo has been in Afghanistan. Padilla additionally has not been charged as an enemy combatant--he has simply not been charged (which is admittedly troubling). Honestly though, I have very, very little sympathy for Mr Padilla. He's been arrested countless times before, talked about making dirty bombs, and is known to have been in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. ~shrug~ Personally, I'm glad that he's locked up.
Personally I'm glad we're having a falling out with SA. I don't think we should have dealings with any bad regime like that.
Actually the places we're looking for oil and gas resources--Africa mainly. If you want to see who benefits from having Iraq functional again, look to Europe. almost all european oil comes from the middleeast.
I'm in the same situation. Use Open for Firewall computeres, Free for everything else. Stable and easy to maintain. The easy to maintain part is about the most important to me.
Slashdot Mirror
It is not acceptable for someone who buys a desktop from MS to use Word, to be forced to use a MS server - these are completely different beasts, and there is not good reason why they should have to come from the same company
I think you're confused--or misinformed. As I type this message on slashdot I am sitting at work where, at the moment, I am writing a macro for MS Word. Guess where all our word files and macro templates are stored? A Samba server. It's free. Novell offers a competitor to MS Server. I believe Apple does (based on Samba). IBM does. How am I being forced to use a MS server (FreeBSD in use here if you were wondering).
Then the consumer can make a choice based on performance, rather than being forced to opt for an inferior product, simply because it's the only game in town.
We use OpenOffice for people who just write the occasional letter, and Word and WordPerfect for people who deal with incoming files (we get in a huge number of files). How am I being denied a choice here? WP, OpenOffice, Abi Word--they all support MS OFfice. What's the problem?
Even if this were true Apple is not a monopoly
Even *IF* it is true? Have you even used OS X and XP/2K (comparing roughly contemporary products)?
Nice try anonymous coward, did you even read my post? It's easy, painless, NOT HARD to uninstall windows media player, or, replace it with something else (winamp...quicktime...realplayer...there is no shortage of media players for windows)
First of all, it's easy to not install Windows Media Player, or replace it with another App. See "Program Access and Defaults" icon that is on the start menu!
Second, Microsoft is accused of leveraging its dominant position from PCs into low-end servers, the computers which provide core services to PCs in corporate networks.
The EU wants Microsoft to disclose more code to its competitors, to allow them to make sure their systems can work together with Microsoft's rather than being disadvantaged by Microsoft's dominant market position.
Why on Earth should microsoft have to do this? I just can think of no explanation why they should be FORCED to give away their code and secrets. If the EU forces this through, it's going to be the deathknell of traditional commercial software in Europe--will every other company who has a dominant App have to open the code or be given the boot from Europe?
And why is no one in Europe worried about Apple? OS X includes EVEN MORE apps than does Windows--the only difference is not as many people use OS X.
Moreover, since IE is no longer free in a post-XP world, its only a matter of time before Microsoft stops handing out free patches.
How do you figure? Well firstly, how do you figure that ie is no longer free in a post-xp world? I don't follow. Secondly, even IF that was true, how do you figure that IE is required for patches?
You can download anything you want incidentally--the wup interface is just that--a nice interfce. You can download individual patches (largely intended for corporate installs etc).
You think wrong. As a seasoned network admin
Reaaally?
Run nmap against any MS product and cringe at the crap open by default. Run nessus against it and watch it die...
Ok, done and done. 3 open ports--135,139,445. All related to ms networking/domain functionality. Easy enough to manage the domain security and filesharing defaults. (w2k if you were wondering)
They are difficult to administer in any sane manner, lacking just basic command line control and scripting
Sorry, but there's a difference between "lacking" and "not knowing about." I'd be glad to point you to tons, and tons of information about the ms command line and scripting (ever heard of wsh? Apparently not!!) but I'm sure that a "seasoned network admin" knows how to use the interweb to search for this type of information (I recommend Google!)
where in MS land I am stuck with (Godhelpus) exchange/outlook/IE
Wow, do I even need to respond to your overwhelming ignorance/malevolence here?
I disagree. Property rights are at the very foundation of everything that America stands for. The right to own property, the right to sell, and the right to be protected from others who would seek to rob you. These are absolutely fundamental ideas not only to the US but to any other halfway decent country.
When the F**K did property rights become a "great american tradition"?!?
So I guess you don't care if I burn your house down, steal your car, or eat your food? After all, who cares about property rights?!
Your comment is the biggest load of BS I've ever heard.
For one thing, we have very, very exact records of the number of presses, what towns they were in, and roughly what they were printing. They are probably not available online, but if you go to a nearby university library I'd bet you can find it--I've written on this, so I'm sure I can dig up some sources for you if you like. Anyway, from the time Gutenberg invented the Printing Press, within 30 years, the Press had spread from Germany to Andalusia (the first Granadan printing press opened in 1485 IIRC--could be wrong about this date, but only by a couple years) and at the same time we have presses in the East as far as Hungary. In 1492 with the fall of Granada as part of the reconquista tens of thousands of Jews fled, many going to Istanbul (the Turkish pronunciation of Constantinople [puningly referred to in many Turkish texts as Islambul--or "Islam Abounding"]) thus we know that the first printing press in Istanbul opened in 1495. Let's not forget Caxton in England whose importance is HUGE.
So in conclusion, if you think Gutenberg held back the printing press, and are attempting to make some weak analogue to modern day patent IP disputes you suffer from the common slashdotitis--too much zeal and far, far too little knowledge. I would REALLY recommend reading some history of 1450-1500, it's one of my absolute favorite periods of history. Very great.
btw here's a thought for you--did you ever think that maybe it was BECAUSE of the Printing Guild that printing spread throughout Europe like wildfire? No, I'm sure you hadn't of that, because it's clear from your comments you know nothing about this period.
There are a number of differences between the Gutenberg Press and what MT the East Asians invented. Also, it is often claimed that MT came to Gutenberg from East Asia, and there is no evidence of this. From what I know, I would think that Gutenberg's type was an independent creation. There ARE other earlier examples of primitive European printing, I believe called Xylography (woodblock printing).
Just as an example--we know for sure that paper as a concept was invented in the East and slowly moved West largely via Arab traders and the Islamicate civilizations. Yet by the 15th century AD European paper was signifigantly better than Chinese paper at the same time (many scholars argue that this, and a literacy rate higher than anywhere else in the world are what made Gutenberg's Press a reality). Paper is a clear example of a technology which was invented in the East, moved West, and was improved (essentially made feasible) by the West. I simply don't see any analogues for MT.
I don't understand what your point is--are you saying that the Indian workers who have been fortunate enough to become educated and then snag well paying jobs are not making money by working? If you are, I'm afraid you need to take a serious look at economics both global, local, and international. You're working off very faulty and ignorant assumptions.
Let me guess... if you wanted to buy software/movies/a tv/a refrigerator/ANYTHING, you would find the place that had the best deal. Is this evil? Yet when companies hire the employees that offer a best deal they are evil?
You forget about the standard of living issue. Not to mention that America is still seen as a highly desirable place to be (at least by those living outside of Europe).
Then don't fly...if enough people had your concerns then airlines would lose business. Maybe you could even start your own airlines that's prime seller was NOT having video tapings. You could make a killing if anyone actually cares about this.
That's bull. Mac OS X only helps "just getting work done" if you're functionally computer illiterate.
Hmm. Consider this. What if each car was entirely different (like Linux boxen can be). Let's say there are NO standards. Gas pedal could be on the left or right. There could be a gas BUTTON on the steering wheel. Breaks could likewise be accessable via a lever. And that's assuming that you keep the same rough configuration (that is, driver sits on the left side [in the US]). Just imagine if every car you ever had to drive was radically different. THat's what Linux is like.
1) Focus-follows-mouse, always shunned by non-Unix systems and now even by Unix systems (OS X, GNOME) saves endless point-and-click strokes (find titlebar, click to focus)
Since when do you have to click the title bar of an app to focus to it? And since when has there not been a laucher/dock/etc (first one I used was in OS/2 however I'm sure they were around before that)
2) Fast cut/paste. Here again, the reviled behavior of X (highlight with left button, move to another window that focuses automatically, middle click where you want it to paste) saves incredible amounts of time versus the OS X or Windows behaviors (highlight with left button, hit CTRL-C, click on titlebar of destination window, click where you want to place cursor for paste, hit CTRL-V). The combination of focus-follows-mouse and keystroke-free copy/paste here again saves hours, not just minutes, when performing reptitious tasks.
It may save hours for you--but shouldn't the interface be irrelevant unless you're computer illiterature (your words, not mine). Personally, I get terribly frustrated when I'm trying to paste over something and end up accidentally clearing my clipboard buffer in oldschool X. I prefer windows/mac style (I have mice button bound to copy/paste actually--doesn't work NEARLY as well in X because of the issue I just cited).
6) Scriptability/rapid application development. Yes, the dreaded command line shell. Many of my most intense post-production tasks (i.e. laying out posters with their captions, borders, copyright notices, anti-aliasing, interpolating to proper sizes, etc.) are database driven and processed through command line tools like ImageMagick. etc etc
I'm not an AppleScript pro by anymeans, but from what I know, AppleScript is the exact functional equivalent of traditional unix style scripting tools. There's a macro recorder for one thing which is a GREAT feature that unixes have no equivalent too. In addition AppleScript can be used to control any applicationsm, to an incredible degree. I've worked in DTP, try searching for Quark AppleSCripts--the things some of them can do are AMAZING, IThink you'd be surprised. I hope that's not too techno-spiritual for you ;)
Just to be clear--don't get me wrong, I'm very glad you like Linux. But I don't think most people even WANT the kind of control and variability that you need. It's all great for people like you and I, who hang out and slashdot and do this stuff for fun, to talk about the user experience, but from my work experiences, most of the people who use computers don't care about how they work--they just want them to be easy to use and to not break :p I'm sure you've seen a user befuddled when something changes slightly. One graphic designer I was helping recover email for last week couldn't figure out how to get into her netscale email because some of her settings had gotten trashed and the "mail" button (along with Composer, NAvigator on that little floating bar) were at the bottom of the screen instead of floating to the side where they had been..I had to show exactly where to click. To most people, computers are a tool and nothing more. Like I said earlier, can you imagine if all cars interior controls etc were totally designed by the whim of the moment?
He, he. No, it was because of term limits. Bill could have otherwise comfortably won a third term against Bush, and every GOPpy knows it, and that makes them mad as hell.
~shrug~ I guess we'll never know. But I doubt that. Look at post-Reagan. Reagan was enormously popular giving a rather unglamorous candidate the win. Clinton couldn't do that for Gore. So either Gore was just a terrible candidate (and looking at the candidate's this time around I wouldn't call him terrible :p) or Clinton wasn't as popular as you believe.
Ok, so more or less I guess we will just agree (or not) to disagree ;)
Out of curiosity, is abortion a woman's right to choose or a foetus's right to live?
Hardly. If you examine the figures I linked to, roughly half of EU oil comes from Russia, plus considerable amounts from Africa.
You misunderstood--I was saying that of the European oil that the EU uses (I wasn't counting Russia as part of Europe, though that's up for debate) most of it comes to Norway, whose reserves are very limited.
BP's figures clearly disprove that.
What do they say? I can send you a number of links that say "over half" or "50%" or similar numbers (of European oil from middle east). I couldn't find where I remembered reading 60%, so I guess that was wrong. It doesn't seem to be at least 50% of oil though.
That's fresh, considering the US is still by far leading the world in oil consumption, with no end in sight.
Yep, we are the leading consumbers of oil. We're also by far the world's largest economy and producer of goods. If you look at Germany now, I believe around 30% of German electricity comes from nuclear sources, and around 65% from petroleum. Germany does a much better job of utilizing nuclear resources than US (US is under 20% nuclear). But, there will be no new German nuclear power plants, and many of the current ones are old--with what will they be replaced? You sound as I slapped you for suggesting that European oil usage would increase--that wasn't my intent, and I'm sorry..I'm just looking at the numbers and energy realities.
Well, we do agree on one thing.
My faith in humanity is restored ;)
Your Magic Hat of Figures and Numbers must be defective
While I don't have a magical hat (sounds nice) I will make a concession, I mistyped. Replace with "almost all European oil imports come from middleeast"..A large portion of EU oil comes from within Europe, though those reserves (north sea--norway primarily) are slated to run dry within 40 years. The figures I've seen are ~60% (or more) of total EU oil consumption comes from the middleeast.
In fact, by far the biggest takers of Arab oil are Asian countries, but nobody's mad at them for that.
Mad? If you thought I was mad at Europe for oil consumption...I'm definitely not. and if I were, I would only be getting madder, becuase thanks to EU-aversion to nuclear oil usage is slated to multiply over the upcoming decades. I do think Oil is the curse of the middle east, but there's no changing that. The arab world will have to mature (and by that I mean politically--no more Saudis and monarchies) when oil runs out, so quite frankly I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
what about adultery? Make it legal?
wrt to incest, while you are correct that it's an issue that most people find repulsive, you fail to address the issue of children. Children of incest often have many recessive gene trait problems. So what do you do, require an abortion if incestuous partners accidentally get pregnant? This of course totally ignores the problem of households where technically the age of consent has been reached--16 year old daughter..a parent who "fancies" her as you say--the parent's "right" to have sex with her? So would you want to raise the age of consent for children-parent relations given the domination/power over children that parents naturally have?
wrt to necro (lol is this offtopic..). So is a blowup doll a consenting adult? a corpse can neither consent nor object..it's not a person... no one gets harmed... this by your logic.
the point about consent. I'll explain it more fundamentally this time since you haven't gotten it yet. You say consent matters. Well to whom does consent matter? The law. The fact that the law MUST worry about consent means that the law must worry about sexual acts. So the law MUST concern itself with such acts.
So incest is ok between consenting adults? Necrophiliacs? The other "person" isn't exactly a person. So you see, it IS the business of law. By your own tacit admission that that consent is of interest to Law you bolster my point :)
UN is the most irrelevant organization ever created. It's unimportance is only rivalled bit it's ineffectualness.
t would have been quite presumtious to level Germany at that time
But military buildups such as what Hitler did were illegal by the terms of surrender? Would you have let Hitler slide?
Not every petty little dictator that wants to take over the world has any realistic chance or opportunity to do so. Striking him down at the very thought of it makes us no better than him, just stronger.
Hehe, that's true, or else Mr Niyazov would be out of office (Mr. Niyazov is a personal favorite of mine--search for his name of BBC [Turkmenistan]--REALLY funny stuff). Yet at the same time most of the petty despots don't break their terms of surrender after starting two largescale wars in a a ten year period.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3061665.stm
... impossible.
Well doesn't that mire the situation?
I really don't see what the big deal is. CIA believes Uranium deal -> President uses it in a speech. Now we get "former" intelligence operatives saying there were doubts. Well the British foreign service has no doubts. We don't even know the truth _now_ so how can it be a lie? For it to be a lie you would have to assume that Bush preternaturally knew that the CIA would realize in several months time that there was no Uranium
I never liked the way Iraq was associated with al-Qaeda. I don't know if it's true (heh, duh), it's definitely possible. It's definite that al-Qaeda worked within Iraq's borders, though with or without Baathist approval ~shrug~ It's also known that Baathist regime supprted Palestinian "terrorists". If by war on terror you mean war on al-Qaeda, then no, I don't think Iraq was a part of the war on terror. But that's not what the war on terror is--the war on terror goes against all rogue nations and all those who flout international law. Had Iraq had not maliciously and repeatedly broken their terms of surrender, Saddam would still be in power...
It was my understand that the library required a court order. IS this incorrect?
Updating. Things like the roving tap. This to me is a very Good Thing. technology changes (duh). As technology changes, law should not stand statically as criminals find ways to circumvent law. Thus the updating.
Enemy combatant. Padilla had been to Saudi and Afghanistan. As far as I know, everyone @ Guantanamo has been in Afghanistan. Padilla additionally has not been charged as an enemy combatant--he has simply not been charged (which is admittedly troubling). Honestly though, I have very, very little sympathy for Mr Padilla. He's been arrested countless times before, talked about making dirty bombs, and is known to have been in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. ~shrug~ Personally, I'm glad that he's locked up.
Personally I'm glad we're having a falling out with SA. I don't think we should have dealings with any bad regime like that.
Actually the places we're looking for oil and gas resources--Africa mainly. If you want to see who benefits from having Iraq functional again, look to Europe. almost all european oil comes from the middleeast.
I'm in the same situation. Use Open for Firewall computeres, Free for everything else. Stable and easy to maintain. The easy to maintain part is about the most important to me.