Well, you're partially correct, I am not a lawyer, I however fail to see the relevance of the comment. Are you the pot calling the kettle black?
Having said that, I would guess what you're thinking of is the False Claims Act of the civil war? (assuming that is what you are thinking of...) you then go on to admit that the corpus of "whistleblowing laws" (a term that I think you will have trouble finding before circa 1970) have been modified (indeed, largely created--from a prior base yes, but so are most laws) in the past 3 decades. You also apparently forgot the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002. There's a reason so-called whistleblowing cases have become much more prominent in the past two decades--it's because of news laws and standards.
it's a tiny minority outside the US (1% I'd guess.. seems to be near 100% of christians in the US.. didn't one state mandate teaching it as science? Scary stuff...).
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental (or even mainstream semi-educated) Islamic views on evolution? What about tribal Africa religious views? What about South American religious? What about fundamental Christians in Africa? I guarantee you that many, many people across the world have never heard of evolution, would think it's nonsense, and/or disbelieve it today. But that is neither here nor there.
Seems to be near 100% of Christians in the US? Well, something like 80-90% of Americans would identify themselves as Christians. Even non-observant ones. Not like in Europe. I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this. Anyways, long story short, there's NO WAY anywhere remotely near 100% of Christians believe the Earth was created 6000 years ago. I have no idea how many people actually believe that, but I can say I went through public schools in North Carolina (ie, Bible Belt!) and never met a fellow student who has believed that. Didn't one state mandate it? definitely not. Arguments have been made over whether religious views (ie, 6000 years, intelligent design, etc) are even ALLOWED to be taught in schools, not mandated.
I know as an American, I find almost every BBC article that touches on faith in the US as blatantly wrong. Hah, it's kind of like modern-orientalism. We can't really get past our biases and our own preconceptions and our own beliefs. It's easy to see the US as a seething hotbed of fundamentalism. Compared to Europe, maybe so. Compared to many parts of the world, definitely not.
And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own.
I basically agree with your thoughts. However to me it's also a question of freedom of expression. Also, incumbents always want it to be harder to give money--incumbents have a huge out of the gate advantage, and less money makes it harder for new comers to take out incumbents. This can be good or bad, depending on your party, and the decade;)
Power is, to some degree, like a zero sum game. Political donations influence elected officials. The purchase of influence dilutes the influence of voters, and is hence anti-democratic.
So should we be complaining about teacher's unions? Labor unions? Environmental advocacy groups? They all dilute individual influence as well. My problem with both your, and the grandparents argument is the typical double-standards--ie, big Labor is fine, but big business is evil. If you're against both, fine by me. Personally I think anyone, and any organization should be able to use whatever they want--so long as records are open.
It's unfortunate you seem to hold most dearly those values related to the Nazi revolution. Unfortunately, I don't like settling for that kind of freedom.
What, a national socialism? I don't think that's what the parent was advocating at all.
If I'm blocked from attending a town hall meeting put on by my President because I'm a Democrat, I'm not very free.
So you think the government should control who is allowed to meet with whom? No freedom of assembly? Hmm.. that doesn't sound very free to me.
If elections can be decided by a court, I'm not very free.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here--I can only assume you're referring to Florida. The election was not decided by judges. Read the decision (the *7-2* decision). You clearly don't understand what happened (not to mention that later recounts of florida ballots prove Bush won).
If neoconservatives can threaten to impeach judges because they don't decide cases based on religious contrine, I'm not very free.
So "neoconservatives" aren't allowed to practice politics because you disagree with them? People who disagree with you aren't allowed their opinions? Gosh, that doesn't sound free by any definition I know. Not to mention, it seems somewhat ironic to me that you find ELECTED OFFICIALS who represent the will of the voters who elected them more a problem than unelected judges. Could it be you don't REALLY care?
If big businesses can invest their money wisely enough to buy off a Congress, I'm not very free. (See the energy, telecommunications, defense, highway bills.)
I don't get it? You're complaining because the economic well-being of companies is debated by congress? I'm don't get it.
If oil companies formerly run by our Vice President get no-bid contracts and take over Iraqi oil fields, I'm not very free.
I don't get it again. Halliburton did NOT take over the Iraqi oilfields, that's a deliberate deception. Also, I might ask, without googling or otherwise research, can you tell me one company that might have gotten some of the contracts halliburton got?
If the government office in charge of investigating abuses of power (like those no-bid contracts) say they're "too busy" to investigate Cheney, despite having three times the case load when they approved a Clinton investigation, I'm not very free.
I actually don't see how that limits your freedom at all. And I reject your assertions.
If my uncle down south, along with others, is asked to leave his church because he's a card-carrying Democrat, I'm not very free.
Gosh, so now you want the GOVERNMENT to control churches too?? It seems to me that what you really want is a country where everyone has to act exactly like you. Pretty typical of the left--we have to be tolerant of everyone except those who disagree with us. And for what it's worth I'm from North Carolina, and I would guess the only (or one of VERY few) registered republicans at my church (which I quite irregularly attend). I think you have an insane vision of what the south is like.
If wealthy people get billions of dollars and, as a result, we cripple state budgets and tens of thousands of people die because of a Hurricane, I'm not very free.
If wealthy people get billions of dollars, and as a result, we crippe state budgets, blah blah blah. This my friend, is a non-sequitur. If you wonder why the levies broke, look to the corrupt local government in Louisiana (coincidentally, both state and New Orleans are dominated by democrats). The Levy committees didn't even use their full matching federal funds. Besides which, how does Louisiana's choice affect YOUR freedom? Doesn't make sense!
The truth is, honest to God, I'd trade in my copy of "My Struggle" if it reversed all those things. Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. The
Maybe internet forums would have fewer stupid posts if people read articles instead of just emotionally spouting off, kay?
The women (at least one of them) fowarded the emails to multiple people, drawing others into the situation. The whole thing in fact STARTED with a mass email. Thanks for railing against big brother though, you're doing a great job!
You're right about masons--nothing about being a mason says you HAVE to be a christian or you have to NOT be a christian. That was my only point. They have masonic lodges across the world--one was actually bombed in Turkey a few years ago (it was seen as un-Islamic).
Sigh, the exact same thing happened to me, except it was a non-google search engine (I forget which) that explicitly disobeyed robots.txt. Ditto as to my fault. Still annoying.
Some of them were Christians. Some were deists. Some were out right atheists. Just as the grandparent shouldn't make vast generalizations neither should you. How do you classify someone such as Jefferson? Jefferson was by most accounts a deist. Is he Christian? He published a red letter edition of the new testament in which all of Jesus's moral teachings were well--highlighted in red. Yet he ignored the "mystical" elements. So was he religious or not? depends on your definition of religion mroe than anything.
Ever read the Declaration of Independence?
You are basically right--the Constitution and future government of the US was meant to be free of religion, and to protect freedom of religion. This does not mean that many of the founding fathers were not deeply religious men, nor that religion was universally reviled.
I'm also curious about your point about "no religion could gain so much power that it could encroach upon any other religion." What about anti-semitic laws, catholic/protestant anti-miscegenation laws, and more, that we've had for years? Until relatively recently even.
One must remember that the early American context was largely white (of Western European extraction), male, protestant. Other groups come into prominence later--be they black slaves, women, Irish, Catholics, Italians, Jews, etc.
This is not to disagree with your basic point, but I would take issue with many of your assumptions (and incidentally, you've been reading too much Davinci Code with regards to masons--my grandfather was a mason, and the man attended church every week of his life--what's the correlation? none..read about freemasonry and you'll see what I mean)
Re: Complacent--you posted the definition... thanks, I appreciate it. I don't see how that applies to the US government OR people.
Re: Isolationism. If you had read the link you posted you would see that the isolationism you love to refer to does not refer to ignoring everything else. It rather refers to policies laid out in Washington's farewell speech--avoiding entangling alliances with European powers. A policy of neutrality, much like Switzlerand (those bastards, right? They clearly hate the rest of the world..Damn red cross and neutrality).
Re: Marshall plan. Germany was the aggressor, let's not forget that. The US stayed out of the war for years, while Europe was wrecked. the Marshall plan helped to rebuild ALL of Europe. Not just the victors, not just the defeated.
The US had been supporting elements in Vietnam since WW2. The war was a continuation of that support, with the added factor of the Soviet backed north. That's it.
Who did we help in Korea? Well, why don't you go to South Korea and ask that question, and then go a few miles north and ask that question again. How self-righteous can you be? Just because you have high-minded (but unrealistic) ideals, I can't believe you honestly believe North Korea is better off than the South?
I appreciate the links to the per capita prison info. I didn't know aobut that which is why I asked. I would be somewhat curious as to the accuracy of numbers of other countries, but vis a vis Western Europe I'm not surprised. Thanks.
Ok, re definition of invented--I'm not aware of any evidence that Russia got nuke tech from us--would you care to share? Something can surely be invented multiple times, if there was no sharing. You're right about China, they got it from leaks.
You know, you really are welcome to go live anywhere you like. I'm not saying this as "If you hate us so much, go somewhere else" but you seem a recently intelligent (if horribly illogical and misinformed) person who's made some real choices about right and wrong, good and bad. So I say, why don't you go try living somewhere else?
What has America done? Well, you're clearly not interested in the answer to this question, so I won't even mention the vast amounts of international aid given every year.
I'll just go directly to refute your points. The US people may be many things, but they are neither sheep nor complacent. I'm not sure you understand the meaning of complacent if you call Americans complacement.
Next, the US was by no means isolationist until the second world war. There was a first world war you know? We participated in that too. There was the Marshall plan after WW2 you know--I'd be interested in seeing what Europe today would be without that (you aren't in one of the countries rebuilt by the Marshall plan are you?).
Kill people in Vietnam? After being begged to go in by the Vietnamese... Killed people in Korea? Yes, the UN did go in Korea, you're right. Killed people in Iraq? Yes, the UN did go in Iraq, you're right. Killed people all over South american--of all your criticisms of American foreign policy this is probably the closest to having a point, thoguh i notice you don't blame the communists who funded insurgent rebel groups across the continet for causing bloodshead? Lead the world in prison population per capita? Figures please? Invent nuclear weapons? Yes, we did invent them, as did China, maybe the Germans, the Russians, and others. Your facts are simply wrong if you think the US had anything to do with Israel going nuclear--many of these records are now available, and much of the initial material was actually from Britain. US had no part in the early days of Israel.
The US almost destroyed the planet? Huh, Idon't remember that. You can just as well say the USSR almost destroyed the planet. Either way it's nonsenisical. What Big Ron did was force the USSR to quick economic collapse, that has seen countries frok Georgia to Ukraine to Poland find freedom in the ensuing decade.
Do I consider Survivor or American Idol to be accomplishments? Me personlaly, no? But given the number of people who want American TV worldwide, yes, I would have to. And besides, both of those TV shows derive from British shows, so your ideas are off their too.
If you go to a college to party, then you are letting your valueable money go to waste and I'm fine with that because its not my money.
I find it somewhat ironic that while lecturing a poster on the benefits of a good education and not wasting money you manage to misspell valuable... but that is neither here nor there.
I also find your histrionic quote that "'the' library has a very restricted westernized style of handling information" rather absurd. Libraries aren't a "western" invention you know. Libraries aren't even repositories of solely "western" information! If you've ever been to a good library, you would realize this--check out any major university's library. For instance, in Chicago, at the University of Chicago, if you just walk around the stacks, you're just as likely to find a book in Arabic or Persian or Turkish as you are in French or German or English--or any number of other languages. This is the case at most of the country's great libraries. The Internet may have more diversity of information than a single library (though I would not necessarily agree with this) but any library allows you access via microfiche, other libraries, electronic resources, newspapers, archives, stacks, foreign language resources, to a vastly wider and infinitely deeper source of human knowledge and learning.
In addition, you act as if libraries are caught in the 12th century. Libraries across the country have been investing a huge amount of money into electronic access of library items, and better searching and the like. In fact you know what--you can use the Internet AT the library!!
Portability is certainly a huge plus for electronic resources, as is the ability to easily search, save references, etc. It's good that you are happy with the state of electronic texts, but until more people are, books aren't going anywhere--this has nothing to do with the fact that you "know the technology." It's been my personal experience (a study on this would be interesting actually) that classmates of mine when I was in school who read texts on the computer versus printed out (reserve texts have been available as PDFs at my scools' libraries--and I'm sure many, many others--for years now) generally had much better data retention. Make of it what you will, but that's my experience.
The Internet is an excellent way of distributing information, but it is neither a library nor an archive, nor intended to be.
Personally I await the day when an ebook is indistinguishable from a real book, but with the ability to change the text on the page on the fly.
You can argue all you want, but you cast Google into an unfair light
I can't help but wonder if you're reading what I'm writing? I'm not making ANY moral judgements! I'm not saying google is bad, I'm not saying google and microsoft are equivalent.
I'm merely saying that this one particular practice is strikingly similiar for both companies.
And we'll see about IE7. But I DO fail to see how microsoft releasing a new version of IE is "only to keep their portion of the market locked in" while google releasing products free ISN'T to get people locked in.
(For the records, I'm a GOOG whore too--gmail, google maps etc [though acutally I find google maps gives the worst directions out of yahoo maps/mapquest]... but I don't see the point in applying such morality / value judgements to the actions of corporations...it's a company, that's it!)
I'm not at all saying google and microsoft are comparable.
But I am saying that this particular aspect of both companies is like the pot calling the kettle black. Both corporations buy other companies and release their tech for free, in order to eliminate competition.
I'm not placing any moral value on either one.
And incidentally, MS invented "AJAX" and has not said that IE7 will not feature improved CSS support. The BETA doesn't.
Ok, so Google is allowed to buy companies and then give the products away for free.
And yet Microsoft giving away IE for free is different how? (well, because it came with windows).
but seriously, I don't get it. Google can come into diverse markets and because of their money from advertising, just release free software (software which I might add isn't cross platform..just like MS!)
Yeah--and tabs--it was an actual tab that you physically moved to set tab stops where the carriage would "fall" stop at.
I got a typewriter from my grandfather that he had gotten in the 1930's I believe. Incredibly heavy, built like a tank, he used it for literally 60 years, several times a week.
Slashdot Mirror
I based my comment on http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches _quote05.html which at the very least is a quite interesting read.
Well, you're partially correct, I am not a lawyer, I however fail to see the relevance of the comment. Are you the pot calling the kettle black?
Having said that, I would guess what you're thinking of is the False Claims Act of the civil war? (assuming that is what you are thinking of...) you then go on to admit that the corpus of "whistleblowing laws" (a term that I think you will have trouble finding before circa 1970) have been modified (indeed, largely created--from a prior base yes, but so are most laws) in the past 3 decades. You also apparently forgot the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002. There's a reason so-called whistleblowing cases have become much more prominent in the past two decades--it's because of news laws and standards.
You think whistleblower laws are 50 years old? hahhaha
it's a tiny minority outside the US (1% I'd guess.. seems to be near 100% of christians in the US.. didn't one state mandate teaching it as science? Scary stuff...).
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental (or even mainstream semi-educated) Islamic views on evolution? What about tribal Africa religious views? What about South American religious? What about fundamental Christians in Africa? I guarantee you that many, many people across the world have never heard of evolution, would think it's nonsense, and/or disbelieve it today. But that is neither here nor there.
Seems to be near 100% of Christians in the US? Well, something like 80-90% of Americans would identify themselves as Christians. Even non-observant ones. Not like in Europe. I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this. Anyways, long story short, there's NO WAY anywhere remotely near 100% of Christians believe the Earth was created 6000 years ago. I have no idea how many people actually believe that, but I can say I went through public schools in North Carolina (ie, Bible Belt!) and never met a fellow student who has believed that. Didn't one state mandate it? definitely not. Arguments have been made over whether religious views (ie, 6000 years, intelligent design, etc) are even ALLOWED to be taught in schools, not mandated.
I know as an American, I find almost every BBC article that touches on faith in the US as blatantly wrong. Hah, it's kind of like modern-orientalism. We can't really get past our biases and our own preconceptions and our own beliefs. It's easy to see the US as a seething hotbed of fundamentalism. Compared to Europe, maybe so. Compared to many parts of the world, definitely not.
And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own.
I basically agree with your thoughts. However to me it's also a question of freedom of expression. Also, incumbents always want it to be harder to give money--incumbents have a huge out of the gate advantage, and less money makes it harder for new comers to take out incumbents. This can be good or bad, depending on your party, and the decade ;)
Incidentally, this site is always very interesting to me: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/index.asp. A lot of things I wouldn't necessarily expect...
cheers
Power is, to some degree, like a zero sum game. Political donations influence elected officials.
The purchase of influence dilutes the influence of voters, and is hence anti-democratic.
So should we be complaining about teacher's unions? Labor unions? Environmental advocacy groups? They all dilute individual influence as well. My problem with both your, and the grandparents argument is the typical double-standards--ie, big Labor is fine, but big business is evil. If you're against both, fine by me. Personally I think anyone, and any organization should be able to use whatever they want--so long as records are open.
It's unfortunate you seem to hold most dearly those values related to the Nazi revolution. Unfortunately, I don't like settling for that kind of freedom.
What, a national socialism? I don't think that's what the parent was advocating at all.
If I'm blocked from attending a town hall meeting put on by my President because I'm a Democrat, I'm not very free.
So you think the government should control who is allowed to meet with whom? No freedom of assembly? Hmm.. that doesn't sound very free to me.
If elections can be decided by a court, I'm not very free.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here--I can only assume you're referring to Florida. The election was not decided by judges. Read the decision (the *7-2* decision). You clearly don't understand what happened (not to mention that later recounts of florida ballots prove Bush won).
If neoconservatives can threaten to impeach judges because they don't decide cases based on religious contrine, I'm not very free.
So "neoconservatives" aren't allowed to practice politics because you disagree with them? People who disagree with you aren't allowed their opinions? Gosh, that doesn't sound free by any definition I know. Not to mention, it seems somewhat ironic to me that you find ELECTED OFFICIALS who represent the will of the voters who elected them more a problem than unelected judges. Could it be you don't REALLY care?
If big businesses can invest their money wisely enough to buy off a Congress, I'm not very free. (See the energy, telecommunications, defense, highway bills.)
I don't get it? You're complaining because the economic well-being of companies is debated by congress? I'm don't get it.
If oil companies formerly run by our Vice President get no-bid contracts and take over Iraqi oil fields, I'm not very free.
I don't get it again. Halliburton did NOT take over the Iraqi oilfields, that's a deliberate deception. Also, I might ask, without googling or otherwise research, can you tell me one company that might have gotten some of the contracts halliburton got?
If the government office in charge of investigating abuses of power (like those no-bid contracts) say they're "too busy" to investigate Cheney, despite having three times the case load when they approved a Clinton investigation, I'm not very free.
I actually don't see how that limits your freedom at all. And I reject your assertions.
If my uncle down south, along with others, is asked to leave his church because he's a card-carrying Democrat, I'm not very free.
Gosh, so now you want the GOVERNMENT to control churches too?? It seems to me that what you really want is a country where everyone has to act exactly like you. Pretty typical of the left--we have to be tolerant of everyone except those who disagree with us. And for what it's worth I'm from North Carolina, and I would guess the only (or one of VERY few) registered republicans at my church (which I quite irregularly attend). I think you have an insane vision of what the south is like.
If wealthy people get billions of dollars and, as a result, we cripple state budgets and tens of thousands of people die because of a Hurricane, I'm not very free.
If wealthy people get billions of dollars, and as a result, we crippe state budgets, blah blah blah. This my friend, is a non-sequitur. If you wonder why the levies broke, look to the corrupt local government in Louisiana (coincidentally, both state and New Orleans are dominated by democrats). The Levy committees didn't even use their full matching federal funds. Besides which, how does Louisiana's choice affect YOUR freedom? Doesn't make sense!
The truth is, honest to God, I'd trade in my copy of "My Struggle" if it reversed all those things. Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. The
Maybe internet forums would have fewer stupid posts if people read articles instead of just emotionally spouting off, kay?
The women (at least one of them) fowarded the emails to multiple people, drawing others into the situation. The whole thing in fact STARTED with a mass email. Thanks for railing against big brother though, you're doing a great job!
but...
Is slashcode slashdotted??
You're right about masons--nothing about being a mason says you HAVE to be a christian or you have to NOT be a christian. That was my only point. They have masonic lodges across the world--one was actually bombed in Turkey a few years ago (it was seen as un-Islamic).
Sigh, the exact same thing happened to me, except it was a non-google search engine (I forget which) that explicitly disobeyed robots.txt. Ditto as to my fault. Still annoying.
Thank god for backups..
Some of them were Christians. Some were deists. Some were out right atheists. Just as the grandparent shouldn't make vast generalizations neither should you. How do you classify someone such as Jefferson? Jefferson was by most accounts a deist. Is he Christian? He published a red letter edition of the new testament in which all of Jesus's moral teachings were well--highlighted in red. Yet he ignored the "mystical" elements. So was he religious or not? depends on your definition of religion mroe than anything.
Ever read the Declaration of Independence?
You are basically right--the Constitution and future government of the US was meant to be free of religion, and to protect freedom of religion. This does not mean that many of the founding fathers were not deeply religious men, nor that religion was universally reviled.
I'm also curious about your point about "no religion could gain so much power that it could encroach upon any other religion." What about anti-semitic laws, catholic/protestant anti-miscegenation laws, and more, that we've had for years? Until relatively recently even.
One must remember that the early American context was largely white (of Western European extraction), male, protestant. Other groups come into prominence later--be they black slaves, women, Irish, Catholics, Italians, Jews, etc.
This is not to disagree with your basic point, but I would take issue with many of your assumptions (and incidentally, you've been reading too much Davinci Code with regards to masons--my grandfather was a mason, and the man attended church every week of his life--what's the correlation? none..read about freemasonry and you'll see what I mean)
I wonder when I can get one from the sto'or?
Re: Complacent--you posted the definition... thanks, I appreciate it. I don't see how that applies to the US government OR people.
Re: Isolationism. If you had read the link you posted you would see that the isolationism you love to refer to does not refer to ignoring everything else. It rather refers to policies laid out in Washington's farewell speech--avoiding entangling alliances with European powers. A policy of neutrality, much like Switzlerand (those bastards, right? They clearly hate the rest of the world..Damn red cross and neutrality).
Re: Marshall plan. Germany was the aggressor, let's not forget that. The US stayed out of the war for years, while Europe was wrecked. the Marshall plan helped to rebuild ALL of Europe. Not just the victors, not just the defeated.
The US had been supporting elements in Vietnam since WW2. The war was a continuation of that support, with the added factor of the Soviet backed north. That's it.
Who did we help in Korea? Well, why don't you go to South Korea and ask that question, and then go a few miles north and ask that question again. How self-righteous can you be? Just because you have high-minded (but unrealistic) ideals, I can't believe you honestly believe North Korea is better off than the South?
I appreciate the links to the per capita prison info. I didn't know aobut that which is why I asked. I would be somewhat curious as to the accuracy of numbers of other countries, but vis a vis Western Europe I'm not surprised. Thanks.
Ok, re definition of invented--I'm not aware of any evidence that Russia got nuke tech from us--would you care to share? Something can surely be invented multiple times, if there was no sharing. You're right about China, they got it from leaks.
You know, you really are welcome to go live anywhere you like. I'm not saying this as "If you hate us so much, go somewhere else" but you seem a recently intelligent (if horribly illogical and misinformed) person who's made some real choices about right and wrong, good and bad. So I say, why don't you go try living somewhere else?
Thanks, I appreciate the info. Though I do have to wonder about, for instance, China's statistics..
What has America done? Well, you're clearly not interested in the answer to this question, so I won't even mention the vast amounts of international aid given every year.
I'll just go directly to refute your points. The US people may be many things, but they are neither sheep nor complacent. I'm not sure you understand the meaning of complacent if you call Americans complacement.
Next, the US was by no means isolationist until the second world war. There was a first world war you know? We participated in that too. There was the Marshall plan after WW2 you know--I'd be interested in seeing what Europe today would be without that (you aren't in one of the countries rebuilt by the Marshall plan are you?).
Kill people in Vietnam? After being begged to go in by the Vietnamese... Killed people in Korea? Yes, the UN did go in Korea, you're right. Killed people in Iraq? Yes, the UN did go in Iraq, you're right. Killed people all over South american--of all your criticisms of American foreign policy this is probably the closest to having a point, thoguh i notice you don't blame the communists who funded insurgent rebel groups across the continet for causing bloodshead? Lead the world in prison population per capita? Figures please? Invent nuclear weapons? Yes, we did invent them, as did China, maybe the Germans, the Russians, and others. Your facts are simply wrong if you think the US had anything to do with Israel going nuclear--many of these records are now available, and much of the initial material was actually from Britain. US had no part in the early days of Israel.
The US almost destroyed the planet? Huh, Idon't remember that. You can just as well say the USSR almost destroyed the planet. Either way it's nonsenisical. What Big Ron did was force the USSR to quick economic collapse, that has seen countries frok Georgia to Ukraine to Poland find freedom in the ensuing decade.
Do I consider Survivor or American Idol to be accomplishments? Me personlaly, no? But given the number of people who want American TV worldwide, yes, I would have to. And besides, both of those TV shows derive from British shows, so your ideas are off their too.
Scotty refused to be on the show... (or so I read, I believe on IMDB)
sad!
If you go to a college to party, then you are letting your valueable money go to waste and I'm fine with that because its not my money.
I find it somewhat ironic that while lecturing a poster on the benefits of a good education and not wasting money you manage to misspell valuable... but that is neither here nor there.
I also find your histrionic quote that "'the' library has a very restricted westernized style of handling information" rather absurd. Libraries aren't a "western" invention you know. Libraries aren't even repositories of solely "western" information! If you've ever been to a good library, you would realize this--check out any major university's library. For instance, in Chicago, at the University of Chicago, if you just walk around the stacks, you're just as likely to find a book in Arabic or Persian or Turkish as you are in French or German or English--or any number of other languages. This is the case at most of the country's great libraries. The Internet may have more diversity of information than a single library (though I would not necessarily agree with this) but any library allows you access via microfiche, other libraries, electronic resources, newspapers, archives, stacks, foreign language resources, to a vastly wider and infinitely deeper source of human knowledge and learning.
In addition, you act as if libraries are caught in the 12th century. Libraries across the country have been investing a huge amount of money into electronic access of library items, and better searching and the like. In fact you know what--you can use the Internet AT the library!!
Portability is certainly a huge plus for electronic resources, as is the ability to easily search, save references, etc. It's good that you are happy with the state of electronic texts, but until more people are, books aren't going anywhere--this has nothing to do with the fact that you "know the technology." It's been my personal experience (a study on this would be interesting actually) that classmates of mine when I was in school who read texts on the computer versus printed out (reserve texts have been available as PDFs at my scools' libraries--and I'm sure many, many others--for years now) generally had much better data retention. Make of it what you will, but that's my experience.
The Internet is an excellent way of distributing information, but it is neither a library nor an archive, nor intended to be.
Personally I await the day when an ebook is indistinguishable from a real book, but with the ability to change the text on the page on the fly.
Ah yes, because "they said so" ... they being not microsoft, who, at this point, are really the only ones who know anything.
You can argue all you want, but you cast Google into an unfair light
I can't help but wonder if you're reading what I'm writing? I'm not making ANY moral judgements! I'm not saying google is bad, I'm not saying google and microsoft are equivalent.
I'm merely saying that this one particular practice is strikingly similiar for both companies.
And we'll see about IE7. But I DO fail to see how microsoft releasing a new version of IE is "only to keep their portion of the market locked in" while google releasing products free ISN'T to get people locked in.
... but I don't see the point in applying such morality / value judgements to the actions of corporations...it's a company, that's it!)
(For the records, I'm a GOOG whore too--gmail, google maps etc [though acutally I find google maps gives the worst directions out of yahoo maps/mapquest]
I'm not at all saying google and microsoft are comparable.
But I am saying that this particular aspect of both companies is like the pot calling the kettle black. Both corporations buy other companies and release their tech for free, in order to eliminate competition.
I'm not placing any moral value on either one.
And incidentally, MS invented "AJAX" and has not said that IE7 will not feature improved CSS support. The BETA doesn't.
Ok, so Google is allowed to buy companies and then give the products away for free.
And yet Microsoft giving away IE for free is different how? (well, because it came with windows).
but seriously, I don't get it. Google can come into diverse markets and because of their money from advertising, just release free software (software which I might add isn't cross platform..just like MS!)
Yeah--and tabs--it was an actual tab that you physically moved to set tab stops where the carriage would "fall" stop at.
I got a typewriter from my grandfather that he had gotten in the 1930's I believe. Incredibly heavy, built like a tank, he used it for literally 60 years, several times a week.
amazing piece of technology, really.
Uhm...how do you know that the hit will be massive?
Not to mention, how many games do you know that use OpenGL?
Wikipedia. Volcanoes. Easy to read about it.
Quote: "Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year."
Sometimes much higher if there is a extremely large eruption.