Yeah, Disney has a *great* history of supporting 'killer formats'.
Anyone remember when Disney said that they were NOT going to release their movies on DVD, because DIVX (that's the buy-cheap-limited-play-crappy-resolution-happily-e xtinct DVD tech, not the encoding format) was clearly the superior choice?
R-i-i-i-ght.
The Mouse (tm) is good at entertaining children and building theme parks, not so great at picking the Next Big Thing.
While I understand that for JC to say a "significant" amount of money, it must be a staggering amount to real people - why would he do this (even if we are talking about just the console port)? If he does hold back the console releases until the XBox port is done, he gets $millions AND badwill of a bunch of gamers who don't use XBoxen. If he doesn't hold it back they are STILL going to sell it for the XBox and he'll still make $millions anyway. He's generally been pretty consistently FOR gamers in his decisions anyway - one of the reasons I deeply respect him.
Besides, I mean christ, it's not like Carmack is coding to earn his daily bread anymore, unless he has a catastrophic spending habit.
Iraq's people have just emerged from a 25+ year unjust prison sentence.
We were willing to inflict upon them the horrors of war, in an effort to win them a better life. Anyone who hesitates to give whatever they can to help them win through to happiness is either a hypocrite, a coward, or simply a scoundrel.
No disrespect to the soldiers risking their lives, but the hard work for everyone ELSE begins NOW.
to suggest that if one is going to go to the length of having a signal from an atomic whatsit, that one could far more simply DISCONNECT the pendulum and run the clock hands by the atomic clock, and just have a simple motor keeping the pendulum swinging away?
Or is the tremendous effort to keep the weights/pendulum the 'driver/regulator' for the clock mechanism the point? Maybe I'm just a mechanical clock philistine.
Do show the corpses, the malnourished children and the diseases caused by impure drinking water. Truth hurts, but it's good for you.
I'm sure you meant the corpses (of the roughly 500,000 internal enemies Saddam is estimated to have 'liquidated' in the last 10 years), the malnourished children (caused by twelve years of sanctions which could have been lifted in a heartbeat had Mr. Hussein allowed UN weapons inspectors truly free reign to prove he doesn't have those WMD's that France & Germany and peaceniks around the world are CONVINCED he doesn't have), and the diseases caused by impure drinking water (ditto).
So international law defines your morality? Curious. You are saying that, stripped of your justifications, that we could NOT have justified entering Nazi Germany to stop the holocaust.
Puzzle games aren't dead, they are HUGE on lesser platforms - palms, phones, etc. Are they dying on desktop computers? Yeah, because you don't need to fire up the 500W desktop and sit in your desk chair to play them anymore.
Maze games - please, tell me how Quake 3 and other FPS games are intrinsically different than maze games where you fight others? I mean truly, in terms of GAMEPLAY, Quake3, Counterstrike, America's Army are all just evolutions of TANK.
Educational: no, just the crappy educational graphics & simplistic models are gone. Simulations such as SimCity are still rolling, and there are a number of other entertaining titles that are terrificly educational, look at Europa Universalis or just about any wargame.
And "Graphic Adventures" are dying? Um, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Arcanum, etc (to point out only 2d ones) - Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, etc. How the HECK can one say the graphic adventure is dying?
Methinks this author confused 'crappy 4-bit graphics' with the game play beneath them, because I simply don't see these genres dying at all. I DO see them evolving.
That's why the US spent the last 6 months trying to get other countries aboard. "Rogue State" is different from "US Foreign policy isn't dictated by some weenie on the Quay d'Orsay."
I'm sorry, I thought UN 1441 was unanimous? "Serious consequences" means what in your world - another threat to issue another threat (because it couldn't be an ultimatum, France said they'd veto anything that ended in conflict)?
You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else. You better disarm or else.
Think that looks stupid? That's 17 times. I'm sure an 18th resolution would have made ALL the difference. (rolls eyes)
I simply don't understand your position. I mean, we're both speaking english, but your words make no sense.
Why is it that you inherently believe Saddam Hussein, and instinctively disbelieve George Bush?
You claim that Saddam has destroyed his WMD. Yeah. Why not come clean then? Why not say "Search me - I invite the media, and every UN member state on the planet to please come and search through Iraq. If you can find a trace of WMD, I will immediately make sure it is destroyed."
Sanctions would have been lifted 12 years ago, and life would have gone on.
But no, instead we have a 12-year shell game of 'catch me if you can!'. He'd rather watch thousands of children die than to let monitors wander freely in his country?
I don't see that as the effort of an inherently honest man. Yet your presumtion is that he's the honest one and GWB is the dastard that has this sneaky plan to what, pocket the oil revenues himself? Sure, nobody would notice that! What a load.
Now they have a fresh supply of eager people willing to die for their rights.
Whew, that's a relief. I thought they were about to run out of terrorist/suicide bombers. Those perma-refugee camps full of Palestinians must be slowing down.
What's next, a "destabilized" Middle East?
Pardon me if I remark on the redundancy of that statement: Hahahahahahah
So if he'd stayed within his borders, we would have had no right or excuse to intervene?
I'm sure the Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, and his political enemies would have appreciated that fine distinction. Oh wait, they couldn't because they'd have been dead.
But we wouldn't have risked any civilians that way. Good thing we're so civilized!
"No, what we're saying is that our options for peaceful resolution are still workable. In what sense? 12 years and 18 UN resolutions later, the only time Saddam decides to *start* complying is when there are 200,000 soldiers sitting over the border CLEARLY preparing to kick his ass? Or are you suggesting that Saddam would suddenly decide to be a 'good guy' and do what he's supposed to? Why? The cost of waiting a few more days is not zero, by the way. Every day we wait is another day of research, another day of oppression - neither of which should be allowed to continue. Would I like to let the sanctions and UN action work? Sure. Have they worked without the imminent threat of force? No.
Hitler believed in a pre-emptive strike theory of war, Hussein doesn't Says who? Now who's using a crystal ball? Hitler believed in brinkmanship, because he know the Allies had no stomach for war - and he was right, except in his miscalculation of Churchill's ability to sway public (and American) opinon. And in my experience, the majority of people saying more people will die without war are IRAQI's (that would be the ones here who can speak freely).
Hussein has actively tried to avoid a conflict - Hitler didn't This is plain disingenuous. Hitler DID do everything to avoid conflict until he was *ready* for the invasion of Poland. That's the whole point we don't WANT to give Hussein that much elbow room. Hussein got creamed in 1991 - remember, that was the one that everyone predicted would start an Islamic Crusade against the west, everyone bemoaned the 50,000 US soldiers that would come back in body bags, the umpteen thousand Iraqi civilians that would be killed...well, the nattering nabobs were wrong. And I would STRONGLY argue that, lacking the "super coalition" that everyone hearkens back to when criticizing GWB (which was built on a web of compromises and restrictive promises that, for example, left the Republican Guard intact!) we could have finished the job and the last 12 years of deaths due to sanctions WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED. The problem was we were too weak-kneed then, and look at the wonderful result of our restraint!
Hitler's armies were much more potent than Hussein's, and he practiced massive genocide before the war. Huh? In the WW2 I've read about, the German military attacked France with about 1.3 million troops, Hussein had approx 540,000 in the Kuwait theater and IIRC about another 400,000 around the country - the 4th larget army in the WORLD. And, when did Hitler practice genocide before the war? He had people in internment camps, but didn't start the exterminations until what, 1942-43?
Even given that Saddam is an evil person, the US has demonstrated time and again that controlling Hussein is as simple as dropping a few bombs and threatening to go to war. This is truly wonderful logic, and indicative of a genuine desire to improve life for the Iraqis. Let's not get rid of Hussein, since any time he acts up we can just lob a bomb or two at him and he'll fall into line. Yeah. Sure. That was Clinton's logic for bombing the Sudan pharmaceutical plant too, to try to do the same thing with Bin Laden. That worked great! Face it, what you want is to avaoid the problem, try to solve it by ignroing it & hoping it will go away. Well, 12 years (and how many civilian deaths in Iraq?) later, your strategy sucks.
How is it that someone who can't even defend his own country is a threat to me... Aside from the disingenuousness of THIS statement, maybe it's not about YOU? I don't buy the Al Qaeda/Hussein thing either, but here we have a thug. A psychotic thug. Who clearly has been TRYING to join the "you can't touch me because I have a nuke" club. Let's get rid of him now, give the Iraqis back their country, while we have the chance!
I could draw similar inferences from a comparison of President Bush and Hitler
Re:War is HELL
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 5, Insightful
That's right, so "peace at any price" is totally justified.
It certainly worked for Chamberlain in 1939, almost as well as it worked for the Tutsi in Rwanda. I'm sure they're delighted that the USA Administration of the time was too gutless and scared of the polls to step in and stop what was KNOWN to be happening. Ah, besides, they were all brown-skinned anyway, right?
War is abhorrent. War is also sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil.
If, in 1938, the US or Britain had said "hey, this new democratically-elected leader of Germany is a psychopath. Everything he says is based in hatred, he's a bully, he's disregarded, evaded, and finally ignored the Versailles disarmament restrictions. He *must* be removed." There would have been worldwide hand-wringing and worry about the 'costs of war'. Well, the final tally ended up higher.
A modern-day Hitler wouldn't NEED millions of troops, marching armies, and years of conquest. Weapons of mass-destruction make warfare quick and devastating.
(And before all of you roll your eyes "here's another conservative American comparing Saddam to Hitler", well yeah, I am. I'm not sure how Hitler scores higher on the totalitarian brutal genocidal dictator scale - maybe more industrially efficient, perhaps? But if Hussein ISN'T as bad as Hitler, is he an ok guy if he's only, say 0.8"Hitlers"? 0.65"Hitlers"? What's your personally acceptable level of brutal dictatorship?)
Re:Not How its Supposed To Be
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
""The prospect of thousands possibly dying, innocent or guilty, "us" or "them," fills me with a dark sense of dread and uncertainty. Children will die. Their parents and grandparents will die." When you have a doubt about this war, try to think of the dread that tens of thousands of Iraqi's have felt constantly for the past 12 years. People will make a comment about Saddam during a dinner party and by the end of the weekend their WHOLE FAMILY - cousins, uncles, etc - are GONE. FOREVER. Women are brutally raped in front of their brothers, husbands, and fathers (before they in turn are killed). The sociopath Uday routinely has good looking women abducted and then beheaded after he's through with them. Saddam has paved FAMILIES into roads with hot asphalt.
These people - an intellectual, enlightened, secular people - have been under the life & death power of this homocidal dictator for a dozen years, and what have we done? Nothing. We've left them there. Yes, people will die in a conflict. But they're dying NOW.
People complain that Bush has "failed at diplomacy, unlike Gulf War I" - hardly. I think he's acting in a very principled fashion. Everytime you get someone else on board an alliance, they come with conditions for their participation. Yes, we had a Grand Coalition in 1991 that paid for 90% of the conflict - but I'll remind all the Monday-morning quarterbacks that is why we stopped when we did in 1991, and PROBABLY left ourselves this mess now. The UN certainly couldn't be trusted to grow a spine suddenly and resolve it. We HAD to stop there, or the alliance would shatter.
Sometimes, if friends constrict your principles, it's better to do without those friends at all. We let !millions! die in brutal genocide in Rwanda because, frankly, we were 'afraid' of the cost, 'afraid' of the public relations cost, 'afraid' of the polls, 'afraid' of the consequences, 'afraid' we didn't have an exit strategy. Well, that was a different administration.
Now we have a US government that isn't afraid to say: This stops now. All that's needed for evil to prosper, is for good men to do nothing. We're not going to 'do nothing' any longer, no matter how squeamish our moral relativist friends in Europe feel about such language. There was a point on NPR that the Europeans feel they've gone 'beyond' the use of force to solve problems. That's an easy position to take when someone ELSE guarded your door for the last 50 years.
These are the same vaccilating dilettantes that abhorred the idea of going into Bosnia. 'A quagmire' they said. 'We'll never resove it' they whined. Well, Mr. Milosevich awaits trial for genocide and the ethnic cleansing has stopped. They said the same thing about Afghanistan. These nattering nabobs will continue to wring their hands about the dangers. Sometimes, one has to accept the dangers and step in to stop something bad from continuing.
In France, instead of playing with guns, all the little boys practice waving white sheets, making doo-doo in their pants, and running screaming like a girl instead.
It's seemed to work out pretty well for them, they've been playing these games for the last 185 years.
Use the serial number that's been previously detected or 'smells' pirated and: Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization. Case B) GalCiv - you don't get all the free stuff, like extra ships, features, etc. that are only available to legit users.
...because governments never contract out to the lowest bidder, or make choices due to political considerations, or choose safety over profit...Columbia certainly proves this.
And of course, there is no red tape in government (ohmigod please stop, this is impossible to even SAY with a straight face...I just had to issue a report to the government, certifying that I do not need to report), or empire building or people focused on making money on regular repair costs. Defense contracts are a clear example of how EFFICIENTLY government works on big projects...or did you actually think that it was going to be built/run by government employees, and not contracted out ANYWAY?
Well, I guess you've certainly proved I was wrong.
OK, someone explain to me...
on
The Space Elevator
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Why is everyone saying "NASA should do this!" or "the government should do this!".
If I had several billion dollars, I would be a complete idiot NOT to sink my money into such a venture. Of course,/.ers would be immediately suspicious of the "Bill Gates Space Elevator", and it would frequently lock up and need rebooting.
For the mega-rich, the income potential and (maybe more importantly) the "my name in human history" potential of this SHOULD be irresistible. Plus, I'm a firm believer in free-enterprise. Let companies do it for a profit and it will be safer, quicker, and more efficiently run than any government project.
And what, precisely, does US "empire" give us? The undying hatred of every pissed-off loser in some filthy sewer of a country who is *certain* his life could be better (read: he could freely beat his wife, read porn, pick up cheap blond hookers that look like Gwyneth Paltrow, and kill all the [insert hated ethnic group here, usually Jews] as a bonus) if only the USA WOULD STOP OPPRESSING HIM!!!
If India became the world's next superpower, maybe then they'd figure out that the world doesn't turn on their stupid parochial pissing match with Pakistan.
Maybe they too would be EXPECTED through some asanine 'victim-logic' to dump billions of rupees into every raggedy-ass dictatorship for 'humanitarian' reasons, when they would know full well that it simply would end up in the bank accounts of the absent rich elite of those countries anyway.
Maybe they could be looked down on by the (then) fin-de-siecle Americans (as well as the Europeans) as simplistic Indian thugs who don't have the sophistication to understand REAL diplomacy, but then when the pointless interminable nattering runs into the realities of brutal dictators, we can run to THEM and trust that they will send INDIAN soldiers to fight and die to protect US, all the while standing on the sidelines criticizing and demanding financial concessions and payoffs to stay friendly.
Bah, "empire". India wants it? They're welcome to it.
They'll either mature into the role, or people will find themselves pining for the relatively benign, light hand of the American Hegemony.
Sorry, 30 year limit on historical grievances. Given the persistent facism of Evil Republicans, you couldn't come up with something more recent?
Besides, I'd be happy to compare the relatively trivial number of students killed at Kent State with the masses of people murdered in Chinese prisons in pretty much any given year.
Again, the fact that you equate Kent State with the acts of the Chinese government identifies you as either a Communist apologist or empty-headed.
Yeah, that's right - the doctrine of moral equivalency.
Hmm. I'm trying to think of the last time the US drove a tank over peaceful protesters in the Washington Monument park. Oh yeah, wait. They NEVER did.
Let's see, do I need the government's permission to move from Minneapolis to Houston? Well, no. And last I checked, the US gov't allowed me to have as many children as I want.
China has an exemplary human rights record, an exemplary eco-friendly record, and all that. To suggest for a second that the US Gov't (and the personalization by blaming G.W.B. *himself* was a nice rhetorical touch) is a bigger threat to anything than China just shows how empty headed the left is. Bah.
I'd mod this up if they'd let me (but I already commented). Yes, looking at it as a music-spam filter, that's probably a very useful way to use it. (Especially the part about cjecking the filter occasionally.)
My music tastes run from Judas Priest, to Devo, to Mozart's Requiem, to Bach, to Sade, to Blue Man Group, to a capella, to a number of indie groups that do everything from Fusion to Russian Jazz. About the only thing I don't like is Country, but there are still a few songs there that I like a lot. So I'm just very dubious that the process of using this would end up netting me any time savings.
Kind of like using speech-to-text software. You spend so much time editing, it would have just been easier to type it yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally got that Oscillation Overthruster working, eh doc?
Yeah, Disney has a *great* history of supporting 'killer formats'.
e xtinct DVD tech, not the encoding format) was clearly the superior choice?
Anyone remember when Disney said that they were NOT going to release their movies on DVD, because DIVX (that's the buy-cheap-limited-play-crappy-resolution-happily-
R-i-i-i-ght.
The Mouse (tm) is good at entertaining children and building theme parks, not so great at picking the Next Big Thing.
While I understand that for JC to say a "significant" amount of money, it must be a staggering amount to real people - why would he do this (even if we are talking about just the console port)? If he does hold back the console releases until the XBox port is done, he gets $millions AND badwill of a bunch of gamers who don't use XBoxen. If he doesn't hold it back they are STILL going to sell it for the XBox and he'll still make $millions anyway. He's generally been pretty consistently FOR gamers in his decisions anyway - one of the reasons I deeply respect him.
Besides, I mean christ, it's not like Carmack is coding to earn his daily bread anymore, unless he has a catastrophic spending habit.
Iraq's people have just emerged from a 25+ year unjust prison sentence.
We were willing to inflict upon them the horrors of war, in an effort to win them a better life. Anyone who hesitates to give whatever they can to help them win through to happiness is either a hypocrite, a coward, or simply a scoundrel.
No disrespect to the soldiers risking their lives, but the hard work for everyone ELSE begins NOW.
to suggest that if one is going to go to the length of having a signal from an atomic whatsit, that one could far more simply DISCONNECT the pendulum and run the clock hands by the atomic clock, and just have a simple motor keeping the pendulum swinging away?
Or is the tremendous effort to keep the weights/pendulum the 'driver/regulator' for the clock mechanism the point? Maybe I'm just a mechanical clock philistine.
Shut the hell up, Ralph.
-H.D. Thoreau
I'm sure you meant the corpses (of the roughly 500,000 internal enemies Saddam is estimated to have 'liquidated' in the last 10 years), the malnourished children (caused by twelve years of sanctions which could have been lifted in a heartbeat had Mr. Hussein allowed UN weapons inspectors truly free reign to prove he doesn't have those WMD's that France & Germany and peaceniks around the world are CONVINCED he doesn't have), and the diseases caused by impure drinking water (ditto).
TRUTH HURTS, BUT IT'S GOOD FOR YOU.
^^ I'll second that notion.
So international law defines your morality? Curious. You are saying that, stripped of your justifications, that we could NOT have justified entering Nazi Germany to stop the holocaust.
Puzzle games aren't dead, they are HUGE on lesser platforms - palms, phones, etc. Are they dying on desktop computers? Yeah, because you don't need to fire up the 500W desktop and sit in your desk chair to play them anymore.
Maze games - please, tell me how Quake 3 and other FPS games are intrinsically different than maze games where you fight others? I mean truly, in terms of GAMEPLAY, Quake3, Counterstrike, America's Army are all just evolutions of TANK.
Educational: no, just the crappy educational graphics & simplistic models are gone. Simulations such as SimCity are still rolling, and there are a number of other entertaining titles that are terrificly educational, look at Europa Universalis or just about any wargame.
And "Graphic Adventures" are dying? Um, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Arcanum, etc (to point out only 2d ones) - Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, etc.
How the HECK can one say the graphic adventure is dying?
Methinks this author confused 'crappy 4-bit graphics' with the game play beneath them, because I simply don't see these genres dying at all. I DO see them evolving.
Or not.
That's why the US spent the last 6 months trying to get other countries aboard. "Rogue State" is different from "US Foreign policy isn't dictated by some weenie on the Quay d'Orsay."
I'm sorry, I thought UN 1441 was unanimous? "Serious consequences" means what in your world - another threat to issue another threat (because it couldn't be an ultimatum, France said they'd veto anything that ended in conflict)?
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
You better disarm or else.
Think that looks stupid? That's 17 times. I'm sure an 18th resolution would have made ALL the difference. (rolls eyes)
I simply don't understand your position. I mean, we're both speaking english, but your words make no sense.
Why is it that you inherently believe Saddam Hussein, and instinctively disbelieve George Bush?
You claim that Saddam has destroyed his WMD. Yeah. Why not come clean then? Why not say "Search me - I invite the media, and every UN member state on the planet to please come and search through Iraq. If you can find a trace of WMD, I will immediately make sure it is destroyed."
Sanctions would have been lifted 12 years ago, and life would have gone on.
But no, instead we have a 12-year shell game of 'catch me if you can!'. He'd rather watch thousands of children die than to let monitors wander freely in his country?
I don't see that as the effort of an inherently honest man. Yet your presumtion is that he's the honest one and GWB is the dastard that has this sneaky plan to what, pocket the oil revenues himself? Sure, nobody would notice that! What a load.
Now they have a fresh supply of eager people willing to die for their rights.
Whew, that's a relief. I thought they were about to run out of terrorist/suicide bombers. Those perma-refugee camps full of Palestinians must be slowing down.
What's next, a "destabilized" Middle East?
Pardon me if I remark on the redundancy of that statement: Hahahahahahah
So if he'd stayed within his borders, we would have had no right or excuse to intervene?
I'm sure the Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, and his political enemies would have appreciated that fine distinction. Oh wait, they couldn't because they'd have been dead.
But we wouldn't have risked any civilians that way. Good thing we're so civilized!
Whoa, let me address some of these in order:
"No, what we're saying is that our options for peaceful resolution are still workable.
In what sense? 12 years and 18 UN resolutions later, the only time Saddam decides to *start* complying is when there are 200,000 soldiers sitting over the border CLEARLY preparing to kick his ass? Or are you suggesting that Saddam would suddenly decide to be a 'good guy' and do what he's supposed to? Why?
The cost of waiting a few more days is not zero, by the way. Every day we wait is another day of research, another day of oppression - neither of which should be allowed to continue. Would I like to let the sanctions and UN action work? Sure. Have they worked without the imminent threat of force? No.
Hitler believed in a pre-emptive strike theory of war, Hussein doesn't
Says who? Now who's using a crystal ball? Hitler believed in brinkmanship, because he know the Allies had no stomach for war - and he was right, except in his miscalculation of Churchill's ability to sway public (and American) opinon. And in my experience, the majority of people saying more people will die without war are IRAQI's (that would be the ones here who can speak freely).
Hussein has actively tried to avoid a conflict - Hitler didn't
This is plain disingenuous. Hitler DID do everything to avoid conflict until he was *ready* for the invasion of Poland. That's the whole point we don't WANT to give Hussein that much elbow room. Hussein got creamed in 1991 - remember, that was the one that everyone predicted would start an Islamic Crusade against the west, everyone bemoaned the 50,000 US soldiers that would come back in body bags, the umpteen thousand Iraqi civilians that would be killed...well, the nattering nabobs were wrong. And I would STRONGLY argue that, lacking the "super coalition" that everyone hearkens back to when criticizing GWB (which was built on a web of compromises and restrictive promises that, for example, left the Republican Guard intact!) we could have finished the job and the last 12 years of deaths due to sanctions WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED. The problem was we were too weak-kneed then, and look at the wonderful result of our restraint!
Hitler's armies were much more potent than Hussein's, and he practiced massive genocide before the war.
Huh? In the WW2 I've read about, the German military attacked France with about 1.3 million troops, Hussein had approx 540,000 in the Kuwait theater and IIRC about another 400,000 around the country - the 4th larget army in the WORLD.
And, when did Hitler practice genocide before the war? He had people in internment camps, but didn't start the exterminations until what, 1942-43?
Even given that Saddam is an evil person, the US has demonstrated time and again that controlling Hussein is as simple as dropping a few bombs and threatening to go to war.
This is truly wonderful logic, and indicative of a genuine desire to improve life for the Iraqis. Let's not get rid of Hussein, since any time he acts up we can just lob a bomb or two at him and he'll fall into line. Yeah. Sure. That was Clinton's logic for bombing the Sudan pharmaceutical plant too, to try to do the same thing with Bin Laden. That worked great! Face it, what you want is to avaoid the problem, try to solve it by ignroing it & hoping it will go away. Well, 12 years (and how many civilian deaths in Iraq?) later, your strategy sucks.
How is it that someone who can't even defend his own country is a threat to me...
Aside from the disingenuousness of THIS statement, maybe it's not about YOU? I don't buy the Al Qaeda/Hussein thing either, but here we have a thug. A psychotic thug. Who clearly has been TRYING to join the "you can't touch me because I have a nuke" club. Let's get rid of him now, give the Iraqis back their country, while we have the chance!
I could draw similar inferences from a comparison of President Bush and Hitler
That's right, so "peace at any price" is totally justified.
It certainly worked for Chamberlain in 1939, almost as well as it worked for the Tutsi in Rwanda. I'm sure they're delighted that the USA Administration of the time was too gutless and scared of the polls to step in and stop what was KNOWN to be happening. Ah, besides, they were all brown-skinned anyway, right?
War is abhorrent. War is also sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil.
If, in 1938, the US or Britain had said "hey, this new democratically-elected leader of Germany is a psychopath. Everything he says is based in hatred, he's a bully, he's disregarded, evaded, and finally ignored the Versailles disarmament restrictions. He *must* be removed." There would have been worldwide hand-wringing and worry about the 'costs of war'. Well, the final tally ended up higher.
A modern-day Hitler wouldn't NEED millions of troops, marching armies, and years of conquest. Weapons of mass-destruction make warfare quick and devastating.
(And before all of you roll your eyes "here's another conservative American comparing Saddam to Hitler", well yeah, I am. I'm not sure how Hitler scores higher on the totalitarian brutal genocidal dictator scale - maybe more industrially efficient, perhaps? But if Hussein ISN'T as bad as Hitler, is he an ok guy if he's only, say 0.8"Hitlers"? 0.65"Hitlers"? What's your personally acceptable level of brutal dictatorship?)
""The prospect of thousands possibly dying, innocent or guilty, "us" or "them," fills me with a dark sense of dread and uncertainty. Children will die. Their parents and grandparents will die."
When you have a doubt about this war, try to think of the dread that tens of thousands of Iraqi's have felt constantly for the past 12 years. People will make a comment about Saddam during a dinner party and by the end of the weekend their WHOLE FAMILY - cousins, uncles, etc - are GONE. FOREVER. Women are brutally raped in front of their brothers, husbands, and fathers (before they in turn are killed). The sociopath Uday routinely has good looking women abducted and then beheaded after he's through with them. Saddam has paved FAMILIES into roads with hot asphalt.
These people - an intellectual, enlightened, secular people - have been under the life & death power of this homocidal dictator for a dozen years, and what have we done? Nothing. We've left them there.
Yes, people will die in a conflict. But they're dying NOW.
People complain that Bush has "failed at diplomacy, unlike Gulf War I" - hardly. I think he's acting in a very principled fashion. Everytime you get someone else on board an alliance, they come with conditions for their participation. Yes, we had a Grand Coalition in 1991 that paid for 90% of the conflict - but I'll remind all the Monday-morning quarterbacks that is why we stopped when we did in 1991, and PROBABLY left ourselves this mess now. The UN certainly couldn't be trusted to grow a spine suddenly and resolve it. We HAD to stop there, or the alliance would shatter.
Sometimes, if friends constrict your principles, it's better to do without those friends at all. We let !millions! die in brutal genocide in Rwanda because, frankly, we were 'afraid' of the cost, 'afraid' of the public relations cost, 'afraid' of the polls, 'afraid' of the consequences, 'afraid' we didn't have an exit strategy. Well, that was a different administration.
Now we have a US government that isn't afraid to say: This stops now. All that's needed for evil to prosper, is for good men to do nothing. We're not going to 'do nothing' any longer, no matter how squeamish our moral relativist friends in Europe feel about such language.
There was a point on NPR that the Europeans feel they've gone 'beyond' the use of force to solve problems. That's an easy position to take when someone ELSE guarded your door for the last 50 years.
These are the same vaccilating dilettantes that abhorred the idea of going into Bosnia. 'A quagmire' they said. 'We'll never resove it' they whined. Well, Mr. Milosevich awaits trial for genocide and the ethnic cleansing has stopped. They said the same thing about Afghanistan. These nattering nabobs will continue to wring their hands about the dangers. Sometimes, one has to accept the dangers and step in to stop something bad from continuing.
God bless our troops & president.
it gives a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".
In France, instead of playing with guns, all the little boys practice waving white sheets, making doo-doo in their pants, and running screaming like a girl instead.
It's seemed to work out pretty well for them, they've been playing these games for the last 185 years.
There is a significant if subtle difference.
Use the serial number that's been previously detected or 'smells' pirated and:
Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization.
Case B) GalCiv - you don't get all the free stuff, like extra ships, features, etc. that are only available to legit users.
Sounds like a difference to me.
...because governments never contract out to the lowest bidder, or make choices due to political considerations, or choose safety over profit...Columbia certainly proves this.
And of course, there is no red tape in government (ohmigod please stop, this is impossible to even SAY with a straight face...I just had to issue a report to the government, certifying that I do not need to report), or empire building or people focused on making money on regular repair costs. Defense contracts are a clear example of how EFFICIENTLY government works on big projects...or did you actually think that it was going to be built/run by government employees, and not contracted out ANYWAY?
Well, I guess you've certainly proved I was wrong.
Why is everyone saying "NASA should do this!" or "the government should do this!".
/.ers would be immediately suspicious of the "Bill Gates Space Elevator", and it would frequently lock up and need rebooting.
If I had several billion dollars, I would be a complete idiot NOT to sink my money into such a venture. Of course,
For the mega-rich, the income potential and (maybe more importantly) the "my name in human history" potential of this SHOULD be irresistible. Plus, I'm a firm believer in free-enterprise. Let companies do it for a profit and it will be safer, quicker, and more efficiently run than any government project.
...and they're welcome to it.
And what, precisely, does US "empire" give us?
The undying hatred of every pissed-off loser in some filthy sewer of a country who is *certain* his life could be better (read: he could freely beat his wife, read porn, pick up cheap blond hookers that look like Gwyneth Paltrow, and kill all the [insert hated ethnic group here, usually Jews] as a bonus) if only the USA WOULD STOP OPPRESSING HIM!!!
If India became the world's next superpower, maybe then they'd figure out that the world doesn't turn on their stupid parochial pissing match with Pakistan.
Maybe they too would be EXPECTED through some asanine 'victim-logic' to dump billions of rupees into every raggedy-ass dictatorship for 'humanitarian' reasons, when they would know full well that it simply would end up in the bank accounts of the absent rich elite of those countries anyway.
Maybe they could be looked down on by the (then) fin-de-siecle Americans (as well as the Europeans) as simplistic Indian thugs who don't have the sophistication to understand REAL diplomacy, but then when the pointless interminable nattering runs into the realities of brutal dictators, we can run to THEM and trust that they will send INDIAN soldiers to fight and die to protect US, all the while standing on the sidelines criticizing and demanding financial concessions and payoffs to stay friendly.
Bah, "empire". India wants it? They're welcome to it.
They'll either mature into the role, or people will find themselves pining for the relatively benign, light hand of the American Hegemony.
Sorry, 30 year limit on historical grievances. Given the persistent facism of Evil Republicans, you couldn't come up with something more recent?
Besides, I'd be happy to compare the relatively trivial number of students killed at Kent State with the masses of people murdered in Chinese prisons in pretty much any given year.
Again, the fact that you equate Kent State with the acts of the Chinese government identifies you as either a Communist apologist or empty-headed.
Yeah, that's right - the doctrine of moral equivalency.
Hmm. I'm trying to think of the last time the US drove a tank over peaceful protesters in the Washington Monument park. Oh yeah, wait. They NEVER did.
Let's see, do I need the government's permission to move from Minneapolis to Houston? Well, no. And last I checked, the US gov't allowed me to have as many children as I want.
China has an exemplary human rights record, an exemplary eco-friendly record, and all that. To suggest for a second that the US Gov't (and the personalization by blaming G.W.B. *himself* was a nice rhetorical touch) is a bigger threat to anything than China just shows how empty headed the left is. Bah.
I'd mod this up if they'd let me (but I already commented). Yes, looking at it as a music-spam filter, that's probably a very useful way to use it. (Especially the part about cjecking the filter occasionally.)
My music tastes run from Judas Priest, to Devo, to Mozart's Requiem, to Bach, to Sade, to Blue Man Group, to a capella, to a number of indie groups that do everything from Fusion to Russian Jazz. About the only thing I don't like is Country, but there are still a few songs there that I like a lot. So I'm just very dubious that the process of using this would end up netting me any time savings.
Kind of like using speech-to-text software. You spend so much time editing, it would have just been easier to type it yourself.