Yeah, I know, I just downloaded it on Napster and gave the lyrics a more careful listen. Oops! I'm embarrassed by that gaff. I also forgot to switch my post from html and lost the proper formatting. Aside from the irony of my displaying ignorance in the middle of a rant against ignorance, I think I made some worthwhile points. Thanks for the reply and the interesting link.
We have gone from being a people for whom even a rock band (The Byrds, Eight Miles High) could get airplay making poetry and music inspired by the achievements and human ingenuity of the American space program to a being a bunch of morons entertained by degenerate ignorance from Fox. By no means do I think of myself as being some kind of genious. As a matter of fact I consider myself to be a fairly average guy. But damn if I don't have to continually dumb my conversation down, lest I say something too complicated, controversial, or too non-superficial! It's as if the American culture has collectively put complacency and ignorance on a pedestal. If you find someone who honestly believes that a man never set foot on the moon, I guarantee that you have found someone who is proud of their ignorance. Sadly, the Fox special is not a cause of ignorance, but rather a reflection and justification of it. Don't take this to mean that I think people were any more or less ignorant thirty years ago than they are now. But I think that a scarcity mentality and jealousy towards the intelligent and learned members of society has grown over the years as some kind of backlash.
Out of laziness, contempt, peer pressure, or whatever other reason, people now seem to believe that it is better to tear down people of intellectual achievement than it is to learn or achieve themselves or simply respect someone for their hard work and ability. That is why you have terms in our language like "Computer Geek", and fat people who smoke and then attack the credentials of the medical establishment, it's doctors, and scientific studies rather than listen, learn, and quit smoking and eating themselves into an early grave. Finally, that is why there are people who would watch this crap from Fox and buy into it.
The only way to even start reversing this trend is to send our children to schools where they are educated and not warehoused. That and get involved in our childrens education as parents and mentors. How to make that happen on more than an individual level seems far more complicated than putting a man on the moon. I can only hope that our society wakes up before it's too late and gets it's priorities straight.
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russel
END RANT
I am a technician and a hardware buff / end user, not a programmer, so my opinions are less informed than yours on the technical aspect of library compatibility with binary programs. It could be that I am off base altogether, though I think my ideas have merit for users like myself. Again, thanks for taking the time to clue me in.
would take the source and compile, then install the program. For the end user short on time or technical ability this would be transparent and just as easy as installing a binary. In addition to the the easy installation and solution to minor incompatibilities from library version to library version there is also the performance benifit of compiling the source over using a generic binary.
Go ahead and distribute the keys. If you bought the music or content with a credit card that is in your name the content provider will know exactly whom to go out and make an example of because the keys will have a unique identifyer that can be traced back to you. Of course there are ways around that, but it would require care to keep your purchase anonymous.
Wild Cherry Pepsi is superior to Cherry coke from it's better tasting Pepsi base to the additional cherry flavoring. But hey, taste is subjective so drink whatever floats your boat...
The subject header of this post is my favorite portal, that and the saved links in my favorites menu, and whatever new links I find using http://www.topclick.com.
Robber Barons. That is how you would describe those corporations and individuals who would seek vertical and horizontal monopolies by creating artificial scarcity and gouging the general public. I would call airing commercials on a pay service stealing before I would call hacking a satellite reciever stealing. That's just my two cents on the issue.
That I should give up the right to create my own copyrighted content or high quality content of any kind. It is stealing after all, the record and movie companies have less market share and I have more market share at their expense when I make my own content. What gives me the right to take that market share and profit away from it's rightfull owners? In a fair and just society people who steal market share should be fined and jailed after all.
Supporting non-proprietary and open-source software for a profit is Redhat's business model. It appears that there is a need and therefore an opportunity to do something similar with with free billing software. With the open-source business model profit is made from expertise and hard work rather than by being the market leader for your particular product. So there is every incentive to innovate and provide the best value to your customer. Businesses need to understand that they are either going to have to pay for open source software through their own in house efforts or that they are going to have to pay for a commercial support package if an open source program doesn't fit there particular needs. Again, open source software is about free speech cooperation and competion, not about getting a free ride. (Yes, I know I am being redundant on this issue, but it seems like businesses and individuals are redundant in their lack of understanding.)
Yeah, what are they going to do if you give their software away for free? Say "Hey, we stole that code fair and square, now quit pirating us". Trying to use GPL'ed code for a proprietary application is just begging to have your app distributed for free. All other lawsuits and infringements aside it is the most effective punishment you can level on a company for abusing free code.
The German distribution Easy Linux was supposed to have implemented a registry like feature that used text files rather than a monolithic file like Windows 95 and NT. http://www.easylinux.org/
A rogue state or well funded terrorists could easily afford enough iron to bring on an ice age.
That is assuming that this method of fertilizing the ocean works as plannned. Still, something like this holds alot of promise. The benefits of fertilizing the ocean would be a boon to fishermen. Unlike dumping raw sewage into the ocean iron won't have the negative affects of disease and killing the native life. At least if it is done in already dead zones.
In an ideal capitalist world broadband internet connnections would equal lower phone rates and would have a deflationary effect on the economy.
The past 50 years has seen stratuspheric rises in productivity that have been coupled with rising prices and stagnating wages. I hope that the phone companies are not able to put the broadband genie back in the bottle and that for just once everyone gets to enjoy the fruits of a powerful labor and money saving technology. It doesn't make me feel in the least bit bad that money grubbing corporations like Ameritech are going to turn a lower profit if I use the internet to make a phone call. Fuck them, and every other company that pockets all of the profit from more efficient processes and then raises prices to pad their pockets and suppress competing technologies. The RIAA comes to my mind when I think about my last sentence too, that's ok, I have plenty of vitriol for them as well. It's about time that some corporations shared in the short end of the capitalism stick.
I wonder if it would be possible to make a DIMM out of SRAM exclusively and make it DDR capable. Yes, SRAM has more transistors and therefore takes up more die space, but with smaller processes and the low prices for conventional PC100 lately I think it's feasable. Lets say that it doubles or even triples the price per MB, so what, it's worth the extra performance! PC100 at 128 megs was down to 55 dollars last I checked, I would happily pay double or triple that price to have an equivalent DDRSRAM solution. AFAIK SRAM runs at speeds of up to 400 MHZ, couple that with DDR in a DIMM configuration and you have 800 MHZ 64bit memory! Add this to a system bus that could run synchronously with this fast memory and you would have monstrous performance gains. Back to my original question, why or why not?
I would think that Aquaman, Batman, Wonderwoman, The Green Lantern, and Superman would be a good start for the KDE League. You need them to oppose the supervillans of the Gnome Foundation like Lex Luthor, Solomon Grundy, Scarecrow, and Bizzaro. It should be quite entertaining and I look forward to watching the titanic battles of good versus evil!
The version of the Katzbot that wrote this artical has greatly improved abilities to pander to the Slashdot crowd than any of the one dot Katzbots. By three-oh there shouldn't statiscally be any more trolls responding to its articals than any other Slashdot writer. Now that's hacking and programming at it's finest if you ask me!
The term being coined by Lestat in Anne Rice's Vampire series. The physicists, realizing that they couldn't ever find the truth they were seeking in a normal human lifetime, undertake a mallific blood rite to become immortal. As vampires they can devote their immortality to finding the truth, at the cost of needing human blood to sustain themselves. Now that would make for an entertaining read, vampire lore, physics, and all of the conflicts already in Goldsteins book.
With the invention of "super-tensile-solids" we should be able to construct the first space yoyo sometime around 2050. That will give "walking the dog" or "around the world" a whole new meaning.
Michael Crichton was the author of this work, he is very prolific. His books and movies are always thought provoking, if a little on the cheesy side sometimes. Versatile as well, we're talking the same guy who's brainchild is also E.R., a good show and a very different genre than The Andromeda Strain. Unlike Arthur C. Clarke, Crichton doesn't attempt to turn his fiction into prognostications or forecasts, instead he puts a human element into action packed forward thinking near-future science fiction. Although; I wonder if he isn't just a little bit prescient with that space fungus on Mir that may soon take over the Earth!
I thought that I already explained to you that I don't know the first thing about the use of HTML.
Sorry if my last post was hard to read, when I have some time I will look up the appropriate resources to learn how to use it or play with the examples provided on the pre-post page. In any case it was just one of your many off-topic cheap shots towards me. Kind of how it would be a cheap shot for me to make fun of your frequent spelling errors. Also, you again assume that I am ignoring Russia's role in World War Two. That's not true, just for the sake of time and space I lump Russia together with the rest of the Allied powers, and atrocities committed in Russia with those in Germany. I won't even go into the rest of the distortions you make to my position's, because I am tired of debating you.
It doesn't surprise me that you live in America yet have not one good thing to say about the country that allows you freedom from the discrimination you faced in your home land. Actions speak louder than words, so why don't you use that American passport of your's and move to a country where the people and the politics match your views and principals? The act of staying here alone is to support the corporations, individuals and the government's present and future foriegn policy mistakes. Especially if ALL Americans are ignorant and complacent about our government's activities as you claim so often. You know that you can't make a difference and you are fooling yourself if you claim to be here for any other reason than your own personal gain. You are entitled to your opinions under America's political system, you are even entitled to hate America while reaping the benefits of living here.
That's ok, I am entitled to think that you are an ingrate who needs to show the country you choose to live in some respect or else pack up your bags and leave.
This is my last post on the matter, because I have said my piece and I don't have anything more to say to you.
My knowledge of World War Two is sparse relative to yours. Though I agree with your assessment that it was our material support and sheer numbers that overwhelmed the German war machine. Not that our troops didn't have heart or ability, but our war machine and industrial might was not superpower class at the start of the war. Also you're right in that the Nazi's contribution to science was enormous. Basically I was just trying to lighten the mood, and I really do like the Nazi's style, if not their clinically evil worldview. The tragedy of the Nazi regime is how their zeal and nationalism mixed base degeneracy with otherwise highly respectable achievements
The above you should remember as my first serious post on the subject of World War Two, which was simply an agreement with another poster. I basically say that America's most important contribution to the war effort was materiel aid, and that in no way lessens the sacrifice of the many American troops who lost their lives in the war effort, some 140,000 of them. If you say that is a small number relative to the 60,000,000 other people who directly or indirectly lost their lives, your right, but would you go so far as to trivialize them. Do you think that 140,000 American lives amounts to nothing and that all of those men died on a cakewalk or a fool's errand, and their individual sacrifices amount to nothing? You don't think that someone, somewhere, owes their life or existence to at least one or more of these men? If your opinions are the norm for what non-Americans think of America, I'll not support military intervention that doesn't involve defending our own borders or interests, because, it is either unappreciated or not necessary if I am to believe you. Tell me Alex, why should one American life, or one American dollar be spent helping people who have only hatred and bitterness with which to thank us?
I have no idea how you can teach me about things that happened where I lived, with my relatives and neighbors, and call what you have picked at your school after decades of anti-soviet and anti-russian histeria in this country something other than propaganda.
As a matter of fact, I learned absolutely nothing of World War Two during my time in school, all of my knowledge is based off of some British documentaries, a few odds and ends I picked up over the years, and the history behind the weapons of the era gleaned from resources that mainly focused on the technical merit of the weapons and important battles in which they were employed. The British documentaries corrected any inflated notions I may have had about the significance and nature of America's involvement in the war long before it ever occurred to you to give it a try. Of course you just assume that everything I say is just propaganda that I have been spoon fed, truth of the matter is, the schools I went to didn't care what I knew about anything one way or the other. You make it seem as if you have been exposed to less propaganda than I have, how can you guarantee that? What can someone like me teach you? Nothing, since you have already made up your mind about what the correct opinions to have about the facts are.
Saying "both sides were somehow right" is not the right way of discussing history, no matter how they teach you "tolerance" in this screwed up education system -- looking at facts, actions and their consequences is the only way to find out the truth. I would respect Americans much more if they will openly admit how wrong they are and teach their children it as an example that never should be repeated -- after all, Russians openly admitted how wrong/evil Stalin's rule was as early as in 50's (yes, I know, you Americans missed it), Germans denounced Nazi even earlier, and regarding US and WWII we are looking at a bit lesser kind of shame than either. Accept it -- at least stop hiding the facts from students that take your history classes -- and you will be respected more.
At what point do I say "both sides are somehow right"? Putting words in my mouth is as dirty a conversational tactic as any you accuse me of, but I'll get to that later. Educate me then, tell me, what part of American history even remotely compares to the genocide and atrocities committed by the Nazi's or by the Russians under Stalin's rule? All of America's ugly truths wouldn't fit on the small toenail of Germany or Russia's past misdeeds this century. I'll be more than happy to admit to America's wrong doing and make note to myself to do what I can to prevent it from happening again. You can accuse America of clumsiness in it's handling of foreign affairs, but not of outright malice. Ask a citizen of Kuwait what they think of America and our intervention in Iraq's invasion of their country. Then ask a citizen of Iraq the same question. I have had the luxury of speaking to both, one a doctor, the other a student at the local school I mentioned earlier. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who supported American involvement and who opposed it. Right and wrong are relative concepts, historical facts are historical facts, you can use the same facts or statistics to prove or disprove anything you want. That leads me to wander why it is that you want so badly to have America collectively admit to some sort of wrong or have some cathartic hair rending revelation of our past misdeeds. I don't owe the world an apology, personally or collectively, and I am more than happy to accept any fact that I can, or care to ascertain to be true.
And I don't think, you should use counter-accusations of racism (or whatever else) toward me to change the subject -- again, you should leave your cheap discussion tricks for something else. First, racism was merely an example of dirty page in US history that was defended and distorted by "patriots" for centuries. Second, being of jewish/ukrainian origin (yes, "jewish" can be a nationality, and it's unrelated to judaism or any other religion) in Russia I was a target of enough hate and discrimination to feel nothing but disgust toward all kinds of racial/national discrimination, no matter who is the target.
I was not changing the subject, you challenged my knowledge of past American atrocities and I gave you a personal account of my knowledge of some of them. Then I challenged your assertion that you were in any position to speak on the subject of racism and backed it up with my personal stake in the issue. The fact that you are Jewish and have been persecuted for it doesn't prove to me that you are not a racist. It's not that I believe that you wouldn't discriminate against someone due to any racial or ethnic factors. But how closely would you associate with someone who was different than you, would you be friends, marry, engage yourself in their culture? As close as I do, I doubt it, but I won't assume that you would or would not, note that I do ask the question of you rather than assume anything about you. All you have to go on about me is that I call myself Kalabajoui on this forum and whatever else I choose to reveal about myself, real or imagined. Keep that in mind next time you make a wild guess about myself or my background. Your last line about disgust at discrimination of any kind is kind of ironic, since it's that same feeling about your prejudice against America that keeps me wasting my time replying to your posts. (Coincidentally, your assumptions about me without basis of fact would be a good example of prejudice as the word applies to an attitude, not just racism.)
Ok, I know I said that I would leave you with the last word but damn, that just calls for a response. When I mentioned rational openminded and friendly discourse, that included people with a less than flattering take on America's role in history, just without your closeminded bitterness. What makes you think that I don't have access to a different account of history than my government provides? You accusing me of not making real arguments and spouting off propaganda and insults is like the pot calling the kettle black. How about the Cherokees journey along the "Trail of tears", some of my relatives live on a reservation in Oklahoma thanks to resettlement efforts by other peoples with whom I share ethnicity. My current girlfriend is of African descent and I am aware of her ancestors history and our nations role in their enslavement. Some members of my family have a history of a lack of racism, can you say the same for your family or yourself? Most Europeans I have met would frown on my mixed heritage and tendencies to mix it up further. I have had Russians I work with point at a black woman and joke about how I should date her, not realizing that I would. I won't even go into my Italian relatives views on non-white people in general. Maybe the real propaganda is being spread by people like you who have a rabidly anti-american mindset. You lack objectivity, and you take any facts put in front of you and interpret them to suit your ends.
I'm tired of banging my head agains't your endless bitterness towards America. It's well worth it to me to let you have the last word because I don't give a shit what you think about myself or America. I live 6 miles down the road from a state college where I can find people willing to engage in a rational, friendly, and openminded discourse regarding America and it's history of interaction with the world. Besides, I have better things to do, like write silly posts
complementing the Nazi's on their mode of dress and style. Thank you.
Your viewpoint is obviously greatly slanted against the United States. I won't argue that you raise legitimate issues, but you make it out as if America was an evil empire that has never made a wise foriegn policy decision or a positive contribution to the world. Also, it is a gross generalization to assume that I or every American doesn't recognize the sacrifices made by the Europeans in World War Two. I'll stick by my guns and say that although late and not the whole war effort by any means, Americas intervention in World War Two was pivotal. I won't argue with you because we can both put whatever spin we like on the issues we have discussed. Can you at least agree with my original post that although evil, the Nazi regime had stylish uniforms?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I know, I just downloaded it on Napster and gave the lyrics a more careful listen. Oops! I'm embarrassed by that gaff. I also forgot to switch my post from html and lost the proper formatting. Aside from the irony of my displaying ignorance in the middle of a rant against ignorance, I think I made some worthwhile points. Thanks for the reply and the interesting link.
We have gone from being a people for whom even a rock band (The Byrds, Eight Miles High) could get airplay making poetry and music inspired by the achievements and human ingenuity of the American space program to a being a bunch of morons entertained by degenerate ignorance from Fox. By no means do I think of myself as being some kind of genious. As a matter of fact I consider myself to be a fairly average guy. But damn if I don't have to continually dumb my conversation down, lest I say something too complicated, controversial, or too non-superficial! It's as if the American culture has collectively put complacency and ignorance on a pedestal. If you find someone who honestly believes that a man never set foot on the moon, I guarantee that you have found someone who is proud of their ignorance. Sadly, the Fox special is not a cause of ignorance, but rather a reflection and justification of it. Don't take this to mean that I think people were any more or less ignorant thirty years ago than they are now. But I think that a scarcity mentality and jealousy towards the intelligent and learned members of society has grown over the years as some kind of backlash. Out of laziness, contempt, peer pressure, or whatever other reason, people now seem to believe that it is better to tear down people of intellectual achievement than it is to learn or achieve themselves or simply respect someone for their hard work and ability. That is why you have terms in our language like "Computer Geek", and fat people who smoke and then attack the credentials of the medical establishment, it's doctors, and scientific studies rather than listen, learn, and quit smoking and eating themselves into an early grave. Finally, that is why there are people who would watch this crap from Fox and buy into it. The only way to even start reversing this trend is to send our children to schools where they are educated and not warehoused. That and get involved in our childrens education as parents and mentors. How to make that happen on more than an individual level seems far more complicated than putting a man on the moon. I can only hope that our society wakes up before it's too late and gets it's priorities straight. "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russel END RANT
I am a technician and a hardware buff / end user, not a programmer, so my opinions are less informed than yours on the technical aspect of library compatibility with binary programs. It could be that I am off base altogether, though I think my ideas have merit for users like myself. Again, thanks for taking the time to clue me in.
would take the source and compile, then install the program. For the end user short on time or technical ability this would be transparent and just as easy as installing a binary. In addition to the the easy installation and solution to minor incompatibilities from library version to library version there is also the performance benifit of compiling the source over using a generic binary.
Go ahead and distribute the keys. If you bought the music or content with a credit card that is in your name the content provider will know exactly whom to go out and make an example of because the keys will have a unique identifyer that can be traced back to you. Of course there are ways around that, but it would require care to keep your purchase anonymous.
Wild Cherry Pepsi is superior to Cherry coke from it's better tasting Pepsi base to the additional cherry flavoring. But hey, taste is subjective so drink whatever floats your boat...
The subject header of this post is my favorite portal, that and the saved links in my favorites menu, and whatever new links I find using http://www.topclick.com.
Robber Barons. That is how you would describe those corporations and individuals who would seek vertical and horizontal monopolies by creating artificial scarcity and gouging the general public. I would call airing commercials on a pay service stealing before I would call hacking a satellite reciever stealing. That's just my two cents on the issue.
That I should give up the right to create my own copyrighted content or high quality content of any kind. It is stealing after all, the record and movie companies have less market share and I have more market share at their expense when I make my own content. What gives me the right to take that market share and profit away from it's rightfull owners? In a fair and just society people who steal market share should be fined and jailed after all.
Supporting non-proprietary and open-source software for a profit is Redhat's business model. It appears that there is a need and therefore an opportunity to do something similar with with free billing software. With the open-source business model profit is made from expertise and hard work rather than by being the market leader for your particular product. So there is every incentive to innovate and provide the best value to your customer. Businesses need to understand that they are either going to have to pay for open source software through their own in house efforts or that they are going to have to pay for a commercial support package if an open source program doesn't fit there particular needs. Again, open source software is about free speech cooperation and competion, not about getting a free ride. (Yes, I know I am being redundant on this issue, but it seems like businesses and individuals are redundant in their lack of understanding.)
Yeah, what are they going to do if you give their software away for free? Say "Hey, we stole that code fair and square, now quit pirating us". Trying to use GPL'ed code for a proprietary application is just begging to have your app distributed for free. All other lawsuits and infringements aside it is the most effective punishment you can level on a company for abusing free code.
The German distribution Easy Linux was supposed to have implemented a registry like feature that used text files rather than a monolithic file like Windows 95 and NT. http://www.easylinux.org/
A rogue state or well funded terrorists could easily afford enough iron to bring on an ice age. That is assuming that this method of fertilizing the ocean works as plannned. Still, something like this holds alot of promise. The benefits of fertilizing the ocean would be a boon to fishermen. Unlike dumping raw sewage into the ocean iron won't have the negative affects of disease and killing the native life. At least if it is done in already dead zones.
In an ideal capitalist world broadband internet connnections would equal lower phone rates and would have a deflationary effect on the economy. The past 50 years has seen stratuspheric rises in productivity that have been coupled with rising prices and stagnating wages. I hope that the phone companies are not able to put the broadband genie back in the bottle and that for just once everyone gets to enjoy the fruits of a powerful labor and money saving technology. It doesn't make me feel in the least bit bad that money grubbing corporations like Ameritech are going to turn a lower profit if I use the internet to make a phone call. Fuck them, and every other company that pockets all of the profit from more efficient processes and then raises prices to pad their pockets and suppress competing technologies. The RIAA comes to my mind when I think about my last sentence too, that's ok, I have plenty of vitriol for them as well. It's about time that some corporations shared in the short end of the capitalism stick.
I wonder if it would be possible to make a DIMM out of SRAM exclusively and make it DDR capable. Yes, SRAM has more transistors and therefore takes up more die space, but with smaller processes and the low prices for conventional PC100 lately I think it's feasable. Lets say that it doubles or even triples the price per MB, so what, it's worth the extra performance! PC100 at 128 megs was down to 55 dollars last I checked, I would happily pay double or triple that price to have an equivalent DDRSRAM solution. AFAIK SRAM runs at speeds of up to 400 MHZ, couple that with DDR in a DIMM configuration and you have 800 MHZ 64bit memory! Add this to a system bus that could run synchronously with this fast memory and you would have monstrous performance gains. Back to my original question, why or why not?
I would think that Aquaman, Batman, Wonderwoman, The Green Lantern, and Superman would be a good start for the KDE League. You need them to oppose the supervillans of the Gnome Foundation like Lex Luthor, Solomon Grundy, Scarecrow, and Bizzaro. It should be quite entertaining and I look forward to watching the titanic battles of good versus evil!
The version of the Katzbot that wrote this artical has greatly improved abilities to pander to the Slashdot crowd than any of the one dot Katzbots. By three-oh there shouldn't statiscally be any more trolls responding to its articals than any other Slashdot writer. Now that's hacking and programming at it's finest if you ask me!
The term being coined by Lestat in Anne Rice's Vampire series. The physicists, realizing that they couldn't ever find the truth they were seeking in a normal human lifetime, undertake a mallific blood rite to become immortal. As vampires they can devote their immortality to finding the truth, at the cost of needing human blood to sustain themselves. Now that would make for an entertaining read, vampire lore, physics, and all of the conflicts already in Goldsteins book.
With the invention of "super-tensile-solids" we should be able to construct the first space yoyo sometime around 2050. That will give "walking the dog" or "around the world" a whole new meaning.
Michael Crichton was the author of this work, he is very prolific. His books and movies are always thought provoking, if a little on the cheesy side sometimes. Versatile as well, we're talking the same guy who's brainchild is also E.R., a good show and a very different genre than The Andromeda Strain. Unlike Arthur C. Clarke, Crichton doesn't attempt to turn his fiction into prognostications or forecasts, instead he puts a human element into action packed forward thinking near-future science fiction. Although; I wonder if he isn't just a little bit prescient with that space fungus on Mir that may soon take over the Earth!
I thought that I already explained to you that I don't know the first thing about the use of HTML.
Sorry if my last post was hard to read, when I have some time I will look up the appropriate resources to learn how to use it or play with the examples provided on the pre-post page. In any case it was just one of your many off-topic cheap shots towards me. Kind of how it would be a cheap shot for me to make fun of your frequent spelling errors. Also, you again assume that I am ignoring Russia's role in World War Two. That's not true, just for the sake of time and space I lump Russia together with the rest of the Allied powers, and atrocities committed in Russia with those in Germany. I won't even go into the rest of the distortions you make to my position's, because I am tired of debating you.
It doesn't surprise me that you live in America yet have not one good thing to say about the country that allows you freedom from the discrimination you faced in your home land. Actions speak louder than words, so why don't you use that American passport of your's and move to a country where the people and the politics match your views and principals? The act of staying here alone is to support the corporations, individuals and the government's present and future foriegn policy mistakes. Especially if ALL Americans are ignorant and complacent about our government's activities as you claim so often. You know that you can't make a difference and you are fooling yourself if you claim to be here for any other reason than your own personal gain. You are entitled to your opinions under America's political system, you are even entitled to hate America while reaping the benefits of living here.
That's ok, I am entitled to think that you are an ingrate who needs to show the country you choose to live in some respect or else pack up your bags and leave.
This is my last post on the matter, because I have said my piece and I don't have anything more to say to you.
My knowledge of World War Two is sparse relative to yours. Though I agree with your assessment that it was our material support and sheer numbers that overwhelmed the German war machine. Not that our troops didn't have heart or ability, but our war machine and industrial might was not superpower class at the start of the war. Also you're right in that the Nazi's contribution to science was enormous. Basically I was just trying to lighten the mood, and I really do like the Nazi's style, if not their clinically evil worldview. The tragedy of the Nazi regime is how their zeal and nationalism mixed base degeneracy with otherwise highly respectable achievements
The above you should remember as my first serious post on the subject of World War Two, which was simply an agreement with another poster. I basically say that America's most important contribution to the war effort was materiel aid, and that in no way lessens the sacrifice of the many American troops who lost their lives in the war effort, some 140,000 of them. If you say that is a small number relative to the 60,000,000 other people who directly or indirectly lost their lives, your right, but would you go so far as to trivialize them. Do you think that 140,000 American lives amounts to nothing and that all of those men died on a cakewalk or a fool's errand, and their individual sacrifices amount to nothing? You don't think that someone, somewhere, owes their life or existence to at least one or more of these men? If your opinions are the norm for what non-Americans think of America, I'll not support military intervention that doesn't involve defending our own borders or interests, because, it is either unappreciated or not necessary if I am to believe you. Tell me Alex, why should one American life, or one American dollar be spent helping people who have only hatred and bitterness with which to thank us?
I have no idea how you can teach me about things that happened where I lived, with my relatives and neighbors, and call what you have picked at your school after decades of anti-soviet and anti-russian histeria in this country something other than propaganda.
As a matter of fact, I learned absolutely nothing of World War Two during my time in school, all of my knowledge is based off of some British documentaries, a few odds and ends I picked up over the years, and the history behind the weapons of the era gleaned from resources that mainly focused on the technical merit of the weapons and important battles in which they were employed. The British documentaries corrected any inflated notions I may have had about the significance and nature of America's involvement in the war long before it ever occurred to you to give it a try. Of course you just assume that everything I say is just propaganda that I have been spoon fed, truth of the matter is, the schools I went to didn't care what I knew about anything one way or the other. You make it seem as if you have been exposed to less propaganda than I have, how can you guarantee that? What can someone like me teach you? Nothing, since you have already made up your mind about what the correct opinions to have about the facts are.
Saying "both sides were somehow right" is not the right way of discussing history, no matter how they teach you "tolerance" in this screwed up education system -- looking at facts, actions and their consequences is the only way to find out the truth. I would respect Americans much more if they will openly admit how wrong they are and teach their children it as an example that never should be repeated -- after all, Russians openly admitted how wrong/evil Stalin's rule was as early as in 50's (yes, I know, you Americans missed it), Germans denounced Nazi even earlier, and regarding US and WWII we are looking at a bit lesser kind of shame than either. Accept it -- at least stop hiding the facts from students that take your history classes -- and you will be respected more.
At what point do I say "both sides are somehow right"? Putting words in my mouth is as dirty a conversational tactic as any you accuse me of, but I'll get to that later. Educate me then, tell me, what part of American history even remotely compares to the genocide and atrocities committed by the Nazi's or by the Russians under Stalin's rule? All of America's ugly truths wouldn't fit on the small toenail of Germany or Russia's past misdeeds this century. I'll be more than happy to admit to America's wrong doing and make note to myself to do what I can to prevent it from happening again. You can accuse America of clumsiness in it's handling of foreign affairs, but not of outright malice. Ask a citizen of Kuwait what they think of America and our intervention in Iraq's invasion of their country. Then ask a citizen of Iraq the same question. I have had the luxury of speaking to both, one a doctor, the other a student at the local school I mentioned earlier. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who supported American involvement and who opposed it. Right and wrong are relative concepts, historical facts are historical facts, you can use the same facts or statistics to prove or disprove anything you want. That leads me to wander why it is that you want so badly to have America collectively admit to some sort of wrong or have some cathartic hair rending revelation of our past misdeeds. I don't owe the world an apology, personally or collectively, and I am more than happy to accept any fact that I can, or care to ascertain to be true.
And I don't think, you should use counter-accusations of racism (or whatever else) toward me to change the subject -- again, you should leave your cheap discussion tricks for something else. First, racism was merely an example of dirty page in US history that was defended and distorted by "patriots" for centuries. Second, being of jewish/ukrainian origin (yes, "jewish" can be a nationality, and it's unrelated to judaism or any other religion) in Russia I was a target of enough hate and discrimination to feel nothing but disgust toward all kinds of racial/national discrimination, no matter who is the target.
I was not changing the subject, you challenged my knowledge of past American atrocities and I gave you a personal account of my knowledge of some of them. Then I challenged your assertion that you were in any position to speak on the subject of racism and backed it up with my personal stake in the issue. The fact that you are Jewish and have been persecuted for it doesn't prove to me that you are not a racist. It's not that I believe that you wouldn't discriminate against someone due to any racial or ethnic factors. But how closely would you associate with someone who was different than you, would you be friends, marry, engage yourself in their culture? As close as I do, I doubt it, but I won't assume that you would or would not, note that I do ask the question of you rather than assume anything about you. All you have to go on about me is that I call myself Kalabajoui on this forum and whatever else I choose to reveal about myself, real or imagined. Keep that in mind next time you make a wild guess about myself or my background. Your last line about disgust at discrimination of any kind is kind of ironic, since it's that same feeling about your prejudice against America that keeps me wasting my time replying to your posts. (Coincidentally, your assumptions about me without basis of fact would be a good example of prejudice as the word applies to an attitude, not just racism.)
Ok, I know I said that I would leave you with the last word but damn, that just calls for a response. When I mentioned rational openminded and friendly discourse, that included people with a less than flattering take on America's role in history, just without your closeminded bitterness. What makes you think that I don't have access to a different account of history than my government provides? You accusing me of not making real arguments and spouting off propaganda and insults is like the pot calling the kettle black. How about the Cherokees journey along the "Trail of tears", some of my relatives live on a reservation in Oklahoma thanks to resettlement efforts by other peoples with whom I share ethnicity. My current girlfriend is of African descent and I am aware of her ancestors history and our nations role in their enslavement. Some members of my family have a history of a lack of racism, can you say the same for your family or yourself? Most Europeans I have met would frown on my mixed heritage and tendencies to mix it up further. I have had Russians I work with point at a black woman and joke about how I should date her, not realizing that I would. I won't even go into my Italian relatives views on non-white people in general. Maybe the real propaganda is being spread by people like you who have a rabidly anti-american mindset. You lack objectivity, and you take any facts put in front of you and interpret them to suit your ends.
I'm tired of banging my head agains't your endless bitterness towards America. It's well worth it to me to let you have the last word because I don't give a shit what you think about myself or America. I live 6 miles down the road from a state college where I can find people willing to engage in a rational, friendly, and openminded discourse regarding America and it's history of interaction with the world. Besides, I have better things to do, like write silly posts complementing the Nazi's on their mode of dress and style. Thank you.
Your viewpoint is obviously greatly slanted against the United States. I won't argue that you raise legitimate issues, but you make it out as if America was an evil empire that has never made a wise foriegn policy decision or a positive contribution to the world. Also, it is a gross generalization to assume that I or every American doesn't recognize the sacrifices made by the Europeans in World War Two. I'll stick by my guns and say that although late and not the whole war effort by any means, Americas intervention in World War Two was pivotal. I won't argue with you because we can both put whatever spin we like on the issues we have discussed. Can you at least agree with my original post that although evil, the Nazi regime had stylish uniforms?