Nick Park, the British creator of the cartoon figures Wallace and Gromit is to make four films with Steven Spielberg
London - the British creator of the cartoon figures Wallace and Gromit, Nick Park, is to make a series of four films with the US director Steven Spielberg. According to Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of Spielberg's production company Dreamworks, the two film-geeks signed a contract valued at over 250 million dollars (approx. 239 million Euro or 3.29 billion Austrian Schillings).
In Park's films, the claymation figures Wallace and his dog Gromit, among other things, flew to the moon to find cheese, and battled the jewel thief Feathers McGraw, a fiendish penguin. Spielberg has filmed blockbusters like "E.T." and the film "Schindlers List" which was distinguished with seven Oscars. The threetime OSCAR winner Park created his company "Aardman Animation" in 1985.
---end translation---
*disclaimer: "film-geeks" may not be the 100% kosher translation of the term "Film-Schaffenden"!:-)
If I never see another box named after a greco-roman god it will be too soon! Usually its a mix too. A few greek gods, a few roman gods and a thor and an odin thrown in for good measure as well. Nothing too imaginative.
Here we've got a large wall map of "The Canoe Routes of Algonquin Park" up in our server room. (Algonquin Park is a very large, very beautiful Provincial Park in the Cdn province of Ontario). Our machines bear the names of lakes in Algonquin Park that many people here have enjoyed paddling across.
BOOTH CACHE [currently serving as a router:-) ] CANOE ERABLES GALEAIRY NORTHTEA OPEONGO OTTERSLIDE PROVOKING RADIANT SMOKE SOURCE (yes, an actual lake name!)
No he never said or implied "worse". You were the one who started the comparisons:
YOU: "And you have gross abuse of power by putative Christians throughout history, but its probably nothing to compare to what has been done by non-Christians."
(See the comparison)
The Anonymous Coward disagreed with *your* comparison by posting:
"Probably nothing to compare to... crusades? Inquisition? Burning (a lot) of people at stakes? Torture? The spanish missions in old mid-america?...only wiped out a few whole native cultures... Oops."
Nowhere does he state Christianity is therefore *worse* than any other sociopolitical system. In fact since he *quotes* you I think the obvious implication is that he's taking issue with what he is quoting: that is the "probably nothing to compare to" line above meaning Christianity is not as bad as the others.
You respond by posting a list of assorted non-Christian nastiness. Which is all fine and good but doesn't do anything to prove your (not his/her) *your* initial comparison. That was my point - which I obviously didn't explain well enough since instead of saying "damned fine point there" you said I wrote "foolish nonsense". But don't worry I was fine.:-)
In your last post you have *changed*! You changed to "no worse than" from your original "nothing to compare to what has been done by non-Christians". If you had said "no worse than" instead of less worse than at the beginning the AC would not have had a point to make and we could have avoided this whole thread in the first place.
Finally, here and in earlier posts you continually assert that it was disease and not the Spanish who did in North American aboriginal cultures. Well that is simply a distortion of history. Here is a nice summation of Europeans affect on Native society:
"The arrival of the Europeans brought unprecendented change, havoc, and death. Armed with the ethnocentric view that European cultures, values, lifeways, abilities, achievements, & religion were more advanced, were better than anything the Indians had, the Europeans seized the native peoples' lands & resources, destroyed their socieities & cultures. Coupled with this was the spread of European diseases which decimated the Native American population. By the seventeenth century, more than fifty million native of North & South America had died as a result of war, enslavement, & disease in what may have been, in the words of the historian Alvin Josephy, "history's greatest holocaust by far." Over the next three centuries the Native People of North America struggled against the virulent racism, patronization, condescension, & policies of formed assimilation--the determination to stamp out Indianness--of the ever-expanding European based societies. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Indian population in North America had dropped to an all-time low of some 250,000 - 350,000 people, most of whom were living (& dying) on reservations as little more than political prisoners. Denied freedom of religion, the right to govern themselves & manage their own affairs, & having their Indianness literally beaten out of them by all manner of prohibitions & punishments, they nevertheless persisted."
It was not disease that sacked the cities of Mexico. It was not disease that forced the natives of South America into slavery to work in plantations. It was not disease that hunted the natives of Cuba down until the last one was dead. It was not disease that caused the U.S.-Indian wars of the late nineteenth century. It was not disease that tore apart families and forced thousands upon thousands of native children into Christian "residential schools" well into *this* century where their own culture and language was beaten and brutalized out of them.
Yes it was disease that was responsible for the deaths of so many. No dispute.
But look at 14th Century Europe. Disease (the Black Death) came along and depopulated much of Europe. What happened? Did European culture fade? The survivors carried on and European culture came back stronger than ever.
I think there was *a lot* more than just disease or even mostly disease at work in the Americas. Arguing otherwise is self-deception.
Someone posts the usual crusades, inquisition, spanish inquisition, spanish conquest, witch hunts, bla, bla, bla thing
You respond with:
crusades - not as bad as the Islamic jihads
inquisition - A)highly overrated B) Nero did bad stuff!
burning at the stake: pagan germanic cultures did bad stuff!
spanish: "not really responsible" it was disease
genocide: it's common, the russians did it, happened in Asia too
What does Nero have to do with the Inquisition? pagan germans with the witch hunts? diseases killing natives with conquista-types killing, enslaving and force converting natives? isalmic jihads with the crusades? asian genocide with european genocide?
Nothing. The only thing they have to do with each other is that they all suck! No one argues that. But those subjects aren't being discussed in this thread.
You agree that you're saying "the depredations suffered under regimes of Christian cultures were no worse...than...under other religious systems..."
Why are you saying that if not to "excuse" "Christian cultures" from their historic burden? What is your point?
Perhaps you are taking issue with the word "excuse"? Do you think it too strong? I'd simply like to know the motive of saying what you did if its not what I thought was plainly evident.
You never really answered the original poster of this topic. You just listed a set of events that had nothing to do with what he was talking about.
Finally, there is simply no need to resort to ad hominum attacks. My response expressed a valid concern about the nature of your post. If you'd like to respond to the substance of my post feel free to do so. If you'd simply like to call me some more names, I direct you to my six year old niece.
Well if they were milder than the crusades then no problem. (??!) I'd like to see your "mildness scale" for wars of religious conquest. What the what is that?
Inquisition highly overrated eh? Spanish not at fault either? Very very interesting.
Let's see centuries of Christian persecution can be ovelooked because other groups did "bad things" too?
I don't think anyone *reasonable* has ever claimed that Christians are the only source of nastiness in world history but just because there have been other oppressors too doesn't magically relieve Christianity of its heavy burden. I don't think there are any *reasonable* Christian thinkers who claim otherwise.
Your post smacks of gross bias and a smidgen of unobjectivity. Sorry to say.
America isn't more free just because Americans tell themselves over and over again that it is.
the war on drugs!!!!! and all its ramifications religious right crazy patent laws creationists lawsuit-o-mania selective service nutbar drinking age laws no cuban cigars or cheap vacations highest incarceration rate in the western world 3 strikes and "you're out" bla bla bla
*ON THE OTHER HAND*: it's easy to think of ways America has got the drop on many other Western countries too For example many European countries have - get this - an official list of names you can name your kids - not on the list, forget it! wierdness! *too* crazy!
It's not that surprising. DE is, after all, the country where "The Kelly Family" tours endlessly. What's up with that?! No one outside of Germany knows who the Kelly Family is folks.
It cost you more money in the long run when you guys decided to opt out of the League of Nations. Remember how we got a UN in the first place. Hint: Roosevelt had a lot to do with it
Wow you jumped to use the word ridiculous pretty quick.
I do not doubt for a minute you could do all you claim. I never said that there are *no* guns in Canada. Of course there are, especially in rural regions or tourist/hunting areas.
I've lived in urban areas not rural areas and I believe my Canadian urban experience is typical.
That it's a societal thing is exactly the point I was making. It's a societal thing and we have much the similar geography than the US. I replied to someone saying the UK had less guns than the US because it was harder to get them in because the UK has less coastline to defend. I took issue with that assertion.
You called me ridiculous and then basically agreed with what I was saying. Perhaps I have to learn how to express myself with greater clarity?
P.S. it's hot and humid as hell in central Canada for much of the year - we're as far south as northern California and there are all those wetlands (damned mosquitos!)
I apologize if it came across as if I thought all of America was like the areas being discussed. I know that is a cliche. I realize fully that is not at all the case. My comments were incomplete and should have contained a line such as "I acknowledge that my description...(of life in major Canadian urban settings)... could describe much of the rest of America. I don't mean to imply you *cannot* have much the same experience in many parts of the US..." . Regardless though, I imagine you'd have a better chance of never seeing a gun in Canada as the gun-ownership statistics and regulations are so vastly different between the two countries in urban areas.
Vancouver would have been a better choice for a Canadian city with a high crime rate (high for Canada). Toronto has a remarkably low rate of violent crime for a North American city of its size (one of the biggest). It's nickname used to be "Toronto the Good".
I am not claiming Toronto or Canada is perfect. They are not. My only point really is to say that its possible to have a country with similar geography to the US but without the guns are huge part of the culture thing. That's why I posted the original response. I basically agree with the Kintanon guy.
You have far less people, far less crowding and an entirely different culture. You didn't fight a war against an oppresive government for your independance. Your citizens are happy with a powerful, centralized and socialistic government. And I can walk through the downtown of most US cities and not hear a gun shot and be perfectly safe, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have the right to carry a loaded weapon in my back pocket. There IS a major cultural difference and that is why America is a 'military superpower' that is a cting as the worlds 'policeman' we are all power hungry egomaniacs, down to the last one of us. Our culture is based on a 200 year old superiority complex that sparked us to revolution because the people makeing the rules about our country were idiots.
I agree with some of your sentiments especially as expressed very well in a post further down. Here I think you've lost the mark a few times but not completely.
We hardly have a "centralized" government as you say. In fact, our federation is by many measures the most decentralized federation there is. A Canadian province (especially if its one of the larger wealthier ones) has powers unmatched by even the cantons of Switzerland
all levels of government in Canada have been haemorrhaging power for some time now - just like in most of the western world
"socialistic": we are not a socialist country - I can only assume you meant that as a slur but I'm sure you're aware that the word socialist is not pejorative outside of the US - The dominant economic philosophy in Canada is capitalism. We worry about trade balances and investment levels and GDP and all that stuff you know. We have government run health insurance like most sensible capitalist countries although no its not perfect. I personally prefer it greatly over an HMO though. All western countries have social programs (including the US). Our levels of welfare support may be modestly more generous and we don't believe health insurance should be a product like any other. This doesn't make us "socialistic"(sic)
We have the same distribution of crowding and openness as you do. We are spread across the same continent after all. The Greater Toronto Area is one of the biggest urban centres in N.A. 4.5 million people. Go to Vancouver and say there's no crowding here. We are one of the most urban nations on the planet.
We did fight. No nothing so gradiose as the great american war of independence. The (armed) Upper Canada and Lower Canada Rebellions of the mid-nineteenth century paved the way for the eventually establishment of "responsible government" in "the Canadas" in the 1840's at the cost of the lives of the leaders of the rebellions. The eventual result was full democracy as the old order crumbled to the reformers. Gradually - no revolution. For most of the same time period we were either at war with you guys (1812-1814) or getting prepared for the next invasion. I can reach a dozen battle sites in an hour's drive from here.
You are often seen (outside of America) less as a policeman and more as the biggest kid on the block - If you were a policeman wouldn't you have supported all the UN peacekeeping missions all these years? Americans like to get the troops home by Christmas if possible. (Yes I know that's not always the case - such as your hard work, thankless work, in Bosnia and Kosovo where there is little for you to gain). We do stuff too you know. We came up with the idea of UN peacekeepers. We sat on the DMZ in Cyprus for two decades. We put our troops under UN command (I know you guys can't for political reasons).
Anyway you'll see at the end of my original post I mention it's the cultural climate that's the issue. I have no illusions that people in America are going to want to give up their guns. Too bad but oh well. I think it's interesting to compare the cultural differences. Believe me it's practically our other national sport (besides lacrosse I mean): simultaneous navel-gazing and watching America. We have a supposedly huge inferiority complex. But I think JR Saul is right. Our elites have always wanted to be like the elites in other countries (read America) and be able to throw around a lot of raw power. (Perhaps because they are all power hungry egomaniacs). They don't realize that if they got what they wanted - it would suck.
The reason Hitler never invaded Switzerland had nothing to do with an armed populace. Sure he knew it would be tough to take if he tried but there are many other more compelling reasons.
A) he had all his resources committed to fighting WW2
B) the Swiss were majority German-speaking and have a German culture - and unlike the Austrians fervently did *not* want to be connected to the Reich (not that all Austrians did but there were very active fascist movements in Austria before the ol' Anschluss) I think the good old NSDAP was more concerned with crushing the untermenschen rather than their fellow Germans
C) Just like for modern dictators today Switzerland was helpful for Hitler's regime just the way it was - It was a neutral they could use as a conduit to other parts of the world and don't forget it was *very* convenient for them to stash huge amounts of ill-gotten loot in. Of course you've heard of the fabled Swiss bank accounts.
If he had wanted to make invading CH a priority do you really thaink he would have balked at it?
Why does that incident stick out so much? Perhaps because of its *rarity*.
When it comes to massacres in the US. When the rest of us hear about it, it's sadly almost become "What another one? My God..."
The original poster never said such things never occured in Scotland or wherever. They were commenting on the huge descrepencies on the frequency of such incidents.
Well the actual American colonists of the time were British in their cultural values and in fact were inspired by such men as the English Thomas Paine. The main difference was the British reformist tradition was in the position to dominate in the American colonies while it could not yet do so in Britain itself (although it later did of course). The British government of the time was headed by a German King who used thousands of mercenaries from his realms in Europe to fight the revolutionary war. There were in fact probably just as many people born in Britain fighting on both sides of the war. Interestingly enough it took both countires the same amount of time to become full democracies after the turn of the 20th century. (The major difference in timelines is that slavery was abolished two full generations before in British governed areas).
Don't compare yourself to the UK for that one then. Try Canada. We've got tonnes of coastline (more than the US), and less people and resources available to patrol them. Yet we are *not* awash in guns (we confiscate a hell a lot of them at the border though - and the cool thing is we *don't* give them back). In fact, I've lived all my life in major urban centres Toronto, Montreal, (briefly Halifax). I've never seen a live gun - ever. Except holstered at the side of the occasional police type person. I've always lived downtown (since becoming an adult) and walked the streets at any time of the day or night feeling reasonably secure. I've never heard a gunshot - except in a ceremonial salute or something like that. Our murder rate and armed crime rates per capita are miniscule compared to the major American centres. We have a very non-homogeneous population. The only real difference is the cultural environment people live in every day.
1) Replace the word "environment" with the word "biosphere" then. The moon has *no* biosphere. No balance to upset. What could anyone possibly do to harm the moon's "environment"?
2) Who wants to use it as a garbage dump? It would be prohibitively expensive, ridiculously expensive to do so. No one sane thinks that's even a minutely remote possibility. So don't even begin to worry about it. It's not an issue.
I just don't see something like this happening. Like the article says, "UNIX culture" is passed on to every new generation of students in universities. You can't help but pick up some of the history on your way through. Now this could be replaced by NT / Win2000?? I just can't see it happening. Maybe something else one day. It's a more complicated issue than just pressure from without from Microsoft. You can't hack as easily or experiment and play as easily on an NT system (like that even needed being said). Not that you inherently *can't* with NT. There are NT hacks and therefore hackers. But nothing compares to the decades-long traditions behind UNIX.
If anything, I think today's students may be *more* aware of the specialness of their "GNU inheritence" so to speak than a few years ago when it was perhaps taken for granted more.
What "enviroment" are you worried about about ruining on the moon? Sorry, but it is just a big rock. If we're lucky there's some ice trapped at the polls... that's it.
Neither Australia nor Canada nor the Bahamas is a republic. They are constitutional monarchies with a governor general representing the queen when the queen's not in country. They are all members of the Commonwealth, yes. Australia may become a republic in a few years it's true... but they haven't decided yet. And yes they could still remain in the Commonwealth after becoming a republic. There have been several republics in the Commonwealth for some time.
This reminds me of an excerpt from Raymond Kurzweil's Age of Intelligent Machines (2nd book in a row for me that's out of stock at Amazon but Chapters has got it) where examples from poetry generated by a computer are compared to human poetry. Supposedly the s/w was good enough to fool a significant group of people.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's my version in English:
:-)
---begin translation---
Nick Park, the British creator of the cartoon figures Wallace and Gromit is to make four films with Steven Spielberg
London - the British creator of the cartoon figures Wallace and Gromit, Nick Park, is to make a series of four films with the US director Steven Spielberg. According to Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of Spielberg's production company Dreamworks, the two film-geeks signed a contract valued at over 250 million dollars (approx. 239 million Euro or 3.29 billion Austrian Schillings).
In Park's films, the claymation figures Wallace and his dog Gromit, among other things, flew to the moon to find cheese, and battled the jewel thief Feathers McGraw, a fiendish penguin. Spielberg has filmed blockbusters like "E.T." and the film "Schindlers List" which was distinguished with seven Oscars. The threetime OSCAR winner Park created his company "Aardman Animation" in 1985.
---end translation---
*disclaimer: "film-geeks" may not be the 100% kosher translation of the term "Film-Schaffenden"!
If I never see another box named after a greco-roman god it will be too soon! Usually its a mix too. A few greek gods, a few roman gods and a thor and an odin thrown in for good measure as well. Nothing too imaginative.
:-) ]
Here we've got a large wall map of "The Canoe Routes of Algonquin Park" up in our server room. (Algonquin Park is a very large, very beautiful Provincial Park in the Cdn province of Ontario).
Our machines bear the names of lakes in Algonquin Park that many people here have enjoyed paddling across.
BOOTH
CACHE [currently serving as a router
CANOE
ERABLES
GALEAIRY
NORTHTEA
OPEONGO
OTTERSLIDE
PROVOKING
RADIANT
SMOKE
SOURCE (yes, an actual lake name!)
and so forth...
No he never said or implied "worse".
...only wiped out a few whole native cultures... Oops."
:-)
You were the one who started the comparisons:
YOU: "And you have gross abuse of power by putative Christians throughout history, but its probably nothing to compare to what has been done by non-Christians."
(See the comparison)
The Anonymous Coward disagreed with *your* comparison by posting:
"Probably nothing to compare to... crusades? Inquisition? Burning (a lot) of people at stakes? Torture? The spanish missions in old mid-america?
Nowhere does he state Christianity is therefore *worse* than any other sociopolitical system. In fact since he *quotes* you I think the obvious implication is that he's taking issue with what he is quoting: that is the "probably nothing to compare to" line above meaning Christianity is not as bad as the others.
You respond by posting a list of assorted non-Christian nastiness. Which is all fine and good but doesn't do anything to prove your (not his/her) *your* initial comparison. That was my point - which I obviously didn't explain well enough since instead of saying "damned fine point there" you said I wrote "foolish nonsense". But don't worry I was fine.
In your last post you have *changed*!
You changed to "no worse than" from your original "nothing to compare to what has been done by non-Christians". If you had said "no worse than" instead of less worse than at the beginning the AC would not have had a point to make and we could have avoided this whole thread in the first place.
Finally, here and in earlier posts you continually assert that it was disease and not the Spanish who did in North American aboriginal cultures. Well that is simply a distortion of history. Here is a nice summation of Europeans affect on Native society:
"The arrival of the Europeans brought
unprecendented change, havoc, and death. Armed with the ethnocentric view that European cultures, values, lifeways, abilities, achievements, &
religion were more advanced, were better than anything the Indians had, the Europeans seized the native peoples' lands & resources, destroyed their
socieities & cultures. Coupled with this was the spread of European diseases which decimated the Native American population. By the seventeenth
century, more than fifty million native of North & South America had died as a result of war, enslavement, & disease in what may have been, in the words of the historian Alvin Josephy, "history's greatest holocaust by far." Over the next three centuries the Native People of North America struggled against the virulent racism, patronization, condescension, & policies of
formed assimilation--the determination to stamp out Indianness--of the ever-expanding European based societies. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, the Indian population in North America had dropped to an all-time low of some 250,000 - 350,000 people, most of whom were living
(& dying) on reservations as little more than political prisoners. Denied freedom of religion, the right to govern themselves & manage their own
affairs, & having their Indianness literally beaten out of them by all manner of prohibitions & punishments, they nevertheless persisted."
It was not disease that sacked the cities of Mexico. It was not disease that forced the natives of South America into slavery to work in plantations. It was not disease that hunted the natives of Cuba down until the last one was dead. It was not disease that caused the U.S.-Indian wars of the late nineteenth century. It was not disease that tore apart families and forced thousands upon thousands of native children into Christian "residential schools" well into *this* century where their own culture and language was beaten and brutalized out of them.
Yes it was disease that was responsible for the deaths of so many. No dispute.
But look at 14th Century Europe. Disease (the Black Death) came along and depopulated much of Europe. What happened? Did European culture fade? The survivors carried on and European culture came back stronger than ever.
I think there was *a lot* more than just disease or even mostly disease at work in the Americas. Arguing otherwise is self-deception.
Then what was the point of your post?
Let's take a look.
Someone posts the usual crusades, inquisition, spanish inquisition, spanish conquest, witch hunts, bla, bla, bla thing
You respond with:
crusades - not as bad as the Islamic jihads
inquisition - A)highly overrated B) Nero did bad stuff!
burning at the stake: pagan germanic cultures did bad stuff!
spanish: "not really responsible" it was disease
genocide: it's common, the russians did it, happened in Asia too
What does Nero have to do with the Inquisition? pagan germans with the witch hunts? diseases killing natives with conquista-types killing, enslaving and force converting natives? isalmic jihads with the crusades? asian genocide with european genocide?
Nothing. The only thing they have to do with each other is that they all suck! No one argues that. But those subjects aren't being discussed in this thread.
You agree that you're saying "the depredations suffered under regimes of Christian cultures were no worse...than...under other religious systems..."
Why are you saying that if not to "excuse" "Christian cultures" from their historic burden? What is your point?
Perhaps you are taking issue with the word "excuse"? Do you think it too strong?
I'd simply like to know the motive of saying what you did if its not what I thought was plainly evident.
You never really answered the original poster of this topic. You just listed a set of events that had nothing to do with what he was talking about.
Finally, there is simply no need to resort to ad hominum attacks. My response expressed a valid concern about the nature of your post. If you'd like to respond to the substance of my post feel free to do so. If you'd simply like to call me some more names, I direct you to my six year old niece.
Thank you.
Well if they were milder than the crusades then no problem. (??!) I'd like to see your "mildness scale" for wars of religious conquest. What the what is that?
Inquisition highly overrated eh? Spanish not at fault either? Very very interesting.
Let's see centuries of Christian persecution can be ovelooked because other groups did "bad things" too?
I don't think anyone *reasonable* has ever claimed that Christians are the only source of nastiness in world history but just because there have been other oppressors too doesn't magically relieve Christianity of its heavy burden. I don't think there are any *reasonable* Christian thinkers who claim otherwise.
Your post smacks of gross bias and a smidgen of unobjectivity. Sorry to say.
America isn't more free just because Americans tell themselves over and over again that it is.
the war on drugs!!!!! and all its ramifications
religious right
crazy patent laws
creationists
lawsuit-o-mania
selective service
nutbar drinking age laws
no cuban cigars or cheap vacations
highest incarceration rate in the western world
3 strikes and "you're out"
bla bla bla
*ON THE OTHER HAND*: it's easy to think of ways America has got the drop on many other Western countries too
For example many European countries have - get this - an official list of names you can name your kids - not on the list, forget it! wierdness! *too* crazy!
2 words: "punishing inheritence taxes"
:-)
want to open up that can of worms?
It's not that surprising.
DE is, after all, the country where "The Kelly Family" tours endlessly.
What's up with that?!
No one outside of Germany knows who the Kelly Family is folks.
*next* year? meine guete!
Man, you guys are waaay behind!
You guys still watching Dynasty in prime time over there? Or "California-Clan" or whatever the hell it was renamed? That was scary to see...
:-)
It cost you more money in the long run when you guys decided to opt out of the League of Nations. Remember how we got a UN in the first place. Hint: Roosevelt had a lot to do with it
Wow you jumped to use the word ridiculous pretty quick.
I do not doubt for a minute you could do all you claim.
I never said that there are *no* guns in Canada. Of course there are, especially in rural regions or tourist/hunting areas.
I've lived in urban areas not rural areas and I believe my Canadian urban experience is typical.
That it's a societal thing is exactly the point I was making. It's a societal thing and we have much the similar geography than the US. I replied to someone saying the UK had less guns than the US because it was harder to get them in because the UK has less coastline to defend. I took issue with that assertion.
You called me ridiculous and then basically agreed with what I was saying. Perhaps I have to learn how to express myself with greater clarity?
P.S. it's hot and humid as hell in central Canada for much of the year - we're as far south as northern California and there are all those wetlands (damned mosquitos!)
I apologize if it came across as if I thought all of America was like the areas being discussed. I know that is a cliche. I realize fully that is not at all the case. My comments were incomplete and should have contained a line such as "I acknowledge that my description...(of life in major Canadian urban settings)... could describe much of the rest of America. I don't mean to imply you *cannot* have much the same experience in many parts of the US..." . Regardless though, I imagine you'd have a better chance of never seeing a gun in Canada as the gun-ownership statistics and regulations are so vastly different between the two countries in urban areas.
Vancouver would have been a better choice for a Canadian city with a high crime rate (high for Canada). Toronto has a remarkably low rate of violent crime for a North American city of its size (one of the biggest). It's nickname used to be "Toronto the Good".
I am not claiming Toronto or Canada is perfect. They are not. My only point really is to say that its possible to have a country with similar geography to the US but without the guns are huge part of the culture thing. That's why I posted the original response. I basically agree with the Kintanon guy.
I agree with some of your sentiments especially as expressed very well in a post further down. Here I think you've lost the mark a few times but not completely.
Anyway you'll see at the end of my original post I mention it's the cultural climate that's the issue. I have no illusions that people in America are going to want to give up their guns. Too bad but oh well. I think it's interesting to compare the cultural differences. Believe me it's practically our other national sport (besides lacrosse I mean): simultaneous navel-gazing and watching America. We have a supposedly huge inferiority complex. But I think JR Saul is right. Our elites have always wanted to be like the elites in other countries (read America) and be able to throw around a lot of raw power. (Perhaps because they are all power hungry egomaniacs). They don't realize that if they got what they wanted - it would suck.
The reason Hitler never invaded Switzerland had nothing to do with an armed populace. Sure he knew it would be tough to take if he tried but there are many other more compelling reasons.
A) he had all his resources committed to fighting WW2
B) the Swiss were majority German-speaking and have a German culture - and unlike the Austrians fervently did *not* want to be connected to the Reich (not that all Austrians did but there were very active fascist movements in Austria before the ol' Anschluss) I think the good old NSDAP was more concerned with crushing the untermenschen rather than their fellow Germans
C) Just like for modern dictators today Switzerland was helpful for Hitler's regime just the way it was - It was a neutral they could use as a conduit to other parts of the world and don't forget it was *very* convenient for them to stash huge amounts of ill-gotten loot in. Of course you've heard of the fabled Swiss bank accounts.
If he had wanted to make invading CH a priority do you really thaink he would have balked at it?
Why does that incident stick out so much?
Perhaps because of its *rarity*.
When it comes to massacres in the US. When the rest of us hear about it, it's sadly almost become "What another one? My God..."
The original poster never said such things never occured in Scotland or wherever. They were commenting on the huge descrepencies on the frequency of such incidents.
Well the actual American colonists of the time were British in their cultural values and in fact were inspired by such men as the English Thomas Paine. The main difference was the British reformist tradition was in the position to dominate in the American colonies while it could not yet do so in Britain itself (although it later did of course). The British government of the time was headed by a German King who used thousands of mercenaries from his realms in Europe to fight the revolutionary war. There were in fact probably just as many people born in Britain fighting on both sides of the war.
Interestingly enough it took both countires the same amount of time to become full democracies after the turn of the 20th century. (The major difference in timelines is that slavery was abolished two full generations before in British governed areas).
We don't accept.
I'm going to come over and knife you personally!
I mean err.. nevermind then...
:-)
Don't compare yourself to the UK for that one then. Try Canada. We've got tonnes of coastline (more than the US), and less people and resources available to patrol them. Yet we are *not* awash in guns (we confiscate a hell a lot of them at the border though - and the cool thing is we *don't* give them back). In fact, I've lived all my life in major urban centres Toronto, Montreal, (briefly Halifax). I've never seen a live gun - ever. Except holstered at the side of the occasional police type person. I've always lived downtown (since becoming an adult) and walked the streets at any time of the day or night feeling reasonably secure. I've never heard a gunshot - except in a ceremonial salute or something like that. Our murder rate and armed crime rates per capita are miniscule compared to the major American centres. We have a very non-homogeneous population. The only real difference is the cultural environment people live in every day.
1) Replace the word "environment" with the word "biosphere" then. The moon has *no* biosphere. No balance to upset. What could anyone possibly do to harm the moon's "environment"?
:-)
2) Who wants to use it as a garbage dump? It would be prohibitively expensive, ridiculously expensive to do so. No one sane thinks that's even a minutely remote possibility. So don't even begin to worry about it. It's not an issue.
Cheers
I just don't see something like this happening. Like the article says, "UNIX culture" is passed on to every new generation of students in universities. You can't help but pick up some of the history on your way through.
Now this could be replaced by NT / Win2000??
I just can't see it happening. Maybe something else one day.
It's a more complicated issue than just pressure from without from Microsoft. You can't hack as easily or experiment and play as easily on an NT system (like that even needed being said). Not that you inherently *can't* with NT. There are NT hacks and therefore hackers. But nothing compares to the decades-long traditions behind UNIX.
If anything, I think today's students may be *more* aware of the specialness of their "GNU inheritence" so to speak than a few years ago when it was perhaps taken for granted more.
How could there *ever* be >>MUD on the Moon?!
What "enviroment" are you worried about about ruining on the moon?
Sorry, but it is just a big rock. If we're lucky there's some ice trapped at the polls... that's it.
Neither Australia nor Canada nor the Bahamas is a republic. They are constitutional monarchies with a governor general representing the queen when the queen's not in country. They are all members of the Commonwealth, yes.
Australia may become a republic in a few years it's true... but they haven't decided yet. And yes they could still remain in the Commonwealth after becoming a republic. There have been several republics in the Commonwealth for some time.
>How come nobody posted the story about
:-)
>CA*NET3 (The new internet infrastructure planned
>for Canada)? It's to run 60 times faster the
>US's INET II.
It was posted and discussed - a few weeks ago. Check out this article or call me a liar
Enjoy
This reminds me of an excerpt from Raymond Kurzweil's Age of Intelligent Machines (2nd book in a row for me that's out of stock at Amazon but Chapters has got it) where examples from poetry generated by a computer are compared to human poetry. Supposedly the s/w was good enough to fool a significant group of people.