Realistically, extradition treaties ARE limited, but on the other hand, there is a CLEAR exemption in both legislation and case law exempting the PUBLISHING of secrets, provided they were not stolen by the publisher.
There are plenty of examples of improperly redacted government documents being un-redacted by someone, who then sent the text on to the New York Times, who published the details.
The New York Times here, has no legal liability. Again, neither does Wikileaks, necessarily have a DUTY to simply throw away all information they get if they think it *might* be improperly leaked.
Obviously, with the NYT, this is somewhat obvious to point out that they simply can't easily know which documents are legal and which are not in that case, without establishing a complex and arduous chain of trust relationship throughout all informants, whistleblowers, etc... Besides, much of the best reporting in the last 100 years came from illegally released or stolen documents.
So how is Wikileaks different? Well, they preportedly know that MOST of what they recieve is probably taken illegally... But simply basing the law on "what fraction of documents you receive might be problematic" is a serious issue.
The issue at the root here is that EITHER most editors of major daily newspapers are guilty of treason, or Julian Assange is not... (or you buy a third option where US laws can be applied arbitrarily based on something nebulous about intentions and suppositions).
I don't know, our company DOES NOT hire H1Bs, just because we hadn't done it historically, but they're seriously considering it.
At one point last year, we had upwards of 50 technical job openings (in a company of under 600), we were offering a $5,000 referral bonus for anyone referring an employee who got hired. They were offering a signing bonus and high 6-figure salary. The positions were open ANYWHERE within 1 hour of a major US or Canadian airport and were advertised as such. The only downside was that many of them required about 40% travel and at least 6 months of consulting experience. Granted, this is a niche market to some extent and requires very specialized skills and they're not the type that can be trained up in a few months...
Despite the bonuses, it took several full-time hiring staff almost a year to fill those positions and half a dozen were filled from outside the country by sponsoring various types of visas. We were having to turn down work because we couldn't fill the positions.
That's been our experience anyway. Many of the postings had dozens of applicants, but so few of them were even close to qualified, a few that I saw were downright funny. This is technical stuff we're doing and we got a lot of apps from folks who were tech support at DirectTV or something similar for the last number of years... pretty wild, and certainly not someone we could put in front of a customer and wow them with expertise. The hiring staff automatically trashed applications from outside the country at first, but eventually gave in and started accepting them because they just couldn't find enough qualified people.
The permian extinction killed only 70% of vertebrates, yet 99% of marine species. This, to me, leads researchers toward the conclusion of more varied biosphere changes, rather than a massive single shock like a global shockwave or a massive atmospheric ignition or something...
I sitll think you grossly underestimate the violence of a moon-creation event. The forces involved would have turned the ENTIRE surface of the earth into liquid rock. It's not something that 2,000 different species of amphibians could survive...
In order for the earth to be a proper oblate spheroid (as it is), after such an event, the entire thing would have had to liquefy and re-settle due to gravity. This also is not something life could survive, especially not vertebrate life.
Additionally, the P/T boundary is a pretty gradual thing with three distinct layers, none of which reflect a massive and violent collision event, but instead pretty gradual (over tens of thousands of years) change in the chemistry of the sediment.
It's not an issue of Luddite fear of technology. That's a pretty silly conclusion to draw on a tech nerd site.
It's actually about a fear that children will grow up with a limited sense of self-accomplishment. I recall telling a story a few years ago of camping trips in the wilderness with my father when i was quite young. When I was 8 or 9, we would go into the wilderness... like 3 days trek. There were no cell phones, no GPS trackers and my father had a serious talk with me about how bad it would be if I were to do something stupid, because we're REALLY on our own.
I think it profoundly affected me. It built a real sense of self-control and the confidence to do things on my own. I think the "don't worry, someone will ALWAYS save you" mentality is terrible for the growth and development of independent and well adjusted people.
I think the loss of several dozen additional children per year, across society, is far outweighed by the extraordinary benefit to the other 99.999%.
In fact, I think it is so far out weighed, that I find it almost a silly discussion, and would continue to find it that way, other than the fact that the majority of people seem to disagree with me, you included.
It has NOTHING to do with being a Luddite, thank you very much.
In global climate science, while I believe their theories hold some water, there are multiple conflicting models, none of which are possible to compare with existing conditions over a long term (at least not until we have more time to study it).
The models of the moon, on the other hand, are comparatively simple. The moon is one of the only planetary bodies to have very low levels of heavy metals. This is VERY hard to explain and limits its explanation. Simply modeling the interaction of planetary elements is actually quite simple compared to global climate patterns because of the scale. We're not concerned with 1 degree here or there (where we are with climate science).
It seems like a very different concept, even if I think both are valuable to look at and continue to develop.
No living thing could withstand an explosion of the size that would eject a moon. I'm sorry, but there has been living things on earth far longer then 230 million years, regardless of what you think about radioisotope dating, nothing can account for this adequately. You mention this being the cause of the Permian extinction, but I find it somewhat hard to believe, since given current ideas about tectonics, etc, there are plenty of small craters that MUST have formed far earlier than the P/T.
The ejection of the moon, being a substantial portion of the size of the earth, would generate an acceleration that would quite literally lift the ocean from the seafloor. It would send a shockwave of a magnitude that would vapourize the atmosphere in a fiery wave of plasma. It would tear the topsoil from the bedrock, it would subject anything on the surface to massive earthquakes that would shatter the surface.
I think you're grossly underestimating the scale of the moon. Ejecting it from the earth with existing oceans and a functioning biosphere... wow...
It's one of the great strengths of science.... that people can question doctrine, and continue to seek evidence to strengthen or weaken existing beliefs, no matter where in the lifecycle of the belief...
Provided the research is accurate and sufficiently developed to draw some sort of conclusion, it's good, no matter what the conclusion is, even if it is simply "here is a tiny bit more evidence for an accepted theory"
Considering it took a Mars-sized object to cause the collision event, and that a pretty substantial amount of mass would have been blasted away at escape velocity, I'm not sure the veracity of your math.
Of course, you might be roughly right, but probably not for the reasons I think you're implying...
I'm not sure if you're familiar with fiat currency, but governments did not manifest it out of hopes and dreams...
Fiat currency began as "promissory notes" based on precious metals and other goods handed out by shopkeepers and other people interested in wholesale barter.
These notes, sometimes printed on parchment or stamped into something more lasting (like gold or stone), or sometimes just kept in dockets within the shop... were essentially fiat, in that they could be issued against goods not yet produced, but merely promised. This was common practice in medieval times, even in places far away from the government, or anything other than a smart person who had lots of goods in production, stock, or escrow. These individuals also began to issue loans against this private fiat they held, and found they could generate profit simply from the interest charged.
The rise of GOVERNMENT "fiat currency" was simply a reaction to the high rate of fraud, failure and otherwise malfeasance that was associated with the PRIVATE issuance of promissory notes.
I think it's pretty clear how the "free market" handles the issue, and it results in private individuals and corporations issuing "fiat currency" in a much more volatile and unstable format.
If you want to outlaw fiat currency, you must outlaw interest-bearing loans.... All of them...
Loans and fiat currency go hand in hand.
And when you talk about "pure free market", you are still going to be dealing with fiat currency, but it will be a much uglier privatized version that is highly unstable and extremely prone to fraud.
So, unless you're opposed to interest, as a general concept (which might have a reasonable argument in favour), I thought it was important to make sure that was clear...
It's worth saying that while Russia and China have opposed direct action against Iran and Syria, it's not necessarily for a LOVE of those countries, but father out of fear that it sets a precident that might encourage to UN or the US to act against THEM at a later point for THEIR particular violations of international agreements...
It's reasonable to point out that simply cutting the fuel in a multi-stage hypersonic solid rocket would have fairly catastrophic results.
Can you say, with any certainty, that the engine cutout didn't *cause* the reaction nozzle to shatter and disintegrate?
Under the circumstances (a hypersonic launch vehicle with 9 liquid fueled rockets), a simple engine cutoff procedure seems likely to entail some pretty dramatic material stresses on various components.
From my reading, something like a slight issue with the reaction caused the shutoff, which ITSELF, by the nature of the negative pressure created, caused the nozzle to shatter and disintegrate.
Are you serious? the heatsink's normal operating termprature while you are playing Call of Duty in your bedroom is something like 60 degrees C (160 degrees F).
Second, the heatsink paste doesn't hold the heatsink onto the chip, the clips or brackets do that.
I was under the impression they had correlated the "strongest ever recorded" earthquakes, and "recent earthquakes over 3.0" which were both unusual events, especially to happen within a close proximity to such an unusual geological event (high-pressure fracking).
Of course, nobody should draw a difinitive conclusion without seeing some pretty solid further evidence, but it does lead one to pause...
I am personally under the impression that is has some long-term consequences are far as ground water safety, and several other issues.
In general, fracking sites have a bad history of conservationism, as far as I'm aware. I don't have a problem with energy production methods, provided they internalize the costs of the environmental damage, chemical disposal, etc. Dumping them into the air/water/ground is not a long-term viable solution and simply doing it in the short term because "this one issue is so small" is both a bad precedent and poor management of resources.
Sometimes I think there's a group of people who just want power to be expensive: they resent technology and the change it brings, and will look for any excuse to insist that cheap power is bad - not on the merits, but truely because they don't want to ever have to change their beliefs as the world changes.
And sometimes you WANT to think other people's genuine motivations are somehow malicious so that you don't actually have to analyze the problems with your own.......
In many cases, there are important metrics called the "strength of correlation". This is an important consideration when determining a causation. Additionally, there is the necessity of determining alternative causes. For example, when a school does better on some sort of testing after several teachers are fired, it COULD be because those teachers sucked that bad, or it could be directly related to the change in morale with the other teachers, or it could even be related to a change in management style, or a change in classroom size, or any number of other factors.
When one considers that a series of earthquakes are seen that correlate with fracking sites (biggest earthquakes ever recorded, always within 2miles of the site in multiple sites), there is precious little else to consider as likely alternatives other than a very unlikely set of happenstance or coincidence.
It's certainly possible that it's a coincidence, but a strong correlation tends to indicate that this is not the case. Understanding statistics at a deep level will ehlp you understand this more.
ALL surveys show a correlation. Inferring a causation is simply trying to eliminate as many other co-correlations as possible and demonstrating that the original correlation holds up even when other possible causes are removed.
Can you think of other causes for unusually strong earthquakes happening to cluster around fracking sites?
Socialism is not the problem. The most successful OECD country in the world over the last 15 years (economically) is perhaps Norway. They're running nearly $0.5 trillion budget surplus, yet have almost 100% coverage for subsidized housing, government healthcare, etc.
Greece or Italy on the other hand, is bogged down in crony politics, where vested interests control the purse strings and wealthy individuals, corporations and families dominate politics. They "buy" the electorate with elaborate schemes. That's not capitalism, nor socialism. It's a gross sort of plutocracy.
"Creating value" is a misnomer, at least in how you're framing it. The middle class "creates value" in a post-industrial society. This is painfully obvious when you look at the fact that the relative economic strength of post-industrial economies is almost exactly in line with the percentage of the population within the "middle class" as broadly defined as capable of sustaining modern living standards (owning a house, car, etc) within their means, while having a limited surplus of disposable income, given regional living standards and prices.
Norway has an especially large middle class. Places such as the US and Canada have an average sized one, and places such as Italy have a smaller sized one, when using similar standards.
Cities in Norway are almost 70% middle class, by the same standards, the middle class of the US has decreased from 65% in the 1970s to around 50% today.
Inter-generational mobility is also much higher in Europe than in the US and Britain, who have a more "market oriented" approach to this topic.
I think it's pretty hare to make conclusions about which policies cause the downturns and income inequality.
Quite a number involved violent conflict, often between police and protestors. No less than 25 had to be disbursed with teargas and in at least 5, the violence came close enough to the US Embassy that US soldiers had to help in defending the perimeter of the embassy.
The president of Egypt (head of the Muslim brotherhood) continues to pursue his strong support of the protests, while at the same time, deploying the police forces to defend the US Embassy. It seems he wants it both ways...
I'm going to disagree here, with a full understanding of the exceptions to free speech.
The exceptions are intended to prevent that speech that has DIRECT consequences. Simply teasing someone does not equate to inciting them. Simply criticizing something, no matter how harshly it is said, does not incite anything.
This is vastly different than say, intentionally causing a stampede in a theatre or calling in a bomb threat.
It is point of fact that the movie was released many months before, and was only released in English, where it caused no inflammation in the Arab world. The only issue came AFTER a third party translated the film into Arabic and posted THAT copy on Youtube.
Then, several prominent Imams and several political leaders in both Lybia and Egypt tried to use the film as a focal point of nationalistic fervor, and the result was rioting.
Frankly, President Morsi in Lybia was intelligent enough to know that what he was saying about the film publicly was going to incite people and he did it anyway. In the 'inciting people to violence" issue, he is far more culpable than the original film's creator. That said, nobody other than the terrorists in Lybia have any legal culpability in the killings. Honestly... And I knew Vile Rat from Eve too, so don't tell me I'm just being a pompous anonymous prick.
Slashdot Mirror
Realistically, extradition treaties ARE limited, but on the other hand, there is a CLEAR exemption in both legislation and case law exempting the PUBLISHING of secrets, provided they were not stolen by the publisher.
There are plenty of examples of improperly redacted government documents being un-redacted by someone, who then sent the text on to the New York Times, who published the details.
The New York Times here, has no legal liability. Again, neither does Wikileaks, necessarily have a DUTY to simply throw away all information they get if they think it *might* be improperly leaked.
Obviously, with the NYT, this is somewhat obvious to point out that they simply can't easily know which documents are legal and which are not in that case, without establishing a complex and arduous chain of trust relationship throughout all informants, whistleblowers, etc... Besides, much of the best reporting in the last 100 years came from illegally released or stolen documents.
So how is Wikileaks different? Well, they preportedly know that MOST of what they recieve is probably taken illegally... But simply basing the law on "what fraction of documents you receive might be problematic" is a serious issue.
The issue at the root here is that EITHER most editors of major daily newspapers are guilty of treason, or Julian Assange is not... (or you buy a third option where US laws can be applied arbitrarily based on something nebulous about intentions and suppositions).
lol
If the government says "yes" to these lobbies, the problem is the government.
If the government says "no" to these lobbies, they're "obstructing" and the problem is the government.
If the government refuses all immigration, the problem is the government.
If the government doesn't enforce any immigration rules, the problem is the government.
This is easy, I can play too!!! yay!!
As usual, eh? What is the solution then, Mister Super Smarty Pants Economist?
I don't know, our company DOES NOT hire H1Bs, just because we hadn't done it historically, but they're seriously considering it.
At one point last year, we had upwards of 50 technical job openings (in a company of under 600), we were offering a $5,000 referral bonus for anyone referring an employee who got hired. They were offering a signing bonus and high 6-figure salary. The positions were open ANYWHERE within 1 hour of a major US or Canadian airport and were advertised as such. The only downside was that many of them required about 40% travel and at least 6 months of consulting experience. Granted, this is a niche market to some extent and requires very specialized skills and they're not the type that can be trained up in a few months...
Despite the bonuses, it took several full-time hiring staff almost a year to fill those positions and half a dozen were filled from outside the country by sponsoring various types of visas. We were having to turn down work because we couldn't fill the positions.
That's been our experience anyway. Many of the postings had dozens of applicants, but so few of them were even close to qualified, a few that I saw were downright funny. This is technical stuff we're doing and we got a lot of apps from folks who were tech support at DirectTV or something similar for the last number of years... pretty wild, and certainly not someone we could put in front of a customer and wow them with expertise. The hiring staff automatically trashed applications from outside the country at first, but eventually gave in and started accepting them because they just couldn't find enough qualified people.
The permian extinction killed only 70% of vertebrates, yet 99% of marine species. This, to me, leads researchers toward the conclusion of more varied biosphere changes, rather than a massive single shock like a global shockwave or a massive atmospheric ignition or something...
I sitll think you grossly underestimate the violence of a moon-creation event. The forces involved would have turned the ENTIRE surface of the earth into liquid rock. It's not something that 2,000 different species of amphibians could survive...
In order for the earth to be a proper oblate spheroid (as it is), after such an event, the entire thing would have had to liquefy and re-settle due to gravity. This also is not something life could survive, especially not vertebrate life.
Additionally, the P/T boundary is a pretty gradual thing with three distinct layers, none of which reflect a massive and violent collision event, but instead pretty gradual (over tens of thousands of years) change in the chemistry of the sediment.
anyway, old topic, just thinking about it.
It's not an issue of Luddite fear of technology. That's a pretty silly conclusion to draw on a tech nerd site.
It's actually about a fear that children will grow up with a limited sense of self-accomplishment. I recall telling a story a few years ago of camping trips in the wilderness with my father when i was quite young. When I was 8 or 9, we would go into the wilderness... like 3 days trek. There were no cell phones, no GPS trackers and my father had a serious talk with me about how bad it would be if I were to do something stupid, because we're REALLY on our own.
I think it profoundly affected me. It built a real sense of self-control and the confidence to do things on my own. I think the "don't worry, someone will ALWAYS save you" mentality is terrible for the growth and development of independent and well adjusted people.
I think the loss of several dozen additional children per year, across society, is far outweighed by the extraordinary benefit to the other 99.999%.
In fact, I think it is so far out weighed, that I find it almost a silly discussion, and would continue to find it that way, other than the fact that the majority of people seem to disagree with me, you included.
It has NOTHING to do with being a Luddite, thank you very much.
I think he's talking about geological-scale radioisotope dating (of rock strata, for example), and using the term "carbon dating" as a generic.
In global climate science, while I believe their theories hold some water, there are multiple conflicting models, none of which are possible to compare with existing conditions over a long term (at least not until we have more time to study it).
The models of the moon, on the other hand, are comparatively simple. The moon is one of the only planetary bodies to have very low levels of heavy metals. This is VERY hard to explain and limits its explanation. Simply modeling the interaction of planetary elements is actually quite simple compared to global climate patterns because of the scale. We're not concerned with 1 degree here or there (where we are with climate science).
It seems like a very different concept, even if I think both are valuable to look at and continue to develop.
230?
I think your theory is a tad silly.
No living thing could withstand an explosion of the size that would eject a moon. I'm sorry, but there has been living things on earth far longer then 230 million years, regardless of what you think about radioisotope dating, nothing can account for this adequately. You mention this being the cause of the Permian extinction, but I find it somewhat hard to believe, since given current ideas about tectonics, etc, there are plenty of small craters that MUST have formed far earlier than the P/T.
The ejection of the moon, being a substantial portion of the size of the earth, would generate an acceleration that would quite literally lift the ocean from the seafloor. It would send a shockwave of a magnitude that would vapourize the atmosphere in a fiery wave of plasma. It would tear the topsoil from the bedrock, it would subject anything on the surface to massive earthquakes that would shatter the surface.
I think you're grossly underestimating the scale of the moon. Ejecting it from the earth with existing oceans and a functioning biosphere... wow...
It's one of the great strengths of science.... that people can question doctrine, and continue to seek evidence to strengthen or weaken existing beliefs, no matter where in the lifecycle of the belief...
Provided the research is accurate and sufficiently developed to draw some sort of conclusion, it's good, no matter what the conclusion is, even if it is simply "here is a tiny bit more evidence for an accepted theory"
Yay science!
Considering it took a Mars-sized object to cause the collision event, and that a pretty substantial amount of mass would have been blasted away at escape velocity, I'm not sure the veracity of your math.
Of course, you might be roughly right, but probably not for the reasons I think you're implying...
I'm a nerd.
I love discussing the nuances of fiat currency and the nature of macroeconomics under unusual circumstances.
Why does nerd=computer? Did you invent that or is that part of the definition somehow?
The end result is basically bronze-age living conditions for Iranians.
I think the political hope is that before then, they'll overthrow their government in favour of something a little less radical.
I think the reality is that many religious groups would favour a bronze-age life, to one that reeks of servitude to someone they consider evil...
Religion really is a deciding factor here...
I'm not sure if you're familiar with fiat currency, but governments did not manifest it out of hopes and dreams...
Fiat currency began as "promissory notes" based on precious metals and other goods handed out by shopkeepers and other people interested in wholesale barter.
These notes, sometimes printed on parchment or stamped into something more lasting (like gold or stone), or sometimes just kept in dockets within the shop... were essentially fiat, in that they could be issued against goods not yet produced, but merely promised. This was common practice in medieval times, even in places far away from the government, or anything other than a smart person who had lots of goods in production, stock, or escrow. These individuals also began to issue loans against this private fiat they held, and found they could generate profit simply from the interest charged.
The rise of GOVERNMENT "fiat currency" was simply a reaction to the high rate of fraud, failure and otherwise malfeasance that was associated with the PRIVATE issuance of promissory notes.
I think it's pretty clear how the "free market" handles the issue, and it results in private individuals and corporations issuing "fiat currency" in a much more volatile and unstable format.
If you want to outlaw fiat currency, you must outlaw interest-bearing loans.... All of them...
Loans and fiat currency go hand in hand.
And when you talk about "pure free market", you are still going to be dealing with fiat currency, but it will be a much uglier privatized version that is highly unstable and extremely prone to fraud.
So, unless you're opposed to interest, as a general concept (which might have a reasonable argument in favour), I thought it was important to make sure that was clear...
It's worth saying that while Russia and China have opposed direct action against Iran and Syria, it's not necessarily for a LOVE of those countries, but father out of fear that it sets a precident that might encourage to UN or the US to act against THEM at a later point for THEIR particular violations of international agreements...
It's reasonable to point out that simply cutting the fuel in a multi-stage hypersonic solid rocket would have fairly catastrophic results.
Can you say, with any certainty, that the engine cutout didn't *cause* the reaction nozzle to shatter and disintegrate?
Under the circumstances (a hypersonic launch vehicle with 9 liquid fueled rockets), a simple engine cutoff procedure seems likely to entail some pretty dramatic material stresses on various components.
From my reading, something like a slight issue with the reaction caused the shutoff, which ITSELF, by the nature of the negative pressure created, caused the nozzle to shatter and disintegrate.
Just a thought...
Are you serious? the heatsink's normal operating termprature while you are playing Call of Duty in your bedroom is something like 60 degrees C (160 degrees F).
Second, the heatsink paste doesn't hold the heatsink onto the chip, the clips or brackets do that.
Third, containers generally don't get that hot.
Fourth... what?
I was under the impression they had correlated the "strongest ever recorded" earthquakes, and "recent earthquakes over 3.0" which were both unusual events, especially to happen within a close proximity to such an unusual geological event (high-pressure fracking).
Of course, nobody should draw a difinitive conclusion without seeing some pretty solid further evidence, but it does lead one to pause...
I am personally under the impression that is has some long-term consequences are far as ground water safety, and several other issues.
In general, fracking sites have a bad history of conservationism, as far as I'm aware. I don't have a problem with energy production methods, provided they internalize the costs of the environmental damage, chemical disposal, etc. Dumping them into the air/water/ground is not a long-term viable solution and simply doing it in the short term because "this one issue is so small" is both a bad precedent and poor management of resources.
That's all.
A stable fault is a fault without torsional pressure.
It's not to say that most faults are stable, but I'm sure some are pretty darn close, especially right at the center of a large continental plate.
Sometimes I think there's a group of people who just want power to be expensive: they resent technology and the change it brings, and will look for any excuse to insist that cheap power is bad - not on the merits, but truely because they don't want to ever have to change their beliefs as the world changes.
And sometimes you WANT to think other people's genuine motivations are somehow malicious so that you don't actually have to analyze the problems with your own.......
In many cases, there are important metrics called the "strength of correlation". This is an important consideration when determining a causation. Additionally, there is the necessity of determining alternative causes. For example, when a school does better on some sort of testing after several teachers are fired, it COULD be because those teachers sucked that bad, or it could be directly related to the change in morale with the other teachers, or it could even be related to a change in management style, or a change in classroom size, or any number of other factors.
When one considers that a series of earthquakes are seen that correlate with fracking sites (biggest earthquakes ever recorded, always within 2miles of the site in multiple sites), there is precious little else to consider as likely alternatives other than a very unlikely set of happenstance or coincidence.
It's certainly possible that it's a coincidence, but a strong correlation tends to indicate that this is not the case. Understanding statistics at a deep level will ehlp you understand this more.
ALL surveys show a correlation. Inferring a causation is simply trying to eliminate as many other co-correlations as possible and demonstrating that the original correlation holds up even when other possible causes are removed.
Can you think of other causes for unusually strong earthquakes happening to cluster around fracking sites?
Socialism is not the problem. The most successful OECD country in the world over the last 15 years (economically) is perhaps Norway. They're running nearly $0.5 trillion budget surplus, yet have almost 100% coverage for subsidized housing, government healthcare, etc.
Greece or Italy on the other hand, is bogged down in crony politics, where vested interests control the purse strings and wealthy individuals, corporations and families dominate politics. They "buy" the electorate with elaborate schemes. That's not capitalism, nor socialism. It's a gross sort of plutocracy.
"Creating value" is a misnomer, at least in how you're framing it. The middle class "creates value" in a post-industrial society. This is painfully obvious when you look at the fact that the relative economic strength of post-industrial economies is almost exactly in line with the percentage of the population within the "middle class" as broadly defined as capable of sustaining modern living standards (owning a house, car, etc) within their means, while having a limited surplus of disposable income, given regional living standards and prices.
Norway has an especially large middle class. Places such as the US and Canada have an average sized one, and places such as Italy have a smaller sized one, when using similar standards.
Cities in Norway are almost 70% middle class, by the same standards, the middle class of the US has decreased from 65% in the 1970s to around 50% today.
Inter-generational mobility is also much higher in Europe than in the US and Britain, who have a more "market oriented" approach to this topic.
I think it's pretty hare to make conclusions about which policies cause the downturns and income inequality.
There have been no less than 70 riots based on the content of this film. Here is a list of all of them:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdGRkWVp3MmhhREM1ZE13Uk4wWEdoYUE#gid=0
Quite a number involved violent conflict, often between police and protestors. No less than 25 had to be disbursed with teargas and in at least 5, the violence came close enough to the US Embassy that US soldiers had to help in defending the perimeter of the embassy.
The president of Egypt (head of the Muslim brotherhood) continues to pursue his strong support of the protests, while at the same time, deploying the police forces to defend the US Embassy. It seems he wants it both ways...
No, this is a huge loss for relations with hard-line Muslims.
It sends the message that they simply need to riot and kill Americans in order to get their way.
This sends a message to zealots that their reaction was both appropriate AND necessary . That's a VERY bad thing.
I'm going to disagree here, with a full understanding of the exceptions to free speech.
The exceptions are intended to prevent that speech that has DIRECT consequences. Simply teasing someone does not equate to inciting them. Simply criticizing something, no matter how harshly it is said, does not incite anything.
This is vastly different than say, intentionally causing a stampede in a theatre or calling in a bomb threat.
It is point of fact that the movie was released many months before, and was only released in English, where it caused no inflammation in the Arab world. The only issue came AFTER a third party translated the film into Arabic and posted THAT copy on Youtube.
Then, several prominent Imams and several political leaders in both Lybia and Egypt tried to use the film as a focal point of nationalistic fervor, and the result was rioting.
Frankly, President Morsi in Lybia was intelligent enough to know that what he was saying about the film publicly was going to incite people and he did it anyway. In the 'inciting people to violence" issue, he is far more culpable than the original film's creator. That said, nobody other than the terrorists in Lybia have any legal culpability in the killings. Honestly... And I knew Vile Rat from Eve too, so don't tell me I'm just being a pompous anonymous prick.