But in your comment, you have taxes as an example of the "kingly" power of government. And yet that government exists to provide the necessary framework for a capitalist system, no?
I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. China's entrepreneurs for example. Or do you consider that to be fascism?
Anarchy is also a voluntary association, is that what you're getting at?
I don't see what's wrong with the term "capialist kings." It may not be literally (academically) accurate but it makes the point. Our government is barred from dispensing titles of nobility, but Gates, Rockefeller, and Carnegie are certainly more "kingly" than the squabbling masses they exploit.
Well, your fairy tale Capitalism, with liberty and all that hoo-haa, will simply never exist, so stop carrying on about it every chance you get. A more pressing concern is: what to do with the so-called Capitalism system we've got.
You know what I'd really like to see? A new Constitutional Convention.
Give us 13 years (for Patriotism's sake) and see if we can't figure out a better way to run things.
A lot of people talk about change, and a hell of a lot of people work for change within the system and without. But there are some real evident problems with the system we've got, and taking a fresh look at the building blocks of society is a healthy thing. (Glaring example: winner-take-all Electoral college. There are much less polarizing systems of voting. However they are in countries that aren't 200+ years old.)
Couldn't we devote one hour a day to a project like that? Or are we doomed to playing DOOM and not getting a whole lot done.
Looks like the Federal circuit is fractured on this issue.
Uzi Nissan, as we all know, didn't exactly lose nissan.com, but it's been converted to a placeholder site bereft of content.
Perhaps it's because his site served a purpose other than bashing Nissan Motors, the courts let him keep it.
Still, it's a mixed signal. Why didn't the court just give nissan.com to Nissan Motors? I get the feeling that's what the 4th Circuit would have done.
Conclusion: If you have the domain name that "belongs" to someone bigger than you, you can't step on their toes. You will either lose your domain outright, or lose the right to do anything useful with it.
I wonder what Justice thinks of all this, peering out from behind Ashcroft's curtain.
I don't understand why XP needs a service pack in the first place. Last time I complained about my stability issues, I got a flood of comments that it was my fault, and if I can't get Explorer to stop crashing in XP, it must be because I'm a noob.
So, if your beloved XP is so perfect, why a service pack?
You can already download warez where it's all super-packed and compressed and deflated and it magically expands to the full game. See any release by Myth.
CD images are in vogue now, because they're easy to create, and flexible for the customer. But they're not a requirement.
Those are good points. I mostly agree with you. If I had to be invaded, I'd probably want it to be the Americas. Assuming I survived the initial assualt, they probably would treat me fairly well.
And that's where we've come unhinged in Iraq. The scope creep of this mission is incredible. We seem to think it's a whole country of terrorists, from Baath party members all the way down. And our army, which is great at conquering, isn't so great at occupation. Mistakes have been made, to put it lightly.
But I don't blame that on the troops, who were told they were liberating the Iraqis and they would be heroes. How is some 19 year old kid from Kansas who joined the army becuase he couldn't get to college going to know better? The core ideology behind the Iraq war, which seems to be to turn that country into the crucible into which democracy and extremism will both be tried by fire, is at best selfish, and at worst a tragic geopolitical loss. That being said, the two most fervent supporters of the war I know are both Iraqis in exile, whose families have suffered under Saddam.
Anyway, before I stray too far, I would just point out the old adage "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." America, despite the Lady with the Lamp, is no exception. It might take longer for the corruption to become endemic, but I do feel it's inevitable. Just as some CEOs cannot resist the easy money of stock pumping and raiding the pension, so it is with politicians. And look at how willing Congress was to abdicate their duty and give the President a blank check. And our streets look like Franco is in charge a little more every day.
Oh well I guess I strayed even farther. America is a special place, no doubt, but we're not exempt from human nature, nor are we immunized against the lessons of history.
Far simpler to refer to the Washington Post analysis I posted.
The short version is: *Any* action done with the goal of defense of USA *cannot* be considered torture.
The slighly longer version is: Torture now means acts performed with the specific intent and knowledge that they will cause life-long irreparable harm to the victim, and that the victim actually suffers said harm. Acts which might otherwise be considered torture, but are done with the purpose of extracting information vital to the national defense, are exempted.
But Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, has already cracked this egg.
And again, you fall into the trap of not holding America to her high ideals, but saying she's better than the average scoundrel.
Your argument seems to be that we should be proud because we're not as bad as the Nazis. Sorry, but it's gonna take a little more than that to wipe the blot off our escutcheon.
Trust has nothing to do with America's power -- it's not how she got it, it's not how we keep it, and it's certainly not in anyone's interests to trust a country where the wind may start blowing from the other direction ever four years.
Ultimately, Rumsfeld green-lighted the torture with this memo. He should be hauled off to the Hague. Machiavellian rationalizations notwithstanding.
Nopal, you are being wilfully ignorant, and you know it.
Read the torture memo. Read the accounts of those who've been through Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Try to put two and two together. If that doesn't help, a google search "private contractor torture iraq" might steer you towards the light.
You're telling me that Rumsfeld writes a memo and "there appears to be no evidence that it was put into practice?" He's the head of the goddam DoD, not some armchair philosopher. He doesn't write memos to "explore all avenues." Rather, what that memo does is give our guys the explicit legal justification they need to torture people.
To wit:
i. "Prolonged Mental Harm"
(U) As an initial matter, Section 2340(2) requires that the severe mental pain must be evidenced by "prolonged mental harm". To prolong is to "lengthen in time" or to "extend the duration of, to draw out". Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1815 (1988); Webster's New International Dictionary 1980 (2d ed. 1935). Accordingly, "prolong" adds a temporal dimension to the harm to the individual, namely, that the harm must be one that is endured over some period of time. Put another way, the acts giving rise to the harm must cause some lasting, though not necessarily permanent, damage.
Transaltion: Any amount of pain is acceptable, so long as it eventually ends.
Practical application: The pain ends when you tell us what you want to hear.
If that's not torture, what is?
Should we be torturing people? Is torture ever justified? That's not the issue. The concern is that we are torturing people and this administration prentends we're not, hiding behind Rumsfeld's memo which essentially defines torture out of existence.
Sure, there are killings and there is sabotage, but to demand that there be none of either is to suggest that the NYPD needs to spend more money on policing because someone got robbed on the subway.
And yet, we are spending tons more money on domestic policing, in resposne to terror attacks that the police could certainly never have stopped, nor should they be expected to. People getting robbed on the subway is exactly what the police should be concerned with. Busting terror cells is not in their job description.
I'm not worried about Iraq. It's the home front that's got me scared. Why should the Washington DC Metro Police need full-on BDUs and assault rifles? Last I checked their job is to give you a ticket for chewing gum on an escalator. Is it just me or does every day look a little bit more like Spain under Franco?
Another good way, probably better, and one already in place, is to offer non-citizens "fast track" to citizenship if they join the army for a few years.
There are plenty of non-Americans in the U.S. Army right now. It's kind of weird.
The first example that you could think of is Abu Ghraib, but from what I've read the incident was quite isolated, and it doesn't reflect American culture very well.
You clearly don't read much, or if you do, you spend a lot of time in the fiction section. Try reading some news. Here I'll help you out:
It should be pretty easy to devise a hand crank generator and just give it a few cranks when you need more juice. I remember reading that Freeplay was going to sell such a device -- they talked about it in this Wired article, but the closest they've got on their web site is a hand-cranked mobile phone charger. Kind of a disappointment.
Alternatively, you can continue as is. Much more likely, I think, as the world has gotten quite happy with a very low level of military spending in the presence of the 800# gorilla.
And the USA is equally happy to don the gorilla suit, for the rest of the world's simultaneous horror and bemusement.
If I was just about any country in the world, my attitude would be this: Let the gorilla thrash around long enough, and eventually he'll tire out. Or run out of money. We spend lots, but money can't buy guts. Send a few Americans home in body bags and their resolve dissipates.
The thing I'd be most worried about is the seemingly inevitable transition from Republic to Empire. But the course is set, it's not like the EU or China is going to suddenly push things further in that direction with a huge arms build-up. Rather, they'll be happy to divide up the spoils once we're spent.
It's like when someone asked Mao Tse Tung what he thought the impact of the French Revolution was: "It's too early to tell."
Please, we don't need cyborg soldiers, we need a president smarter than a commodore 64. Don't knock my beloved Commodore 64! No, what we need is a Preisdent smarter than a VIC-20.
Slashdot Mirror
But in your comment, you have taxes as an example of the "kingly" power of government. And yet that government exists to provide the necessary framework for a capitalist system, no?
I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. China's entrepreneurs for example. Or do you consider that to be fascism?
Anarchy is also a voluntary association, is that what you're getting at?
I don't see what's wrong with the term "capialist kings." It may not be literally (academically) accurate but it makes the point. Our government is barred from dispensing titles of nobility, but Gates, Rockefeller, and Carnegie are certainly more "kingly" than the squabbling masses they exploit.
Well, your fairy tale Capitalism, with liberty and all that hoo-haa, will simply never exist, so stop carrying on about it every chance you get. A more pressing concern is: what to do with the so-called Capitalism system we've got.
I'm sorry but I don't see how you've demonstrated the silliness in the parent comment. More like you've just restated it.
You know what I'd really like to see? A new Constitutional Convention.
Give us 13 years (for Patriotism's sake) and see if we can't figure out a better way to run things.
A lot of people talk about change, and a hell of a lot of people work for change within the system and without. But there are some real evident problems with the system we've got, and taking a fresh look at the building blocks of society is a healthy thing. (Glaring example: winner-take-all Electoral college. There are much less polarizing systems of voting. However they are in countries that aren't 200+ years old.)
Couldn't we devote one hour a day to a project like that? Or are we doomed to playing DOOM and not getting a whole lot done.
Looks like the Federal circuit is fractured on this issue.
Uzi Nissan, as we all know, didn't exactly lose nissan.com, but it's been converted to a placeholder site bereft of content.
Perhaps it's because his site served a purpose other than bashing Nissan Motors, the courts let him keep it.
Still, it's a mixed signal. Why didn't the court just give nissan.com to Nissan Motors? I get the feeling that's what the 4th Circuit would have done.
Conclusion: If you have the domain name that "belongs" to someone bigger than you, you can't step on their toes. You will either lose your domain outright, or lose the right to do anything useful with it.
I wonder what Justice thinks of all this, peering out from behind Ashcroft's curtain.
October Sky is not only based on the book Rocket Boys, it's also a palindrome.
Whoops, I mean anagram. A palindrome of October Sky would be Yks Rebotco.
(And a palindrome of Bolton would be Notlob.)
And, here's your trivia for the night. October Sky is not only based on the book Rocket Boys, it's also a palindrome.
Doh. Is this what a "troll" is? :)
Um, yes.
I don't understand why XP needs a service pack in the first place. Last time I complained about my stability issues, I got a flood of comments that it was my fault, and if I can't get Explorer to stop crashing in XP, it must be because I'm a noob.
So, if your beloved XP is so perfect, why a service pack?
You can already download warez where it's all super-packed and compressed and deflated and it magically expands to the full game. See any release by Myth.
CD images are in vogue now, because they're easy to create, and flexible for the customer. But they're not a requirement.
Those are good points. I mostly agree with you. If I had to be invaded, I'd probably want it to be the Americas. Assuming I survived the initial assualt, they probably would treat me fairly well.
And that's where we've come unhinged in Iraq. The scope creep of this mission is incredible. We seem to think it's a whole country of terrorists, from Baath party members all the way down. And our army, which is great at conquering, isn't so great at occupation. Mistakes have been made, to put it lightly.
But I don't blame that on the troops, who were told they were liberating the Iraqis and they would be heroes. How is some 19 year old kid from Kansas who joined the army becuase he couldn't get to college going to know better? The core ideology behind the Iraq war, which seems to be to turn that country into the crucible into which democracy and extremism will both be tried by fire, is at best selfish, and at worst a tragic geopolitical loss. That being said, the two most fervent supporters of the war I know are both Iraqis in exile, whose families have suffered under Saddam.
Anyway, before I stray too far, I would just point out the old adage "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." America, despite the Lady with the Lamp, is no exception. It might take longer for the corruption to become endemic, but I do feel it's inevitable. Just as some CEOs cannot resist the easy money of stock pumping and raiding the pension, so it is with politicians. And look at how willing Congress was to abdicate their duty and give the President a blank check. And our streets look like Franco is in charge a little more every day.
Oh well I guess I strayed even farther. America is a special place, no doubt, but we're not exempt from human nature, nor are we immunized against the lessons of history.
In that case, you better post the whole memo.
Far simpler to refer to the Washington Post analysis I posted.
The short version is: *Any* action done with the goal of defense of USA *cannot* be considered torture.
The slighly longer version is: Torture now means acts performed with the specific intent and knowledge that they will cause life-long irreparable harm to the victim, and that the victim actually suffers said harm. Acts which might otherwise be considered torture, but are done with the purpose of extracting information vital to the national defense, are exempted.
But Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, has already cracked this egg.
And again, you fall into the trap of not holding America to her high ideals, but saying she's better than the average scoundrel.
Your argument seems to be that we should be proud because we're not as bad as the Nazis. Sorry, but it's gonna take a little more than that to wipe the blot off our escutcheon.
Trust has nothing to do with America's power -- it's not how she got it, it's not how we keep it, and it's certainly not in anyone's interests to trust a country where the wind may start blowing from the other direction ever four years.
Ultimately, Rumsfeld green-lighted the torture with this memo. He should be hauled off to the Hague. Machiavellian rationalizations notwithstanding.
Read the torture memo. Read the accounts of those who've been through Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Try to put two and two together. If that doesn't help, a google search "private contractor torture iraq" might steer you towards the light.
You're telling me that Rumsfeld writes a memo and "there appears to be no evidence that it was put into practice?" He's the head of the goddam DoD, not some armchair philosopher. He doesn't write memos to "explore all avenues." Rather, what that memo does is give our guys the explicit legal justification they need to torture people.
To wit:Transaltion: Any amount of pain is acceptable, so long as it eventually ends.
Practical application: The pain ends when you tell us what you want to hear.
If that's not torture, what is?
Should we be torturing people? Is torture ever justified? That's not the issue. The concern is that we are torturing people and this administration prentends we're not, hiding behind Rumsfeld's memo which essentially defines torture out of existence.
Yeah, when the price of boxcutters goes from 2 camels to 5 camels, Al Qaeda's whole house of cards will come tumbling down.
Dumbass.
I guess this means my employer also owns the the shotgun shells and an armor shard I just found outside Convergence Chamber 2.
Yeah, we outspent Russia. We were both working on Star Wars.
We outspent Germany. We were both building bombers.
We are outspending Al Qaeda. We are building a global anti-terror network and occupying entire coutnries, whereas they are buying box cutters.
It's not the outspending that's the problem. It's the ratio. The asymmetry. The sheer leverage they possess. Surely you must see that.
Finally, money doesn't solve everything.
Sure, there are killings and there is sabotage, but to demand that there be none of either is to suggest that the NYPD needs to spend more money on policing because someone got robbed on the subway.
And yet, we are spending tons more money on domestic policing, in resposne to terror attacks that the police could certainly never have stopped, nor should they be expected to. People getting robbed on the subway is exactly what the police should be concerned with. Busting terror cells is not in their job description.
I'm not worried about Iraq. It's the home front that's got me scared. Why should the Washington DC Metro Police need full-on BDUs and assault rifles? Last I checked their job is to give you a ticket for chewing gum on an escalator. Is it just me or does every day look a little bit more like Spain under Franco?
Another good way, probably better, and one already in place, is to offer non-citizens "fast track" to citizenship if they join the army for a few years.
There are plenty of non-Americans in the U.S. Army right now. It's kind of weird.
The first example that you could think of is Abu Ghraib, but from what I've read the incident was quite isolated, and it doesn't reflect American culture very well.
You clearly don't read much, or if you do, you spend a lot of time in the fiction section. Try reading some news. Here I'll help you out:
Israeli interrogators in Iraq
Terror defendant: U.S. interrogators threatened life
Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Leaked Torture Memo: Full Text
It should be pretty easy to devise a hand crank generator and just give it a few cranks when you need more juice. I remember reading that Freeplay was going to sell such a device -- they talked about it in this Wired article, but the closest they've got on their web site is a hand-cranked mobile phone charger. Kind of a disappointment.
Alternatively, you can continue as is. Much more likely, I think, as the world has gotten quite happy with a very low level of military spending in the presence of the 800# gorilla.
And the USA is equally happy to don the gorilla suit, for the rest of the world's simultaneous horror and bemusement.
If I was just about any country in the world, my attitude would be this: Let the gorilla thrash around long enough, and eventually he'll tire out. Or run out of money. We spend lots, but money can't buy guts. Send a few Americans home in body bags and their resolve dissipates.
The thing I'd be most worried about is the seemingly inevitable transition from Republic to Empire. But the course is set, it's not like the EU or China is going to suddenly push things further in that direction with a huge arms build-up. Rather, they'll be happy to divide up the spoils once we're spent.
It's like when someone asked Mao Tse Tung what he thought the impact of the French Revolution was: "It's too early to tell."
Not to mention the Viceroy, uh, I mean Administrator, who during his reign couldn't even address his subjects in their native tongue.
>>You really think you can be diplomatic with theofacists? Color you dumbass.
>Yeah, actually I think diplomacy is the only thing that will work against the US.
Congratulations! Your country has developed Nuclear Weapons. This will allow you to use Diplomacy against the Empire.
Please, we don't need cyborg soldiers, we need a president smarter than a commodore 64.
Don't knock my beloved Commodore 64! No, what we need is a Preisdent smarter than a VIC-20.