Well, I too grew up in a country where ID cards were mandatory, although very very rarely checked in practice. Now I live in the UK, where there's no national ID card.
My main objections are: 1. It will be extremely expensive - the govt is estimating 3 billion GBP, but we a) all know that they are rubbish at implementing IT projects on time and on budget, so a safer estimate is probaly 5 or6 billion. b) they exclude all the non-government card readers that would be required to make this actually usable - let's say another 3-4 billion. Wow, you're talking about some real money now - and where does it come from? Taxes, i.e. your and my money. Oh, and they want to charge you GBP 35 for getting one. Now if I'm supposed to shell out money, I want to be convinced that I'm actually getting something useful out of it, which brings us to
2. What is it supposed to achieve? It's supposed to combat terrorism, combat general crime, and stop benefit fraud. 2.1 Terrorism: Countries with mandatory ID cards have not suffered less from terrorism than those without: Germany had the RAF for decades; Spain had ETA, and of course the Madrid bombing. We all know that the 9/11 bombers had valid ID. So why does the government persist in claiming ID cards will stop terrorism when it's patently false? 2.2 General Crime: I've yet to see anyone advance a credible argument how ID will stop burglary / muggings / random violent attacks / pickpocketing, or help in their investigation. 2.3 Benefit Fraud: The govt claims 2 billion GBP per year benefit fraud. Which is a lot - and might arguably be a case for introducing ID for benefits - but what they neglect to tell you that ~95% of that is "misrepresentation of circumstances", and only a small fraction is actually identity related. So ID cards won't help either.
The government in the UK is also notoriously bad at protecting data it collects (recently a DVLA employee handed out home addresses of people to "animal rights" terrorists), so there is a lot of downside to the plan without even going into surveillance theories.
In summary: It costs a lot, it won't achieve anything beneficial, and has a lot of other drawbacks. Hence the govt comes to the obvious conclusion that it should introduce them. Go figure.
Actually, the French in Ivory Coast aren't acting as an imperial power, they are acting as peacekeepers to end the civil war there. With a UN mandata, unlike certain other people... Of course the fact that they are actually taking action against the government when it violates the terms of the ceasefire doesn't make them popular there, but it is effective.
As for principles and opposition to the war: The war had nothing to do with principles in the first place. Get over it. You might also have to accept the idea that just because someone is your ally in important matters doesn't mean they have to ask "How high?" every time you say "Jump".
I can't argue with you on translations, since I don't read hebrew (but I will ask people who know when I get a chance). However, in all translations I've read (a few different ones in German and English) it is clearly translated as "kill", not "murder".
Apart from that, it seems to me that the argument you've made supports mine: If you can't allow abortion, you can't support war (okay, at least war involving killing of civilians). To paraphrase: "If I happen to be born in the wrong country, is it ok to kill me?".
I would take you up on the abortion issue, but I'm way too tired..
You're of course right - the US & Britain did win against the Iraqi Army, just like last time. Where I think you are wrong is that the occupying army has the support of the populace. I think initially it was a little, but it's increasingly becoming extremely unpopular; in no small measure due to the tactics used.
I'm not sure how popular the Iraq war is in the US, but it's bloody unpopular with the one main ally - Britain. You should also not forget that the resistance to the Vietnam war took a long time to build up. Unless the US can get out quickly, the war could still get very unpopular indeed.
We could argue all we like - time will tell whos's right.
>In 1977, Canada and the USA were at 3 and 8.8 murders respectively. In 1993, Canada and the USA were at 2 and 9.5 murders respectively. The difference is not that breath taking.
So in '77, the US had 3 times as many murders as CA, and in '93, the US had 4.5 times as many, and the conclusion is that CA sucks? Wow, cool use of statistics. Repeat after me: Murder is a bad thing.
Or get a job at Fox, I'm sure they could do with some statisticians that can prove the US is winning in Iraq, and more dead bodies are better.
At a guess, MonkeyCookie is not a tax lawyer. Neither am I, but
>Of course, if you're working in another country, there's no way the IRS is going to be able to know how much you actually earn.
Most places that Americans are likely to work will happily cooperate with the US on tax matters, and will tell the IRS everything they want to know. On the upside, they'll also have double taxation treaties, so you won't actually end up paying 25% US Federal Income Tax + (e.g.) 40% UK Income tax.
> In short, American military forces will now conduct the kind of campaign that would not have been politically palatable during the political campaign season. Go USA!
A conventional army, especially of occupation, can't win against a guerilla army with the support of the population. You guys should know, since you basically invented this tactic in the war of independence, and then got a reminder of it in Vietnam.
Iraq is not a winnable situation - not by military means anyway.
First of all, anyone who calls themselves christian can sanely support whoever they like; what I really don't understand why so many people who call themselves christians are so keen on the sanctity of life when it's unborn, but at the same time defend the death penalty. I mean, which part of "Thou shalt not kill" is so hard to understand, apart from maybe "Thou";)
I can proudly say that I've neither bought either Bild or the Sun, and I can't honestly understand why anyone would buy "Bild" (or Hello, or OK, or etc.). But most people who buy the sun seem to start reading from the back - apparently the sports coverage is really good. Page 3 is worth a peek, and the rest is just there to make it look like a newspaper.
As for the Frankfurter Allgemeine: I plan to take on reading that when I retire and have all day to read it all through;)
>Yet, such IDs can solve a lot of problems that are currently awkwardly and unevenly addressed; like drivers license, for example.
Drivers licenses are not an issue in the UK. They work fine (apart from the last government idea, which was photo-card licenses, which are great in theory, but in practice not usable for anything useful, like renting a car).
I can't see a compelling problem that merits spending £2 billion + of taxpayers money.
Err... can you show me anything that you can do in C that you can't do in C++? No one forces you to use any of the features you seem to find troublesome - you can be a "close to the metal" in C++ as in C. For starters, you could just recompile your C code with a C++ compiler;)
> (memory use, exception setup, excess copying, dynamic checking) Exceptions and dynamic checking are features that you choose to use if appropriate; they don't add overhead if you don't use them. One of the key design principles of C++. Memory use is not inherently higher in C++ than in C, and neither does the language force excess copying on you - that's more likely due to bad programming than the language.
I'm not sure which "Exceptional C++" you've read, but non-trivial exception safe code (whichever guarantee you choose) is not that hard. And I'm pretty sure Herb Sutter would disagree that C++ is a disaster.
There is more to learn than in C, yes, but it does give you a lot of benefit afterwards.
While this is of course a nuisance for PG and PGA, it is rather amusing that at the same time Disney is being sued by Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital for infringing the copyright on Peter Pan. They claim it's out of copyright in the US, while Mickey & Co are still protected. It's just all an awful mess...
Much as I love the Elise, I wouldn't want to take it out on the road where a huge proportion of vehicles consists of multi-ton monster trucks that wouldn't even notice if they drove over you.;(
Besides, the roads are way too straight, and the speedlimit is too low:) (Hell, I got stopped twice in a one week vacation in CA!)
Counting attacks off against each other is a bit pointless. I think the key psychological difference was that 9/11 was completely unexpected.
For the American public, that is; apparently not for the intelligence services.
>There is evidence that the IRA received funding, weapons, and other support from Libya and from the PLO at times in its history. Birds of a feather... Far more relevant is that the IRA for decaded received a lot of it's funding from Irish-Americans. Just goes to prove that one man's terrorist is (often) another man's freedom fighter.
http://vb2py.sourceforge.net/index.htm - automagically convert VB to Python. Haven't tried it, since I haven't touched VB for years, but it could be a dream come true;)
>My sister wanted in vitro due to her Endometriosis. We fought 'round and 'round about my lack of understanding just WHY she thought she deserved a child, "just because". Maybe when you grow up you'll understand. Then again, maybe you won't.
>Our planet is quickly becoming overpopulated That is very much open to debate. Also, population growth in most industrialised countries is already zero to negative. It's rather like your mom saying "Eat up your dinner - there's starving kids in Afria": very true, but irrelevant.
>and our resources are dwindling. Possibly, but that's more due to consumption per capita than the capita. Ditch your Hummer, have a child, and your family resource consumption has probably improved.
>It is terribly irresponsible to bring yet more humans into the mix. That is your opinion. I'd hazard a guess that your sister has the opinion that you are an insensitive, uncaring clod. Both are equally valid.
>If a couple lacks the native ablilty to reproduce unaided then perhaps it is for a reason, no? Perhaps. If you have appendicitis, which frequently used to be fatal, perhaps that was for a reason, too. Maybe there was a reason for Pox, Diphteria, the Plague, polio etc, too. And I'm sure if you contract cancer, you'll be happy to decline expensive medical treatment because "perhaps it is for a reason".
>Take the blessing you have of being in the top 5% and donate $$ to a Foster Children fund or adopt an already born child. Good point; but there's no reason not to do both.
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Well, I too grew up in a country where ID cards were mandatory, although very very rarely checked in practice. Now I live in the UK, where there's no national ID card.
My main objections are:
1. It will be extremely expensive - the govt is estimating 3 billion GBP, but we a) all know that they are rubbish at implementing IT projects on time and on budget, so a safer estimate is probaly 5 or6 billion. b) they exclude all the non-government card readers that would be required to make this actually usable - let's say another 3-4 billion. Wow, you're talking about some real money now - and where does it come from? Taxes, i.e. your and my money. Oh, and they want to charge you GBP 35 for getting one. Now if I'm supposed to shell out money, I want to be convinced that I'm actually getting something useful out of it, which brings us to
2. What is it supposed to achieve? It's supposed to combat terrorism, combat general crime, and stop benefit fraud.
2.1 Terrorism: Countries with mandatory ID cards have not suffered less from terrorism than those without: Germany had the RAF for decades; Spain had ETA, and of course the Madrid bombing. We all know that the 9/11 bombers had valid ID. So why does the government persist in claiming ID cards will stop terrorism when it's patently false?
2.2 General Crime: I've yet to see anyone advance a credible argument how ID will stop burglary / muggings / random violent attacks / pickpocketing, or help in their investigation.
2.3 Benefit Fraud: The govt claims 2 billion GBP per year benefit fraud. Which is a lot - and might arguably be a case for introducing ID for benefits - but what they neglect to tell you that ~95% of that is "misrepresentation of circumstances", and only a small fraction is actually identity related. So ID cards won't help either.
The government in the UK is also notoriously bad at protecting data it collects (recently a DVLA employee handed out home addresses of people to "animal rights" terrorists), so there is a lot of downside to the plan without even going into surveillance theories.
In summary: It costs a lot, it won't achieve anything beneficial, and has a lot of other drawbacks. Hence the govt comes to the obvious conclusion that it should introduce them. Go figure.
Actually, the French in Ivory Coast aren't acting as an imperial power, they are acting as peacekeepers to end the civil war there. With a UN mandata, unlike certain other people... Of course the fact that they are actually taking action against the government when it violates the terms of the ceasefire doesn't make them popular there, but it is effective.
As for principles and opposition to the war: The war had nothing to do with principles in the first place. Get over it. You might also have to accept the idea that just because someone is your ally in important matters doesn't mean they have to ask "How high?" every time you say "Jump".
If you're 17, a student, and have at least 3.5 dependents, shouldn't you be eating in the soup kitchen instead of serving? ;)
I can't argue with you on translations, since I don't read hebrew (but I will ask people who know when I get a chance). However, in all translations I've read (a few different ones in German and English) it is clearly translated as "kill", not "murder".
Apart from that, it seems to me that the argument you've made supports mine: If you can't allow abortion, you can't support war (okay, at least war involving killing of civilians). To paraphrase: "If I happen to be born in the wrong country, is it ok to kill me?".
I would take you up on the abortion issue, but I'm way too tired..
You're of course right - the US & Britain did win against the Iraqi Army, just like last time. Where I think you are wrong is that the occupying army has the support of the populace. I think initially it was a little, but it's increasingly becoming extremely unpopular; in no small measure due to the tactics used.
I'm not sure how popular the Iraq war is in the US, but it's bloody unpopular with the one main ally - Britain. You should also not forget that the resistance to the Vietnam war took a long time to build up. Unless the US can get out quickly, the war could still get very unpopular indeed.
We could argue all we like - time will tell whos's right.
>In 1977, Canada and the USA were at 3 and 8.8 murders respectively. In 1993, Canada and the USA were at 2 and 9.5 murders respectively. The difference is not that breath taking.
So in '77, the US had 3 times as many murders as CA, and in '93, the US had 4.5 times as many, and the conclusion is that CA sucks? Wow, cool use of statistics. Repeat after me: Murder is a bad thing.
Or get a job at Fox, I'm sure they could do with some statisticians that can prove the US is winning in Iraq, and more dead bodies are better.
Of course in Corsica they hate the mainland French much more. The enemy of my enemy etc... ;)
At a guess, MonkeyCookie is not a tax lawyer. Neither am I, but
>Of course, if you're working in another country, there's no way the IRS is going to be able to know how much you actually earn.
Most places that Americans are likely to work will happily cooperate with the US on tax matters, and will tell the IRS everything they want to know. On the upside, they'll also have double taxation treaties, so you won't actually end up paying 25% US Federal Income Tax + (e.g.) 40% UK Income tax.
Don't bet on them not finding out.
How exactly can you tell that with secret voting? Just curious...
Don't fret - 51% of votes on a 49% turnout means 25% of the population that are willfully ignorant and/or embarassingly gullible. ;)
> In short, American military forces will now conduct the kind of campaign that would not have been politically palatable during the political campaign season. Go USA!
A conventional army, especially of occupation, can't win against a guerilla army with the support of the population. You guys should know, since you basically invented this tactic in the war of independence, and then got a reminder of it in Vietnam.
Iraq is not a winnable situation - not by military means anyway.
First of all, anyone who calls themselves christian can sanely support whoever they like; what I really don't understand why so many people who call themselves christians are so keen on the sanctity of life when it's unborn, but at the same time defend the death penalty. I mean, which part of "Thou shalt not kill" is so hard to understand, apart from maybe "Thou" ;)
I can proudly say that I've neither bought either Bild or the Sun, and I can't honestly understand why anyone would buy "Bild" (or Hello, or OK, or etc.). But most people who buy the sun seem to start reading from the back - apparently the sports coverage is really good. Page 3 is worth a peek, and the rest is just there to make it look like a newspaper.
;)
As for the Frankfurter Allgemeine: I plan to take on reading that when I retire and have all day to read it all through
The problem with Blunkett is not that he's blind, but that he's a control freak wanker.
As for the nice quote: When did the government ever listen to people who actually know what they are talking about? Viz. the R.I.P bill...
>Yet, such IDs can solve a lot of problems that are currently awkwardly and unevenly addressed; like drivers license, for example.
Drivers licenses are not an issue in the UK. They work fine (apart from the last government idea, which was photo-card licenses, which are great in theory, but in practice not usable for anything useful, like renting a car).
I can't see a compelling problem that merits spending £2 billion + of taxpayers money.
>C allows this kind of control, C++ does not.
;)
Err... can you show me anything that you can do in C that you can't do in C++? No one forces you to use any of the features you seem to find troublesome - you can be a "close to the metal" in C++ as in C. For starters, you could just recompile your C code with a C++ compiler
> (memory use, exception setup, excess copying, dynamic checking)
Exceptions and dynamic checking are features that you choose to use if appropriate; they don't add overhead if you don't use them. One of the key design principles of C++.
Memory use is not inherently higher in C++ than in C, and neither does the language force excess copying on you - that's more likely due to bad programming than the language.
I'm not sure which "Exceptional C++" you've read, but non-trivial exception safe code (whichever guarantee you choose) is not that hard. And I'm pretty sure Herb Sutter would disagree that C++ is a disaster.
There is more to learn than in C, yes, but it does give you a lot of benefit afterwards.
While this is of course a nuisance for PG and PGA, it is rather amusing that at the same time Disney is being sued by Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital for infringing the copyright on Peter Pan. They claim it's out of copyright in the US, while Mickey & Co are still protected. It's just all an awful mess...
Much as I love the Elise, I wouldn't want to take it out on the road where a huge proportion of vehicles consists of multi-ton monster trucks that wouldn't even notice if they drove over you. ;(
:) (Hell, I got stopped twice in a one week vacation in CA!)
Besides, the roads are way too straight, and the speedlimit is too low
Counting attacks off against each other is a bit pointless. I think the key psychological difference was that 9/11 was completely unexpected.
For the American public, that is; apparently not for the intelligence services.
>There is evidence that the IRA received funding, weapons, and other support from Libya and from the PLO at times in its history.
Birds of a feather... Far more relevant is that the IRA for decaded received a lot of it's funding from Irish-Americans. Just goes to prove that one man's terrorist is (often) another man's freedom fighter.
Yes.
You shouldn't be eating a bigmac while talking on the phone, full stop.
;)
In fact, you probably shouldn't be eating a bigmac. Full stop
http://vb2py.sourceforge.net/index.htm - automagically convert VB to Python. Haven't tried it, since I haven't touched VB for years, but it could be a dream come true ;)
>My sister wanted in vitro due to her Endometriosis. We fought 'round and 'round about my lack of understanding just WHY she thought she deserved a child, "just because".
Maybe when you grow up you'll understand. Then again, maybe you won't.
>Our planet is quickly becoming overpopulated
That is very much open to debate. Also, population growth in most industrialised countries is already zero to negative. It's rather like your mom saying "Eat up your dinner - there's starving kids in Afria": very true, but irrelevant.
>and our resources are dwindling.
Possibly, but that's more due to consumption per capita than the capita. Ditch your Hummer, have a child, and your family resource consumption has probably improved.
>It is terribly irresponsible to bring yet more humans into the mix.
That is your opinion. I'd hazard a guess that your sister has the opinion that you are an insensitive, uncaring clod. Both are equally valid.
>If a couple lacks the native ablilty to reproduce unaided then perhaps it is for a reason, no?
Perhaps. If you have appendicitis, which frequently used to be fatal, perhaps that was for a reason, too. Maybe there was a reason for Pox, Diphteria, the Plague, polio etc, too. And I'm sure if you contract cancer, you'll be happy to decline expensive medical treatment because "perhaps it is for a reason".
>Take the blessing you have of being in the top 5% and donate $$ to a Foster Children fund or adopt an already born child.
Good point; but there's no reason not to do both.
> I am of the opinion that there are generally too many people in the USA already.
;)
I hope you're taking that opinion to the logical conclusion. I'd love to say it's been nice knowing you, but that'd be a lie