Another organism that won by friendliness is cannabis: from a humble weed, it managed to turn itself into one of humanity's favorite and most cared for plants.
There have been plenty of incidents that would be classes as war crimes if other countries carried them out.
That page lists war crimes committed by US military service members, not by the US as a nation. Soldiers will commit war crimes in any war, but you can only attribute them to the nation itself if the nation orders them or fails to act to prosecute them.
Nonsense. If you save 10-20% of your income every month, you quickly have more than enough of a safety net to cover just about every emergency, medical or otherwise, and everybody can save 10-20%. If you are one step away from financial disaster, you only have yourself to blame.
Furthermore saving 10-20% would be even easier if government would force you to waste your money on costly and overpriced insurance programs: unemployment insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, etc. Those programs are a gigantic rip-off; people are forced to pay into them not because they are "cost effective", but because most people are too stupid to save on their own. But as a result of the stupidity of some, we all end up much worse off.
You have provided no data or facts to counter these statements. Part of your problem is that your financial calculations are fundamentally wrong: (1) your savings calculations left out compound interest, (2) you erroneously assert that in order to get stock market average returns you need "starting capital" and deep insights into the stock market, (3) you erroneously use minimum wage jobs as an example of an inability to save.
Come up with some sound economic data and correct financial calculations showing that large numbers people can't save for themselves and that they are forced into poverty by circumstance rather than bad choices that they make.
Government programs are a way of protecting people from the bad choices they make, and a lot of people make bad choices for lack of knowledge or education. Your financial errors are another example of that. But even if we wanted to, it is impossible to have any kind of market economy and protect people from their own ignorance.
Those 900,000 people includes a massive amount of military personnel who signed up and appreciated the risk.
Iraq had the draft. And in a dictatorship, even "military volunteers" are not volunteers. Believe me, I have family who used to live under a dictatorship.
The 110,000 people I stated (who were literally killed by direct military action by the allies, not Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence)
No. Even according to IBC, only about 12% were killed by coalition forces.
Your meandering diatribe arguing that the power vacuum caused by the invasion was somehow justified or cool is mind-boggling. These are facts, and clearly have lead to the destabilisation of the country. It has nothing to do with liberal tendencies what-so-ever. Your argument is fatuous beyond belief.
You're right: it has nothing to do with liberal tendencies; you are no liberal. You are a liar and you seriously try to argue that a stable dictatorship by a mass murderer is preferable to a democracy. People like you are reprehensible.
Refuse to pay for their own defence? Now that was funny. Next thing you'll tell me is that I'd speak German or Russian now if not you Americans.
Most European nations that are part of NATO are failing to spend anywhere near as much on defense as required by their commitments under the NATO agreements.
European governments keep calling for help from the US when they have problems in their own backyard because they can't handle it themselves.
Given your nick, I assume you speak German already, and the rest of Europe has been sleeping much more soundly because US troops have been stationed on German soil. And all European nations behind the iron curtain did, in fact, have to learn Russian, including parts of Germany; the iron curtain came down, in large part, because of US defense spending.
It's merely your assumption that Nexus 7 dropped MHL because of cost. More likely, it was simply because Google wanted the Nexus 7 to be perceived as a low-end device and give its partners the ability to differentiate themselves.
The Nexus 4 uses SlimPort, which is essentially DisplayPort over micro-USB (and arguably superior to MHL). It's another obvious standard Apple could have adopted.
A country that uses torture as an interrogation technique should not consider itself civilized.
I don't consider my country to be civilized. Are you happy now?
All I care about is whether my government conforms to our Constitution. Sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't, we have mechanisms to deal with that. What you think about it frankly doesn't matter.
However the US is the >current main player in the west and the key global enabler for war, torture and economic oppression.
The US is currently shouldering most of the military expenditures for the world because Europeans refuse to pay even for their own defense. And the US isn't the "key enabler for war, torture" in the world, it is merely trying to deal with the messes nations like yours left around the world. You can't expect the US to fix within half a century what you people destroyed over half a millennium.
And I don't get "economic oppression". Is that a code word for "you're richer than us and we hate it"? If that bothers you, make your markets, your workers, and your products more attractive. If you can't do that, at least be thankful that the US economy is pulling you along.
But I'm from one that learned from the mistakes of the past and after centuries of war learned to get on with its neighbors.
I can't think of any such European nation; which one would that be? As far as I can tell, Europe is merely under a temporary truce due to the enormous wealth that US guarantees of military safety have brought to Europeans. You can bet that Europeans would start slaughtering each other should famine or even a serious economic downturn happen.
Ahh, the very fine "your ancestors did something evil so you can't point out my current evil" retort. Brilliant. Settles the case for sure!
Europe continues to do evil, and Europe has pretty much been complicit in everything the US government has done. So, until you can point out my current evil, fix your own evil at home.
Says the guy who can't bother to make on Citation when I back up what I say with sources.
You haven't backed up shit. Your "citations" are worthless political fluff pieces.
The statement I have made is that people can budget and live on less than $1000. If that requires a citation, you really aren't fit to survive in the real world.
as the invasion removed the basic security which prevented any sectarian violence.
Even if correct, you could have made the same argument about just about any dictatorial, socialist, or communist regime in the world. I think left-wing ideology is perhaps primarily defined in terms of the willingness to give up liberties for security and safety; this seems to be particularly a middle-class attitude, people who seem most keen on left-wing ideology. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to live with the fact that lots of other people have different preferences.
The number of civilian deaths directly attributable to military actions of the invading allies is over 110,000.
Only for a propagandistic misuse of the term "directly". The fact remains that most of those deaths were due to Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, and that the average annual death toll during Saddam's regime was far higher. In addition, any attempt to oust Saddam Hussein or his successors would have been bloody, so these deaths would have been incurred sooner or later.
As I was saying: I was against the Iraq war. Bush lied, it wasn't our business, and it was too expensive. But you can't argue that Iraqis are worse off because of it. And, in some sense, we were responsible for the state of Iraq, since it was Kennedy who brought Saddam to power, apparently viewing him as a fellow progressive politician.
Tell that to the hundred thousand civilian dead Iraqis, victims of an unjust, unfounded war that only the US public bought in their post 9/11 panic.
I was strongly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq. But your numbers are wrong. Most of those civilian victims were the victims of other Iraqis, not Americans. And if the US hadn't invaded, those numbers would likely have been higher, since Saddam Hussein's regime had a long track record of mass murder.
You're a jerk for repeatedly putting words into my mouth. And aside from your rudeness, you have no facts to back up your statements, but plenty of arrogance.
Most people I know don't live in cities because they're too fucking expensive, not because they enjoy the smell of cow shit, no culture and one day a week bus services.
And why is that a good reason for city dwellers to subsidize country dwellers?
Or have you forgotten how much dirt was brought out about MSFT during the anti-trust trial? yet they made MORE money afterward than they had ever made before? So how does that fit with your shaming idea?
Mostly, it tells me just that you don't understand marketing, branding, correlation, or economics.
Power and telephone service to rural areas were subsidized in the US
Yes, and it was a lousy idea back then too. The result was to encourage city dwellers to move out of the cities, resulting in much less efficient energy use, long commute times, and a destruction of inner cities.
The reason people live in cities is because it is more efficient than in the country. If you destroy that efficiency advantage by forcing city dwellers to subsidize country folks, the predictable outcome is overall low efficiency and a destruction of cities.
And progressives still don't get this through their heads, since they still throw around subsidies for everything and then whine and complain when people react rationally in response.
Apparently most slashfags have voted for hope and change.
Morons like you are an even bigger threat to our liberties than Obama, and that is saying something.
And in the last election, it didn't really matter who you voted for, since the two frontrunners were equally bad on civil liberties, wars, and the economy.
When Slashdot is full of people like these , you will understand why history keep repeating itself.
Slashdot is dominated by left wing tech nerds. What they believe or don't believe only has limited relevance to the real world.
Your description is perhaps valid for his use of the wireless network. But on the wired network, he didn't lose legitimate access by violating the TOS, he never had legitimate access in the first place.
Whether we tolerate computer fraud or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate some kinds of copyright violations or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate drug use or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate illegal immigration or not is a political choice.
The people elected a president and Congress that were clearly going to be tough on compute fraud and copyright violations, while they also elected a president that was going to be lenient on immigration. The DOJ translates those political choices into cases to prosecute. Perhaps the reason they "admitted it" and didn't think they did anything wrong is because this is how our system works. Remember that prosecutors are not judges, and prosecutions are not convictions.
This is the same tyranny as gun control, global warming, and stem cell research: things we either can't know without major amounts of research or just can't know period, because the political views have covered up and even shaped the facts
Welcome to the real world. However, the sky isn't falling. People still can buy guns, the US hasn't adopted stifling European-style global warming policies, and stem cell research is still legal. Fair use is still more liberal in the US than anywhere, and you're less likely to get in trouble for copyright violations in the US than elsewhere. Is it perfect? Of course not. There are ugly compromises and big problems buried in copyright law, CFAA, etc. But your kind of FUD and misinformation doesn't help.
And when it comes to Swartz and his prosecution, anybody who voted for Obama really doesn't have cause to complain: this is exactly the kind of government you voted for.
Slashdot Mirror
Another organism that won by friendliness is cannabis: from a humble weed, it managed to turn itself into one of humanity's favorite and most cared for plants.
That page lists war crimes committed by US military service members, not by the US as a nation. Soldiers will commit war crimes in any war, but you can only attribute them to the nation itself if the nation orders them or fails to act to prosecute them.
I stand by my original statement:
You have provided no data or facts to counter these statements. Part of your problem is that your financial calculations are fundamentally wrong: (1) your savings calculations left out compound interest, (2) you erroneously assert that in order to get stock market average returns you need "starting capital" and deep insights into the stock market, (3) you erroneously use minimum wage jobs as an example of an inability to save.
Come up with some sound economic data and correct financial calculations showing that large numbers people can't save for themselves and that they are forced into poverty by circumstance rather than bad choices that they make.
Government programs are a way of protecting people from the bad choices they make, and a lot of people make bad choices for lack of knowledge or education. Your financial errors are another example of that. But even if we wanted to, it is impossible to have any kind of market economy and protect people from their own ignorance.
Iraq had the draft. And in a dictatorship, even "military volunteers" are not volunteers. Believe me, I have family who used to live under a dictatorship.
No. Even according to IBC, only about 12% were killed by coalition forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jan/03/iraq-body-count-report-data
You're right: it has nothing to do with liberal tendencies; you are no liberal. You are a liar and you seriously try to argue that a stable dictatorship by a mass murderer is preferable to a democracy. People like you are reprehensible.
Most European nations that are part of NATO are failing to spend anywhere near as much on defense as required by their commitments under the NATO agreements.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/10/us-usa-nato-idUSTRE7591JK20110610
European governments keep calling for help from the US when they have problems in their own backyard because they can't handle it themselves.
Given your nick, I assume you speak German already, and the rest of Europe has been sleeping much more soundly because US troops have been stationed on German soil. And all European nations behind the iron curtain did, in fact, have to learn Russian, including parts of Germany; the iron curtain came down, in large part, because of US defense spending.
It's merely your assumption that Nexus 7 dropped MHL because of cost. More likely, it was simply because Google wanted the Nexus 7 to be perceived as a low-end device and give its partners the ability to differentiate themselves.
The Nexus 4 uses SlimPort, which is essentially DisplayPort over micro-USB (and arguably superior to MHL). It's another obvious standard Apple could have adopted.
I don't consider my country to be civilized. Are you happy now?
All I care about is whether my government conforms to our Constitution. Sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't, we have mechanisms to deal with that. What you think about it frankly doesn't matter.
When has the US been found guilty of war crimes by any authority? Note: left wing journalists in the British yellow press don't count.
The US is currently shouldering most of the military expenditures for the world because Europeans refuse to pay even for their own defense. And the US isn't the "key enabler for war, torture" in the world, it is merely trying to deal with the messes nations like yours left around the world. You can't expect the US to fix within half a century what you people destroyed over half a millennium.
And I don't get "economic oppression". Is that a code word for "you're richer than us and we hate it"? If that bothers you, make your markets, your workers, and your products more attractive. If you can't do that, at least be thankful that the US economy is pulling you along.
I can't think of any such European nation; which one would that be? As far as I can tell, Europe is merely under a temporary truce due to the enormous wealth that US guarantees of military safety have brought to Europeans. You can bet that Europeans would start slaughtering each other should famine or even a serious economic downturn happen.
Europe continues to do evil, and Europe has pretty much been complicit in everything the US government has done. So, until you can point out my current evil, fix your own evil at home.
This is decades old technology, and there's a reason it hasn't caught on: it has potentially high false negatives and high false positives.
Behavioral measures are useful for forensics, but they are not useful for authentication.
You haven't backed up shit. Your "citations" are worthless political fluff pieces.
The statement I have made is that people can budget and live on less than $1000. If that requires a citation, you really aren't fit to survive in the real world.
Saddam Hussein was responsible for more than 900000 Iraqi deaths over 23 years. That's a far higher death toll.
http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/me090424b.htm
Even if correct, you could have made the same argument about just about any dictatorial, socialist, or communist regime in the world. I think left-wing ideology is perhaps primarily defined in terms of the willingness to give up liberties for security and safety; this seems to be particularly a middle-class attitude, people who seem most keen on left-wing ideology. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to live with the fact that lots of other people have different preferences.
Only for a propagandistic misuse of the term "directly". The fact remains that most of those deaths were due to Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, and that the average annual death toll during Saddam's regime was far higher. In addition, any attempt to oust Saddam Hussein or his successors would have been bloody, so these deaths would have been incurred sooner or later.
As I was saying: I was against the Iraq war. Bush lied, it wasn't our business, and it was too expensive. But you can't argue that Iraqis are worse off because of it. And, in some sense, we were responsible for the state of Iraq, since it was Kennedy who brought Saddam to power, apparently viewing him as a fellow progressive politician.
Do you have any indication that the government delayed the trial unreasonably? Did Manning's lawyers want an earlier trial date but were denied?
I was strongly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq. But your numbers are wrong. Most of those civilian victims were the victims of other Iraqis, not Americans. And if the US hadn't invaded, those numbers would likely have been higher, since Saddam Hussein's regime had a long track record of mass murder.
You're a jerk for repeatedly putting words into my mouth. And aside from your rudeness, you have no facts to back up your statements, but plenty of arrogance.
And why is that a good reason for city dwellers to subsidize country dwellers?
Mostly, it tells me just that you don't understand marketing, branding, correlation, or economics.
Yes, and it was a lousy idea back then too. The result was to encourage city dwellers to move out of the cities, resulting in much less efficient energy use, long commute times, and a destruction of inner cities.
The reason people live in cities is because it is more efficient than in the country. If you destroy that efficiency advantage by forcing city dwellers to subsidize country folks, the predictable outcome is overall low efficiency and a destruction of cities.
And progressives still don't get this through their heads, since they still throw around subsidies for everything and then whine and complain when people react rationally in response.
Morons like you are an even bigger threat to our liberties than Obama, and that is saying something.
And in the last election, it didn't really matter who you voted for, since the two frontrunners were equally bad on civil liberties, wars, and the economy.
Slashdot is dominated by left wing tech nerds. What they believe or don't believe only has limited relevance to the real world.
Your description is perhaps valid for his use of the wireless network. But on the wired network, he didn't lose legitimate access by violating the TOS, he never had legitimate access in the first place.
He was primarily charged with violations of the CFAA, loosely speaking, breaking into MIT's network and causing trouble.
He didn't have any TOS to violate because he wasn't even a legitimate user on the network he was accessing.
Whether we tolerate computer fraud or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate some kinds of copyright violations or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate drug use or not is a political choice. Whether we tolerate illegal immigration or not is a political choice.
The people elected a president and Congress that were clearly going to be tough on compute fraud and copyright violations, while they also elected a president that was going to be lenient on immigration. The DOJ translates those political choices into cases to prosecute. Perhaps the reason they "admitted it" and didn't think they did anything wrong is because this is how our system works. Remember that prosecutors are not judges, and prosecutions are not convictions.
Welcome to the real world. However, the sky isn't falling. People still can buy guns, the US hasn't adopted stifling European-style global warming policies, and stem cell research is still legal. Fair use is still more liberal in the US than anywhere, and you're less likely to get in trouble for copyright violations in the US than elsewhere. Is it perfect? Of course not. There are ugly compromises and big problems buried in copyright law, CFAA, etc. But your kind of FUD and misinformation doesn't help.
And when it comes to Swartz and his prosecution, anybody who voted for Obama really doesn't have cause to complain: this is exactly the kind of government you voted for.