Okay, the point of discussing entropy was to get an acknowledgement of random occurences. Most drop the debate with the second law of thermodynamics for the reason the the original poster states, which is erroneous for the reasons you mentioned and also because it is impossible to say it is a law for the whole, but not for the part.
Then you misunderstand the law. It's the general trend that energy generally likes to diaspate but some localised systems go against this tendency. IE living organisms are ordered strucutres that fight against entropy to stay together.
There is another reason why random evolution does not hold up. The eye.
Ironically this is the argument why creationism doesn't work. Our eyes are innificient things. they have their blood supply in front of the retina. This means we have a fairly large blind spot and also a layers of tissue impeding our ability to see. Squid have a different but anogous eye witht he blood supply behind the retina.
Why is it that we don't see thermal signatures? Why don't we have different view modes? These would have undoubtedly helped us, and are not that much more significant than gills to lungs. Unless you take into account that the eye itself is such a huge development that it couldn't have possible arisen from evolution, it just doesn't add up.
Bollocks, snakes see heat. They have organs to do so. Bates see sound they have organs to do so. We have eyes because somewhere along our ancetral line something had light sensitive organs. these organs developed into eyes.
Devolution is another quagmire. There are fish, bats, and countless other creatures that have been around for thousands of years and never used their eyes. If entrophy (or randomness) *did* have a hand in evolution, there would be eyeless bats that would be doing just as well as those with them. So why don't they exist?
There is no such thing as devolution. Evolution is the selection of traits based on atvantage. Entropy is randomness. It has nothing to do with selection except to provide traits to select against. Most bats are as good as blind. Their eyes are vistigial. Like our apendix. It's like a NP machine. Entropy generates change, selection decides if the change stays or goes. Traits leave only when mutations accumulate to eliminate the change. humans lost most of the appendix because our diet has changed as the old apendix required more resources then it provided benifit. So over tiem those who has genes that resulted in a gimped apendix did better then thos who has a fulll on apendix.
As for the eye, it's a light sensory organ. A lor of other creature have other forms of it and it's easy to see that a few changes would result in our eye. A protective casing, a lens. Not too hard to see little changes leading up to that.
Why is it that there are creaturs that do not use the eye that have passed the test of natural selection but no equivalents that do not have an eye?
NAtural selection doesn't have anythign in mind. It's like playing a MMORPG. Efficient build do better, and if they reproduced, they would occur more often. Bad builds don't diasappear magically but are just out competed by better builds. The eye provides a certain benifit. If they do not need this benifit in their enviroment then why have that trait? Some have the trait but don't use it. Since it doesn't diminish their survival ability much that trait stays. Please read up on evolution and thermodynamics. It's apparent you don't undertsand either.
Alright, I have some time now to address the parent:
Blame the training, blame the procedures, blame the information, blame your goddamned dog. Blaming the pilots tells me that you know fuck all about how a military is run - but don't let that discourage you from blaming the pilots.
Blaming the pilots is easy. They took an action which was the opposite of their training. Going back to a presumably dangerous area, against orders to destroy a assumed target. I'd say that has nothing to do with training. Training would be spotting a target, getting confirmation, attacking target. Or spottign target report target, lear area while comman confirms, then come back wiht reinenforcements. They did neither. They attacked, without any orders to do so. So it's not the systems fault 4 people dies, it's the pilots.
So you don't know shit about how a nation is run, but what's your point?
Havign taken many courses in both Political science and sociology I'd say I have as much insight into the subject as you do with your "liberal arts" education. as for an example of a nice thing to do, when the islamic terrorists crashed planes into your nation, Canada opened up it's borders and homes to accept the hundred of passangers that were rerouted. Mexico did no such thing. We opened up our homes and provided nessesities to these passengers at our own expense without need of compensation because we are your neighbors. More examples? America spend billions rebuilding nations into it's own image under the marshall plan. They spent this not because they woudl ever directly benifit but because they chose to do it. The reasons behind it were complex but in the end you created Japan, Germany, and South Korea (later on and not part of the marshall plan).
As for the US and it's treatment of it's allies. The US did not think of it's own citizens and it's own jobs when it was buying support for it's war in iraq. It rewarded any country that woudl help it out. Even the war in afganistan. Do you think it's coincidental that the tech jobs evacuated to India and pakistan near about the same time as the War in afganistan? Those were rewards for allies who behaved well. But as for Canada, I object to the hipocracy of saying "trade should be free" then slappign tarriffs and cloing borders. You signed a legally binding contract,then you keep violating it. This why people hate Americans because so many of them are hippocrites.
As for running an "incompentent" military. Most think you already do. See the SAS, one of the most respect military teams in history. They told the US military to fuck off, because they don't want to work with the US army and the US intelegence because in their proffesional oppinion, you are incompentent.
I am pro-American. I believe if I must suffer under the heal of a tyrant, the US should be that heel. Because their heel is a lot softer. I personally think their war in iraq is a play for power. If they should screw it up (which they have) they will lose the reigns of power. I support the US, I know that, despite the current crop of leadership, they are basically decent folk who mean well. A lot of times they have inssuficient information to form a good oppinion and thus resort to jingoism and turning a complex situation into a single statement like "Nuke the arabs". Thats fine. In my oppinion, the arabs deserve the nuking. They deserve it because they foster hate, and promote violence.
I like the US, I value the same Ideals, I am also right of center. However it does not make them proof against critisism. They have made some pretty dumb mistakes because their current admin. values ideology over practicality. They have doen a horrible job. Like viet nam, they sent soldiers in with vague orders and no over arching goal. thus it was doomed to failure. If the goals were more transparent, and more well defined like "Remove all human life in the area" I could reasonably expect them to achieve that goal. However their goal is to "Bring democracy to Iraq". Well tha
So while your analogy is true on a VERY basic level, it's false on a much grander scale. EVERYONE at age 18 has the right to vote for their elected officials. Only the STOCKHOLDERS of a company have the privilege of voting for the officers of that company. That's a pretty big difference. If you don't like a company censoring things, don't buy ANYTHING from that company.
Thats yoru government. The statement is true of other governments. Sometimes it is elected. There is no falsehood in that statement. And many Authors and intellectuals (not the most authoratative source) think at some point Corporatiosn will assume government like powers. In the thrid world, large corporatiosn already act like foreign powers so it's not much of a stretch.
I have foolishly entered into a discussion with a person lacking reason.
Stop with the flames. It makes you look ignorant.
The pilots got a negative target confirmation. They were not in a life or death situation. They then flew back to the area to attack the target. This means they chose to do this, and they chose to risk their saftey to kill the target. Which turned out to be allied. If they were prmarily interested in their own safety, they would have flown away. There was a negative target confirmation. Meaning Command did not think the target was valid. I heard the conversation between air command and the pilots. The pilots chose to attack. I doubt it's because of training, it's lack of proper dicipline in those pilots.
I'll reply more later. But here's how it look to everyone else. A set of pilot attacked and killed allies. They killed people. They were told not to engage the target but did so anyways and they KILLED a group of allied soldiers that were doing some fire training. Now they only hurt some these men then slap their wrists, gound them for a week and moev one. But they KILLED 4 people.
They made a decision, they should face punishment for it. They did not get punished. Military is military but if you train your military men to disobey orders and to attack without confirmation, why the fuck are you sending these people out there.
Lets not forget THEY KILLED 4 people.
War is War, but don't tell me this is right in any way. Blame the pilots, fuck yeah. They killed 4 people on a whim. They were not taking on direct fire because they were not beign fired at, they could have flown away, rifle fire is not good at downing a retreatinf jet. But they wanted to score up a few more kills to stamp on their wings so they KILLED 4 servicemen. And there is no comfort for the families of those 4 because no one was punished. Lets also put this in perspective, they KILLED 4 people and they disobeyed orders, and got off scott free.
:). I'm just suggesting go look at an international source. And no I didn't suggest the alternative websites. Me I read only english but speak chinese and english with a little bit of filipino and indonesian.
Internet access isn't available everywhere. And a large section of the US has no access. what the penetration? 60% of all house holds? that leaves 40%. not an insignifigant number.
I don't read any "indymags". I read the Edmonton Sun (sorta like the fox news of the local papers. I do so because my father subscribes), BBC news (website), Edmonton Journal (more lik the bbc), and ocassionally google news.
Ok, here the leap. A Corporation is a legal entity. It can have great power and is controlled by a few individuals, someitmes they are elected.
A government is a legal entitiy. It can have great power and is controlled by a few individuals, sometimes they are elected.
(note: this is more hahahah it's funny, then a serious attempt at comparing the two. so don't mod me down -10 obviously worng. Also don't mod up +1 insightful.)
So you're comparing all Americans to your GF's, more than likely ignorant, teenage brother? Yeah, that makes sense.
He seems a rather representative individual. Southern Californian. 18. Going to University next year. honor student. Watches TV news.
It is true that most Americans aren't the Unwashed idiots some portray them to be. It's also true that soem are. And little biases work their way into every individual. I have a few, I dislike Islamic governments. Especially psuedo-theocracies and full on theocracies.
The US media sure is biased, but they're biased against the US (CNN, mainstream news, etc).
From my point of view in canada it seems the other way around.
There is also a creeping anti-canadian sentiment. It started as light hearted jokes from the Simopsons and Family guy but When I visited america last month I recieved a lot of mean spirited questions and comments. Admittidly from my GF's teenage brother.
Comments like "You guys are free loading off our military spending", "you guys have no military", "Why don't Canadians pull their wieght".
CNN may latch on to the bad stories but their still fairly pro-US. Check out BBC more often to see more balanced stories.
Okay, I'll play the deconstructionism game. "2 + 2 = 4". Is this objective or subjective truth? If the latter, what's the opposing truth? Or is this sum just a piece of propaganda which has been perpetrated over the course of millennia?
All of those might be equivilent but a lot of times, the underlying facts are the same and the truth is an interpretation. Thus it says those coutnries are thiers, we don't see it that way. the underlying "truth" is they control those areas reaguardless of how legitimate that control is.
ehhe. Thats cheeky. You also have to remember language is a barrier. Most Americans don't read french or chinese or russian. And yes, some don't even read English.
Scenario 1: The US bombs a gathering of rebels. The rebels claim it was a "wedding party" (everyone has guns at wedding parties, right?). US and foreign journalists pick up conflicting reports.
Scenario 2: The US bombs a wedding party. US spokesmen claim it was a gathering of rebels (everyone has guns at wedding parties, right?). US and foreign journalists pick up conflicting reports.
This is true. IT could be either side. The BBC stated that the facts were insifficient at this time to tell for sure and gave some time to each idea. How many americans think it's a terrorist sect for sure? Also, it may be even a different scenario. It was a real wedding party but when the wedding was in progress the ussual rifle firing was going on, and soem cheeky guest Aimed for a passing plane. It would not be unlikly. Then is becomes a stupid and tragic incident instead of "another example of US malevolence" or "another example of GI joe getting the bad guys".
You do realise that you dont' get much of the news the rest of the world gets. This is corprate self-censoryship. Farenheight 9/11 is an obvious if somewhat weak example. When a incident arises in the middle east, say you bombed a wedding party. The US media will spin in as positive a light as possible because the majority of the News audience doesn't respond well to havign their side becoem the bad guy. In the rest of the world we hear most of the story. When you bombed A platoon of Canadian soldiers, US media spun it as an accident, while the rest of the world heard how the pilots were told to "disengage" but decided to be heroes and disobeyed orders.
Farenheight 9/11 is propaganda from a anti-republican individual. It's not being activly oppressed but it is havign a hard time finding distibution, for fear of government punishment on the distributor. Think of it this way, a corporation is in business for money. The film is garenteed to make a profit (moore has a build in audience). Disney refused to distribute it, likly for fear of "bad" treatment if they do.
Although the US has very little Active censorship (aside from sex), they do have a lot of filterign that happens for different reasons, thus you get a US positive view of the world. But incidentally most of the world doesn't lik you too much. As someone else pointed out, it's not what you got, but how you behave. Like a grade school bully who has a rich family.
Quickie examples: the USA promotes free trade. The USA slaps tarrifs on Canadian softwood lumber, because the US lumber lobby put enough money in Government coffers. The USA loses the WTO ruling, this tarrif is said to be unfair by a trade body the US helped create. (hippocrites)
Canada has 1 case of BSF, the US closes all borders to Canadian beef. The US has 1 case of BSF, attributes it to a Canadian supplier, no evidence exsists for this. Canada substatially beefs out it's detection methods, the USA keeps it's old detection methods (the ones the canadians were using before). Border stays closed. Reason: US ranchers lobby put enough money in Government coffers to keep it closed.
And all this is to your "best friend" and neighbor. I hate to see how you fuck over your non-friends.
Rarely are our saints saintly or our devils truly devlish. Cuba may be doing well with what they have, but they do not have a nice administration ro government. China may be easy to villify, but it's not the orwellian state people claim. the USA isn't as bad or as good as any of the media says and isn't half as powerfull as it beleives itself to be.
How did the US and the UK "let" the Holocaust happen? It took place in Nazi-occupied parts Europe which we were busy attempting to liberate. Should we have fought harder to get there sooner?
Chamberlain. He gave it up more then a Dallas prom queen. Arguably without him and other pacifists, hitler would have had no where near the space to manuever. Also if they didn't bitch slap germany after WWI so hard WWI arguebly woudl never have happened, the Nazi's wouldn't have arisen, and no holocaust woudl have happened.
Ha ha. Since when did spreading anti-US lies cost anyone karma on/.?
I ussually get a -1 over rated when ever I mention anything I percieve is negative about the US or Bush. Given the nature of the US 70:30 change anyone is conservative (To be truly correct a lot fo democrates are conservative, your two parties are right and center right) and though slashdot is more liberal, theres still a large faction of Conservatives, even pro-bush groups. And when they get mod points they smack my comments down. No matter what point I bring up. The US (the people and the government) is pretty sensitive to critism.
In the West, women generally have equal rights to men; whites to blacks; and jews to Muslims
I agree to the rest of the post but this part is not true. As a minority and as someone who works with a lot of black people, I have to say the laws are the same for everyone but there is a selective enforcement of them. If my friend Simon riding in his Lexus passes a cop, they'll pull him over because he's black and has long dreads and is riding in a $80k SUV. Doesn't matter that he's likely one of the 20 richest people in my city.
(on a slightly unrelated note) My GF is indonesian, she is a catholic and from a hostile muslim country, many of her friends are like hre (christian and wanting out). 7/10 catholic indonesians she knows applied to stay in Canada after they graduated, none of them were accepted. 2 tried to get refugee status, also rejected. How ever I know about 12 Lebenese refugees. Lebanon is a bad place, but I'd argue Indonesia is worse for a non-muslim. they will gladly let the Lebenese in because it's good PR (helping the middle east) while my Degree holding friends get denied. Immigration is hard, even if I marry my GF she'd have to jump through years of hoops to get in, while a refugee just needs to land on canadian soil and plead to stay. Hell Canada goes out activly to get refugees.
Ethnicity changes the way the government treats you. It's a fact.
The Chinese government is "EVIL" but ti's effective. They are also mostly "Fair". If you follow their rules. You tend to live a normal happy life. If you do not they kill you. Thus, 1 million tibetains had the notiosn of fighting back. They are dead. The rest mostly shut up. Asian cultures aren't as arrogant and stubborn as Islamic/ Arabic cultures. They'd rather subsist under a tyrant then die under a freedom fighter.
Thats why chinese tend not to have too much internal strife. I know I'm chinese and I visit frequently and have a large part of my family there. There are many things that go on that are un fair oppresive and such, but the Gov does try to keep order for the normal folk. For a large number of the population, life isn't bad.
Perhaps. But if you tell it long enough, and object to the truth long enough. Eventually you'll persevere. Truth is subjective. Although we love to think of it as absolute, someone has to define it. If there is no "opposing truth", then the remaining "truth" is the truth.
As a christian, I object to being lumped into the radical sects. Christianity is broad. A large percentage of scientist are christians and muslims. There are fundementalists, there are moderates, there are librals. I am a moderate.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, the point of discussing entropy was to get an acknowledgement of random occurences. Most drop the debate with the second law of thermodynamics for the reason the the original poster states, which is erroneous for the reasons you mentioned and also because it is impossible to say it is a law for the whole, but not for the part.
Then you misunderstand the law. It's the general trend that energy generally likes to diaspate but some localised systems go against this tendency. IE living organisms are ordered strucutres that fight against entropy to stay together.
There is another reason why random evolution does not hold up. The eye.
Ironically this is the argument why creationism doesn't work. Our eyes are innificient things. they have their blood supply in front of the retina. This means we have a fairly large blind spot and also a layers of tissue impeding our ability to see. Squid have a different but anogous eye witht he blood supply behind the retina.
Why is it that we don't see thermal signatures? Why don't we have different view modes? These would have undoubtedly helped us, and are not that much more significant than gills to lungs. Unless you take into account that the eye itself is such a huge development that it couldn't have possible arisen from evolution, it just doesn't add up.
Bollocks, snakes see heat. They have organs to do so. Bates see sound they have organs to do so. We have eyes because somewhere along our ancetral line something had light sensitive organs. these organs developed into eyes.
Devolution is another quagmire. There are fish, bats, and countless other creatures that have been around for thousands of years and never used their eyes. If entrophy (or randomness) *did* have a hand in evolution, there would be eyeless bats that would be doing just as well as those with them. So why don't they exist?
There is no such thing as devolution. Evolution is the selection of traits based on atvantage. Entropy is randomness. It has nothing to do with selection except to provide traits to select against. Most bats are as good as blind. Their eyes are vistigial. Like our apendix. It's like a NP machine. Entropy generates change, selection decides if the change stays or goes. Traits leave only when mutations accumulate to eliminate the change. humans lost most of the appendix because our diet has changed as the old apendix required more resources then it provided benifit. So over tiem those who has genes that resulted in a gimped apendix did better then thos who has a fulll on apendix.
As for the eye, it's a light sensory organ. A lor of other creature have other forms of it and it's easy to see that a few changes would result in our eye. A protective casing, a lens. Not too hard to see little changes leading up to that.
Why is it that there are creaturs that do not use the eye that have passed the test of natural selection but no equivalents that do not have an eye?
NAtural selection doesn't have anythign in mind. It's like playing a MMORPG. Efficient build do better, and if they reproduced, they would occur more often. Bad builds don't diasappear magically but are just out competed by better builds. The eye provides a certain benifit. If they do not need this benifit in their enviroment then why have that trait? Some have the trait but don't use it. Since it doesn't diminish their survival ability much that trait stays. Please read up on evolution and thermodynamics. It's apparent you don't undertsand either.
Alright, I have some time now to address the parent:
Blame the training, blame the procedures, blame the information, blame your goddamned dog. Blaming the pilots tells me that you know fuck all about how a military is run - but don't let that discourage you from blaming the pilots.
Blaming the pilots is easy. They took an action which was the opposite of their training. Going back to a presumably dangerous area, against orders to destroy a assumed target. I'd say that has nothing to do with training. Training would be spotting a target, getting confirmation, attacking target. Or spottign target report target, lear area while comman confirms, then come back wiht reinenforcements. They did neither. They attacked, without any orders to do so. So it's not the systems fault 4 people dies, it's the pilots.
So you don't know shit about how a nation is run, but what's your point?
Havign taken many courses in both Political science and sociology I'd say I have as much insight into the subject as you do with your "liberal arts" education. as for an example of a nice thing to do, when the islamic terrorists crashed planes into your nation, Canada opened up it's borders and homes to accept the hundred of passangers that were rerouted. Mexico did no such thing. We opened up our homes and provided nessesities to these passengers at our own expense without need of compensation because we are your neighbors. More examples? America spend billions rebuilding nations into it's own image under the marshall plan. They spent this not because they woudl ever directly benifit but because they chose to do it. The reasons behind it were complex but in the end you created Japan, Germany, and South Korea (later on and not part of the marshall plan).
As for the US and it's treatment of it's allies. The US did not think of it's own citizens and it's own jobs when it was buying support for it's war in iraq. It rewarded any country that woudl help it out. Even the war in afganistan. Do you think it's coincidental that the tech jobs evacuated to India and pakistan near about the same time as the War in afganistan? Those were rewards for allies who behaved well. But as for Canada, I object to the hipocracy of saying "trade should be free" then slappign tarriffs and cloing borders. You signed a legally binding contract,then you keep violating it. This why people hate Americans because so many of them are hippocrites.
As for running an "incompentent" military. Most think you already do. See the SAS, one of the most respect military teams in history. They told the US military to fuck off, because they don't want to work with the US army and the US intelegence because in their proffesional oppinion, you are incompentent.
I am pro-American. I believe if I must suffer under the heal of a tyrant, the US should be that heel. Because their heel is a lot softer. I personally think their war in iraq is a play for power. If they should screw it up (which they have) they will lose the reigns of power. I support the US, I know that, despite the current crop of leadership, they are basically decent folk who mean well. A lot of times they have inssuficient information to form a good oppinion and thus resort to jingoism and turning a complex situation into a single statement like "Nuke the arabs". Thats fine. In my oppinion, the arabs deserve the nuking. They deserve it because they foster hate, and promote violence.
I like the US, I value the same Ideals, I am also right of center. However it does not make them proof against critisism. They have made some pretty dumb mistakes because their current admin. values ideology over practicality. They have doen a horrible job. Like viet nam, they sent soldiers in with vague orders and no over arching goal. thus it was doomed to failure. If the goals were more transparent, and more well defined like "Remove all human life in the area" I could reasonably expect them to achieve that goal. However their goal is to "Bring democracy to Iraq". Well tha
So while your analogy is true on a VERY basic level, it's false on a much grander scale. EVERYONE at age 18 has the right to vote for their elected officials. Only the STOCKHOLDERS of a company have the privilege of voting for the officers of that company. That's a pretty big difference. If you don't like a company censoring things, don't buy ANYTHING from that company.
Thats yoru government. The statement is true of other governments. Sometimes it is elected. There is no falsehood in that statement. And many Authors and intellectuals (not the most authoratative source) think at some point Corporatiosn will assume government like powers. In the thrid world, large corporatiosn already act like foreign powers so it's not much of a stretch.
I have foolishly entered into a discussion with a person lacking reason.
Stop with the flames. It makes you look ignorant.
The pilots got a negative target confirmation. They were not in a life or death situation. They then flew back to the area to attack the target. This means they chose to do this, and they chose to risk their saftey to kill the target. Which turned out to be allied. If they were prmarily interested in their own safety, they would have flown away. There was a negative target confirmation. Meaning Command did not think the target was valid. I heard the conversation between air command and the pilots. The pilots chose to attack. I doubt it's because of training, it's lack of proper dicipline in those pilots.
I'll reply more later. But here's how it look to everyone else. A set of pilot attacked and killed allies. They killed people. They were told not to engage the target but did so anyways and they KILLED a group of allied soldiers that were doing some fire training. Now they only hurt some these men then slap their wrists, gound them for a week and moev one. But they KILLED 4 people.
They made a decision, they should face punishment for it. They did not get punished. Military is military but if you train your military men to disobey orders and to attack without confirmation, why the fuck are you sending these people out there.
Lets not forget THEY KILLED 4 people.
War is War, but don't tell me this is right in any way. Blame the pilots, fuck yeah. They killed 4 people on a whim. They were not taking on direct fire because they were not beign fired at, they could have flown away, rifle fire is not good at downing a retreatinf jet. But they wanted to score up a few more kills to stamp on their wings so they KILLED 4 servicemen. And there is no comfort for the families of those 4 because no one was punished. Lets also put this in perspective, they KILLED 4 people and they disobeyed orders, and got off scott free.
I'll repond more later.
:). I'm just suggesting go look at an international source. And no I didn't suggest the alternative websites. Me I read only english but speak chinese and english with a little bit of filipino and indonesian.
Internet access isn't available everywhere. And a large section of the US has no access. what the penetration? 60% of all house holds? that leaves 40%. not an insignifigant number.
I don't read any "indymags". I read the Edmonton Sun (sorta like the fox news of the local papers. I do so because my father subscribes), BBC news (website), Edmonton Journal (more lik the bbc), and ocassionally google news.
Ok, here the leap. A Corporation is a legal entity. It can have great power and is controlled by a few individuals, someitmes they are elected.
A government is a legal entitiy. It can have great power and is controlled by a few individuals, sometimes they are elected.
(note: this is more hahahah it's funny, then a serious attempt at comparing the two. so don't mod me down -10 obviously worng. Also don't mod up +1 insightful.)
So you're comparing all Americans to your GF's, more than likely ignorant, teenage brother? Yeah, that makes sense.
He seems a rather representative individual. Southern Californian. 18. Going to University next year. honor student. Watches TV news.
It is true that most Americans aren't the Unwashed idiots some portray them to be. It's also true that soem are. And little biases work their way into every individual. I have a few, I dislike Islamic governments. Especially psuedo-theocracies and full on theocracies.
The US media sure is biased, but they're biased against the US (CNN, mainstream news, etc).
From my point of view in canada it seems the other way around.
There is also a creeping anti-canadian sentiment. It started as light hearted jokes from the Simopsons and Family guy but When I visited america last month I recieved a lot of mean spirited questions and comments. Admittidly from my GF's teenage brother.
Comments like "You guys are free loading off our military spending", "you guys have no military", "Why don't Canadians pull their wieght".
CNN may latch on to the bad stories but their still fairly pro-US. Check out BBC more often to see more balanced stories.
I'd be behind you all the way if it was the government censoring this movie, but it's not, so shut the hell up.
ironic isn't it. paraphrasing: I don't support censoring, now stop giving your opinion.
Okay, I'll play the deconstructionism game. "2 + 2 = 4". Is this objective or subjective truth? If the latter, what's the opposing truth? Or is this sum just a piece of propaganda which has been perpetrated over the course of millennia?
2+2 = 4.0
2+2 = 04
2+2 = 2^2
2+2 = 999 - 995
2+2 = round (3.9)
10 + 10 = 100 (obvious on slashdot)
2+2 = 11 (think about this one)
All of those might be equivilent but a lot of times, the underlying facts are the same and the truth is an interpretation. Thus it says those coutnries are thiers, we don't see it that way. the underlying "truth" is they control those areas reaguardless of how legitimate that control is.
ehhe. Thats cheeky. You also have to remember language is a barrier. Most Americans don't read french or chinese or russian. And yes, some don't even read English.
Scenario 1: The US bombs a gathering of rebels. The rebels claim it was a "wedding party" (everyone has guns at wedding parties, right?). US and foreign journalists pick up conflicting reports.
Scenario 2: The US bombs a wedding party. US spokesmen claim it was a gathering of rebels (everyone has guns at wedding parties, right?). US and foreign journalists pick up conflicting reports.
This is true. IT could be either side. The BBC stated that the facts were insifficient at this time to tell for sure and gave some time to each idea. How many americans think it's a terrorist sect for sure? Also, it may be even a different scenario. It was a real wedding party but when the wedding was in progress the ussual rifle firing was going on, and soem cheeky guest Aimed for a passing plane. It would not be unlikly. Then is becomes a stupid and tragic incident instead of "another example of US malevolence" or "another example of GI joe getting the bad guys".
My point wasn't the right for moore to get distibuted. I think he's like Billy graham. He preaches to the converted.
My point is there is censorship in america. Whether it be your puritanical network censorship of nudity. or your heavily filtered news media.
You do realise that you dont' get much of the news the rest of the world gets. This is corprate self-censoryship. Farenheight 9/11 is an obvious if somewhat weak example. When a incident arises in the middle east, say you bombed a wedding party. The US media will spin in as positive a light as possible because the majority of the News audience doesn't respond well to havign their side becoem the bad guy. In the rest of the world we hear most of the story. When you bombed A platoon of Canadian soldiers, US media spun it as an accident, while the rest of the world heard how the pilots were told to "disengage" but decided to be heroes and disobeyed orders.
Farenheight 9/11 is propaganda from a anti-republican individual. It's not being activly oppressed but it is havign a hard time finding distibution, for fear of government punishment on the distributor. Think of it this way, a corporation is in business for money. The film is garenteed to make a profit (moore has a build in audience). Disney refused to distribute it, likly for fear of "bad" treatment if they do.
Although the US has very little Active censorship (aside from sex), they do have a lot of filterign that happens for different reasons, thus you get a US positive view of the world. But incidentally most of the world doesn't lik you too much. As someone else pointed out, it's not what you got, but how you behave. Like a grade school bully who has a rich family.
Quickie examples:
the USA promotes free trade. The USA slaps tarrifs on Canadian softwood lumber, because the US lumber lobby put enough money in Government coffers. The USA loses the WTO ruling, this tarrif is said to be unfair by a trade body the US helped create. (hippocrites)
Canada has 1 case of BSF, the US closes all borders to Canadian beef. The US has 1 case of BSF, attributes it to a Canadian supplier, no evidence exsists for this. Canada substatially beefs out it's detection methods, the USA keeps it's old detection methods (the ones the canadians were using before). Border stays closed. Reason: US ranchers lobby put enough money in Government coffers to keep it closed.
And all this is to your "best friend" and neighbor. I hate to see how you fuck over your non-friends.
Rarely are our saints saintly or our devils truly devlish. Cuba may be doing well with what they have, but they do not have a nice administration ro government. China may be easy to villify, but it's not the orwellian state people claim. the USA isn't as bad or as good as any of the media says and isn't half as powerfull as it beleives itself to be.
How did the US and the UK "let" the Holocaust happen? It took place in Nazi-occupied parts Europe which we were busy attempting to liberate. Should we have fought harder to get there sooner?
Chamberlain. He gave it up more then a Dallas prom queen. Arguably without him and other pacifists, hitler would have had no where near the space to manuever. Also if they didn't bitch slap germany after WWI so hard WWI arguebly woudl never have happened, the Nazi's wouldn't have arisen, and no holocaust woudl have happened.
Ha ha. Since when did spreading anti-US lies cost anyone karma on /.?
I ussually get a -1 over rated when ever I mention anything I percieve is negative about the US or Bush. Given the nature of the US 70:30 change anyone is conservative (To be truly correct a lot fo democrates are conservative, your two parties are right and center right) and though slashdot is more liberal, theres still a large faction of Conservatives, even pro-bush groups. And when they get mod points they smack my comments down. No matter what point I bring up. The US (the people and the government) is pretty sensitive to critism.
In the West, women generally have equal rights to men; whites to blacks; and jews to Muslims
I agree to the rest of the post but this part is not true. As a minority and as someone who works with a lot of black people, I have to say the laws are the same for everyone but there is a selective enforcement of them. If my friend Simon riding in his Lexus passes a cop, they'll pull him over because he's black and has long dreads and is riding in a $80k SUV. Doesn't matter that he's likely one of the 20 richest people in my city.
(on a slightly unrelated note)
My GF is indonesian, she is a catholic and from a hostile muslim country, many of her friends are like hre (christian and wanting out). 7/10 catholic indonesians she knows applied to stay in Canada after they graduated, none of them were accepted. 2 tried to get refugee status, also rejected. How ever I know about 12 Lebenese refugees. Lebanon is a bad place, but I'd argue Indonesia is worse for a non-muslim. they will gladly let the Lebenese in because it's good PR (helping the middle east) while my Degree holding friends get denied. Immigration is hard, even if I marry my GF she'd have to jump through years of hoops to get in, while a refugee just needs to land on canadian soil and plead to stay. Hell Canada goes out activly to get refugees.
Ethnicity changes the way the government treats you. It's a fact.
The Chinese government is "EVIL" but ti's effective. They are also mostly "Fair". If you follow their rules. You tend to live a normal happy life. If you do not they kill you. Thus, 1 million tibetains had the notiosn of fighting back. They are dead. The rest mostly shut up. Asian cultures aren't as arrogant and stubborn as Islamic/ Arabic cultures. They'd rather subsist under a tyrant then die under a freedom fighter.
Thats why chinese tend not to have too much internal strife. I know I'm chinese and I visit frequently and have a large part of my family there. There are many things that go on that are un fair oppresive and such, but the Gov does try to keep order for the normal folk. For a large number of the population, life isn't bad.
The difference, of course, is that nothing's being banned in the US because it speaks unfavorably of our past. That is not insignificant.
Farenheight 9/11.
Corprate self censorship is censorship none the less.
Perhaps. But if you tell it long enough, and object to the truth long enough. Eventually you'll persevere. Truth is subjective. Although we love to think of it as absolute, someone has to define it. If there is no "opposing truth", then the remaining "truth" is the truth.
As a christian, I object to being lumped into the radical sects. Christianity is broad. A large percentage of scientist are christians and muslims. There are fundementalists, there are moderates, there are librals. I am a moderate.